nine days out. i'm ali velshi live in the carolinas, specifically asheville, north carolina, at the beautiful soomnigrove park . this is the seventh stop on our special sunday series, "velshi across america." and like much of the country, demographics are changing. while there are still a lot of white working class voters and about a quarter of population are black, there are growing asian and hispanic populations here, as well. and the cities and the suburbs, one of president trump's campaign trail calling cards have seen influxes as well. asheville, north carolina is similar in a sense. it's like the county is a spec of blue surrounded by a sea of red. and its congressional district has changed several times over the last decade, because of republican gerrymandering. there is currently a heated and expensive contest for the house seat, which was held by mark meadows, before he stepped down to join the white house, between 25-year-old republican madison hawthorne and democrat and retired air force colonel, moe

davis, a former chief prosecutor of terrorism trials at guantanamo bay. both carolinas have very tight and very influential senate races. in the north, democratic challenger cal cunningham was polling well ahead of senator thom tillis for much of the summer, but as election day draws near, the race is essentially deadlocked. in the south, senator lindsey graham has experienced a major change of foreigtunes in recent months, mainly because of his decision to associate so closely with the trump administration's covid-19 response. prior to the pandemic, graham was ahead of his challenger, jamie harrison, by double digits and now the race is a dead heat. the carolinas are extremely important to joe biden. they played a pivotal role in securing the democratic nomination for him and he has a large and loyal following among black voters here. while joe biden is polling ahead of trump by a handful of points in north carolina, it's the exact opposite story in south carolina. perhaps trying to change his fortunes, donald trump held a rally yesterday in lumberton,

north carolina, which by the way was officially billed as a way for trump to present, quote, his vision for native american communities, but rhetorically, was almost identical to the other rallies trump held yesterday and featured almost no remarks at all on native american communities. he also made it known that he couldn't care less about the most pressing public health crisis of our lifetimes, one that's taken the lives of more than 225,000 americans and counting. >> that's all i hear about now. you turn on television, covid, covid, covid. covid, covid, covid, covid. a plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don't talk about it. covid, covid, covid, covid. by the way, on november 4th, you won't hear about it anymore. covid! >> glad he thinks it's funny. you will hear about it for as long as we have to report about it. 225,000 dead americans.

yesterday, mike pence's chief of staff, marc short, was diagnosed with covid-19. nbc news has learned that one of pence's senior political advisers also tested positive. pence, who right now has tested negative, has decided not to quarantine. and covid-19 is cases and hospitalizations are sharply rising here in the carolinas, just like they are in 75% of the country. on friday, north carolina set a record for single-day new cases. one of 16 states to set a new record on friday. 16. meanwhile, trump cast his vote yesterday, taking part in florida's early in-person voting. you may recall that during one of trump's recent visits to north carolina, he urged his followers to break the law and vote twice. yesterday he continued that trend of casting c ining doubt america's elections and democracy. >> it was a very secure vote. much more secure than when you send in a ballot, i can tell you that. everything was strict. right by the rules. when you send in your ballots,

it can never be like, never be secure like that. >> then you see send in ballots, thousands, millions of ballots are being sent in. this is a horrible thing. and to be honest with you, it's the only way we can lose, because i see the crowds. >> biden was also on the trail yesterday, by the way, although he's been doing it in a safe way with social distancing in the form of drive-in and drive-through rallies, complete with honking instead of applause. and speaking of pennsylvania, a pennsylvania county that he and barack obama won, but which switched to trump in the last election, just miles from where he grew up in scranton, that's where we found former vice president joe biden yesterday. he drew major distinctions between himself and president trump. >> remember what donald trump said when covid hit? 200,000 deaths. he said, if you take out the blue states with democratic governors and just look at the red states with republican governors, we're doing quite well. first of all, that's not true. and second, what in the hell

would a president say, i'm not going to do anything for pennsylvania, michigan, or wisconsin, democratic states, i'm only going to help red states. where does this guy come from? look, folks, i don't see the presidency that way. i don't see america that way. this has to change. it will change with me. if elected president, there will be no red states or blue states, only the united states! >> joining me now, congressman jim clyburn of south carolina. he serves as house majority whip and is one of the most influential democrats in the entire region. he's been a major backer of joe biden. he played a pivotal role, some say the pivotal role in the former vice president's south carolina primary win, which projected him as the democratic candidate. he's also the chairman of the house select committee sonnet coronavirus crisis. and congressman, that's where i want to start with you.

as much as i want to talk about politics, we are in a part of the country that is seeing a spike in coronavirus. it is remarkable to see at the president's rallies yesterday, the continuation of this idea that it's not really a real thing. it's a media creation. and the fact that now the vice president has members of his staff who have got coronavirus. he's on his way to north carolina now. he's not quarantining and he's not canceling his trip. this is becoming a battle of, is there something called coronavirus or isn't there in this election? >> well, thank you very much for having me, ali. i think the numbers are there to let us know that we have a very, very critical problem in the country, at the end of this pandemic, and we've had anemic leadership coming from the white house. both with the president and now the vice president. having two of your close associates testing positive and you continuing on the campaign

trail, not doing what the experts say we should do. the experts aren't taking this seriously, and i really believe that our talk early on, leadership issue as leadership does. and what they are doing is a total lack of leadership. and that's why people in the carolinas and all across the south are showing a new attitude towards this administration and towards the biden administration. now, i know the numbers up in north carolina and i'm very pleased with that. you're not showing that good a number here in south carolina yet, and that's simply because the algorithms aren't there yet. but between now and november 3rd, we think we're going to change some attitudes and some emotions. and i won't be a bit surprised to see joe biden win the state and i think jamie harrison is

going to win the senate seat. >> and i'm going to be talking to jamie harrison very, very shortly. congressman clyburn, let me ask you about something you said to "time" magazine this week. you said, this election is much more than whether or not there will be law enforcement reform or a cure for covid or whether we will have the economic development we need to create jobs. none of that will matter if trump is re-elected. if trump is re-elected, it will seal the fortunes of this democracy. it will be no more. there are some people who would say, that's strong language from you, to say that the re-election of donald trump may actually challenge democracy itself in america. >> well, ali, you know, i've studied history all of my life. i used to teach history. i still consult with history on a day-to-day basis. and i know trends when i see them. and i know that when i was coming along back in 1954, we had a 9-0 supreme court decision

against segregation, against second-class citizenship in favor of those of us who suffered that history. today, we have seen the court go now after next week, it's going to be 6-3, against that kind of interests. of we jus had a supreme court 5-3 decision, allowing alabama to discriminate against people who are indigenous, people who want to come to the polls and do curbside voting, as we have been doing forever. so alabama said, we aren't going to have curbside voting. so what kind of insensitivity is that? so when you see that kind of a trend, that's what i think is -- allows me to say what i did. and i feel that very strongly. you go back through history, it's all there. the emancipation proclamation, go tall way back to that.

we thought that things were going well after the emancipation proclamation. and we went into that period of time that you call the reconstruction era. and then all of a sudden, the courts start making decisions, starting in 1872, the supreme court started this ball rolling and then ferguson and all of a sudden, there was 55 years between the eighth black person to serve in congress in and my getting elected. so when i consult history and see how the trends develop, coming out of reconstruction, going through jim crow, i see the same kind of trends now. we've got to arrest this cancer before it spreads. >> congressman, good to see you, adds always. thank you for taking the time to talk to me this morning. jim clyburn is the democrat from south carolina.

he's the majority whip in the house of representatives. turning now to another effort by trump and his followers to suppress the vote, this time right here in north carolina. the trump campaign and north carolina republicans have asked the united states supreme court to black lower court rulings that allow the state to accept and count absentee ballots sent by mail that arrive after election day, but before november the 12th. they argue that extending the deadline would pose an immediate quote to the integrity of the election process. i want to bring in josh stein, north carolina's attorney general. attorney general stein, good to see you. thank you for being with us today. the last numbers i have, according to nbc, is that 2.92 million early votes have been cast in north carolina. 26% of them about a quarter, that is double what would have been the same case in 2016. and my panel, which i'm going to introduce to my viewers in a few minutes, my panel, republicans and democrats across all said the one thing that works in north carolina is voting.

>> absolutely. in fact, the numbers are now 3.1 million, ali. the turnout here in north carolina is unprecedented. and people are excited. and they're having their voice heard. we've had a huge turnout of mail-in votes, about 700,000, but north carolina has traditionally been an early vote state. that's where people like to vote. we have 17 days of it. and the state board of elections this year insisted that every county have early voting on both weekends and have more locations and more hours. the whole thought was, let's have more time for people to vote, so we have fewer crowds and then that way, we can have a safer election. >> but this is ground zero for donald trump's weird stuff about voting. this is the place where he talked about mail-in voting being a bad idea. it's the place where he told people, if you mail in your ballot, make sure grow in person to also vote. this is the anathema. this is the thing that donald trump doesn't want to happen.

>> he has been the greatest source of disinformation in this election. he has said the only way he will lose if this election is stolen from him. that's not how democracy works. that's not how it works in america. if you lose, you don't take to the streets with pitchforks. if you lose, you roll up your sleeves and work hard in the next election. he has also said that mail-in vote is ripe for fraud with absolutely no basis, and having a history with mail-in voting himself. and he has told north carolina voters to violate the laws in two ways. one, he has told people repeatedly to vote twice, which is a felony. and to rush the poll and watch other voters. that is also against the law in north carolina. >> you know, once we get past this election, i think all of us will be thinking about voting and how you it better. you have a great example here in north carolina, in wake county, where there is an app and you

can determine how long it will take you to vote before you go. >> we've done a lot of innovations through this election because of covid. for voting by mail, you can actually put in your vote by mail request form through email. then, you can sign up for a tracking system, where they will text you that they put it in the mail. then when you put it in the mail, you'll get a text that the post office has it. you'll get a test that the board of elections have it. and that it was counted. and so you don't have to worry, did my ballot make it or not? and similarly for the early vote sites now, there's something like 20 here in wake county, you can go online and see which one closest to you has the shortest line, almost like being at checkout where you can see what the wait time is at the various checkout lines to get in the shortest line. and all of this is about trying to make it safe and easy for voters, even when we're in a pandemic. >> attorney general josh stein, good to see you. josh stein is the attorney general of north carolina. well, there is a toxic atmosphere inside the centers

for disease control in atlanta, all thanks to the trump administration. that's according to new reporting from nbc news. we're going to dig into that in a moment. but first, yesterday, i held a socially distant conversation with a diverse group of voters here in asheville, and with just nine days left to cast a ballot, here's their message to americans who are considering not voting. >> you need to vote. it is your choice who you vote for, but you have to vote. it is very important to me, because my ancestors went through a lot in order to have the right to vote. not even to vote, to have the right vote. >> it's so very important. and i think for me personally, susan b. anthony did not strut around in that ugly, frumpy dress for me to not vote. >> voting is something that you should want to do. yes, you have the right. yes, culturally, you may have the responsibility for your people and people like you, but voting is something that you have to take a personal interest in. you should vote for things that you care about. this is your time to show your

passion and how you want to change your society. >> regardless of whether or not, you know, you like -- you know, your candidate wins or not, at least you have a stake in it. and if you don't vote, then you cannot complain one way or the other. >> with the system that america has, the freedoms that america has, please exercise your right to vote, because your livelihood depends on it. vote, because yod depends on it. [ thunder rumbles ] [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain.

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if somebody is terminally ill with cancer, and they have covid, we report them. and you know, doctors get more money skmoand hospitals get mor money. think of this incentive. so some countries do it differently. if somebody is very sick with a die heart, they die of covid, they don't get reported as covid. so then you wonder, gee, i wonder why their cases are so low. >> there's a lot of nonsense to unpack there. that, of course, was president trump at a rally last night in wisconsin, continuing to neglect reality and spout conspiracy theories about covid-19. this comes alongside a brand-new and an alarming report from nbc news this morning that four current and two former staffers of the centers for disease control reporting that months of

political pressure from the trump white house about covid has cratered moral at the cdc and turned the atmosphere toxic. one source went as far as to learn that the election could be a tipping point for a max exodus if president donald trump wins. the house is not only on fire, said a veteran cdc fire, we're standing in the ashes. now, that's not the kind of news you want to be hearing from inside the cdc in the middle of a deadly pandemic that is spiking around the country. and more worrisome, still, the chief complaint seems to be that career health officials, not the political people, career health officials are being overruled by political appointees, which could come to you as no surprise, because the president has clearly staked his re-election on somehow convincing americans that this disease that is actually killing hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, in this case, hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens every single day is somehow just not a big deal. >> we have a donald trump who walks around and says, oh, we're turning the corner on this.

he just said that this week. the nerve for him to think the american people aren't smart enough to see what's going on in their own families and neighborhoods, much less than what's going on in the country. >> here's what's going on in the country. on friday, there were more than 80,000 new cases of covid-19 in the united states. 80,000. that's the highest daily number of infections since the world health organization declared the pandemic on march 11th. joining me now, dr. gisele korby smith with the north carolina school of medicine. she is also the director of the unc center for health equity research. doctor, thank you for joining me. i want to just tell you something that the president said last night. he said that doctors get more money if they say a patient with cancer or heart problems died of covid. now, thank god i've got my health, but if i had cancer or heart disease and went outside and got hit by a car, i would

die as a result of the car accident. the fact that i had cancer was not the cause of death. and that is the same thing with covid-19. if you've got heart problems or you've got cancer, but you died of covid-19, you actually died of covid-19. >> i mean, that is the case. my concern with these kinds of comments and the misinformation that we have out there is the way it's undermining trust in science and our health care systems, at the very time where we need our people and our communi communities to have accurate information and ways to protect themselves. >> but it doesn't happen -- and i'm sure you experienced this as much as i do, there are people for political reasons support donald trump, whatever their reasons for doing so are, and they start to believe this stuff. i've had people tell me that the problem with covid is there was one political party trying to shut this country down and donald trump wants to reopen it.

the debate over the public health side, the debate that you are in. the things that you and your colleagues speak about every day, as we see at the cdc, is being sidelined for political reasons. >> yeah, that's the tragedy in this pandemic, is how it's been politicized. the reality is, we know what works. we know washing your hands, wearing a mask, and social distancing works. and those the things we need to be focusing on in terms of prevention. it's a distraction, unfortunately, the politicization. and health care providers, public health officials, our patients, our communities, we're all starting to get pandemic fatigue. but the reality is, we need to keep doing what we know works. >> and i think this is important, what you said. the president said all the media talks about is covid, covid, covid, and they'll stop talking about it after november 3rd. we guarantee we will not stop talking about it after november 3rd. but this would be an interesting time to get covid fatigue, when

we are seeing a record number of new infections daily. a spike in three quarters of the country, including here in the criminals, where we are. in excess of somewhere close to 1,000 deaths a day. we may be in the middle of h thing when most people would have thought several weeks ago that we were closer to the end. >> yeah. this is, you know, some would say this is our third wave now and just at the moment where we're all starting to be wary of the kinds of things that we need to do for protection, we're seeing this uptick. and likely, and much earlier than we think we would have thought. so this is actually quite worrisome. but these are the things that we need to do. it's -- this is what we as american people can do to protect ourselves, to protect our families, to protect our communities, and to protect each other. we need to wear masks, we need to wash our hands, and we need the social distancing. there's relatively simple things, but it allows the rest of us as health care

professionals and public health officials to focus on the places that -- where we need to be focused on. and yeah, as we go into the winter months, it's likely that we'll continue to see this increase. and we're certainly seeing it in north carolina. >> well, thank you to you, doctor, and to all of those like you across the country. to health care responders and epidemiologists and people working on cures and vaccines for us, we are grateful to you. dr. gisele korby smith is the director for the u.n. center of health equity research. a whopping 2.9 -- actually, the attorney general just told me 3 million people have cast their votes in north carolina. that's the fourth highest count in the country right now, but some groups are finding it more difficult to vote than others. that's next on "velshi across america." 's next on "velshi acr america.

we live in uncertain times. however, there is one thing you can be certain of. the men and woman of the united states postal service. we are here to deliver your cards, packages and prescriptions. and also deliver the peace of mind knowing that what's important to you-like your ballot-is on its way. every day, all across america, we deliver for you. and we always will.

early voting is underway across the country. americans are coming out in droefs droves to exercise one of their most important rights, it may be the most important election of our lifetime. however, in 2020, americans of color are finding the process has become more difficult for them. a series of rulings across several states including rampant misinformation about voting has led to growing concern over the disenfranchisement of vulnerable groups and that's exactly what voters are facing here in north carolina. over the last two months, a number of casing regarding election rules have ended up in the courts all in an effort to make voting easier across the states. however, pushback from some conservative judges is making things more difficult. here with me to discuss this further is the executive director of vote black pac,

adrian shrapshire. her group announcing the first ever votes in democratic states like north carolina. also with me, blair kelly, associate professor of history. welcome to both of you. thank you for being with us. blair, let me just talk to you. i was talking to the attorney general a few minutes ago. and there are two issues with voting. one of them, north carolina actually gets fairly right. the early voting, the technology around voting, the encouragement of people to vote by mail and track their ballots. the other problem is that voter suppression stuff. particularly as it relates to african-americans that we see across the country, but the south is a real center for that activity. and that still happens in north carolina. >> absolutely. i'm glad to join you to talk about this important subject. you know, i'm an historian. and we think about african-americans and the vote, we have to remember the challenges we've had historically. and that this kind of suppression that we see, the

efforts to make things a little bit more difficult for those who don't have access to vehicles or who work long hours or odd hours, those kind of suppression tactics connect back and harken back to a history we don't want to go back to. we don't want to go back to disfranchisement. we don't want to go back to hindering african-americans from the vote. we don't want to go back from making it difficult for working class people to have access to this. we want the whole country to participate. we want citizens of every background to have a say in what happens in our country. that's what our goal as a democracy should be. so when we see things that make it harder, when we see things that make it confusing, when we see things that make it difficult for people to understand exactly how they might cast their vote, that's a bad sign. but i'm hopeful that north carolina is ready for this fight. they've been trying to make access to the polls really

available. early voting has been protected. so i'm quite hopeful this vote will be representative. >> adrian, we've been looking at photos across the country, early voting started in new york yesterday. and long lineups. and the things that people tweet about it are so celebratory. this is democracy in action. but actually, to what blair just said, for a lot of people, whether they're african-americans or otherwise, who are wage earners and hourly workers, most people's bosses don't give them 10 or 11 hours to go stand in a line to vote. and they might be worried that they'll stand in a line and won't get to vote. when they see these lines, that may be a discouragement in skof itself. what do you say to those people, it may not get better in the next nine days. maybe we'll make it better for the next election. >> good morning, ali. i think that one of the things that we're seeing across the country, obviously, and this is to your point, is just huge surges in voting. we've also seen big surges in

the number of people who have taken advantage of voting by mail this cycle. and so, i think that while the backlash we're seeing in many ways in the attempts to suppress the vote and to, you know, deny people access. and frankly, to confuse people. so when we look at all of the legal positioning that's happening, that also serves in many ways to just confuse voters. for us in north carolina, for example, we've also known that we could expect a number of folks whose early vote ballots have been rejected. and we know that we see african-american ballots being rejected at higher rates. we can anticipate that and we did anticipate that, as many have around the country and have put in place the infrastructure to be able to make sure that we can reach out to and contact voters to make sure that they

know that they can actually fix their ballots in many cases. and in cases where they can't, that they still have an opportunity to go and vote online and not feel like a rejection of their ballot means that they are being denied the franchise. we have been in north carolina working with the league of conservation voters to actually call of the voters whose ballots have for some reason have been rejected, either because they were missing information from a witness or any number of other reasons. we're calling every one of those voters to make sure that their vote is cast and counted. we're sending canvassers to their make sure that they have the information that they need. and we're encouraging people to show up. if they don't want to fix their ballot or cure their ballot, as it's called, they can go and vote in person, particularly during this early vote period, which is so important to have access at different locations and as the attorney general was saying, to be able to give

people an opportunity to go when lines aren't so long. >> blair, you've written so much about the african-american experience and racism. and so many things, including jim crow laws and pre-civil rights stuff, they were blunt instruments, right, whether they were street cars or separate entrances or things like that. the voting is the one thing that has persisted. and do you think it is becoming more evident to african-americans that these remnants of poll taxes and questions and things like that, this is what you are seeing. you are now seeing the remnants. and a complete political party that seems to be hell-bent on disenfranchising some voters, including african-americans. >> it makes sense, because when african-americans are together and focused and focused on their rights, they make change, they make movement. they make things happen in this country. so it's understandable that those who would seek to stunt

their voices would go back to these old tactics. it's important for us to learn from this history and continue to contest it. and know that the things that were happening in the 1800s and the early turn of the 20th century, that time period doesn't have to come back. we have the backing of amazing organizations. we have technology. we have awareness and so we should pour into those spaces to make sure that those who want to be heard can be heard. and that people know their rights. we don't have to go back to this time period. we have so much more at our disposal in terms of nationwide sport, that so many african-americans didn't have in this earlier time period. they were really alone in fighting those battles. so i think it's so important that we seek it out, we continue to try to vote either in person or correct a ballot by mail. those who want to vote should be

heard. >> what a great message. that nobody is alone in your efforts to get your vote and your voice heard. thank you to both of you. adrian is the executive director of black pac. blair kelly is the assistant dean and associate professor of history at north carolina state university. thanks to both of you. coming up next, my wide-ranging discussion with north carolina voters. who they're voting for and why and how much the covid-19 pandemic has affected their decision. id-19 pandemic has affected their decision frustrated that clothes come out of the dryer wrinkled? next time try bounce wrinkle guard dryer sheets. the world's first mega sheet with 3x more wrinkle relaxers. look at the difference of these two shirts... the wrinkle guard shirt has less wrinkles and static, and more softness and freshness.

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i'm here in beautiful north carolina and i thought it was going to be about 10 degrees colder than it was, so i brought my jacket, that actually would have worked well with this backdrop, so it's too hot for the jacket and i didn't plan the right shirt. so i apologize that i'm blending into the background. but i'm in a beautiful place. this is the seventh stop in "velshi across america." i'm at the omnigrove park in. it's a beautiful, beautiful property. some guys playing golf over there. hopefully i don't get dinged in the head.

b trump did win the entire state of north carolina in 2016, and to get a more accurate depiction of how north carolina voters are feeling about this race, yesterday i held the seventh of my socially distant conversations at pack square park in downtown asheville, with a diverse group of locals. we had three registered democrats, two republicans, and one independent. we spoke for over an hour and covered a wide range of topics, but i started the conversation with asking them who they plan to vote for or have already voted for and why. listen to what they told me. >> i'm voting for joe biden. and i'm voting for him because my primary concern, and there are others, but my primary concern is covid-19. the numbers of people who are infected and who have died is to me outrageous. you know, 8 million people who are infected and 225,000 people who have died and the leadership

that we needed to lower that number some has not taken place. and so first of all, that's the main reason why i'm voting for him. and i think it's stifled the rest of our government. >> i'm voting for donald trump. why? because i feel that, you know, i put politics of he said/she said aside. i take personalities out of the equation. i look at policy. and for me, as a business owner, the best policies are on the conservative side that reflects me as a business owner, as an immigrant who has worked all my life and i want to, you know -- i want to enjoy the fruits of our labors. >> i voted already for joe biden, okay? one thing, he has character, okay? he knows what empathy is. he knows what compassion is. something that the current resident in the white house doesn't have. i -- he's a regular guy. he's like the tom hanks of

politicians. okay? i'm old class. i grew up in a steel town. i was in the navy. i worked for the federal government and also the school system. he knows people like me. the current resident of the white house doesn't. and this is so important. i can't stand the way he -- that the current resident of the white house denigrates the military. i have two uncles killed in world war ii, one killed in the. i have 21 years of service and i am not a loser or a sucker. >> i am voting for joe biden because i think it is unequivocally important to have conversations with people about life issues. when i get home from work or school, there are two neighbors who live across the street and i love getting out of my car and saying, hey, how are you guys

doing. and i think over the last four years, it has become more difficult to do that. to say if those neighbors thattthat i talk to had a donald trump flag in front of their house, i wouldn't be able to do that. i like to have conversations with my neighbors about how their life is going, because they have a different view. and i think that view is very important in terms of how our nation is run. >> tell me how that connects to your vote. do you think your lack of ability to have cordial discussions is tied to donald trump? >> i think it has become more difficult and more polarized, because donald trump creates an sphere of you either agree with me or you're wrong or you're stupid or you are a bad person. and i think we have to have political disagreements. we have to have conversations with people who don't have the same opinions as us, because that's how a good industry, a good institution is run. >> i have already cast my vote for president donald trump. and i am really excited about

it. i think that the way that donald trump turned our economy around after eight really terrible years is huge. i think we had one of the best economies in the world. obviously, covid-19 stopped it. and things came to a halt. i work in the events industry, planning weddings, parties, you know, all the fun things that make life so enjoyable. and to watch everything come to halt and to have lost my job, you know, that's devastating to me. so i'm really looking forward to donald trump opening our economy back up and watching it thrive. >> i have voted for joe biden. i am a child care voter. that is very important to me, because if parents are unable to get affordable and quality child care, they cannot work. therefore, our economy cannot move forward. and the covid-19 issue. i feel that the leaders should bring all of us together. not really leading one red state

or blue state, but to lead us all. and i feel that joe biden can do that. whether you voted for him or not, i feel that if he gets the position and he becomes the president of the united states, that he will be the president for all of us. and not for some. >> i so love these conversations with voters across the country. we're going to have more of my conversation with those north carolina voters in our next hour, particularly their feelings about covid-19 and what type of leadership is needed to fix it. coming up next, president trump made an embarrassment out of this country when he implemented a policy that separated migrant children from their parents at the southern bord border. trump has yet to show any remorse or take any responsibility and now pope francis is weighing in. stick around. stick around this week on "the upper hands"...

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soon you'll see the sun coming up behind me. in a documentary last week that was released last week, pope francis said that president trump's policy of separating migrant children from their parents was, quote, cruelty in its highest form. and that's exactly what it was.

it was a policy that was deliberate, haphazard, and cruelty was really the point of it. the president has failed to show any remorse, after it was revealed this week that 545 children separated from their parents have not been reunited with their families. >> children are brought here by coyotes and lots of bad people, cartels, and they're brought here and they used to use them to get into our country. we now have as strong a border as we've ever had. we're over 400 miles of brand-new wall. they are so well taken care of. they're in facilities that were so clean. >> just to be clear, the children weren't brought in by coyotes or smugglers. they were brought in by their parents. they were separated from their parents. trump continues to defend this awful policy. he says his administration is, quote, working very hard, end quote, to reunite migrant parents with their children. but according to nbc news reporting, quote, advocacy

groups say since a federal judge ordered that the families be found more than 18 months ago, the task has largely fallen to them. the probono group says that the trump administration is only now offering assistance because of the backlash, end quote. those images of kids in cages have left a permanent strain on this country. the president makes the argument that he didn't build the cages, obama did. and that is true. but there is some context here. those cages were built back in 2014 to make up for a lack of detention centers during a surge of central american migrants fleeing violence and poverty. the cages were never used by the obama administration to separate children from their mothers and fathers. and make no mistake, it was the trump white house that took those cages and used them to enforce a sinister zero-tolerance policy. at the debate on thursday, joe biden did something donald trump has never done. he was admitting that mistakes were made by the obama administration in its failure to deliver immigration reform.

>> it took too long to get it right. it took too long to get it right. let's talk about what we're talking about. what happened? parents -- their kids were ripped from their arms and separated. and now they cannot find over 500 sets of those parents and those kids are alone. nowhere to go. nowhere to go. it's criminal. >> and let's just be clear, after the election, we're going to have a good conversation about immigration, both parties have gotten it wrong. one party has used cruelty as the point. my colleague, jacob soboroff, spoke to a young migrant boy who's still separated from his father. when you're voting this week and next week, i want you to take this with you to the ballot box or to the mailbox or however you might be voting. >> you have a birthday coming up? >> yeah. >> how old are you going to be? >> nine. >> what do you think you're going to get or what do you want to get, buddy? >> my dad. >> you want to get your dad for

your birthday. that would be a nice present, huh, bud? >> yeah. >> what do you want for your birthday? my dad. remember that little boy. remember how you feel when you hear that. image if that were your child. remember humanity. your family and basic decency at the ballot. we've got more show from asheville, north carolina, next. i'll speak to jamie harrison, the man trying to unseat senator linds lindsey graham in south carolina. karine jean-pierre is kamala harris's campaign chief of staff and biden's senior adviser as we head into the final stretch of the election. o the final stretcf the election (vo) 5g just got real. iphone 12 and iphone 12 pro are here on verizon 5g. this new iphone plus verizon 5g... game changer. (vo) with the coverage of 5g nationwide and in more and more cities, the performance of 5g ultra wideband, the fastest 5g in the world. whoa. i downloaded a whole movie

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good morning. it is sunday, october 25th. i'm ali velshi joining you live this morning from asheville, north carolina, at the beautiful omni grove park in. this is the seventh stop on our special sunday series, "velshi across america." over the last two months, i have traveled to battleground states to ask you, the voter, about how you're deciding who will be our next commander in chief. we're now nine days away from perhaps the most sequential election in our lifetimes. tens of millions have already cast their votes while others have waited in long lines like this. this is yesterday in new york city, by the way. all to do their part, your