hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. is donald trump giving up? afraid to make an ernst case to his 2016 coalition of voters because he knows he failed as president. it's the least likely is scenar. for the fourth straight day this week, his target for fighting words is someone other than joe biden. it's also possible his failure to contain the coronavirus and protect the american people and the american economy from the pandemic's rampant spread is the undeniable ground on which america will choose our country's leader. donald trump knows this. it's far more likely his mind is walled off from anyone other than the voices in his own echo

chamber. it's the only possible explanation for today performance. he's turning his attention and attacks away from his opponent who maintains a sizeable lead in the polls as well as cash on hand. hours before taking the debate stage donald trump leaked his own sitdown with 60 minutes. an interview that appeared to scare his own staff admitting they poured over every minute of the footage. in that interview we hear donald trump down play the pandemic, acknowledge he hasn't come up with a health care plan and fail once again to articulate a clear

agenda for his second term. here's how "the new york times" characterized the interview. quote, in posting the 38-minute clip on facebook mr. trump urged viewers to look at the hatred and bias of 60 minutes and cbs. the review shows leslie stall calmly and firmly asking the president questions about the coronavirus and other topics and mr. trump growing increasingly irritated. he spent much of the interview complaining about ms. stall or insulting her accusing her of being negative. we're covering trump's breach to show it whfor what it is. cbs news says the stunt won't stop them from covering the president and his comments

fairly, saying in a statement to nbc news, quote, the white house's unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with cbs news and release their footage will not deter 60 minutes from showing its full reporting which presidents have participated in in decades. 60 minutes the most watched news program on television is widely respected for bringing fairness, deep reporting to viewers each week. few journalists have the experience leslie stall has as one of the premier correspondents in america. we look forward to americans seeing her third interview with president trump. trump also attacked another respected female journalist today, kristin welker. the media tantrum from donald

trump 12 days before the final votes are cast is where we start this morning. with us "new york times" reporter nick confessore and the former obama campaign manager. all three msnbc contributors. i spoke with a trump ally today. i said he hasn't attacked biden in about six and a half days. he went after hunter biden last. that was the last person with the last name of biden he attacked. from sunday through wednesday all of his focus was aimed at tony fauci, the country's top infectious disease expert. he spent all day today at war with leslie stall. he only has 12 days left. what's he doing? >> what he's doing is really lashing out at everyone in sight and making his closing argument that he's a victim of a whole system that's against him.

he's lashing out at the media, democrats, trying to make the case that joe biden is corrupt. he's doing all this as clearly the polls show he's struggling. he himself admits he didn't think he would be in this position. i continue to think about his comment in erie, pennsylvania, i didn't think i would even have to come here. it's a revealing moment for president trump. what it shows is his closing argument is this message of all sorts of grievances and all sorts of victimization of himself. the interesting thing today with him trying to pre-empt kristin welk welker. she's fair, she's neutral. what he's trying to do is set up if i do badly in this debate it's kristin welker's fault. i think the president feels himself on the defense now. of course the one thing ha tthae

president didn't want to talk about in that interview in the clips he put out, he talked about the coronavirus and leslie stall was pushing back saying what do you mean the virus is out of the rearview mirror and things are getting better. the president made a lot of falsehoods i won't go through. he's lashing out at all the people around him while not focusing on the economy and the messages his campaign wants him to focus on. >> we're not able to show it, but tell us what the falsehoods are. >> the president in talking to leslie stall tied to make the case that the coronavirus is going well in the united states. 220 americans have died. it's spiking in all states including wisconsin and pennsylvania. you're seeing the numbers continue to rise in states. people are scared. i came back from florida where i

talked to a woman whose whole family contracted it. her exhusband was in a coma. there are people that have this experience of the coronavirus. there are also the people who are trying to get better and are scared for whether or not the president is going to understand this virus is something we can't live with. the idea of herd immunity scares people, especially the people who have seen it upfront. think about chris christie. he said i should have worn a mask. leslie stall also pressed on where is the gop health care plan. the president said we have large scale plans in place. the gop plan we've been waiting for, it's still not here. that was another key exchange. the other thing we know is the president will keep talking about hunter biden. he was talking about joe biden. one other thing, why is he still

talking about hillary clinton's emails? that was the question from leslie stall after president trump continued to complain about those emails. he said it's a big issue to me. i want something done about impeachme it. that's the president still in 2020 still being mad, talking about hillary clinton, that tells you the focus is not where it should be or where trump campaign allies tell us it should be. >> you know, nick confessore, one of my favorite things i read this week was from tim alberta who said we're overthinking this. there's so much there. i'm grateful that it was unpacked for us. nowhere in there is anything about anyone other than him. what this trump ally that i spoke today said it's all about him. i think this hunt for a closing argument should evend today. i'm going to stop it while i'm

on the air. we're done looking for trump's closing argument. he's not making one. he's still looking for hillary clinton's emails. he's still in denial about the pandemic that's taken more than 220,000 american lives. there's no closing argument. there isn't even an argument. i mean, i think what he gets on the stage and does tonight will be to attack as viciously as he can and to sort of let all of his rage hang out. should we be prepared for anything else? >> nicolle, somewhere over on earth two, president trump is talking about the economy and how we'll have a vaccine soon and the threat from china and he is inching closer in the polls to biden. instead his closing argument is everybody's mean to him and it's hard to be president.

it's an argument of weakness and failure, not one of strength. what we see with the leslie stall interview -- again, you shouldn't overthink this. it's not some genius strategy to go over 60 minutes and leslie stall. it's the reaction of a president who is mad and a staff that scrambles to make his anger a reality and produce something to respond to it. in this case what they have produced is a clip that joe biden will probably take on the debate stage and the president is saying he wants the supreme court to overturn the obamacare program, which by the way is about 10 points more popular than the president right now. this is not some grand strategy. it's a president struggling and up happy with being the guy on the wrong end of the stick. >> and on the wrong end of the polls. david, i want to read you a tweet from tim alberta, one of

the best political writers and reporters covering this race. ruthy from pennsylvania said she was undecided coming into tonight but now likes biden because trump was behaving like a crack head. obviously if a campaign wanted to say that about an opponent in normal times you would never do that, it's totally inappropriate. when voters reach their own conclusion that the sitting president is behaving like a crack head and making the debate impossible to watch, i think nick's right. biden can just roll trump tape. >> yeah, well, voters have a way of cutting through to the truth. first on this 60 minutes issue donald trump fashions himself as

a strong man, yet he's coming across as the whineyest, weakest political figure i've ever seen. that matters. he's turning counting on turnine voters in pennsylvania and michigan. he's coming across as weak. i expect trump will be who trump is. he'll be hunter bidening it up tonight and telling kristin welker she's being unfair. that won't help him. i don't think joe biden should let donald trump self-immulate. the fact that donald trump thinks that the coronavirus response is going swimmingly well, we have cases up all over the country. we have hospitals in utah pass their icu limit.

i assume biden will want to keep this grounded in health care in the coronavirus response. i've never seen a political candidate, particularly someone who prided himself on being a political animal, loved the combat, going this meekly into the night. it's not like bill stepien and kellyanne conway or mark meadows are saying act this way. these are not going to be in the hall of fame of brain trusts for sure, but they have some sense of what he has to do. he's just not listening. this is how he wants to roll and how he wants to go out. it's deeply puzzling to me. as a democrat, i'm happy to see it, but it's puzzling. maybe he'll surprise us tonight and talk about his health care plan and economic plan, but i doubt it. >> it's 4:13. i think he's much more likely to hammer on the kinds of things that he could seize on that are in the recent news cycle.

a lot of people saw it as politically perhaps beneficial to him to have his dni out there talking about iran. david, do you think he's going to use that as part of his campaign in an effort to undermine confidence in the election, even though that's the opposite message from what radcliffe and wray delivered last night? >> he might. that's easy for biden to deal with. all these countries want to sew confusion. biden can talk about all the people that have voted. we're close to 50 million people having voted. think about how many people will watch this tonight. how many of that 50 million people will watch it? i voted, but i have to watch it. this is trump's last chance. as you mentioned, it's a race he's losing. he has to wake up tomorrow morning and say i'm in a better

position now than i was last night. if he can't do that, he's lost his only opportunity to adjust the race. >> nick, i want to show you the case that former president obama made against donald trump last night. let's watch. >> 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. by the way, even though his tv ratings are down. you know that upsets him. [ horns beeping ] the thing is this is not a reality show. this is reality. the rest of us have had to live with the consequences of him proving himself incapable of taking the job seriously. look, i get that this president

wants full credit for the economy he inherited and zero blame for the pandemic he ignored. the job doesn't work that way. tweeting at the television doesn't fix things. making stuff up doesn't make people's lives better. you've got to have a plan. you've got to put in the work. >> nick, this was as devastating a political attack as i've ever witnessed in the final weeks of a campaign. it had potency in part because it's all provable. it's all true. >> well, nicolle, i saw in here a line of attack i've been waiting to hear from democrats for a long time. it's finally here in a big way, which is the president is lazy. that's the attack line. for president trump who is the victim -- i'm sorry -- for president obama who was the victim of the racist birther conspiracy nonsense from

president trump, to be able to taunt president trump as lazy, is probably delicious. i imagine his stature as a two-term president, it's probably satisfying for him. >> yamesh, to nick's point this was a brutal takedown. he indicted donald trump on his own terms. trump ran as a reality show president. he even staged and produced his return from walter reed as a covid positive patient. the indictment of his performance, that he's too lazy and too incompetent and can't do the job, that he's politically impotent, is what makes obama trump's kryptonite. >> president obama was clearly in his element. this was president obama going for the jugular, prosecuting the case against president trump in a way we haven't seen democrats do before because it was coming

from someone who we know in his deepest moments -- we know president obama gets under president trump's skin so much. he was mocking him. he was saying he was corrupt. he was saying he was not fit for the job and as nick pointed out, that's he's lazy. this is why joe biden can take a couple days off the campaign trail to prep for the debate because he has friend like barack obama who can get the coverage and say the words that democrats want to hear which is this president is not someone who deserves to be re-elected and is not capable of doing the job. i'm waiting for president trump at some point to reaboct to president obama. he was probably taken back to the white house correspondent dinner when everyone was laughing at him. that was part of the reason why president trump wanted to become president to get back at him. we know that president trump wants to lash out at president obama. maybe he'll do it during the

debate. this was something to behold from president obama. >> david, we were on together 24 hours ago. let me put up one last image. this is president obama with a little girl. looks like an off the record stop and he pulled off the side of the road and grabbed a bull horn. a darling little girl ran up to him. it speaks to the lack of campaign trail human interaction and, two, the lack of any images like that when it comes to president trump over the last four years. i'll give him the pandemic has made these moments tricky, but i think you would be pressed to find really any images of a spontaneous otr like this from the current occupant of the white house. what do you think? >> it's been a missing ingredient. when you get little kids and bull horns and honking horns, it's a good thing. it makes me think if joe biden

wins this race, nicolle, what is january 20th going to be when he's sworn into office. donald trump is sitting there and barack obama is in the row behind him. it's going to be an interesting moment. barack obama is making a case more urgently and passionately for joe biden than he ever made for himself. i think he believes this election is more important than the two he ran and won. >> it's peak 2020 that all these tr transcripts say stop for horn honking. thank you so much. when we come back, joe biden has made his family's struggles the center piece of his public life, specifically the relationship with his sons. we'll show you a new ad targeting male voters and how the two candidates couldn't be more different. one clearly values family and

forgiveness. the other tries to weaponize loved ones. plus chris christie talks about attending that super spreader event at the white house and advising the president for the last debate. how that tone isn't getting through to the president himself. and barack obama asking how it's possible the current president has a secret chinese bank at and no one is talking about it. well, we are. all that after the quick break. don't go anywhere. break don't go anywhere. thanks! splitsies? ♪ oooh...you meant the food, didn't you? is often unseen. because the pain you're feeling

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we thought we were doing the right thing in 2016. it's clear this isn't the america we voted for. we made a mistake. it's time to own up, to be the men our dads raised us to be and the fathers our sons need us to be because they're watching us, the way we watched our dads. it's our turn to set the example. vote for change. vote for our sons. vote for joe. >> that is part of a new ad highlighting trump and biden's competing visions for america, as well as the bonds between a father and son. joe biden has made his family's up and downs and tragedies one

of the center pieces of his public life. we've seen his own personal tragedies. that ad from our people at the lincoln project targets men. asks the one who voted for trump last time to reject his politics this time. they have an equally powerful one targeted at moms and daughters. while trump signals tonight he'll continue what he started at the first debate, which is an effort to smear hunter biden in harsh personal terms. joining us now charlie sykes is here and basil smickle. basil, what do you make, not of the substance because a lot of substance is murky, but of the strategy? donald trump thinks it's a winner to launch harsh personal attacks against hunter biden.

>> well, that's why that ad is so important. it addresses this need to promote and, as you said earlier, weaponize hyper masculinity. you see that in his speeches. you see that at his rallies. in many ways it drives wedges within families. it's an intergenerational wedge. you hear so many young people talk about how they don't understand their parents and the decisions they're making around this election. it's a great way to tie in family and go back to some of the themes of empathy that joe biden has struck so many times. i think it also pairs well with the barack obama speech that we just heard and the clips you just showed in that i think in many ways obama's speech was targeted to young people as well to say let's bring in coalition back together. remember when you took your

parents to vote for me? i need you to be out there and convince those folks that voted for donald trump to make a different decision this time. i think the trump strategy is a failing one for the few voters who haven't made their decision already. as long as joe biden continues with a concise message with these ads that are so powerful, i think he wins the day. >> charlie, i want to ask a strategic question and i want to show you what cindy mccain has to say, she seems to be on this message too. here's the strategic question, trump's imperative -- there are very few undecided voters. trump has to take some biden votes. it's a different kind of appeal. i wonder if you think in any

universe if you're trying to take someone who is choosing biden, do you get them by smearing biden's surviving son? >> no. a lot of this is an expression of the bubble that donald trump has created for himself. to this point about masculinity, empathy is manly. being willing the admit you were wrong is manly. being a loving father is manly. it's good to take that back because i think one of the difficulties of this era is raising young men in an era of trump and saying that's not what a man is. to another point -- >> stay on that point. you just made me cry. say more. >> well, i mean, i think this strutting bully image -- basil said the hyper masculinity, that image of cruelty, of never admitting you're in era, that's

not what being a man is all about. a man is about integrity, about being a good father, about being responsib responsible. it's about being willing to apologize, all those things. in trump world the relationship that vice president biden has with his sons is seen somehow as a weakness, as a vulnerability. i think a lot of people look at that and say that's a sign of strength. we all wish we had a father like that. we wish that we were fathers like that and had that relationship with our sons. i think that's really important and will be one of the sub themes tonight as he lashes out against joe biden's son. a lot of people are going to think what is he talking about? you have to watch fox news 24/7

to understand all the codes and he's going to be throwing this stuff up against the wall. people are going to be saying why aren't you talk about health care and the economy? i think that joe biden stands there and says, look, i love my son. my son has had difficult times. i'll stand by my son. what you're seeing here is an expression of a president who feels that the only way he can be re-elected is to attack my family. i really honestly cannot see how that changes the dynamic of this campaign. >> basil, there's so many threads to pull. one is that some of the material allegedly taken off that hard drive contained text messages between joe and hunter biden that enhance your view of joe biden as a man. i don't know how many of us could have material hack from our devices and computers and look better.

joe biden is among those. here's the other thing. voters are smart and the tru trump -- it's in the category of the audacity of the trumps. don jr. is in the mueller report as someone who took the fifth, didn't cooperate. er eric jr. -- just eric is in front of the new york state ag on a fraud investigation. ivanka has a gazillion trademarks from china, lied about her background check for herself and jared kushner. we learned that john kelly and don mcgahn didn't think they were worthy of hearing about this country's most sensitive state secrets. trump really wants to fight about kids? >> i know. that's when you talked about the voter ruthie in the last segment

saying he reminded her of a crack head. crack heads have an addiction problem we need to fix. donald trump is part of a crime family. you have a state attorney general that is going after his family and voters are away of this. they know that there may be peril for this president after he leaves office. the question is do you want that continuing to swirl around? in the same way that donald trump continues to push the hillary clinton buttons and all the other buttons that he thinks is taking his candidacy somewhere and voters are thinking do we want to take this conversation here for another four years? as you played that clip of barack obama, when was the last time you sat silent and listened

to the president? i was reminded of that. how many of us have been able to do that with this president and feel confident about the direction our country is going in? more and more voters have made up their mind about that. >> basil, this point about manliness is so important. i don't want to let it go. the most manly thing to do is to protect. the most deadly failure on trump right now is the failure and refusal to even try to protect his family, his adviser chris christie, bill stepien, kellyanne conway, hope hicks, his military aides, his resident staff, his flight attendants, his pilots on air force one and his own damn supporters. what do you say to a president who refused to even try to

protect a country as a pandemic raged across this country? >> as president of the united states the only thing he could say is the one thing he won't say is i'm sorry and i'll do better. he'll never say that. when he's getting into the car and those secret service agents were there, i thought about them the most. these are individuals that are so loyal to their duty and their country and may not ever say anything about that moment, but you have the understanding of the jeopardy they were in because the president just refused to listen to science and he wanted to do his own thing to a pie appease his supporters. i don't think he'll ever say anything. >> basil and charlie, you guys just filled me up today. thank you so much. up next chris christie out

with a big mea culpa. christie admitting, quote, i was wrong not to wear a mask. and a champion for my own health. i talked with my doctor... and switched to... fewer medicines with... dovato. prescription dovato is for some adults who are starting hiv-1 treatment or replacing their current hiv-1 regimen. with...just 2 medicines... in 1 pill, dovato is as effective as a 3-drug regimen to help you reach and stay undetectable. research shows people who take hiv treatment as prescribed... and get to and stay undetectable... can no longer transmit hiv through sex. don't take dovato if you're allergic to any of its ingredients... or if you take dofetilide. hepatitis b can become harder to treat while taking dovato. do not stop dovato without talking to your doctor,... as your hepatitis b may worsen or become life-threatening. serious or life-threatening side effects can occur, including allergic reactions,... lactic acid build up, and liver problems. if you have a rash

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i recognize we're all getting tired of the impact that covid-19 has had on our lives. we get tired of wearing masks. it continues to be as important as it's ever been. it's more important than ever as

we move into the fall season. that w . >> that was the cdc director on the importance of wearing a mask. chris christie is also out with new messages about his experience. he was hospitalized with covid-19 after attending a white house super spreader event and then prepping donald trump for his debates. all of it without a mask. he calls it a serious failure on his part. christie writes, one of the worst aspects of america's divided politics is the polarization of something as simple as wearing a mask. wear it or you may regret it as i did. all this as cases according to the cdc increase in about 75% of

this country. under a president who today continues to travel without donning a mask, even after his own diagnosis and hospitalization. let's bring into our conversation dr. patel, former obama white house health policy director, now an msnbc medical contributor. charlie sykes is still here. doctor, this failure to protect the country is deeply personal. the failure to protect his own inner circle seems as we head to the end of the voting season to be the most devastating and damning indictment of his covid failures to date. >> absolutely including his own family, all these close aides, herman cane died obviously and then of course chris christie who -- that's great, nicolle, that he's acknowledging his own failure, but a bigger question to ask him is why did it take

his own brush with death, which the president doesn't care about and didn't tell him he was positive and he should have gotten tested. why did it take his own brush to death to make him acknowledge the science? chris christie was saying things like we got to re-open. if that means people will die, then so be it. all of us wonder -- the science has been telling us what we should do. it doesn't mean shutting down the economy. it means staying safe. we're still having that conversation, nicolle, as we go into a third peak with 60 to 75,000 new cases a day. >> it's an unbelievable new high for us. dr. patel, let me read you more from the christie op-ed. i hear what you're saying. he doesn't mention donald trump who is the biggest purveyor of misinformation around the pandemic. christie continues those who deny scientific realities of the

pandemic undermine conditions that allow for complete re-opening. they encourage behavior that invites personal tragedy. people need encouragement to do the right thing. enduring i believe we can use this public health tragedy to bring our country together. it's never too late to start. it will take leadership that challenges the american people. there are a lot of theories of why he doesn't name trump in here. what he's describing here by behavior and belief system is joe biden. i think christie is writing about it's never too late to start. it will take a leadership that challenges the american people. there's only one person on the ticket that offers that and that's the democratic nominee. >> that's right. i actually found the same interpretation that you did. i thought it seems like an endorsement for vice president biden without going the distance

and it seems like he's trying to say president trump has no plan and has not respected the science and, by the way, christie hasn't either, neither have many of their respective republican counter parts. however, he doesn't go the final mile. i think americans are doing that by listening to dr. fauci and looking for scientists to give them advice as we're going into the holiday season. >> charlie, let me put up -- i don't know if i have this to put up. let me read this to you. cases are increasing in this country in three quarters of the states of our union, the cdc deputy director said we're seeing a distressing trend in the u.s. with cases increasing in 75% of the country. these are numbers, but also people and we mourn these losses. 60,000 cases per day on average as well as 700 deaths.

we spend time talking about these people. one thing i know is that there is no barrier. there's no age over which or under which you're safe. there's no gender that favors you you. you can die if you're a woman, man, white, black, mama, daddy or child. why is this still political? do you think trump is the sort of toxin in the conversation? >> he's very much the toxin in the conversation. i'm sitting here in wisconsin and we're having almost every day a new record in the number of cases and yet following donald trump's lead republicans including senator ron johnson are saying everything is okay. we flattened the curve. we haven't flattened the curve. it's scary. it's terrifying. we've made it so political. in fact yesterday the president was in north carolina and he was saying all you hear about on the

news is covid, covid, covid. well, yes. these are human lives and you're the president. you're supposed to be protecting us. he sounded like a bored teenager. it's like he's bored with the coronavirus. he wants to get on with it. frankly that's not a message that is in tune with what americans are feeling right now because this third wave is coming back and this third wave could be the worst of all because of the flu season. what you're seeing is that president trump has abdicated his responsibility. i thought the governor christie piece was very interesting including his failure to mention donald trump. that won't help him because in donald trump's mind writing that piece was an act of disloyalty. i wonder how long it will be before there's a tweet about chris christie. also, congratulations to christie for writing the piece. as mentioned before, why did it take his own case for him to realize that the advice that he

has been giving others is so dangerous and so deadly? >> all good questions. dr. patel and charlie sykes, we'll keep asking them. thank you both. when we come back, we're staying on the latest reporting about donald trump's dark financial history. "the new york times" on his business ties in china, the accounts and money that he's got over there. that's next. ok, just keep coloring there...

and sweetie can you just be... gentle with the pens. okey. okey. i know. gentle..gentle

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do business with china because he's got a secret chinese bank account. how is that possible? how is that possible? a secret chinese bank account. listen, could you imagine if i had a secret chinese bank account? when i was running for re-election. you think -- you think fox news might have been a little concerned about that? they would have called me beijing barry. >> he's absolutely right there. that was former president obama referencing this blockbuster piece of reporting in "the new york times," the latest installment of the investigation into the trump finances and his taxes. times wrote this, china is one of three foreign nations, the others are britain and island when mr. trump maintains a bank account.

they do not show up on the financial disclosure where's he must list personal assets because they're held under corporation names. the identity of the institutions are not clear. a lawyer for the trump org, said it is in order to pay the local taxes associated with efforts to do business there. pay taxes. he doesn't do a lot of that. joining us now, andrew weissmann, nick confessore is still here too. nick, this one was for me one that i had to read two or three times. but oddly, president obama crystalized it for me and it showed me just how far down the rabbit hole we are. we have never allowed any former president, really move senators getting more financially than donald trump is, but the notion that he had a secret chinese bank account that we're learning now about is bonkers? >> that is correct, nicolle. only because of the work of

journalists at the times and elsewhere that we have this information. this china bank account is just a reminder is that if the standard is trying to do business in china is unsavory or bad, it is important to look at the trump family's connections and the kushner family efforts to do business in china. think of ivanka's state marks from china and the leasing of three floors of trump tower and jared kushner sister in beijing pitching chinese investors on real estate projects. if hi to go through the list of president trump's donors who are trying to make money in and from china, i would be up all night. he has a big donor in sheldon addleson who put $75 million into a pac backing president trump. he gets his money in large amounts from china, from gambling in macau.

that is the money going to the president's superpac. so again, i'm not sure, there are all kinds of fights that could be picked with biden, but if they want to open a discussion on doing business in china, there are a lot of tarkts everywhere. >> andrew, you wrote the book about trump's finances and what we don't know about this representing a national security threat for this country, how does this piece fit into that? >> well there is a reason that every single person in the intelligence community who has a classification clearance and is allowed to see classified information has more vetting than the president of the united states. having been through that process as many people have, you have to disclose not just do you have foreign bank accounts, but your taxes, debts, any agreements with foreign governments. why? and there is a really good

reason. because if you're going to give people seeks of the american intelligence community, you want to make sure that they are not themselves a risk. and you need to know about all of those communications and dealings with a foreign government. so this is so bizarre because you have the head of the united states government receiving less scrutiny than many, many thousands of people in the intelligence community who know darn well that they've been subjected to a much greater vetting of their connections to any foreign government. and stepping back to the big picture, nicolle, i think when we ever get to a post-trump era, this is really something where you're going to need to see political parties and congress take action to say we are not going to allow this. we are going to -- because

you're a public servant, if you want to be a public servant, you're going to need to disclose all of this information before we're going to let you run for office or receive classification review. >> i think that is a reform that i'm sure we will debate and will have a lot of support. but my question for you is we as a public are learning this from "the new york times." do you think the intelligence community knows how compromised donald trump could be from all of these countries? >> i don't know the answer to that. the concern i have is that when you have, you know, the attorney general and the president of the united states and the head of the dni being so political, that if the intelligence community is doing this, you know they're having to do it quietly. >> right. >> which is just a bizarre situation because of course that is something that you want the intelligence community to be investigating. but you could see what happens,

when right now you're seeing attorney general barr and the dni go after people trying to figure out what russia was up to. >> right. >> in the last election. so i don't know if people have the gumption to be doing this. >> and it is a conversation we'll continue to have. andrew wise man and nick, thank you both so much. the next hour of "deadline: white house" starts after a very short break. don't go anywhere. nywhere. this administration and senate republicans want to overturn laws requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. they're rushing a lifetime appointment to the supreme court to change the law through the courts. 70% of americans want to keep protections for pre-existing conditions in place. tell our leaders in washingtn to stop playing games with our healthcare.

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election in 2020 through what i would call more than malign foreign influence side of things. social media, use of proxies, state media, online journals, et cetera. an effort to both sow divisiveness and discord and, and i think the intelligence community has assessed this publicly, to primary to denigrate vice president biden. >> hi, again. everyone. it is 5:00 in the east. so donald trump is supposed to be battling it out with joe biden every day on the campaign trail from morning until night. but he can't stop attacking his own top officials for not doing enough to comply with his dictator like demands that his political opponents be investigated and locked up. washington post reported that they have discussed whether to fire that man, fbi director christopher wray after election

day, and to imperil bill barr as there is frustration that federal law enforcement has not delivered his campaign the last-minute boost that the fbi provided in 2016. the conversations among the president and senior aides stem in part from their disappointment that wray in particular, but barr as well, have not done what trump had hoped. indicate that democratic president candidate joe biden, his son hunter biden or other associates are under investigation. as his poll numbers show no sign of improving, trump made it clear in recent weeks he wants action and now. >> unless bill barr indicts these people, for crimes, the greatest political crime in the history of our country, then we're going to get little satisfaction unless i win and we'll just have to go because i won't forget it. but these people should be indicted. this is the greatest political crime in the history of our country. and that includes obama and it includes biden.

these are people that spied on my campaign and we have everything. now they say they have much more, okay. and i say, bill, we got plenty. you don't need any more. >> we caught them, we caught them cold and we have people that don't know how to do anything about it. >> he's got to act. and he's got to act fast. he has to appoint somebody. this is major corruption and this has to be known about before the election. >> since it is highly unlikely that former president obama and former vice president biden will be indicted in the next 12 days, the president is now hoping for a repeat of the same kind of luck he had in 2016. washington post adds this, quote, people familiar with the discussions say trump wants official action similar to the announcement made 11 days before the last presidential election by then fbi director james comey who informed congress he had reopened an investigation into hillary clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state after potential new evidence had been

discovered. which could explain a news conference last night in which top intelligence and law enforcement officials asserted that iran and russia have obtained voter information and used it to send threatening emails to those in florida made to look like they are from the proud boys. iran and russia deny the allegation but john ratcliff made it seem as though it was an attack on the trump campaign rather than on the election itself. >> this could attempt to communicate false information to registered voters that they hope will cause confusion, sow chaos, and undermine your confidence in american democracy. to that end, we have already seen iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, insight social unrest and damage

president trump. >> donald trump's renewed pressure on the top law enforcement and national security officials amid efforts to undermine the election is where we start this hour with some of our favorite friends. frank figliuzzi, former director for counter intelligence and msnbc national security analysis is back. also joining us, elizabeth neumann from threat prevention and security policy of the department of homeland security and member of the republican political alliance for integrity and reform. and peter strzok is back and author of the book "compromised, the threat of donald j. trump", i wanted to talk to all three of you since this news broke at 7:30 last night. frank, let me start with you. lay out the facts as you understand them and what sounds like a spin put on them from the dni. >> yeah, what we heard last night and it certainly wasn't much was a hastily cobbled together press conference for

the purpose of telling us basically two things. one, two foreign adversaries have managed to gain access to voter registration data. and secondly, that somehow this is supposed to damage president trump. so i'm buying the first part of that. i'm not buying the second part of it. but really what my takeaway was not talked about. so what we did not learn was exactly the degree to which these foreign adversaries had accessed local county, state, voter registration data. if they could see it and hack into it through clear vulnerabilities that we've known about for a long time, and this gets into the whole issue of funding security measures to shore up our systems which just isn't happening. but if they could get in there and see it and they could take it, why can't they erase it? why can't they manipulate it. we need answers to those questions so people aren't showing up on election day and

told they are not a registered voter or their polling place is across town. we've talked about the various scenarios and they seem about to play out. the other thing is we saw again the politicizing of intelligence. we saw someone that we did not need to hear from last night. a political hack of president trump. the dni,y unqualified for his job, trying to spin this politically and say, hey, the iranians are trying to damage trump. that is not a plausible scenario. the proud boys thing, i get it, associating with trump. and no one is buying that and down playing of russia was really abysmal. he should be ashamed of that because he knows from his own reporting that goes to him every single day that russia is the primary threat with regard to the election. so it was a horrible press conference in terms of trying to reassure the public, nothing to reassure me. i have more questions than answers. >> elizabeth newman, you're

uniquely able to talk about experience from the inside when people try to tell truths, difficult truths about russia's role in attacking our election in 2016 and their efforts for 2020. christopher wray did that in the snippet of his testimony that we started the show with. let me play donald trump's reaction to that specific piece of his testimony. >> i did not like his answers yesterday. and i'm not sure he liked them either. i'm sure that he probably would agree with me. the big problem is china. and we could have others also. and i'm not excluding anybody. but the big problem is china. >> even his paid guy, ratcliff, didn't say that. >> that is right. and here is what is interesting. last night was, as you described, hastily called press conference. my guess is there were conversations about the urgency to get out and provide -- to

those emails that made such a big splash and from a counter disinformation playbook that is absolutely right. my guess is that ratcliff kind of got shoved in there. he has not been one of the key faces. there have been four people that kind of make up the face of election security for the government who are largely seen as trust worthy and nonpartisan. so it is a little odd that he was even there in the first place. and then as frank has pointed out, his adding on there that it is harming the president's campaign, it is inconsistent with what you've seen out of director wray and then director cremes put out a statement last night and members of congress that were briefed, the intel, bipartisan joint statement came out by senators warner and rubio describing a different kind of intent, one that is just about

delegitimizing our election and sowing discord. so i tend to not listen to ratcliff. but there was some interesting follow up that happened today. fbi and dhs put out cyber advisories, the majority is highly technical but the top line they did, they did one on iranian activities and one on russian activities and the russian activities which were not highlighted last night are -- seem to be much morin vase ate. think talked about state and local election systems, they do not detect that any manipulate of data has occurred yet. but what they're laying out is that they have been able to infiltrate systems and that is a concern moving into the election period. we need to keep a close eye on it. but it is interesting, they did not talk about it last night and let advisory push that information out clearly there seems to be some inability to talk directly to the president

about the threat that russia poses to us. >> yeah, i mean, this whole hide the banana whether it comes to russia 11 days before the election. pete, they added some context to what elizabeth is talking about in "the new york times" this afternoon. there is no evident that the russians have changed any vote tallies or voter registration information. they added that the russian backed hackers had penetrated the network without taking further action as they did in '16. but american officials expect if the presidential race is not called on election night, russian groups to use knowledge of local computer systems to deface websites and take similar steps that could sow chaos and doubts about the integrity of the results according to american officials briefed on the intel. you could take us through what this line means. they added that a russian-backed hackers have penetrated the computer networks without taking further action as they did

in '16. what does that mean? they were in the systems in '16. they showed us sort of breaking into the house but they didn't take anything. >> i think that is exactly the way to think about it. when you look at what the russians are trying to do. and there is more detail reported today. i don't know that it is accurate. but one of the groups affiliated with the fsb, all of the agencies that were part of the kgb. but this is a domestic intelligence agency of russia. it is not gru or the svr which is the foreign intelligence service. but there is a variety of stages as you conduct that activity. one is gaining access. and that is in my read of is what has occurred. they were able to get past the safe guards and place themselves into the system where they were able to see what was there and potentially have the ability to not only identify but ex filt rate it and take it out. and using the analogy of breaking into the house.

that is an excellent one. they were able to get in, whether through the window or the back door or the basement and look around the house and see what was there but didn't take anything. didn't rearrange anything, didn't tear up anything. but merely the ability to get into the house implies that future potential ability to then come back in take things, to damage things, to rewrite things and cause much, much more mischief. so i'm glad that information is being put out. certainly that comes at a cost because we're disclosing intelligence that we're aware of. but i do think that in this case it is done a service to talk about what is going on. >> frank, let me come back to you on that. so we know that russia could do this thing that they did four years ago, break into the house but not take anything. is there any chance that they don't have more skills four years later and they haven't been emboldened by the occupant

of the office. >> it has only become en hansed since 2016. and the capability is there. and what we're seeing in the cybersecurity world is called signaling. they're letting us know they're there. and they have the ability to do certain things. we don't know when they're going to pull the trigger or to what extent. and this is a symptom of a larger problem, nicolle. which is russia feels they have license to do this. they've been allowed to do this over the years. we may think it is a big deal when we re russian gru officers indicted repeatedly as we've seen this week. but the reality is that we'll never get our hands on these people and this is essentially lip service. sanctions are not being strongly enforced. they're not impacting lives of oligarchs or putin. so what we have here is an administration saying, with a wink and a nod we're going to say bad things about this but you need to keep doing what you're doing. if we have an actual anti-russia cyber strategy it would look

like this, that press conference last night would say we are launching retaliatory acts, some of which we could tell but right now and some of which we will not tell you about and they are going to pay the price for this. we're not hearing any of that. particularly from this president. >> peter, this was your business inside of the fbi. what do you think is happening inside of the fbi when you see statements like this where the iran threat is described as equal or more dangerous or harrowing than the russia threat when you have a president as frank said has been signaling that he's a-okay with everything russia does and when russia makes clear that, hey, we could still get around the alarms and detectors and we're in here again. >> i think at the line level the investigators are focused on didding the right thing. figuring out what is wrong and figuring out how to identify it and neutralize it and then mitigate the threat.

where it becomes challenging is that at a higher level and when you hit the level of the director, director wray or the director of the cia and how you then take that work that is being done day in and day out by the intelligence professionals and try to convey that in a reputable manner and i think that explains part of what you saw the distancing last night between director wray and john ratcliff trying to maintain his credibility not only of himself but of the fbi. because intelligence is -- credibility is everything. so much is classified. you can't say a. is a fact and here are all of the reasons i believe it. all of those reasons tend to be classified. so that is why credibility is so important that when you get up and say something, that is taken as the truth. and when you hear general clapper or dan coats saying that, they bring that authority and gravitious and wray has no qualifications and politicized his position, there is no

assumption or presumption of credibility to begin with. and when you hit a real crisis that is going to increase, you can't suddenly make that up overnight. that is lost and i think that is why you see the distancing between the professionals in the intelligence community and the political appointees of the white house. >> that is interesting. if you read chris wray's body language, he was acting the way you would describe the mindset of a line agent than a political appointee. frank, thank you. you are bring our gravitious to the show. when we come back, it was on the debate stage last time around that donald trump told the proud boys to stand by. well take a look at how far right extremist groups and militias here at home heard that and what they do. plus a new poll from across the battle ground states but one big number that stands out heading into tonight's debate. it is not a poll. we'll tell you about that. and new reporting about the plot to oust the head of the

fda. for trying to make sure a vaccine for coronavirus is safe. that is all did he. "deadline: white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. anywhere. it's a reason to come together. it's a taste of something good. a taste we all could use right now. so let's make the most of it. and make every sandwich count. with oscar mayer deli fresh and keeping your oysters ount. busihas you swamped. you need to hire. i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo

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are you willing, tonight, to condemn white supremacists and militia groups and to say that they need to stand down and not add to the violence and a number of the cities as we saw in kenosha and as we've seen in portland. >> sure. i'm will to do that. what do you want to call them. >> white supremacists. and proud boys. >> proud boys. stand back and stand by.

>> as we look forward to tonight's debate, we can't forget what happened at the last one where donald trump told a far right extremist group the proud boys, to, quote, stand back and stand by. since then we've learned of a domestic terror plot to kidnap the governor the michigan and other militias are ready to act if the election doesn't go the way they thigh it should. take a look attal em wagner on showtime's circumstanceus speaking with the militia. >> the unrest begins on november 4th when left lose their collective minds and they're going to go out and they're going to go on a scorch earth campaign. >> let me offer a converse scenario. joe biden wins on election night. what happens then. >> the only way that joe biden could win is through fraud. >> so just to be clear, if trump wins then the election is not fraudulent. but if biden wins then this is

fraudulent. >> absolutely. >> does that mean you are going to take the streets and say hell no, this is not a legitimate outcome. >> i woke up a free man and on november 4th if i feel like i need to go overturn a fraudulent election then nobody on earth is going to hold me back. >> let's bring in the co-host of showtime's the circus and writer for the atlantic, alex wagner and this was a stunning -- your stunning, your interviews are all stunning but this was stunning on every level. talk about what we didn't see there and anything that happened after camera. they really opened up to you. >> they did. i feel like there was a real -- wei we talk about the legacy of trumpism and what happens if trump is not re-elected. i think the judiciary is an our where we'll feel the effects of

trump after he's no longner office. but i think what he's done culturally to this country, the after effects will be profound and the militia driving that home. there is a subset that has given up on the institutions and rule of law. they get their information from the dark corners of the web. they are living in a world of mend asity and misinformation and how we bring them back is an open question. they are the far end of the spectrum. but that is the paranoia has infected a large part of the republican party. >> and you write -- as not all on the dark side of the web. some of it on the light of day on the fox news. fox news unique blend division has always been popular and highly lucrative but now the advent of covid-19 the channel has become a market place for something considerably more poisonous. increasing coverage of the

country that provides fodder for radicals to justify their apocalyptic visions. today fox plays a role in stoking fear that it may be time for a second american civil war. good on you for saying it out loud. but i think a lot of people feel a lot of anxiety about what is mainstreamed by fox news. which is a lot easier to find than the dark corner of the web. and the things coming out of these guys' mouths are the same theories about the election that you could hear at 8:00 any night on fox. >> yeah. i asked them where they got their information from and there is no doubt an excess of the kind of dark conspiracy information. a lot of it i think is amplified by russia but i'll let pete weigh in on that. but they also cited by name tucker carlson and sean hannity. and that was a major alarm bell. while fox is nots necessarily tracking in that pedophile pizza

ring, they are laying the foundation for a conspiracy minded paranoid world view that is almost a gateway drug to this darker fringe lunacy the militias have embraced. at one point they're connecting the president of the united states, as you pointed out would not refute the actions of the proud boys, who could not disavow qanon in a town hall. he is subject to the same sort of toxic poisonous information that the militias are, that the linkage between those two things is fox news. >> pete, do you think that all of these things lined up together to create a perfect storm? you have a president with his millions of followers who gets all of this news especially from that 8:00 hour on fox news and the 9:00 hour alex referenced with supporters that he doesn't want to disavow or rebuke so he says stand by, proud boys. do all of these things have to line up to get us to where we

are today? >> some ways, yes. i don't know that a foreign intelligence presence is needed to get to the flash point that we're at. domestic sort of right wing violent extremism has been around, i worked oklahoma city bombing investigation when i started in the fbi in the 1990s and they were angry at the branch davidian ans and stream of anti-government extremism. what is different in this case is two things. one, you have a so sophisticated adversary like russia walking around with a can of gasoline and this is burning out of control and something being brought down, being brought under control, they walk over with a -- with a bottle of gas and pour it on top of that. the second thing that i've never seen before in our lives, is that we have a president for the first time in 244 years who is actively promoting this, who is actively encouraging it. when you look at radicalization,

this is what it is, but the research has shown that what is the most important thing that could occur is that leaders, community leaders, faith leaders, national leaders, say that this sort of behavior is absolutely unacceptable. that it is toxic, not appropriate and that it is unamerican. and before this administration, we have had a universal adherence so that sort of idea and that is absolutely changed and i think looking at the foreign intelligence side of it, this is a goldmine. this is a very easy, lucrative and high payoff sort of environment to operate it. >> elizabeth, tell us from the inside what would happen if you tried to take this analysis like what pete just offered and this evidence from the testimonials, these folks obviously aren't afraid of saying what they said to alex. they knew she was a television anchor. where does the permission structure come from inside of the white house? the president himself who in

mostings just shut downs or what happens inside? >> it is been widely reported that he does not want to talk about anything to do with russia. the trigger word. same thing could be said for white supremacist or domestic terrorism and unless and this is a fairly recent development, unless you're talking about antifa in which case he thinks that is completely okay to talk about domestic terrorism in the context of left wing violence which even today there was a report out by csis saying the number of attacks in 2020 up through the end of august and it is still -- the overwhelming majority runs 70% is going to be in that white supremacist, right wing extremist, anti-government extremist category that we did see an up tick of left wing violence but it is relatively small compared to the much larger group of threat actors. so when you would raise that to individuals in the white house, national security council or domestic policy council, they

seem to understand that this is a threat. but they felt like we could not make any progress in the limited ways that we could if we talked about it in terms of domestic terrorism. they advised we needed to talk about it in terms of violence prevention. which goes back to the -- to the crux of the problem. he is the chief radicalizer. he is insighting people to violence and then you have various platforms like fox news that take that and russian disinformation and social media being the way it is, it prop you will -- it propagates a completely different set of facts and setting us up for a period of high tension and likely violence over the next two months. >> and alex, you get right at that. you get right to the nut of what are you going to do after election day. did they say anything to you off camera? do you think in their mind they have a threshold, well if joe biden wins 50 states, maybe

we'll fight another day. or are they committed to taking to the streets if trump is defeated? >> well, they are entirely certain that donald trump is going to win in a landslide. which is something you hear trump say. trump has not opened door up to this being a close election. so biden wins a victory and they'll see that at the hard evidence of a rigged election and you heard it from chris hill, the leader of the militia, he's ready to take to the streets. if trump wins they are most assured that the antifa left wing moms are coming to a neighborhood near you so they are ready to be in a defensive posture but even the defensive posture sounds pretty darn aggressive. i don't know if we'll see a american civil war too but i do think that we could see specific local pockets of violence in and around the election because people have gined up by the

president of the united states. >> it is such a tangible public in the light of day evidence of the through line between all of the things that peter and elizabeth are talking about and real people. i assume with families they love, believing these things that are provably false. it is unbelievable state of affairs. alex, congratulations on the show and the interview. thanks for spending some time with us. thank you so much for spending time with us today. whether we come back, with 12 days to good and just hours to go before the final presidential debate, donald trump reaches a new milestone in terms of misinformation. we'll tell you about it when "deadline: white house" returns. [ engine rumbling ] [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right?

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such as high blood pressure,ve pdiabetes, and asthma.s this administration and senate republicans want to overturn laws requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. they're rushing a lifetime appointment to the supreme court to change the law through the courts. 70% of americans want to keep protections for pre-existing conditions in place. tell our leaders in washingtn to stop playing games with our healthcare. when it comes to the quality of our cars: the highest. it's why only 1 in 10 cars we look at qualify to sell on our site. if it's been in a reported accident, we won't sell it. and at our state-of-the-art facilities our ase certified mechanics roll up their sleeves and get to it. inspecting, dialing-in, and fine tuning every single car inside and out,

bringing all of it up to our high standards. by the time we're done, our cars are beyond "certified." they're carvana certified. so whether you have it delivered or pick it up, we do it all so you can rest easy. a final presidential debate is just hours away now. on donald trump's strategy, the a.p. writes this. worried about losing the white house, advisers are urging trump to trade his aggressive demeanor that puts biden more squarely in the spotlight but it is unclear whether the president will listen. and one thing is clear as sure as the sun will rise, the president will lie. he's averaging more than 50 false or misleading claims a day. and there even this caveat. as of august 27th the tally this our data base stood at 22,247

claims in 1,316 days. note the day. when he gave his speech accepting the republican presidential nomination. we've been able to update as of today so already we're eight weeks behind. joining us now, joel payne, host of the here comes the payne podcast and former senior aide to hillary clinton 2016 presidential campaign and msnbc and nbc news contributor sam stein is back. joel, let me start with you. i feel like for the media and both campaigns, expectations games are foolish, but in terms of sort of structural imperatives, donald trump needs to make gains with biden voters. he really needs to pull from biden's vote over to his column and there is nothing that we've heard even in terms of his sort of stunting that plans or strategy that he plans that

suggested that is their strategic frame they are looking at tonight through. >> that is fascinating right, nicolle. does he need to make gains with biden voters but more importantly he needed to have a message. and i think one of the things that we'll look back on is amazement at how donald trump could not figure out a message for his second term. he said a number of opportunities -- to illustrate a message and talk about why he deserved a second four years in the white house and failed at every step. and what he's done is seeded the ground to joe biden where he could take advantage of the jump ball voters in the middle and joe biden could control the conversation, every time the conversation goes off of coronavirus, which we know is the achilles heel for donald trump and he started the day by talking about bringing somebody who will attack hunter biden and by attacking leslie stahl. that is his message going to the debate. so if you are joe biden, you have to feel good you have a

scattered opponent who has no idea what he's going to say tonight. >> i asked a trump adviser today if he could remember the last time donald trump had spent a 24 hour news cycle attacking joe biden and he couldn't remember, couldn't remember. because hunter biden isn't on the ballot last time i checked. so there is scatter shot attacked at hunter biden but they're diluted by a four day smear campaign against tony fauci that started on sunday night with fauci's interview. it didn't abate until wednesday. and then he spent today on 60 minutes, releasing video of a video recorded interview. i'm not sure what the real genius tactic was there. when do you think the trump campaign will turn their focus to the person on the ticket? >> ostensibly tonight he'll go offer biden and that is one-on-one.

and you hit the nail on the head, this is scatter shot but also lacking a sustained attack on the opponent which is bizarre. i think the issue here is more nuance. it is not about winning over middle voters versus the base. back in 2016, trump had a -- you could have hated the guy but he did have a message that was seeped in sort of a populist unorthodox republicanism. he talked about protecting entitlement and how bad trade deals were for the working class and he would protect your wages and fight china and that has a cross partisan appeal. there were democrats in rust belt states that thought this is right. our manufacturing has been hauled out by trade deals and we have to try something new. and trump went after hillary clinton for her trade deals and also for democrats and republicans for doing stuff like that. flash forward four years and it is a complete nonissue for him. even though joe biden has supported many of the same trade deals that hillary clinton supported, he doesn't bring it

up ever. we looked at his facebook advertising, trade is mentioned barely at all. whereas attacks on antifa or the fake news media take a prepo -- preponderance and i mean he's hitting flash points that conservatives love to do and that extends into the week where it is all about the media attacking him, it is about hunter biden and very little of it is about joe biden's record even though that record does have vulnerabilities that trump could pick apart. >> you know, sam, let me follow up with you. i don't think it is a sure thing that he turned to joe biden. le turn to biden but it is not one with a first name joe. who isn't on the ballot. let me just add to your point, because it is an excellent one. i mean, the message that trump won on, he won the republican primary by running as an

anti-war, anti- the two wars in iraq and afghanistan and saw the forgotten man and woman and was going to bring manufacturing back to the united states. he is now the guy who doesn't give a hoot that russians place bound bounties on the heads of -- and done anything to bring back manufacturing jobs and refuses to see the suffering and women in every state in this country who are scared about the pandemic, who are scared about their economic security and who he's now promising to take away obamacare at a time when most people need it most for financial and health reasons. so he is taken away from his 2016 claim on the electorate. what you could do in 12 days to bridge that gap in substance? >> nothing. and this is the issue that people in his orbit have been warning him about.

one, they think he should be sticking with the populous record earlier. he's never gotten back to it. but two, as a policy standpoint, there has been real confusion among people in trump world at large that he didn't get on to this idea of a massive stimulus over the summer. that he punted and punted until now. this is a guy whose never karened at all about deficits and debt. he's willing to spend whatever it takes and wants to doll out goodies to all of his favorite constituencies. the big perplexing question is why suddenly with months to go before the vote donald trump decided that he wasn't going to spend any more. he turned it. he decided he was going to do a big stimulus in the last couple of weeks and then did the prescription drug rebate card but neither of those will get done before the election day and a big what if if they have done this earlier. >> joel, what do you expect tonight? >> well, look, tonight i think

the president advisers have told him he's got to have a different approach than he had two weeks ago. but we know the president loves to ignore good advice. so i think we could expect the president to continue to try to go above and beyond and interrupt joe biden. i think we could expect for joe biden to take advantage of the opportunity to make his closing messages, his paid media campaign is very strong the last few weeks and i think that contrast message in talking about how it is morning in america and are you better off than four years ago than you are now. i think that is a strong closing message and i think that is what joe biden has to do and i think president trump has to counter that. >> two of the best in the business. thank you for spending some time with us. and reminder, msnbc coverage of the final presidential debate begins tonight at 8:00. brian, rachel, joy, and yours truly will all be there. when we come back with cases of coronavirus rising, the trump administration opens a new front

on the war on science. we'll be back with that after a quick break. a quick break.

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the cdc is warning of a distressing trend in coronavirus cases. [ technical difficulties ] over the last two weeks. bringing the total so far to more than 8.4 million cases in this country. tranlicily more than 223,000

americans have been lost. and yet, the trump administration war on science continues. politico reports that health expect alex azar has spent weeks openingly plotting the oustster of stephen hahn because he insisted that it meet stricter than normal safety standards making it impossible for a vaccine before election day. joining our conversation, dr. badelia, the director of the special pathogens unit at boston medical center and associate professor at boston university school of medicine. for the public looking for signs of hope, the vaccine was one of them. but it appears with the secretary who was the boss of the head of the fda, wanting to fire the head of the fda because he wanted to make sure it was vetted and safe, that there is reason for the public to have deep anxiety about the corruption of the whole government scientist, scientific

process. is that reasonable? >> nicolle, i think majority of the anger that you're seeing from the white house against commissioner hahn of the fda is that the fda asked that, you know, we have at least two months of followup for safety f which is still pretty fast compared to traditional vaccine development and testing and a certain amount of data on severe cases. despite that, that guideline, you know, that commissioner stood up for gave us a sense of just a breath of fresh air for those of us in public health and medicine and infectious diseases to say okay, there is some normalcy. we'll see some level of just holding of standards when this vaccine is released, and instead, what you're seeing is continued pressure with a pattern of the white house to try to keep silence scientists. instead of what they should be doing, which is despite this safety regulation, two of the

four candidates that will advance trials will say they will apply for emergency use authorization and have enough data november, december already. they should be taking kudos for that. th this is one of the few things about the response that has worked like light speed. we've done such advances in the ten months since we discovered just the existence of this virus and so, rather than doing that, they're continuing this trend. tonight when americans look to president trump and to judge his response to the pandemic, i want to just give an update on the state of the union when it comes to the pandemic. you talked about the fact 39 of 40 states have seen increasing cases. as you said earlier, these are humans, right? and so about as many states are reporting increases in hospitalizations. 20 states are reporting increase in death rates over the last seven days. and, you know, almost 34 states are reporting test positivity

over 5%. almost five of those are over 20%. we're in dire straights and i can say with utter confidence of having done this now for now over a decade that any other administration would have handled this in a different way and we would be in a different place than we are right now. >> why? why are we in this place we're in now? >> so glad you asked. if we were starting in the winter under any other administration, we would have been worried it's the winter and might see an increase in cases. where we started might have been a better place and the cases would have been lower because the federal government would play a bigger role to ensure states had when they had when they reopened memorial day and be sure the state had a same strategy they were following the same strategy to bring the cases down. the government would have allowed the scientists to speak and there wouldn't be all this controversy about masks and we would have brought the numbers and hospitalizations down over the summer. by this point, looking at this hill that we're about to climb in the winter, we would have had

a health care work force that's been reserved we could have sent wherever we needed it. we could have had a contract tracing work force to send wherever needed to control the size of outbreaks who wouldn't be worrying about personal protective equipment and right now, we're in a situation we're thinking 2021 we might be facing some shortages in some personal protective equipment. none of those things were done and by the way, all those things are interestingly part of the biden pandemic response. that's what should have been and hasn't been done. >> doctor, always great to spend some time with you. thank you so much. when we come back as we do every day, remembering lives well lived. every day, rembeemring lives well lived

for three decades patricia worked overnight in the icu. her daughter said she was an old

school nurse. patricia did whatever it took for the sickest patients and did so with a caring spirit and gentle hand, so it's no surprise she was a saint in her home life, too. she loved her family with everything she had. when one of her five children was diagnosed with breast cancer back in 2018, patricia traveled 100 miles to and from every single chemotherapy treatment. when the pandemic began, she knew she was needed, and so she worked and she worked and she worked until she got sick herself. it was her own icu colleagues who cared for her in her final days. patricia edwards died of the coronavirus at the young age of 62. and for her grieving loved ones, matters got worse. the day after she was buried, patricia's mother died of the coronavirus, too. but what an amazing resilient family. in the time since those tragedies, they sent sup the patricia nurse pat edwards nursing scholarship for college

juniors and seniors who best exemplify what she was about. good care in a caring way. thank you for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. we're grateful. "the beat" with ari melber begins after a quick break. h i r begins after a quick break water tastes like, water. so we fixed it. mio who knows where that button is? i don't have silent. everyone does -- right up here. it happens to all of us. we buy a new home, and we turn into our parents. what i do is help new homeowners overcome this. what is that, an adjustable spanner? good choice, steve. okay, don't forget you're not assisting him. you hired him. if you have nowhere to sit, you have too many. who else reads books about submarines? my dad. yeah. oh, those are -- progressive can't protect you from becoming your parents, but we can protect your home and auto when you bundle with us. look at that.

when you bundle with us. we knew that this was really, really bad. we had ample forewarning. but we did almost no testing, almost no contact tracing. completely ignored the science, completely ignored the warning signs. there were things that could have been done. a lot of people have died needlessly, and there's nothing more frustrating than feeling like you're fighting against someone who should have your back. we are not going to stamp this out unless we have a change of leadership. ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad.

scott wiener immediately went to work, making sure families could put food on their tables, defending renters facing eviction, securing unemployment benefits, helping neighborhood businesses survive. scott wiener will never stop working until california emerges from this crisis. the bay area needs scott's continued leadership in sacramento. because we know scott is fighting for all of us. re-elect scott wiener for state senate.

welcome to "the beat." i'm ari melber 12 days out from election day and one of the most high stakes moments for president trump trailing in many polls, reeling from a health care gaffe and cash crunch and tonight, here we are. the final presidential debate. even more pivotal as donald trump bailed of course on the last one while he was contagious with coronavirus, tonight, the candidates square off in person at this very stage you see right here in nashville with some new rules like a temporary mute button to control trump's rule breaking interruptions from the first debate. and joe biden raised that very