we're not traveling, we're not putting on super spreaders. we are doing what we're doing here. everybody heroes wearing everybody's wearing a mask and trying the best we can to be socially distanced and you have attended a number of press conferences, as well. it's important to be responsible. >> mr. vice president, when you look at how long -- does that mean you're open to -- >> no, there is a question about whether or not -- it's a lifetime appointment. i'm not going to attempt to change that at all. there's some literature, among constitutional scholars about the possibility of going from one court to another court, not just always staying the whole time on the spreeupreme court. but i have made no judgment, my word, i have made no judgment, just a group of serious constitutional scholars, have a number of ideas how we should proceed from this point on, and that's what we're going to be doing. i'm going to give them 180 days,

god willing if i'm elected from the time i'm sworn in to make such a recommendation. >> mr. biden, planning an event outside -- an outdoor event at the white house tonight to celebrate the anticipated confirmation. >> look, you know, if you have children, and you're raised, all parents are taught that the example you set impacts how your kids react. when you're a boss of an operation, the example you set, what you do matters to the rest of the company. well, the words of a president and the actions of the president, they matter. they matter a great deal. and when the president of the united states puts on these

super spreader events, you saw what happened when she was announced, all of the people, including his family, thank god they seem to be okay, all the people came down with covid. i just hope he is willing to have learned a lesson and there will be significant social distancing. i don't blame him for celebrating. there's a lot of things we could be doing having massive crowds, but the fact is that it's just not appropriate now. and so i just hope he and the vice president and others act with some dispatch and do it so everybody knows. people should be tested first, before they even show up, number one. number two, they should be wearing masks. number three, they should be socially distanced and number four, it shouldn't be a huge crowd. whether it's outside or not. thank you all very very much. appreciate it. >> hi, everyone, it's just after

4:00 p.m. in the east. this is where we are. the vice presidential nominee pleading with the sitting president to follow the cdc guidelines to not infect his guests at a white house event as he has done in the past. forceful remarks there just now from the vice president on donald trump's seeming abdication of any responsibility at this point in the pandemic. biden says donald trump has failed to protect the american people from the disease, and to protect them from death. joe biden saying donald trump has failed to mitigate the economic disaster that has ensued, his comments coming in an unscheduled appearance just moments ago in pennsylvania as coronavirus cases surge across the united states, including deep and high inside the executive branch. joe biden's criticisms follow an acknowledgment by the white house this weekend of an inconvenient and in hindsight obvious truth. donald trump is no longer trying

to contain the spread of the virus, and all of the death and financial despair it's caused. trump has made clear that the plan all along was to intentionally lie about its dangers, telling bob woodward last spring that covid is deadly, but letting woodward in on the dirty little secret that trump's plan was to down play the threat. now that whispered confession becomes the official white house position eight days to go before the election. >> we're not going to control the pandemic. we are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation. >> why aren't we going to get control of the pandemic? >> because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu. >> why not make efforts to contain it? >> we are making efforts to contain it. >> by running all over the country without a mask. that's what vice president is doing. >> speaking of the vice president, he should right now at this hour be under quarantine after his most senior west wing

staffer and his most senior campaign adviser plus three others tested positive for covid. in an act of public health negligence that doubles as a symptom of political desperation, pence is hitting the campaign trail and hard. from the "washington post," pence told aides that he was determined to keep up his appearances through the week despite his potential exposure, irrespective of guidelines, officials said. some aides said they would have preferred telerallies because if the vice president is infected while on the road in the final days of the campaign, it is likely to become a major news story for several days. the reckless disregard for the health and well being of the pilots who fly pence, the secret service agents who protect pence, and the supporters who show up to greet the vice president likely another gut punch to health officials who woke up today to these headlines, "the washington post" reported, new wave of coronavirus cases is straining hospital resources. the salt lake tribune wrote

this. utah hospitals prepare to ration care as a record number of coronavirus patients flood their icus. a county judge in el paso says icus in his city reached 100% capacity this weekend. but in response, trump today tweeted that the spike across the country is little more than immediate conspiracy, and when asked this morning whether he's given up on coronavirus, he repeated a false claim that we're rounding the corner in the u.s. >> have you given up on controlling the virus? >> not at all. quite the opposite. absolutely the opposite. we have done an incredible job, absolutely rounding the corner, other than the fake news wants to scare people, we are absolutely rounding the corner. >> the country's pandemic pain amid the president and vice president's abdication of any role in protecting the american people is where we start today with some of our most favorite reporters and friends.

claire mccaskill, msnbc medical contributor, and "washington post" white house bureau chief phil rucker. you have had an extraordinary body of reporting on this moment in the trump presidency in the post this weekend. i want to start with the outbreak in the vice president's office. why isn't the vice president quarantining the way any of the four of us would be expected to do if someone as close as his chief of staff or his body man, you can explain what a body man is, tested positive? >> yeah, so nicole, as of now, there are at least five members of pence's circle, close circle, who have tested positive for the coronavirus, including his chief of staff, his top political adviser, his personal aide, known as a body man. that is somebody who literally spends all day at the vice president's side accompanying him wherever he goes. also among the infected. the vice president spokesman explained over the weekend that both pence and his wife karen

pence have tested negative on saturday, again on sunday, again negative. today, on monday, and in consultation with white house doctors, it's going to be continuing his travel schedule. they have cited cdc guidelines for people who are considered essential workers. however, there's a great deal of question about whether campaigning for a political election is considered essential work. that's a term normally applied to doctors, nurses, firefighters, the sort of people we traditionally think of as essential workers. the cdc says if you are an essential worker who may have had risk of exposure to the coronavirus, you should be wearing a mask at all times, and you should be socially distanced whenever possible. those are things we have not seen the vice president do. there is virtually no social distancing at the white house or aboard the president of the vice president's plane. we very rarely see the vice president wear a mask. same with his staff, same with

the president, same with other west wing officials and so we'll have to see how this continues, but he, according to our reporting, has been determined to keep up his campaign schedule. partly as a show of strength, partly because the election is near, and you got to assume it's also partly because he knows what the president, what donald trump would think if he were to stay at home because of fears of getting sick. >> well, phil, i don't think anyone minds if vice president pence works to procure tests for states that are surging or protopr procure ppe for hospitals in need. why does he have to hold thousands of people at rallies. tom bossert who once worked for pence and trump said this about the rallies, given the case totals in the u.s. if you have a gathering of a thousand people or more, the odds are almost 100% that at least one person in attendance is infectious. when pence looks out at whomever shows up to greet him, wherever he is, most of the places where

they're going, most of the battleground states are experiencing surges. according to his homeland security adviser, there are covid positive people out there. mr. short seems like a more intelligence person than some of the other folks in this lot. do they not feel any shame or guilt about potentially exposing the people who fly air force 2 or the people who bring them foods on the planes or the volunteers that drive motorcades in these states, they don't feel any obligation to protect any of those people from their covid infections? >> they evidently don't, nicole, think that's enough to change his schedule of campaigning. he's determined to stay out campaigning. it's worth to point out because you brought him up, mark short, along with mark meadows, white house chief of staff, have been two of the most skeptical officials in the administration when it comes to coronavirus restrictions. they have been advocating for the country to open up fully for

some and have been quite derisive privately about the restrictions in the cdc guidelines. >> i wish him that speedy recovery but i think that's an incredible reckless mindset. i want to ask you, dr. roy, to take us through what exactly is going on in this country. i mean, how did we, and for anyone that was blissfully checked out or picking apples or carving pumpkin over the weekend, this country broke records and not good ones over the weekend for new cases. what's going on in this country and why? >> it's good to see you, it's not going well to be honest, every state is moving in the wrong direction. here in new york, nicole, i oversee medical services in covid isolation, and quarantine sites at new york city and new york state is working aggressively to contain the virus. this is unfortunately not happening in every state in this country, which is why you're seeing a rise in cases and

hospitalizations, and sadly, to be followed by deaths. to follow up on a tweet that you showed by the president indicating that on november 4th, this is suddenly all going to go away, implying or suggesting yet again that the doctors and the medical community are somehow making this a bigger deal than it really is. that's another example of where the current administration is really, for some reason, forging an attack on the medical community. i just invite the president, the vice president and all of their enablers to come visit any one of our hospitals and meet with the nurses and respiratory therapists and icu doctors who are intubating patients who are providing medications, sustain the lives of people who are infected with covid-19. that's the reality, nicole. >> you know, claire, i don't mean to single out mr. short but having once been a senior white house staffer, my disgust knows

no boundaries, when you're a senior staffers, you have two responsibilities, one to not become the story, and two, to help your boss help themselves. i think i quoted jerry maguire a couple of weeks ago, his job was to help pence help the american people get better, and now that he's a walking petri dish, potentially spreading coronavirus to people that may not be as safe and young and ve viral as they all think they are, they are weapons. they have weaponized themselves as super spreaders of this disease again, and i guess i don't know any way to process their recklessness. what do you make of this mindset that they have now taken public eight days before election day? >> well, it's really weird politically because if you think about this, first of all -- >> that's a good point. >> i mean, he was head of the coronavirus task force. so first we know they tried to hide the fact that five people,

including his body man who's with him all the time, and his chief of staff tested positive. then he wants to tell people that him going to large rallies is essential, and that's crazy on three or four different levels, and the weird thing is the voters he needs are college educated suburban women and older voters. so they're looking at this going, what? you were just exposed, you found out today, and you're getting in a plane and coming down and having a lot of people gather close together? i mean, every single one of these rallies is a campaign poster for joe biden. what do they think they're getting with these rallies? are they getting -- the people who are coming there are already voting for them. they're not attracting undecided voters or voters that are on the middle. it being all over the tv tells older people they don't give a you know what about whether they live or die. and i'll tell you democratic

sfar sfa senators are angry. pence is planning oncoming over to the senate tonight. he's not essential. it's a party line vote. she's going to get confirmed, but he wants to be there for the photo op. really? you have all of these people who work in the senate that are going to come in contact with him. it is just unbelievable how politically stupid this is. >> i just watched borat and i had this image of pence kissing everybody on two cheeks tonight. i'm going to try to get rid of it to get through the next two hours. here's how biden is making the points, claire, the statement about the meadows clip that i showed at the top, that says we're not trying to contain the coronavirus, we're working on therapeutics. so this was biden's statement, and we showed some of his reaction today which was even more fiery, but i think this is an important point, the point rachel maddow has been making for weeks. this was not a slip by meadows, it was a candid acknowledgment

of what president trump's strategy has been since the beginning of the crisis, wave the white flag of defeat and hoping by ignoring it the virus would go away. it wasn't and it won't. the final eight days of the campaign, there's a lot of hyperbole and political speech, this is demonstrably, and provably the fact. in fact, they seem to be trying to do the opposite of containing it. they seem to be trying to spread it. >> that's exactly it. and it's visual evidence, every time you turn on the tv. and by the way, they are forcing these people into small areas, so it looks crowded. they could socially distance at these events they're doing, because they're on big, huge, open spaces. they are kcorralling these people. look how they corral them in with open spaces behind them, so when you get the close-in camera shot, it looks like oh, my gosh, there's millions of people

there. they don't care whether these people live or die. they just care about the shot because he actually believes that showing these deadly events on television as this deadly disease surges again somehow helps him with the older voters that are fleeing to joe biden in big numbers. >> i want to come back to where the race stands. i want to come back on the picture to dr. lippy roy. joe biden listed off numbers, i think they're from the washington models that we are on track, on our current trajectory to lose 200,000 more americans by the end of the year. i know the former fda commissioner has proposed in the "wall street journal," of all places, a mask mandate, writing this: winter is coming, time for a mask mandate. do you think that should the person in charge of the executive branch change that a

case can be made and that we can get off that trajectory of losing twice as many americans as we've already lost to date? >> yeah, you're right, nicole. several models are predicting about 400,000 deaths by january, february, and the reason for that is because cold weather is coming. winter is coming. and colder climates will drive more people indoors. right now, we're getting away with being outdoors a lot and being able to keep that distance. but that's the concern. but the good news, nicole, is that if we really do practice these public health measures, the only two that we have, which is wearing the masks and the physical distancing, we can actually save lives. here's the thing, masks need to be mandating. we've had multiple public health measures that have been mandated in the past, seat belts, bike helmet, childhood vaccination, multiple examples. we just have to do it. in response to mark meadows comment about focusing on treatments, just a reminder,

medicines save 1% of the time, public health saves millions at a time. that's classic downstream thinking by mr. mark meadows, focusing on medications, and treatment and therapies, rather than more upstream thinking, focusing on prevention, harm reduction, child care, education, housing, all upstream thinking, and it's all -- all of these factors impact health, nicole. >> i want to ask you, phil rucker, i'm always pulling together these massive threads into whatever the braid is that we're all swinging on from any looney day in the trump era, but i want to ask you, and i guess we're understanding that mike pence at this point isn't planning to make that trip up to the senate. it might have been claire's scolding, but it might just be the political reality that they don't need the votes. here's what biden just said in terms of his thinking of where the race stands, we're going to win michigan, we're going to win

wisconsin, we're going to win minnesota, and we have a fighting chance in ohio, north carolina, georgia, and iowa. what does that list look like, the we're going to win, fill in the blank, and the fighting chance, fill in the blank, for the trump side today if they're on truth serum. >> well, the trump side feels confident about the states where biden just said he has a fighting chance, so north carolina, georgia, iowa, ohio, there's really no path for trump to relativistically get to 270 electoral votes without holding those states. the one biden didn't mention is florida, hotly contested between both candidates and pennsylvania really at this point seeps to be ground zero for this campaign. trump is there today. biden is there today. we expect both candidates to be back there between now and election day, and there are a lot of votes, and it's very much up for grabs. the public polling indicates that biden has an advantage there, but not as great of an advantage as he is showing in

michigan and wisconsin. trump thinks if he can pick off pennsylvania, hold florida, hold those other states, then he would have a path to the electoral college win, even though it's widely assumed that trump is going to lose the popular vote. >> unbelievable state of play, dr. lippy roy, phil rucker, thank you. eight days to go. the early vote numbers in some cities have surpassed those of four years ago, leading to turn out projections that could defy expectations. also ahead, trump pulling back the curtain on his revenge list of planned firings of national security and law enforcement officials at the same time that the "washington post" reports no one has benefitted more from trump's presidency than one vladimir putin. and peggy noonan once a trail blazer in her own rite, takes on the trail blazer on the

democratic ticket, the politics of laughing while female, all those stories, coming up. s of laughing while female, all those stories, coming up 133 million americans have pre-existing conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and asthma. 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. [ engine rumbling ] ♪ [ beeping ] [ engine revs ] ♪ uh, you know there's a 30-minute limit, right? tell that to the rain. [ beeping ]

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or call 1-877-866-8555. biden in numbers that cannot be ignored. because right now, folks who know they cannot win fair and square at the ballot box are doing everything they can to stop us from voting. we've got to show up with the same level of passion and hope for joe biden. we've got to vote early, in person if we can. we have got to grab our comfortable shoes, put on our

masks, pack a brown bag dinner and maybe breakfast, too. because we've got to be willing to stand in line all night if we have to. >> it has been two months since former first lady michelle obama delivered that speech and people still appear to be doing as she suggested. from coast to coast, people lining up to cast their ballots in some places, waiting hours and hours on end, to exercise their right to vote. some people taking the long way in stride, this video of a group of voters in philadelphia, doing the cha cha slide in line has gone viral, according to data from nbc news, and target smart, quote with eight days to go until election day, 58 million voters have cast early ballot, surpassing the total number in 2016 by more than 8 million, and the nbc news decision desk projects a number of early voters could hit 90 to 100 million before election day, november 3rd. it's roughly twice the 50

million who did so in 2016. one of the big surprises has been texas where as of sunday, nearly 7.4 million people have voted early. that's nearly 80% of the total number of texans who voted at all in the 2016 election. democratic activists say the high turnout could help flip texas from red to blue for the first time decades. >> reporter: for these voters to overcome this level of suppression is the story of 2020 in my opinion, what we would love to see is more help from the top of the ticket come down to texas to meet these voters where they are, and continue this incredible turnout, a state that went from 50th in voter turn out to first, and could put biden over top on november 3rd. >> that fact beto o'rourke. he knows of what he speaks. he's been on the ground every single day. joining us now for this discussion, tim o'brien, senior columnist for bloomberg opinion, and basil michael, former democratic director of the new

york state democratic party. claire is still here. these viral videos are heartwarming but this is a crime in america that you have to wait eight hours to vote. it's criminal negligence that we have this situation, and while it is honorable, and patriotic, and stirring that people are willing to wait, how did we get here? >> we got here because as you have alluded to over the years, we paid some attention to our election infrastructure certainly after the 2000 elections in gore v bush but it is not something we are consistently engaged in, and unfortunately when democrats talk about making a plan to vote, i'm apt to have that conversation with my own parents about what their plan is, what their strategy is, because what we're hearing from so many people is that it's great to see these lines as long as they are, it certainly brought tears to my eyes but it also means that some folks are going to be waiting two, three, even more hours to cast their vote. we just don't want them to be

discouraged. we want them to hang in there. but i am excited for the turnout that we're seeing across the country, and you have heard about texas there. so this is very encouraging for democrats and honestly for our democracy. >> you sound like you have a feeling about texas. i have spoken to beto about what texas looks like, and i honestly think that beto in his mind knows every vote, like every block, i mean, i really do think he sees his state in really micro terms and, he seems to think it's possible, what do you think? >> it is possible. look, i did some work in texas in 2002 for ron kirk, running for the senate, and you know, there's been a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and i think hope, you know, since then with a lot of the folks that are spending money in texas, remember, wendy davis ran, beto's race, and so

there's been a tremendous amount of attention but i would also add this, to con textualize it a little bit. in the last few years, certainly the last year, our burden has been a little heavier, our voices have been louder, our backs have been stronger, so i want to say that voting is a form of protest in and of itself, and we should see this as a continuation of the engagement and the mobilization that we saw all throughout the summer, so i'm not surprised that all of that's affecting what is happening in texas as well. >> you know, tim o'brien, you know, it isn't an accident. i don't want to dance around this. i mean, if two parties in america believe that voting was equally important, the line to vote wouldn't be eight to 12 hours anywhere. i mean, part of why we see this is because one party believes the turnout is essential to democracy, and the other party, the leader of the other party is donald trump who is as all things trump, publicly trying to suppress the vote in this country in all forms, mail-in,

in person, it would not look like that if donald trump thought in-person voting benefitted him. >> the republicans don't want more voters out because the more people who come out and vote, nicole, tend to be democrats historically, and that's why voter suppression exists in its current form. throughout the year, trump's assault on mail-in voting, as you noted. in harris county texas, the state legislature only approved one drop box for a gigantic county, when there should be drop boxes that people can walk to from their homes in every county, in every state in the country. the reality is we have these long lines, and we have all of these burdens placed on voters. a lot of voters can't get date off to go and vote, which should just be normal. it's not clear why we don't vote on weekends, you know, the

tuesday election day is a throw back to egrarian america. we could overhaul of this. it's straightforward. it would enfranchise more voters and the reason it's not happening in a more robust way is republicans haven't wanted it to happen at the state level. >> you know, and claire, i don't mean to take away from the stirring images of people waiting in these long lines to do their patriotic duty, but it doesn't have to be that way, and the line is the message. i mean, that is the point that republicans are trying to make by as they said refusing to invest in our voting infrastructure. what do you make of it, having sort of tried to work on these problems in the senate? >> well, the long lines are occurring, the particularly long lines are occurring early in the early voting time period. so first i want to say to all of the viewers, just because you

see a long line on tv doesn't mean you're going to have to wait in line for a long time if you go tomorrow or the next day or the next day or the next day or the next day. we still have over a week before the actual election day. but there's no question this is going to plan by the republican party to suppress votes. they have tried to do lots of things, to block early voting, open voting, registering to vote the same day that you go to vote, and that's really what's sad about this. i mean, we are as strong as our democracy, and our democracy is only strong if everyone feels like they can participate. so it is certainly a republican strategy. now, this is going to be exciting, and i'll tell you what's really flipped the script this time, nicole. if you look, for example, in georgia, normally the early voters are your most reliable voters, and then campaigns focus on the infrequent voters to get them to the polls on election

day. in georgia, as of today, one in four voters were infrequent or new voters. so we're seeing a different type of voter show up to vote early. someone who is not really been there every time to vote or maybe is voting for the very first time. that's what gives me hope that maybe we've gotten people's attention and there's going to be a really really strong turnout this year. >> i want to give you the last word, and everyone is always so informative and so full of sort of experience and analysis, but i want to ask you, how are you feeling? everyone i know is up all night, sort of what is it called, doom scrolling on twitter. what is your sort of state of mind right fonow? >> you know, my gut feeling is that the votes for joe biden are out there right now, but i am concerned about the voter suppression and intimidation. pay attention to what's happening in pennsylvania, you had it in the last segment, the republican party has gone back to court to try to keep certain

rules with respect to mail-in voting from occurring. and they're doing it because they know that there's going to be a supreme court justice in place to potentially vote the way they want to vote. so i'm not so much concerned about the votes and the enthusiasm for joe biden being there, i'm concerned about whether or not they're going to get counted and to be honest, that's what keeps me up at night. >> all right. thanks for sharing. everyone's going to get put on the spot in the next eight days. thank you so much, tim and claire are sticking around. up next, what could trump's second term look like, new reporting reveals that the president is preparing to remove several high ranking officials if he wins reelection. how all of that is just what the putin playbook is asking for. deadline white house continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ouse continues k.ter a quick brea don't go anywhere. 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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we have felt it building and we have covered the collateral damage for years now. new reporting overnight, just days before the election, says that donald trump has what some are reporting to be a quote execution list awaiting him if he wins reelection. he sees it as a second term priority to oust those officials he feels have kept him from reaching his full revenge potential. axios reports quote a win no matter the margin will embolden trump to ax anyone he sees as con training him from enacting desired policies or going after perceived enemies. according to axios, at the top

of trump's immediate to go list is fbi director chris wray as well as cia director gina haskell. and mark esper. he would have fired both already, one official said, if not for the political headaches of acting before november 3rd. it's another norm dismantled and another advantage to russia, which has long benefitted from trump's america, one where alliances and values are shredded. "the washington post" writes this that trump has been a gift to putin. we're back with tim o'brien and former senator claire mccaskill. claire, for all of the sort of angst that trump creates among national security officials and alumni, this decapitation of the country's defense department, premier intelligence agency, that hasn't been corrupt bid mr. raf cliff and top law

enforcement agency seems the most alarming and aggressive. my question to you is what stops him from doing this even if he loses? >> well, nothing. but it would be very short lived because clearly anybody that he fires or tries to hire, i do not see the senate confirming anyone to a trump administration in the last two months of the year. that just doesn't -- that's just something that's just not done, so he'd have very little time to wreak havoc, but he's doing a number of things right now, preparing for the possibility of him truly turning it into the trump swamp, and make no mistake, he never got rid of any swamp. he just turned it into his swamp. and that he wants to make sure only people work in government that agree with him, and tell him what he wants to hear, and he signed an executive order this week that wipes out civil service protections for hundreds of thousands of workers who are

non-political so that he can install even nmore sycophants i these agencies. this is very very dangerous stuff on whatever level you want to look at. >> i mean, let me follow up with you, tim. the wiping out of those protections resulted in a high level resignation today from trump appointee, ronald sanders who resigned yesterday from the federal salary council over trump's scheduled executive order which claire just referenced. this is a little bit from that letter. quote, i simply cannot be part of an administration that seeks to replace apolitical expertise with political, career employees are legally and duty bound to be nonpartisan. they take an oath to preserve and protect our constitution and the rule of law, not to be loyal to a particular president or administration. i guess my question for you, tim, is what else does he want to do?

he's touted hydroxychloroquine, he's refused to follow the cdc guidelines, he's refused to accept the conclusion of his own pdp. he has met ddled in the pentago system for adjudicating laws, and bucked his foreign policy advisers, and tried to get a foreign country to smear -- i mean, where is he so restrained that he needs to fire the cia director, the fbi director and the pentagon chief? >> well, he's so unrestrained because the core of trumpism is anti-institutional behavior and a denial of objective reality so the only person left standing amid the rubble who his base should believe and who trump wants others to believe is trump himself. he's never had a strategy, we have talked about that a lot over the last few years. you can understand most of what he has does either through a

level of self-aggrandizement and people who don't kowtow and don't stay out of the front pages don't have a long life span, steerphen miller and mike pence are emblematic of what you need to do to have a long-term bill of health for the trump administration. you kiss up to the boss and stay out of the limelight unless he wants you in it. these outside institutions that can strain his power and his ego repel him because it just means he can't do what he wants. and all he wants to do is be a force of chaos. that's his motivating principle. in all of this. and you know, for as much as our institutions have been frayed, they have been a bullwork against how bad this could have ultimately been had trump not been restrained. yes, horrible things have happened with bill barr, and law enforcement in the courts. bad things have happened to the press. bad things have happened to

universities and the congress, but they have pushed back on him, and i think a second trump term, a lot of that resistance would start to fade. >> sort of the last band of any of it, this is a story we'll stay on top of it. tim o'brien, thank you for spending time with us. claire is sticking around. ahead, the double standard on the campaign trail, and how the attacks senator kamala harris is facing from trump and his supporters, just by backfiring, hurt trump's chances to woo those suburban women he keeps shouting at. that's next. n women he keeps shouting at. that's next.

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demand justice is responsible for the content of this advertising. do you think having the first woman of color, the first woman as vice president may change things? >> i do. >> it helps change the perception of who can do what. because that is still part of the battle, afterall, and you imagine some young person then saying, oh, things can be different. i don't have to conform to whatever i'm, you know, supposed to do or relegated to do. i can imagine what can be and be unburdened by what has been, you know. >> that was senator kamala harris on what it would mean for her to become the first woman vice president. and as she gets ever so close to breaking that barrier, she's facing the kind of criticism that's going to sound familiar to a lot of women. in a column in the "wall street journal," peggy noonan writes

this, for her part, vice presidential nominee kamala harris is when on the trail, giddy, she's dancing with drum lines and beginning rallies with what's up, florida. she's throwing her head back, and laughing a loud laugh, especially when whether nobody said anything funny. she's the younger candidate going for the younger vote and happy warrior vibe but coming across as insubstantial, frivolous. no word on if the president dancing at his rallies is frivolous too. let's bring in corrine john pierre and chief of staff to kamala harris. claire is still here. it causes me physical pain to read that from peggy. she's one of the people for whom i saw what was possible for myself in a career in politics as a communicator and she's someone i don't just admire, i revere her words. some of the speeches she's written i have devoted to memory. so to hear her take out her very

skilled cudgel and smash it against a woman who has broken the kind of barriers that every one of us have faced, peggy, too, is searing for me. what is your response? >> so, hey, nicolle, good to see you first of all. let me just say this. and this is breaking news to donald trump and his allies. women will be one of the deciding factors, one of the powerful deciding factors in this election. and i want to say this as well. our campaign is talking directly to them. here is what people have to remember. millions of women saw themselves in kamala harris when she was announced, when joe biden selected her as a running mate. when she accepted the nomination, at the convention, to become the vice presidential nominee, and on that debate stage where she had to speak up

and stand up for so many women in this country who feel like they do not have a voice. and that is what we have to remember, is that women are going to be a huge voting block this coming election. and here is the thing, women have dealt with so much under this administration. the failures of this administration. the daily failure of this administration and this crisis. they're facing the brunt of what we're going through with this crisis right now. and the other part of this, too, nicolle, is donald trump and his allies are going to do everything they can to make sure that we are not talking about coronavirus. this is a distraction as well. and we can't let that happen. we have to continue to talk about coronavirus and how it is affecting millions of people every day, hundreds of people a day are dying from coronavirus. our economy is being destroyed. and thirdly, we have -- we have

this crisis that is really hurting us and overwhelming our health system. and that is where we are right now. and so we cannot stop talking about the issues and that is what our campaign is going to do every day for the last eight days. >> you know, i had a job similar to your job for a different candidate for the vice presidency and even if that is what you want to talk about, your job as opposed to your counterpart on the biden plane or the biden traveling stop is different. because you will get columns like the ones that peggy nunnan wrote that accuse your candidate and i know you work for the vice president and senator harris, but in terms of responding to the things written about senator harris, you will have to respond to attacks that she's giddy and insubstantial. and i don't know anybody more goofy and stupid than donald

trump. but i haven't read many columns talking about the way he sits or the way he talks or the inappropriate ways he acts in meetings. surely it has dawned on you there is a gender inequality there in terms of the commentary about politics. >> we see that. we saw that four years ago and seeing it now with another woman on the ticket. that is not unusual. that is incredibly common. but that is why senator kamala harris's comments were so powerful in that 60 minutes clip that you just showed where she talks about what is means about representation. how it is a moment, it is a time to see women differently. and she's making history. she's making history in so many different ways. she's a black woman, a woman of indian heritage on this ticket. but it is also representing so much of our country right now. and so, yeah, we're going to continue to face this. women face this every day all of the time. and we're just going to have to keep fighting back and make sure

that we don't stop talking about the issues as well, nicolle. >> corrine jone john pierre thank you for coming on. it is great to see you. claire i want you to bring you on this. here is the other piece. and i don't know if right wing twitter could handle this. i'll give them a second to get fingers ready. when you're a white woman and republican, there are certainly stuff culturally that you don't know jack bleep about and what is that line about dancing to a drum beat. this felt tone deaf and nasty and it felt personal and it felt bitchy. >> i'm going to take a deep breath. and i'm going to try to stay calm here. >> please. >> about peggy nunnan. i'm never more disappointed in a woman that i thought i admired in my life. she said at the end of that, you didn't read the very last part of that paragraph, nicolle,

because she said it is embarrassing. no, peggy, i'll tell you what is embarrassing. >> i didn't read it on purpose. >> yeah. well i'll tell you what is embarrassing, listening up peggy, a president that pays off porn stars, a president that pulls babies out of the arms of their mothers, a president who likes to grab women by the you know what. a president who uses the white house for campaign events. a president who praises white supremacists. and yes, even a president who can't dance, doesn't know how to show joy or empathy and tries to do some kind of ridiculous arm thrust to ymca. that is what is embarrassing. kamala harris is anything but embarrassing. she is uplifting. she's inspirational. she's strong and substantial and she's going to be one hell of a vice president. thank you. >> i have never loved you

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that's not normal behavior, florida. you wouldn't tolerate it from a co-workers, from a high school principal, from a coach, you wouldn't entitle it from a

family member. florida man wouldn't even do this stuff. why are we accepting if from the president of the united states? it's not normal behavior. >> hi, again, everyone. it is 5:00 in the east. leave it to president obama to put it out there. above everything else, donald trump is not normal. he doesn't have a normal human reaction to all of the suffering around him. and he doesn't seem able to muster any normal response to the economic catastrophe unspooling on his watch. which leads reliably conservative editorial boards like the new hampshire union leader to do things that aren't normal for them either. liken dors a democratic candidate for the first time in more than 100 years. the conservative union leader greeting trump's trip to that state this weekend with this stinging rebuke. quote, we were hopeful that trump's win that he might change

but the weight and responsibility. oval office might mold a more respectful and presidential man. we have watched with the rest of the world as the mantle of the presidency has done very little to change trump while the country and world have changed significantly. president trump is not always 100% wrong. but he is 100% wrong for america. sadly, president trump has proven himself to be the antithesis to pragmatic. our endorsement for the president of these united states goes to joe biden. and while joe biden's victory is far from a foregone conclusion, it is undeniable that he's getive in far more states than president trump is in democratic leaning states. in florida biden is up two. in georgia the two are tied and in texas a new poll shows biden with a three point lead. david wassermann tweets this, a few days out, the picture of

this race is pretty clear. one, biden's lead, 52% to 43% is larger and more stable than clinton in 2016. and two, there are far fewer undecided or third party voters than in 2016. and three, district level polls, this show big problems for clinton in 2016, back up the national and state polls. wasserman adds this, quote, if you're looking for a horse race narrative right now, you're not going to find it here. there was a time when it was easy to imagine this race going much differently. eight days out, it is much, much harder. i've seen almost enough. a not normal president trying to convince voters he's their answer is where we start with our favorite reporters and friends. nick confessore from "the new york times" and msnbc political analyst is back. and also with us eyeeeshy mills and charlie sykes and editor at large at the bulwark. charlie, you might have to be a

republican to know how massive the earthquake is for the union leader to endorse a democrat. but i saw on sort of my never trump republican circles, the kind of reaction that i felt when i saw that paper endorse joe biden. what did you think? >> well, among them, the many things that you never expect to see. i mean, the union leader has always been so -- it's been as reliable as you could possibly imagine as a republican newspaper. i don't know how much newspaper editorials mean any more. but it does underline how not normal this year is. and the fact that here you have the president in the final weeks of the campaign, our war time president who surrendered to the coronavirus. our tough guy who runs away from leslie stahl and florida man that has proven he can't dance. the incumbents president of the united states would be maximizing his incumbency would be stepping out a vision of the next four years would be

bragging about his record and instead what do you have? you have donald trump out there flailing, insulting, and tweeting and so, yeah, even some of the most reliable republicans in america are going, no, we can't do this again. we can't take another four years. >> i mean, let me just follow up with you, charlie. here is a list of all of the endorsements that go farther than a lot of these folks and institutions went four years ago when they didn't enthusiastically support hillary clinton. but they didn't like trump but they didn't go all in for hillary clinton. i think the wassermann tweet is important in pointing out the ways that the data doesn't look like it did four years ago. but the anti-trump republican movement is now operationalized. it is now in the business of moving vote from republican columns into the biden column. and in ways that show up in the polls in the battleground

states. these states are tight because biden's column includes republican vote and it makes trump's mission in the final eight days not just to activate the voters, i can't imagine they became unjuiced from all of his aboutics. but it is to take vote from biden and which you described the war from leslie stahl and the denial of covid, it repels the voter. >> and it repels people who thought they know what the republican party was all about. we have lifetime republicans on the list. but also the number of people who have watched donald trump up close. who understand what he means for the country. who have seen his decision-making process to the extent there is one. who understand what is at stake in this election. and they are trying to sound this alarm to americans who may get news off of facebook, that look, this is not normal.

this is not a dangerous moment. there is a lot at stake here and we're doing something that many of us would never have done or thought conceivable until this year. >> you know, on that note, aisha, i want to ask you about president obama on the campaign trail. his messages have been sharp, his delivery has been pitch perfect. and his takedown of trump has been sort of the harshest articulation of the case against trump. the only people that i recognize echoing one another right now are the lincoln project and former president obama's campaign speeches. that trump is worse than wrong. he is not normal. what do you think former president obama on the trail? >> well, nicolle, first of all, i think you're awesome and thanks for calling out how bizarre it is. but i think really it is great for democracy that you have such strange bedfellows, president

obama and then all of the people associated with the lincoln project. in tune together singing in harmony the same song about how bad this president is. i mean, this is an interesting moment. and i think we should just celebrate that, coming together and it is unity. >> i'm for it. >> look at us as americans. no, it is great to see in my humble opinion president obama out there really no holds barred telling the truth about donald trump in a way that only he can frankly. there are so many other elected officials who are worried about their own election day and they're also being sensitive to the fact that they have to get rid of donald trump but there is a wide swath of conservatives in districts, especially in the senate races that they need to speak to as well. so maybe the language can't be as jolting as president obama's can. he has no one to respond to right now. so it is good to see him out there. and i think the same thing for the lincoln project. at this point, they could do and

say all of the things that they want to without any repercussions. so i'm glad for the both of them out there doing all of this. >> i want to follow up with you. there are some reporting over the weekend in "the new york times" and other places that donald trump was saying, you know, there are some senate republicans, i just can't go there. it won't be moral to campaign for them. who does trump think spared him from his rear end getting impeached? >> my goodness. it is so interesting to watch. mitch mcconnell operates in the senate and to watch the senators do what they do. it is very obvious that donald trump got to be the shiny object of distraction under which the republicans, the ones who have been serious for 25, 30 years, about moving a strategy around packing the courts, driving conservative ideals, et cetera, that they just got to let that guy go out there and get pummelled or rile up people but get out of the way so they could do their business. i don't agree with their work

and their business but we can't argue they're not doing it. so for donald trump, it seems to me, to even call into question whether they need him feels a little bit laughable. because it seems like they're just going along and doing the work that they're doing despite him and not necessarily because of him. and i often wonder what those conversations are like in private when the senators are speaking with the president. are they rolling their eyes at him and saying whatever, go off and distract people, we're just going to keep doing our work. >> i mean, nick, that is an interesting point. i have more visibility into what the conversations were like four years ago when i still counted more elected republicans as sources. and after the access hollywood tape, they all thought he was disgusting. one person in the senate, said there are two kinds of men like that. and i said which are you. and why don't you withdraw your

support and the excuses to themselves and their family was in for a dime and a dollar. and here is how the story would always end. and donald trump like a thief who steals the silver and bitches that it all needs to be polished has hijacked the republican party. he escaped impeachment which mitch mcconnell and other republicans said he was guilty of abuse of power. and the same people that saved him are people that he, you know, i don't want to campaign for them. it won't be moral. i guess they get what they deserve. but it is still remarkable to see this reported in the pages of your paper and others. >> look, pars that statement, it is important to understand and recall that president, a key part of his power, was always to establish that he is the party and the party is him. he has always been clear to people in his party they can't survive without him. that they part ways from him, he will campaign against him and if

they are good to him, he'll reward them. that is always been his way. and i have to imagine, because right now the senate gop is in better shape than donald trump. and mitch mcconnell has a better chance of holding his job right now than donald trump. and you have to wonder seeing that statement if there isn't some twinge on the president's part of wanting say, if i'm going to down, i'm bringing you people down with me. >> that is so interesting. in that vain, there is a high level resignation around some of his abuses of power which is i think where people like charlie and myself have felt a great deal of disappointment in republicans for not ablcting as guardrails. trump appointed head of a key advisory counsel has resigned over anive order to strip away protections against political interference in hiring and firing of a large portion of the career federal work force.

and in resigning ronald sanders said that although he's a life long republican, he, quote, cannot in good conscience continue to serve the administration. trump's order seeking to make loyalty to him the litmus test for thousands of career civil servants and that is something i can't be a part of. take that with the axios scoop of the post election execution list that is their headline and they're reporting that he plans to replace fbi director christopher wray and gina haspel and pentagon chief mark esper if re-elected. what is your sense of what he is -- he feels like there is more stuff he can't do. he looks like a runaway train to all of us and anyone who worked in the white house before. but why loosen the restrictions even further. what is your sense or analysis of why he wants even more freedom? >> i think for him it is pure instinct, nicolle. his great success as president

aside from stacking the courts for those appointees is to bend the upper echelon of american government to his will and to put political loyalty in to branches of the government where it has not always been paramount, into the military, into the cia, into the fbi, into the justice department. these were always precincts of american government where the president would appoint people but they serve the american people in a real way. i think by gut and instinct he wants to dominate all parts of the government and he moves in that way just very aggressively and has. i think if we get the a second term we'll see more of the last two years of the first term. this efforts to expand his will and dominance over every facet of government and to make his appointees take risks on his behalf to break norms and even laws to give him the policies and outcomes that he wants. >> it is an extraordinary

prediction. but one that all evidence suggests to come true. charlie, i want to ask you what your gut is right now on the state of the senate races. what is your feeling about who as nick said which are in a stronger position than trump. a lot of them are polling behind trump. what is your senate of where the majority stands right now race by race? >> well, it may come down to georgia. including a runoff election in january. but when you were telling the story about access hollywood but i couldn't remember cory gardner withdrew his support from donald trump and after that and then crept back into trump's good graces. and i wonder how he feels about that right now. but that became kind of the pattern for the senate republicans. that they were going to be joined at the hip with him and would rise or fall with him. look, you have the most vulnerable, martha mcsally is probably gone and cory gardner is probably gone. i'm not clear what is happening

in north carolina with the extracurricular activities there. the democrats are going to pick up a state or republicans will pick up a seat in alabama. but this is one of those moments where republicans are realizing that everything is at stake. imagine that tonight they're going to be telling themselves that it was all worth it. this foisty bargain and selling their soul was worth it because they would get a supreme court nominee but i think they'll find out what the price is a week from tomorrow. >> i hope so. all right. nick, aisha and charlie are sticking around. when we come back. talk about not normal. democrats running strong in red states like texas and georgia. our friend steve kornacki joins us with joe biden's electoral map wish list. he's looking to expand the map as donald trump struggles to lockdown the states he won four years ago. plus a staggering number of new coronavirus cases is straining hospitals and health care workers across this country

as the pandemic is growing at a rate we have not seen before. and later the lincoln project versus javanka, the story of the times square billboard that sent jared kushner and ivanka trump in a mega legal meltdown. "deadline: white house" continues after a break. don't go anywhere. se" continues after a break. don't go anywhere. 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.

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. i think we're going to win michigan. think i we're going to win wisconsin and minnesota. i think we have a fighting chance in ohio. i think we have a fighting chance in north carolina and in georgia. we have a fighting chance in

iowa. so fortunately because of over 6 million individual voters, average contribution $49. we're able to compete. like we haven't been able to compete before. >> we're just eight days left until election day. joe biden is clear eyed about his chances in a number of key battleground states and the latest polling from states like north carolina, florida, georgia and even texas seem to back him up. meanwhile, donald trump looks to be scrambling for any form of traction that he could get. the president is in a frantic race to the finish line holding his third rally of the day in pennsylvania. as politico reports today, donald trump is chasing every possible opening across the electoral map. joe biden is sitting on his lead and surveying for states that might serve as insurance policies. it is a jarring flip of the script for annin couple bentd president and his challenger eight days before election day.

trump is barreling across the country hoping large rallies an bets across the board will pay up for his underdog campaign. biden is doing fewer and smaller event and looking toward governing. remember that. joining our conversation with more on the state of the race is nbc news and msnbc national political correspondent steve kornacki at the big board. we're going to call this ask steve anything and i have one and then i'll let charlie or nick or aisha jump in. where is the psychological disconnect where most democrats are spooked about a repeat of '16 and all of the data and i road from the cook political report today that they do not see a horse race at this point. what is the reality of this race right now. >> we could show you. here is one way of looking at it. this is the national polling average and you see the difference there. it is eight points. biden over 50. eight point difference between biden and trump now. let's look at the same .4 years

ago. eight days before the election. what did it look like then? now clinton was up. she did lead the national polling average against trump but you see the difference there. it was 3.1, it was a three point lead versus right now the advantage for joe biden is eight points. what was going on at this point and reflected in the polls, james comey and the fbi director and had announced the clinton email investigation was back on and discovered more emails. i think one thing to remember, this is basically where the national polls finished up in 2016. on election day, clinton went into it with a lead in the national polls of about three. she won the popular vote nationally by two. and that was just close enough where trump was able to pull it out in the electoral college. so you see this is much bigger right now. biden's advantage is much bigger than clinton was at this point. this race in '16 was tightening. we haven't seen this start to

tighten in any big way. but i think that is the thing to look for if you want to medicare 2020 and 2016 over to last week, keep an eye on this difference in the national polls. do you see it close in the last week of this campaign? or does it stay around where it is right now? >> steve, what do you make of the travel that each candidate is choosing? >> let's take a look. we'll fire up to the road to 270 map and what you got here basically, the gray, these are states that are sort of become the battleground of this campaign. a lot of these are the states you're talking about right now. and we could group these states in a bunch of different categories. first of all, there are three states on here, you heard biden mention one of them there in minnesota. but if new hampshire, minnesota, and nevada, these are blue states in 2016. but they were very close. at margin for instance for hillary clinton in new hampshire was 3,000 votes. so one thing you hear and mike

pence going to minnesota this week and you hear republicans being on offense in these three states. we haven't seen polls with trump ahead in new hampshire, even that close. so one thing you say is if trump does not succeed in flipping those three states, that is what it would do, you see biden goes to the 232 number that hillary clinton had in 2016. and then basically this is donald trump playing defense. the rest of the way. every other gray state you see here is a state trump won in 2016. and when biden ticked through, you heard him in the clip, he mentioned minnesota and wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, those are the three. right there, wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania, that trump carried by less than a point. if biden improves on clinton by a point in wisconsin, a point in michigan, and a point -- i did that wrong. a point in pennsylvania, that puts him over 270. hold the clinton states.

and just improve by a point in those three. we haven't even gotten to the other states and that is a path for joe biden. >> i have a question, steve, for you. let me ask you the same question that i asked john heilemann on my podcast today. how real is texas as a possibility for the democrats. we had a poll showing joe biden up and a poll from "new york times" showing a pretty fairly -- for donald trump. what is your gut sense about texas especially considering this amazing early vote that we're seeing there? >> it is interesting. i'll put numbers up on the screen here for texas. 16, 9 and 3. 16 was mitt romney's winning margin in texas in 2012. nine is donald trump's winning margin in texas in 2016. three is ted cruz's winning margin in 2018. and in the span of six years democrats have gone from four

years losing texas by 16 to losing by three. so that is the trajectory, you could see donald trump has dramatically accelerated that trajectory in texas. it is been driven by the dallas area, it is the houston area, it is the metro areas of texas, fast population growth areas that are dramatically, 15, 20, 30 points swings in some of the places from what republicans used to do to what they're doing now. drops for republicans. so it is a long way of saying, that is put democrats when you look at the polling in striking distance in texas. but when i look at some of the other states, you know, these three in the midwest, even a north carolina, even a georgia, maybe even an iowa, and an ohio, texas is one it feels to me if it goes, if it goes democratic this year, so it is just about everything else that is gray on this map. certainly like an arizona. it is not the 270 electoral vote it would be like the 370.

>> steve, it is nick. i have a question for you here. pennsylvania is a state where the president is trying hard to get back in the game. in ohio and florida are two states where we've seen a thin chance this there could be a loser. and if he could lockdown florida and ohio and show us his path to victory from there. >> let's go back here and again, assuming that all of the clinton states hold for biden, if trump gets florida, if he gets pennsylvania, and if he gets ohio, those three biggies, okay. and if he gets texas, we talked about that too. now you have an even battle there in the electoral college. here is the problem for trump from this point forward. if we take the mop from this point. these two states, even if it gets pennsylvania, mifrchigan a

wisconsin, of all of the states, these where trump has the biggest trouble in polling. his campaign would say, if we could get pennsylvania, we could get michigan and wisconsin, michigan in particular is where his polling is the worst of any state you got on the map here. if he doesn't get michigan, biden goes to 248. if he doesn't get wisconsin, biden will then be at 258. now the next target if you're the biden campaign would be arizona. that would make it 269. now you'll be potentially one vote short of the electoral college majority, but keep in mind the second congressional district of nebraska, which is omaha, trump won it by three in 2016. the democrats really think they could pick it off. so in a scenario like you just described biden would need to get michigan, wisconsin, arizona, second congressional district in nebraska, that is his best path in a situation like that.

>> it is dicey. eyeeesh yu let me give you the last word. is that why democrats aren't sleeping. keeping them up at night. every single day it is an eight point lead. it is more than double what hillary clinton had at this time. >> it is. and i would say that what democrats are really excited about as steve pointed out, you're looking at wisconsin, a pennsylvania, and a michigan and we're only talking about one point change from turnout last time. then enthusiasm of early vote as well as the fact that the biden campaign has a ton of money where they could just saturate the airwaves to really stay in people's ear as well as the social media buys they're doing is going to drive people out more. so it seems like a reasonable lift that democrats are actually turning out in those places to hit that one point mark or even more. >> steve kornacki, nick con necessaryory, charlie sykes and aisha mills, thank you for spending time with us.

coming up, the number of coronavirus cases rising in this country at a rate we haven't seen since it started. that story is next. what if i sleep hot? ...or cold?

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shows no signs of this third peak of the coronavirus pandemic slowing any time soon in this country. with back-to-back numbers like we have never seen before. more than 75,000 cases on thursday, friday and saturday. our new seven-day average is more than 68,000 new cases every single day. and an all-time high of more than 22% from one week ago. and in the last 24 hours the u.s. has added more than 80,000 new cases bringing our total to more than 8.7 million infections with more than 226,000 american lives lost. cases also continue to climb in europe over the weekend. yesterday france added a record more than 52,000 new cases just after becoming the second european country to surpass 1 million cases total. behind only spain. which declared a state of emergency yesterday and announced an overnight curfew to help them contain the rising infection rate there.

joining our conversation, vaccine expert before peter hotez, founding dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college. as much as we love talking to you, i had hoped we'd be looking at something associated with flu season. but this seems like a covid spike wholly separate from the advent of flu season and it is very scary to a lot of people. these are numbers we didn't see in our first spike in the spring. >> well, it is scary, nicolle. and it unfortunately looks as though the worst is yet to come. we're now reaching our highest seven-day average ever in this epidemic. and with no end in sight. and the worry, of course, is we're going to get to dr. fauci's apocalyptic number of 100 to you n1 100,000 cases every day. it is starting up in the

northern midwest and then across the north and it really is showing this interesting fly over nation pattern where oregon, washington, california look okay. and new england, except for rhode island looks okay, the mid-atlantic states look okay and the rest of the country on the heat map is starting to turn all red mostly in the north and the beginning. so we're in for what looks look a horrible winter and the tragedy is we could have not entirely prevented it but we could have dramatically delayed it. i put forward in october 1 plan over the summer sent it to the white house, no response, no activity. we could have slowed this and drawn it out in a way that would have kept it at a minimum until a vaccine became available next year to save lives. right now they're pointing to 500 -- i'm sorry 511,000 deaths by february 28th with

possibilities that we could lower with aggressive mask use but again there is no add -- add volk osy for that in the middle of the nation. i'm frustrated. >> and i am too. and my question is what is the response for the people that believe that we could take this grim fate of more than 500,000 dead americans, dead grand parents, dead children, dead teachers, dead front line workers, what can we do with just part of the country adhering to the health guidelines, wearing masks, social media, not gathering in large crowds. >> well, it is tough. because we don't have any centralized leadership. we have no national response. it is basically -- it is always been all year, the states on their own. and with the federal government providing useful and important back-up support for

manufacturing of ppe and ventilator but it was never enough. we needed the full force of the federal government. you heard mark meadows say there is no national plan, that is my interpretation, maybe you could go back to the original words but it is basically business as usual. and essentially leaving it up to the states and many states in turn are leaving it up to the individuals to make their own decisions. so we're -- it's a scary scenario. >> the original quote, it stuck in my brain, was we can't control a pandemic or something along those lines. we can't. and jake tapper pushed back forcefully and said why not try and he made it clear it is not their strategy to contain the pandemic. given the funews we'll be calli on you early and observe. thank you for your candor. when we return, we'll talk

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. we're not going to control the pandemic. we're going to control the fact that we get vaccines. therapeutics and oeshl medication. >> why aren't we getting a control of the pandemic. >> because it is a contagious virus just like the flu. >> why not make efforts to contain it. >> we are making efforts to contain it. >> by running all over the

country and not wearing masks. >> that was the news on planet two down here on planet earth. new york governor andrew cuomo in a press conference responded to that by saying yes, you could control coronavirus and new york is proof. and joining us now, first, thank you for joining us and second you're response to mark meadows. >> thanks for having me, nicolle. remember the line in a few good men where jack nicholson frustrated said you can't handle the truth. >> you can't handle the truth. >> yeah. that was mark meadows, i think, on that interview. we can't control the pandemic. that is just not a fact. but that answers the riddle of why the white house did what they did since day one, january when they got the peter navarro

memo saying millions would be affected. what they believe is they can't control the spread of the virus. so they never tried. it was preemptive capitulation. it is the great american surrender. they saw the enemy and they laid down arms. you can control the spread of the virus. other countries have done it. new york has done it. we were told we were going to have 140,000 people in our hospitals. we only had 18,000. because you can flatten the curve. this is a consequence of our actions. at this point, it is man made. it is a function of how -- what we do and how we do it. and they should have more faith in the american people, tell the truth, let's get this under control. we were told the fall would see a spike. do more testing, more compliance, wear a mask for crying out loud, do the social

distancing, you can control the spread. they're just wrong. >> do you think though, you said it solves a riddle. i have colleagues that think that this really does answer an unanswered question that they're not trying to stop it because they're belief is something different, it is an obscure scientific fringe theory of herd immunity. do you think they're proceeding down a path that looks like that? >> i don't think they have theory or a strategy. i think early on they were told that it is coming. they watched china. they watched italy. they thought the choice was binary. they thought it was close down the economy, or let the virus spread. and they were economy, economy, economy. their thought was they'll just deny the virus. and let it spread and tell everyone that it doesn't really exist. it is a figment of the nation.

it is a hoax and it is going to be gone and thought they could carry that through election day and meadows did say they were bullish on a vaccine. yeah. but you had to get to the vaccine. and then you have to reproduce it and then you have to dispense it and maybe you have another year. and why didn't you stop the spread in the meantime? you can't eliminate it. but you could stop the spread. and what they did was the exact opposite. they're message to states was open up, liberate, you don't need masks. just go about your business. nicolle, you have states now that tests -- are doing fewer tests now than they were doing. because the president said to them, if you don't test, you won't find the cases and if you don't find the cases, then they don't exist. i mean, they actually listen to

the president which was a terrible, terrible mistake. and you look at those death numbers and those case numbers, my heart goes out to them. we were right on that verge, you know. but new yorkers flattened the curve. otherwise we would be where they were. >> we had a hospital situation that was described by sherry fink in "the new york times" as apocalyptic at our peak and you see some of the same words being used to describe icu's at capacity and states have their surge. if you had to sort of project on to these states that are where you were in april, how would you scale what worked in new york and the lessons that you've learned? >> well, the real shame when you think about it, we learned these lessons seven months ago. i feel like i'm watching the rerun of a movie. this is where we were seven months ago.

they came and they said by the current projections an the exponential growth and the r not factor we would have over 100,000 people in hospitals. nicolle, we only have 50,000 hospital beds. we can't have 100,000 people in hospitals. so we were very aggressive about informing the people, i gave them the 100% truth. i explained what we were looking at. i said that we can flatten the curve. you could change the spread by behavior. and people did it. we were the first state to do a mask mandate. we have like 98% compliance. we informed people about social distancing and safe practices, et cetera. and we talked about community and helping one another. and i protect you and you protect me. and it worked. we never went over, talk about control the pandemic, we were

told we needed 100,000 hospital beds and we only had 50,000. we never went over 18,000 hospital beds. one fifth of what the experts projected because new yorkers and reduced that spread and controlled the pandemic. you can't eliminate it. but you can control it. >> what's our plan for getting through the winter? because a lot of the ways that you did all that was to move dining outdoors. people were not car pooling to school. they were not getting on buses or subways. schools are now -- a lot of them have some hybrid of in-person. there are more people. you drive through new york and there are more people out and about. what's the plan for making sure we don't return to a second spike for new york in the winter? >> every scientist said -- all the experts said when you get to

the fall you're going to see an increase. i believe we're going to see an increase precisely for the reasons you mentioned, the weather, the increased activity, et cetera. we are now doing more testing than ever before and we have what we call a microcluster strategy. we do granular testing, nicolle, and when we find a neighborhood that has a spread, we swarm that neighborhood. you have to catch it small so it doesn't get big, right? but that means you have to do more testing. you have states that are doing now less testing. a lot of testing. very responsive government. and when you see a small spread -- we had one in brooklyn, we had one in queens, we had one on the southern tier. you move in. real rules, real compliance, real enforcement. government matters here. leadership matters here. and you keep it as small as you can.

and then you're like a firefighter, right? you see a little blaze start up and you run and you put it out, and then another part of the state, there's another blaze and you run and you put it out. but that is how you do it. it's a lot of work. yes, you won't eliminate it, but you can save hundreds of thousands of lives. and i believe that's the cost at the end of the day here. people will die who did not need to die, nicolle. and that is inexcusable. >> right. i want to ask you about long voting lines and i know these aren't a state responsibility, but if you take some of the leadership lessons from your book, what do you say about headlines like this in "the new york times." "inside decades of nepotism and bungling at the new york city elections board?" and i know everyone is stirred by these images of people willing to wait, 8, 9, 10, 11

hours to vote. you and i working in politics know that's not the way it's supposed to be. in a functioning democracy, no one has to take two shifts off work to exercise their god-given right to vote. can new york do better? >> yes. the new york city board of elections, you're right. it's run by new york city and it is an old-fashioned political model that frankly should be thrown out. it should have been thrown out years ago. and i said today new york city has to come up with a better plan. and i will push it aggressively. the good news is you have such energy in the election. i mean, that is really incredible. >> gentleman. >> yeah. >> and these are different circumstances, but the board of elections should have done a better job. there's no doubt about that. >> last question. have you happened to drive through times square and seen the jivanka billboards that they're threatening to sue my good friends at the lincoln project about?

and if so, do you have any thoughts whether they share scrutiny for their roles in botching the white house coronavirus response? >> i haven't seen the billboards. look, i think the entire white house did a terrible disservice because they did not tell the truth at the end of the day. right? they just didn't tell the american people the truth about this virus and about how dangerous it was. >> mm-hmm. >> and they thought they could deceive the american people and they didn't trust the american people, right? why didn't you just give them the facts? why didn't you just tell them the truth? >> right. >> so they can protect themselves before you assumed that they were incompetent or they would be selfish. look, new yorkers are not the easiest bunch, right? but they heard the facts and what's right is right. we were the first state to do mask compliance. 98% mask compliance.

people are careful. >> mm-hmm. >> and the results speak for themselves. the numbers changed. and that could have been true all across this nation. i have no doubt. >> we end where we start, with "a few good men." we can handle the truth, right? governor cuomo, thank you so much for jumping on and spending some time with us today. it's always great to talk to you. >> always my pleasure, nicolle. finally, as we do every single day here, remembering lives well lived. it's one of life's greatest treasures, watching good things happen to good people. like so many others, takina parker spent much of her adult life believing she was unable to have kids, but in her late 30s a miracle in the form of a sweet, sweet little angel, a daughter named kaden. parker also recently bought a home and she was engaged to be married. all really good things. the best things.

and for a very good person. and she was a good person. according to "the advocate" in baton rouge, after parker graduated from nursing school, she went to work at the louisiana state penitentiary because as her sister recalls, she felt those people sometimes got looked over and she wanted to be the person to help them. parker was bright and gentle and sweet. then a few weeks ago she fainted in her kitchen. what followed was an up and down two-month-long battle with coronavirus. she fought and she fought and she fought and she fought, but in the end it was just too much. parker died just shy of her 40th birthday. a dreadful, tragic, unthinkable thing happening to a really good thing. 3-year-old kaden now clings close to her grandmother. her aunt, parker's mom told "the advocate," quote, i just try to spend as much time with her as i

can because i want her to feel loved. she's the only part of my daughter i have left. we will be right back. ft we will be right back.

thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these truly extraordinary times. we're truly grateful. "the beat" with ari melber starts right now. hi, ari. >> hi, nicolle. thank you so much. welcome to "the beat." eight days out this year may not be florida, florida, florida, but, rather, scenes like this in what could be a must-win state for donald trump, pennsylvania, where both biden and trump are campaigning. biden suggesting the state can form his blue wall of victory while trump argues it's essential to his re-election. >> that's why we're here. and you know that blue wall is going to be -- has to be re-established. with the grace of god and the good will of pennsylvanians, i'm going to win pennsylvania. >> eight days from now, we're going to win the commonwealth of pennsylvania and we are going to win four more great years in the white ho