if it's thursday, it's the final countdown to the final showdown. tonight's debate could be the president's last best chance to change this race. and it's a tall order for mr. trump whose credibility is clearly in question. plus, a warning from the president's top national security officials that iran and russia have targeted our election infrastructure. as the president is reportedly looking to fire his fbi director. and a new warning from the cdc widening the number of people considered at risk for

infections. as cases surge across the country. again, the credibility issues of the cdc, thanks to president trump, will people listen? welcome to thursday. it's "meet the press daily." i'm chuck todd. 12 days to go. more than 40 million votes have already been cast. tonight's debate in nashville may be the president's last chance to do something to close the gap with joe biden. his window to change the trajectory of this race is closing. quickly. that immediately raises the question. what could he do right now, tonight, that could change the trajectory of this race? what would that look like for a president with this lack of credibility and this level of instability? heading into tonight, the president has sought to undermine the confidence in the election results. last night his director of national intelligence john

ratcliffe warned that iran is behind a series of spoofed emails that were there to benefit the president, though they claim that iran was trying to embarrass the president. the white house basically confirmed that some of those emails were threatening democrats if they didn't vote for trump. ratcliffe told the public it's part of an effort to hurt trump. something he did not tell lawmakers when he briefed them behind closed doors according to chuck schumer. at that announcement last night, christopher wray assured the public that his agency is doing everything it can to secure the election. then the headline this morning is the president is considering firing chris wray. it has nothing to do with election interference. the president is upset with his attorney general bill barr who has so far bucked the president's public demands to announce some sort of public investigation into his political rival joe biden or his son hunter biden. all, of course, as the president pushes unverified reports involving hunter biden's emails which he's trying to use to paint joe biden as corrupt.

it's in this environment of pervasive instability and uncertainty that joe biden leads by double digits in national polls. so to come back to the big question right now, how does the incumbent president change the trajectory of this race tonight by trying to create more instability? doesn't make a lot of sense for an incumbent. joining me, hallie jackson on the trump campaign beat and ali vitali on the biden campaign beat. also robert costa, for "the washington post" and nbc news political analyst. hallie, i'll start with you. in this sort of -- you know, you throw up your hands trying to figure out what the president's focus is. they release an interview with "60 minutes" early. it just seems to me the president is looking for anything to change the subject. jump-start, look for some sort of -- some sort of empathetic moment, whatever it is. but he looks like -- he looks a bit unstable and a bit flailing.

what's the latest? >> so part of this, chuck, it seems, based on the president's actions and the actions of his white house is to build up an opponent who is not joe biden. and that opponent is members of the media. and you saw that today, notably, over the last couple of days with this discussion drawn out about the "60 minutes" interview. the president leaving it and it getting posted on the president's facebook page. the shot of just him answering lesley stahl's questions there. the trump campaign and the president himself, he has done this for years, chuck. you know this. his work to essentially tell his supporters and sell this argument to his supporters that he is being treated unfairly by members of the media. that is something that he believes energizes his base and, right now, that is one of the things he wants to do is make sure that his base turns out if they do not. that's the base line of what has to happen. his base has to turn out, and then he has to get people on top of that to be successful in some of these key battleground states. you talk about the strategy for tonight. so often when we have these conversations, there's a distinction and difference

between what i'm hearing from sources in and around the president's orbit versus what we hear publicly from the president himself. there's a little bit of that heading into tonight. there are aides and allies, according to our team's reporting who are telling the president. don't interrupt as much. let that mute button do the work. let joe biden say what he has to say. and there are people who have both publicly and privately said, and suggested that perhaps joe biden will actually not come out so well in their view if they do let him, if the president does let him speak for a little bit. the president himself, though, he's reiterated that the president will jump in if he feels it's necessary. there will be a focus, the expectation is ofor example, hunter biden on joe biden and china. that's something the president is expected to talk about tonight and to try to pivot those questions that he's going to get from the moderator to his advantage. bottom line, chuck, this has been a pretty stable race so far. the numbers are not where the president's team wants them to be. they can talk a lot about their internal polls showing them something different and that is up to them of what they're

seeing in those numbers. but the bottom line is publicly what we're seeing is a race that's putting the president in the back seat, which is not necessarily where he wants to be. y he's used to being an underdog. his, his campaign will point to their underdog win in 2016 but the dynamics here are very different. and their opponent, their actual opponent, joe biden, is a very different opponent than hillary clinton four years ago, chuck. >> hallie, look, i get all that. when you talk to the campaign, it can sound like you're covering a normal campaign, a normal candidate. but i want to get back to the sitting president of the united states who apparently is, you know, going bonkers about an interview with lesley stahl. wants to fire his fbi director. is upset with bill barr. i understand the conventional thinking that his aides are trying to preach to us in reporting. but we're ignoring the elephant in the room here. donald trump's behavior. >> i mean, chuck, you laid it

out. it's erratic in many ways. in many instances, it doesn't actually serve him well. right? there's not a ground swell of support from people, from undecided voters who say the top issue for them is the questions that "60 minutes" asks. that's not what the polling shows and that's not the way the president is going to be reaching those voters. yet, chuck, the president, as you know, has always been driven by, i guess i would call it his internal motivations. he does believe that he is the best person to define his own strategy and to define his own communication with the american public. it's an instinct that he thinks has served him well in the past and got him elected president. but there's a real question mark as to whether that's going to be the same this time around. a lot of it is airing grievances he has. you saw that in the excerpts released from "60 minutes." lesley stahl begins the interview by acknowledging there will be tough questions. and that's something that for 37 minutes, it appears the president is fixated on and comes back to at the end

extremely frustrated that he got tough questions from lesley stahl. questions like, we should note, priorities for a second term and what he thinks the -- >> oh, i know. >> the foreign adversary who is the most concern to the united states. it's a huge question mark as we answer the last 12 days of the election. but the president does feel that he is the person best poised to lead his campaign right now and to lead his strategy. >> hallie jackson, always the difficult task of trying to figure out, is it the president's sources that know what's going to happen or is the president not listening to anybody and just going to do what he does, which is what i think a lot of us are wondering at this point. hallie jackson, thank you. ali vitali, the biden campaign, is joe biden going to be an aggressive debater or is joe biden just hoping to do no harm again tonight? >> well, chuck, you couldn't have more of a contrast from the president's seemingly spaghetti at the wall approach he's taken

over the last few weeks versus the way biden has been on the campaign trail and even on the debate stage the first time these two candidates met, which is a slow and steady to win the race kind of strategy. if you parse through the chaos of that last debate stage, we heard so many of the same kernels of messaging that we've heard from joe biden on the campaign trail over the course of the last few weeks. for the debate stage tonight, there are measures in place to make it a little less chaotic, but the reality is you've still got the same two candidates standing on the stage. the style of which they talk to each other and debate each other is going to still be very, very different. so the biden campaign preparing for two versions of a candidate trump. either the guy they met on the debate stage three weeks ago who is brash, aggressive, who interrupts or the guy who is being advised by some aides to be a little more reserved fop pull back. let joe biden do the talking and hope that biden can put himself in a messy situation. but in the reality, you're probably going to hear from biden. a lot of the things we heard from him on the campaign trail.

continuing to put the messaging on to the pandemic, to the economy and, of course, in these last closing weeks we've heard from surrogates from elizabeth warren and bernie sanders to barack obama yesterday on the campaign trail reminding people that they need to get out and vote. the stability of this race could breed complacency. that's something this campaign is nervous about. the difference now from the last debate is tens of millions of them have already voted. if they'll tune in, i talked to a guy at a biden event. of course i'm going to tune in. he still wants to be part of the process, even though he's already cast his vote. >> that's a question i have. with 40 million to 50 million already voting, what does that do to the audience size watching tonight? that will be something for us to watch. hallie jackson and ali vitali getting us started there. let me bring in robert costa. i'm fixated on this with the president and his just amazing instability. we're sort of -- we had four years of this, but when you really look at him particularly since he -- since he contracted

the virus, the flailing. this business with "60 minutes" is yet another, you know, unstable moment. flailing at christopher wray because he's trying to recreate 2016. he wants a letter or something. i guess that's what he's trying to do here. he knows he's behind and just trying to find, what worked in october of '16? let's try it again. the fbi bailed me out. maybe they'll do it again. but this is not a confident incumbent, that's for sure. >> there is a common thread running through the president's conduct at this late stage in the campaign. he's trying to stoke his core voters, his political base just weeks before the election. days before the election. and you can tie what -- how he's handling the fbi, the department of justice to his trip to erie, pennsylvania. in the final days of this campaign, there are not many if any, overtures to the political center, to suburban voters. he's trying to score some foreign policy wins and tout the

economy. but this is really about, as hallie said, his grievances, his own personal grievances in connecting them in some way to his voters. >> you know, robert, one of the best stats i saw came from dave weigel in his column where he noted, i think it's that rally, mentioned of hunter biden, 4. mentions of amy coney barrett, 0. >> that's a revealing number because just four weeks ago, five weeks ago, senate republicans were telling me, chuck, that they believe the barrett nomination and hopeful confirmation on their end would lead to republican voters being enthusiastic. conservative voters concerned about the president's conduct would say, well, at least he got us some justices on the supreme court. he lowered our taxes. but this is a president who, from day one, has always had a grip over the republican party but a tenuous relationship with its ideology and its traditional strategy. and once again, he's relying on

his own stinktinstincts, his ow approach. they'd rather see the president talk about judge barrett and the confirmation process but he refuses to do so in any coherent way. >> it is interesting to me that on the hunter biden, that the campaign has decided to also agree with the president and go all in on this strategy. sometimes the president has a twitter feed strategy, has a rally strategy but it isn't always backed up with paid media. is this a bunch of folks around the -- in the trump campaign going, well, this is what he wants so we're just going to do it, or this is the hail mary we're going to try? >> you have to look at who is around president trump. at this point in 2016, he had kellyanne conway and steve bannon at his side who did have a strategy. even though they both have their critics. they had a plan, which was to rally in the industrial midwest to have an anti-establishment message. now you have bill stepien, a campaign manager who is much more operational based on my

reporting. jared kushner is, of course, a strategist, but the president is frustrated with the level of television spending and you have a chief of staff in mark meadows who is more the president's confidante than master campaign strategist. >> you've laid it out really well. that does seem to be it, but then again, i think the president believes he's his own campaign strategist and considering what happened in 2016, he may be a victim of, in a weird way, his own success there. robert costa, thank you, sir. don't miss tonight's final debate between president trump and joe biden. it will be moderated by nbc news white house correspondent and "weekend today" anchor kristen welker. our predebate coverage starts at 7:00 p.m. and more on nbc news at 8:00 p.m. you can also catch brian, rachel, joy and nicolle for msnbc's brand of predebate coverage. that starts at 8:00. we've got you covered whatever platform you choose. judge amy coney barrett is

one step closer to becoming the newest supreme court justice. the senate judiciary committee voted unanimously this morning, sort of, to advance her nomination to the senate. we say unanimously because democrats boycotted the vote. the full senate is expected to take up barrett's nomination on monday which is all but certain to pass on a party line vote. and then some. up ahead -- about last night's press conference on election security. why democrats are criticizing as president trump weigh ws whethe to fire his fbi director. guaranteed electoral wins for the gop? they're not in kansas anymore. how did this historically red state become so competitive in 2020? still fresh

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welcome back. as we said at the top of today's show in announcing the foreign election interference, john ratcliffe also said it was meant

to damage president trump. but just a reminder, those emails were sent to democratic voters that was threatening them if they did not vote for trump. nbc news asked robert o'brien about that today, and this is how he responded. take a listen. >> some of these ploys are very sophisticated. so if they have an email campaign that's targeted at democrats and supposedly from the proud boys or from some group and then the media comes out and says oh, look at president trump's supporters are doing this, that's something that definitely damages president trump. >> the response by the trump administration has angered democrats who say the alleged interference is intended to sow confusion about the 2020 election, not just damage a specific candidate. joining me is ken dilanian and clint watts. ken, i want to start with you. you have talked to a few more of your sources trying to get a better understanding of what was iran's intent on what they did. what can you tell us? >> that's right.

and i think it's a mixed picture, chuck. look, two u.s. intelligence officials told me that they agree with what o'brien said, which is that the idea that a white nationalist group would be seen to be trying to intimidate democratic voters on behalf of donald trump would be embarrassing to the trump campaign and could, therefore, hurt the trump campaign. one official acknowledged it could dissuade democrats from going to the polls. it's not clear and not clear they have intelligence that's definitive either way on this. what is clear is that they learned a few weeks ago that iran and russia had hacked local governments and obtained voter registration data. they were very concerned about that and watching closely to see what either country would do with it and yesterday they became convinced that iran had weaponized the data with those spoof emails to voters and they had meetings all day yesterday about what should we do about this? how can we deal with it? how much can we reveal to the public and they held this late night news conference after business hours because they wanted to get the message out

and also to deter iran from even more complex plots that they say iran was hatching that they won't detail in terms of election interference. and they also say that they don't know what russia is going to do with the data that russia has but they're very concerned about it as we approach the election, chuck. >> you know, clint watts, this voting data that both iran and russia has, some of it is publicly available. most of it is publicly available. i know some folks think this is a hack. in some ways it's not a hack. this is them taking data that you can purchase or find in the public sphere. you know, sometimes you have to spend a little bit of money to get it from a survey group or marketing agency. but they have done this and they're now going to weaponize it. what is -- i know -- what have you seen on the ground and what is your understanding of what iran is up to? and what is the bigger threat these days, iran or russia? >> chuck, that's a great point.

a lot of this information is readily available. and i disagree with the national security adviser who was talking about the sophistication of this attack. it doesn't take that much sophistication to take what could be publicly or mostly public information, send it out through a obscure distribution channel. iran used different servers to do that. one we saw which was a tip that it could be iran. and to send it to people to incite panic. what we know, whenever it's october, headed into november, it's very easy to incite panic. i think the weakness of this all -- and the selection bias last night of the -- we could have had a press conference many nights over the last two to three months. hacks from russia or china related to election interference. we could have done a lot of discloseures. we've even seen the state department do disclosures. iran is sloppy and aggressive and oftentimes it's as much about their own internal

situation in iran. meaning, they wanted to -- they've been battling the trump administration and ultimately russia is still our number one threat going into election day. >> you know, ken, the lack of what -- we heard christopher wray say, hey, i want to reassure the public their vote is safe. we're doing everything we can to keep your vote safe. but they're not telling us what they're doing. do we have an idea of what are some safeguards that are here now? what are -- you know, what's been done to protect the vote count? do we have an idea? >> yeah, we have some idea, chuck. and, look, they have said this is the best protected election in u.s. history. and i believe that's absolutely true. it's also quite a low bar, we should say. 2016, you could argue, wasn't very well protected at all. dhs and other agencies, the fbi, have worked very closely with local election authorities to harden their systems and secure

them against the kind of hack that would tamper with the actual vote. and most experts i talked to are convinced that would be really difficult to do. what is almost impossible to protect against are these hacks of ancillary local government systems connected to the government where the bad guys get some data that they can use to target voters with misinformation, which is what officials say happened here and could happen again until election day and even afterwards. that's the nightmare scenario if there's a contested election and donald trump is crying fraud. the russians could go to town with allegations of fraud and voter irregularities that may or may not be true but they can pump it out through their disinformation networks and that's the real risk here that no amount of hardening of networks can protect against, chuck. >> clint, it's october 22nd. we're 12 days from the election. your analysis of disinformation

and misinformation? how widely is it circulating? how well is facebook and twitter doing with these new attempts at trying to at least mitigate it a bit? >> chuck, what's remarkable this time is four years ago, we were -- today i'm mostly worried about domest ic. that serves as a template as an example for a domestic group. they could copy something very similar. i'm not saying the proud boy s will do it. but you saw the reaction. disinformation peddlers learn from each other. when i look at the mobilizations threat, that's number one. that's the big thing. and i think that's where social media companies are essential in this. we should actually move from more -- to the domestic stuff. i think the next layer is what we've seen coming out of the giuliani camp. where is foreign and where is domestic?

how do we know to defend against and what time? that's the line that's very hard for the social media companies right now. it's also a tough spot for director wray. i'm sure him going out -- it was director comey essentially impacting the election four years ago. a key moment for him last night knowing he's going out on a public stage with the dni. they'll be very nimble about what they communicate out to the public this time. watching "the new york post" story debacle -- how our institutions hold over the next two weeks. we need to worry about russia going into the election. we need to be -- coming out of election day. it won't stop for them. last night, iran did an acute attack. russia will be a prolonged attack all the way into inauguration day. >> ken dilanian of nbc news, clint watts, an nbc news analyst. thank you both for this. up ahead -- drastic measures to thwart the coronavirus.

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welcome back. public health officials are warning about a distressing trend in coronavirus cases across this country noiting tha nearly 75% of the country is moving in the wrong direction. we noare now logging on average more than 60,000 new cases a day

and there's fear it could go up. hospitalizations, 40,000 people are in hospitals right now due to the virus. yesterday alone, there were 1200 people who died from the virus. that's the highest since mid-august. now the cdc is expanding the definition of close contact from 15 consecutive minutes to 15 nonconsecutive minutes within a 24-hour period. the upstick isn't just happening in the united states. ireland, they are reinstating a national lockdown to try and curb their cases. the first european country to re-enter a lockdown. the country will essentially shut down for six weeks with one major exception. schools. nbc news chief global correspondent bill neely just returned from ireland to london. you were just there. does this support you? and are we going to expect other european nations to follow suit? >> yeah, surprised me and it certainly surprised the people i talked to because ireland, even at the beginning of this month, had a fairly relaxed attitude. not many restrictions.

it was at tier 2 of 5. and then suddenly a few days ago, it bumped up to tier 5. twice the government had rejected the advice of its public health officials to do this so people thought, well, that's it. the government is going to stick with tier 2, tier 3 and then suddenly as people said to me, the government appeared to panic. why did they do this? there was some uptick in cases in the capital dublin. there was a very well publicized case of one man who came from abroad and infected at least 56 people in ten houses, including an entire sports team because he had refused to quarantine. so public health officials very anxious about that. so the government has raised it, as you say, for six weeks. it's the strictest lockdown in europe, and the government is calculating that by december the 1st, they will have put a lid on this and that restrictions can then be eased again for

christmas. so, if you like, it's a bit of a halloween shocker in order for the government not to be the grinch that stole christmas. but it is the strictest in europe and, look, governments all around europe are looking at what one another is doing. trying to work out what's the best way to do this. the uk, for example, today, announced more restrictions. sweden announced restrictions. even sweden which has possibly the loosest regime in europe. so the government in ireland has taken a big political risk here. >> bill neely in london for us, i have a feeling a lot of governments are trying to figure out, can they do more without doing a shutdown? that's clearly the goal, i think, for some of these places. joining me now for more on the cdc guidance changes is dr. kavita patel, msnbc medical

contributor. had we had weekly briefings from the cdc that we'd all been trusting over the last six months and thaiey'd be a regula person there wouldn't be a surprise there would be incremental changes to guidance. because it's gotten so politicized and we don't know what to make of cdc announcements, we all get more amped up. what should we make of this new guidance from the cdc that basically says, hey, it's 15 minutes total, you know, so if you have been around somebody for a couple of hours, and say a big room but you were near them, is that what we're learning here? is this because we think transmission is happening a lot more frequently? >> yeah, chuck, that's exactly right. it's cumulative time that matters. and i think it's because you've seen now in workplaces and different environments, people are trying to calculate, well, no, i think i spent seven minutes during this hour, five

minutes, a couple hours later, and, really, the spirit -- and by the way, chuck, this guidance is something that, again, i think when the sunlight comes out, we'll see this should have been in place earlier because having this total time over 24 hours is exactly what we do for other respiratory-type illnesses like tuberculosis. this is not a surprise. i think it actually speaks to the fact that we need to get much more serious about quarantining, which i know is hard. but if you have a close contact, don't think about 14 versus 16 minutes. err on the side of caution. put yourself in quarantine. that's not isolation. it just means you should stay relatively in one place and make sure you have proper procedures. and hopefully we won't need to do the lockdowns, but that's how to take this summary of this guidance out today. >> well, that said, you say you hope we won't need lockdowns. there is no evidence that any

mitigation efforts are being ramped up in this country. if anything, all of the signs are pointing to un -- you know, pointing to loosening restrictions, and yet the virus is just going in one direction here. you know, i throw up my hands. do you throw up your hands? >> i do, and you probably can exactly guess why, but, chuck, let me put it in another way to think about it. the reason you've got the european union going into contemplacing lockdowns is because they know there's really know other way to backstop the acceleration of infections. in the united states, we have decided that we lack a strategy and we're just kind of hoping for a vaccine. and think that that will be a backstop. and that's a faulty backstop because even a robust, safe vaccine is not going to be a brick wall to end the escalation of viral cases. it will help, but it won't stop it. so to your point, you are right. and just in terms of statistics,

the parents patterns we saw in united states equaled the european cases in general by about two to four weeks. so we are looking at what they are doing for october halloween surprise is something that i predict after thanksgiving we're going to be starkly dealing with and facing potentially grim december, january season. >> dr. kavita patel, as always, one of the nbc news medical contributors. thank you for sharing your expertise. up next -- president obama hits the trail, and he hits president trump hard.

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welcome back. it's a final debate night with under two weeks to go. voters saw president obama make his first stop on the campaign trail yesterday, hosting a drive-in rally for his former vice president in philadelphia. they saw a more fired up gloves-off version of obama who

aimed his attacks directly at his successor. >> i did hope for the sake of the country that he might show some interest in taking the job seriously. but it hasn't happened. he hasn't shown any interest in doing the work or helping anybody but himself and his friends or treating the presidency like a reality show that he can use to get attention. this is not a reality show. this is reality. and the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously. >> joining me now, in an attempt to preview tonight's debate, david plouffe, perform obama campaign manager and michael steel. i say attempt to preview the debate because i feel we're all being held hostage by one

individual. and it's the president and in all -- it all depends on whether he's going to allow the event to sort of be somewhat normal. you have a back and forth and then we can talk about a debate. but i feel like that's the elephant in the room here. we don't know what he's going to do. but let me start it this way, david plouffe, what should -- how should joe biden handle tonight? >> well, i think you have to stay on offense, chuck. he's got to lead so you don't want to be risky, but you don't want to play it safe. we hear from the "60 minutes" interview that president trump said he'll get rid of the affordable care act. so i'd start there. coronavirus cases are on the rise, and trump seems disinterested in that. wants to wish it away. i'd pound the heck out of that. and i would pick up some of the themes that president obama talked about yesterday. the corruption and the grifting, you know, building an economy. trump will do it for

billionaires. and joe biden will do it for brick layers. stay on offense. and then there's still work to do with filling in what you would do. on taxes, on health care, on the economy. so biden just has to go in there, no matter what trump does, i've got my game plan. but we don't know what trump is going to do. is it going to be mostly hunter biden conspiracy fest? is it going to try to make a case for a second term in terms of his economic agenda? that's what makes it challenging for the biden camp. you have to prepare for a bunch of different trumps. you just have to know what you're going to do no matter what he does and hope it's enough to know you have a lead heading into tonight. if you exit tonight with the race where it is, that's good for you. i don't think you want to settle for that if you are the biden campaign. you'd like to strengthen that lead. but trump is the one who has to say i'm in better shape than i was last night because of what happened on the debate stage. >> so michael steel, let me ask it -- the question to you this way. you are a north carolina guy. i'll use north carolina as my

example. what does thom tillis want donald trump to do tonight? >> i think what everyone in north carolina, everyone in any of these swing states wants is for the president to be presidential, for him to take public health seriously for him to talk seriously about his economic plan for the next four years. what we're going to see is yosemite sam. he's going to be out there guns ablazing, trying to attack on hunter biden, on china, on trade. he's -- anything he can do right now. when he's behind, he only has one mode and that's attack, attack, attack. and that's the last thing vulnerable republicans want to see right now. >> and i'm curious, michael, let me follow up on that. if that's what we see tonight, you know, does that just alter the closing arguments for some of these senate republicans? do they suddenly try to make a bit of a harder break or they just sort of ignore and try to stay focused on their race? >> a degree of carefully calibrated social distance might be the best option for those vulnerable senate republicans

and house republicans. they need trump voters. they need enthusiasm from the trump base. they need to do better than trump in those elections, which, you know, a lot of republican senators in 2016 did. you saw rob portman, marco rubio, pat toomey. a lot of republicans doing better than the president did in these individual states. and that's the distance and difference these republicans are going to need. >> david plouffe, does joe biden, as a way -- i know the biden campaign has no interest in responding to the hunter biden stuff. but does joe biden -- would it behoove him to pledge to the country that nobody is going to cash in on his name and that he's going to pledge that? >> i think so. i think he's done that, chuck, but there's no harm in reinforcing that. and, yeah, my sense is the first time, you know, trump brings up hunter biden. joe biden will speak to the facts. you're obsessed with my family. let's talk about the american family. and how sick it is because of your mismanagement of the

pandemic. so now trump comes back to it five or six times. the interesting question for me is -- and i don't think i would advise this, but the trump kids, and that family, it's basically a racketeering enterprise. so there's a lot of vulnerability there. but i think what we're seeing from voters, they're not really interested in that. so, yes, i think he can make that commitment. restate that commitment. but again, i think he wants to pivot to what people care about. i think that's what he did well in the first debate. looking people directly in the eye and talking to them. what's puzzling to me is what michael steel just said. i'm sure bill stepien and kel ann conway a kellyann conway are telling him t but there's only one strategist in chief and it's donald trump and this is how he wants to go down, guns ablazing, but they're kind of pointed at himself. >> michael steel, this is where i said i was having a hard time -- we can't conventionally

break down what -- i mean, yeah, i know what candidate x should be doing tonight. you shouldn't be doing the things you should be doing this time. that's not in his dna. but i'm curious about this, michael. do you sense one of the reasons that it feels like donald trump is yelling louder, like hunter biden even louder or i hate the media even more is that he realizes it's not working so he thinks if he just does it even more, maybe it will work? >> takes it up to 11. if you have only one tool in the toolborks, only a hammer, everything looks like a nail. this is the one thing he does. i think the reason the hunter biden thing keeps coming sup the former vice president has not done a good job being transparent about his surviving son's failings, being transparent about what he'll do having a plan and a pledge going forward to guarantee that his family does not profit, if he becomes president of the united states. >> right. no, i think when you are dealing with the trump family on one side, that is something that

even joe biden's voters want to hear joe biden say, i think, on that front. that is something i'll be curious about to watch for tonight. david plouffe, michael steel and yosemite sam. i did not have him on my bingo card tonight but i'm sorry i didn't. well played, mr. steel. thank you both, guys. coming up, the democrats, once a once unlikely path to get back to the senate. are we really in kansas? keep it here. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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welcome back. if you want a sign of how much the political environment is changing, take a look at this poll out of kansas. joe biden is leading donald trump by a few points. trump won by more than 20 points four years ago. roger marshall is leading by four accurates over a democrat that recently left the republican party. democrats have not won a senate seat since fdr was at the top of the ticket. with me now is steve crasky. he is also former chief political correspondent. someone they go to to help me figure out what is going on in kansas. steve, here we are ago. one of the things i assume you're going to ep date us on is

that in kansas it is not a trump issue, but how much is a lingering sam brownback issue? >> that is a great question. the brand certainly took a hit in the wake of the governor's administration. pretty unpopular. his tax cuts didn't work for the state of kansas, but that is part of it. president trump won by 20 points here four years ago. it sure is not 20 points any longer and that is taking a big bite out of the g.o.p.s backside here. it is turning the race into something competitive, nothing that i have seen in my last quarter of a century in kansas. >> i feel like kansas and

missouri are swapping places here. kansas and missouri will be a republican state, though. is that what is happening here there is more growth in kansas than in missouri? >> you know, there is something new to that. i just got emergencies today. the big county outside of kansaser kansas city, you know more than 40% since 2016, chuck, so the question in kansas, what we're looking at in months to come, is that the trump fe non n that is beginning to change out here.

that is what we're going to talk about here. very competitive democrats. we have not seen this level of competition between ds an rs in kansas in a long time. >> what is the key to this senate race? i think a lot of people assumed it was coback getting defeated, marshall has not been able to pull away. what are you watching for in these last few days? >> right now the democrat is the overpowering roger marbshall. she has a four-to-one advantage and she is all over the air waves. 60 ads, making 11th hour afeels

to people giving a race. the early numbers are going to come running in. it looks like a upset is brewing. they can come swinging in that is where his strength is out in western kansas. you know this as well as i do, this political base that you can have in missouri or kansas. roger marshall hails from it. that is the foundation in kansas, it is given the country jerry mirand.

>> steve crasky who can tell us a lot about the politics out there in kansas. thank you for your expertise. thank you all for being with us this hour. i'll see you again tonight for the predebate coverage. msnbc's coverage continues with ka katy turr after this break. katy turr after this break the performance of 5g ultra wideband. get iphone 12 on us when you switch. only on verizon.

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good afternoon. it is 11:00 a.m. out west, 2:00 p.m. in the east, and there is 12 days until november 3rd and just 7 hours before the final presidential debate. what could be the president's