ashley parker, pulitzer prizewinning white house reporter. eugene robinson, pulitzer prizewinning columnist. robert costa, national political reporter for "the post." also happens to be moderator of washington week on pbs. good evening and welcome to you all. ashley, three large gatherings on the road in pennsylvania today. as you saw a large gathering on the south lawn tonight. chief of staff is caught on live television saying this cannot be controlled. is this going to be our life now where this white house is concerned? living, campaigning as if it can't be controlled, all evidence to the contrary? >> yeah. and a lot of that, frankly, is intentional. the president is his white house and joe biden made two totally different bets on coronavirus. joe biden of course is rigorous in following all safety and scientific and public health recommendations, often taking precautions that even go beyond sort of the letter of the law and the letter of the guidance. and president trump and his team are the exact opposite. the president has very clearly

ashley parker, both candidates on "60 minutes" last night. we saw joe biden reacting to make of the president's attacks after cbs producers clearly caught president trump just since returning to the trail after his covid diagnosis earlier this month. let's play a little bit of that. lesley stahl's interview was so strong and so effective, this is only a small piece of what they did, constantly quoting the president to him, showing it, and having him deny what he had said. let's watch. >> let me ask you something about suburban women. >> yeah. >> suburban women, will you please like me? please. please. i saved your damn neighborhood, okay? >> you said the other day to suburban women, will you please like me? please. please. >> i didn't say that. that's so misleading. i say jokingly, suburban women you should love me because i'm giving you security. >> the president said on the stump, i saved the suburbs, you should thank me. >> he wouldn't know a suburb unless he took a wrong turn. he wants to take that subliminal fear out there and say it's b

to get us started and talk about this is the washington post white house reporter ashley parker. ashley, thanks for being here. ashley: thanks for having me jonathan. jonathan: on the town hall, these dueling debates, did the trump campaign achieve its aim, scheduling the trump town hall at the same time as biden? ashley: if the aim in some ways was to compete with biden for airtime and overshadow biden, i think, yes, anecdotally, more people seem to be watching the trump town hall in real time then the joe biden town hall. if real question to me is, knowing in hindsight how the townhall went, his the trump campaign happy that potentially so many people watched that trump town hall in real time? [laughter] jonathan: i'm glad you pointed that out, because earlier in the day, i sent out a tweet saying, let's be clear, the townhall format is not exactly the best format for the president, because he is interacting with people. sort of his demeanor with people, as we saw in the abc townhall a couple weeks ago, is warm and fuzzy output it like that. ash a couple weeks ago it is not -- i

ashley parker, i'm not going to play it now again. we heard the ben sasse comments. is ben sasse the senate republican canary in the coal mine in that he speaks for a lot more that don't speak? >> yes and no. i mean, keep in mind that he is speaking after he won his primary, after his victory seems fairly given, so he's not a profile in courage. what he is is, perhaps, a glimpse of how, if trump does lose, some members, but not all members, would try to sort of position a republican party in a post-trump era. but the thing you have to keep in mind is the president is an outgrowth of a populism that is still very real in the republican base. and the idea that even if he loses, he just disappears, he stops tweeting, he potentially stops holding rallies, is not going to happen. so, he may have a grip on the party well after, you know, 2020. but you will see some more republicans feeling emboldened to state what they have been stating privately, just about since the president took office. >> and of course, four years ago, in this very month, we had the stories of senate

and so i think -- >> ashley parker -- >> in addition to the virus. >> ashley parker, the fact the trumps questionable hack -- and we don't know, there's a lot of questions surrounding this story, is this their last -- this is their last card they're playing? this is all they got left? >> yes, potentially, as you said it's a rerun in many ways of 2016, gut the landscape is different. the hunter biden stuff, some of it is not verified. some of it may seem unsavory for hunter. but it doesn't really attach to his father, and some of stuff that has come out in the hack actually makes joe biden seem like what voters already believe, a decent guy. in a text with his son hunter, who struggled with drug addiction, you have joe biden saying good morning, my beautiful son. that is not exactly opposition research, especially for americans who have their own family members struggling with addiction. >> that's for sure. very quickly, donna edwards, right at the end of the judge barrett hearings, dianne feinstein praised lindsey graham for how he ran the hearing, gave him a hug, and let's say that did

to get us started to talk about all of this is the washington white house reporter ashley parker. thank you for being here. these dueling debates, did the trump campaign achieve this aim scheduling the town hall at the >> if theas biden? aim in some ways was to compete with biden for airtime and overshadow biden, i think yes. anecdotally, more people seemed to be watching the trump town hall in real time than the joe biden town hall. hindsight how that the, will the trump -- is trump campaign happy so many potentially watched the trump town hall. the day, i sent out a tweet saying, the town hall format is not exactly the best format for the president because he is interacting with demeanor with not, it is not warm and fuzzy, shall we say? i am bringing this up because i presidentng from trump's perspective, which is better? a town hall or a campaign rally? from trump's perspective, there is nothing better than a campaign rally. andaides have tried to tell when there was a debate about the debate, they tried to convey, right now, just about no takes yourtwork rallies live. maybe fo

ashley parker, thank you as well. geoff bennett, thank you. >>> and joining mow now is former acting director of the cdc, dr. richard besser, currently the president and ceo of the robert wood johnson foundation. doctor, thanks for being here with us. i want to underscore what i said a moment ago and have you elaborate on it. just because you have a negative test now doesn't mean you're going to have a negative test tonight or a negative test tomorrow or i guess any time in the incubation period. >> that's right. first thing i want to say is, my thoughts are with the president, first lady, everyone who has been impacted by this. and my hope is that this is a wake-up call for what we need to do to really nip this pandemic and slow it down so transmission is reduced and lives are saved. your question is a good one. so with every infection, there's a time between when you're exposed and when you develop symptoms. for this on average, it's four to six days but it can be as long as up to two weeks. that's why it's so impor

to ashley parker, shannon pettypiece, mara, gay. greatly appreciate you starting off this week. >>> and coming up for us, a big change announced for the next debate. we'll ask our two political professionals about it, whether they think the debate will happen as scheduled. >>> and later, the president calls it rounding the corner. public health officials say the darkest period of this pandemic might be what's around that corner. we'll ask our expert about that as "the 11th hour" is just getting under way on this monday night. r way on this monday night. when the pandemic shook our city, scott wiener immediately went to work, making sure families could put food on their tables, defending renters facing eviction, securing unemployment benefits, helping neighborhood businesses survive. scott wiener will never stop working until california emerges from this crisis. the bay area needs scott's continued leadership in sacramento. because we know scott is fighting for all of us. re-elect scott wiener for state senate. >>> there is so much o

ashley parker, pulitzer prize winning white house reporter with the washington post. andth mercedes, vice chair of preventive medicine at the feinberged school of medicine a northwestern university. even more important to our conversation, she is an epidemiologist whose work includes a focus on both cardiovascular disease and lung health. good evening and welcome to you all. >>> ashley, did we get that about right? the president tweets precipitously, then he learns the chair of the fed is for it. the markets have plunged after closing. americans are hurting because they're out of work or back at partial schedules. and other republicans are on the ballot in november, ergo the walk-back. >> that's a pretty good synopsis, brian. you know, when the president sent out that first very unexpected tweet calling off negotiations, there was a lot of head scratching including on his own team andcr in his own orbit. we heard from at least two top people who told us that they thought the president was self-sabotaging. they could figure out no other reason why he would send out a t

but in some of these states it could come down to the margins. >> so ashley parker, with 15 days left, it'll be two weeks by the end of this hour. have they really decided to run against science or tony fauci, or is that just monday? >> well, the president privately is being told specifically not to do this. the president his comments recently were basically prompted by the interview fauci gave on "60 minutes." the president was very frustrated and upset by that. but his aides and his team and outside allies have told him, you know, dr. fauci is trusted. his approval ratings are sky high especially compared to this current president, and he is basically america's doctor. he did throw up that first pitch even if it went a little awry. he's part of the trump administration, and he is not the person you want to run against. and it just shows you, again, what we already know which is how undisciplined this president is. that call this morning should have been a gimme. it was a call with his top staff, campaign aides, people who are supporting him. reporters were invited to listen in. so t

ashley parker, "washington post" white house reporter, thank you very much for coming on. we'll have to leave it there. have a good rest of the day. let's go over to the opinion site of the paper where we will find my colleague "washington post" deputy editorial page editor ruth marcus was really here at this time as opposed to last time, and contributing columnist hugh hewitt. ruth, hugh, welcome. >> thank you. >> thanks for having us. >> let's start by talking about last nights dueling townhall. the contrast was start between the two townhall last night. but before you get into specifics of all that i'm interested in how you managed the simultaneous shows. who did you watch first or did you flip in between? >> sugar till the actual truth? >> go ahead. >> the actual truth is that we had a rare moment when we went to a friends backyard for dinner last night and w so i watched it all afterwards. it was a little bit problematic because i was preprogrammed to have some views from what i've seen on twitter, which i don't like, but i didn't have to figure out which is going to

ashley parker, pulitzer prizewinning white house reporter for "the washington post,". susan page, veteran journalist, best selling author, usa today bureau chief. and neil caughtial, vttayal. ashley, i want to read your work back to you as i often do. you and your colleagues have written this about the president's rallies. his schedule so far reflects the frenetic energy of a man trying to outrun both a deadly illness and an electoral defeat. ashley, ideally frenetic different city every day travel with three weeks to go is designed to affect the end result on election day. is this that, or is this kind of a salve for the soul? >> it's both. the president believes that in a number of ways he believes he can win this election by rerunning a playbook of 2016. of course we're now seeing all the ways that is falling short in part because joe biden is not hillary clinton. there is not a deadly pandemic in 2016. trump had not been president for almost 4 years then. but one of the things he and his aides do think could be a successful parallel is the idea he's said himself to

and so i think -- >> ashley parker -- >> in addition to the virus. >> ashley parker, the fact the trumpquestionable hack -- and we don't know, there's a lot of questions surrounding this story, is this their last -- this is their last card they're playing? this is all they got left? >> yes, potentially, as you said it's a rerun in many ways of 2016, gut the landscape is different. the hunter biden stuff, some of it is not verified. some of it may seem unsavory for hunter. but it doesn't really attach to his father, and some of stuff that has come out in the hack actually makes joe biden seem like what voters already believe, a decent guy. in a text with his son hunter, who struggled with drug addiction, you have joe biden saying good morning, my beautiful son. that is not exactly opposition research, especially for americans who have their own family members struggling with addiction. >> that's for sure. very quickly, donna edwards, right at the end of the judge barrett hearings, dianne feinstein praised lindsey graham for how he ran the hearing, gave him a hug, and let's say that did n

white house reporter, the aforementioned ashley parker is here.ining us, former rnc chairman michael steele, and former white house press secretary, robert gibbs is here. ashley parker, take me through your reporting and anything you know about this jaunt from the covid-infected president from the residence to the oval office. >> sure. so, the president has been lobbying to get back to the oval office, basically since he returned to the residence monday evening. he wanted to do it yesterday. aides, i was told, kind of ran the traps and told him that he could not do it safely. today, you know, i was told he was cleared by his medical team to do it, whatever exactly that means, but again, the behind the scenes, there were a number of advisors who tried to express to him that this was, in fact, a bad idea, but i was told the president was simply insistent. so they are saying, again, that, you know, anyone coming into contact with him will be wearing all sorts of ppe, which is available, these yellow gowns, masks, gaggles, gloves, but when you look at

we caught up with ashley parker at the post office in pleasant hill. she decided to mail her ballot earlier this week just as they began arriving in mail balks. the general election is less than a month away and voters are already signaling just how important it is. >> it's absolutely gang busters, and it's totally amazing. >> reporter: voter response has already been strong. >> as of friday after we picked up all the ballots from all the drop boxes around the county we are at nearly 70,000 ballots returned, which is almost 10% of the voters in the county. typically i would have expected by friday to have only 2 and 500 ballots. >> reporter: so far more voters in the county have used the mail than ballot drop boxes despite no evidence of election fraud linked to the post office, some people have been hesitant to use the mail. for others it's a matter of convenience. >> i might be traveling, i don't know what my schedule is going to be like. >> i know it's important to get it in on time, so i dropped it off. this election is a very important election. y

ashley parker, let me get your thoughts. the president returning to the white house as the vice president, mike pence, is hitting the campaign trail. polls show the president down. a lot of people speculate it's just not the same without president trump on the campaign trail. this begs the question, how soon do you think we are going to see the president want to get out on the campaign trail despite the medical advice from doctors that we just don't know what his viral load is and we can't give you an honest assessment about him interacting with people. >> the vice president is a poor surrogate for maga nation donald trump. there is just no comparison. no one fills that role and certainly not vice president pence. vice president pence's role is much more sort of explaining away what the president said and going to foreign countries and making nice with allies where the president has tried to blow up alliances. when will the president want to get back out on the campaign trail? almost immediately as soon as he feels like he c

when you talk to your bhouse sources, ashley parker wrote today in the post that the president embraces anyone who praises him. does it come down to that? ayesha: i believe so. anyone who he feels like is on his side, who is not critical of him, he feels like it's us against them. and i think you see this also when president trump has been called out over and over again over not calling out white supremacy. how hard is it to denounce white supremacy? and the most that you can get from president trump, he will be defensive and say he's done it over and over again. butette -- but most surely i denounce it and you will get a strong more denunciation out of morning joe. and on the right, protesters or agitators on the right, if he feels like they are somehow not upset with him, then he can find a way to just kind of -- if it's not a wink or a nod, not a strong denunciation. that's the way he's -- that's the way he has behaved his entire presidency. robert: but what about vice president biden, chuck? if this is how the president's closing the campaign, is his strategy enough? is his ground g

. >>> ashley parker, robert costa, also with the post and alexi is back with us. ashley, there is an increasing mountain of reporting tonight. the president came off stage, made it into today thinking he had killed it last night. the people around him thinking not so much. as usual, knowing his -- how information gets to him, they are waiting for him to get a thorough sampling of the negative news coverage and hoping he himself makes the correction. does that sound familiar? >> it sure does. there was a yawning gap between the president's assessment of his performance which he would saw in tweets which he conveyed to aides privately and everybody i heard in the president's orbit last night and throughout the day. from donors, white house officials, confidant, not a single person thought it went well. one person said it reminded then of his inauguration speech. when he expected glowing oratory and got carnage. the president has spent all of his time trying to diminish joe biden. the thing they were counting on and potentially could have happened was joe biden stumbl

carol lee, ashley parker, let's bring in bob wood ward. he is the author of the book "rage." thank you for having us new audio from your interviews with him about this strategy. let's play it for our vuteroter. >> my whole life has been flexible strategy. i had it in the last campaign, too. i changed managers three times. >> i know, is it off vance now or -- >> i view it as -- >> look -- >> you understand why i'm asking. >> the last campaign in the last four weeks, but i would say i won it in the last week, i did rallies if. >> we have about two-and-a-half weeks. the president can't do the rallies before the pandemic, but he is still holding them without social distancing and without mask wearing. is it your sense that the rallies, which the president relied on so heavily to bring him over the edge, are as reliable now for him in the campaign? >> you were there in 2016, and he emphasized it last week. and as you may recall he did 24 rallies the last week in 2016. it is mania, and he thinks that that is his connection so voters and i'm, you know, they may be working more than

. >> ashley parker, joe biden closing with a message there on the screen saying vote by mail.aring their i voted, closing on an american message, closing on patriotism, closing on honor, closing on bipartisan ship, closing on ruth bader ginsburg's legacy. >> it's a great message and great ad. it's reflective of the fact that joe biden from the beginning -- a lot of candidates have struggled with how to engage president trump. joe biden has made this decision for better or worse that he had a theory of the case, a vision of how this would play out. he really hasn't deviated from it. he got into the race because of the president's response to charlottesville. he believes this is a battle for the soul of the nation. that is sort of the more optimistic version of that you see in that ad. the vice president has made a number of bets -- so has the president. one is on their handling of coronavirus from wearing masks, being careful, being cautious, socially distancing. if you look at joe biden's running mate, kamala harris two staffers testifying positive and the way she's handled th

also with me reporter for the "washington post" ashley parker and republican strategist and senior adviser to the lincoln project susan dell percepersio. the president set to speak any minute now. tell us what you're seeing in terms of messaging and what he's expected to say as we head into this final two-week stretch. >> air force one landed into phoenix and now the president is route via marine one to prescott, about 85 miles north of phoenix. the reason he is here because when you look back to 2016, yapapi county a rural part of the state, a place that went by a two-to-one margin for him and the president is losing among independent voters, losing among suburban voters. when talking about arizona, 75% of the electorate lives in the greater tucson and phoenix area, the suburban areas, and why this campaign is now shifting today its focus up here to northern arizona, needing to jouice thei turnout in areas like this. senator martha mcsally who is struggling against democrat mark kelly will be joining the president. i asked mcsally at an event if she regretted standing by this president ov

sure we're going to be seeing these images in the future because my colleagues josh dossy and ashley parker and i today reported the president has been consumed while in his hospital room with planning for his re-election campaign and thinking of ways he can use his experience with the coronavirus, his diagnosis at the time at the hospital for maximum political gain. how can he have the most sort of dramatic comeback to the campaign trail, and what we saw tonight was him walking back to the white house and him beginning some of that drama this reality television producer wants to present the american people before the election. >> mara gay, a frequent guest of ours, tim o'brien from bloomberg put out a chilling reminder. and it's a time line how early trump is in this virus. this is as he puts it, a humbling hurman cane coronavirus time line. june 24th hur main cane attended that trump rally without a mask. july second tests positive, july 15th says his doctors seem happy. july 27th, says he's really getting better. he was dead by the last day, july 30th. mara, what was your first symptom?

. >> john heilemann, i want to read this from the great and well-sourced ashley parker who is like the three of you, a friend of this broadcast. she wrote this tonight. underscoring the true uncertainty in trump world i asked a trump advisor for their gut sense on what will happen on election day. quote, if you put a gun to my head i'd say shoot, this person said helplessly. john, you too are great and well sourced. what are you hearing from inside the trump campaign? how does it feel from inside the trump campaign? >> that sounds about right to me, brian, what ashley reports there. i think, you know, there's a sense of despair mixed with -- tinged with hope. for those around in 2016 you'll recall as many do on election day of 2016 the senior people in donald trump's campaign were briefing network reporters and network broadcasters that they were expecting to lose the election that night. so they wept into 2016 expecting to lose. they had some small idea in their mind they might be able to win. i think it feels early reminiscent to that for them again this time around. i do think as i

and as my colleague, ashley parker, noted last week very astutely, this president supports anyone who will support him. you know, if any of these right-wing militia groups and these various fringe groups that really pose a threat to americans in this country express any ounce of support for this president, he is likely to revel in that and use it to rile up his crowds, especially as he's delivering hail mary after hail mary in these final two weeks, trying to narrow that gap. but i think, you know, that aside, paired with this, the problem is, is that this president keeps going after these high-profile women who have really high approval ratings, and it's hurting him with these especially white, college-educated women that he previously had won over a bit more support from in 2016, and is now really struggling with. >> yeah, those women that he was essentially pleading to, please like me. i'm not sure that this helps in that regard. the "washington post's" jackie alemany, thank you very much for getting up with us. we appreciate you being here. >>> we want to turn now to the coronavir

"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

joining me new hampshire is carol lee, also white house reporter ashley parker. i want to start with you, he was in north carolina and georgia. >> they have a very narrow map. publicly they are well aware of that. it is the first time since the it is 15 electoral votes that are key to putting him over the top, and polls show that the race here is really tightening. they show it is neck and neck between president trump and former vice president biden. and that the one thing that the president still does well on here, even though his standing is dipping elsewhere, is on the economy. he gets high marks for the economy. so people are hoping that he can stick to what they want him to deliver for a message of economic success. that the economy is coming back. that the economy took a hit but he can bring it back, and in terms of how he draws a contrast with joe biden, that he could raise taxes, we have seen the president tweet that including today. he just isn't really delivering. he is doing and saying other things that are really overshadowing that message. so whether