brendan buck, before i let you go. you see those financial disparities.ow do the republicans catch up this month? >> yeah, that's a great question. and some of these states that we've always considered the battleground states is starting to feel like they are out of touch. this is starting to feel like it's -- the president is running out of time. there are very few events that can change the direction of the campaign. i think the president has obliterated the idea of the october surprise. something that can happen and change the debate. i don't know what would really -- what he can do other than a strong debate performance and the last two chances he has. otherwise, it's looking like it could be a real runaway for biden. >> the problem is, there's only one first debate and that already happened. >>> carol lee, peter baker, brendan buck and steve kornacki, thank you all for getting us started. >>> a last-ditch effort on capitol hill. you heard brendan refer to it to get some sort of covid relief for the americans. the president prepares to defy his scienc

joining me now, david wasserman, whose findings are in a "new york times" column today, brendan buck, paul ryan, and adam genleson, former chief of staff to harry reid. what states are seeing a shift now? >> andrea, the places that will decide this election don't all look likealike. they range from military bases to retiree havens to peach orchards to a lot of white collar suburbs like plano, texas. what we found when we looked at the ten counties that are the best predictors of their states' voting behavior is that joe biden is at least tied or ahead in all of them. maricopa county, arizona, multiple polls show joe biden leading outside the margin of error in that county which is most of arizona. pinellas county, polls show biden is ahead in that senior-heavy county. the frost belt, erie, pennsylvania could be ground zero. people on the ground have told us joe biden is nearly ahead there after trump managed to capture it in 2016. so there are a lot of different paths right now for an electoral college victory for biden. >> brendan, some of the people david highlights, like maricopa c

with us, former top adviser to house speakers john boehner and paul ryan, republican strategist brendan buckfirm seven letter. welcome to you both. thank you so much for getting up early with us. brendan, i actually want to start with you, because i know that there were a lot of very nervous republicans settling in to watch that debate last night, knowing that if we saw a performance, a repeat performance from the first debate, that they likely were going to consider or have to consider whether or not they needed to try and distance themselves even further from president trump. we've seen hints of this, although it has not broken completely widely out into the open. how do you think the president did last night in those terms? did he make things worse for his party, or are we in a status quo situation? >> yeah, i definitely don't think he hurt himself in the way that he did last time. you're right, there was a lot of nervousness. but the fact that the president didn't light himself on fire this time, i don't know that that is really going to make republicans feel any more confident. this was

this is from the piece at brendan buck, long time strategist that worked for paul ryan. you would hope someone in a serious health crisis would have a bit of an awakening, find a little religion on this. he seems incapable of doing that. doesn't pass the laugh test for a super serious situation that ruined millions of lives. he said he was concerned because half the country takes their queues from him. what's interesting in looking at the polling, the past weeks seems to have been a breaking point, not as many people, even some of the president's people, are not taking queues from him. something happened in the last week. >> no question, john, something has happened. some of it frankly is owed to the fact, we won't know more about whether this is the case for several days, there's reason to believe that the fact that the white house was so dissembling what was happening with the president's health, the president didn't want this information out, then the white house doctor who is the president's doctor, not the same as other government officials in terms of accountabilit

republican brendan buck and tima omara.hen we look at the fact that we are seeing these -- i mean, totally above and beyond expectations in terms of early voting, what does that say to you? because we have new numbers from axios on where black america stands with two weeks to go. some quick points. 74% of black americans say they're certain to vote, already have. 57% are concerned about whether their own votes will actually be counted. and most concerned of any demographics are the blacks. 29% are very concerned about voter suppression in their home states, roughly twice the rate of any other group. so we have over 70% of blacks saying they will vote, but a large part of them worried about their votes being counted and a large part of the black american voters saying they are concerned about voter suppression in their state. how does this hit you? how does this reflect where we are in american politics right now? >> yeah, it hits me as it's not surprising. i mean, i talked to my parents who are regular voters. they live in