for $20. i got these three suitcases for less than $40. and shipping is always free. go to dealdash.com right now and see how much you can save. hi there, everyone. it's 4:00 in the east. if some b level celebrity did what donald trump did last night, it would be a dig scandal in the entertainment press. trump flying high above omaha, nebraska in the comfort of air force one while below him his own rally goers suffering the effects of freezing temperatures. trump literally stranded his own supporters after his noncovid safe rally there last night. jeff zeleny who attended the rally tweeted this. president trump took off in air force one one hour and 20 minutes ago, but thousands of his supporters remain stranded on a dark road outside the

rally. nbc news has confirmed that local police dispatch reported several attendees suffering the effects of freezing cold temperatures. and "the washington post" reports that at least seven people were taken to hospitals, though police say it's not clear when or during or after the event those people sought medical attention. "washington post" white house correspondent, our friend ashley parker, poses the incident as the 2020 update to donald trump's famous line about being able to shoot people on fifth avenue without losing any support. parker asks, quote, trump said he could shoot people on fifth avenue and still not lose votes. the nonhypothetical question is can he allow his supporters to end up in the hospital with hypothermia after his team bungled post-rally transportation and still not lose votes? it's an important story because trump has so politicized the situation about the pandemic that people have almost grown athe u.s.ed to his supporters packed into indoor and outdoor

venues like sardines, usually maskless. his supporters have bought his lies about covid. but the act of abandoning elderly supporters in the freezing cold is next level disregard for the health and safety of his own supporters and a metaphor with six days to go in the 2020 election for his wanton disregard for the health and well-being of the country he leads. it's a point his opponent joe biden was quick to highlight today out on the campaign trail. >> just look at what happened last night in omaha after trump -- after the trump rally ended. hundreds of people, including older americans and children were stranded in sub-zero freezing temperatures for hours. several folks ended up in the hospital. it's an image that captures president trump's whole approach to this crisis. hi takes a lot of big pronouncements and makes a lot of big pronouncements, but they don't hold up. >> the president leaving americans out in the cold is where we start today with system

of our favorite reporters and friends. "new york times" white house correspondent peter baker is here. also joining us, former republican congressman david jolly and president of african american studies at princeton here, lucky for us all three msnbc political contributors. eddie, i have to start with you because have i this impulse over and over again as trump has returned to campaign trail amid the pandemic of feeling like i care much more about the health and well-being of trump rally goers, people who i'm sure are not fans of mine than trump does. and this event last night, this act of stranding your rally goers is more than just a logistical screw-up. it is a symptom of what the trump presidency has become, complete disregard for everyone but trump. >> well, i don't think that's just simply an impulse, nicolln. i think that's demonstrably right that you care more about

those who support him that he does. you used the right word this the lead-in, it's wanton disregard, an unconcern for those who are committed to his campaign and to his policies. and it reflects what we generally kind of concluded about donald trump over the last four years is that he is a narcissist, that he is only concerned about his own well-being, that in some ways he is voldemort, that only he must live. however we want to describe it, there is a kind of selfishness at the heart of how he perceives himself and how he governs. you know, i've been trying to figure this out really quickly. i don't think it's charismatic authority. he has the charisma of american bread. so i don't understand why people will come out in freezing weather and weather the cold. you know, it reminds me of a smaller level of jonestown. remember that with jim jones in 1978. it's a cult-like kind of experience, and eventually the

leader turns his become on the folks who follow him. >> there is a parallel, david jolly, to covid here in that i'm going to play this in a second. donald trump knew it was freezing cold, and whoever was on the ground at that rally, they're usually able to talk on radios to the folks motorcading back to air force one. so everybody knew. trump knew it was cold. people in the presidential package knew that this rally goers were stranded. trump new covid was deadly, and he bragged to bob woodward that he knew that he was downplaying the pandemic on purpose. here's trump acknowledging the freezing cold as part of his speech. >> is there any place you would rather be than a trump rally on about a 10 degree evening? 10 degrees? [ cheering ] >> it's cold out here, but that's okay. you know, we just left

wisconsin, and it was cold. and we left michigan. it was cold and raining. and i said i won't put on a hat, because i'm going to show you how tough we are. that was a tough one. it was pouring. it was pouring and it was freezing, and it's the coldest right here, right? >> so david, he won't put on a hat because he's tough. i guess there is no hope for masks. but this, again, they knew it was cold. they had to have known people were stranded. what do you make of this. >> look, i think it's a reflection of the greater chaos, disorganization and erratic behavior of an undisciplined candidate with a jv team around him. there is a reason that donald trump has never recognized that he is losing this race and put together a plan to overcome it. it's reflected in a team that can't pull off a simple event five days before an election that ultimately jeopardizes the health of the attendees because

of the weather. but it also in many ways, it can't distract us from the broader covid narrative here. this is a president, nicolle, the leader of the free world, the leader of the united states of america while peer nations in western europe are beginning to shut down again while we are seeing record numbers. we're back to where we were in march with covid. a president who is not only ignoring it, but is jeopardizing the very lives of his supporters. you can say it's out of desperation to win. it is because of ego, but at the end of the day, it is a moral failure of this president that he is willing to risk the lives of his attendees. and while we're focused on the hypothermia and the cold, we can't lose sight of covid. this is a president now the markets are beginning to say to the world we're in trouble again. the president is lying to the american people and saying we are not. >> so i will take david jolly's note, lean into the covid

conversation. here is joe biden making some similar points today, peter. >> the white house science office, and this stunned me, put out a statement listing ending the covid-19 pandemic as a top accomplishment of president trump's first term. top accomplishment of trump's first term. at the very moment when infection rates are going up almost every state in our union. the refusal of the trump administration to recognize the reality we're living through at a time when almost a thousand americans a day are dying every single day is an insult to every single person suffering from covid-19 and every family whose lost a loved one. there is nothing more personal to an american family than their health care and the health care of their loved ones. >> and peter baker, a former

trump administration official acknowledges to politico, quote, if you think covid is a big deal, then you're not voting for the president. i think as david jolly articulated, with cases soaring, with the markets reacting, with european nations entering their second lockdowns, most people think covid is a big deal, and that is the field on which the final six days of the campaign is being waged. >> yeah, look. covid is a big deal. and they couldn't care less whether you have an r next to your name or a d next to your name. >> yeah. >> it's not a partisan thing, but the president has made it out to be a partisan thing. he made it out to be climate science. if you believe in climate science, you're on one side of the political fence and if not on the other. covid doesn't care if you believe it or not. it's going to hit you whether you believe it or not. it hit the president obviously, his family, the white house, the vice president's office all in this last few weeks. and they're lucky and we're grateful that they survived and the president seemingly has

recovered pretty nicely. but as the vice president mentioned, former vice president mentioned, up to a thousand people a day don't. they're dying right now in the united states. and that's a big deal whether you want to wave it off at a political rally or not. and he can't change that reality. the president is at his best when he is arguing with a foe, with an adversary, with an opponent like a joe biden or nancy pelosi or hillary clinton, but he has not been very good with arguing with a disease, because he can't talk it away. he can't tweet it away. he can't bull it away. it's there, and that's what people are judging his administration on. >> peter baker, have you ever been able to solve the riddle of why they couldn't make him care, if not about the american people that are dying, if not about the more than eight million people that are sickened, about the economy that is really ailing. main streets and towns in states that he is out there making the case for a second term in are struggling. they are sucking wind from the

lockdowns. they are struggling to keep their workers safe. they are struggling to get their workers out of the house if they even have jobs for them because they've got their kids home. why couldn't anyone make him care about the sick economy in this country over which he is presiding? >> well, i think he thinks that he is appealing to those people who are frustrated at lockdowns, are frustrated at the economic troubles without seeing the linkage to the virus. in other words, he is making it out one or the other. either you care about the virus or you care about the economy and i'm on the side of the economy. and i'm with you people who are tired of the dislocation and we should get back to work and everything is fine. but these two things are not disconnected, even in places that haven't had lockdowns, they haven't gone as far as some places in terms of closing normal life. they, too, have has economic problems because everyday people are responding to, this right? you're not as likely to go to the restaurants whether it's open or not if you're afraid of catching a disease. you're not as likely to volunteer for, you know, active

office work if you can avoid it if you're worried about getting sick. you're not going to take trips and vacations. and all those things are irrespective of whatever the president wants to say about it. so instead of linking the two or seeing the linage between the two or focusing on what they can do to control the virus and make it more possible to combat the economic troubles, he saw it as an either/or choice. >> eddie, what do you make of all this news we're digesting day after day we're a country that gets knocked every day with staggering new records set on coronavirus, with a death toll that keeps climbing. and as peter baker puts it so eloquently, the deaths don't fall in the category of one political party or the other. democrats and republicans are dying from the coronavirus pandemic. what do you make about where this race stands right now? obviously joe biden has a stable and steady of a lead as he has had at any point. the polls don't move around very

much. but most democrats are incredibly anxious about how next tuesday is going to go. >> well, they have every right to be. i mean, 2016 was a shock. of course, the fundamentals are different, but the country is deeply divide, nicolle, and we know that in our gut. we know that people are dying alone, that the country has made a decision, at least the president and his minions have made a decision that you are on your own to deal with your grief. that there aren't really any national public rituals. thank god for your show and others who call it forward. and we need to understand. i was really interested in listening to your conversation with peter because there is something that's underneath this that is really interesting to me, and that is that covid -- the president has made it in some ways about being tough and trying to ignore it, but covid is also intersected with this odd caricatured argument that we might describe as libertarian about liberty and freedom.

that to mandate wearing a mask is somehow an infringement on one's liberty. so understand this is in some ways an ideological argument where liberty has become, as i've been saying over and over again, a synonym for selfishness. and so it actually reveals in my view, nicolle, and this might be a bit muddled, but it reveals a deep mallity at the heart of the body politic that is difficult for us to imagine caring for each other. so democrats have every right to panic because i think at the heart of the country is a deep malaise that we haven't quite named yet. >> well, i want to follow up, because i have made this point privately. i don't know if i have ever shared it on the air that if 9/11 happened on trump's watch and we suddenly had to adapt to the tsa, and as a whole country, we had to trust the taking off our shoes, dumping out our thermoses was never to

protect the american homeland from the threat of terrorism, i'm not sure we can do that again. and i'm not arguing for or against the tsa, but that was a major inconvenience. it certainly could be perceived as infringing on our liberty, our spaces, the kind of searches that people had to endure at the beginning, the profiling. people endured that, and that burden was not shared equally among all races. there were indignities. there were invasions. but people by and large endured that for the good of the country, for the security of the country. do you think we could do that now? >> i'm not sure. the idea of national sacrifice seems not to be in currency right now. it's certainly not a value that is expressed by the president of the united states. the idea of a robust conception of the public good, the idea of caring for one's neighbor, none of this is operative in this moment, at least it doesn't seem to be as people are struggling.

so i think there is a kind of -- there is the political reality. there is the economic reality, and then there is moral reality, nicole. and we have to face all three. that's the depth of the crisis we're confronting now. >> i agree. and, you know, david i take your point and agree with it about not losing focus on covid. but all of the president's actions about his own people tell the covid story as well. and "the washington post" is reporting this afternoon that the white house has abandoned any efforts to try to understand the outbreak under its own roof, the one that claimed hope hicks and chris christie and bill stepien, the president's campaign manager and donald and melania trump and barron trump, their son. there is now another outbreak claiming at least five people of the president's most senior political advisers. and they have abandoned any effort and don't plan to contribute to the country's scientific understanding of how a virus mutates and spreads and how it did so on those grounds.

i know it's not surprising, but i am still -- and i say this a lot. i'm not surprised, but i'm always shocked, i'm always shocked by his disregard for healing and protecting anyone. >> yes. >> even his own family from the coronavirus. >> yeah, nicole. it claimed the life of herman cain and over 200,000 other american, and has touched each us in the way it has disrupted the social bond, the ability to spend time with family and friends, the psychological and emotional health of a nation down to the very individual has been ripped asunder under this president. and nicolle, going back to your conversation with eddie, because i think it's very anikable to what you just asked me, the bully pulpit is an awesome and powerful force, and a president and a leader that leans in after 9/11 and says yes, we have to do this, will create a nation that follows that narrative. and donald trump we have a

president that for his own selfish reasons, or perhaps amoral reasons that we will never understand refuses to recognize the gravity that the american people face and instead wants to sell us a false hope. and i think what is interesting and intriguing about this and eddie alluded to it, the division will exist regardless of who wins on tuesday. >> yeah. >> those who support joe biden should he win believe we should find a new moral direction for the nation. and i believe that to be true, but the political division will not be healed. and what is intriguing about joe biden's closing message is that it is almost devoid of ideology, not that he is, but the closing message is. it's about unity and a nation pulling together. should he be victorious on tuesday, will his first 100 days be defined by the unifying message that is closing his campaign or will it be defined by democratic ideology that is all but ready to let loose in

washington, d.c. >> and peter, one of the questions if joe biden wins is how will he govern with so many vocal, passionate supporters from the other side of the aisle filling the airwaves. one of them is miles teller, former department of homeland adviser. he served as chief of staff to secretary kiersten nielsen. he is one of three homeland security officials. olivia troye who was vice president mike pence's coronavirus adviser and elizabeth newman, who was a counterterrorism adviser, they have all come out. they're working with tim military sounds the kinds of alarms that we've all been sounding, that donald trump represents a threat to the whole country. trust them that. >> saw it with their own eyes. your paper broke the story in the last few minutes that miles teller is also anonymous, who wrote anonymously in 2018 before he became a public opponent of this president about the degree

of alarm. i think he talked about the guardrails maybe not holding. he talked about in that original op-ed the conversations about the 25th amendment. we now know his identity. in some ways, it's anticlimactic, because he is such a vocal critic and really taunting donald trump on tv and on twitter where it matters most to donald trump. but what do you make of just another brick in the wall of people who saw donald trump up close. you have mattis. you have bolton. you have miles teller. you have elizabeth newsroom imagine, olivia troye. the people who saw him up close are among the most alarmed. >> yeah, i think that's exactly right and very telling. every administration and every presidency has somebody who writes with them to tell all maybe and the president has no clothes on. president bush had, that president obama, president clinton, everybody does. but nobody has in modern times, at least since watergate the numbers, the sheer volume of people emerge from the administration and say this is not only somebody i disagree with, this is somebody who is

dangerous to the country. and whether miles teller is telling us something new or he is simply one more voice in the crowd, i think it is the crowd that is so telling at this point, the idea that there are people who were on the inside, or intended to be loyal to the president or at least loyal republicans or saw themselves as patriots to the country and wanted to serve and came away so disenchanted by what they saw that they felt they had to raise the alarm with the public. now he is doing this a few days before the election. i'm sure you'll hear from the trump camp lots of bashing of him and he is not that important or he was never in the white house or what have you. but he clearly saw enough in his role at the highest echelons of the department of homeland security when it was handling issues like immigration in a serious way to tell the country something he thinks is important for them to know. >> and it's a story that in different echoes has been told by bob woodward, by your colleagues on immigration and on national security, by others.

so just another interesting development here with five days out. peter baker and david jolly, thank you so much for keeping eddie around a little longer. when we come back, there is growing concern of possible confrontations on election day. and now in michigan, a winning court date for pro-gun rights who have been given the green light to carry weapons at polling places. it's time to check in with steve kornacki, who we understand has now moved his bed over to the big board, because we're not letting him go anywhere for the next several days, and about those polls showing widening leads for biden. yeah, but a reminder that we all know how the 2016 election ended, and we're spooked. reason not to be, although stories when deadline white house continues. ♪

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with just less than six days to go before election day in america, and early voting already well under way. a michigan judge has struck down that state's ban on the open carry of guns near polling places and places where ballots are counted. the ban was put in place just a week after the fbi foiled a plot by an armed militia group to kidnap governor gretchen whitmer. michigan secretary of state argues it's a way to prevent possible attempts at voter intimidation since there are significant and real concerns that militias will heed calls by president donald trump to, quote, go into the polls and watch and stand back and stand by to create chaos. let's bring into this conversation msnbc correspondent cal perry.

he is live in lansing, michigan for us. eddie is still here as well. so, cal, i want to -- first of all, are we supposed to call them our militias or domestic terrorists? >> the group that was here in michigan that planned to kidnap and execute the governor is a domestic terror group, no doubt about it. militias is the way of these armed militants to be more relevant in society. they had no relation to the militias that used to exist that had something to do with the u.s. government. i think we call them armed groups and we make the point that they call themselves militias. >> because i think this is one of those matters where we maybe normalize them by making them -- i've watched your live shots from tulsa to kentucky, places where they're not breaking the law by standing on the streets with long guns. but there are a whole lot of other consequence, and one of them is to terrorize people in the streets. this an active debate among the

groups themselves of the people that are having to contend with them? >> it is. and last week i'm standing in louisville, and i'm really happy that eddie is here. i'm standing in louisville and the black panthers come marching into the square. and it's clear that they are there to protect this march on behalf of breonna taylor and her family. so we go over, and i start talking to these members of this black panther group who are heavily armed and dressed all in black. and i say can i interview the leadership? and it's this young woman. i talk about it. no, we're going to decline the interview. we're here to protect people. and of course the black panthers are there because of what we've seen with the black lives matter movement, but they're also there because of these militias. and there is a very real threat i think felt on these streets, especially in place likes louisville where you have this social movement that is being hijacked, that you have these groups on the outside of. and that's where you have a very dangerous situation as we're all rewatching the movie "recount" about the year 2000. in 2000 all of america's

institutions are going to be tested. this is a different thing now. all of america's institutions are going to be tested, plus we have people in the streets who depending on what the president says are going to arm themselve and hang out in state capitols. it's a completely different ball game, cal. >> cal, i'm so glad you're sort of on this beat. i'm not sure if you're as glad as we are. but can you help me understand? i've seen in interviews with alex wagner for "the circus" and interviews with you that aired on this show yesterday that is a civil war is on the table for these armed militia group orsanic terroris o domestic terrorist, whatever we're calling them. >> i think the fbi is into this deeply, in doing this story. in trying to find people we were going to interview, a lot of them were disappearing because the fbi was taking down their websites or visiting them in person. the thing that we do need to talk about it, and you mentioned alex wagner, a loft times these groups are libertarian. eddie glaude was talking about

this. the president has come out when these cities shut down and make you wear masks, this is about your liberties. and that is what is adding to the support that these armed groups have. and when you add the coronavirus into the equation, it's like a super -- it's a super way of recruiting new members, because people are out of work, and they believe in these liberties that the president talks to them about. and all of it gets jumbled up. and here we are six days before an election. i don't know if i answered your question. i sincerely hope i did. >> tell me more just what's your impressions are. and you mentioned the fbi. christopher wray, the current fbi director has testified that the greatest terror threat is now white supremacist oriented or idealogically inclined domestic terror groups. where is the intersection between the armed militias and white supremacy aligned domestic terror. >> you saw this in the package yesterday. and i don't think anyone knows where that line is or what

triggers it. and that is what is so scary, especially for the fbi. when did we move from liberties and it is my right to hold a rifle in the capitol here in michigan which i think should be up to some debate depending how this election goes because it does make it heard for law enforcement. but when does that move to this is my right as a libertarian to a plot to kidnap and put on trial the governor of michigan? i think a lot of people do make the arguments that a lot of that is the rhetoric that is going on around the country. i wonder, and, again, not to harp on the black panthers, but to see them in such a visible way and to know that history of how the black panther movement and the fbi dealt with each other in the '60s, you wonder how the fbi is going through these mostly white militias. and there are black militias. should be clear about that. there is the black militia out of atlanta, the nfacc.

forary reaction there is an equal rereaction. these groups are disagreeing, they're having these arguments. they're dealing with the police. katy tur today made a great point. some of the sheriffs are in line with different gun policies than some of the federal officials. so all of this in a time of a pandemic six days before the election should have people worried. nobody is saying that anything is going to happen. but the president right now, what he says matters. these people are listening to it. and the rhetoric that he chooses is having a great impact on these groups, nicole. >> and eddie, the president has given them their orders, quote, stand by, stand back, quote, go to the polls and watch. those are directions being given from donald trump. and don't take my word for it. i wouldn't expect anyone on the other side of the aisle to do. so take their word for it that is what they hear. >> exactly.

and i think -- before the outbreak of covid, we knew we were deeply divided as a society, to pull the thread from the other segment. we knew we were in some ways experiencing a cold civil war. we were in the midst of it. and now with the election coming on tuesday, they will very well be some hot spaces, right. and what's interesting in the midst of this cold civil war, nicoll nicolle, the delegate ral dead happens to be the 220,000 dead because of covid, because of the underlying ideological fissures, right? so part of what i think is really important here is not only do we see these so-called militias deploying and then responding, but "the dallas morning news" reported this morning that texas is about to deploy a thousand national guard around their polling places, in cities like dallas and the like. and that has a history in this country, a profound history when

it comes to at least people -- black folk, the tradition out of which i come. we know this is the most important election in our lifetime, and we see all the dark forces and storms gathering, and we need to be very, very clear-minded about what we're about to face come tuesday. i'm not trying to be alarmist. i'm trying to be realistic. >> that's why we're covering it. cal and eddie, we're going to keep having this conversation with every new data point that you pick up in the field, cal, and eddie, you help talk us through it. this is really important. thank you very much to both of you for having this conversation with us. up next, donald trump and joe biden are focusing on some key states this final week before election day. so we'll focus on the road to 270 with our good friend steve kornacki. that's next. [ thunder rumbles ]

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next week, wisconsin's going to answer the call of history. once again, we had a great victory here. didn't we have a great -- remember that four years ago? they said donald trump has won the state of wisconsin. it's been a long time since then a republican did that. we're actually much higher now than we were then. >> that was donald trump last night in west salem. today, six days before the polls close, new numbers show a widening lead for joe biden and increased focus on the coronavirus pandemic from likely

voters, especially in states trump needs most, including, of course, wisconsin. joining us now, two people much smarter than me about this math stuff. national editor for the cook political report and political host of wnyc's "the takeaway" our friend amy walter, and steve kornacki is here. steve, why don't you start us at the big board, and amy and i will both jump in and ask you anything. >> sure. let's go through. you mentioned new polling here. trump in wisconsin, talking that up since he gave that speech basically. here is three new polls out of wisconsin here. you see a range of scenarios, but each one a biden lead, 5, 9 and 17 this morning believe it or not in the abc/washingtonpost poll. >> wow. >> and if you just look at all the battleground states right now and what the polling is pointing to there, you see a lot of biden blue you. do see some tight races. but two are where biden enjoys the biggest lead on average, are

wisconsin and michigan. wisconsin you had that 17-point poll this morning. the other polls tend to be closer than that. but a six-point lead on average for biden in wisconsin. a nine-point lead on average in michigan. and if you just take that to our battleground map here again, all these states you see in gray, these are trump states in 2016. he needs to hang on to most of them. if you just take those two we're talking about, we're in michigan and wisconsin where trump faces the biggest deficits right now in the polling. if those polls were to hold up and biden were to get those two state, even to those two trump states in 2016, you can see that if biden carries all the clinton states and just picks those two off, he'd be sitting at 258. and certainly with a lot of different possibilities on here that could get him over 270. >> steve, one of the sort of closing things that no one could have predicted, and one of the

thanks a lot of smart analysts keep writing about is covid is getting worse. it is not in sort of any sort of stasis where trump is battling on the battlefield, even on which he himself became sick with coronavirus. trump former official acknowledged to politico that if you think covid is an important thing, you're probably not voting for trump. how is that shaping what you're seeing in these polls that you're talk about right now on these battleground states? >> it's an interesting question. i think there is a little bit of guesswork here. again, noted it's these two states in wisconsin and michigan among the battleground states where trump is doing the worst right now. they're states that are polled very frequently, all of these. we've had a chance to see in for a while. i would note two things. number one, it's pretty consistent, especially in michigan that trump has been running fairly behind biden. so i don't know if it's specific to the uptick in covid. wisconsin you're talking about a

state where covid is the story right now. when you look inside these polls, you see it in these two states. you see it everywhere. when you poll the questioning of the president's handling of the coronavirus, it's business higgest weakness in the poll, or one of them. it certainly seems possible that when you look at wisconsin you lock at michigan, you look at the fact where covid is right now, you wonder for the very small share of voters who might be persuadable in this election, if that's bumping a small sbhha into the biden column right now. >> amy, you tweeted something this morning that caught my attention. i have to say, both you have, i search twitter for your feeds to catch up on everything that smart people are seeing in the data. you wrote about how it's trump's share that is problematic for trump. it's his share of the vote, not the delta between where he stands and where joe biden stands. can you explain that for everybody? >> yeah, sure. you know, it is important as we

are trying to tell folks about all the polling that is out there to use a shorthand i a margin. biden is up by x or this number or that not. but the shorthand misses the critical challenge for the president which is how do you get to 50%. and remember, in so many of these states that steve has up on the board are states that the president as candidate didn't carry with 50%. he carried them with a plurality, like wisconsin, like pennsylvania, like michigan. he got 47 or 48%. and so that 47 or 48 he got in 2016 may be his actual ceiling. and it's not enough in a year where we don't have third party candidates who are pulling off 3, 4, 5, 6% of the vote. and if you look at especially pennsylvania and wisconsin, you see a consistent theme. the president at 44 or 45%, that number doesn't budge. biden's number goes up a little bit, goes down a little bit.

but the president doesn't move, which suggests that he's getting pretty much all of his vote. maybe he gets a little more in the margin, but it's hard to get up to 50 when a week out from the election you're still sitting at 45% as an incumbent. usually the undecideds, those late-breaking voters either stay home or they go for the third party or for the challenger. >> and leaving your supporters out in the rain doesn't help. amy, i wonder if you can take that analysis and lay it over pennsylvania and tell me what you're seeing and thinking about pennsylvania. >> yeah, that's the same thing, right, where we're seeing that the president once again sitting in that 45% range really consistently across all the different kinds of poll there's. the other thing that we are looking at and my colleague david wasserman looks at this very closely are congressional level races, right. so being able to check out polling in very specific regions

of the state. and what we're seeing is that the president is trailing his 2016 margin by anywhere from 5 to 10 points in all kinds of parts of the state. you know, i think the mistake that many of us made, and i was one of them in 2016, was the theory about hillary clinton's strength in the suburbs could overcome the problem she was having, especially in the western part or the t, the more small town rural parts of the state. obviously that department happen. but this time what we're seeing is biden's doing even better in the philadelphia suburbs than hillary clinton did and trump's margins in those other parts of the state aren't as big. so biden may actually win some of those places or at least not lose by as much as hillary clinton did. >> i want to get both of your reaction to biden's travel choices. he was in georgia yesterday. and a lot of texans would like

to see him there too. are these states that you guys are pouring over and curious about, or are they really risky with pennsylvania on the line. you first, steve. >> yeah, i think you wonder about it. because we were saying, if biden were to get wisconsin and were to get michigan, if he locks down pennsylvania, there is basically nothing left for donald trump. the only thing donald trump could do at this point is find states that hillary clinton won in 2016 and flip them. there weren't many of those to start with. his campaign will talk about nevada, for instance, but even if he picked off nevada, if he is not getting pennsylvania and he is losing those other two, he is still going to be short. biden will still be over 170. so really, the possibility of locking down pennsylvania if you're feeling good about michigan, feeling good about wisconsin, you do wonder about that a little. on the other hand, democrats got very close there in georgia in 2018. it was five point race in 2016.

they got very close in the mid term election there. you look at the atlanta metro area. rapidly it's becoming democratic. i can see why they'd be tempted. >> amy, texas and georgia? >> yeah, texas and georgia, also that the vice president is going to be in iowa. and steve knows this as well too, which is these are battleground senate races, right? so it's not just for the electoral college map. it's to put democrats over the topping a white house without a democratic senate isn't all that fun. >> that is true. amy is sticking around. steve kornacki, thank you very much. i know that you're in high, high demand. thank you for making some time for us this hour. we're grateful. four years ago today then fbi director jim comey shook up the presidential race. no one thinks it could happen

again just six days out from the election day other than donald trump maybe, but it's something that keeps democrats up at night. we'll talk about it after a quick break. with two new haunted houses, the screams are just getting started. wear your favorite costumes and the fun never ends. come get your halloween on, happening now at universal orlando resort.

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sneaking suspicion, that anxiety that we've seen this movie before. donald trump's democratic challenger way ahead in the polls, poised, it would appear, to beat him. that's when you start to worry and in the back of your mind, in the pit of your stomach, you have that apprehension. yeah, but something could happen. we all know how the 2016 election ended. in fact, it was four years ago today that one of the most dramatic october surprises in american political history took place. the now infamous comey letter reopening the clinton email investigation 11 days before the 2016 election. it was undoubtedly a turning point, one the trump campaign has been so eager to recreate, they've done all sorts of weird things. so, with less than a week to go, maybe the biggest question right now isn't what's going to happen on election day. it is what is trump trying to engineer before we get there. joining us now to talk about just that, "new york times" washington correspondent and nbc national security contributor mike schmidt.

amy walter is still here. amy, who keeps touting the data and the facts and the structural way this race is not like 2016, but mike schmidt, it's undeniable that every democrat in that coalition now includes a lot of independents and republicans who would like to believe the polls doesn't and part of the reason is jim comey. your book takes us inside that exact dynamic but around the comey dinner table. talk about it. >> so, what i discovered in reporting for my book was that the night before comey reopened the email investigation, he came home from work and confided in his wife. he knew he had an awfully difficult decision to make. that he thought the options were bad and terrible. and he told her what he was planning on doing, and she feared, in, you know, that donald trump could be elected president, and she pushed back on him and basically told him, you can't do this so close to the election. and what it did for comey is it

was certainly testing his rationale and he was forced to explain his rationale to his wife, patrice, who came around to see what he was saying but was still deeply concerned about what could come of it. not just what it would mean for the country but what it would mean for her husband. and these two people inside their kitchen had a chance to sort of look ahead in american history. there were only a few people that knew comey was about to make that decision, and it was angsty and it was stressful and it was frustrating, and it was a -- he was one of the more important discussions i think i've ever found out about that a husband and wife have had in american history. >> and amy, you have this tone of trying to reassure consumers of polling data who are not expert like you and just really tune in every four years that structurally, this race is so

different from four years ago. what is your lookback analysis on the impact of comey reopening his investigation on this day four years ago? >> yeah, you know, it's funny, nicole, i went back and i looked through polling that came out in mid-october of 2016. hillary clinton up by 11 points and then at this point -- i guess it was about a week ago when the nbc "wall street journal" poll also put out a poll showing biden up 11 and you think, to your point earlier, okay, these things both look the same. how do we know that they're not going to be the same? and when you look under the hood and you see that, even when hillary clinton was up by 11, her overall unfavorable ratings were so high, so much higher than where joe biden's are at this point, especially the deeply unfavorable rating. and the most important thing, as you know so well, nicole, is, what's the environment in the closing days of the campaign? what are people talking about? what is the news covering? and we know in 2016 so much of

that time was spent talking about email, email, email, and the -- then candidate trump going on and on about corruption and of course the wikileaks on top of that, so it was in his wheelhouse, those last few days, the environment was definitely a, like, wind at his back. today, if you open, as i did, i clicked on the "wall street journal" front page and it was about the fact that the market closing down due to fears about rising pandemic and that we're going to be back to kind of a spring sort of pandemic situation, which, of course, will also potentially impact the economy. that's not where donald trump wants to be going into an election. so he had a wind at his back in 2016. now he's got like a gale force wind coming at his face.

>> that's such an interesting way to put it. mike schmidt and amy walter, thank you for spending time with us on this and this is a wha a lot of people are still white-knuckled about. thank you. the next hour of "deadline white house" starts for us after a quick break. don't go anywhere. s for us after a quick break. don't go anywhere. ning. but we did almost no testing, almost no contact tracing. completely ignored the science, completely ignored the warning signs. there were things that could have been done. a lot of people have died needlessly, and there's nothing more frustrating than feeling like you're fighting against someone who should have your back. we are not going to stamp this out unless we have a change of leadership. ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. ♪ ♪ [ engines revving ] ♪

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close to four years now, he has shown no interest in putting in the work, no interest in finding common ground, no interest in using the awesome power of his office to help anyone but himself and his friends. no interest in treating the presidency as anything but one

more reality show that he can use to get the attention he craves. donald trump hasn't grown into the job because he can't. and the consequences of that failure are severe. >> hi, again, everyone, it's 5:00 in the east. apparently that view articulated by president obama at the democratic convention was the view from inside the trump administration as well. and now, washington -- one of washington's enduring mysteries is over. anonymous, who made a big splash with a "new york times" op-ed back in september of 2018, announcing that he was part of a resistan resistance from inside the trump administration, has revealed himself just this afternoon. miel miles taylor, former chief of homeland security, announced he is anonymous. in a statement, he acknowledges a flaw with his original op ed back in '18, writing this, i was wrong about one major assertion

in my op-ed. the country cannot rely on well-intentioned unelected bureaucrats around the president to steer him toward what's right. nor can they rely on congress. the people themselves are the ultimate check on the nation's chief executive. we alone must determine whether his behavior warrants continuance in office and we face a momentous decision as our choice about trump's future will affect our future for years to come. with that in mind, he doesn't deserve a second term in office, and we don't deserve to live through it. anonymous revealed is where we start this hour with some of our favorite reporters and friends, elizabeth newman is back. she is a former assistant secretary for threat prevention and security policy at the department of homeland security. also with us, tim miller, former rnc spokesman, political director for republican voters against trump and contributor for the bulwark and a. a.b. stoddard from real clear

politics. elizabeth and tim, did you know it was miles all along? elizabeth, you first. >> no. >> no. i just found out about four or five minutes before cnn broke the story. had no idea. >> yeah, and -- >> tim, let me -- >> if i could just add -- no, look, just to get the facts straight, we didn't know when he came to us and we decided to do the ad. he didn't tell us that he had written the op-ed. and you know, look, i think that i'm happy that he came forth and the testimony that he put forth in that ad that he did for our vet had some very, very specific allegations that were not in the book and that were not in the op-ed about actions that the president took with regards to fires in california and on the border and myriad other issues and i think that's important to get out. but i do just -- i wish, for the record, that more people would come out and tell the truth and i think that telling the truth is important in this time and i think that even applies to miles, and i wish he had done so at the time.

>> so, tim, i wanted you back because you said something yesterday that really stuck with me and i think made a big impression on a lot of our viewers, that you've got no tolerance, no appetite for the silent objector, that you want to see people do what elizabeth has done, what olivia has done, frankly, what miles has done by associating himself with your effort. so, what do you make of the fact that he stayed anonymous so long, or is it the work, the more recent work, that sort of redeems the anonymous claims? >> yeah, look, i said at the time, i don't understand why somebody would want to be anonymous in their objections to donald trump. i think that somebody should put their name on it, and i stand by that. here's the thing that i think miles is doing that's important. he's saying that we should -- that there is a necessary reaction to the observations he has from being inside the white house. and that's that we need to make joe biden the president. and miles has had the courage and so has elizabeth and so has

olivia to put their names to that and say they're voting for joe biden. and there are a lot of people who the nain the white house who may not have written an op-ed but they're in "the new york times," "the washington post," anonymously trying to make themselves feel better about their enabling of this president and they're not coming out and putting their name on anything at all. they're hedging their bets. if donald trump wins, they might want to get promoted and work for donald trump again and put more kids in cages and separate more people from their families and, you know, continue in this super spreader david koresh tour they're on right thousand p nno going to cost the lives of thousands of more people because the president doesn't give a damn whether people live or die. that said, again, i think he should put his name on it at the time. >> because you are spitting important truths today, i want to get to you on something you tweeted earlier, tim, about sort of in the vein of koresh.

why aren't the super spreader rallies on the front page of every paper? talk about that. >> this is -- this is the soft bigotry of low expectations for this president in the media. there's a bias -- >> i appreciate the reference. >> yeah. there's a bias towards him, because they don't want to put, on the front page every day, that donald trump said something racist, that donald trump lied, that donald trump's putting people's lives at risk, they have to find other news. it's this bias towards fake balance and this is what's happening right now in this country and as far as i'm concerned, it's the only news story in this country is that while coronavirus cases are spiking, this president is acting more irresponsibly than literally anyone in the entire country. there's no, you know, kid rock isn't out there doing music tours, is he? even in college football stadiums, people are separated and distanced. there are no other examples i can think of, of influential people who are holding events where people are packed in there together while cases are

skyrocketing. he's going to wisconsin three more times. this is the biggest hot spot in the country. last night, in omaha, last night, i don't know if your viewers know this, he held an event. nine people got pneumonia, which is going to make them more likely to die if they get coronavirus and in omaha, this is the biggest week of the year for coronavirus cases. it is insane that he's doing this. absolutely insane. and i think that there's been, you know, obviously, it's getting coverage, but i think there's a lack of appreciation for just how irresponsible he's been and how, as far as i'm concerned, it should really be the only thing in the news for the last six days as long as he does it. >> there are sighs of relief going out throughout the team that puts together this show. we make choices, obviously, every day, and we -- just to pull back the curtain, i mean, we lead most days with trump as a super spreader and i anchored tulsa and watched it with my jaw

on the ground that in the middle of the first surge, he was holding a rally, and i do watch these events with just -- with horror that they are all packed in, that they cannot accept the truth of this pandemic in a way that would protect them. they're not -- they're just endangering themselves. i really appreciate your -- >> just really quick, that was present company not included, nicole. >> we should never mince words. no, no. >> by the way, it's not just the people at these events that are at risk, they go to starbucks after the event. right? i mean, he's putting at risk a lot of people who aren't choosing to be part of, you know, their little death cult. >> it's such a good place to start, elizabeth, because it is so uncomfortable. this is your former colleague, miles taylor. he was the chief of staff at the department of homeland security. it's really hard to keep a secret for a week or a month.

he kept this secret for two years, published an op-ed in "the new york times." i, frankly, when i first met you, i thought a lot of your criticis criticisms were along the same themes. i wondered if you were anonymous. i'm with tim in that everyone that has the courage to speak out and put their name and their face to it, i know what i see in my twitter feed. i know what sorts of attacks you must be getting. i applaud you for doing it. i wonder how you feel about miles doing it anonymously first. >> well, i'm still kind of processing because i am a little surprised. i had asked him multiple times if it was him over the years, and he kept the secret really well. i don't know that anybody knew. so, i'm kind of still processing that, but you know, just go back to what tim said. the point is, he was speaking the truth, and if you read his statement, which kind of helps explain why he decided to write it anonymously, he made the

point that when the -- when somebody criticizes the president, the president's response is never to talk about the criticism and defend himself. it's always to attack whoever is levying the criticism. and he felt that by remaining anonymous, he would be able to keep the focus on the criticism -- critique itself. so you know, it's an interesting frame, and certainly, the role that anonymous played for many of us, i remember reading it and thinking, okay, it was kind of unspoken, but that's what it feels like, that we're constantly not -- we're not trying to thwart the president's policy objects. we're just trying to do it the right way or steer him in the right direction to not make a catastrophic decision for our country, and it does feel like every day we're trying to figure out how to resist his worst tendencies, and so i remember feeling a sense of comfort that there were other people out there that viewed that role in a

similar vein. and certainly, at the time that we started speaking out a few months ago, the reason was not because any of us are angry at the president for what he did to us or to others. it, pure and simple, is just that we believe, fundamentally, the american people deserve to know the truth, and for four years, you've had people covering for the president, spinning, you know, what he said on the campaign trail, that's not actually what he meant, he meant something else. or trying to point to some of the policy achievements and say, you know, you should vote for him because he accomplished x, y, and z in some issue that you care about and the truth is that the president didn't do any of that. any success is a credit to a small group of adults in the room that were able -- that had the flexibility to go and do that success and then all of the failure is directly attributable to him getting involved in

things that, if he had just stayed out of, we would be better off. covid being the primary example. and we felt like the american people deserved to know the facts before they get to vote. so i appreciate that he had the courage two years ago to write what he did but more so that he had the courage to put his name to it in august and encourage others to come out and share our concerns, but giving that firsthand account to the american people so they could make a decision on november 3rd. >> a.b., i want to broaden this because i don't want this to come off as personal, because i appreciate what miles did anonymously in 2018. i think elizabeth's exactly right. this was the blueprint take from inside of exactly what we were covering from the outside that looked so corrupt, that looked so dysfunctional, that looked unsustainable. and i'll leave it to others to judge when and how and why he revealed himself. i certainly appreciate the work that olivia and elizabeth and

miles do publicly and their anecdotes and tales and experiences, but here's the problem more broadly than any of the people that are already out there. for all the people that are out there, there are hundreds who are staying silent about a policy that when the history is written of the trump presidency, will be described as the torture of very small children. the child separation policy amounts to a crime in any context other than a president deciding to do it, and it may some day amount to a crime in that context too. so, behind everyone who's gone public, there are hundreds of people who have not, who are parties to potentially criminal conduct and certainly morally reprehensible conduct. what do you have to sort of add to the picture of just sort of behind those people who are speaking out? there are so many who haven't yet. >> right. well, we've had this discussion for all these years, nicole,

about whether or not people inside felt they were helping us. they certainly privately told us that they were. those grown-ups, if there were any, are gone. we know that. it is -- i think there is a difference between people like miles and elizabeth and olivia working with tim and others at rvat to actually go in the field and beat the bushes and try to find people and change their minds and say, you need to be honest with yourself and your family and your community and you need to vote against trump. and so, it's not like we found out today that it was just someone who's been sitting around enjoying their royalties from their best-selling book. it's been frustrating to watch people like h.r. mcmaster and john bolton, who have been very close to consequential decisions and have all but admitted that in addition to child separation and family brutalization, we have potentially criminal

abdication and acquiescence -- a subverting of our national interest and national security to the russians, whether wittingly or unwittingly. they have said that about the president. and we just heard today on cnn reportings of jared kushner talking to bob woodward about how they were going to pass the buck on the pandemic and just doctors and science be damned. move ahead. clearly, in so many words, no matter how many lives were lost. look at how many people have died this year and how they are proceeding and tim described it perfectly. telling us that we are fools to believe the science and the tragic numbers and what we see all around us in our communities and the lives we're living locked in our houses, because this is just no problem. it was always about trump. it was always about his re-election. it was always about keeping the markets stable. there are so many things we can point to in this administration,

nicole, where the conduct has verged on criminal, and there are a lot of people who are complicit. i do think they soothe themselves at night by saying they just really want to hang around and make it right and do the best they can and they're not always successful. if you look at how many people have been left and have been purged, the people who are still there and the people that would populate a second term administration of president trump for another four years would be the worst of the worst and we've talked so many times about the dangers we would be in. >> elizabeth, i want to give you the last word on any and all of that, the kind of people who stay and the hundreds of people who haven't taken your brave posture of speaking out and trying to make sure that joe biden is the next president, not donald trump. >> so, it's really hard to lump everybody into one category. it very much depends on the topic that you are responsible for working, the agency that you are working. i have no doubt that there are

any number of people that are working on important defense, intelligence, law enforcement related things that are keeping us safe today, and i'm glad they're still there, and if they spoke out, they would have to leave. so, i'm thankful that we do have servants that are willing to say, i know that my reputation's going to be damaged on the other side of this administration, but for the sake of our country, i'm here trying to keep people safe. but there are another category of people that it would have been better for them to come out and tell the american people what they have seen and tell them straight instead of reporting to reporters anonymously about their beliefs that the president's unfit, but i just want to pick up on something that a.b. just mentioned. you know, the second term here is what has all of us so nervous. this president is about his ego. it is about his money, and he will have no constraints on the other side of this election.

so, all of those -- and i'll appeal to christians and conservatives who think that they're voting for him for policy's sake. he will not implement those policies that you think he is going to give you. he has no reason to. he is not going to be loyal to you. he's going to be loyal to himself and do what he thinks is best. so, if this really does come down to character, he does not have it. and you know that. you've already admitted, many -- i mean, i'm not talking about the most trumpian of trump people here, but those that are really on the fence, he can not deliver what you think you're voting for. please consider his character. >> tim miller and elizabeth, the two of you together blow my mind. i appreciate your candor. i appreciate your honesty, and i appreciate your time here starting us off. thank you so much. a.b. is sticking around. i appreciate you too, my friend, so much that you're staying. when we come back, fears are growing that donald trump could move to steal the election. newly enabled by bogged-down

postal service and a very friendly supreme court. that story next. plus we'll be joined by an author who says trump's betrayal of america ranks him among history's worst traitors, and today, we're reminded once again that the devastation trump's norm-busting actions are having. and the white house wants credit for ending the coronavirus pandemic even as the virus spirals out of control all across the country. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. don't go anywhere. break. don't go anywhere. i just assumed all bladder leak pads felt the same. but nothing makes me feel like new always discreet boutique. outside, it's soft like underwear. inside, it turns liquid to gel. for incredible protection, that feels like nothing but my underwear. new always discreet boutique.

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i think if you wait until election day to send it in, even with three days, it's probably

not a good idea. we're actually suggesting -- encouraging people to walk their ballots in right now. >> that was pennsylvania's governor, tom wolf, and election day is six days away, and leaders in several states, not just pennsylvania, including other key battlegrounds are urging voters who have not returned their mail-in ballots yet to do so now to avoid mailing them because of delays at the post office. "the washington post" reports that wisconsin elections officials are redoubling their efforts to get voters to return their ballots as soon as possible. that's after the supreme court ruled that ballots received after november 3rd, that's election day, cannot be counted, no matter when they're postmarked. michigan's secretary of state, jocelyn benson, made that point clear. she said this. we are too close to election day and the right to vote is too important to rely on the postal service to deliver absentee ballots on time. case in point, nbc-owned television state ions conductedn

experiment to see how long it would take letters to get to destinations across the country. of the 809 letters, only 79% of them arrived in the one to three-day window. that's well below the goal of delivering 95% of mail during that time frame. all this means that a significant number of ballots mailed right at the last minute could arrive too late to be counted, especially in states that aren't going to count ballots received after election day, regardless of when they're postmarked. and even if your ballot arrives on time, there could be another issue. experts say 1% to 2% of the nearly 70 million mail-in ballots cast this year, potentially more than a million ballots at those numbers, could be rejected because of mistakes in filling out the ballot or missing or invalid signatures. joining our conversation, jason johnson, politics and journalism professor at morgan state university and errin hayes.

a.b. is also still here and we have nbc news justice correspondent, our friend pete williams has popped in with some breaking news on all these topics from the united states supreme court. pete, what have you got? >> right. this is specifically on the pennsylvania case. where it stood is that the republicans who lost the first round last week asking the supreme court to put an emergency hold on the state supreme court's ruling that extended the ballot deadline, the republicans went back to the supreme court and said, okay, take this case full up on a fast track appeal. and today, the supreme court just a few seconds ago said, no, we're not going to do that. and very significantly, what was the vote of justice amy coney barrett? quote, she took no part in the consideration or decision of this motion. so, on the first big election case to come before the supreme court, since she became a justice, she took no part. she sat this one out. now, of course, this doesn't say why she did that. it may be because this was well

along in the decision process before she got there, and she did not want to come in and sit in and start -- make everybody start over again. but this is a 6-3 -- or a 5-3 decision, ib should say. she took no part. justices alito, thomas, and gorsuch said the court should hear this case, take it on a fast track. they believe that the state supreme court did the wrong thing in pennsylvania, that only the legislature can set the rules for an election, not the state supreme court. and they say they hope -- they say what has happened here has, quote, created -- needlessly created conditions that could lead to serious post-election problems. but in any event, this is a setback for republicans. they were hoping the u.s. supreme court would take this on a fast track and get it decided before the election. it doesn't appear that's going to happen and amy coney barrett sat this one out. >> and pete, just to be clear, what did they want the court to

do? what did they want from this decision for them? >> well, they wanted to win full-up on the merits. they wanted the supreme court to rule that the state supreme court violated the constitution by extending the deadline. the republicans' view, and it's the view of these three justices i was just talking about, is that because the constitution says that states choose their presidential electors that vote in the electoral college in the manner as the legislators direct that only the legislature can change the rules. the other side has said, well, that's true unless the rules would violate the constitution, in which case the courts have a role. so the state supreme court said, extend the deadline by three days. last week, the republicans said, put an immediate hold on that for now while we appeal it. and this week, they said, okay, now we're appealing it, hear our appeal, rule that the state supreme court got it wrong, and the supreme court -- the u.s. supreme court, at least in the short-term, is not going to do that.

>> pete williams, thank you so much for bringing that to us and for helping us make sense of it. it's great to see you. >> you bet. >> jason, let me come over to you. i mean, i guess the -- what did they want them to do? they wanted them to suppress the vote for them. is that a where we are? >> yeah, yeah. that's -- at this point, we can say, i have thought this for a long time, there is absolutely no way that donald trump can declare himself the winner in a legitimate election. that's it. this is a nationally coordinated plan by republicans to suppress the vote. they don't want people to count votes for three days depending on the mail. you also just had a ruling coming down in pennsylvania today that, you know, ballots that come in past 8:00 have to be set to the side in case they're going to be reviewed by the supreme court. which is insane, because if i'm in line at 8:00 to still vote, my ballot would still count. but if my ballot arrives by the mail past 8:00, at 8:01, for some reason, it doesn't count. this is all a coordinated

attempt to destroy people's right to vote. there is no credibility to the republican party at all when it comes to elections, and any democrat at this point who is pretending that civility or comity or anything else can be achieved with these republicans is an idiot. and i hope they take this into consideration and fight like heck after tuesday, because that's what's going to be required to save this country. >> and errin, it all really clicks for me, i mean, all of my democratic sources and friends and people that i know and frankly joe biden's coalition includes a whole hell of a lot of the former republicans that i used to work with and know and am sure a.b. feels the same way. the anxiety is not just around -- you know, four years ago, it was around a hidden trump vote, sort of a hidden, embarrassed to admit they like trump. now it is around these kinds of issues, a not hidden, an overt effort to not just suppress the vote, not just subject people to

12-hour lines to wait to vote, not just stick one ballot box in a huge texas county, but to take the people that have voted legally and authentically and in time to go in the mail and throw them away because donald trump also screwed with the posting servical service. this doesn't pass the laugh test on any level which i&i really -- i know i have to stop wondering but i do wonder where the rational and reasonable republicans are that can say, enough. we created this mess. we should let all the votes that have been cast, that have come in, that have the right signatures, be counted. >> well, there is a concern, nicole, you know, in this climate, the political climate and the pandemic, two things are present. tremendous voter excitement but also the threat of voter suppression that is looming over this election and that frankly i

experienced firsthand right here in pennsylvania. i'm based in philadelphia. it's the most populous county in the state, and you know, they keep -- the monitor was make a plan. i made a plan. i requested a mail-in ballot. that ballot did not make it to me, and so i was one of the thousands of people in philadelphia county that went to cast their vote early before the deadline, which was tuesday. you know, i normally vo vote in election, stood in line, and four hours later i emerged and so directly experiencing voter -- the voter suppression that an untold number of philadelphians and an untold number of americans are going to experience this cycle and i say that, you know, not to portray myself as a victim. i'm a journalist. i'm somebody who has four hours, frankly, to stand in line, but there are too many people in this country who do not, and so it is for them that i have to write this column so that people know. i mean, frankly, i think, you know, more political journalists, if people are going to experience this, more journalists should experience it because they, you know, having a

direct experience with this really just puts totally additional lens on this and i think the uncertainty created, you know, at the federal level with the supreme court and at the post office just underscores the need for folks to get their -- turn their ballots in. yes, the post office is really not an option six days out. turn your ballot in if you have it. and you know, the threat of voter suppression is very real. it's very present. and this is what it looks like in the 21st century. >> and you know, a.b., you know how we know this is part of the vast right-wing conspiracy? because lifelong republican election lawyer ben ginsburg told us so. ben ginsburg has worked on republican presidential level campaigns for decades, and he came out in miles taylor fashion months ago and said that republicans have searched for voter fraud for decades. they never found any until donald trump came along and called on his supporters in

north carolina to vote twice, which is felony voter fraud. you now take that act that brought ben ginsburg out to sound the alarms that it is republicans committing voter fraud, not any of the kind of people that would wait eight hours to vote. where is the bipartisan outcry for election reform in country? >> oh, i've been waiting to hear some republicans before election night say something about this beyond ben ginsburg and you're right, he had a piece in the "washington post" a few weeks ago after he initially came out, underscoring the fact that he believes these bogus claims by the president, these lies, are terrible for the republican party, not just for the president's chances of having enough people in his party vote for him by mail, which, you know, most seniors have and certainly have in florida all these years. he was talking about republicans down ballot clinging to possible leads on election night where

the president might say, oh no, all of these are fraudulent and the republicans, perhaps even in races that could decide the senate majority, would have to defy the presidents or say, it's true, the votes i got are no good. one of the problems for republicans who have not said, really, anything -- i mean, we've heard a few. we've heard a few. congressman tom cole and mitch mcconnell, there have been a few comments in public saying, i think it's all going to work out fine. i think the mail service is up to this. they deliver a lot of packages at kripchristmas. it will be nothing like that. everything's going to go fine. we trust that the -- you know, that the local election officials can count these ballots. it is largely been silent, and it really -- we are literally counting on them next week should he make these claims to say that they trust the system and to say that these counts are legitimate. and it really is -- it's very telling that the republican

efforts to stop the counts on election day or within a certain time frame were not coupled with efforts on the front end to cast -- to count ballots more quickly. we have not seen any efforts in a pandemic by republicans to say, let's help the local election officials with additional resources, et cetera. so that we can actually just start counting them more early and count them faster. it's actually just been to close the window of counting and that really is obvious, you know, in its goal. >> errin, bob bower, who has the probably unenviable task of marshalling a countrywide legal effort to deal with these challenges sounded very confident in an interview i heard him give to my friend, john highlyman on showtime's "the circus" but what is the feeling around the grassroots? this is a herculean effort.

i worked on three presidential campaigns and again, this may be more of sort of the blissful ignorance of what i was a part of, but you didn't just have to get over the -- biden doesn't just have to get over the line. he has to win by a land slide that would make all of donald trump's planned and expected efforts to delegitimize his victory seem ludicrous. joe biden doesn't just have to win the legal and lawful votes. he has to defeat all these state supreme courts and then contend with a stacked u.s. supreme court. i mean, it is a herculean task ahead of joe biden. do you think he's up for it? >> well, i think he certainly is standing at that army of legal folks to push back against the voter suppression that we are also seeing being fought at the -- at a legal level from the trump campaign, having, you know, a counterweight to that is important but also, yes, that is why they are urging people to vote early and to vote in record numbers because having an

outcome that is a mandate and not one on the margins is an outcome that is more difficult to challenge. the possibility of knowing who the winner is going to be on election night, i certainly am not in a prediction business, so don't know that that is going to be probable, but you know, if it is going to be possible, it is going to be because of record turnout. but you know, i just want to piggyback on something that you were referencing before, and that is, you know, the idea of bipartisan support for voter access and expanding access to the ballot for americans. this is something that not only republican elected officials should be embracing, but republican voters have to reject the politics of voter suppression for the people that represent them to get on board with this, i think. you know, it can be a bipartisan effort among voters to say that this is not something that we want as a democracy, that we want, you know, a fair fight in deciding who it is that gets to represent us, that republican

voters should also say that just as loudly as you have democrats who are saying that voter suppression is wrong. >> i agree with you. a.b. and errin, thank you so much. jason is sticking with us. when we come back, the real world threat to the safety and wellbeing of those on the receiving end of donald trump's attacks. "deadline white house" continues after a quick break. tinues after a quick break. still fresh

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reporting in the "washington post" that underscores just how donald trump is unlike any other president in history and not in the good ways. "washington post" reports the cia's most endangered employee for much of the past year was not an operative on a mission abroad but an analyst who faced a torrent of threats after filing a whistle-blower report that led to the impeachment of donald trump. the analyst spent months living in no frills hotels under surveillance by cia security. he was driven to work by armed officers in an unmarked sedan. on the few occasions he was allowed to reenter his home to retrieve belongings, a security team had to sweep the apartment first to make sure it was safe. let that sink in for a second. the cia had to go to great lengths to protect an employee from a security threat sparked by their own boss, president donald trump. our next guest is out with a new book with a damning indictment of the trump presidency. he uses just one to describe donald trump. traitor. joining our conversation, david,

visiting scholar at the carnegie endowment for peace and author of the new book "traitor: a history of american betrayal." jason johnson is still with us. david, take me through the thesis of this book, donald trump as a traitor. >> well, the thesis is that, you know, donald trump is a lot of things. he's a liar. he's a racist. he's a misogynist. he's corrupt. but i don't think we should lose fact -- track of the fact that from the beginning, he has been involved in betraying the country. you know, the presidency, as you know very well, the one of those rare jobs that begins by taking an oath. you take an oath to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution. and almost immediately, donald trump betrayed that oath, broke that oath, and it begins, as nancy pelosi says, with russia. it always comes back to russia. he embraced the assistance of

our most notable adversary in the world. he did it in a way that involved stolen materials. he then defended them. he then rewarded them. he pursued policies that no other president would have pursued. and he gave deference to their leader over our cia, over our fbi. now, he's betrayed the country in a lot of other ways. clearly, he's put his political interests ahead of the country, national interests with regard to covid. he's put his financial interests ahead of the country with regard to a whole host of other things, but i don't think we should lose sight of this and i think we should look at it in a noninflammatory way by comparing it to what else has happened in our history. so that's what i did. i went back to the beginning, back to benedict arnold, i looked at people who betrayed the country through the civil war, through the 20th century, and i said, how does this guy

compare? and i have to say, it doesn't -- he doesn't compare very well. >> jason, i wanted you to be part of this conversation because i think the way we've talked about donald trump matters, and i admire david for using the word "traitor." and i think it's so interesting that the people who have inched toward uncovering facts that might have revealed donald trump as a traitor, andy mccabe opened a full field investigation into donald trump when he wondered if he might be working to advance russia's national security instead of ours. the cia has placed intelligence in front of donald trump about bounties being placed on the heads of american soldiers. and he didn't read it. he didn't call putin to yell at him. he attacked the american intelligence agencies and axios reported a couple days ago that the first thing he plans to do if he wins is to fire the head of the cia, fire his own appointee at the fbi.

so what do you make of david's frame of donald trump as a traitor? >> so, what really frightens me, nicole, is if you think of the classic traitor, we think of benedict arnold. he sold out america to the british, right? so, it's the idea of someone betraying our country to another nation. what i find most disturbing about donald trump's portrayal is, he is betraying america but in the minds of many people in this country, over 40%, he's actually a patriot. they believe in an america that none of the rest of us believe in. they think that donald trump is a patriot. they don't think he is a traitor. they think he is serving a white nationalist apartheid state america that they want to recreate. so, what disturbs me, and i could ask this of david because this is always interesting to me, what is the america that he thinks he's serving? >> well, i think donald trump thinks he's serving himself, but with benedict arnold, the

loyalists agreed with him and with jefferson davis, there were the people in the south who agreed with him on his view of creating the confederacy in order to protect the institution of slavery. so, this has happened before. i don't think it's ever happened, of course, with a president of the united states. and that's really what sets it apart because the ability of this one man to do damage to the country is so much greater than any other traitor we've ever faced. >> david, i want to read an excerpt from the book. you write, "the 2020 election presents us with an existential choice. if we re-elect this wannabe authoritarian, this puppet of foreign autocrats, he and they will not just be validated but empowered. whatever trump's motivation, we have seen him remake our judiciary and undermine our system of justice. he has degraded america on the global stage and profoundly weakened us. all that is the price of his

betrayals to date. should he be given four more years, our democracy might never recover." i picked that one because elizabeth newman, who worked for donald trump in the department of homeland security, made an eerily similar point about 15 minutes ago on this program that what she fears is the second term. you paint it in pretty dark terms yourself. is that the big worry, not what has already happened but what happens if he's re-elected? >> yeah, and i think one of the reasons for the book is that it's easy to lose sight of the gravity of his abuses because there's a scandal every day. there's a tweet every ten minutes. it's easy to lose sight of the fact that just a couple of months ago, the former director of national intelligence said that the only conclusion he could draw was that the russians had something on him. this is a former republican senator from indiana. you just mentioned him thinking that perhaps his next move will be to get rid of the head of the cia and to get rid of the head

of the fbi. that's not to make us safer. that's to make him safer. and imagine what will happen to nato if he gets another four years. imagine what alliances will fall by the wayside, what international institutions will fall by the wayside, who he will draw closer to and what steps he will take to protect himself. we have seen him break every norm, break a series of laws, have a series of investigations that were bipartisan or led by republicans that have demonstrated conclusively about his ties and his willingness to forsake the american people to advance his own interests and now we're presented with the possibility that he could win re-election and actually do worse because think of a donald trump who doesn't have to worry about re-election. >> just his news coverage. and what's so interesting, david, is that john bolton reaches a lot of the same conclusions as you do from the

other side of the ideological spectrum about nato, about the corruption of foreign policy for personal and financial gain. thank you so much for spending some time with us to talk about the book. it's great. david and jason, we're grateful to both of you. david's new book, "traitor: david's book "traitor" when we return, donald trump says we're rounding the corner on coronavirus. now a new memo from the white house goes even further than that trying to take credit for ending the pandemic. just as cases are hitting record highs. we continue after a quick break. don't go anywhere.

>> as the data and front line warnings prove the coronavirus is spreading more than ever before, the white house office of science and technology credits the quote ending the covid-19 pandemic. joining us is and white house policy director under president obama. i mean, i don't know whether to put this in the category of delusions that need medical care or cruel lies or stupidity. where do you put the thought anyone in the white house thought to type that sentence? >> it's amazing, in this canico. one insult after another. we're going into lockdowns in

europe and given the rate that they're at, we're only weeks behind. the president clearly announced victory. i guess while you and i were busy trying to think about how to help educate and protect the nation, they declared victory. so i find it insulting. i came back from clinic tioday. one of the clinic workers had to bury her father because he died of covid and died alone. that's too often the story we're seeing every day this week, this month, this year in america. it's cognitive distance, arrogance and as david just said, a traitor to all of everything that is american. >> we need to have you back tomorrow to talk about what is really going on in this country because you're right, it is the opposite from what they have asserted. so we'll be reaching out, dr.

patel, thank you for getting in with the fact check with us today. finally, as we do every day here, remembering lives well lived. when her teenage daughter said she was considering medical school, janette williams parker had an idea. if you go to med school, she said, then i'll be your nurse. the child of a cook and a coal miner janette known to her friends at netty worked 26 years as a registered nurse, 23 of those at same hospital in west virginia among her responsibilities, teaching new nurses the ropes. it just came naturally to her to do that. by all accounts, she was loving and thoughtful. she cared. her daughter told "the new york times" that janette once noticed the parents of a sick child spending long, long hours at the hospital. so she went and got them a change of clothes and a meal. a few weeks ago, according to the cbs station in bridge port, janette williams parker became the first nurse in west virginia to die of the coronavirus. she was just 48 years old.

but her daughter hailey seems intent on finishing her dreams. she's currently enrolled in a premed program at west virginia university to become a doctor. we're rooting for her. we'll be right back. we're rooting for her. we'll be right back.

thank you so much for letting us into your homes during these extraordinary times. "the beat" ari melber joins us. what's it about, the economy? if this is the most important election, why? well, we're going to take a stab at answering that question for you tonight. its is what will be our last special report before election day, something we've been working hard on as a team so i want to tell you about it off the top right now