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L.A. Offers Free Flu Shots Amid Pandemic

WHITFIELD: All right, welcome back. More than 69,000 people in the U.S. were diagnosed with COVID in a single day Friday. Experts fear it will get much worse in the weeks to come. On top of that, flu season is also getting under way. CNN's Paul Vercammen is in Los Angeles where a flu drive-through is getting under way today. Paul, what's the turnout been like for that?</s>PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Phenomenal. Look right here, Fredricka. They think they'll give out 500 free flu vaccines here in downtown Los Angeles. It's just drive right up, put the car in park. Stay in the car, open the door and you can get a flu shot. Here's why it's important. Health officials stressing that last year, in the flu season, 400,000 people hospitalized. They don't want the hospitalizations this year with the flu to prevent other people from getting treated for COVID-19. And 22,000 people died last flu season. So October, according to Dr. Fauci and others, is the month to get that flu shot. Here's why.</s>DR. RICHARD SEIDMAN, CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER, L.A. CARE HEALTH PLAN: That gives the shot plenty of time in your immune system to mount an effective response to maximally protect you from the flu. Here in Los Angeles, the season often doesn't peak until as late as January. But we want to get people vaccinated before the end of October.</s>VERCAMMEN: As I said, business brisk. Here in Los Angeles, here's some options for you. Be sure to check with your local health departments. You might be able to get a free flu shot, even if you don't have insurance. And then others are offering flu shots at pharmacies, CVS, et cetera. A place for you to go to get that vaccine. As they express, again, critical that people get their flu vaccines as well because they don't want hospitals jammed up with flu patients when they could be treating COVID-19 patients -- Fred?</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Free is a fantastic incentive. Paul Vercammen, thank you so much, in Los Angeles.</s>VERCAMMEN: Thank you. All right, we'll be right back.

Trump Goes On Rally Blitz As 10 States Break COVID-19 Records; DOD Study: Plane Ventilation Systems Don't Spread Virus; WHO: Remdesivir Fails To Prevent COVID Deaths; Pfizer Won't Seek Emergency Vaccine Authorization Before Election

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks for being with us. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. And with 17 days until November 3rd now, we are in the homestretch of this election but we are not in the homestretch of this pandemic, unfortunately, even though that is the message President Trump keeps trying to sell.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.</s>CABRERA: We all wish that were true but it's not, and the president has to know it. Make no mistake about it, we are not rounding the turn toward the exit sign. We are rounding the turn toward another peak in new cases. At least ten states are reporting their highest single-day coronavirus case totals since the start of the pandemic, including Wisconsin, where the president will hold a rally later tonight, but first, he's in Michigan, a state that's also reporting a record number of cases. And here is a look at how those cases are climbing in Michigan. Also on the rise, the number of early ballots cast in this election. Americans are voting early in record numbers, nearly 22 million have voted so far. And while requests for mail-in ballots are in high demand due in part to the pandemic, President Trump sustained attacks on vote-by-mail, plus the overhauls to the Postal Service have inspired many to vote early in person. Just take look at the images from Georgia today, where some people lined up for three or four hours this morning to cast their ballots, a testament to how enormous the stakes are in this election. CNN's Joe Johns joins us from Michigan where President Trump will soon hold a rally. And, Joe, what are you hearing from supporters there?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, obviously, these are the people who support President Trump and they're here in the colder weather to see him. We've seen people coming in since pretty early this morning. The fact of the matter is, what Donald Trump needs to do to try to reset his campaign at this point, Michigan is a great example of this, Ana. This is a state the president won by 0.2 percent in 2016 here in Muskegon County, which is where we are. Hillary Clinton, in fact, won this county but only by 1,100 votes. The Trump campaign is hoping to flip this county into the Republican column coming up on November 3rd. So as far as messaging goes, it's been a little bit all over the place. Last night, we heard the president out in Georgia harking back to some of the rhetoric of 2017 calling for his opponent to be locked up. Meanwhile, and the all important question of mask wearing and social distancing, we have seen earlier today a lot of people walking in wearing masks. Right now, we are seeing fewer people with masks. And there are some people who were just totally against it. Listen to this one person we talked to coming to the rally.</s>JOHNS: Are you wearing a mask today?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm going in --</s>JOHNS: You're not?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, I'm good. I'm good.</s>JOHNS: Why not?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not buying into this theory that the virus is out there and it's going to grab all of us. I think that we've seen that there are so many people who are not affected by this at all.</s>JOHNS: You hate the masks?</s>SETH DAVEY, MICHIGAN VOTER: If there was science behind it, I would use it more. But the science is very sketchy with the mask. The science is real sketchy with Fauci. He's not listening to other virologists in the country. He is just closed minded about that. And so as a software professional, I'm very keyed into the science and find a lot of it is just more political than it is the science.</s>JOHNS: So the schedule holds the president about two hours out from Muskegon Airport here where we are and he flies on from here to Janesville, Wisconsin. Ana, back to you.</s>CABRERA: The science is not a question about the effectiveness of masks, that I just have to say so that our viewers know there are no scientists now currently saying that masks are not effective or that you should not wear masks. Everything is pointing to wearing masks being the best way we can protect ourselves and more importantly, protect others. Joe Johns, thank you for that reporting. It is interesting though to hear their perspectives or at least what they're soaking in in terms of the messaging that they're hearing from the president, which is what has led to some of the questions over mask-wearing by his supporters. We are getting, in the meantime, jaw-dropping numbers when it comes to early voting. Already, nearly 22 million ballots have been cast. This is according to a survey of ballot data by CNN Edison Research and Catalyst, Catalyst being a data company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and non-profit issue advocacy organizations. And so from Illinois to the battleground states of North Carolina and Georgia, early voting, vote-by-mail and in person is far outpacing the numbers from 2016. CNN's Natasha Chen is at an early voting location in Marietta, Georgia. And, Natasha, you say people got in line as early as 4:30 this morning. What are you hearing from these voters? Why are they willing to wait for hours in some cases to vote early?</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, first of all, apparently, you didn't really need to get here at 4:30 in the morning for an 8:00 A.M. start because these folks behind me right now, they are probably going to wait far less than even 30 minutes. There aren't that many people in line. So the line has thinned down dramatically. So maybe the trick is just to come in the afternoon. But everyone I've talked to has described to me how important it is for them to be here. They have talked about issues that drove them to the polls, such as the response to the coronavirus pandemic, such as the government response to police brutality. So a lot of these things are on their mind as they stand here. And we watched people bring their lawn chairs, bring their coffee and their breakfast in the morning. We've even seen people bring small children because, obviously, you can't leave them at home, but also because they wanted their kids to see this moment happening, an election during a pandemic. The frustration, however, why some of the long waiting has to happen. Here is one voter talking about why this can't be a bit more streamlined.</s>ANDREW POE, GEORGIA VOTER: You have one that long ago in which we would vote in through phone, through email, through website for American Idol. And I know it's not voting for president and voting public officials are not the same thing as voting for someone for American Idol. To me, if it's so easy for something like that, why can't our overall election system have something like that in place?</s>CHEN: Still, they were all very patient to be going through this. Today alone, throughout the state of Georgia, there were more than 26,000 ballots cast in person by noon. And, of course, comparing to this point in the election in 2016, voter turnout, combining both early and in-person voting and absentee ballots in the state of Georgia, turnout is more than 100 percent increase from 2016, Ana.</s>CABRERA: And it's great to see people exercising their right to vote, using their own power. Thank you, Natasha Chen. And joining us now is CNN Political Commentator and Political Anchor for Spectrum News, Errol Louis, and A.B. Stoddard, Associate Editor and Columnist for RealClearPolitics. A.B., the president keeps trying to sell this message that U.S. is rounding the turn on the coronavirus, rounding the corner. But then he's going to Michigan, which just reported a record number of cases Friday, then to Wisconsin, also reporting record numbers and where the positivity rate is nearly 24 percent right now, which means, potentially, one in four people at his rally there could have the virus and his rallies have become infamous, of course, for flouting the COVID guidelines. What message does that send?</s>A.B. STODDARD, ASSOCIATE EDITOR AND COLUMNIST, REALCLEARPOLITICS: It's incredible, after the president contracted the virus himself and is very, very well aware of the fact that he's losing support of seniors who he won in 2016 and who he cannot win without. Because the sense among seniors is that they are expendable, that the virus doesn't really get enough people, that what he said that 210,000 deaths was -- it really takes virtually nobody, it's a nothing burger, don't let it dominate your life. He is rubbing that messaging in to people who are very skeptical about the federal response to the outbreak and the pandemic with each and every rally, continues to say things like, we're rounding the turn where we're facing a catastrophic estimate of 2,900 deaths per day this winter. There is still no plan in month seven to control the spread of the virus. And after telling everybody that it's not legitimate to vote by mail, he's going to be forcing his own voters on Election Day in states that are facing hot spots and surges that might, in the end, decide that they simply can't do it at the risk of infection, critical states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Iowa and other places that he needs to win re-election.</s>CABRERA: Errol, here is how Joe Biden characterized the president's response to this national crisis just yesterday.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: He said we have turned the corner. My grandfather Finnegan might say, were here, he said, he's gone around the bend. Turn the corner, my Lord. It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse, as predicted.</s>CABRERA: Errol, what do you make of Biden's message and his potential strategy there?</s>ERROL LOUIS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, Joe Biden is really coming down the homestretch using the number one issue in the country very effectively to his advantage. The reality is, despite what the ignorant comments that we heard from some of those folks in Michigan that Joe Johns was interviewing is that it is widely known, it is globally known that we have a serious pandemic. And that the only way to deal with it is masking, social distancing, washing your hands, sanitizing, being very, very careful. Joe Biden just simply picked up the number one issue in the whole wide world and has begun using it to his advantage because the president, for whatever reason, has recklessly decided to try and run not just against Joe Biden but against reality. I mean, reality is what is leaving most people, I think, to conclude that this race is about, are we going to go in a real direction and try and put the country back together again and get past this, open up some of the businesses, restore the broken economy, or are we going to live in some fantasy world where people pretend that science doesn't exist. And it's very sad to see, Ana. I got to tell you, I mean, living in New York, those days back in the spring where the sirens were wailing all through the night, when, on a daily basis, 700, 800 people would die. I mean, it's not something you want to fool around with. And Joe Biden, I think, is reminding people, you don't want any part of this. We have to take the simple steps to control the spread.</s>CABRERA: You can't wish your way out of it. You can't talk your way out of it. It's here. We have to deal with the reality. Our Jake Tapper has learned that President Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, is telling friends this about the president. Quote, the depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it's more than pathetic, it's more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I've ever met in my life. Kelly is widely respected in the military world. A.B., could this move the needle for some who might be undecided?</s>STODDARD: Well, it's very interesting, Ana, as the polling we've seen in the military among veterans and active duty troops that have the support for President Trump, which he won with big margins in 2016, has badly, sharply eroded, just like it has with seniors. And it's because every single person who has left the administration has basically said the same thing that they have to stop the president from doing things that were illegal, and that he had basically no understanding of the sacrifice, the warrior ethos. He hardened war criminals against the leadership of the Pentagon and then went to a rally and said, I sprung some good guys against the deep -- to fight off the deep state. The military knows more than other voters exactly what the president does and what is expected of them in every leader who swears an oath to the Constitution. Having John Kelly say things like this, which confirms for them many, many other comments from other people, including H.R. McMaster and others, General Mattis, is really the last thing that the president needs. But he has openly invited this kind of criticism and it all is consistent. It always matches what previous employees and advisers have said about him as well.</s>CABRERA: I don't know if you guys have seen this just yet but the White House is actually using a photo of the infamous Rose Garden super-spreader event as a way to promote tours of the garden right now. Errol, is this the case of tone deafness or do they just not see that event as a symbol of irresponsible behavior in the middle of a pandemic?</s>LOUIS: You know, I have a hard time understanding how the people who actually work in the building, who have seen so many of their colleagues end up sick, who have seen Chris Christie, who just visited a few times, end up in the intensive care unit for seven days, really risking his life, to not understand that, this is no time to be leaning towards of any kind. I think it sort of says it all. And to use the photo of the super-spreader event, I mean, if you mark it up and show all of the people who got sick and were hospitalized, including the president as a result of that very event, it should make clear that they should not be trying to lure people into the White House. One would hope though that the general public would understand at this point that this is not a safe place to be. These folks just don't get it. They're not keeping themselves safe, they couldn't keep the president of the United States safe and healthy and it's no place for tourists.</s>CABRERA: It is a fact that the number of people from that event got the coronavirus. I think it's still a little bit uncertain exactly where the president contracted it or who he may have contracted it from, but, boy, that photo does speak volumes. Errol Louis and A.B. Stoddard, I appreciate both of you being here. Thank you so much.</s>LOUIS: Thank you.</s>CABRERA: Up next, the president's refusal to disavow QAnon and what his supporters think of the conspiracy cult. Plus, former Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff shares his biggest security fears when it comes with this year's election. Stay with us. You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Trump Doubles Down On Refusal To Denounce QAnon

CABRERA: Seventeen days before the election, and the president is making headlines for refusing to disavow the conspiracy cult, QAnon. These are live pictures right now at Joint Base Andrews, where the president is gearing up to head to a new rally today in Michigan, followed by a rally later tonight in Wisconsin. But here is what he has been saying about QAnon.</s>SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, MSNBC HOST: Let me ask you about QAnon. It is this theory that Democrats are a satanic pedophile ring and that you are the savior of that. Now, can you just, once and for all, state that that is completely not true and disavow QAnon in its entirety?</s>DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT: I know nothing about QAnon.</s>GUTHRIE: I just told you.</s>TRUMP: I know very little. Well, you told me. But what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact, I hate to say that. I know nothing about it. I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it.</s>CABRERA: So what did some of the president's supporters think of that moment? CNN's Gary Tuchman asked some of them at a Trump rally in Georgia.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: You have the QAnon shirt and one of the things QAnon believes is there's this conspiracy theory of satanic pedophilia. Do you believe in that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, thank you.</s>TUCHMAN: Trump has not criticized conspiracy, QAnon. You say you believe in theories like this?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, sir, 100 percent.</s>TUCHMAN: You think he has your back by not criticizing it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I really do. Yes.</s>TUCHMAN: Do you think he should have denounced QAnon?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.</s>TUCHMAN: Why?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because why should he?</s>TUCHMAN: Because they believe in crazy stuff, a pedophile ring --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. That's what you guys try to make us believe crazy stuff.</s>TUCHMAN: No. But do you believe that there are Democrats and celebrities who were in a pedophile ring?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I do.</s>TUCHMAN: You do believe -- then where does that come from, that belief?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Where does that come from? Ask the little kids.</s>TUCHMAN: Pedophilia is terrible and every normal person in the world is against pedophilia. But to say that Hillary Clinton and Democrats are involved in a pedophile ring, there is no evidence of that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Let me ask you, who do you work for? ABC or CNN?</s>TUCHMAN: CNN. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, I'm not talking to</s>CNN. TUCHMAN: It's crazy, it's ludicrous. Does that</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, it didn't because I think he wants to put everything out there so you can judge for yourself.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I heard it before.</s>TUCHMAN: Yes, you've heard it. And with all due respect, ma'am, hearing it does not mean that it's true.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I just believe whatever is wrong. He's going to fix --</s>TUCHMAN: Donald Trump?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>TUCHMAN: Do you think the president should have denounced QAnon?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No. I don't think he has enough information to denounce QAnon at this point.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He can tweet anything he wants because we love him. We trust him.</s>CABRERA: Joining us now, former Secretary of Homeland Security under President George W. Bush, Michael Chertoff. Mr. Secretary thank you so much for being here. The FBI has labeled QAnon a domestic terror threat, and yet as you heard, no condemnation from the president. What do you see as the impact?</s>MICHAEL CHERTOFF, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY UNDER PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: Well, I think more than just for QAnon and other occasions, the president has conspicuously failed to condemn right- wing extremist groups. He didn't condemn the plot to kidnap and kill Governor Whitmer. When someone asked him about the Proud Boys acting out, he said, well, they should stand back and stand by, which is pretty much saying wait until I give you the go ahead signal. And, of course, again, his refusal to denounce QAnon, which is basically a flat earth theory, suggests to the people that your reporter spoke that he basically has their back and he's waiting to give him the signal to go forward and carry out some of the plans. So I think the FBI and other elements of the intelligence community are quite right to point to this and other groups as oddly, perhaps, the biggest domestic terror threat we have now and much more dangerous here in the United States than global jihadists and the ISIS, which have been really much reduced.</s>CABRERA: Why is this group so dangerous?</s>CHERTOFF: Because often, what you have is the people who carry on with these extreme ideologies, distrust all the institutions and government, distrust (ph) in the rule of law, fear that there's a conspiracy that threatens their lives, and therefore, feel justified to pick up a gun or create a bomb and carry out an attack. If you look at the plot against Governor Whitmer, and I think they also have looked at Governor Northam of Virginia as a potential target, these were people who were offended by the idea that you have to wear a mask and try to protect other people from being infected, and they saw this plot to kill a governor as defending their freedom. So when you're articulating the view that there are conspiracies to rig the election or take away your freedom, that</s>CABRERA: You have teamed up with other former DHS secretaries to spread the message that Americans can have confidence in our voting systems but one thing, you have always concerned about is violence on Election Day and this idea that unofficial armed groups will appoint themselves as poll watchers. I want you to take listen to a video airing on the Army for Trump website instructing supporters on how to be poll watchers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You're looking at body language. If you see a confused look on a voter's face or a confused look on the poll workers' face or any kind of delay in the process, there's your clue.</s>CABRERA: What's your reaction to that?</s>CHERTOFF: I think that's utter nonsense. And bearing in mind that the rules vary state to state, there are, for example, in a place like Pennsylvania, pretty strict rules about who can be a poll watcher, and what kind of training they have to have and what authority they have to have. So, for example, you have to be trained, you have to live within the county you're watching. There are limits to your ability to actually interact voters. So, again, this is an effort to create disturbances and intimidation. The good news is, many of the jurisdictions, they're aware of this effort. They realize that, in many cases, these efforts violate state law, and they have been preparing themselves to take action with people who are misbehaving at polling precincts. I think there was the district attorney of Philadelphia who said, if you break the law, acting as a so-called poll watcher, you're going to go to jail. So that's good news in terms of people waking up to the risk.</s>CABRERA: Let me ask you about some of the disinformation that's out there because we know the intel community warning Americans, it's warning the president about potential misinformation on social media and elsewhere from the Russians and other foreign entities. But the president is also actively spreading misinformation, take, for example, his repeated claims, that the election will be rigged. Listen to this.</s>TRUMP: They talk about, will you accept a peaceful transfer? And the answer is, yes, I will, but I want it to be an honest election, and so does everybody else. When I see thousands of ballots dumped in a garbage can and they happen to have my name on it, I'm not happy about that.</s>CABRERA: I have to wonder, when it comes to misinformation, is the biggest threat still from an outside power like Russia or is it from within the walls of the White House?</s>CHERTOFF: Well, first, let me make sure your viewers understand, there were seven ballots, not thousands, seven that wound up somehow being discarded. It's impossible to scale, with respect to mail-in ballots, that have anything</s>CABRERA: Tom Ridge, how preceded you as DHS secretary under President Bush, and is now part of this voting effort with you, has endorsed Joe Biden. Do you plan to do the same?</s>CHERTOFF: Well, I won't be endorsing</s>CABRERA: Well, then let me ask you quickly a different way, because I know before the 2016 election, you made public that you were planning to vote for Hillary Clinton. So you said you already voted. Did you vote for Joe Biden?</s>CHERTOFF: I let your viewers draw their own conclusion based on what I said.</s>CABRERA: Okay. Thank you very much for being here with us. Former DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, we appreciate you very much.</s>CHERTOFF: Thank you.</s>CABRERA: A programming note, former Trump administration officials, including John Bolton, Olivia Troye and Miles Taylor join Jake Tapper with an urgent message for America. The Insiders, a Warning from Former Trump Officials, airs tomorrow night at 9:00 here on CNN. We'll be right back.

Trump-Biden Battle Intensifying In Pennsylvania; Trump & Biden Campaign Ad Wars Heating Up.

CABRERA: In 2016, Donald Trump became the first Republican to win Pennsylvania in almost three decades. And this year, his campaign sees the state's 20 electoral votes as potentially critical. But standing in his way, Pennsylvania born-and-raised Joe Biden. CNN's Dana Bash reports.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A line forms outside well before opening waiting to enter the Trump House.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're ready for the next group to come in.</s>BASH: A mecca of sorts for the President's supporters in southwest, Pennsylvania where Trump's record turnout four years ago helped deliver his surprise Pennsylvania victory and the White House.</s>LESLIE ROSSI, OWNER AND CREATOR, THE TRUMP HOUSE: Shirt or hat per person. You get a sign or flag.</s>BASH: Leslie Rossi created the Trump House in 2016, where she pushed disaffected Democrats and never before voters to choose Trump.</s>ROSSI: We gave people a place to come to believe they could win.</s>BASH: Now Trump supporters show up daily for swag and yard signs and help registering to vote.</s>SCOTT HARRER, TRUMP SUPPORTER & FIRST-TIME VOTER: We need Trump in here again. I'm 65. I think it's time to register.</s>BASH (on camera): Have you not voted ever?</s>HARRER: No.</s>BASH (voice-over): Rural Westmoreland County has seen a surge in Republican registrations. They help with that here too.</s>RITA BLAIR, FORMER DEMOCRAT: I changed my registration from Democrat to Republican.</s>BASH (on camera): Why?</s>BLAIR: From what I've seen in the last past couple of years, I was ashamed to say I was a Democrat.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a great honor to have you here in --</s>BASH (voice-over): But Joe Biden isn't giving up here, campaigning in Westmoreland County this month. Hillary Clinton didn't come here in the general election. (on camera): It's not an area Democrats come in and campaign very often, but you're here. Why?</s>JILL BIDEN, WIFE OF JOE BIDEN: I'm here because, like I said, we are not taking any vote for granted.</s>GINA CERILLI, (D), COUNTY COMMISSIONER, WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PA: They've seen the past four with the --</s>BASH (voice-over): Gina Cerilli is county commissioner of Westmoreland, P.A. Ten years ago, she was Ms. Pennsylvania in Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant. Now she's an elected Democrat working to blunt Trump's advantage here.</s>CERILLI: In 2016, Donald Trump was a fresh face. He was new to politics. Everyone was excited. He made big promises. Bring back jobs. But frankly, Donald Trump broke those promises.</s>BASH: In small town Pennsylvania, signs matter. Trumps are everywhere, big and bold. But Biden's are out there, too.</s>CERILLI: When you see signs like this, it makes the Republicans and Democrats that voted for Trump in 2016 realize, I'm not alone.</s>BASH: A big Biden challenge, his supporters are being COVID careful.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never did we think we would be meeting via Zoom.</s>BASH: Phyllis Friend, head of Democratic Women of Westmoreland County, organizes from home. She's clear eyed about the Democrats' goal here in Trump country.</s>PHYLLIS FRIEND, HEAD OF DEMOCRATIC WOMEN OF WESTMORELAND: We can't win Pennsylvania for him, but we can add to the total numbers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, David, this is Jim. I volunteer for the Trump campaign. How are you doing?</s>BASH: As for Republicans, they never stopped traditional ways of getting out the vote.</s>BASH: Knocking on doors, walking in neighborhoods in masks, and using a GOP data-driven app to find and persuade voters.</s>BRITTNEY ROBINSON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, PENNSYLVANIA RNC: Depending on who that voter is, we're able to tailor that message at the door and on the phone to how we think we need to target that voter and turn them out.</s>BASH: Given that President struggles in the suburbs, boosting the vote here is critical for Trump. (on camera): How important is it for him to get his numbers even higher than it was four years ago?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do think that we need to increase our voter turnout here for the president to offset some of what might be happening in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.</s>BASH (voice-over): Back at the Trump, Leslie Rossi shows us the log of visits from thousands of Trump supporters. (on camera): What do you think this year?</s>ROSSI: Oh, my numbers have tripled, tripled. Four years ago, my work was really hard here. I had to convince the voters to vote for the candidate. I had to convince them President Trump was the best choice for them. This time, I don't have to do any of that. They're all in.</s>BASH (voice-over): Whether enough are all in, could determine whether Trump wins Pennsylvania and a second term. Dana Bash, CNN, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.</s>CABRERA: Right now, a lot of us are trying to make some plans for after the election. Families facing big decisions about Thanksgiving that have nothing to do with the menu. The warning from Dr. Fauci about getting together this holiday season.

Trump Goes On Rally Blitz As 10 States Break COVID-19 Records

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: You're live in the CNN NEWSROOM. Thanks so much for being with me. I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. The United States is now averaging more than 50,000 new COVID-19 infections daily. In fact, yesterday, the country reported nearly 70,000 new cases. Experts say this is a sign we are heading into a rough winter, but the president is trying to convince Americans of an alternative reality.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.</s>CABRERA: If only that were true. Today, he'll rally in Michigan and Wisconsin where the last thing they need is a large gathering of people. Take a look. Yesterday, Wisconsin was one of at least ten states to report the highest number of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began. And Michigan also reporting a record number of cases, you see the numbers there climbing back up. Trump's campaign rally blitz looks to overcome a major deficit in the polls, but it's now a race against the clock because more than 22 million and counting have already cast a ballot. Americans are voting early in record numbers. Just look at these images from Georgia where some lined up for three or four hours this morning to cast their ballot. They got there even before the polls opened. A testament to how enormous the stakes are in this election and we'll take you there live coming up. But first, to Michigan, and Joe Johns, who joins us from Muskegon, Michigan, ahead of Trump's rally in about an hour from now. And, Joe, just 17 days away from the election. What can you tell us about the president's closing message to voters?</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, I can tell you that this trip by the president to Michigan is really going to highlight the president's attacks on the governor of Michigan, the Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer. The president has gone after her time and time again, including on her strict policies relating to coronavirus and the state. It's been a continuing controversy. The president even tweeted out the words "liberate Michigan," which Joe Biden just recently seized on, indicating that in his view, the president's words actually incited the kidnapping attempt on Gretchen Whitmer, which led to 13 arrests very recently. Nonetheless, the president has continued his attacks on Gretchen Whitmer as recently as just yesterday. Listen.</s>TRUMP: How about your governor in Michigan. She has that place locked down. We caught some people doing whatever. We'll find out what that was all about. And then she said it was my fault. It was my people that caught them. It was Trump's fault. It's always Trump's fault. Can it ever be, like, Rick Gates' fault?</s>JOHNS: Now I'm told there at the very end, the president was actually referring to Congressman Matt Gaetz of Florida and not Rick Gates. Now, here at this location, perhaps a majority of the people we talked to say they also believe the governor's policies are too strict. Though we did find at least one couple that said they thought she was right on point. On the other hand, we were not able to find anybody here that we talked to who said they believe the president's words led to the kidnapping plot. They say it's more about frustration and anger over the situation with coronavirus. Ana, back to you.</s>CABRERA: Okay, Joe Johns, bringing us the reporting from Trump supporters in Michigan. We'll be talking with the Michigan attorney general in the next hour. Thank you, Joe. As the president makes a last-ditch effort to shore up support ahead of Election Day, he's zeroing in on one age group in particular.</s>TRUMP: Many older Americans have endured months of isolation, missing weddings, births, graduations, church and family reunions. You know that very well. You know it all too well. My heart breaks for every grieving family that has lost a precious loved one. I feel their anguish and I mourn their loss. I feel their pain.</s>CABRERA: Joining us now, CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, the Washington bureau chief for "The Associated Press", Julie Pace, and CNN political commentator, David Swerdlick. Dr. Reiner, that's what the president is saying. Do his actions match the sentiment?</s>DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: No. In this country, the virus has disproportionately decimated the senior citizen community in the United States, particularly the older Americans who live in nursing homes. Only about 1 percent of our population live in those kinds of facilities, but about 40 percent of our deaths have come from that population. We've done a horrendous job in protecting our most vulnerable people in this country, and I think that's a big reason why the senior citizen community, older community in this country, has moved away in large numbers from the president during this election cycle.</s>CABRERA: David, the president continues with his big rallies in Michigan and Wisconsin. Later today, as the U.S. has just reported nearly 70,000 new cases of coronavirus yesterday, the highest number since July with at least ten states setting record highs on Friday and the positivity rate above 20 percent in some places like Wisconsin. And yet, he keeps saying the U.S. is rounding the corner. Our producers took a look, and in fact, he has said that over 20 times in the past 6 weeks. So, both his words and his actions, holding these large rallies, are the complete opposite of what is needed to help combat the virus, but is there any evidence that this is working for him, politically?</s>DAVID SWERDLICK, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I don't think it's working very well, and I think this is a thing where it's of his own doing, Ana. On March 4th, the president gave -- excuse me. March 11th, he gave an Oval Office speech where he said, we all have a role to play in this. And that was the right thing to say. And then guess what? To Dr. Reiner's point, he didn't do it. He didn't model mask-wearing behavior. He didn't encourage social distancing. He mocked Vice President Biden, at times, for wearing a mask. And now, everybody in the country and the world, frankly, understands that we're in an abnormal crisis situation and when he goes out there and tries to act like everything is normal, people can see with their own eyes that's not what's going on. I was at my nephew's soccer game last night. Adults were wearing masks. We were standing distanced apart from each other and the people that stood out as strange were the few people who weren't wearing masks because now we understand that we're all working on this together. The president goes out there, says that things are normal and that we're rounding the corner, because he's stuck with that message that he has tried to drill home for the last eight, nine months and now in his closing argument, he can't just flip up and say, oh, everybody else was right, I was wrong, and so we're going to continue like this until election day.</s>CABRERA: As we can see in these images, a lot of people are following the president's lead. There are huge crowds with very little mask- wearing, although some people are wearing masks at this rally as we watch the people just go by the camera here. Yet, no social distancing, so very tight quarters. Julie, things are clearly getting worse here in the U.S., and yet the White House Task Force, we're learning, is meeting less and less. Here's Dr. Anthony Fauci.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We were meeting, you know, sometimes seven days a week. Then it went down to five. We're down to about, I would say, consistent one day a week.</s>CABRERA: So that's how often the task force itself is meeting. Do we know when President Trump last met with the Coronavirus Task Force?</s>JULIE PACE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: The White House will not say. It's a pretty simple question. When was the last time that the president met with this task force? And we can't get an answer, and you can infer from that that he's not meeting with them very often. And you know, I think that is really actually remarkable when you really sit down and think about this. Yes, we are, of course, in the last final weeks of this campaign and the president is going to want to be out on the campaign trail in these battleground states as much as possible. But he is president through the inauguration, regardless of what happens on November 3rd, and he does not appear to be spending much of his time right now in touch with public health officials, in touch with others in his administration who are tasked with leading the U.S. response to this pandemic, so it's not just in what he's saying and what the public is seeing. It's really behind the scenes as well. It appears as though this is not, you know, really a top priority for the president.</s>CABRERA: Dr. Reiner, what's your reaction to hearing that?</s>REINER: Yeah, I mean, I completely agree. It's hard to understand -- well, maybe it's not hard to understand because the news is so bad for this administration as it relates to, really, the only news now, which is COVID. And -- but the president's trying to, again, perpetuate this myth that we're turning the corner and that there's light at the end of the tunnel. There's a lot of misery in this country. In the 1970s, there was this economic indicator that was developed called the misery index, which basically added the unemployment rate to the inflation rate to give sort of a sense for how much pain the average American consumer had. The new misery index is the COVID positivity rate added to the unemployment rate. And it's really hard -- really high in this country, and it's something that this president just can't face anymore.</s>CABRERA: David, as this national health crisis continues to worsen by the day, Biden is keeping the focus on healthcare. Listen.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Mishandling the pandemic isn't enough for Trump. On top of that, he's still trying to take away your healthcare. Trump's still determined, in the midst of this pandemic, he's still determined to destroy the Affordable Care Act. This isn't hyperbole. Just like your opponent calls it a disaster. Talk about a disaster. There's a disaster.</s>CABRERA: We know the pandemic is top of mind for voters, David. How strategic is Biden being in hammering away at healthcare in this final stretch?</s>SWERDLICK: You know, Ana, I think it's sort of interesting that in the first term of the Obama/Biden administration, the Affordable Care Act was sort of a liability for them with a lot of voters, maybe not the majority, but quite a few voters that they were trying to reel back in. Then in the Democratic primaries this year, it was a liability for Biden because some Democratic voters thought that the Obama/Biden administration hadn't gone far enough. Now, it's like a lifeline. Vice President Biden can hammer home the fact that he was part of an administration that tried to push forward on health coverage, even if people don't think it's perfect, and that the popular parts of it, like covering preexisting conditions, are there because they put it in the law. Every time President Trump comes out and says, oh, I signed an executive order protecting preexisting conditions, it gives Vice President Biden another opportunity to say, well, wait a second, that's even on the table because we put it there. This is a safe topic for him now, even if it wasn't before, and I think he's going to ride this, also, to Election Day.</s>CABRERA: Meantime, new attacks on Joe Biden's running mate, Senator Kamala Harris. Take a listen.</s>SEN. DAVID PERDUE (R-GA): But the most insidious thing that Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden are trying to perpetrate and Bernie and Kamala, or Kamala, Kamala-mala-mala, I don't know. Whatever.</s>CABRERA: Now, Senator Perdue's communications director claims he's simply mispronounced her name, didn't mean anything by it. He serves on the Senate. He's on the same committee as her. Julie, do you buy that excuse?</s>PACE: I don't really buy that. He, of course, knows how to pronounce Kamala Harris's name, and I think it's important to note that this is not really a one-off even what we saw from Senator Perdue is probably one of the most egregious examples we've seen. We've seen multiple Republicans throughout the last several weeks mispronouncing Senator Harris's name and for a lot of people, this has smacked as racism, a way to really try to undercut her, the first black woman to be on a major party ticket and this is probably one of the most egregious examples but it follows a pattern we've seen for several weeks.</s>CABRERA: It's really just disturbing to hear that.</s>SWERDLICK: Gross.</s>CABRERA: Dr. Reiner, there's obviously so much passion and energy on both sides about the upcoming collection right now. We've been reporting on the record turnout for early voting. What kind of risk is voting in person right now and what do people need to know to help stay safe?</s>REINER: I think it's quite simple. People need to wear masks and keep their distance, and there are certainly safe ways to do this. I think if you want to vote in public, in person, you should. You should go either early in the morning or late in the afternoon. You should maybe go in pre-voting if your local municipality has that. And if you're particularly vulnerable, you should vote by mail. But I think that people who want to go and vote in person should do that, mask up, you know, stay six feet behind the person in line in front of you, and you can do that safely. Bring some hand sanitizer with you. I don't to discourage anyone from going, and if you have concerns, then vote by mail.</s>CABRERA: All right, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, Julie Pace, David Swerdlick, great to have all of you with us. Thank you.</s>SWERDLICK: Thanks.</s>CABRERA: More now on Americans lining up across the country to vote early. More than 22 million ballots already cast. We'll take you live to Georgia where some people waited for hours today to get inside the polling station.

More Than 22 Million Americans Cast Ballots Early

CABRERA: We are 17 days away from election day, but millions of ballots have already been cast as the coronavirus pandemic has spurred many Americans to vote early, in-person or by mail, and the surge in early in-person voting has caused hours-long wait times across the country. In fact, in the battleground state of Georgia, in-person early voting just that alone has increased by almost 50 percent compared to the same point in 2016. And CNN's Natasha Chen is at one polling location in Marietta, Georgia. And, Natasha, earlier in the day, I mean, we knew the wait times there were hours long. Has that changed and what are you hearing from voters?</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right, Ana, the good news is that it's a lot better now. The people behind me will probably wait about 30 minutes. That's the estimate right now. And people have until polls close at 5:00 p.m. Eastern to actually get in this line, so as long as they're in line at 5:00, they can vote today. So that wait this morning when the doors hadn't even opened, people being here three and a half hours early, that has definitely improved this afternoon, and we even see people over here with that food truck delivering free meals for people, knowing that a lot of people are waiting. And you talked about the turnout being so much -- so much more increased from 2016 at this point in the election of that year. If we can bring up these numbers, in total, in Georgia, there's been 134 percent increase when you look at both in-person early voting as well as absentee ballot. And if you're looking at just the early in-person voting, that number you referenced, nearly 50 percent, that's where that number comes from and absentee ballots, more than 615 percent increase from the 2016 election, at this point in 2016, about five or six days into voting. So, a lot of enthusiasm that we're seeing here. In fact, we talked to a couple of people who were prepared to wait much longer. Here's what they said about why they're here to vote.</s>GREGORY OLIVER, GEORGIA VOTER: Because of everything that's taking place, I think it's important to do this in person. Now, for our son is doing absentee, correct, and he's in college, at Wake Forest University, so we're going to make sure we're actually driving up to have him cast his ballot and bring it back from an absentee standpoint. We're doing that tomorrow. That's how important it is to us.</s>RHONDA OLIVER, GEORGIA VOTER: Past history shows that people have died for our right to vote so that was important for me. It's also important for our three children know that what we're doing. Standing and letting your voice be heard is important.</s>CHEN: Yeah, and their oldest son, they told me, is actually an Atlanta police officer, and so a lot of the issues that are very important to them include healthcare, how the government's responded to the coronavirus pandemic, how the government's responded to race relations and police brutality. So, all of that is top of mind for these people. And the commonality among everyone we've met here today is that no matter how long they've waited, they all were prepared to wait a very long time. They were all prepared to be patient with their lawn chairs, with their coffee, with their food, with their pets, with their small children. So they were here for the long haul even if they didn't end up waiting that long, Ana.</s>CABRERA: Prepared and obviously determined. Natasha Chen, thank you. And Georgia's just one state that has seen a surge in mail-in and in- person early voting. With us now, CNN Senior Political Writer and Analyst, Harry Enten. Harry, you have been studying the detailed voter information out there from Catalyst, the data company that provides the data analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and nonprofit issue advocacy organization. So what does it show about, you know, the early vote?</s>HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER AND ANALYST: Yeah, I think it shows that Georgia is no exception to the rule. I mean, take a look at this. Over 22 million people have already cast a ballot so far, and it's from coast to coast, right? From Washington down to Texas up to Maine down to Florida. So we're seeing a lot of people voting, and more than that compared to four years ago and you can just see at this point, four years ago, far less people were voting early. Just about 7 million folks. Now we're up to over 22 million so triple the number of people have voted so far in this election than the equivalent point four years ago.</s>CABRERA: This all pointing to a much higher turnout this election?</s>ENTEN: Yeah. You know, it would be one thing if we were just looking at this early absentee vote in isolation but in fact it's backed up by the polls. Take a look here. You compare the CNN poll at this point in 2016 and the CNN poll now and what you see now is that more people at this point say they're certain to vote in this election than said the same in 2016. So I do, in fact, think there's going to be a significantly larger turnout this year than four years ago.</s>CABRERA: With this surge in early voting, both by mail and in-person, could this impact when the race is called? Because we know some states wait until Election Day to process these early votes, right?</s>ENTEN: Yeah, and definitely could, right? And in the closest six states from four years ago, right, Michigan, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, take a look here. Michigan, the small cities, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, in those states, these early votes will not begin to get processed until Election Day. And so, look, these are places, especially Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, that really just have no real history of this large early vote. So it could take days to get those votes counted and we might not know who's won those states until, say, Wednesday, Thursday, or even Friday after the election, if not longer.</s>CABRERA: And on top of that, we have, you know, a moving deadline from state to state for when mail-in ballots have to be received, so how do you see that impacting when the race is called?</s>ENTEN: Yeah, this is just another reason why we're going to have to be very, very patient, right? Look, again, at the six closest states that Trump won in 2016. In Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania, those votes only need to be postmarked by Election Day. They don't necessarily need to be received by Election Day. So, it could be the case that, you know, if you have a very close race on election night, it could be these late ballots that come in, especially in a place like Michigan or Pennsylvania, in order to really know who's won that election. So the fact is, this is just going to say this over and over again, Ana -- patience, patience, patience when it comes to counting the votes because it's better to be accurate than fast.</s>CABRERA: No doubt about it. I don't know how you keep up with all the different information, all the different numbers. Thank goodness you're there to be my partner in crime here. Harry Enten, thank you. Good to have you here.</s>ENTEN: My pleasure.</s>CABRERA: The election in the middle of an historic pandemic and they are among the most vulnerable to coronavirus. Some haven't seen their grandkids in person in months. Why senior voters in Florida are suddenly a big hurdle for President Trump.

Elizabeth Warren, Magic Johnson, Barack Obama Hit Trail For Biden

CABRERA: Just 17 days until the election and Senator Elizabeth Warren, Magic Johnson, and former President Barack Obama are among the star- studded surrogates stumping for Joe Biden in the home stretch. CNN national correspondent Jason Carroll is with us now. Jason, Biden isn't on the trail today but he's -- has these surrogates out there for him and where campaigns focus their energy in this final stretch can tell us a lot about the state of the race, at least in a campaign's eyes. So where is the Biden campaign putting its energy?</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Of course. Well, you know the campaign is putting much of its time and energy into swing states and states where they're doing that early in-person voting. They're seeing exactly the same images that people across the country are seeing, these long lines, people waiting in places like North Carolina. Tomorrow, Vice President Biden, for his part, will be heading to Durham, North Carolina. He's not on the campaign trail today. A source within the campaign telling me that he's going to be meeting with advisors today. But tomorrow, he will be in Durham, trying to encourage more of his supporters to get out there and participate in early in-person voting. Senator Harris, for her part, as you know, a couple people in her orbit tested positive for coronavirus. She tested negative for coronavirus today. But out of an abundance of caution, they've kept her off the campaign in terms of doing in-person voting. But on Monday, she's going to be in Florida trying to encourage supporters there to participate in in-person voting in that state. If you look ahead at the schedule, in terms of the candidates and the surrogates, they're going to be out in full force. Today, for example, you've got Stacey Abrams in Florida. Elizabeth Warren in Wisconsin. Magic Johnson in michigan. Looking ahead, tomorrow, again, Biden is going to be in North Carolina. On Monday, you've got Senator Harris. In Florida, Joe Biden's going to be back. In Pennsylvania, Tuesday, Joe Biden. Here's the big one. On Wednesday, we've got former President Barack Obama, who's going to be campaigning for Joe Biden in Philadelphia. And there's always the question: Do these surrogates matter? Well, Democrats say that's the one surrogate that does matter. He may be one -- he may be the one man who can encourage communities of color to get out there and vote. Again, he's going to be doing that for the vice president on -- that's going to be on Wednesday, the day before the debate -- Ana?</s>CABRERA: OK, Jason Carroll, thank you. Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are stepping up their fight to win the support of older voters, a crucial and reliable voting bloc in Florida, in particular, that favored President Trump in 2016. But that support now seems to be slipping. CNN's Jeff Zeleny reports.</s>ZELENY: But it's not only Democrats taking their stand. A bigger threat to President Trump's re-election may come from voters like Tommye and Rody Johnson. They are lifelong Republicans who supported him four years ago but won't again.</s>TOMMYE JOHNSON, REPUBLICAN BIDEN SUPPORTER: I feel he's responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths because of his attitude about it. He's still dishonest about it. He keeps saying it's getting better and it never is. It's getting worse.</s>ZELENY: Their frustration at the president turned to fury with his handling of coronavirus.</s>RODY JOHNSON, REPUBLICAN BIDEN SUPPORTER: Damn it, we voted for him. And of course the virus, COVID, has been terrible.</s>ZELENY: Three weeks ago, his son tested positive for COVID-19.</s>R. JOHNSON: I was mad because he had it, and it was, you know -- and I kept thinking, that's Mr. Trump's fault. Because this thing should never have gotten as far as it has.</s>ZELENY: Seniors were key to Trump's victory in 2016. Yet, falloff from this critical voting bloc had the president sounding the alarm this week at a rally here.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Biden's agenda would be a catastrophe for Florida's seniors.</s>ZELENY: During his own Florida visit, Biden turned the subject back to coronavirus.</s>JOE BIDEN, DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: So many lives have been lost unnecessarily because this president cares more about the stock market than he does about, you know, the well-being of seniors.</s>ZELENY: Tobi Schelin is a nurse who's going door to door for Biden where she hears the stories.</s>TOBI SCHELIN, BIDEN SUPPORTER & VOLUNTEER: They can't hug their grandkids. So it's been huge. That's been a huge factor.</s>ZELENY: The pandemic and the fear of a close election drives these senior volunteers.</s>MARY MCBEE, BIDEN SUPPORTER & VOLUNTEER: What I'm see at the Trump side, only four votes. That's maybe two houses, three houses. I don't want to wake up this year, the day after the election, and say, what more could I have done?</s>ZELENY: Signs of an exceedingly tight race are plentiful here with passionate support for Trump on display from flags to front yards.</s>ANN ALEXSINAS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: There's more people out supporting him now because he's had so many people going against him. And I don't feel he's been treated fairly by the Democrats at all.</s>ZELENY: The question is just how many Trump voters have soured on the president. The Johnsons live in a county that's still deep red. But they're no longer shy about showing their affirmative support for Biden.</s>R. JOHNSON: Mr. Biden is a nice man. And there was a time I didn't like him at all. I love him.</s>ZELENY: But it's Trump that's driving them and this race.</s>T. JOHNSON: He's so dishonest. And the worst is that whenever he is caught in a lie, he blames it on somebody else. It's always somebody else. He's impossible.</s>ZELENY (on camera): On top of all of this, the TV air waves here are flooded with hundreds of millions of dollars-worth in advertising about Social Security and taxes. Those, of course, are familiar issues. But it is the new political issue of coronavirus that also is front and center every time President Trump holds a rally. He spent three of five days this past week here in the state of Florida, certainly, underscoring the importance of the 29 electoral votes. Now, early voting begins in many Florida counties next week. Certainly, this state as critical as it ever is. Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Vero Beach, Florida.</s>CABRERA: Thank you, Jeff. After a chaotic first debate, a presidential health crisis, a controversial debate cancellation, and competing town halls, Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off one last time. The final presidential debate is coming. And special live coverage starts Thursday at 7:00 Eastern on CNN. If things don't go President Trump's way on Election Day, he'll lose more than his office. He'll lose the legal protections that's afforded him so far. "CROSS EXAM" with Elie Honig is next.

Elie Honig Answers Viewers' Legal Questions In CNN's "Cross Exam"

TRUMP: Because you know what? Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me. Could you imagine if I lose? My whole life, what am I going to do?</s>TRUMP: I'm going to say I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics.</s>TRUMP: I'm not going to feel so good. Maybe I'll have to leave the country. I don't know.</s>CABRERA: You heard it yourself, President Trump touting the idea of leaving the country in front of his supporters in Georgia last night should he lose the election. Those words coming from a president who has reassured Americans before that he does not joke. But could it have anything to do with this? CNN is looking at the legal reckoning Trump could face should he lose the White House. Which brings us to "CROSS EXAM," with CNN legal analyst, Elie Honig, a former federal and state prosecutor. And he's here to answer your questions. So, Elie, one viewer wants to know: Could President Trump be prosecuted or sued after he's out of office? And what are the most likely cases he might face?</s>ELIE HONIG, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Yes, Ana, where to begin? I mean, over the past four years, Donald Trump has used the office of the presidency to protect himself from a legal avalanche. So when he's out of office, however, all those protections that he's been relying on, they will go away, and anything is in play. So let's run through it. First of all, on the potential criminal side of the ledger, the most serious threat right now is coming from New York State prosecutors, the Manhattan D.A., the New York A.G. who are investigating the Trump Organization for potential bank fraud, tax fraud, insurance fraud. The idea there is, if the Trump Organization has been falsely inflating or deflating the value of their assets. Now, there are also potential federal charges at play, obstruction of justice. We remember, Robert Mueller found 11 potential bases for obstruction of justice. Now, DOJ policy is against charging a sitting president. But once he's no longer sitting, he absolutely can be charged. And finally, there's potential charges for campaign finance charges. This is hush money payments. Michael Cohen was convicted of this. DOJ, on the record, said he acted at the direction of "individual one." We know who that is. On the civil side of the ledger, he has tried to delay these cases because he's the sitting president, over and over again. But that delay ends when he's out of office. He's currently facing two defamation lawsuits from two different women who claim he sexually assaulted them and then defamed them. He's facing potential civil tax liability over this $72 million tax refund that President Trump obtained back in 2010. And Mary Trump, the president's own niece, has sued the president and family members over a multimillion-dollar dispute over the family estate. So the stakes in this election are enormous for the country. And they could be even bigger for Donald Trump himself beyond politics if he loses.</s>CABRERA: That's a lot that's on the line here. Another viewer asks: Is there any formal rule against the Department of Justice announcing a new indictment or investigation on the eve of the election?</s>HONIG: So, there's an informal rule. And there's some drama between the president and the A.G. over this. So, dating back decades, DOJ, under both political parties, has followed this internal policy that you do not announce a new politically-charged indictment or investigation within 60 days of an election. But this year, Attorney General Barr narrowed that policy a little bit and seemed to keep the door open for a potential October surprise. Turns out, though, it's just been a series of duds. Last week, we learned that the Durham investigation, nothing new, nothing before the election. This week, we learned that the DOJ prosecutor who Barr appointed to look into this crazy unmasking theory involving the president, Obama, and Joe Biden, he came up empty, too. No charges. Not even a report. The president's not happy. He's openly questioning and challenging the attorney general. So, for the first time, we're seeing a bit of tension between these two. We'll have to see how that plays out.</s>CABRERA: Another viewer wants to know and is asking about something that affects millions of Americans: That if Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed to the Supreme Court, how likely is the Supreme Court to strike down the Affordable Care Act?</s>HONIG: So, it's possible. But I want people to understand, it is far from certain that that happens. Now, the Supreme Court upheld the ACA back in 2012 by a 5-4 vote. Chief Justice Roberts joined with the four liberal justices at the time. Now, Judge Barrett wrote a law review article criticizing that 2012 decision. Now the ACA is back in front of the Supreme Court this term. And if Judge Barrett votes to strike it down, that could swing the result. But here's the thing. The issue this time is different than in 2012. The issue this time is what we call severability. I'm going to illustrate. I have a visual here. The concept is, if you assume this Jenga pile behind me is the entire Affordable Care Act, Congress has effectively -- oh -- taken out one piece of the Affordable Care Act. That's the individual mandate. Severability means, can you pull that one piece out, when you do that, does the entire law stand on its own or does it collapse? And Judge Barrett said she understands. She testified there's a general presumption in the law that, when you do that, the entire law should be able to stand on its own. So, yes, she criticized that 2012 decision. But it's far from a given that she'll come out the same way now in 2020.</s>CABRERA: Elie Honig, throwing a curveball. Bringing props and upping the game in our "CROSS EXAM" today.</s>HONIG: I was nervous but I got it out there. Good.</s>CABRERA: That was really good. Especially for visual learners like me, that was helpful. Elie Honig, good to see you. Thank you.</s>HONIG: Thanks.</s>CABRERA: Coming up, a personal toll of this pandemic. Get this -- the virus killed this man's father and seven other members of his family, and now it has taken his livelihood.</s>RICARDO AGUIRRE, LOST FAMILY AND BUSINESS TO COVID-19: This is what's left of 10 years of hard work.

Arizona Family Loses Eight Loved Ones, Livelihood To Virus

CABRERA: The devastation of this pandemic cannot be overstated. More than 218,000 lives lost just in the United States, and more than a million around the world. But for one Arizona family, the heartache is truly unimaginable. They lost eight family members to coronavirus, along with their livelihood. You have to watch this report from CNN's Miguel Marquez.</s>AGUIRRE: I don't want to cry just because I'm -- I know God has something better for me.</s>MIGUEL MARQUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Ricardo Aguirre --</s>AGUIRRE: But it's hard not to it's just -- you know, the --</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): -- the coronavirus killed his father and seven other family members, he says. It took his business. It sickened him, his wife, who was then four months pregnant, and two of his kids.</s>AGUIRRE: I feel very incompetent. A man not being able to go back to where it was. I lost my dad. It's very hard. It's hard.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): He doesn't know how they contracted the virus. They wore masks and used sanitizer constantly. It swept through his family in May. His father fought the virus for months.</s>AGUIRRE: My dad, unfortunately, you know, he passed away on September 11th in my arms at 3:30 in the morning. It was very hard because we did everything together, 42 years being by his side.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): His mother is home and still fighting the effects of the virus. Now, he spends his days shuttling her to hospital visits, helping his wife, now eight months pregnant, dealing with an ever-increasing pile of bills. All this with little income and no health insurance.</s>MARQUEZ (on camera): You don't have medical coverage?</s>AGUIRRE: I don't have medical coverage at all. It's just too much. It's --</s>MARQUEZ: Even Obamacare, even --</s>AGUIRRE: No.</s>MARQUEZ: You just can't afford anything?</s>AGUIRRE: I can't afford it. It's just too much. It's, literally, another house payment.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre and his family-built Tacos y Tamales Puebla. He had a food truck, a prep kitchen in downtown Phoenix, and a long list of corporate and wedding clients.</s>AGUIRRE: This is what's left of 10 years of hard work.</s>MARQUEZ (on camera): You were living the American dream?</s>AGUIRRE: Yes, I was. Come visit us. As you can see, we are busy.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): When COVID-19 cases in Arizona jumped and the economy shut down, Aguirre watched all his catering jobs scheduled for the next year evaporate. His food truck was repossessed. He couldn't pay rent on his prep kitchen.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): When did it all come to a halt?</s>AGUIRRE: March 17th.</s>MARQUEZ: COVID?</s>AGUIRRE: Yes.</s>MARQUEZ: Overnight?</s>AGUIRRE: Yes, just like that.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre would like the president to understand just how devastating the disease is for some. (on camera): When he says, "Don't be afraid of COVID, don't let it dominate your life," what do you say to him?</s>AGUIRRE: May God continue to bless you and your family.</s>MARQUEZ: But how does the real-world deal with COVID?</s>AGUIRRE: It's bad. It's bad.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): Aguirre is now looking forward to the big day in November, November 7th, the day his first daughter is due to be born.</s>AGUIRRE: We felt that we were ready financially and we were ready, you know, emotionally, you know, to take care of another human being. Now, with this going on, I just ask God for strength to get me by another day.</s>MARQUEZ (voice-over): The real toll of the coronavirus on one American family. Miguel Marquez, CNN, Phoenix.

Sunday's "First Ladies" Examines Nancy Reagan.

CABRERA: She was Ronald Reagan's strongest supporter, his sharpest negotiator, and his lifelong protector. This Sunday, the CNN original series, "FIRST LADIES," examines the life of Nancy Reagan. Here's a preview.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nancy Davis and Ronald Reagan met in Hollywood in 1949. Nancy was an ambitious young actress.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Nancy arrived in Hollywood during the time of the Red Scare. There was a lot of concern that Communists were infiltrating Hollywood.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She sees the name Nancy Davis on a list of supposed communist sympathizers. I mean, this is a career killer.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, she went to her director, Mervyn LeRoy. And he said, I'm going to have my good friend, Ronnie Reagan, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, look into this for you.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reagan says, no, it's another Nancy Davis. Tell her not to worry. We'll stand behind her. But Nancy says, you need to engineer a chance for me to meet him face- to-face.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Ronald Reagan, 10 years Nancy's senior, was a well-known actor and a staunch anti-Communist.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think the list was really a pretext to get to know Ronald Reagan, who was now a divorcee.

Joe Biden And Donald Trump Make Pitch To Voters In Key Midwest Battleground States; Kamala Harris' Travel On Pause After Two Staffers Test Positive For Coronavirus; Trump And Biden Battle For Arizona, Which Hasn't Backed A Democrat Since 1996

JOE BIDEN, (D) PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Hello, Michigan.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We love Florida.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There are a little more than two weeks until Election Day.</s>TRUMP: Seniors will be the first in line for the vaccine and we will soon be ending this pandemic.</s>BIDEN: It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse, as predicted.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pay attention to the facts. It is a deadly, highly contagious virus. The virus is now winning.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More than 20 million Americans have already voted according to data from 45 states and Washington</s>D.C. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see it as probably being one of the most important elections in my entire lifetime going forward.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think more of the Millennial and younger are a little bit more aware and maybe are more wanting to get out there and vote.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Beautiful shot of New York at the top of the hour. Good morning to you. So good to have you with us. A little more than two weeks until the election and this weekend, both President Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden are focusing on first the key Midwest battleground states.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Today, President Trump's campaign is taking him to Michigan and Wisconsin. He's scheduled to host two large rallies with thousands of people. We understand masks are optional. There will be no mandated social distancing. Both of those states, it's notable, are seeing a huge spike in COVID-19 cases.</s>BLACKWELL: This morning, we start at the White House with Sarah Westwood. Sarah, good morning to you. The President, busy schedule, focusing on keeping those two chunks of the Blue Wall that he tore away in 2016, but it looks like he's going to have a tough time holding on to them</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: That's right, Victor and Christi. That's what the polls are showing. With just a little more than two weeks until Election Day, the Trump campaign is in full force right now. It seems that he's eager to make up for lost time from the more than a week that he was out of commission basically while he was struggling with coronavirus. Today he is scheduled to go to Wisconsin and Michigan, two Midwest battleground states that he badly needs if he has hope for reelection, but in Wisconsin, for the second day in a row, records were set in terms of coronavirus cases. So that state is seeing a surge as the President is set to hold a campaign event today in Janesville. Yesterday, speaking to seniors at an event aimed at seniors, the President struck an empathetic tone and he claimed that the U.S. is seeing a light at the end of the tunnel.</s>TRUMP: My heart breaks for every grieving family that has lost a precious loved one. I feel their anguish and I mourn their loss. I feel their pain. I know that the terrible pain that they have gone through and you lose someone and there's nothing to describe what you have to bear. There's nothing to describe it. My message to America's seniors today is one of optimism, confidence and hope. Your sacrifice has not been in vain. The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.</s>WESTWOOD: Now, we are not exactly rounding the turn here. In fact, on Friday, just yesterday, the U.S. had the highest one-day total for new cases since July with more than 68,000 new cases registered across this country, but nonetheless the President has stuck to this strategy of trying to downplay the virus heading into Election Day. That has characterized his approach to the pandemic all along, but clearly that message has struggled to resonate with many voters as the President is trailing in many battleground polls, but also nationally. Joe Biden is leading him by a wide margin. Now, as you guys mentioned, at some of these campaign events that we saw throughout this week, masks were not necessarily required of guests and in fact, at some points, you could see many in the crowd not wearing them and the Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, her press secretary released a statement encouraging everyone attending the President's rally in Michigan today to wear masks. I want to read you part of that. "We always are concerned when there are large gatherings without masks and social distancing. There is a risk of an outbreak when this happens, so we encourage people to wear their masks and practice social distancing." Of course the president is on this sprint as we head into November. Just two weeks away from Election Day, the President has some ground to make up, so we will see him hit the campaign trail nearly every day until then, Victor and Christi.</s>PAUL: All righty. Sarah Westwood, thank you so much for the wrap. We appreciate it.</s>BLACKWELL: So let's focus on Michigan and Wisconsin especially in the context, as Sarah just mentioned, of the coronavirus cases. Those states where the president will be holding his rallies, they're seeing spikes in coronavirus cases. Yesterday, Michigan recorded more than 2,000 new confirmed cases, 14 deaths. The U.S. surgeon general says that cases in Wisconsin are going in the wrong direction. right now, at least 31 states are seeing a rise in cases compared to last week. Fourteen states reached their highest ever seven-day average of new daily cases.</s>BIDEN: He said we have turned the corner. As my grandfather Finnegan might say, where here he said (ph) he's gone around the bend. Turned the corner. My Lord. It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse, as predicted.</s>PAUL: Former Vice President Joe Biden there as he was reacting to President Trump's comments that the U.S. is, quote, as you heard it, "rounding the corner" when it comes to coronavirus. Now, Biden was campaigning in Michigan yesterday. He's expected to be in North Carolina tomorrow.</s>BLACKWELL: CNN's Jessica Dean has more on the former vice president's message and the surrogates who will be campaigning for him in the next few days. Jessica?</s>JESSICA DEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Christi and Victor. Former Vice President Joe Biden traveling here to Michigan on Friday where he made his final pitch to Michigan voters and really centered in on healthcare and the Affordable Care Act. It's a through line that the campaign believes applies to so many issues in this campaign, including the coronavirus pandemic, President Trump's response to the coronavirus pandemic, Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court and Republicans' efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. And remember, back in 2018, Democrats made their messaging all about healthcare and they were able to regain control of the House. The Biden campaign believing that again this is a very effective message that they want to keep the Affordable Care Act and expand upon it. In the meantime, surrogates are going to be spread out all across the country voicing their support for Biden and encouraging people to early vote whether in person or by mail. We're going to see Elizabeth Warren on the campaign trail, Andrew Yang, even Magic Johnson hitting the campaign trail for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and also we learned that next week, the campaign's biggest surrogate, former President Barack Obama, will be doing his first in-person campaign event for Joe Biden traveling to Philadelphia in another critical battleground state, Pennsylvania. All of this as vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris remains grounded from any traveling over the weekend, this after two people, her communications director and a non-staff flight crew member, tested positive for coronavirus. The Biden campaign saying that they were never at risk in terms of being close to one another. They were never more than six feet toward each other, never near each other for longer than 15 minutes and always wearing an N95 mask and that all of that was before these two individuals tested positive. Still, out of an abundance of caution, the campaign keeping Harris off the campaign trail until Monday, Christi and Victor.</s>BLACKWELL: Jessica Dean, thank you. Seventeen days now until the end of the 2020 election. Already more than 20 million votes have been cast in 45 states and the District of Columbia. Both the Trump and Biden campaigns are watching the numbers, especially in the closest of six swing states that President Trump won in 2016. Let's go now to Lauren Gambino, political correspondent for "The Guardian." Lauren, good morning to you and you've been focusing recently on one of those six states, Arizona. Let's put up the numbers. Monmouth has a new poll out that shows, with high turnout, and that's what we've been seeing in early voting, that Biden has a 7- point lead over President Trump. What is driving that Democratic lead? And we should remind people that President Trump won that state by 3.5 points back in 2016.</s>LAUREN GAMBINO, POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, THE GUARDIAN: He did and that was actually a narrower margin than we'd seen past Republican nominees win the state before him and so we know that this state is changing, especially after 2018. They sent a Democratic senator to Washington for the first time in decades. So, you know, some of these changes are very long-term things that have been happening slowly. You have a big population of young Latinos in the state, many are turning 18, have turned 18 since 2016 and they are activated and say they're ready to vote, but you also have what we've been seeing across the country in suburbs, you know, in all these swing states. You have especially women walking away from the Republican party and they -- you know, they will point squarely at Donald Trump. These aren't, you know, suddenly liberal, progressive women, but they are so tired of his conduct, his behavior. You know, I talked to several women, everyone has sort of a different off ramp when they -- when they left the President and, you know, by extension, the party, but these women are just very frustrated with how Trump has handled his presidency and especially lately, obviously, the pandemic. Arizona's a state that was really hit hard ...</s>BLACKWELL: Yes.</s>GAMBINO: ... and so there's a lot of blame for the Trump administration and for Republican leadership in the state.</s>BLACKWELL: So I wonder who has the coattails here because Mark Kelly, the Democratic nominee for Senate there, according to this Monmouth poll with high turnout, has a 10-point lead over the Republican senator, Martha McSally. Is he riding the national coattails of Vice President Biden or is it the other way around?</s>GAMBINO: It's hard to tell there, right? I think it's interesting in the Senate race because Mark Kelly is running against someone who lost in 2018 and then was later appointed to a Senate seat. So she lost to the Democratic senator, Kyrsten Sinema, in 2018. So voters kind of know her and so I think there is a specific dynamic, while it's a very nationalized race. Certainly, some of Senator Martha McSally's problems extend from the fact that she -- that voters view her as very close to Donald Trump, too close, in fact. I think the Monmouth poll actually pulls that out. While she's tried, you know, to say that her opponent, Mark Kelly, would just be a rubber stamp for Democrats, but actually the poll, I think, shows that, you know, that's not really how voters view him. He's actually been pretty consistent and good at messaging and saying he'd be an independent voice for the state, while unfortunately she's been sort of tagged as sort of a loyalist to Donald Trump and that has hurt her in a state that is moving away from Trump and his style of politics.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Let's broaden this out now. Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse, in a call with constituents, had some really harsh criticism of the President. Let's listen to a bit of that recording of the call and then we'll talk.</s>SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): If young people become permanent Democrats because they've just been repulsed by the obsessive nature of our politics or if women who were willing to still vote with the Republican party on 2016 decide that they need to turn away from this party permanently in the future, the debate is not going to be, you know, "Ben Sasse, why were you so mean to Donald Trump?" It's going to be, "What the heck were any of us thinking that selling a TV-obsessed, narcissistic individual to the American people was a good idea?" It is not a good idea.</s>BLACKWELL: I mean, really strong words. We've heard him sporadically criticize the President. We heard Ted Cruz not too long ago talk about a bloodbath potentially for Republicans, not in the context of the President personally, but are we seeing Republican senators broadly express some jitters or are we still just one or two senators here and there?</s>GAMBINO: I think you're just getting a taste of the conversations that happen behind the scenes. You know, for a long time actually you've had, especially among Senate Republicans, you've had them privately express doubts with the President, but of course publicly, you know, align with him or at least just not want to get on his bad side. We even saw that with Senator Sasse who is one of the few Senate Republicans who are more critical of the President, but, you know, when he was running in his primary this cycle, he needed the President's approval, he needed Trump and he did eventually get that. And so I think what you're seeing now at the end of the race is polling looks bad in several states and we're starting to see, as we just talked about, you know, this migration of women especially away from the Democratic party. You're seeing young people really, you know, just completely, you know, upset with the way Trump and Republicans have supported Trump and so there are these sort of existential questions for the party about, you know, how you go forward if Donald Trump loses. You know, where do you begin? Do you have to sort of start over with your outreach to these -- to these really disaffected voters and will they hold you accountable for not standing up to the President? And so I think you're starting to see that with someone like Ben Sasse who has been more outspoken publicly than other senators.</s>BLACKWELL: OK (ph).</s>GAMBINO: You're starting to both see the concerns he has for the future post-Trump, if that's what happens in November, and just real jitters about what Trump has done sort of down ballot. You know, he's very, very conscious that (ph) ...</s>BLACKWELL: That really is the question for a lot of Republicans is if Trump does not win reelection, what will then happen to Trumpism? Will they hold on to that or will they try to recast themselves with the electorate? Political reporter with "The Guardian," Lauren Gambino, always good to have you.</s>GAMBINO: Thank you.</s>PAUL: So we're going to give you some clarity on these alarming new signs of the new coronavirus surge across the country. There are several key trends in multiple states. We're going to look at what that means for the days and the weeks ahead as we're 17 days from November 3rd.</s>BLACKWELL: And Rudy Giuliani is President Trump's personal attorney, part of his inner circle, but his daughter says the President should not get four more years in the White House. Why Caroline Giuliani is supporting Joe Biden.

COVID-19 Infections And Hospitalizations Surge In U.S.

BLACKWELL: So the resurgence of coronavirus cases that experts have warned us is coming, appears to be here now across this country.</s>PAUL: Yes. The U.S. added more than 69,000 cases yesterday. That is the largest one-day total since the end of July. Now the rate of tests coming back positive, the number of people in the hospital due to COVID-19 also spiking.</s>BLACKWELL: CNN's Polo Sandoval is with us with the latest now. Polo, good morning to you. You know, we're just about 10 percent off ...</s>POLO SANDOVAL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Morning.</s>BLACKWELL: ... the all-time number for new cases in a single day and the cold weather that experts said would initiate this boost really hasn't set in everywhere.</s>SANDOVAL: Yes. Especially if you look at the numbers here, Victor. Test positivity, for example. It's becoming very clear that in some states it is much worse than others, talking about states like Idaho, Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota as well. Those states seeing a number exceeding over 20 percent. So it's certainly deeply concerning. Yesterday, the nation's surgeon general saying that it's important to identify these spots and do everything they can to try to reverse those infection rates.</s>SANDOVAL: The United States surpassed 8 million coronavirus cases on Friday. The death toll is quickly approaching 220,000. Case numbers are steadily increasing daily according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Health officials from coast to coast are scrambling to contain the rising rate of infections.</s>CHRIS MURRAY, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH METRICS AND EVALUATION: If you look at the map in the U.S., what's happening is exactly what we expected, is the whole northern half of the U.S. transmission is on the upswing.</s>SANDOVAL: At least four states, Idaho, Illinois, North Carolina and Wyoming, reported their highest daily COVID-19 case count to-date just this Friday, state of health officials said. North Carolina, where President Trump spoke to maskless crowds on Thursday, set a new record for cases on Friday. Florida now averaging nearly 2,800 new cases a day. That's up from 2,400 a week ago. Wisconsin now has a positivity rate of more than 26 percent. United States Surgeon General Jerome Adams warning that Wisconsin is a COVID-19 red state.</s>JEROME ADAMS, U.S. SURGEON GENERAL: I want you all to be aware that Wisconsin is currently one of our red states, meaning your positivity rates are over 10 percent and going in the wrong direction.</s>SANDOVAL: President Trump taking his campaign to Wisconsin today, a state where coronavirus cases are now at an all-time high. An infectious disease physician in Green Bay, Wisconsin says gatherings create a risk.</s>AGNES KRESCH, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: At this point, we are really recommending not to have any kind of gatherings and even to the point of family gatherings where people from different households getting together is a risk too.</s>SANDOVAL: Earlier on Friday, President Trump said seniors would be the first to get any vaccine once it's approved. Officials also confirmed Friday that CVS and Walgreens pharmacies have been designated to distribute free coronavirus vaccines once they're approved to long- term care facilities.</s>SANDOVAL: Back here in New York, the NYPD monitoring what a spokesperson describes as an "uptick" in officer COVID cases. About 54 uniformed members of the department as well about 18 civilians at the NYPD testing positive and out sick this morning, Victor and Christi. The police commissioner saying they're doing everything they can to not only conduct contact racing, but also remind its employees and its officers to continue taking those steps that we've all been taking for the last several months now.</s>PAUL: Polo Sandoval, really appreciate it. Thank you so much. And of those more than a dozen states that are reporting their highest-ever seven-day averages of cases is New Mexico. Listen to what the governor there had to say.</s>GOV. MICHELLE LUJAN GRISHAM, (D) NEW MEXICO: We're not succeeding at combating the virus. The virus is now winning. The reality is we're in unchartered waters. This is the most serious emergency that New Mexico has ever faced.</s>PAUL: Dr. Saju Mathew, primary care physician and public health specialist in Atlanta, with us now. Saju, it's good to see you. Johns Hopkins saying that the U.S.' one-week average of new cases, that it's increased 55 percent in just over a month. So when you couple that with what doctors are calling this "twindemic," the COVID and the flu together, with then indoor gatherings because of the cold weather and the holidays, first of all, as a doctor, how confident are you that we can keep this under control and that the medical community is prepared to deal with another escalation?</s>SAJU MATHEW, PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN, PUBLIC HEALTH SPECIALIST: Yes. Good morning, Christi. Just a terrible situation. This is exactly what physicians all over the country have dreaded. We're not even in the thick of the cold and flu season and the cases are 60,000 new cases already and if you look at the right of our screen, you can actually multiply those cases by 10 unfortunately. We know that for every one COVID case that's diagnosed, there are 10 people that go undiagnosed. And recently, Christi, the IHME model was predicting what's going to happen as the surge continues. Are hospitals going to be ready? If you look at the current number of beds in the U.S., we have about 1 million and get this -- we're going to need 4 million beds by January. So to answer your question more specifically, you know, obviously we all want to be optimistic. We have to deal with the numbers, we have to deal with the surges. It's back to what we've always been saying. Everybody has to really kind of tighten the grip and unfortunately we're going to take off linearly in the next few weeks. It's going to get worse.</s>PAUL: The medical community has been through this. All those front line people and professionals have been through this already. What is the emotional sense going into this season?</s>MATHEW: I think one word that I could describe is a sense of fear and I think also just not really feeling prepared. Do we have enough PPEs? Are we going to be able to manage patients that get into the ICU? What kind of medications really help patients with COVID? Right now we're sort of throwing the kitchen sink out there in terms of what's available and recently with the whole Remdesivir study that probably shows that it doesn't work, I think it's just a sense of feeling hopeless, but we have to do the best that we can.</s>PAUL: I wanted to ask you about that Remdesivir report because there had been -- I feel like there were professionals who were saying -- medical professionals who were saying there is some indication that it works. This is a report from the WHO. Have you seen Remdesivir personally, have you seen it work and what do you make of this new report?</s>MATHEW: I think the biggest problem is, sort of like I mentioned earlier, when patients come into the hospital and then get admitted to the ICU, obviously these are patients that are getting sicker by the day, by the minute. What we do right now is we throw the kitchen sink at them. We give them Dexamethasone, if the monoclonal antibody therapy, if it's available, they get that as well, maybe antibiotics if you have pneumonia. And what ends up happening, Christi is if these patients get better, we don't really know if they got better specifically from Dexamethasone or from Remdesivir. If they get better, we're happy about it. Now with this WHO study sort of throwing caution on Remdesivir, I think we just have to go back and look at the numbers again and specifically see is it true that it doesn't improve patient mortality? And unfortunately, the study's also suggesting that it doesn't help patient recover faster from the ICU which is what we thought earlier would happen.</s>PAUL: There is some new information regarding blood type and COVID, we want to point out, that patients with either O or B blood type are less susceptible to either catching the virus or having severe symptoms if they do. How reliable is the evidence suggesting this and what does it mean for treatment?</s>MATHEW: You know, I think this is going to end up being a good trivia question in the next few years with pandemic 2020. Ultimately there's nothing we can do to change our blood type. I think it's interesting to know that if you have a blood type O, that you have decreased days in the ICU and get this, you might also have a decreased risk of getting COVID-19. If you look at the genetics of what type of blood type you have, you get that directly from your parents. There are certain proteins on the surface of these red blood cells that determine which blood type you have. Well, you're not going to be able to change your blood type and it's not like I can tell patients with blood type O, take off your mask and you can go to the bars and live freely. Ultimately it doesn't matter what blood type you have. You've got to pay attention to safety measures.</s>PAUL: Dr. Mathew, your expertise is very valued here, sir. Thank you for being with us.</s>MATHEW: Thank you, Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: Giuliani is urging Americans to get out and vote, but not for President Trump.</s>CAROLINE GIULIANI, DAUGHTER OF RUDY GIULIANI: A lot of people's behavior is symptomatic of this toxic environment that he's created and it's gotten worse every year since he's been elected.</s>BLACKWELL: That's Caroline Giuliani. She says she's voting for Joe Biden.

Rudy Giuliani's Daughter Endorses Joe Biden; "Washington Post:" White House Was Warned Giuliani Was A Target Of Russian Misinformation

PAUL: Thirty-two minutes past the hour on this Saturday morning. Good to have you here. Federal investigators are looking into whether e- mails published by the "New York Post" are a part of an ongoing Russia disinformation effort, targeting the Biden campaign. The "Post" obtains the e-mails apparently from two of President Trump's confidants, former chief strategist Steve Bannon and the president's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.</s>BLACKWELL: The White House was warned last year that Giuliani was being used to feed Russian misinformation to the president. Here's CNN's Alex Marquardt with more.</s>ALEX MARQUARDT, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: We are being told by two people who have been briefed on what the FBI is doing is that they're looking into whether these unverified e-mails about Hunter Biden published by the "New York Post" about foreign business dealings are a part of the bigger Russian disinformation effort which is well under way in these final days of the 2020 race. The intelligent community has said for months that Russia is very actively engaged in a disinformation campaign in the 2020 election, in particular against Joe Biden to denigrate his campaign in favor of President Trump. The "New York Post" says that they got these Hunter Biden e-mails from Rudy Giuliani and Steve Bannon, that they were found on a laptop left in a repair shop in Delaware, which according to Giuliani's lawyer then reached out to Giuliani, Bannon according to the paper indicated that he knew about the Hunter Biden e-mails last month. For a long time, Giuliani has been openly working to dig up dirt and promote disinformation on the Bidens. One person he has teamed up with is a Ukrainian politician whose name is Andrii Derkach who has been named by the U.S. Intelligence community as a Russian agent and has also been sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury Department. So, here have you Rudy Giuliani openly working with a known Russian agent, and now "The Washington Post" is also reporting that the intelligence community was so concerned that the Russians were using Giuliani to feed Russian disinformation to the president that they warned the White House about it last year. Giuliani, as you can imagine is denying this. Take a listen.</s>RUDY GIULIANI, FORMER NEW YORK CITY MAYOR: No one in the intelligence community warned me. President didn't say that to me. This is the first time I'm hearing that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.</s>GIULIANI: And I have a pretty good idea where it's coming from, and these are people who are trying to tear down Donald Trump --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right --</s>GIULIANI: And destroy his presidency --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And Mr. Mayor --</s>GIULIANI: Inside the intelligence community of which there are many.</s>MARQUARDT: So again, that classic deep state argument that we hear time and time again from Trump and his supporters. Alex Marquardt, CNN, Washington.</s>BLACKWELL: Alex, thank you. Rudy Giuliani's daughter Caroline is speaking out against her father's client, saying that she will not vote for him, but instead is endorsing his rival.</s>PAUL: Yes, this isn't a piece for "Vanity Fair", she called on Americans to quote, "end this nightmare" by voting for Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: For any family, you know, all families have differences of opinion and political differences and, you know, this is maybe on a different scale. But how do you normally deal with it? Is it something you just choose not to talk about politics with, you know, he is your dad, after all or do you -- I mean, in the article you talk about at times you feel like you have no other choice but to address certain issues.</s>CAROLINE GIULIANI, DAUGHTER OF RUDY GIULIANI: Yes, I think those things boil up and at a certain point, you can't -- at least, I couldn't repress them, right. It was definitely give-and-take throughout my whole life. I just think that now we've come to such a point of crisis that I just had no choice but to say something. This toxic and environment of bullying and vicious sniping needs to be turned around, and I really think that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris can do that. I absolutely love Kamala Harris. I --</s>COOPER: Joe Biden was not your first choice --</s>C. GIULIANI: Not initially, but I was keeping my options opened and seeing what people had to say, and I was a huge fan of Kamala, and when Joe Biden picked Kamala, I got so excited because it just -- I feel like it reflected that he is willing to have people who challenge him around him, and that is the way to break up the echo chamber of yes men, and which I think is a huge problem right now.</s>COOPER: When you see "The Washington Post" report that, you know, the White House was warned that your dad, you know, was quote, "being used to feed Russian disinformation to the president", just seeing that in the news. What goes through your mind as I can't imagine it?</s>C. GIULIANI: No, I choose to focus on what we can do to fix this problem. I think that that's where we all need to be focusing our energy. And I think that, that is by making sure that everyone votes and chooses to elect someone who has empathy and will start to turn this country around.</s>BLACKWELL: Now, this is not the first time that Caroline Giuliani has publicly supported a Democratic presidential candidate. She endorsed Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2008, when her father was a candidate for the presidency, she joined a Facebook group that supported Barack Obama for president.</s>PAUL: So stay with us because there are new questions in the Breonna Taylor case after the Kentucky Attorney General released hours of audio recordings from the grand jury hearings. The "LEGAL BRIEF" is next.

Kentucky Attorney General Releases Breonna Taylor's Grand Jury Audio Recordings.

PAUL: Forty-two minutes past the hour right now, and let's talk some legal aspects here. We want to take a close look at the Breonna Taylor case today. None of the officers have been charged in connection to her death. The Kentucky Attorney General Daniel Cameron has refused to say if he recommended the grand jury not indict any of the officers. Now, Cameron did release grand jury recordings in an attempt to provide some transparency here, it didn't include juror deliberations or prosecutor's recommendations and statements. Now, the attorney general also refusing to allow jurors to make public statements about the case. That's despite his holding several news conferences regarding the proceedings. Criminal Defense Attorney Janet Johnson with us now. So, Janet, here is what we know and good morning to you. An anonymous juror has filed this motion to speak about this court proceedings. What in that case -- what would a judge consider in deciding whether to grant this motion?</s>JANET JOHNSON, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Good morning, Christi. Well, there is a rule in Kentucky as in most states that the grand jury proceedings are secret, and no one can discuss them. So, that's why the juror went ahead and filed this motion because otherwise, he or she could be held in contempt, could be fined, could be locked up. So, the judge has the authority under the rule in Kentucky to waive that secrecy to allow somebody to speak about the case. Attorneys are allowed to speak about the case if it goes towards the disposition, but jurors generally don't, and the attorney general says in Kentucky, this would be unprecedented. So, the judge has to decide, do I want to set a precedent? Do I want to start opening a floodgate where jurors can talk about secret proceedings when the rule basically says they shouldn't unless I deem it necessary. So she'll consider, is there a public interest in hearing about what happened in that jury room? Is there an interest in the secrecy of other jurors in not opening the flood gates? And the juror claims that one of their concerns is if someone finds out that they were on this grand jury, will they have questions about why they didn't indict the officers, and can they explain that to people and explain that maybe it wasn't even presented to them, that, that was an option.</s>PAUL: So if the motion is granted, can it be appealed? I mean, does that open up the possibility that some jurors, obviously, could remain anonymous if they so chose?</s>JOHNSON: Well, Attorney General Cameron said he would appeal. He's already said that. So it would go on for a little while even if it is granted. And what he said is, there are some federal investigations under way, and this could damage that investigation. And it also could have a chilling effect going forward because other grand jurors might think, you know, it says that this is secret, we don't have to talk about it. But if this judge lets this juror talk, is my secret anonymity going to be waived in the future? So he says he will appeal, and the judge is still thinking about it. So obviously, that's weighing heavily on the judge. And I think the judge if she allowed it, would let the other jurors remain anonymous because obviously, there is no interest in making everybody come out and talk about it.</s>PAUL: Right, Janet Johnson, thank you so much for walking us through it, appreciate it.</s>JOHNSON: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: So, the NBA season is over. But players are still working toward now a different goal to get their fans out to vote. We'll show you how a former all-star is making a difference during the election.

Trump Holds Rallies In Wisconsin, Michigan As States See Surge In Cases; Biden Focuses On Health Care, ACA With Voters In Michigan; At Least 69,000 New Cases Reported In The U.S. Friday; More Than 20 Million Votes Cast In 45 States And D.C.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And we will soon be ending this pandemic.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse as predicted.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Pay attention to the facts. It is a deadly, highly contagious virus. The virus is now winning.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: More than 20 million Americans have already voted, according to data from 45 states in Washington,</s>D.C. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I see it as probably being one of the most important elections in my entire lifetime going forward.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think more of the millennial and younger are a little bit more aware, and maybe are more wanting to get out there and vote.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell Christi Paul.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: You can just see the sun there on horizon. The light to peak up a little bit. We hope you've got some sunshine in your future today. Thank you so much for spending the morning with us. We have a little more than two weeks now until the election. And this weekend, both President Trump and Former Vice President Joe Biden you're focusing on some key Midwest battleground states. President Trump campaigning in Michigan and Wisconsin, specifically.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: So, he's scheduled to host two big rallies thousands of people, masks optional, no social distancing. You know how these things go. Both of the states are seeing huge spikes in COVID-19 cases. Let's start with Sarah Westwood at the White House. Sarah, the President is on the defense trying to hold on to stay to one in 2016.</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Victor and Christi. And the Trump campaign is out in full force this weekend with little more than two weeks until Election Day. The President, perhaps, trying to make up for some of the time that he lost when he was essentially sidelined for more than a week during his struggle with coronavirus. As we saw through the end of this week, he is set to hit multiple states per day on this homestretch of the campaign, and that continues today where hours from now he will travel to Wisconsin and Michigan for a pair of campaign events. But that is coming against the backdrop of a potential spike in the Midwest. Wisconsin where he'll hold that rally in Janesville today saw record infection cases for two consecutive days ahead of the President's visit today. But yesterday in an event aimed at seniors, the president struck an optimistic tone about the U.S. progress with coronavirus.</s>TRUMP: My heart breaks for every grieving family that has lost a precious loved one. I feel their anguish and I mourn their loss. I feel their pain. I know that the terrible pain that they have gone through and you lose someone and is nothing to describe what you have to bear is nothing to describe it. My message to American seniors today is one of optimism, confidence and hope. Your sacrifice has not been in vain. The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.</s>WESTWOOD: Now it's not exactly the case that America is rounding the turn when it comes to COVID-19. Yesterday, the U.S. registered more than 68,000 new cases. That was the highest one-day total for the U.S. since July. So, still surges in a lot of places around this country. The President's remarks there really fit with a strategy that we've seen from him all along. His approach has been to downplay the virus, to downplay the possible outcomes. That's not necessarily a message that has been gaining traction among voters, though, because he heads into this final stretch of the campaign behind in many battleground states and with Joe Biden leading by a wide margin nationally. Now, as you guys mentioned, at some of these campaign events, we're not seeing a ton of social distancing. And even though masks are encouraged, they're not required. And we often see guests at the President's campaign events without face coverings when they attend. The Governor of Michigan, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, her office released a statement ahead of the President's visit there today saying: "We always are concerned when there are large gatherings without masks and social distancing. There is a risk of an outbreak when this happens. So, we encourage people to wear their masks and practice social distancing." Of course, the President may be attempting to make up ground during these stops. He has a lot of ground to make up as we've mentioned in the polls, and he is heading into the final debate of the campaign this week with a full slate of campaign events, Victor and Christi.</s>PAUL: All right, Sarah Westwood. I appreciate it, thank you so much. And I just want to reiterate some of these numbers for you. Wisconsin -- Michigan and Wisconsin, two of those states where the President's holding these rallies today, she said, they are seeing spikes in coronavirus cases. Michigan recorded more than 2,000 new confirmed cases and 14 people who died yesterday. The U.S. Surgeon General says cases in Wisconsin are "going in the wrong direction." But take a look at this. Right now, we know at least 30 more states have a rise in cases compared to last week in 14 states reached their highest ever seven-day average of new daily cases.</s>BLACKWELL: Joe Biden is expected to campaign in North Carolina tomorrow. Yesterday, he spoke with voters in Michigan.</s>PAUL: Yes, CNN's Arlette Saenz is following the latest from Washington. So, Arlette, I know there are some big names that are going to be hitting the trail for Biden. What are you learning about what's to come here?</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Christi and Victor, Joe Biden is back in Delaware today, but he does have some big figures out on the trail for him today. Elizabeth Warren is out in Wisconsin and former NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson is in his home state of Michigan hitting the stump for Joe Biden. But pretty soon Biden will have help from the biggest name in Democratic politics. Former President Barack Obama will be hitting the campaign trail in Philadelphia on Wednesday. This is his first appearance for Joe Biden, and what will be just a handful of several stops he will be making in the final two weeks before the election. The Biden campaign believes that the former president can help mobilize Black men, Latinos and young voters out to get out to the polls for Joe Biden. Now this will be a solo stop. Joe Biden is expected to be deep in debate prep on Wednesday, ahead of his second matchup against President Trump. But there is a possibility that the two men could appear together in those final days before the election. Now, for Joe Biden's part, he was in the battleground state of Michigan yesterday where he once again honed in on the coronavirus pandemic and criticize the President's response. Take a listen.</s>BIDEN: He said I think last night, in his town hall, I didn't have the pleasure of hearing it. I was doing one myself. He said, we have turned the corner. And my grandfather, fitting in might say we're here, he said, he's gone around the band. Turn the corner. My Lord, it's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse as predicted.</s>SAENZ: Now, in these final weeks before the election, Joe Biden is really honing in on the issue of health care. As the campaign believes it extends to so many facets of the election right now from the coronavirus pandemic, to the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court, and to Republicans efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. This is something healthcare was a winning recipe for Democrats back in 2018 when they won back the House, and that's a recipe that the Biden campaign is hoping to replicate heading into the election. Now, tomorrow, Joe Biden is heading to the battleground state of North Carolina. He'll be campaigning in Durham as early voting is underway, and he's trying to mobilize his supporters to get out and these final 17 days before the election, Victor and Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: Arlette Saenz for us. Arlette, thanks so much.</s>PAUL: So, as you saw there, the dueling town halls Thursday, we now know, the Biden came out well ahead of the President, now has just one more try, obviously. The President does to try to reach voters on that national stage when he and Biden meet Thursday in the final presidential debate.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's bring in CNN's Brian Stelter. Brian, how close were the numbers?</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Yes, I think most people expected President Trump to prevail in this rating face off. But instead, it was Joe Biden, with 14-15 million viewers on ABC. That compares the 13 million for Trump on three different channels: NBC, CNBC and MSNBC. So, Trump went in here hoping to beat Biden in the ratings. Actually, the opposite happened. Biden was ahead. What does that mean? Does that speak to Trump fatigue? Does it show that people are tired of watching the President and his antics on stage at these events? Or does it just mean people are more curious about Biden, they want to check him out one more time here in mid- October. The ratings probably mean a lot of things. And obviously, votes matter a lot more than ratings. But it was a big surprise to see Trump losing to Biden in this head-to-head race.</s>PAUL: You know, when you talk about numbers and optics and how many people were there, how many eyeballs there were, that's a trigger for this president. How's the Biden campaign reacting to that?</s>STELTER: It absolutely is. This President is a Nielsen kind of sore. I remember a decade ago, he used to send me scribbled messages about his apprentice ratings. When he didn't think I was giving him enough credit, he cares deeply about T.V. ratings. We've not heard him comment on this ratings race. But we have heard from the Biden Campaign Spokesman T.J. Ducklo saying yesterday, turns out more people were interested in watching a leader with a clear plan to get this pandemic under control and Americans back to work, versus this is the Biden campaign saying a combative chaotic liar whose incompetence got us into this mess. So, the Biden campaign taking a victory lap when it comes to that came to that ratings race. I think now, looking ahead here. There was supposed to be a debate last Thursday. We would have benefited if this had been a real debate between the two candidates. There is, as you just mentioned, one more debate: next Thursday, and moderated by NBC's Kristin Welker. So far, it seems like both candidates will show up. And we never know what the President's going to do next, maybe he'll end up trying to get out of it or objecting to the debate commission. But that's going to be really critical for this president behind in the polls, that's going to be his last chance to make a pitch to 60 to 70 million viewers all at one time.</s>BLACKWELL: And the President seems at least checking his Twitter account, more comfortable tweeting elements of his stump speech and going out from these rallies than what happened on Thursday night. Was he able to get the message across better than he was, than he was able to at the first debate?</s>STELTER: I think that deep story that the President's telling is that he's up against everybody and everything, that he is, it's a campaign of resentment against the so-called deep state and the media and every institution you could imagine. That's the story he tells at the rallies. And that's the story he told about the NBC town hall. He said Savannah Guthrie was against him. He said NBC was against him. So, if you take away what he's saying, just think about the message he's relaying, it's this grievance campaign, that the you know, everybody's aligned against him, and</s>PAUL: Stelter, polling a probably seven days stint at this point, if not longer, you're going to see him tomorrow, too.</s>STELTER: I'm just warmed up for tomorrow.</s>PAUL: There you are. Thank you for getting out for us this morning as well for being with us. Brian Stelter there. He's going to be on. Of course, his show "RELIABLE SOURCES" tomorrow. That's at 11:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on</s>CNN. BLACKWELL: All right, speaking of that town hall and we heard this at the President's rallies when he says the CDC found that 85 percent of people who wear masks, contract the coronavirus. We got a fact check for you. Actually, you know what? I'll drop the teas, it's false. We'll give you the truth.</s>PAUL: Containing COVID is obviously a struggle around the world. We're going to check in on the situation in Europe. Several countries, they're imposing new restrictions again, this is due to a surge in the cases that they are seeing.

Europe Struggles To Contain New COVID-19 Spikes

BLACKWELL: Coronavirus cases, the numbers are rising again on the same aircraft carrier that dealt with that major outbreak earlier this year.</s>PAUL: Yes, the Navy says a "small number of sailors tested positive for COVID-19 aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt," that they were transported off that ship for isolation purposes now.</s>BLACKWELL: And back in March, the handling of the outbreak aboard the carrier led to the controversial firing of the ship's captain. It's followed by the resignation of the then Acting Secretary of the Navy. The USS Theodore Roosevelt returned to sea, that was in May after it's a few weeks in port in Guam because of that outbreak.</s>PAUL: And let's talk about Europe because they're struggling to contain the coronavirus this morning. Several nations now are enforcing new safety measures and restrictions as a result. The World Health Organization says, listen to this, roughly 80 percent of countries across the continent are seeing spikes in hotspots.</s>BLACKWELL: Europe seven-day average of new cases now outpaces that of the U.S. and more than 120,000 new cases. And among the countries that are driving up the number as Germany. Citizens there are being asked to do more to help contain the spread. France, Russia, and the UK are also trending in the wrong direction. Our international correspondents have the latest.</s>JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR EUROPEAN CORRESPONDENT: The coronavirus case numbers here in France have been going in the wrong direction. And as a consequence, the government is going to impose a curfew which will go on for four weeks in 10 major cities. That means, that people will have to stay off the streets be between the hours of 9:00 in the evening and 6:00 in the morning. And there'll be 12,000 police out on the streets to find people who don't comply with that. In a country that values its nightlife in a big way, it's going to put a considerable damper on things.</s>FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Another grim milestone for Russia as the country continues to see record numbers for new coronavirus infections. For the first time, the authorities in this country recorded more than 15,000 new coronavirus infections in the span of a single day. Now, the main hotspot in this country continues to be where I am right now, the capital Moscow. We saw more than 5000 infections in the span of 24 hours and all this is happening despite the fact that the Russians have already approved two coronavirus vaccines, none of which actually went through the phase three tests and trials to determine whether vaccines are safe and effective. Now, the Russian authorities seem to be acknowledging that vaccines aren't going to be available for the broader public anytime soon, and they're urging people to abide by anti-pandemic measures.</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: London has raised its COVID alert level too high. That is the middle tier and starting on Saturday, Londoners will be banned from meeting anyone outside their household in an indoor setting. That means no meeting your friends at pubs, bars or restaurants. Meanwhile, here in Manchester, the Mayor is in an open standoff with Prime Minister Boris Johnson over his plans to raise the alert level of this city to very high, the top tier. The mayor argues he's unwilling to gamble the economy of Manchester over what he says is an experimental strategy. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has responded by essentially hinting at an ultimatum saying that he hopes the mayor will reconsider and engage constructively, otherwise the Prime Minister says, he will intervene to save Manchester's hospitals and the lives of its residents. The Prime Minister went on to say that the situation in Manchester is grave and gets worse with each passing day. That means the clock is ticking to get a grip on the virus.</s>PAUL: And thanks to some Abdelaziz there, Fred Pleitgen and Jim Bittermann for bringing us the headlines.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's bring it now Epidemiologist and CNN Contributor Dr. Abdul el-Sayed. Doctor, good morning to you.</s>DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, CNN MEDICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Good morning, Victor.</s>BLACKWELL: So, the new cases are climbing again. Let's put the chart up. Just shy of 70,000 new cases yesterday, just 10 percent off the all-time high of around 77,000. You and others have warned that once the fall and winter hit the new case, numbers would explode. I did not expect to hit 70,000 so soon. Is this earlier than you expected?</s>EL-SAYED: I'll be honest, I was saying middle of October, and I'm very frustrated that it looks like this is exactly the timing that we're seeing. And what we're seeing right now is not just high levels of cases. And I want folks to put themselves in the mental mind space, we're not looking at linear growth, right. People are used to thinking a little bit more every day. What we're seeing is increases that increase every single day, and that's what we call exponential growth. And it's looking like this surge is starting to follow on albeit slower, but still consistently exponential pattern. And I'm really worried about what that means, through the end of this month into November. And all of this, whether it's here in the United States, or as your correspondents just showed us in Europe, all of this is being driven by the same structural changes in our behavior. People going inside spending, more time indoors, having a little bit of mask fatigue, and, and, and, and pandemic fatigue, all of that a really wicked brew that may lead to real transmission everywhere. And I want to put one more note on this, when we saw this kind of transmission earlier on in the pandemic in March and April, the virus hadn't seen it everywhere. At this point, the virus has had more than six months to get to every nook and cranny of our country. And so, as these structural behavioral changes, increase, the probability that we're going to start seeing outbreaks in every spot, small part in big part of our country goes up. So, this really is a harrowing time and people have to be careful and follow those recommendations.</s>BLACKWELL: So, what do we do? I imagine that people who are going to wear a mask are wearing masks. Europe, they are starting these, these lockdowns and some restrictions again. Dr. Fauci has said that this can be controlled without the type of lockdown that there really isn't a huge appetite for -- you're at the intersection of public health and politics, what, what do we do?</s>EL-SAYED: Well, I think number one, people have to recognize that the only way that we can avoid the kind of lockdowns that we're starting to see in Europe, is by doing the things that we need to do to protect ourselves and protect our communities. And so, you said, you know, the people were going to wear masks here, wear masks. I'm asking other people who weren't going to wear masks to wear masks, right? And as we wear masks, let's not make as many, you know, as many efforts to take them off, we'll say, as we did in the past, because at the end of the day, the mask is only valuable for you as it's on your face. And I see a lot of folks wearing masks under their nose, or maybe wearing masks slung over an ear so that they can, you know, look like they were wearing a mask or choose to just take it off entirely to spend a long dinner at a restaurant. And so, it really is about our choices, and we've got to make the right ones. But the second point here is to say that if things do start to accelerate, and we get to a point where transmission is so high and so fierce, that the only way to do it is through lock downs, then there's going to have to be leadership to do that, because we've got to do what it takes to protect our communities. And we've seen the ravages that this virus can have, and this surge has the potential to be way worse than it was in either the spring or the summer, simply because of the changes in behavior here. And so, we've got to be careful.</s>BLACKWELL: Let me play this lie, the President's been telling, and then I want you to tell us what the truth is. This is from Thursday.</s>TRUMP: But as far as the mask is concerned, I'm good with masks. I'm OK with this. I tell people to wear masks. But just the other day, they came out with a statement that 85 percent of the people that wear masks, catch it so --</s>SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, HOST, NBC NEWS: They didn't say that. I know that study. That's, that's --</s>TRUMP: That's what I heard, and that's what I saw.</s>BLACKWELL: So, what's the truth?</s>EL-SAYED: The truth is that this what he's, he is misquoting a study that was done, which is called the case control study. And just to explain the design here, you got a certain number of people who got sick, and then a certain number of people who didn't get sick, you match them up, and you look at the differences in how they behaved. Now, here's the thing, right? Once people already knew they were sick, they went back and ask them did you wear masks? And they said, 85 percent of them said, yes, we wore masks. But like we talked about Victor, there's a difference between being very fastidious about wearing your mask and, you know, wearing your mask when, when you feel like wearing your mask. And, of course, when you're already sick, and someone asked you, did you do anything that you were supposed to do to protect yourself? Most people say yes, of course I did, right? When, when sometimes that might not be the case. And so, you're talking about a very small number of people in a very specific kind of study design that were asked after the fact after they got sick if they wore masks. And so, he is misquoting that article again to try and politicize masks wearing to play to his base so that there looks like there's two sides to an issue. The science is quite clear on this question mask wearing protects folks from COVID-19. It protects communities from COVID-19. And regardless of what the President wants to misquote a study, this is the truth, and this has been consistent with all of the science that we've seen.</s>BLACKWELL: Dr. Abdul el-Sayed, always good to have you, sir. Thank you.</s>EL-SAYED: Thank you, Victor.</s>PAUL: All right, coming up. I know you're wondering: why Congress and the White House can't find some common ground on this new stimulus deal? The politics that are at play. We'll talk about that when we come back.

Treasury Secretary: Getting Something Done Before The Election Would Be Difficult

BLACKWELL: 17 days left until the official Election Day, the one on your calendar. But already, this election season, more than 20 million votes have been cast in 45 states and in D.C. We've got a lot of pictures for you right now. This is Atlanta. There are people in line already, 7:29 Eastern. And this is exactly where people were waiting for up to eight hours to vote earlier this week. Voter enthusiasm and concerns about the coronavirus pandemic had contributed to a surge in early voting. Next hour, we're going live to Atlanta with the latest on the early vote there.</s>PAUL: And as millions of people are struggling financially during this pandemic, some of you may be wondering when, or even if you're going to see a second stimulus check? That's all up in the air at this point. President Trump's been urging Congress to pass a big stimulus bill. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin still at a stalemate. Senate Republicans balked at the $1.8 trillion package -- trillion-dollar package, I should say that Mnuchin offered Pelosi. So, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has set up a vote for Monday on what is a scaled-back stand-alone bill we're told, costing about $500 billion. Money would be to extend the small business Paycheck Protection Program. Let's talk to Jim Tankersley, he's economics reporter for the New York Times. Always good to have you with us, Jim. He's also the author of the Riches of This Land: The Untold, True Story of America's Middle Class. As we get started here, I want to listen to something notable that President Trump said regarding the stimulus at this town hall on Thursday. Let's listen.</s>TRUMP: The problem you have is Nancy Pelosi. She couldn't care less about the worker, she couldn't care less about our people, and we should have a stimulus. And I want a stimulus, the Republicans will approve a stimulus. The problem is she doesn't want to do it because she think is -- thinks it's bad for her election. We should have stimulus. This was not our people's fault, this was China's fault, and she's penalizing our people. I'm ready to sign a big beautiful stimulus.</s>PAUL: Jim, fact check that for us. Will you please?</s>JIM TANKERSLEY, ECONOMICS REPORTER, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Sure. Well, you know, in any negotiation as the president well knows, you need a multiple parties on board to make a deal happen. And in this case, it's certainly not just Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats who are not willing to find the compromise that would get everyone onto -- on the board. The Republicans in the Senate, for example, are nowhere close to being on board with a 1.8 trillion or 2 trillion or 2.2 trillion as the Democrats in the House want bill. And President Trump hasn't personally intervened here to get his party on board to bring all the sides together. So, what we've had over the course of now several -- frankly, maddening months for people who watch these talks, is a very slow march of discussions that have not led anyone to an incentive to actually say, OK, fine, we'll make the deal on your terms instead of mine. Everyone, all sides here really seem to think they are just fine going into the election without a deal.</s>PAUL: There is a strategy to this, pros and cons for both parties: Democrats and Republicans in sitting on this, and not doing anything about this prior to the election. Let's talk about both of those. First, let's start with Republicans, what is their incentive to hold onto this?</s>TANKERSLEY: Well, the big -- the big incentive for Republicans is twofold. The first is ideological. There are a lot of Senate Republicans who just don't think the economy needs stimulus right now or would do better with more stimulus. But you also have to think about their electoral calculations. Many Senate Republicans aren't so much thinking about this election as future elections, future primary elections in 2022 or 2024. And they want to be on the correct side of fiscal conservatism for their base for those elections. So, they're resistant to a big deal. And I think that's making it hard for Mitch McConnell and the president to get the votes in the Senate for a large package.</s>PAUL: What about the Democrats?</s>TANKERSLEY: Well, the Democrats -- as the president alluded to the Democrats, do not have a huge incentive here to give the president a big win right before his election, which has basically put them in the -- in the negotiating position of they're willing to do a deal that is mostly on their terms. They have watched as the president has come closer and closer and closer to their position over the last few weeks. And the president frankly make it -- made it easier on them when he abruptly called off negotiations on Twitter, which then he almost immediately reinstated. So, the Democrats basically keep telling me, look, we want a deal, we want to do something but we don't know if Republicans are going to be there for it, and so, we're not going to compromise on important things to us and reach a deal until the president and the administration come to us.</s>PAUL: OK. So, last couple of seconds here. What is the takeaway for people who are sitting at home wondering, I don't know how I'm going to pay my rent this month? I mean, what is the realistic timeline for this?</s>TANKERSLEY: I think it's very unrealistic to think that we're going to have a deal passed, the Senate and on the president's desk before the election. There is some possibility that, that could happen after the election, but many people in Congress are preparing for the thought that the next stimulus bill for the economy might not come until after the next presidential inauguration next year.</s>PAUL: All righty, Jim Tankersley, grateful for your thoughts this morning and your expertise. Thanks for being with us.</s>TANKERSLEY: Thank you for having me.</s>PAUL: Of course. So, every Saturday, we're highlighting cities across the U.S. with resources to help you if you need help right now. Grab your phone or a pen and a piece of paper to write some information down here. Because we wanted to make sure that you know that there is help out there. So, if you are in Kansas, first of all. If you want to be tested for coronavirus, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment has compiled a list of places across the state on their web site. So, you can search by county with their interactive map. If you live in Topeka, Doorstep is a non-profit group helping locals with day-to-day needs. They have an array of services, including clothing, food, prescription assistance, dental, and gas vouchers. And they do have some rent help as well. So, they're taking calls from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. So, let's go to Kentucky now. Dare to Care offers a mobile pantry program that distribute fresh fruit, vegetables, non-perishable items to people that are in the community who are at risk of hunger throughout the greater Louisville area. The organization also has a senior outreach program. If you are in declining mobility health or medical issues, are also on you're -- are problem for you, you can go to their web site, daretocare.org. Find a location near you there. And in Louisiana, the Second Harvest Food Bank asks that you call in 211 for food and supply assistance. There are workers available 24/7 to help you find the closest community food pantry and distribution centers that you need. As always, we do recommend calling these places prior to going there to confirm hours and requirements. But we hope that maybe that can gives you a little bit of guidance.</s>BLACKWELL: So, Judge Amy Coney Barrett is confirmed, she will not be the first parent on the Supreme Court -- you know that. She has seven children, but that's not some sort of record for the court even in the last few years. So, why did senators, according to New York Times analysis, reference her minor children and her family role more than in any confirmation of a nominee in recent history?

Senate Judiciary Committee To Vote On Barrett Nomination Thursday

BLACKWELL: 19 minutes until the top of the hour now. Judge Amy Coney Barrett has sent more documents to the Senate Judiciary Committee. Here is what happened, earlier this week, CNN's KFile reported that she had not initially included multiple public events on her questionnaire to the committee. The Senate Judiciary Committee is scheduled to vote next Thursday on whether to advance Barrett's nomination to the full Senate, and there were four days of hearings this week. Maybe you saw some of them. Joining me now is senior columnist for the Daily Beast, Sophia Nelson. Good morning to you.</s>SOPHIA NELSON, SENIOR COLUMNIST, THE DAILY BEAST: Good morning, Victor.</s>BLACKWELL: So, you, this week, you wrote that -- and let me quote you here, that hell broke loose when you said that you found Judge Amy Coney Barrett to be likable, but you would not confirm to vote her. Explain what happened and why you wouldn't vote to confirm?</s>NELSON: Well, I heard in a -- at little bit one of your earlier segments, when you were talking this fact with the Senate, had brought up how much she was a mom and how many times, and that's the likability factor. And what I was saying on my Twitter feed was to my followers, I might not vote for this judge, her philosophy might not be mine. However, she's likable. She is very likable. And that's what they want, because when women are powerful, Victor, whether it's Kamala Harris or whether it's Hillary Clinton who wasn't likable, and that came up time and time again, it can backfire on us. So, if we're likable, we're palatable, it often works in our favor.</s>BLACKWELL: So, when you heard that reference to her family over and over, let's put up the numbers here for our viewers. This is the New York Times' analysis. They analyzed son, daughter, wife, husband -- all the mentions of family. And these are the recent nominees who had children -- minor children under the age of 18. 68 references for Barrett. Now, yes, she has seven children, but Scalia had nine children under 18 at the time of his confirmation. We had nine children, some were under 18, and only about 16 references here. And you heard that and it was endearing. And some others might wonder -- well, didn't ask the men that question, why they're asking her about her children and talk about family so often?</s>NELSON: Well, come on, we know the answer to that. There's a double standard still. Yes, it's 2020, and yes, we've come a long way. However, we still have a long way to go. Look at the way Kamala Harris has talked about still. Look at the disrespect, even Senate colleagues don't want to pronounce her name right. To make Judge Barrett, who is a federal judge, she's going to fill the seat of a beloved justice in Ruth Bader Ginsberg. And by the way, guys, she is going to fill the seat. They have the votes. And so, what I was saying to folks is you kind of going to have to get yourself comfortable with this. The game that they're playing is, and by that, I mean, the Republicans on the Senate committee is, she is this wonderful mom, she's got two black children that she's adopted. She is a great lady. And it plays also really well with their base, Victor, as they have a severe gender gap right now going into this election.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's look at this exchange from Senator Ted Cruz. Now, on -- I believe that was Tuesday, Senator Cruz went on a 26-minute monologue. He didn't ask the judge to respond to anything, and then he asked her four or five questions. Here's what he asked Judge Amy Coney Barrett.</s>SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Judge Barrett, do you speak any foreign languages? How about music, do you play any instruments? For you and your husband, you've got seven kid, how did -- how did you all manage through the lockdowns and distance learning? What was that like in the Barrett household? What led you and your husband to make the decision to adopt? It's, I think, one of the most loving and compassionate decisions any family can make. So, your children have been wonderfully well behaved. I think you're an amazing role model for little girls. What advice would you give little girls?</s>BLACKWELL: No question about jurisprudence. Your children are well behaved. What can you tell the girls of this nation? Let me move on because I got other things and not a whole lot of time. You say that the media only likes women when they are liberal. What supports that?</s>NELSON: Yes. I mean, if you go through and you're citing my piece in The Daily Beast, which folks can read. And what I talked about, I went through like the most beloved women in United States every year, the most popular, the most admired. There, if you -- if you look at 10 women, Victor, nine out of 10 are going to be what you call liberal political democratic women. Again, like a Michelle Obama or Hillary Clinton or a Kamala Harris or, you know, whoever happens to be in the public view at that point, you get very few conservative women. But I also think back to your point about this notion of likability and the kind of questions that senators like Ted Cruz asked the judge. Again, they're playing to their base. You wonder why the Republican Party has a gender gap, Ted Cruz showed you why they have a gender gap. They don't know how to talk to women. They don't know how to engage women. They're still in some Neanderthal kind of world that is stuck in someplace that the rest of us don't understand. And so, that's what the genesis of those questions was. But on the likability factor, if we're all telling the truth, the icons in our country right now are more liberal democratic women. They just</s>BLACKWELL: But, so, let me -- let me ask you this. Then, doesn't the latter point challenge the former point? And you suggest that the media only likes women when they are liberal, but if Republican senators don't know how to talk to women. And let's look at this. There have been more democratic women elected to the Senate in the last 50 years than Republicans, elected to the House, elected governors. Three women on national tickets. One in Sarah Palin in 2008. Is it -- is it less a reflection of the media and more reflection of the electorate's disapproval of the Republican's platform, and how the Republican Party elevates or does not elevate women?</s>NELSON: I think it's both and not either-or. For example, in this cycle, more Republican women are running than ever before for Congress, both House and Senate. Many of them will not win because they're in districts where they can't win, Victor. But your point is well taken. My point is, we don't hold up conservative women, and Judge Barrett, I think, is someone worthy of being held up even if I disagree with her judicial philosophy or some of the way she approaches jurisprudence.</s>BLACKWELL: Sophia Nelson, thank you so much for waking up and speaking with me this morning.</s>NELSON: My pleasure.</s>BLACKWELL: I'm going to tweet out the piece because I think it's fantastic.</s>NELSON: Take care, Victor. Bye-bye.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, you too. Christi?</s>PAUL: So, still ahead, there is uncertainty, there is anxiety in the happiest place on earth. Disneyland and the governor of California, they're about this morning over reopening the park. And in the meantime, there is a threat of layoffs for the people who work there.

Disneyland And California Governor At Odds Over Reopening.

PAUL: Glad to have you with us here. Disney wants to reopen its theme park in California. California's governor says, not so much.</s>BLACKWELL: And who's caught in the middle? The thousands of a Disney employees were facing layoffs and uncertainty. Let's go to CNN's Stephanie Elam with more.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Disneyland, it's known as the happiest place on earth. But for some people, it's more than a slogan.</s>MARK GRIFFIN, HOLIDAY DECORATION DESIGNER, DISNEYLAND: My return to Disney is like my return to home. I start there as a teenager.</s>ELAM: Designer Mark Griffin gives Disneyland that holiday magic. And to stance, he's worked more than a decade at the park. This month, he was told it would all be coming to an end. Disney announces that they're laying off some 28,000 employees. How did that impact you?</s>GRIFFIN: It's devastating. We're all worried about our livelihood. I'm worried am I going to be able to stay in this house? Am I going to keep a roof over my kids' heads? You know, I'm 52 and I'm on food stamps for the first time in my life.</s>ELAM: After Disney World's full reopening in July, Disneyland hoped to reopen as well. But California's summer COVID-19 spike led Governor Gavin Newsom to toughen his approach, delaying reopening indefinitely. On October 12th, he repeated his health-first approach to theme parks.</s>GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): There are cities, there's small cities, and there people from all around the world that descend, not just people that are proximate to these theme parks that come together and mix.</s>ELAM: Earlier this month, Disney fired back. Its chief medical officer tweeted, "We absolutely reject the suggestion that reopening Disneyland is incompatible with the health-first approach. We have taken a robust science-based approach." The longer that Disneyland stays closed, the harder the impact on the economy. And it's not just Disneyland employees. The entire region relies on the tourism that comes here because of the park.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: 264,000 jobs lost in the Anaheim area during</s>COVID. ELAM: Anaheim's Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign to push back against the governor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's reopen theme parks and reawaken our region.</s>ELAM: 19 state lawmakers agreed, telling Newsom of news reports that outbreaks simply aren't being traced back to these theme parks that have already reopened. But Newsom wants his own answers. He sent his health officials to inspect safety protocols at Disney World in Florida and to tour California parks.</s>ERIN GUERRERO, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CALIFORNIA ATTRACTIONS AND PARKS ASSOCIATION: And we wanted to show them first hand, it's not what you're thinking. Walking through a park and seeing all the different signage, the plexiglass, the staff that they'll have there, very visibly cleaning all the high touch surfaces.</s>ELAM: Not everyone is jumping to reopen for the sake of the economy.</s>INES GUZMAN, HOTEL HOUSEKEEPER, DISNEYLAND HOTEL: It scares me.</s>ELAM: Ines Guzman is a housekeeper at the Disneyland Hotel, and one of nearly 3,000 unite here, local 11 service workers at the park.</s>GUZMAN: I love my job.</s>ELAM: She wants to go back but is worried about the virus.</s>GUZMAN: If I bring that home, I can lose my mom, my children. That's a deadly disease.</s>ELAM: Mark Griffin, agrees safety is priority one, followed closely by a return of the magic.</s>GRIFFIN: We make the magic. The thought of losing that, I'm in kind of withdrawals from that.</s>ELAM: Is it part of your identity.</s>GRIFFIN: It's definitely part of my -- Disney is my identity.</s>ELAM: Stephanie Elam, CNN Anaheim, California.</s>PAUL: It is a sad situation, I know. We're just keeping our key fingers crossed that you can all get back to work. NEW DAY continues in a moment. Stay close.

More Than 20 Million Ballots Have Been Cast; Biden, Trump Make Pitch To Voters In Key Midwest Battleground States; Trump Holds Rallies In WI, MI As States See Surge In Cases.

ANNOUNCER: This is a NEW DAY weekend with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Oh, look at this Sunday on the horizon. Isn't that beautiful?</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.</s>PAUL: Gorgeous shot of the arch there. And guess what, people right now, maybe not right there, might be a little early but right now getting ready. They are voting in every single state this morning, more than 20 million ballots have already been cast and we're still 17 days away from the election.</s>BLACKWELL: This weekend, President Trump, former Vice President Joe Biden focusing on those key Midwest battleground states. Today the president will be in Michigan and Wisconsin.</s>PAUL: He's scheduled to host two large rallies with thousands of people. We know masks are optional and there will not be any guidance on social distancing there. Both of those states are seeing huge spike in COVID-19 cases so that's notable.</s>BLACKWELL: So of course, we've got all of the political angles covered for you this morning. Sarah Westwood is at the White House. Arlette Saenz is following the Biden campaign. Natasha Chen is following early voters in Marietta, suburb of Atlanta there in Georgia.</s>PAUL: Yes, CNN's Sarah Westwood though, we want to go to her first at the White House because the president has a busy schedule today, talk to us about what's going to happen. What are we going to see here in the next few hours?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, Christi and Victor, the Trump campaign moving at full force now during this final sprint to election day with a little over two weeks before voters head to the polls although as you guys mentioned early voting under way across the country. But at the end of this week we saw a preview of just how packed the president's schedule could be with him hitting multiple states a day, holding these campaign rally. That's expected to continue today. He has a pair of campaign events in Wisconsin and Michigan and he'll end the night in Nevada. That's coming against the backdrop of a potential spike in the Midwest in Wisconsin. We saw that state hit record high numbers for two consecutive days ahead of the president's visit there but none the less despite these rising number, the president yesterday at an event aimed at seniors, struck an optimistic tone about the virus.</s>DONALD J. TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: My heart breaks for every grieving family that has lost a precious loved one. I feel their anguish and I mourn their loss. I feel their pain. I know that the terrible pain that they have gone through and you lose someone. And there's nothing to describe what you have to bear. There is nothing to describe. My message to America's seniors today is one of optimism, confidence and hope. Your sacrifice has not been in vain. The light at the end of the tunnel is near. We are rounding the turn.</s>WESTWOOD: Now it's not exactly the case that the U.S. is rounding the bend. In fact the U.S. registered more than 68,000 new cases of coronavirus yesterday. That was the highest one-day total since July. So still, a lot of concerning areas across the country in terms of arising coronavirus cases. But it's all part of the president's strategy so far in which he's downplayed the spread of the virus throughout and promoted optimism that just isn't rooted in facts and at his rallies we have continued to see a lack of social distancing and a lack of mask wearing even though people are encouraged to wear face covering as you can see from images of his events that is just not always the case. Now ahead of the president's visit to Michigan today, the governor's office released a statement encouraging people who attend these events to socially distance. The statement read, "We always are concerned when there are large gatherings without masks and social distancing. There is a risk of an outbreak when this happens so we encourage people to wear their masks and practice social distancing." But again the president has routinely been flouting local ordinances about the pandemic when he travels to these battleground states in an effort to make up some ground. He's been trailing in a lot of these key states and he trails Joe Biden by a wide margin nationally. He does have a full slate of campaign events this week, Victor and Christi and it will be the final presidential debate as well.</s>PAUL: Good points. Sarah Westwood, thank you so much.</s>BLACKWELL: So yesterday, the U.S. recorded the most coronavirus cases, the new cases in a single day since July. Michigan and Wisconsin, to the states where the president is holding rallies today, they're seeing spikes. Yesterday Michigan recorded more than 2000 of its own new cases there. 14 people died and the U.S. Surgeon General said the cases in Wisconsin are going in the wrong direction. Right now, at least 31 states are seeing a rise in cases compared to last week. 14 states reached their highest ever seven-day average of new daily cases.</s>PAUL: So former Vice President Joe Biden is expected to campaign in North Carolina tomorrow but he spoke to voters in Michigan yesterday.</s>BLACKWELL: All right, let's go to Arlette Saenz now following the latest from Washington for us. There are some big names who will be coming out on the trail for Biden. Who are there?</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Christi, Joe Biden is back home in Delaware today but he does have some big figures out on the campaign trail for him today. Elizabeth Warren is campaigning in Wisconsin and Magic Johnson, that former NBA player, Hall of Famer is hitting the state of Michigan, his home state to campaign for Joe Biden. But pretty soon side and we'll have a little help from a friend who also happens to be the biggest democratic political surrogate out there. Former President Barack Obama will campaign for Biden in Philadelphia on Wednesday. This is his first in-person campaign appearance for his former VP and will be just one of a handful of stops that the former president will be making in the final days before the election. The Biden campaign believes that the former president can help, mobilize African-American men, Latinos and young voters to get out there and vote for Joe Biden. Now this will be a solo stop. We expect Joe Biden to be deep in debate prep on Wednesday as he prepares for that second match up against President Trump but there is a possibility that President Obama and Joe Biden could appear together in the final days before the election. Now Joe Biden yesterday traveled to the critical battleground state of Michigan where he once again honed in on the coronavirus pandemic and slammed the president for his response. Take a listen.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He said I think last night in his Town hall, I didn't have the pleasure of hearing it. I was doing one myself. He said we have turned the corner as my grandfather Finnegan might say, were he here, he would say, he's gone around the bend. Turn the corner. My Lord. It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse as predicted.</s>SAENZ: In these final weeks before the election, Joe Biden is really focusing on the issue of healthcare. The campaign believes that except that it extends to many facets of this election from the coronavirus pandemic to that nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court and Republicans' efforts to dismantle the Affordable Care Act. Now healthcare was a winning issue for Democrats back in 2018 when they won back the House and that is something that the Biden campaign is hoping to replicate in these final weeks before the election as they're trying to pull out that win. Now tomorrow Joe Biden will head down to North Carolina, one of those states President Trump won back in 2016. Biden will be campaigning in Durham as early voting is under way in that state and he is trying to mobilize his supporters to get out and vote with 17 days to go to the election. Victor and Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: Arlette Saenz for us in Washington. Thank you Arlette. Former Trump administration officials are now talking about the president explaining why they think the president is unfit for office.</s>PAUL: The latest, his former Chief of Staff General John Kelly. He told friends that Donald Trump is "the most flawed person he's ever met" and General Kelly also said, "the depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship though it's more pathetic than anything else." All of this, those quotes there. All of his quotes and more. Part of a new CNN special The Insiders, a warning from former Trump officials. It airs Sunday night just so you know and let's get Margaret Talev in this conversation. She's politics and White House editor for Axios. Margaret, good to see you. Those are some really harsh words coming from General John Kelly. First of all what's your reaction and the questions as to why he's not being more public with his thoughts.</s>MARGARET TALEV, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: That that is I think one of the criticisms or concerns that I hear most often is that General Kelly and some of the others who have served for not just you know a couple months, for a long time in the Trump administration, if they're that concerned, shouldn't they come forward and speak more publicly? And if they were that concerned why do they stay with the administration for that long through so many of these policies, whether it was a quarter policy on immigration, whether it was just the way the president would conduct himself in the Oval Office, whether it was foreign policy decisions? So I think the real question is who are these comments supposed to be reaching? Who is John Kelly hoping to persuade or change their mind and it's obviously not the section of the American public that is already made up its mind against President Trump. This is messaging to moderate or more traditional Republican voters who are independent to be Republican to try to convince those people I think. Not you know to pull the ballot for President Trump the second time.</s>PAUL: I want to get to some reporting from Axios this morning. Actually this came out late yesterday that President Trump's advisors are bracing for a loss. As I understand it, their campaign manager Bill Stepien did talk to Axios. What does he say?</s>TALEV: Well, that's right. The reporting that my colleague Jonathan Swan broke and the reason why Bill Stepien who's a private - like Bill Stepien is not out there publicly, you don't see him quoted a whole lot.</s>PAUL: Right.</s>TALEV: But the reporting that we were hearing was that people who were privy to private conversations with Bill Stepien walked away with the unmistakable and consistent view that he didn't think that the president could win re-election and so Stepien's responses, no, absolutely not, there's still lot of paths but Johnson's reporting really consistently shows that that's not what a lot of people around and in the campaign are hearing about this. They're hearing things like Stepien using the analogy, the idea, they just have to land the plane at this point using terms like optionality to describe multiple different paths and what you walk away with is a pretty consistent impression that while the campaign hasn't given up and while it's a campaign manager's job to come up with multiple paths to get to 270 in the electoral college, that this there on defense now trying to get it back. And it's sort of like the image of if you're in a car and you're hurling toward the tree, you don't look at the tree, you look at the ways around the tree. That's what's happening right now.</s>PAUL: Well and when you look at the numbers that we're seeing this morning of people who are going out and voting. We've got more than 20 million people who've already voted and if you break it down to some of the specific states. Look at this. 400 percent more people are voting now in Illinois compared to 2016 already and we're 17 days away from Election day itself. 400 percent so when you hear that I know that Axios also has this new reporting this morning that even when we see those numbers there are some concerns for voting and race and that there is real fear when it comes to in-person voting. What have you found?</s>TALEV: We conducted this poll with our polling partner Ipsos around a race and voting series which is going to launch later today and I hope everybody takes a look at it but to try to understand how Americans - you know Americans of color are feeling about voting going to the polls, their access to voting and this was really quite stunning. If you look at break down by race and ethnicity, they're just much higher level concerns around three things with voters of color. One is fear of physical violence or some kind of armed militia presence turning up at their polling location. Second is fear of police at the polling locations and this belief that you could somehow be like picked up on an outstanding warrant or have trouble somehow with law enforcement and that you'd be a target, sort of a sitting target for that waiting in line. That is not what is supposed to happen at the polls just to be clear but there is kind of a fear/myth around this that may suppress worrying and the third is fear of coronavirus which we just see at much higher levels among Democrats and Democrats - people of color disproportionately lean Democratic so there are all of these concerns. And I think how these two stories come together is the idea that if you're Donald Trump's campaign manager right now, your strategy, your path to second victory is through the electoral college, not the popular vote and hoping that that turn out for Biden would somehow be depressed in person and that there would be enough problems with absentee ballots that or legal challenges to voting by mail that those numbers could somehow be you know pressed down in key states like maybe Pennsylvania. So that's the strategy right now and turning out their own base.</s>PAUL: All right, all right. Margaret Talev, always so grateful to get your voice here. Thank you so much for getting up early for us on a Saturday.</s>BLACKWELL: Still have 2.5 weeks until November 3 but the election is now, millions of people have already voted. Natasha Chen is live just north of Atlanta. Natasha.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, polls just opened a few minutes ago and the first people in line told me they came here more than three hours before doors opened so coming up, we'll be talking to some of them and sharing with you why they felt it was so important to be here and cast their vote this way.</s>PAUL: So there are alarming signs of new coronavirus surges happening across the country. Several key trends in multiple states. They're heading in the wrong direction. Again we're going to take a look at which states are seeing some record high numbers this morning.</s>BLACKWELL: And some people are making a case for expanding the size of the Supreme Court if Biden wins the White House but it's not a popular move. We'll talk about that next.

Social Media's Influence On The Election

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN ANCHOR: Social media again takes center stage as Americans head to the polls. I'm Michael Smerconish in Philadelphia. In 2016, many cried foul when social media was accused of moving too slowly to allow the campaign spread of misinformation and now it's four years later and platforms are being criticized for moving too swiftly. Republicans are loudly protesting after Facebook and Twitter limited or blocked the distribution of an unsubstantiated "New York Post" article about the son of Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden. Among the company's concerns was that the article cited purported e- mails from Hunter Biden that may have been obtained in a hack. CNN has not determined the authenticity of the e-mails and investigation by Senate Republicans ended in September without uncovering any evidence that Joe Biden abused his powers or changed U.S. policy because of his son's business ties with Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Neither the FBI nor anyone in the intelligence community has issued any public statements about whether or not this is linked to a foreign disinformation campaign. We still don't know if the e-mails central to the story are authentic, fake or a combination thereof. Within three hours of the 200-year-old "New York Post" publishing its article on Wednesday, Facebook said it would slow the distribution so that it would appear less frequently in users' news feeds. Twitter went a step further by blocking people from linking to the story. Among those blocked was White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany after she posted the story. By Wednesday night, Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey criticized his own company's communication of that decision. On Thursday, Twitter said it was changing the policy used to block the "New York Post" article and would now allow similar content to be shared alongside a label to provide context of the source of the information. That same day, Ajit Pai, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, got into the act. He said he would soon clarify the law. Here were his words, "Social media companies have a right to free speech, but they do not have a first amendment right to a special immunity denied to other media outlets such as newspapers and broadcasters." The controversy raises important issues concerning Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, 26 words that provided internet platforms with a liability shield that enabled the internet to thrive. Here are those 26 words, "No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." Meanwhile, President Trump is calling Facebook and Twitter "terrible" and "a monster," threatening to go after them. He's tweeted, quote, "Repeal Section 230," and here's what he said on Thursday.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And if big tech persists in coordination with the mainstream media, we must immediately strip them of their Section 230 protection, OK? It's very simple. And we all believe in freedom of the press, but don't forget big tech got something years ago that let them become big tech, they got total protection. We're going to take away their Section 230 unless they shape up.</s>SMERCONISH: In my view, this controversy raises issues that transcend the current election and for the President, maybe this is a case of be careful what you wish for. This suggests that Trump's issue with Facebook and Twitter is their alleged censorship, but if his dream of a world without 230 actually came true, it might have far greater degrees of content restriction, focused on content that might subject platforms to legal liability and I can think of one figure whom those platforms might immediately consider restricting in a world without 230 as a liability shield. With 17 days to go before the final day of voting, circle October 28 on your calendar. On that day, the heads of Facebook, Twitter and Google are all scheduled to testify before the Senate Commerce Committee. This hour, I want to know what you think. Go to my website at Smerconish.com and answer this week's survey question. Should Facebook and Twitter be shielded from liability for the way they police their platforms? So how might this impact the final days of the campaign? Joining me now to discuss is Scott Galloway. He's a professor of marketing at the NYU Stern School of Business. Professor Galloway, why now?</s>SCOTT GALLOWAY, MARKETING PROFESSOR, NYU STERN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS: Good to be with you, Michael. Simply put, the polls showing a Biden/Harris administration is becoming more and more likely. It looks as if there's going to be a new sheriff in town and today we've had somewhat of an unholy alliance between the administration and these platforms that if you continue to let us weaponize these platforms or spread misinformation, we won't regulate or break you up. And there is a justified fear among big tech that that alliance is about to break apart. So they seem to be finding religion around ensuring their platforms aren't weaponized to the same extent they've been weaponized in the past.</s>SMERCONISH: You know Silicon Valley so well. Does Silicon Valley lean red, lean blue?</s>GALLOWAY: No, it leans green and that is it is -- does not want to be -- ideally it would like to just step back from this debate and they use mantras such as we don't want to be arbiters of truth or we want to give voice to the unheard. Keep in mind that the majority of the content that goes viral that's political tends to be conspiracy theories that are more novel, more -- if you will, more exciting or inflammatory and when they get spread, any engagement, regardless of the damage it does, results in enragement which results in more clicks which results in more Nissan ads which results in more shareholder value. So these companies have algorithms that aren't bias towards any political leaning. They're biased towards more ads and more clicks which unfortunately happens when we're enraged with content that is especially false or especially provocative.</s>SMERCONISH: You heard my opening commentary where I'm wondering aloud if conservatives have it backward, that 230 is actually their best friend. What does a post-230 world look like relative to the content on the internet?</s>GALLOWAY: Yes. You're exactly right. The Trump administration sort of has it half right and that is these companies should be subject to the same scrutiny as "CNN" or "The New York Times" or "MSNBC." The question is if they just remove 230 and don't update it or replace it, it's likely that the removal of that shield will make these platforms much more skittish and have absolutely no idea how to respond to some of the content that the President puts out which some people could interpret as motivating or inciting violence. So you could see a situation where they just have no choice but to actually take his account down. So this feels like a punishment that he's trying to levy that he doesn't really understand. It would likely hurt the far right more than it would hurt the far left if 230 were to go away.</s>SMERCONISH: I'm wondering if it also has some implication for anonymity. Take it from me. My personal experience is that when I meet people in the real town square, they're pleasant even if they're disagreeing with me, but via Twitter, via Facebook, it's an awfully nasty world. They get beer muscles because you don't know who they really are, but if all of a sudden 230 goes away and the media platforms now take on more of a regulatory notion, won't they want to know who the speakers are?</s>GALLOWAY: Well, actually they don't because if all of a sudden Twitter had to have the blue check across every account that you and I have on our accounts, they would have to report that their -- the number of accounts they have are -- have decreased by 50 to 80 percent, but you're absolutely right, anonymity is a huge problem here. I would argue -- and this is going to sound paranoid, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. If we went on to your and my Twitter feeds, we would find a lot of accounts who are purposely trying to create arguments and agita, who are purposely trying to undermine either of us if we say, for example, something critical about Russia that we can't reverse engineer to an actual individual. So a lot of this content -- we're in an age where a lot of your interpretation of a message is dependent upon who is -- who is communicating that message and on these platforms, you really don't know. So when you get hundreds of messages about anti-vax and 90 percent of them are from accounts where you don't know who is behind it, it's a real problem. Identity, to your point, or forcing identity could be a big part of the solution.</s>SMERCONISH: Final question. I'm at home, I'm watching CNN right now and I'm hearing this conversation about the impact of this on the campaign, but beyond the campaign, what does it mean to me as an internet user?</s>GALLOWAY: Well, do you -- you deserve better. If you're willing to spend eight hours in line to vote, then these platforms that have tens of billions of cash flow should hold themselves to higher standards where, if somebody is paying for an ad that's going to suppress your vote or confuse you about poll times, that they have an obligation to deploy a fraction of the resources and scrutiny to ensure the content you're receiving is legitimate content. And that freedom of speech is not freedom of reach, that there's a conversation around some of these issues that's warranted, but when it gets exponentially more oxygen because it's so incendiary, we have a problem. These platforms are tearing at the fabric of our society and as a voter, as a citizen, as a parent, bottom line, you deserve better and it looks like there's going to be a new sheriff in town. So we'll see. There's likely going to be overdue changes. The reckoning is overdue.</s>SMERCONISH: I have to say, I'm surprised to hear you say, if I'm reading you correctly, that they have the ability to monitor all this speech. to me, it's just a fire hose of information. A quick response from you.</s>GALLOWAY: Oh, be clear. We're not talking about the realm of the possible, we're talking about the realm of the profitable. If "The New York Times" can figure this out with tens of millions of cash flow, Facebook and Twitter can figure it out with billions in cash flow. They can absolutely solve this problem. It just means they'll be less profitable, so they throw their arms up and claim it's impossible. That is a lie.</s>SMERCONISH: Professor Galloway, thank you as always.</s>GALLOWAY: Thank you.</s>SMERCONISH: What are your thoughts? Tweet me @Smerconish, go to my Facebook page. I will read some responses in real time during the course of the program. What do we have, Catherine? From Facebook, "I am not a Trump fan at all, but when Twitter locked out the White House Press Secretary for posting a published story, that was censorship, plain and simple." Joe Abrams, I don't want to be repetitive, but I think what the conservatives wish for might actually not be the panacea that they envision because it just stands to reason if you get rid of 230, if you get rid of 230, what you're saying is they open themselves up to liability. Think about it logically. If you start -- if you start treating the platforms not like a phone line -- we don't hold Sprint or AT&T responsible for the speech that crosses their line. Instead, right? We think of them as a newspaper going forward, then there's editorial control that they'll need to exhibit and they will limit, perhaps, more speech. Make sure you're going to Smerconish.com during the course of this hour and answering this week's survey question. Should Facebook and Twitter be shielded from liability for the way they police their platforms? Up ahead, parents are worried about the effect of COVID forcing their school aged kids to be at home and on screens all day, but new research finds they are actually -- there are actually many unexpected upsides. And it's political yard sign season. They're everywhere. Do they matter? I will ask an academic who has actually studied the issue. Plus, are America's leaders getting too old? We are choosing between two 70-something presidential candidates and we have many 70- and even 80-somethings in the House and Senate leadership. Dare we consider age limits?</s>KATE MCKINNON, ACTRESS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: You love our fresh new ideas delivered by fresh new faces like me, Nancy Pelosi.</s>CECILY STRONG, ACTRESS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: And me, Dianne Feinstein.</s>ALEX MOFFAT, ACTOR, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: And me, Chuck Schumer.</s>MCKINNON: And we also have some great new leaders waiting in the rings like hot, young thing Elizabeth Warren and also -- that's right ...</s>JASON SUDEIKIS, ACTOR, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: It's Biden time.</s>LARRY DAVID, ACTOR, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE: And I'm still around, too.

Should There Be Age Limits For Elected Leaders?

SMERCONISH: Is America in a crisis of aging leadership? We ground airline pilots at age 65, but our leaders piloting the country are one, even two decades older. We have minimum age requirements for our representatives. You've got to be 25 to run for Congress, 30 to run for the Senate, 35 to be President, but from then on, the sky's the limit. Whoever wins on the final day of voting, America will have its oldest President at inauguration ever. Donald Trump will be 74, Joe Biden 78. Our oldest previous president was Ronald Reagan who, when he left office, was 77 and some thought had cognitive issues. This year, several of Biden's top rivals would also have been the oldest presidents at inauguration. Bernie Sanders just turned 79, Michael Bloomberg 78, Elizabeth Warren a relatively youthful 71 and it's not just the executive branch. The average age in Congress is near an all-time high. When the 116th Congress took office in January of 2019, the average representative age was 57.6 years, of Senators, 62.9 years. Now we can add another 21 months to those figures. The oldest and longest-serving congressmen, Alaska Republican Don Young, is 87, born June 9th, 1933. He's on the ballot again this year trying for a 25th term. But also look at the House leadership. Speaker Pelosi, 80, Majority Leader Hoyer, 81, Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, 80, Chair of Science, Space and Technology Eddie Bernice Johnson, 84, Chair of Financial Services Maxine Waters, 82, Chair of the Oversight Committee Carolyn Maloney, 74, Chair of the Judiciary Jerry Nadler, 73, Outgoing Chair of Foreign Affairs Eliot Engel who lost in the primary, 73, Chair of Natural Resource, Raul Grijalva, 72, and Chair of the House Ways and Means Richard Neal, only 71. On the Senate side, 28, 28 of the 100 senators over 70. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell who's running and ahead in the polls, 78, President Pro Tem Chuck Grassley, 87, as is Dianne Feinstein, Ranking Member of the Senate Judiciary, Senate Appropriations Chair Richard Shelby, 86, Armed Services Committee Chair Jim Inhofe, 85, Chair of Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Pat Roberts, 84, departing Chair of Health Education, Labor and Pensions Lamar Alexander is 80, as is Ranking Appropriations Committee Member Patrick Leahy. I could go on and on, but I think you get the picture. It's a uniquely American phenomenon. Yes, our population is aging, but so has nearly every European country and yet the typical E.U. leader has actually gotten younger. Think of France's Emmanuel Macron who's just 42, Austria's Sebastian Kurz, 34, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, 48, North Korea's Kim Jong-un, believed to be 36, New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern who just won re-election in a landslide, 40. I thought surely there are age limits restrictions in place in some of those countries, but in fact most countries have only minimum age requirements on the books from as young as 18 to as old as 45, but no countries force leaders out on the basis of age. As Adam Taylor has pointed out in "The Washington Post," "The few limits there can be strategically ignored. China's Xi Jinping, now 67, widely expected to flout Beijing's informal retirement age of 68 to continue for a third term or outright repeal it, as happened in recent years in Turkmenistan and Uganda by legal means." For example, in Brazil, all public servants must retire at 70 and in the Philippines, government employees have a mandatory retirement age of 65, but neither applies to presidents. Brazil's president before Bolsonaro, Michel Temer, was 75 when he took office, held it until 78. President of the Philippines, Rodrigo Duterte, is 75. In the past few years, Tunisia's president died in office at 92, Nalaysia had a 92-year-old who stepped down in February, Zimbabwe's prime minister, Robert Mugabe, was 93 when ousted from office. Could that happen here? In the United States, mandatory retirement is generally unlawful. 1967's Age Discrimination in Employment Act protected those 40 and over from age based on discrimination, but only until you reach the age of 70. In 1986, the 70-year-old limit was removed. And of course as for the Supreme Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg recently passed on the bench at age 87. Stephen Breyer on the bench is 82. No other major western democracy allows its most powerful judges to serve to such advanced age. In fact, 32 states in the United States have mandatory retirement ages for judges ranging from 70 to 90. And look, there are definitely some old drivers on the road who need at least a renewal license test. Is it time to examine if we need to set a sunset year? Joining me now is Daniel Bessner, Professor of Western Civilization at the University of Washington. He co-authored this piece in "The Guardian," "America has become a gerontocracy. We must change that." I've never heard that word before, gerontocracy. What accounts for this, Professor?</s>DANIEL BESSNER, PROFESSOR OF WESTERN CIVILIZATION, UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: Hi. Thanks for having me. I think the two major reasons are, one, the elected officials of the country reflect the most important and largest voting bloc, and that's of course the Baby Boomers and to a lesser degree now, the Silent Generation, and then, two, the advantages of incumbency are probably the two major technical issues. And I would add one more thing to that and that's the fact that in the United States, we don't really culturally talk about old age and what the role of people should be in politics as they get older. I think it's difficult to perhaps have a blanket maximum age law because sometimes that would restrict people who might -- who maybe should be running and I think that's really important. But I do think we need to talk more seriously about what it says about the culture and what it says about the structure of American politics that so much of our government are run by people who, for example, won't be around to deal with the effects of climate change, many of whom are also wealthy and won't suffer the effects of inequality and so I think these are important structural issues that we as a country and we as a citizenry need to discuss.</s>SMERCONISH: I am sure that post show today, I will hear from my mother who, by the way, insists she is 65 and I'm not going to second guess her and her argument will probably be, but wait a minute, you get all this wisdom, the age and experience factor. Is that enough of a justification?</s>BESSNER: I will also probably hear from my mother as well. I think that the -- I think wisdom is, in fact, important. I think there is an element of politics where people who are in the system, people who know the system well do you have important contributions to make. I think that's absolutely right. I think the issue, though, becomes when it's so obviously a structural concern when there are younger people who are locked out of the leadership positions, particularly in the Democratic party. I think when it becomes this entire class of gerontocrats, that's when we really have to examine why that is and what we can do to change it both technically in terms of technical fixes, but also as a culture to address why that might be, why so many people are young -- young people are locked out of these important leadership positions.</s>SMERCONISH: Well, is it -- is it a function of older voters, an older voting demographic voting for their own?</s>BESSNER: I think it must be partially a function of that. I think clearly voters -- and this is understandable -- want to elect people who not only look like them, but who they believe understand their concerns fully, who understand what they're going through, who want to help them. But the problem is is that young people have been locked out to such a significant degree that we have a structure that's just incredibly top-heavy, almost like the late Soviet Union where you had three Soviet leaders in succession die relatively quickly because they were so old and I have to say, they were younger than all the people you just mentioned.</s>SMERCONISH: Professor, thanks so much for your expertise.</s>BESSNER: Thank you very much.</s>SMERCONISH: Let's see what you're saying via my social media, Smerconish Twitter and Facebook pages. What do we have? Via Twitter, "Age limits? Isn't that discrimination? I think term limits would be better. Should television have a hair," -- whoa. That is below the belt. Come on now. Look, I agree with you, Bugs Daddio. I happen to think that term limits would be a great thing. Twelve years sounds about right in terms of instilling new blood in the Congress, in the House and in the Senate. You know what the flip side of that is. People who are watching this right now will say well, Bugs, Michael, we have term limits. They are every four years for the president, two years for the Congress and six years for the Senate and if you don't like it, vote somebody out, but I happen to agree with you. I think that's a step in the right direction. I want to remind you go to the website at Smerconish.com. Answer this week's survey question. This is going to be interesting. We'll find out at the end of the hour. Should Facebook and Twitter be shielded from liability for the way they police their platforms? That is the so-called 230 debate. Up ahead, American teenagers already undergo a lot of stress. So does going to school during a pandemic, isolated from friends, forced to spend extra time with family help or hurt their mental health? The findings of a new study may surprise and please you. And in the battleground states, yard signs are everywhere, but do these tell us anything about who's going to win? What is the impact of yard signs? A professor who has studied the issue is next.</s>FIVE MAN ELECTRICAL BAND, SIGNS: Sign, sign, everywhere a sign. Blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind. Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign? Sign, sign, everywhere a sign.

Do Political Lawn Signs Impact The Election Outcome?

SMERCONISH: Every four years, for as many presidential cycles as I can recall, I get telephone calls on my SiriusXM radio program from all across the country from listeners who share observations about candidate yard signs that they see in their neighborhood. And this year is no exception.</s>ADAM FROM CANONSBURG, PA, SIRIUSXM RADIO CALLER: It's going to go Trump, but I think it's turning a little. Before the signs were 20-1, but you start to see those Biden signs pop up a little here and there.</s>JOSEPH, SIRIUSXM RADIO CALLER: I was up in western Pennsylvania. I did not see one Biden sign until the very last day I was there. I thought it was kind of fun to make it a game to see if I could find a Biden sign. And I finally found one. And now down here in Florida, especially along the waterways, there's there Trump flotillas and Trump signs everywhere on all the boats.</s>SMERCONISH: I've long wondered whether yard signs moved the needle, are they effective advertising? And are they indicative of broad support a candidate enjoys in a given area or just the reflection of the passion of an individual homeowner? In other words, do they simply reflect voter enthusiasm? Before the first debate, 91 percent of Trump voters were enthusiastic about casting their ballot compared to 79 percent of Biden voters. After the debate, voter enthusiasm rose for both candidates but more so for Biden. Now 86 percent of Biden voters are excited to vote for the former vice president. How do yard signs play into voter enthusiasm in the grand scheme of the election outcome? It turns out the issue has been studied. In an analysis published in 2016, researchers looked at the effects of lawn signs on four different campaigns at the federal state and local level. And joining me now to discuss is one of the authors of that study. Alexander Coppock, an assistant professor of political science at Yale. Professor, what did you do and what did you conclude?</s>ALEXANDER COPPOCK, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, YALE UNIVERSITY: So, you started off the section saying well, whether you see a lot of signs in an area, does that tell you anything about who's going to win in that area? And I'll say, it's probably correlated with that vote share. So, if you see a lot of Biden-Harris signs in a particular area -- so in my neighborhood, we see a lot of Biden-Harris signs, New Haven, Connecticut is likely to go for Biden. But the real question is, do they change any minds? And so for that we need to do a randomized experiment. So we did that in four places. Well, we did those randomized experiments -- in some precincts we picked random precincts and we put about 40 to 50 lawn signs at those places. And then we didn't do it in other precincts in a particular election. Then after the election, we looked at vote share and then we compared the vote share place where we put the signs versus where we didn't, and we saw that on average the place where we put signs were about 1.7 percentage points higher. So it works a very small but detectable amount.</s>SMERCONISH: So, do the lessons apply to high-profile races -- put back on the screen, from the study, the examples that the professor and his colleagues used. I'm wondering if this apply -- there you are. So you've got McAuliffe. You've got Kathy Sheehan. You've got Eichelberger and Schin. But when you're talking about the president, they have 100 percent name I.D. All four of them. Trump and Pence and Kamala Harris and Joe Biden. Do the lessons equally apply to the local race and the big national race?</s>COPPOCK: So the answer has to be we don't know yet. So we can do this experiment over and over again and we should to find the answer to your question. If we were to apply the lessons of what we know from other kinds of advertising to lawn signs, we would say, well, we know that on average, ads on lower</s>SMERCONISH: I live in the Philadelphia suburbs and it's -- where I am and around me, it's a sea of Biden-Harris. I hope I'm going to fishing later today. And where I'm going fishing, it will be all Trump signs. And yes, the polling data suggests that's a reflection of those two geographic pockets. So, I'm hearing from you that they can be effective. And they do have some predictive value. You get the final comment.</s>COPPOCK: So, please don't use lawn signs to predict elections. You would be laughed out of Nate Silver's salon, if you used them that way. However, they are probably a little bit correlated. You could do better with just last year's vote share.</s>SMERCONISH: Thank you, professor.</s>COPPOCK: Thank you.</s>SMERCONISH: Still to come, the pandemic has tripled depression and anxiety levels among adults. You'd think it would be even harder on teenagers. But think again, this could be good news. I will explain. And please make sure that you are answering the survey question of the week at Smerconish.com. "Should Facebook and Twitter be shielded from liability for the way they police their platforms?"

How Did Quarantine Affect Teens?

SMERCONISH: Many of us know from experience that adulting is hard. Amid a pandemic it's even harder. The CDC says anxiety among U.S. adults tripled compared to the last two years and depression quadrupled. But how did teenagers adapt? Many of them were pulled from school during their formative years, could see their friends, too online adult like worrying of catching the virus. To better understand how these circumstances affected teens a study funded by the Institute for Family Studies and the Wheatley Institution surveyed more than 1,500 of them between May and July. And the results were surprising, and in a good way. The percentage of teenagers experiencing depression is actually lower in 2020. Twenty-seven percent of teens in 2018 were depressed, as opposed to 17 percent in 2020 during quarantined school sessions and 20 percent during quarantine summer. Joining me now to discuss is one of the authors of that study, Jean Twenge. She's a professor of psychology at San Diego State University and also author of a great book "iGen: Why Today's Super-Connected Kids Are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy and Completely Unprepared for Adulthood and What That Means for the Rest of Us." Doctor Twenge, in order to understand your new study people need, I think, to understand your prior work. Give me the short version of what you found in "iGen"?</s>JEAN TWENGE, PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY: Yes. So, in "iGen" I took a careful look at how teens are different now compared to 10 years ago or 20 years ago. So, one of the things we found was a really big increase in depression and loneliness and unhappiness especially since about 2012 is when it really started to shoot upward. More than likely, that's because teens started seeing their friends less in person and started spending a lot more time on social media and in front of a screen. And they also spent less time sleeping. That's really linked to depression and mental health. So that might have been one of the problems as well in that increase since 2012.</s>SMERCONISH: So, I would have applied the lessons of "iGen" to the pandemic and thought things have taken an even worse turn for teens, but I would have been wrong. How so?</s>TWENGE: Yes, I was wrong, too. I was very surprised to find that teens were actually doing all right. Even slightly better in terms of depression during the pandemic, compared to a demographically similar sample from 2018. And we compared the two from the same surveys that I used in "iGen." So I think there's a number of factors here. So, first, unlike adults, teens weren't quite as impacted by all of the economic disruptions. They weren't the ones losing jobs and worrying about paying the rent. Their parents were. Except their parents in their age groups more likely to be stable in terms of their jobs and economic situations compared to say much younger people. The other big element is that teens were not having to get up at the crack of dawn to go to school. So, they stayed at home. They did online school. And they finally got to get the sleep that they need, based on their natural biological rhythm which usually pushes them to stay up later.</s>SMERCONISH: Dr. Twenge, I know the data suggests that families that eat together tend to have a healthier environment for child rearing not because of what's in the mashed potatoes but because it's indicative of a support network. What did you find relative, and we'll put this on the screen as well, to family time?</s>TWENGE: That was one of the other key things. You know there was this silver lining in the spring and the summer with a lot of stay-at-home orders. So, a lot of parents were working from home. Teens weren't going to school. They weren't running around, going to activities. The pace of life slowed down, and we spent face-to-face time with our families. So for teens, it's going to be their siblings, their parents. And the majority of the teens in our survey said that they're family became closer during the pandemic. They said it was more likely for them to have dinner now with their family. To go on walks and do other outdoor activities. That's, of course, also very good for mental health. So that was a big piece of the puzzle as well.</s>SMERCONISH: So, less depression. More sleep. More time with family. And how about on the subject for which you are best known connectivity? I'll put it up on the screen while you explain.</s>TWENGE: Yes. So, you know, this was another place where there was a little bit of a surprise. You'd think, during stay-at-home orders teenagers would immediately flock to Instagram and other social media. Actually, they spent a little less time on social media in the spring and summer of 2020, compared to 2018. Now, they did increase their use of TV and videos and more distracting things. But they're also texting a little less. They also, though, did Skype and Zoom and FaceTime with their friends more. So they made some smart choices in terms of their electronic communication with their friends. They focused on more of those real time interactions like you can do on FaceTime or Zoom and less time scrolling through social media in a passive way. And the majority of the teens told us they thought that helped them feel connected with their friends. And, remember, it's kind of been a dress rehearsal for this their whole lives. They're already used to not spending time with their friends as much face-to-face. That was kind of already baked in to the mental health statistics, so that's one piece as well.</s>SMERCONISH: To quote The Who, "The kids are alright." We hope. Dr. Twenge, thank you as always.</s>TWENGE: Thanks very much.</s>SMERCONISH: Dr. Twenge's book, by the way is tremendous "iGen" -- "iGen" Still to come, your best and worst tweets and Facebook comments and we'll give you the final results of the question. Have you voted yet at Smerconish.com? "Should Facebook and Twitter be shielded from liability for the way they police their platforms?" Go vote.

More Than 22 Million Votes Cast In 45 States And D.C.; Trump Goes On Rally Blitz As 10 States Break COVID-19 Records; Europe Seeing Rise In New COVID-19 Infections; Italy Reports Record New Cases As Second Wave Grips Europe.

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I am Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. It's the homestretch of the 2020 election here in the United States, with just 17 days to go until Election Day. And even though the President is claiming it's the homestretch of the coronavirus pandemic, he is wrong. More than 69,000 Americans were infected just yesterday across the country with experts now warning, it could get a whole lot worse in the weeks and months ahead. Right now, 10 states are reporting their highest single day coronavirus case totals since the start of the pandemic. And Michigan and Wisconsin are just two of the states reporting dramatic surges in new infections. The President today is in both of those states. He is holding a rally this hour in Michigan, headed to Wisconsin later this evening. It's the sixth day of rally since he was diagnosed with coronavirus. He has been downplaying the dangers of the virus and is also threatening to actually lock up his political opponents, even suggesting last night he would leave the United States if he loses. Let's get right to Michigan. Our senior Washington correspondent, Joe Johns is on the scene for us. Joe, Michigan has seen record numbers of COVID cases. Do the attendees at tonight's rally seem to be concerned about that at all? We know what a battleground state Michigan is.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Right, a full house here at the Muskegon Airport, Wolf. And I can tell you this, if you look at the head on camera that is recording the President right now you'll probably see a lot of people who are wearing masks, but in the crowd at large and it's a large crowd, you don't see that many people wearing masks. They're very sparse. And there is no social distancing, of course. That's an issue too, especially because here in this state, yesterday, we had 2,000 new cases of coronavirus; today, about 1800. The numbers are simply not good. Another thing that happened here today, the President did mention Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Now, they've had words. These two really have a history. The President has been highly critical of her because of the restrictions she has placed on the state having to do with coronavirus. When the President mentioned her today, there was also a chant from the crowd that many of us find familiar, something we heard harking all the way back to 2016. Listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You've got to get your governor to open up your state, okay? [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]</s>TRUMP: And get your schools open. Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right? [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]</s>AUDIENCE: (Chanting "Lock her up.")</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>JOHNS: Now in a vacuum, that's seemingly harmless rhetoric, but you have to remember that very recently, 13 individuals were arrested in a plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. So that makes it much more serious in that context -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Yes, and that followed a tweet from the President, in which he said, "Liberate Michigan." And also earlier in the week, he said, Governor Whitmer is behaving like a dictator. He used that word, "dictator." We will much more on this coming up. Joe Johns on the scene for us. Thank you very much from Michigan. Let's head over to another key battleground state, Wisconsin, where a crowd is now waiting to see the President for what will be his second political campaign rally of the night. Jeremy Diamond is on the ground for us. So, Jeremy, with just 17 days to go before Election Day here in the United States, and already more than 22 million Americans have already voted, early voting going on. What is President Trump's closing message to the swing state voters?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, you're hearing a lot of what we hear from the President typically on the campaign trail. You hear a lot of the red meat that he likes to throw out there for his audience as Joe was just talking about. What you're also hearing from the President in this final stretch of the campaign is to try and essentially convince voters, to convince Americans that what they are seeing and what is happening in this country somehow is not happening and what I'm talking about here specifically, Wolf, is the surge in cases of coronavirus that is happening right now in most states in the United States. Across the country, cases up on average about 30 percent up from over the last two weeks. The President every day in the last week has tried to spread misinformation about mask wearing and he is also pointing to a surge in cases in Europe, even though the situation in the United States in terms of number of cases per capita, in terms of number of deaths per capita is far, far worse.</s>DIAMOND: And so, Wolf, the President seems to have made the gamble that even as voters are more concerned about the coronavirus than any other issue, that the only way that he thinks that he can convince people to vote for him and try and save his reelection prospects is to convince people that the situation is not as bad as it really is, Wolf. And nowhere is that message more acute than if you are in the State of Wisconsin, which is experiencing one of the worst spikes anywhere in the country right now, and it is certainly concerning as you arrive at a rally like this, where you see several thousand people, Wolf, packed closely together. No social distancing is happening here whatsoever, and most people, Wolf, are not wearing masks.</s>BLITZER: Yes, Wisconsin is going through a very, very horrible situation right now. The President will be heading from Michigan to Wisconsin later tonight. Jeremy Diamond on the scene for us. Thank you very much. Meanwhile, the Surgeon General of the United States, Jerome Adams is warning that Wisconsin is way too red and he is not talking about politics, he is talking about the rising COVID positivity rate. Wisconsin is not alone. Look at this. It's one of 10 states that reported their highest number yet of new COVID cases on Friday. Let's discuss this and more with CNN medical analyst, the former Baltimore Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen and Dr. Peter Hotez, the vaccine expert and Dean of the School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor University. Dr. Hotez, overall, there's way too much red across the United States. The numbers are awful. How concerned are you about the next few weeks and months when you see first of all these large gatherings with limited mask wearing and virtually no social distancing?</s>DR. PETER HOTEZ, DEAN OF THE SCHOOL OF TROPICAL MEDICINE, BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: Wolf, what is happening now is my heart is breaking because I know what's going to follow which are the permanent injuries and deaths. What we're heading towards very quickly, maybe by tonight or tomorrow is 70,000 new cases per day and then we'll head to 80,000 new cases per day. If you remember, Dr. Fauci's apocalyptic scenario where he said we're going -- we could reach 100,000 new cases per day. I think we're going to head now finally towards that mark as we progress through the fall and winter, colder months, and it is happening right where the President is holding the rallies up in Wisconsin, Michigan, the northern Midwest, going into Montana, the Dakotas. So this is absolutely devastating. We are about to enter the worst part of our COVID-19 epidemic which has already been so devastating for the American people.</s>BLITZER: You know, you're making a really important point, and Dr. Wen, when you look at the overall case numbers, you can see there was a dip in numbers at the end of August, but since then, they've started tracking a major league. Just take a look at the rise in cases and what's going on this week here in the United States, and we'll put that graphic back up on the screen. Monday, there were 41,000. Tuesday 52,000. Wednesday 59,000. Thursday 63,000. Yesterday, Friday 69,000 confirmed coronavirus cases in the United States. So those are so awful. Tell us what's going on?</s>DR. LEANA WEN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Wolf, I agree with Dr. Hotez that all of these numbers indicate that we are trending in the wrong direction. This is exactly where we did not want to be headed into the winter. And I think what's happening now is a confluence of factors. We have reopening that was done after Memorial Day. We had a big surge after Memorial Day and at that point, we saw major surges in the South and the West, the Sunbelt. Then we saw surges in the Midwest, the upper Midwest, while these other areas never plateaued, they never reached a low enough level of infection. Now, there are essentially raging infections out of control in multiple parts of the country. But I think that at this point, we need to say that there is yes, there is a lot that the Federal government can and should have done and should still be doing now. But in the absence of that, there is still a lot that we, as individuals can be doing. Starting with something as basic as wearing masks, but also avoiding gatherings, practicing social distancing. We can make a difference in our communities and also protect ourselves and our loved ones, too.</s>BLITZER: Yes, and the President keeps suggesting we are going in the right direction, that it is disappearing, one of the words he used in recent days. Dr. Hotez I know you and your team are working on one of the possible vaccines. You've been focusing in on coronavirus like SARS for more than a decade. The Federal program Operation Warp Speed claims it will be able to deliver 300 million doses of a safe and effective COVID-19 vaccine maybe by the end of the year, do you really think that's possible?</s>HOTEZ: Well, hopefully about the end of the year, Wolf, maybe by the end of November, we'll know whether any of the three vaccines that are in later stage Phase 3 trials: the AstraZeneca-Oxford vaccine, the Moderna mRNA vaccine, and the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine, whether any of them are actually working, and are safe. And once we get that signal, then we can start begin releasing it to the public, possibly through emergency use authorization, so the F.D.A. has done a good job of late in making certain that these vaccines still reach a very high standard, even though it's not quite the same as full approval, I think it'll closely approximate it. And then we can begin releasing it. Now, 300 million doses is a lot, of course, but the way I like to think of it is remember, every year we release 100 million doses of flu vaccine, and we do it over a very short period of time, over several months. So this is a little more complicated, especially if it's one of the mRNA vaccines that is shown to work, because it requires that deep, deep freeze in the case of the Pfizer one, minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, so that will complicate it. And now, they've put the U.S. Military out in front to help in distribution. We've never done that before. General Perna seems to have a good understanding of material and distribution from his experiences as an Army General. So we have some unknowns. Using the U.S. Military, we haven't done that before, and 300 million is not 100 million and that deep freeze, but overall, I have some optimism. And I'm excited to finally see some vaccine being released and to get some virus neutralizing antibodies, and all of us to -- especially as the Federal government has not been willing to embark on any kind of meaningful national control program, that's all we have -- we'll have at this point, is the vaccine.</s>BLITZER: And I just want to point out with Dr. Fauci, Dr. Wen, has told me over the past few weeks that several of these potential vaccines and we hope, they're all going to work or they're all going to be safe and effective. But some of them might require not one dose, but two doses, let's say a month or four weeks apart. So if you have 300 million available, that's really good for 150 million people if you need two doses. And he also says, Dr. Wen, that it would be great if they were 60 or 70 percent effective. That means what? That 30 percent of those who get the two doses, let's say, it's not going to make much of a difference. Is that what I'm hearing?</s>WEN: Yes, I think we need to see the vaccine approval process as the beginning, not as the end point, because there still will be many more steps that are involved in distribution in manufacturing, especially if there are two doses, you might lose people given the second dose. And even after this vaccine is actually given to people, it may still beam as you said, Wolf, 60 to 70 percent effective, which means that the vaccine alone is not going to be our savior. We will also continue to have these measures, including mask wearing and social distancing that will probably continue in order for us to reduce as much harm as possible. And so there's a long road ahead of us. But I think right now, we need to focus on getting past this winter, because otherwise this could be the deadliest winter in our recent history. But there are things that we can do in order to prevent that from happening.</s>BLITZER: And one of the things everyone could do it I did it to myself this past week, get a flu shot. It's really important for everyone to go out there and get a flu shot because this combination of the regular flu season with the coronavirus that could make things even worse than they already are. You know, Dr. Hotez, Europe is also hitting record numbers right now. Some regions are imposing new curfews, partial lockdowns, is that what it's going to take to get this under control?</s>HOTEZ: Yes, it may be. One of the things I'm worried about, Wolf, is that this is happening in a very difficult period in American life. The numbers are going to rise steeply in November, December and January, depending on the outcome of the election on November 3, this may be a lame duck Executive Branch of the Federal government. How do we ensure that we still have leadership in place in order to help provide those directives and advice from the C.D.C.? So there's a combination of factors that makes me very worried that the numbers will be rising steeply, how engaged the Federal government will be during these next few months is unclear. And I'm worried about the mental health of the country. People are going to get scared. They are going to get upset and maybe even depressed. This is a normal reaction to a stressful situation. So I think we really need to figure out how we're going to step up mental healthcare in this country over the next few months and provide access to that and advise people how to do social distancing, who to do social distancing with. We're getting a lot of communication and hand holding from the Federal government. I'm a little worried that it may not be there. So a lot will fall to the governors. It's going to be a tough time.</s>BLITZER: And even if there is God-willing, a safe and effective vaccine that comes up, let's say by the end of this year, and we begin to start getting it in major numbers next year, Dr. Fauci has also told me in recent weeks, we should all plan on wearing masks for much of next year at a minimum, because it's going to be just to be on the safe side of things. Dr. Wen, thank you so much. Dr. Hotez, thanks to you as well. Thanks to both of you for what you're doing for the American public, and indeed for the world. Making up for lost time. President Trump is now in overdrive with several rallies yesterday, two more today, trying to close the gap with Joe Biden with only 17 days left in the campaign. Stay with us. Lots of news unfolding right here in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Trump Could Face Legal Reckoning Once He Leaves Office

BLITZER: Seventeen days left in the presidential campaign here in the United States and the stakes could not be higher for President Trump. It's not just his second term that's on the line, an election loss potentially could mean he would also lose some of the legal protections afforded by the presidency, making him vulnerable, potentially, to a number of serious investigations and lawsuits that are already underway. Let's bring in our Chief Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin. He's joining us now. His important new book is entitled, by the way, True Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Investigation of Donald Trump. There you see the book cover. Jeffrey, the President said something really striking last night, watch this listen. Listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I shouldn't joke because you know what? Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me. Could you imagine if I lose, my whole life, what am I going to do? I'm going to say I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics. I'm not going to feel so good, maybe I'll have to leave the country. I don't know.</s>BLITZER: You got some laughter there. He was making a joke, but you think he is worried about these potential legal proceedings? I mean, I don't think he would seriously consider leaving the United States to avoid potential punishment, but he does face some serious legal problems if he's defeated, it makes it easier for the district attorney in New York, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York and others to go after him.</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Absolutely. One of the things the President has been particularly successful with during his tenure in office has been putting off these investigations of his personal life, whether these are personal injury lawsuits for sexual harassment by Jean Carroll and others. And of course, the criminal investigation from the Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance. Even though Cyrus Vance won in the Supreme Court in June, he hasn't been able to get these records yet. All of those protections that the President has used will end if he leaves office in January, in which case he'll just be an ordinary target of an investigation and an ordinary defendant in civil cases where he'll have to defend himself and we'll see whether he wins or loses.</s>BLITZER: Tell us about some historical precedent for the prosecution of a former American president.</s>TOOBIN: Well, the most famous possible prosecution was of Richard Nixon who was at great legal jeopardy in the Watergate cover up trial. But shortly after Gerald Ford took office, Gerald Ford issued a pre emptive pardon of Richard Nixon, which ended his criminal liability, the possibility of any sort of criminal prosecution. I think one thing we can say pretty much for sure is that Joe Biden, if he wins, is not going to be pardoning Donald Trump. So any sort of criminal investigation will proceed and in any event a federal pardon from the President wouldn't cover a state investigation, like the one that's going on in New York. So Trump will have to face these cases on his own if any case is brought.</s>BLITZER: Well, politically and potentially legally, what would it mean if an ex-President of the United States were to be prosecuted? Would that start a cycle of former presidents facing prosecution as soon as the opposing party, let's say, were to take power?</s>TOOBIN: Well, see, that's one of the problems with this whole subject and my guess is, it's an educated guess but it's still just a guess, is that Joe Biden's Justice Department, of course, if Biden wins will not engage in investigation of Donald Trump. The Mueller investigation found significant evidence that the President committed obstruction of justice. That case could be prosecuted. But I think Biden and his team know that if the United States Department of Justice starts investigating or prosecuting Donald Trump, that's the only story in America that dominates the Biden presidency. And I think Biden has a lot of other things he preferred to spend his time on and his political capital on than the investigation of Donald Trump. So if there's going to be a criminal investigation, it's going to come out of the states, especially New York.</s>BLITZER: Can we simply assume, Jeffrey, that if he's reelected, he doesn't have to worry at all about any of these potential criminal investigations?</s>TOOBIN: I don't know about at all. I mean, it is true that the United States Department of Justice policy, which forbids indictments of sitting presidents, it's a policy. It's not a law. But Robert Muller felt bound by it. That doesn't apply to the states. So it is theoretically possible that the Manhattan district attorney could indict Donald Trump, even if he was president. But I think realistically, the chances for his being prosecuted and certainly for his ability to keep civil cases at bay is enormously helped by getting reelected. If he loses, all of those protections are gone.</s>BLITZER: Yes, that's a really significant. We're seeing a clear pattern emerge in the President's rallies, especially last night and today, watch and listen to this.</s>TRUMP: I'm telling you that Biden family and others, but that Biden family is corrupt. It's a corrupt family. And with me and my kids - let me tell you, my kids - I'll tell you something. It is fair to lock them up. You should lock them up. Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary. Lock them up.</s>BLITZER: So what's your reaction when you see that where he's threatening his political opponent?</s>TOOBIN: I think we've gotten so used to the things that Donald Trump says that we lose the ability to be outraged. But there are few more outrageous things that he has said as President than he wants to lock up his political opponents. This is something that has not been set in American political history. One difference between American democracy in authoritarian countries is that politics is not used as an instrument of prosecution. You didn't hear Dwight Eisenhower saying Adlai Stevenson should be locked up or John Kennedy saying that Richard Nixon should be locked up or Ronald Reagan saying that Walter Mondale should be locked up. It's just something that was completely outside the realm of what's acceptable in American politics. I certainly hope we return to that someday, because it's really pernicious and it's a betrayal of what American democracy has stood for. And unfortunately, the sheer repetition of the lock them up chants and the lock them up statements by the President have sort of deadened us to just how outrageous it really is.</s>BLITZER: It certainly is totally outrageous. So Jeffrey Toobin well said. Thank you very, very much. President Trump is one to usually tout his ratings, but Thursday's dueling townhall with Joe Biden didn't deliver those numbers, despite being broadcast on several television networks, so we'll have more on that just ahead. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Trump Refuses To Denounce QAnon Conspiracy Theories

BLITZER: During this week's a town hall, President Trump said he didn't know anything at all about the QAnon conspiracy theory but he has repeated QAnon base claims with his own social media accounts and at his rallies that draw vocal believers. CNN said Gary Tuchman talked to some of them in Georgia.</s>GARY TUCHMAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: You have the QAnon shirt and one of the things QAnon believes in is there's this conspiracy theory of satanic pedophilia, do you people even that?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, thank you.</s>TUCHMAN: You do? Trump has not criticized the conspiracy QAnon, you say you believe in theories like this?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Oh, yes, sir, a hundred percent.</s>TUCHMAN: Do you think he has your back by not criticizing it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yes, I really do. Yes.</s>TUCHMAN: Do you think he should have denounced QAnon?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.</s>TUCHMAN: Why?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Because why should he.</s>TUCHMAN: Because they believe in crazy stuff, a pedophile ...</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: No, that's what you guys try to make us believe, crazy stuff.</s>BLITZER: All right. Brian Stelter is joining us now. He's the host of CNN's RELIABLE SOURCES. He's also out with a brand new best-selling book entitled Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth. Brian, thanks for joining us.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: So what do you make of the President's rhetoric when it comes to QAnon?</s>STELTER: QAnon is an actual hoax and a dangerous folks. It's already been linked to violence in the United States. And by having the President say he doesn't know what it's about and by saying, well, I hear they're very opposed to pedophilia as if anybody supports pedophilia, he's giving permission to his supporters to go Google it, search it, look it up, support it and buy into this concept. It is really disturbing that a virtual cult, that's what QAnon is, it's a virtual cult that's been labeled by the FBI as a potential terrorism risk is something the President doesn't forthrightly and very clearly denounce. But instead, he tiptoes because he knows many of his supporters are also QAnon believers. I think we need to keep an eye on this, Wolf. It's going to continue to be a problem in the final stretch of the campaign.</s>BLITZER: I think you're right. The President also refused to do, as we know, what was called for a virtual head-to-head debate with Joe Biden this past week.</s>STELTER: Debate, yes.</s>BLITZER: And then scheduled a competing town hall. His campaign manager Jason Miller predicted they beat Biden in a metric that really, as we all know, seriously matters to the President. We're talking about television ratings, but that's not what happened.</s>STELTER: Yes.</s>BLITZER: Tell us more.</s>STELTER: This was a shock to people at ABC and NBC and even at the Biden campaign, because Trump and Biden were head-to-head. There was an assumption Trump would prevail in the ratings race, but here are the actual ratings. ABC's town hall with Biden had about a 14 million viewers. The Trump Town Hall wasn't Not able to surpass that even though it was broadcast on three different channels. You see Biden ahead of Trump. So what does that mean? Is it a sign of Trump fatigue? I suspect it probably is. There was a great piece in Politico recently by Tim Alberta. He quoted a Trump supporter saying, look, I love the President, I support the President, but even I'm tired of the President. I wish he wouldn't make so much news and be out in front so often. So I think that the idea of Trump fatigue is real and it might be showing up in the ratings.</s>BLITZER: The President today is also tweeting an attack against the moderator of this coming week's presidential debate, Kristen Welker of NBC News, who's an excellent, excellent reporter and journalist calling her, according to the President, terrible and unfair. What was your reaction?</s>STELTER: This is the best example and the worst example of the President working the reps ahead of time. He does this before every major event, but we still should point it out and call it out for what it is. He's trying to work the rest in order to get favorable treatment ahead of the next debate, but I think it's a good sign that he says he's going to go to the next debate. It's disappointing that there wasn't a debate last Thursday, the American people lost out. So at least he says he is going to show up, but he's challenging and calling out and criticizing this moderator for no good reason based on New York Post hit job. I think, Wolf, obviously both candidates deserve fairness and fair treatment of this debate, but there is no reason to believe that Welker is going to be unfair to the President.</s>BLITZER: Yes. She's a really excellent journalist. All right. Brian Stelter, thank you very much.</s>STELTER: Thanks.</s>BLITZER: And to our viewers, an important note, tune in tomorrow morning for RELIABLE SOURCES with Brian Stelter 11 am Eastern always, always important information there. After a chaotic first debate, a presidential health crisis a controversial debate cancellation and competing town halls, Joe Biden and Donald Trump face off one last time. The final presidential debate is coming and special live coverage starts Thursday 7 pm Eastern right after THE SITUATION ROOM. Meanwhile, Europe's first epicenter is seeing a major spike in coronavirus cases right now. Italy is hitting new records as the second wave of the virus grips Europe. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Trump Holding Campaign Rally In Wisconsin Despite New Record Number Of Coronavirus Cases; Trump On Rally Blitz As 10 States Break COVID-19 Records; GOP Sen. Ben Sasse Blasts Trump, Refuses To Campaign For Him

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. Tonight with only 17 days left in the campaign, the President of the United States this hour is holding a campaign rally in Wisconsin, after a rather chilling moment in Michigan. Both states have set new record highs for Coronavirus cases only yesterday but even with Michigan feeling the full impact of the COVID surge, the president chose to engage in a stunning apparent endorsement of a political vigilante mindset among some in his campaign rally crowd this evening. Barely a week after the FBI smashed a domestic terror plot to kidnap Michigan's Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer the President endorsed those in his audience who demanded that Governor Whitmer be jailed for her policies aimed at reducing the spread of Coronavirus. Watch this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right? Lock them all there.</s>BLITZER: He let the crowd lock her up speaking of Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Earlier he said she was behaving like a dictator, he had tweeted "Liberate Michigan" all of that unfolding and it's only been 9 days since 13 people were charged in the alleged plot I should say to abduct the Governor, a 14th person has also now been charged, a plan in which prosecutors say one suspect suggested shooting the democratically elected Governor of Michigan when she answered the door at her home. As we will show you this hour, that is not the only political rival the president now wants to see taken into custody, despite no criminal charges of any kind against any of them. Let's start our coverage this hour in Wisconsin where the president will be holding his second political campaign rally of the day very soon. Jeremy Diamond is on the scene for us. Jeremy both states in the president's two-state trek today set record highs for new COVID cases. So what's the scene like in Wisconsin where he's headed, where you are right now?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well Wolf, I would tell you the scene here in Wisconsin at this rally that the President of the United States is holding is something that every public health expert would call reckless because this is exactly the opposite of what you should be doing not only during a pandemic but particularly when you're in a state that is experiencing a surge in cases? You're supposed to modify your behavior, staying at home, social distancing, wearing a mask when you go out, not gathering in large groups. And all of those things are happening here, Wolf. We are seeing no social distancing whatsoever; very few people are actually wearing masks here. And of course, it is important to note, Wolf, they are coming here at the invitation of the President of the United States. But Wolf, unfortunately, this is exactly what we are going to see over these next two weeks on the mad dash to Election Day. The President has promised to have at least one event a day despite the fact that again, the cases in the country up 30 percent over the last two weeks, more than half the states across the country are experiencing surges of cases and Coronavirus. Everything is heading in the wrong direction and yet the president continues to encourage his supporters to gather in large groups, tightly packed together and no requirement that they wear masks.</s>BLITZER: You know, Jeremy, we heard what the president told the crowd earlier in Michigan, which included another call to lock up his opponents. Can we expect him to hit that same point for the Wisconsin event?</s>DIAMOND: You know, Wolf, I wouldn't be surprised. The President often goes off the cuff and makes those kinds of comments at every one of his rallies. I heard a version at another rally I've been to this week with the president. One thing we expect the president to focus on here is law enforcement. This event has been billed as one where the president is going to make remarks on law enforcement and we should note we are about 60 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where Jacob Blake was shot by police and protests that followed.</s>DIAMOND: The president of course, he did go to Kenosha, Wisconsin, a couple of months ago. But the President focused not on the issues of racial justice, racial inequality, and racism in policing instead focusing on the unrest that had happened there in some of the businesses that had been burned down. So I think you can expect the president to talk about those things as he arrives here momentarily in Janesville, Wisconsin. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: All right, thanks very much, Jeremy Diamond in Wisconsin for us, right now. Meanwhile Joe Biden and his running mate Senator Kamala Harris may not be on the campaign trail today but they have plenty of high-profile names campaigning for them. Senator Elizabeth Warren, NBA great magic Johnson, Former President Barack Obama are among the all-star team giving the Biden Campaign a boost in this the end stretch of this long campaign season. Let's go to our National Correspondent Jason Carroll. Jason, we are 17 days away from the election. President Trump continues his pack rallies practically every day, two, three times a day while Biden is rolling out his star surrogates. How is the Biden Campaign taking advantage of these final few days?</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, stark difference between these two different campaigns, I mean, campaign is pretty much doing what one might expect, putting a lot of their resources, time and energy into battleground states and also, Wolf, into those states where we're seeing early in-person voting. We're seeing some of the same images coming out of North Carolina, where you're seeing the long lines and the huge turnout. Tomorrow for his part, Former Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, speaking to voters there, trying to tell them to be patient, and to get out there and vote. For her part senator Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday. She's going to be making two stops there. Vice President Biden not out on the campaign today a source within the campaign telling me that's meeting with advisers. Senator Harris, for her part, Kamala Harris you know that a couple people within her orbit tested positive for COVID- 19. So out of an abundance of caution, they kept her off the physical campaign trail for a few days. She tested negative for COVID-19 today and again will be back out on the campaign physically, that's going to be on Monday. Today as you said, a number of surrogates out there, you had Elizabeth Warren; you had people like in addition to that, Stacey Abrams. The big day comes on Wednesday, that's when Barack Obama will be throughout campaigning for Joe Biden, that's going to be in Philadelphia, and Democrats say if there's one surrogate that you want, he would be the one. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: You're absolutely right. They really want him out there. Thanks very much, Jason Carroll reporting the president campaigning today in both Wisconsin and Michigan, despite recent surges in new Coronavirus infections in those two states. Ten states by the way Friday recorded their highest single day case numbers since the pandemic began. CNN Medical Analyst Dr. Seems Yasmin is joining us right now and also the Epidemiologist and Former Detroit Health Commissioner Dr. Abdul El-Sayed is joining as well. Dr. El-Sayed two hotspot location cooler, dryer weather, how could those facts affect the transmission rate at the rallies the President is hosting today with very limited social distancing and not many people wearing masks?</s>DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, EPIDEMIOLOGIST & PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERT: Certainly cool dry weather is not a good thing for COVID-19 transmission when it comes to thinking about how to protect one's self? These are some of the worst situations but there's a third factor that of course we didn't talk about, the president himself. The fact that he is going out to these rallies trying to get as many of his supporters packed into had tight space as possible, in any circumstance, whatever the weather is a terrible situation for COVID- 19 transmission and shows a disrespect to have the basic health and well-being of his supporter supporters, let alone in this country where we are facing fall surge getting more serious every single day.</s>BLITZER: You know, Dr. Yasmin, the Minnesota State Health Department now tells CNN they're tracking an outbreak tied to the Trump rally last month in that state. So far they've identified 20 cases, 16 among people who attended the rally; four people took part in counter protests the same day and if people insist on going to the rallies, tell us what they should be doing?</s>DR. SEEMA YASMIN, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: This is so heartbreaking, Wolf, because it was predictable and inevitable that when you have people congregating on mass, not wearing masks, not doing physical distancing, barely using hand sanitizer those are the perfect conditions in which you get the spread of the Coronavirus from one person to another and very quickly become these super spreader events. Now, we know that people don't want to stay cooped up at home especially as we get further into the year, many more months since the pandemic. But where possible, if you have to be around others, you're going to congregate at some kind of event, you do not want that to be indoors. You want to be outdoors, where there's good air circulation. You still want to wear a mask and keep at least six feet between you and other people to protect yourself from them and to protect them from you and it's tragic and it feels quite negligent that.</s>DR. YASMIN: There are so many officials who themselves are hosting these events that becomes a super spreader event and also not following the most basic guidelines and others follow their bad at that polls.</s>BLITZER: That's an important point as well. Dr. El-Sayed it took 98 days from the start of the pandemic for the U.S. to get to 1 million confirmed cases, back on April 28th but look at this. We had 7 million cases on September 25th, 8 million on October 16th, just yesterday. That's just 21 days later. And take a look at this, if you look at this past week, you see a steady rise each day, on Monday there were 41,000, Tuesday 52,000 new cases, Wednesday 59,000 new cases, Thursday, 63,000 new cases and yesterday Friday 69,000 new cases. They're going up and up every single day. How worrying is this to you?</s>DR. EL-SAYED: I'll be honest with you, I'm extremely worried and epidemiologists have been predicting a fall spike for a long time is driven by couple of things. Number one we've all been talking about this pandemic fatigue, the fact that we've been now doing this for nearly seven months and people are starting to get tired of social distancing. But right at the worst moment because of course we know that outdoors is safer than indoors and right now so much of the outdoor activity is just becoming impossible because of the changing weather in a number of the communities where we're seeing the worst spread. But there is something that folks have to understand about this surge versus the last surge. The surge that we faced in the spring you had a couple of seeds of Coronavirus that spread in a couple of localities. Now over the last seven months, COVID-19 has gone everywhere. As people are moving indoors and are starting to be lax on social distancing, now you're starting to see spread everywhere, and so you're going to see multiple fold the number of cases than we saw in the spring, if this surge persists. Now all is not lost. We have the power to do something about this. Just as Dr. Yasmin talked about, if you make sure to wash your hands, wear a mask, stay outdoors for any sort of social engagement and don't go if it's crowded. You've got to protect yourself, your family and your community. We can do this thing if we're willing to take this seriously. But if not, have to really worry about what this fall and this winter could look like?</s>BLITZER: Yes, all of us are really, really worried. We see those numbers going up and up and up even though the president says it's going away, playing it down. It seems to be getting worse every single day. Dr. Seema Yasmin and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, as usual thanks to both of you for joining us and thanks to everything you're doing as well. We are totally grateful. Adding to the pain of the pandemic, Americans are suffering from mass unemployment and food insecurity right now but leaders here in Washington are still fighting over another desperately needed economic stimulus bill months after the first one expired. Stay with us. You're in "The Situation Room."

Pelosi On Impasse: Critics "Have No Idea Of The Particulars"; McConnell Announces Votes Next Week On GOP Stimulus Measures

BLITZER: Talks over a new round of economic stimulus are still deadlocked here in Washington while millions of Americans have lost their jobs, they can't pay rent. They can't afford to even put food on their table. These numbers are increasingly growing, and so many folks out there right now are desperate. In one small Texas town, lines at the food bank have more than tripled since the start of the pandemic. CNN's Ed Lavandera has more.</s>ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: For three months this year, Diane Lusk was out of work and watched unpaid bills pile up and her electricity turned off.</s>DIANE LUSK, WILMER RESIDENT FACING EVICTION: It scared me whenever I lost my job and I was like how am I going to make it? What am I going to do?</s>LAVANDERA: Now she's making $11 an hour cooking Philly Cheese Sticks in a little place called Happy Eats in Dallas. But when Lusk leaves work she doesn't know what she's coming home to?</s>LUSK: The constable was in the driveway and handed me court papers.</s>LAVANDERA: Lusk faces eviction from the house she rents for $600 a month, her landlord isn't renewing her lease. The 60-year-old cook is struggling to find a place she can afford.</s>LUSK: I just never dreamed that I would see the days that I've seen. All I can do is pray. That's all I can do is pray.</s>LAVANDERA: We met Lusk in this food line at Praise Fellowship Church in Wilmer, Texas, where she comes to get meats and fresh vegetables. It's stunning to see the endless car line that shows up every Tuesday in this unlikely place, a little church on the side of an interstate. Pastor Edwin Favors says COVID-19 struck and the crisis knocked on his church's doors. They went from helping 400 people a week to 3,000.</s>PASTOR EDWIN FAVORS, PRAISE FELLOWSHIP CHURCH: This is a crisis that has literally hit every household. When a crisis comes, it doesn't stop.</s>LAVANDERA: From the kitchen of his Dallas home, Mark Melton is witnessing the edge of the pandemic cliff.</s>MARK MELTON, DALLAS ATTORNEY: Normally evictions are a two-step process.</s>LAVANDERA: Melton is a lawyer. In March he started offering free legal advice to people facing eviction.</s>MELTON: I got your message; I hear you're having sop trouble.</s>LAVANDERA: This woman is calling for a friend.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: She's unable to pay her rent tomorrow. She's been on unemployment since the beginning of this year.</s>LAVANDERA: So many calls poured in that Melton has recruited a small army of 150 lawyers to help.</s>MELTON: There are definitely days where I just turn the lights off and sit in here and just cry my eyes out trying to figure out how to take the next step?</s>LAVANDERA: Ed Lavandera, CNN, Dallas.</s>BLITZER: Ed, thank you very much. The U.S. Department of Labor just reported that nearly 900,000 Americans filed for first-time initial unemployment benefits last week alone. Nearly 900,000 in one week and there's still no deal for relief. Earlier today the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced he will press forward with what's called a standalone economic stimulus bill to fund the Payroll Protection Program.</s>BLITZER: He says he'll bring that up for a vote on Tuesday, before another vote Wednesday and a $500 billion stimulus bill that Democrats blocked last month. Joining us to discuss this in more Democratic Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, he is the Co-Chair of what's called the Problem Solvers Caucus in the House of Representatives that's a group of some 50 lawmakers, half Republican, half Democrat, who want to get things done. Congressman thanks so much for joining us. So what do you make, you and your colleagues make of this impasse and what to you make of this do you make of the proposal that the Senate Majority Leader put forward today?</s>REP. JOSH GOTTHEIMER (D-NJ): I mean, Wolf, as you have pointed out, people are really hurting. I'm sitting here in Northern New Jersey, businesses are going out, nearly 11 percent unemployment, food issues, of course, and for so many of our families trying to put food on the table. It's a very, very tough time. We have got to do something. It's unconscionable frankly that we'd do nothing. We're so close to getting something done. We've been pushing now at the Problem Solvers Caucus, guys who have had 50 of us, half Democrat and half Republican. We put out a framework a month ago to get both folks back to the table and what they're doing back at the table, they need to stay there. And the idea frankly that people would walk away before the election and not help people is completely unacceptable, so we're all urging everyone to stay at the table, we're very close. The numbers are there. The question is getting our priorities met and I think we can do it. Senator McConnell, we've sent him two packages. It's great today that he now wants to do things piecemeal. He said also which I was hopeful about that he would consider a larger package between the administration and the speaker. I hope that's true and we'd love to get a vote in the Senate on that.</s>BLITZER: I spoke to the Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, in the "The Situation Room" earlier in the week and listen to what she said. I want to get your reaction.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Honest to God, you really - I can't get over it, because Andrew Yang, he's lovely. Ro Khanna, he's lovely. They are not negotiating this situation. They have no idea of the particulars. They have no idea of what the language is here.</s>BLITZER: Madam Speaker, I certainly respect you but I also respect Ro Khanna and I respect Andrew Yang and I respect members of the Democrats who are members of the Problem Solvers. They want a deal, because so many people right now are suffering.</s>PELOSI: Now the Problem Solvers by the way don't have any earned income tax credit in their proposal either. Let's not go into that.</s>BLITZER: All right, so I want to get your response. You're the Co- Chairman of the Problem Solvers.</s>GOTTHEIMER: Well, I think and I have deep respect for the speaker. And it's true; we're not in the room at the table. But I'll tell you we put out a framework that could get 50 members of Congress and many more who has come on board who said that's actually a great place to move from. It's between 1.5 trillion and 2 trillion and it meets our priorities that I think Wolf you've talked about making sure that people can pay their rent and their mortgage. Can put food on their table, extra stimulus, and help for our state and local governments, child care and of course testing all things that are critical. So yes, I'm not in the weeds in all the specifics, of course that's in the room and I encourage and I'm so hopeful that the Speaker and the Treasury Secretary stay at it. I know they spoke tonight. They've got to stick with it, but I believe there's a way forward. And Wolf to the point you asked about in that interview, the bottom line is there are Democrats, there are Republicans, there are lots of people who realize we must get something done. We can't wait until and if this president loses, wait until February to get another deal done to help people. We've got so many people who need help right now.</s>BLITZER: Of course, the president says he wants a big, fat bill. He goes way beyond what the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is saying and he has convinced that if Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury Secretary and Nancy Pelosi the Speaker can work it out he'll get McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate to support it. Do you believe that could happen before November 3rd, the election?</s>GOTTHEIMER: Well, I mean last week McConnell said there's no way he would actually bring that to the Senate. This week he says maybe. The president at first said that there was no - he was walking away from the table until after the election, now he is back. And I'm glad that they're back at the table. I think they have to stay there, because I think there's recognition that if we don't get something done now, we're going to have to wait until February. And as you said, Wolf, you can't wait five months to help our small business and help our families and to make sure the test we need especially as we head into flu season. We're in the middle of a health and economic crisis you can't just hope this will get better. We have to do something and you've got bipartisan support for it. So our goal is just to keep the negotiators at the table and get this done because frankly, we can't afford not to.</s>BLITZER: All right, so what does the Speaker say to you when you make that pitch?</s>GOTTHEIMER: Wolf, we've had many, many great conversations about what this can look like? And listen, she's right to keep making the point that it's not just the top dollar number that matters.</s>GOTTHEIMER: It's what's in it and actually what's behind all those dollars and making sure that our priorities are met. You don't want to put out something that's going to hurt people or put people in a worse place and so that's why it's important that we keep - we stay at the table and keep working through those details. And I know she will and I know she's working on it now. I know she's back at the table and so is the Treasury Secretary. So they just have to keep at it and we're going to keep pushing to make sure we get there. And Wolf, I think we've just got to keep the pressure up on not just at the House but on the Senate because McConnell has said every other day he is saying something new. He's quick to move on getting a Supreme Court Nominee on the docket but we've sent them two packages, it's been five months and he is not been willing to put anything before the Senate to help people. So I'm hoping that he is changing his mind here.</s>BLITZER: Well, good luck. It's so critical. You see so many Americans, millions of Americans suffering right now. They desperately, desperately need this help Congressman Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, thank you for joining us.</s>GOTTHEIMER: Thanks, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, 17 days remain until Election Day here in the United States, and some top Republicans are trying to create distance right now from President Trump, warning that the president and Senate Republicans could be in huge trouble on Election Day. We'll be right back.

Former White House Chief Of Staff Tells Friends That Trump Is One Of The Most Flawed Person He Has Ever Met

BLITZER: CNN has learned of remarkable newly revealed comments about President Trump by his former White House Chief of Staff, Retired General John Kelly. According to friends, Kelly says this and I'm quoting, "The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. The dishonesty, the transactional nature of every relationship, though it's more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life." That reporting comes by the way from a news special hosted by my colleague Jake Tapper airing tomorrow night here on CNN. It's called "The Insiders: A Warning from Former Trump Officials," but even some of those who still would seem to need the President's support are now speaking out against him with less than three weeks, only 17 days to go until the election. Let's bring in our political commentator, Michael Smerconish. He is the host of CNN's "SMERCONISH," which airs every Saturday morning here on CNN at 9:00 a.m. Eastern. Michael, we're going to come back to the issue of those turning against the President. But I quickly want to return to the breaking news we're following. The President of the United States apparently endorsing this idea of jailing Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who just survived an alleged kidnapping plot. Let me play it for you, the President's comments yesterday. And tonight, he is now openly suggesting the arrest of at least three of his political opponents should also take place. Watch this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm telling you that Biden family and others, but that Biden family is corrupt. It's a corrupt family. And with me and my kids, let me tell you, my kids -- I'll tell you something. That's very -- lock them up. You should lock them up.</s>AUDIENCE: (Chanting "Lock them up.")</s>TRUMP: Lock up the Bidens. Lock up Hillary. Lock them all up.</s>BLITZER: The President apparently wants to Bidens, Hillary Clinton, and the Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer thrown in jail. So what's your reaction, Michael?</s>MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think it is in poor taste, especially with regard to Governor Whitmer given the recent events that we've all seen reported and individuals who had this horrible plot to actually kidnap her. With regard to the other political opponents, I'm not defending the speech, but I'm reminded of, I think, it was Salena Zito, a fellow Pennsylvanian, who four years ago said there's a tendency for people in the media to take him literally while his supporters take him figuratively. I think that raucous crowd in Michigan tonight was at least, I hope, not taking him literally.</s>BLITZER: He also tweeted today and I wrote it down, "Biden is a national security threat." We're talking about the former Vice President of the United States, and the President is accusing him of being a national security threat. What's your reaction to that?</s>SMERCONISH: You know, Wolf, he is incensed that the dominant media is not picking up on that "New York Post" story. I watched your package and your great reporting on it last night about how there's now an investigation as to whether that's really disinformation, but he is working overtime to try and get more media outlets to pick that up and have that conversation.</s>BLITZER: Is the Trump playbook that we're seeing now, is this going to continue for these final 17 days? What do you think?</s>SMERCONISH: The base, the base, the base. I'm struck by the sort of dichotomy between his pitch and that of former Vice President Biden, when Vice President Biden spoke, it was a unity pitch. It was a closing argument that one makes when they think the evidence is in -- and now they're just trying to come up with a unifying theme, as people are finally voting. The President, as you can tell, is still trying to work the base. If you look at those speeches, both when he is on and off script, it's not really about expanding the tent, it is about motivating those who voted for him four years ago, and perhaps some who would have voted for him four years ago, if they had voted at all. But it's been pretty consistent for the last four years. It's about placating the demographics that put him in office.</s>BLITZER: You think he'd be more interested in going after some of the middle of the road types to try to bring them over, but you're absolutely right. He is really working that base. Let's turn to Republican Senator Ben Sasse of Nebraska, condemning in very strong words the President this week on a call with some 17,000 fellow Nebraskans. He says he will not campaign for the President. Michael, listen to this.</s>SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): He mocks evangelicals behind closed doors, his family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He has flirted with white supremacists. I mean that the places where we differed on COVID, he -- at the beginning of the COVID crisis, he refused to treat it seriously. For months, he treated it like a new cycle by new cycle PR crisis rather than a multiyear public health challenge, which is what it is.</s>BLITZER: So Michael, Senator Sasse also warned that the U.S. Senate is facing what he called a blue tsunami. Is this about standing up to the President on moral grounds as a political survival? It's pretty extraordinary to see this conservative Republican senator from Nebraska going after the President the way he is.</s>SMERCONISH: I've always said that there were limits to the common interests of Republicans. I think that there's a tendency to look at the G.O.P. from the outside in and say, okay, they are all on the same page. I have no doubt that if you were to give a choice to Mitch McConnell and say, you could have one or the other, you can have the White House controlled by your party, or you can have the G.O.P. continue to control the Senate with you as Majority Leader, there's no doubt in my mind as to which he would select and I think in the in the final less than two weeks, you're going to see a lot more of that where for self- preservation, many try and put themselves at a distance from the President. It might be too late for that, the dice has largely been cast, Wolf, by all the votes that have been cast over the span of the last four years.</s>BLITZER: Yes. I mean, it's amazing what's going on right now. He is still the President and enjoys a good amount of Republican support in the House and the Senate, his Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett could be confirmed for the U.S. Supreme Court within a matter of a few days. Are his Republican critics just giving lip service right now? What's going on?</s>SMERCONISH: Well, I listened to the report that that you offered based on Jake, and what he has pertaining to General Kelly, and I think the following: in any other administration at this stage of a re-election campaign, that would be a blockbuster of a story. Instead, General Kelly's name, frankly, gets added to a lot of other names of individuals who have left the administration, and then had things to say. I'll tell you what would be a blockbuster, if General Kelly were to say, I was the one who was the source for Jeffrey Goldberg in that "Atlantic" piece by now probably a month ago, when allegedly, the President disparaged the war dead. If General Kelly's name were directly associated with that charge, that would be big.</s>BLITZER: That would be huge as we all know it. Let's see what happens, 17 days to go. Michael Smerconish, as usual. Thank you so much for joining us.</s>SMERCONISH: Thanks, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, we're seeing record early voter turnout across several states and we're still 17 days out from the election. Michigan's Secretary of State is about to stand by. There you see her. She is standing by, live. We'll discuss -- she's going to tell us what they're doing in Michigan to protect voters against election related violence. We'll be right back.

Trump Continues Harsh Rhetoric Against Michigan Governor Whitmer.

BLITZER: It's been a little more than a week since the F.B.I. foiled an alleged kidnap plot targeting the Governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, which resulted in more than a dozen arrests. The President of the United States once more took aim at the Governor at his rally in Michigan just a little while ago, stoking more anger against her. Listen to this.</s>TRUMP: Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right?</s>AUDIENCE: (Chanting "Lock them up.")</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>AUDIENCE: (Chanting "Lock her up.")</s>BLITZER: All right, joining us now, Jocelyn Benson, the Secretary of State of the State of Michigan. Secretary Benson, thank you so much for joining us. The President barely mentioned the kidnap plot today, but he didn't shy away at all, from even more criticism, very harsh criticism of Governor Whitmer, the democratically-elected Governor of Michigan. The other day in a TV interview, by the way, he said she wants to be a dictator. He used that word "dictator." Of course, that's baseless. So what's your reaction to what the President is saying about your Governor? And what he is allowing that rally in Michigan to say today about "Lock her up. Lock her up" referring to your Governor?</s>JOCELYN BENSON, SECRETARY OF STATE, MICHIGAN: Well, you know, Wolf, I think it's incredibly irresponsible and concerning for the President to be at a time when people are voting, people want to hear about in this time of great uncertainty, how their lives will improve as a result of the candidates they support, to be, you know, sharing instead of ideas and a vision, hateful rhetoric that really it belies what's happening in Michigan, which is that our Governor is actually working with the legislature now to ensure the health and safety of our residents are protected. So, in that way, it's really concerning, but at the same time I'm hopeful and confident as we are, you know, just to and a half weeks out of the day that the polls closed where millions of citizens are already voting in Michigan that the voters are listening to candidates to hear ideas and hear solutions, and that they'll act accordingly and we're going to move forward.</s>BLITZER: Secretary Benson, yesterday, you issued an order: open carry of guns in Michigan will be banned on Election Day, November 3rd, banned from polling places, clerk's offices, locations where absentee ballots are being counted. But you've not made that rule for early voting, which as you correctly pointed out, is now underway. How concerned are you about election safety security in Michigan?</s>BENSON: I think the bottom line for me is that voters have a fundamental right to vote in person on Election Day without worry or fear of intimidation, and instead that voting should be a patriotic thing, something we are proud to do on Election Day or early. And so in order to give citizens certainty amidst a lot of uncertain things they may be hearing as we were just talking about, that they'll be safe on Election Day, that they'll have a clear path to voting that will be unencumbered by any threats or intimidation. Our goal is to give them that clarity, to give them that certainty in light of the type of rhetoric we're hearing focused on Election Day. So I'm confident in working with our Attorney General and law enforcement that voting will be safe and secure, citizens won't have to worry about risking either their health or their safety to vote in person on Election Day. And this directive was one part of our work to ensure that's the case.</s>BLITZER: But why not ban guns for those who are voting early?</s>BENSON: Well, we're mindful and the directive actually says "voting areas." So it does take into consideration clerk's offices and other places where people are voting. And we're also mindful of, you know, what my role is as Secretary of State, as the Chief Election Officer to, in particular focus on the Election Day operations themselves. Right now citizens can pick up their ballots and return them at their clerk's offices, but we're actually also anticipating the highest concentration of voters on Election Day itself at those polling places and that's what this directive is focused on.</s>BLITZER: So as you know, Michigan has already seen more than two million votes cast. That's as of yesterday, Friday. How is the state dealing with this huge influx? People are really anxious to vote right now.</s>BENSON: It's really inspiring to see this enormous engagement. It's healthy. It's a good thing for our state, and we're seeing it not just in Michigan, but all across the country. Voters are paying attention. They're engaged. They want their votes to count. They want their voices to be heard. So you know, right now, we have, you know, close to three million citizens who have requested to vote early and over almost one and a half million have already voted. So that's just underscoring the incredible amount of energy that we see voters from all across the state expressing for all -- everything that's on the ballot this year. And I think, you know, that's why it's so important for us, amidst all the other rhetoric that we're hearing to deliver clarity to voters that they're going to be safe, no matter how they choose to vote and how they choose to cast their ballot this year.</s>BLITZER: Are protesters still showing up at the State Capitol fully armed with AR-15s, loaded weapons as we speak?</s>BENSON: No, we did see that as you know, earlier this year, and we are all mindful of it. You know what? That's the other thing in sort of reflecting on the President's remarks tonight that -- and then I've certainly seen the Governor seeing the burden and the sort of the response to all of this, whether it's protecting our lawmakers, protecting our governor, protecting our people, it does fall on our law enforcement who have been working so hard to protect all of us and protect the people of Michigan. And so, you know, when it comes to the Capitol, and we certainly hope, you know, that lawmakers will take seriously the importance of protecting those in the Capitol. Our State Police, our law enforcement have really been incredible in keeping us all safe, and we're really grateful for it.</s>BLITZER: Yes, indeed. The Michigan Secretary of State, Jocelyn Benson. Stay safe out there. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for all the important work you're doing.</s>BENSON: Thanks, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, we're going to have much more in our breaking news with a number of new daily cases in Wisconsin spiking to new records. President Trump is about to hold another live campaign rally in that state tonight. Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

CNN Reports, Former White House Chief Of Staff Tells Friends Trump Is The Most Flawed Person He's Ever Met; GOP Sen. Sasse Blasts Trump, Refuses To Campaign For Him

BLITZER: President Trump's former White House chief of staff, retired General John Kelly, has been tight-lipped since leaving the Trump administration. But he recently slammed the president, calling him, and I'm quoting now, the most flawed person he's ever known, telling friends, once again quoting, the depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me. Those comments were uncovered, thanks to some excellent reporting by CNN's Jake Tapper. I'm joined now by President Trump's former national security adviser, John Bolton. His explosive best-selling new book is entitled The Room Where It Happened, A White House Memoir, there's the cover. Ambassador Bolton, thanks so much for joining us. So you worked closely with General Kelly. What's your reaction to his comments?</s>JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Well, they sound very much like things that we said to each other in conversations at the White House when we were both there and I think reflect accurately on what John Kelly thinks of President Trump. I mean, he faces, as do others, the very hard question whether he should say those things publicly, especially with just a few weeks left until the election, Jim Mattis, H.R. McMaster, to name a few others, all former military. It's very hard for people brought up in that tradition to speak out publicly. And, look, basically it's a good tradition. I think the military, when they're in uniform and when they're not in uniform, basically, should try to stay out of politics. But I think when the commander in chief that they were serving, whether in uniform or not, is really betraying the institutions themselves. It puts it in a different light, I think. And so I hope they're all considering very carefully, and I understand it's a hard decision, but I hope they're considering where they conclude their duty will lie in terms of speaking out publicly.</s>BLITZER: Because they're no longer in uniform, they're retired U.S. military officers. Why do you think he said this to people knowing almost certainly it would leak? Why not just come out on the record, speak to the American public and tell them how scared they are of this president?</s>BOLTON: Yes. Well, look, as someone who wrote 500 pages on what I thought, I can tell you, I understand and sympathize with the difficulty of the decision that John Kelly and many others are going through. And it really raises a fundamental question I think we ought to tackle, and that's the issue of loyalty. Certainly, I have been criticized for writing a book during the tenure of the president that I served, not that others haven't done it as well. Former Secretary of Defense Bob Gates book came out during the Obama administration. George Tenet, former Director of the CIA, his book came out during the Bush administration. But let's ask the question, where does the loyalty lie from former senior officials like Kelly, Mattis and Bolton? I would argue that it lies with the Constitution and with the institutions that the Constitution creates. This is not 12th century Europe. We do not live in a feudal system where it's a network of personal loyalties. There's a higher loyalty involved here to the Constitution itself. Look, if Donald Trump had been an honorable man, I probably would have written a different kind of book. But I hope that the loyalty to the constitution will finally come to the top in their considerations. I just want to say, again, it is hard for people to come out and say this publicly and anybody who says to the contrary is just wrong. But I hope John Kelly and the others would think about this. I think they would find a lot of support. They will be criticized by people who will call them traitor, there's no doubt about it. But we've got less than three weeks until the election. If we're going to hear it, let's hear it now.</s>BLITZER: We've got 17 days, to be precise. Ambassador Bolton, let's talk about Russia for a moment. The U.S. intelligence community has known for months that Russia is actively trying to hurt the Biden campaign. And now, Rudy Giuliani has gone public with what may be misinformation tied to that effort. What do you make of this?</s>BOLTON: Well, I want to be clear that I'm not going to talk about anything that that I learned that was classified while I was in the White House. But this Ukraine situation really -- it just -- it was a tragedy that the people who wanted to impeach Trump were so determined to get it done quickly that they didn't look at the larger picture. I don't want to say Kiev is the -- you know, the Vienna of this century, the location of the iconic film, The Third Man. There a lot of Russian agents working Ukraine, not because of the United States, because they're trying to influence Ukraine. And when people go there and supposedly get information about all these different conspiracy theories, if there aren't Russian agents working them, then the FSB is asleep on the job. So I think it's a dangerous situation. Some of these things we've seen report in the press, if they had come to normal U.S. intelligence operations, it would have been given a very, very hard counterintelligence scrub. We haven't seen that here obviously. This is really, potentially very damaging, very destabilizing to the United States, which is what Russia fundamentally wants. They're not really in this for one candidate or the other. They're in it fighting asymmetric warfare against the Constitution in our institutions.</s>BLITZER: Yes. The U.S. intelligence community has long has said that the Russians are trying to sow political dissent in the United States to weaken the U.S. as much as possible, to embarrass the U.S. around the world as much as possible. You saw them report in The Washington Post that U.S. intelligence officials actually warned President Trump that Rudy Giuliani was being used to give him Russian misinformation. When you were part of the administration, the president's national security adviser in the White House, what did you think of Rudy Giuliani? Did you have any reservations at all about him coming and going into the west wing?</s>BOLTON: Look, Rudy was a friend of mine for a long time before the Trump administration. And like a lot of friendships, the Trump administration has gotten in the way of it. I didn't know a lot of what Rudy was doing and I was just as happy not to because it was political. And my feeling was the president and his advisors outside the government are entitled to conduct their own political strategies and campaigns. They have a First Amendment right too. But none of that had anything to do with the work of the National Security Council. So, I was trying to keep the lines sharp and the less I had to do with it, frankly, the better.</s>BLITZER: But did you think that Rudy Giuliani is being used by Russian intelligence?</s>BOLTON: Well, I can't say one way or the other, but I will say this. If you're a foreign adversary looking for vulnerabilities, you're going to try and find people close to the president. You're going to ask what is it that they want and what can we give them that they will, they will think is helping their efforts, but what, in fact, will help us. So if I were going to look for a target, I'd look for political operatives close to the president, and those would be the people I would try to corrupt.</s>BLITZER: President Trump last night, once again, today, in this political campaign rallies, talked about locking up his opponents. I want you to watch and listen to this.</s>TRUMP: I'll tell you something though, and it's -- to locked them up, you should lock them up. Lock up the Biden's, lock up Hillary. You got to get your governor to open up your state, okay? And get your schools open. Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right? Lock them all up.</s>BLITZER: Lock them all up, he says. As someone who has called out authoritarian voices around the world for so many years, Ambassador Bolton, does this kind of talk from the president of the United States worry you? He tweeted today that Joe Biden, in his words, is a national security threat and he's basically charging all of them with being corrupt and criminal.</s>BOLTON: Yes. Well, it's decidedly unpresidential and I think it is destructive of civic life in this country when the president himself engages in it. And I think it's corrosive. It produces the same kind of reaction on the other side. And frankly, this is one of the reasons -- I'm just speaking out as a conservative Republican -- why I think Donald Trump is so destructive to the conservative cause. This is not behavior that conservatives should support because it does fundamentally compromise the ties that bind the country as a whole. America is very vulnerable when it's disunited. And Donald Trump's campaign here is based on exacerbating the divisions. So this is -- I think this is completely contrary to conservative values and it's something that, honestly, gives the opposition a stick that they'll use to beat conservatives with if we don't disassociate ourselves from it sooner rather than later. November 3rd would be an excellent time to begin.</s>BLITZER: Yes. If the Russians have been trying to sow political dissent in the U.S., as U.S. intelligence has concluded from their perspective, mission accomplished. Look at the political dissent, the debate that's unfolding here in the United States, embarrassing the U.S. and potentially weakening the U.S. globally. Do you see that happening?</s>BOLTON: Well, I think the damage conclude repaired after one term. I'm far more worried about the extent of the damage that Trump will produce after two terms. So let me just come back to him calling Joe Biden a national security threat. Look, I disagree with Vice President Biden on probably every significant national security issue. Bob Gates, again, to come back to his book, said, he thought Biden was wrong on every major national security question for the last 20 years. But being wrong is not the same as being a national security threat. And when Trump makes those kinds of accusations, that gets billed as the Republican position and the conservative position, both of which are inaccurate but terribly difficult to overcome. So this is a real burden on the country as a whole but on conservative Republicans in particular to have him purportedly carrying that standard.</s>BLITZER: You think any of this is going to sway disillusioned Republicans, and you're a long-time Republican, very conservative Republican, to break ranks at the polls in these final days?</s>BOLTON: Well, I think there are a lot of quiet conversations going on among Republicans. The critical election, in my view, right now in my view is for control of the Senate. I personally would much rather have Republicans keep control of the Senate under a Biden presidency than to see Trump re-elected. So that's why I think much of the effort is and should be concentrated on getting Republicans who are in jeopardy now re-elected and holding on to the Senate. I'd like to get the House too, but the highest priority should be majority control on the Senate.</s>BLITZER: Well, you clearly don't want Donald Trump to be re-elected for a second term, but it's interesting. You're not yet ready to support Biden and tell your supporters out there, go vote for Biden, right?</s>BOLTON: Well, I don't agree with Joe Biden philosophically. I've actually already voted in Maryland and I voted for a living conservative Republican who I won't say publicly, so I don't get him in trouble. But I think that's a perfectly legitimate way to go. It's the way many people have voted in past elections when they can't support their party's candidate and don't want to support the candidate of the other party.</s>BLITZER: Yes. The Republican governor of Maryland, the Republican governor of Massachusetts, I don't think they're going to vote for Biden but they're not going to vote for Trump either, so they're following in your footsteps. Ambassador John Bolton, thanks so much for joining us. Good luck out there. And I have an important note for our viewers. Tomorrow night, Ambassador Bolton will be alongside other former Trump administration officials, including Olivia Troye and Miles Taylor for a CNN Special Report, Jake Tapper hosts The Insiders, a Warning from Former Trump Officials. That's tomorrow night, Sunday, 9:00 P.M. Eastern right here on CNN. Meanwhile, the Biden campaign is warning it's supporters today, that President Trump could still very much win this contest. So is this a clever way to avoid complacency or is the race truly this close? Stay with us. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Trump Endorses Rally Crowd Chants Of 'Lock Her Up' Nine Days After Kidnapping Plot Against Michigan Governor Stopped; More Than 22 Million Votes Cast In 45 States And D.C.

BLITZER: Barely 17 days left until Election Day here in the United States, November 3rd, early voting is surging in several states. More than 22 million votes have now been cast in 45 states as well as here in Washington D.C. We're seeing a dramatic jump in the numbers in places like Illinois and North Carolina compared to the 2016 race. Our senior political analyst, Ron Brownstein, is with us. He's also the senior editor at The Atlantic. Also, with us, our national political reporter, Maeve Reston. Guys, thanks very much for joining us on a Saturday night. Ron, we have some breaking news and I want both of you to get your analysis. Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is now responding to President Trump's call to have her jailed for her coronavirus response. She just tweeted this, and let me put it up on the screen. "This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop, "close quote. Of course, she was the target of an alleged kidnapping plot. Stopped just days ago. Let me play some sound from the president earlier today. Listen to this.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right? Lock them. Lock them all up.</s>BLITZER: All right. Let me get both of you have to respond. Ron first and then Maeve. Go ahead, Ron.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, look it's easy to get numb to what we are seeing and hearing. But as you and Ambassador Bolton talked about, this is extraordinarily dangerous and an extraordinary departure from the American tradition. I mean, not only today with calling for locking up and inciting, you know, antagonism toward Governor Whitmer immediately after the FBI uncovers a plot to kidnap and possibly kill her and also downplaying that. But I mean, just yesterday, he called for locking up his opponent in 2016, his current opponent, his current opponents' family. And, you know, within the last couple of weeks complained that his attorney general had not indicted his predecessor. And where, Wolf, is the Republican Party? Remember Susan Collins said that President Trump had learned a lesson from impeachment. Yes, the lesson he learned was that he can shred and barrel through the rule of law in any way conceivable, and Republican senators will excuse and enable. The one I'm really looking forward to hearing from the most, John James, the Republican Senate candidate in Michigan. Is he okay with the president whipping up antagonism toward the governor immediately after a plot was uncovered to kidnap and possibly killer?</s>BLITZER: The President called the governor of Michigan, Maeve, a dictator the other day, what's your reaction to what he's now saying, and her clearly, understandably, very angry response?</s>MAEVE RESTON, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: Well, you know, I think that this proves her point exactly, which is that, you know, he sounds like an authoritarian in these rallies, and it's so dangerous to use that kind of rhetoric when some people will take it literally. You know, obviously, some people around her have said, you know, that his tweet earlier this year about liberate Michigan was part of what led to this whole mindset of the folks who wanted to kidnap her and overthrow her government. So, this is really dangerous rhetoric, and it's also the kind of thing that really turns off the voters that Donald Trump needs to win back. Certainly, she is a polarizing figure in Michigan, Governor Whitmer is, but people don't like to hear those kinds of attacks that start to sound really scary when there are kidnapping plots involved. And it just makes Trump sound like this overpowering sexist figure that a lot of suburban women who he keeps referring to are not going to like those kinds of tactics, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Yes, they certainly, aren't they? She's the democratically elected governor of Michigan, and he's smiling as -- that he gets that crowd to say, lock her up, lock her up. We've heard that before. Ron, let's talk about these final days of this campaign, the President is facing or fight in states that would normally be a lock for Republican incumbent president. We see, for example, Arizona, and Georgia among the battlegrounds emerging. Texas might even be in play. How much of this is about changing demographics? How much is simply desire for a change, no matter who makes up the electorate?</s>BROWNSTEIN: Yes, it's really -- it's really -- you know, in the Sunbelt, it's really the intersection of long-term demographic change and the immediate provocations created by President Trump. I mean, whether you're talking about North Carolina or Georgia or Texas and Arizona, Nevada, Florida, and all of these states, you're seeing an increase in the non-white share of the vote, substantial over the last two decades, reaching 40 percent of the total voters in many cases. But the more immediate trigger here is that the recoil from President Trump in the suburbs is extending now into these big Sunbelt metro areas, whether it's Atlanta, Houston, where turnout is extraordinary, over 500,000 people have voted in Houston already. Dallas, as well as Phoenix, Maricopa County, no Democrat has won since 1948. Harry Truman, all polls show Joe Biden leading there now. And, you know, the tipping point in this election probably are those three big Rust Belt states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania and whether Biden can win enough back enough white-collar blue-collar white voters to recement them in the democratic blue wall. But I think the most lasting marker from this election will be if we see the big metros of the Sunbelt begin to move in the way that the suburbs of New Jersey, and California, Illinois during the 90s, that Colorado and Virginia did earlier in the century. If that happens, it is a fundamental change in America's electoral landscape.</s>BLITZER: You're absolutely right. Maeve, how worried are Republicans in the states with a President clearly struggling in almost all of the polls? Let me rephrase that, in all of the polls, right now.</s>RESTON: Wolf, very worried. And that's why we saw Nebraska Senator, Ben Sasse, come out and talk to his some 17,000 constituents on that phone call about how dangerous he sees President Trump's rhetoric being to the future of the Republican Party, as Ron was just talking about, how it alienates women, how it alienates people in the suburbs. And I think, you know, you aren't -- you aren't see -- you're starting to see cracks in the wall, not just because, you know, Donald Trump's numbers are so bad in the polls, but you're having this huge cascading ripple effect, not just in polls, but in money, where Democrats are just blowing away their democratic opponents -- I'm sorry, their Republican opponents, certainly in a lot of those really contested Senate races. And, you know, folks like Sasse have talked about the potential for a blue tsunami in a couple of weeks that could just have a very lasting, devastating effects on the Republican Party, and in his view, in part because he doesn't see Trump as speaking for traditional Republicans. So, it'll be really fascinating to see whether all of this huge turnout that we're seeing and all of that energy, whether there's enough there on the Democratic side to also shift the landscape for years to come, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Yes. So many of these Republicans. They're not saying it publicly, Ben Sasse, is they're worried that the Republicans are going to lose -- they're obviously going to lose the House, but also the Senate as well, so they're very, very nervous about all that's going on. All right. Maeve Reston, Ron Brownstein, as usual, guys, thank you very much. President Trump today hitting two key battleground states he narrowly won in 2016 and needs to win again this year. But the polls show serious trouble for the incumbent president. We'll discuss. Harry Enten, he will break down the latest polling numbers for us when we come back.

Trump Visits Michigan, Wisconsin As Biden Leads Polls In Those States.

BLITZER: President Trump has been holding another campaign rally in Wisconsin, it's the second rally of the day was, it was in Michigan earlier today, the President is hoping to turn around polls which show his rival, Joe Biden, with a clear lead in both of those Midwestern battleground states. Our senior political writer and analyst, Harry Enten is joining us right now. Harry, it's not just the presidency that is at stake on November 3rd, the U.S. Senate, the Senate Majority is also on the line. Layout what Democrats need to do to retake the majority in the Senate? And what are the polls telling you right now?</s>HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER: Right. So, Wolf, look, the Democrats need a net gain of three seats if Joe Biden captures the presidency, right? And right now, if you look at the polls, they look like they're in a position to do that, because take a look at here, look, on the left side of your screen, the democratic pickup opportunities, they need probably at least four of those given Alabama on the right side, where Doug Jones is, is probably going to shift to the Republicans. They need for those on the left side, and they lead in five of those democratic pickup opportunities. You'll also notice on the right side that their second-best chance for Republicans to pick-up is in Michigan, where the Republican candidate, James, is actually losing by six points. And this just sort of gives you an understanding that Democrats have a very wide playing field to play from, because it's not just those five seats on the left side that they have an opportunity, and they also have an opportunity to a bunch of other states, these sort of rich states, and these are states, Georgia, the Georgia special Senate election, there's probably going to be a runoff come November -- come January, the Georgia regular, they're only down by a point. And just look at all these different states, these sort of reach opportunities. So, even if they lose in maybe one or two of the states they're currently leading in, the playing field is just really, really wide for them, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: So, it's really amazing what's going on. The presidency, Harry, will ultimately come down to the key battleground states, a few battleground states, how are the candidates doing there?</s>ENTEN: Yes. So, look, Joe Biden's ahead. There's no other way to put it, right. Look at the six closest states that Trump won in 2016. And look, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Biden holds leads of at least seven points in all three of those. If he wins those three, plus the states that Hillary Clinton won in 2016, he's going to get over 270 electoral votes. But he's also, in fact, has slight advantages in Florida, Arizona, and North Carolina sort of backups, but it even goes beyond that, right? Take a look at these sort of reach states, as I somewhat called them, right? They're the Trump reaches, the states Clinton won by three points are less than 2016. Biden holds clear advantages, and all of them, at least seven points up to 15 points in May. But look at the Biden reaches states, that Trump won by five to -- five to 10 points in 2016. Look how competitive Joe Biden is in those states. He's actually up by two in Georgia very, very tight, very tine eye up by a point. And even in Texas, which you mentioned in your last segment, look at that, a state that has not gone Democrats since 1900 and '76. Joe Biden's down by just two points there. blitzer: Give us two reasons, Harry, why Biden seems to be leading in these polls right now.</s>ENTEN: Yes. Look, look at these two groups, white women and non- college white voters. These are two groups that went for Donald Trump in the final polls in 2016. He won non-college whites by 30 points. He won white women by five points. Look at white women now favoring Joe Biden by 12 percentage points, that's a 17-point swing. And even among non-college whites, sort of the core group of the Trump base, look at that. Even though he's still ahead, that lead has been slashed nearly in half that lead is 13 points less than it was four years ago. Truth be told, Wolf, Donald Trump, if those are the current polls hold on election day, he simply cannot win given those numbers.</s>BLITZER: Seventy days to go. We'll see what happens. Harry Enten, as usual, thank you so much for joining us. We'll take a quick break. Much more news right after this.

Biden Leads In Polls, Warns Against Complacency; More Than 22 Million Votes Cast In 45 States And D.C.

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hi, welcome to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me, this is CNN. I'm Robyn Curnow. So coming up in the show, Trump's blitz rallies with 16 days left to go in the campaign. The president is pushing ahead in states with new record numbers of coronavirus cases. Plus lining up early to vote. More than 22 million ballots have already been cast across the U.S. We'll break down the voting trends for you.</s>TOMMYE JOHNSON, REPUBLICAN BIDEN SUPPORTER: He's still dishonest about it. He keeps saying it's getting better and it never it is. It's getting worse.</s>CURNOW (voice-over): And with the coronavirus surging, these lifelong Republicans are voting blue this election. And they're not the only ones. How seniors could swing states for Biden. That's next.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.</s>CURNOW: So it is just 16 days to go until the U.S. presidential election. Donald Trump is behind in the polls and he's showing he's not afraid to push dangerous buttons as he tries to energize his base. During a rally in Michigan on Saturday, he criticized the state's governor's handling of the coronavirus epidemic and when the crowd started chanting lock her, up he cheered them on.</s>TRUMP: Get your schools open, the schools have to be open, right?</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>CURNOW: Those "lock her up" chants referred to Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. If you remember earlier this month, the FBI foiled an alleged kidnapping plot against her; 14 people are now facing charges for a plan federal officials call domestic terrorism. Whitmer responded by tweeting, "This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop." Then in other news. The two states where Trump held rallies Saturday are having huge problems with coronavirus. Michigan saw over 2,000 cases on Thursday and Friday, and Wisconsin, which is among 10 states with record high daily case counts on Friday according to Johns Hopkins. University And President Trump didn't focus much on those surge in cases in Wisconsin during his public rally there. Instead he promoted what he called his successes during the pandemic. Here's Jeremy Diamond on all of that -- Jeremy.</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is now losing to Joe Biden, according to recent polls, by an average of 7 points. So the president campaigning here in Janesville, Wisconsin, trying to win back some support. Talking about his support for law enforcement in particular, speaking in this town of Janesville, Wisconsin, which is 60 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, of course, a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police. After that, of course, there were protests and some unrest which the president has amplified and talked about. But what he didn't talk about here is the surge here in Wisconsin of coronavirus cases happening in the state. Wisconsin is experiencing one of the worst surges in the country at the moment. Hospitalizations have tripled over the last month. And the state of Wisconsin experienced a record number of cases just the day before the president came here to Janesville to campaign. Now the White House's Coronavirus Task Force itself has warned about these types of events that the president hosted here. It wrote in its weekly report about the state of Wisconsin, saying, "Wisconsin's ability to limit further and avoid increases in hospitalizations and deaths will depend on increased observation of social distancing mitigation measures by the community until cases decline. "Lack of compliance with these measures will lead to preventable deaths." And so that is what is so startling is to see the White House Coronavirus Task Force say essentially that these very same events that the president is holding with thousands of people, packed closely together, no social distancing, very few people wearing masks, will lead to preventable deaths.</s>DIAMOND: Yet the president of the United States continues to hold these events. In fact, he has pledged to hold very similar events to the one we saw here in Janesville, Wisconsin, over the next few weeks, leading up to Election Day. Once a day, multiple times a day perhaps, in order to try to save his chances at reelection -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, in Janesville, Wisconsin.</s>CURNOW: And Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is not resting on his more favorably polling numbers. His campaign has a busy schedule ahead. Surrogates like Elizabeth Warren, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Yang are hitting the campaign trail for the former vice president. And Biden's former boss is going to be making appearance on Wednesday, as Jason Carroll tells us what's next -- Jason.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources and energy in the battleground states. And states that are doing early in-person voting, we're seeing some of those same images coming out of places like North Carolina. For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday; should be making two stops there. Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday, neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday; Harris, a couple of people in her orbit have tested positive For COVID-19. So they physically took her off the campaign trail for a couple of days. She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So looking ahead, again, you've got Biden; he's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida; she will be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania on Monday, she will be in Michigan on Tuesday. But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be out there campaigning for Biden. He'll be doing that in Philadelphia. And a number of Democrats are saying that, if there's one surrogate you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one.</s>CURNOW: So joining me now from Oxford, England, is Thomas Gift, director of the UCL Center on U.S. Politics. Thomas, hi, lovely to see you. So a key point has come out of the last sort of few hours is that the Biden team has been warning voters not to be complacent. Where do you think they see their vulnerabilities?</s>THOMAS GIFT, FOUNDING DIRECTOR OF THE CENTRE ON U.S. POLITICS, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Robyn, Biden's team has been warning about complacency for quite a while. That does come with the territory of having a sizeable lead. Concern for Democrats is that if enough voter feel like a Biden win is a foregone conclusion, some may decide to stay home on November 3rd. Simultaneously, Biden is warning against complacency and it may reflect that he's also worried about an enthusiasm gap. Even if Trump trails by 8-10 points, there are arguably more Republicans who excited about casting their ballot, than there are Democrats who are excited about voting for Biden. So it becomes a turnout game. Clearly Biden doesn't excite the liberal base as much as another candidate might from the Democratic primaries. So it still goes back to the challenge that we talked about in the spring, about coalescing the progressive and moderate wings of the party.</s>CURNOW: So what do you make then of this early voting? Certainly, it speaks to enthusiasm, potentially Democratic enthusiasm. But you rightfully mentioned enthusiasm on the other side with the Republicans. That is what massive turnout is about. It's about everybody coming out. What do you think is the message in that? What is the sign posting?</s>GIFT: All indications are that there will be a record number of mail- in ballots this year. Of course the participation of mail-in balloting is highly polarized by party. Many more Biden supporters are expected to cast their ballots through mail than Trump voters because of how the parties have framed the pandemic, with Trump downplaying the risk of voting in person and suggesting without evidence that mail in balloting could be susceptible to widespread fraud. But there's no doubt that mail-in ballots will be pivotal in swing states, which adds another layer of complexity. Both are making predictions about who might win on Election Night and how Trump might respond if the election ends up decided by a razor-thin margin. And it's worth pointing out that "The Washington Post" pointed out that in the primaries, half a million mail-in ballots across 23 states were disqualified for technical reasons. So worst-case scenario, if that becomes a 2020 version of hanging chads, we can only predict what the fallout might be from that.</s>CURNOW: And that was going to be my next question. How likely a scenario is it that this election is decided in the Supreme Court?</s>CURNOW: Mr. Trump said that he wouldn't mind if it goes that way. But do you think that that is an option that is certainly motivating the Biden campaign?</s>GIFT: Well, it's a great question, Robyn, because lots of people are speculating about this. And in any year, I think the chances that an election gets decided by the court, like in Bush v. Gore, is limited. Still it's not an impossibility and both sides will be lawyered up if the election results are close. That's especially the case this year because the election logistics are so much more complex than anything we've seen in the past, with this overwhelming number of mail-in ballots because of the pandemic. One of the reasons Trump said he wanted Amy Coney Barrett confirmed before November 3rd is that she would be eligible to cast a vote in any case that might come before SCOTUS. Obviously, when we saw the Supreme Court render a verdict in Bush v. Gore, that was divisive. But the country is at a whole new level of polarization now. So if this election does get adjudicated by the court system, it could impose even more severe strains on America's social and political fabric.</s>CURNOW: Yes, I think you are so right there. So if we talk about where this election is going to be adjudicated, let's go down to the states. Where do you think the key battleground moments are going to be? Many seem to be in play like Texas or in Georgia but where do you think this is going to land up in terms of a swing location?</s>GIFT: Well, the consensus is that Trump's path to victory is narrower than Biden's. Trump's best chance in 2020 is to essentially duplicate the success he had in 2016 where he was able to narrowly edge out Clinton in just about every battleground state, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, you name it. The problem is that some of these states are looking if not out of reach for Trump, definitely uphill battles for him this year. Case in point, I will point out is Pennsylvania. That's my home state. And it's where both candidates have been spending considerable time. According to 538, most polls have Biden with about a 5- to 8-point lead there. It's really a microcosm of this ostensible shift away from Trump, not just among moderates and suburbs, in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but a number of small towns in the central part of the state, where voters have been hit by unemployment and also face other challenges associated with coronavirus.</s>CURNOW: Yes, and we've also seen white suburban women in Pennsylvania peeling away from the president in record numbers as well. So it's going to be interesting. It certainly is a microcosm of a state. 2 weeks to go until that election, it is certainly a generational one. Thomas Gift, great to speak to you, live from Oxford, thanks for your expertise and analysis.</s>GIFT: Thanks, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: So coming up here on CNN, more and more Americans can't afford food. Now they're worried about ending up on the street. The crisis many Americans are facing as the coronavirus drags on. I will have that story and much more after the break.

Trump Goes On Rally Blitz As 10 States Break COVID-19 Records; Republican Seniors Voting For Biden; Women's March Focus: Protest Trump And Get Voters To Polls.

CURNOW: Welcome back to all of viewers here in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me. I'm coming to you from CNN World Headquarters in Atlanta. I'm Robyn Curnow. So want to take you back to the election that is taking place in 16. Days President Trump and nominee Vice President Joe Biden aren't wasting any of that time. Trump is holding rallies but we're not seeing social distancing at these events despite a surge in coronavirus cases across the country. And despite Trump's own illness this month. Even though Joe Biden is leading in the polls, his campaign manager is urging supporters to stay hungry and to fight like they're trailing. She wrote, "We cannot become complacent because the very searing truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race and every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire." Now the swing state of Florida has been a big, big focus in this presidential race and in fact in every presidential race. Trump won Florida in the last election. But now the coronavirus is making some senior voters reconsider their stance, as Jeff Zeleny now reports.</s>JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): These Florida seniors are fired up for Joe Biden. But it's not only Democrats taking their stand. A bigger threat to President Trump's reelection may come from voters like Tommye and Rody Johnson. They are lifelong Republicans, who supported him 4 years ago, but won't again.</s>T. JOHNSON: I feel he is responsible for thousands and thousands of deaths, because of his attitude about it. He is still dishonest about it, he keeps saying it's getting better and it never is, it's getting worse.</s>ZELENY: Their frustration at the President turned to fury with his handling of coronavirus.</s>RODY JOHNSON, REPUBLICAN BIDEN SUPPORTER: Dammit, we voted for him. And of course, the virus COVID has been terrible.</s>ZELENY: Three weeks ago, his son tested positive for COVID-19.</s>R. JOHNSON: I was mad because he had it and it was - and I kept thinking it's Mr. Trump's fault, because this thing should never have gotten as far as it had.</s>ZELENY: Seniors were key to Trump's victory in 2016, yet falloff from this critical voting bloc had the president sounding the alarm this week at a rally here.</s>TRUMP: Biden's agenda would be a catastrophe for Florida seniors.</s>ZELENY: During his own Florida visit, Biden turned the subject back to coronavirus.</s>JOE BIDEN (D-DE), FORMER U.S. VICE PRESIDENT AND PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: So many lives have been lost unnecessarily, because this president cares more about the stock market than he does about well- being of seniors.</s>ZELENY: Tobi Schelin is a nurse who is going door-to-door for Biden, where she hears the stories.</s>TOBI SCHELIN, BIDEN SUPPORTER, VOLUNTEER: They can't hug their grandkids, so it's been huge, that's been a huge factor. Let's go together.</s>ZELENY: The pandemic and the fear of a close election drives these senior volunteers.</s>MARY MCBEE, BIDEN VOLUNTEER: My precinct went to Trump by 4 votes, only 4 votes. That's maybe 2 houses, 3 houses. I don't want to wake up this year, the day after election and say, what more could I have done?</s>ZELENY: Signs of an exceedingly tight race are plentiful here, with passionate support for Trump on display, from flags to front yards.</s>ANN ALEKSINAS, TRUMP SUPPORTER: There's more people out supporting him now, because he has had so many people going against him. And I don't feel he's been treated fairly by the Democrats at all.</s>ZELENY: The question is just how many Trump voters have soured on the president.</s>ZELENY (voice-over): The Johnsons live in a county that is still deep red, but they are no longer shy about showing their affirmative support for Biden.</s>R. JOHNSON: Mr. Biden is a nice man. There was a time I didn't like him at all. Now, I love him.</s>ZELENY: But it's Trump that is driving them and this race.</s>T. JOHNSON: He is so dishonest. And the worst is that, whenever he is caught in a lie, he blames it on someone else. It is always somebody else. He is impossible.</s>ZELENY: Now, to give you a sense of how important President Trump believes Florida is, by the end of this week, he will have spent 3 of 5 days in the state, the 29 electoral votes here, certainly critical to his path to reelection. Now, familiar issues like social security and taxes are certainly at play in this race. But, it's the new and unpredictable issue of coronavirus that of course is front and center every time the president holds a rally. So, certainly, on Election Day, November 3, all eyes will once again be on Florida between the race of Joe Biden and Donald Trump -- Jeff Zeleny, CNN, Vero Beach, Florida.</s>CURNOW: Let's bring in our polling expert Harry Enten, he's a senior political writer. Harry, wonderful to see you. I know you crunch the numbers and I want to get your take. Which voting bloc do you think could swing this, either way? I want to talk about seniors and suburban women but I want to start with seniors.</s>HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We are seeing some trends. Seniors was a group that Donald Trump won last time around. He won it by about 5 to 6 points. If you look at the polls right now, what do you see? You see Trump is trailing among seniors by 10 points over former vice president Joe Biden. If Biden ends up carrying seniors, he's going to be the first Democratic candidate to carry seniors in about 20 years, if not 24, depending on what poll you look at. So there's no doubt to me that Donald Trump has lost his grip on those voters age 65 and over and they are a group heavily in Joe Biden's corner at this point.</s>CURNOW: And I think COVID has a lot to do with that. Let's talk a little bit about suburban women. In many ways, Mr. Trump carried them as well last time around. Again, seeing a lot of trends that see them turning against the president. Why?</s>ENTEN: I mean, look, the current average of polls, suburban women are favoring vice president Biden by 21 points. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton was only leading them by 12 percentage points. I think there are a number of reasons. The pandemic has something to do with it but it goes beyond that. Women at large are against the president of the United States, white women especially have moved significantly against the president. I think it has to do with a number of factors, including economic factors. Women want to make sure that there's the Affordable Care Act in place and obviously President Trump is trying to get rid of it. The tax cuts that passed a few years ago, women voters didn't like that. And the other thing I'll mention is that President Trump has been trying to say, I'm going to keep your neighborhoods safe for suburban women. But in fact they don't trust him on that issue whatsoever. A recent FOX News poll indicated that suburban women were much more in Joe Biden's corner when it came to racial equality and the police. So there are a slew of factors that are running against the president when it comes to suburban women.</s>CURNOW: But still, we're hearing from the Biden campaign and Democrats, perhaps a little cautious after 2016. But they are urging folks not to be complacent. And then again, you know that the Electoral College can throw off anything. Can you put a number, a percentage on Mr. Trump's chances right now?</s>ENTEN: Here's what I essentially would say. If you were to take a die at a casino, what's the chance you're going to roll 6 on any one roll of the die? Then perhaps Trump's chances are a little worse than that. But over and over and over again, we have a little bit over 2 weeks to go. There are some historical examples where someone in Trump's position has come back to win. But there's no doubt, when you look at the national polls, when you look at the swing states, the president is behind at this point.</s>CURNOW: What do you make of early voting? I know you have been quite verbal about not taking any clues or signposts from early voting. Why is? That</s>ENTEN: I mean look, I should point out look. There are of a lot of voters casting ballots, over 22 million at this particular point. And the fact is that I think we're probably headed towards record turnout. We don't necessarily know who those voters are and, more than that, we know from the polls that Democrats have said that they're more likely to vote early while the president's supporters are more likely to vote on Election Day. We know, back in 2016, in two key swing states, Florida and North Carolina had a lot of early voters.</s>ENTEN: Hillary Clinton won them. But President Trump carried both of the states because he did so well among the Election Day voters. Although you'd rather get your votes in case something happens at the last minute, an Election Day vote at the end of the day counts the same as an early vote.</s>CURNOW: Are you looking at any demographic -- we, are talking about suburban women, pensioners -- are you looking at any demographic who might surprise? For example, African American men or Hispanic men, who have certainly been courted by the Republican National Convention. Do you see that balancing out by a surprise group of supporters for the president?</s>ENTEN: Yes, you do look at the polls; there actually isn't much of a doubt in my mind that he is doing better among voters of color. He is doing better among African Americans than he did four years ago, he's doing better among Hispanic voters. The problem is that he's doing so much worse among white voters that that overrides some of the better strength that Trump has among voters of color. But would it be surprising that at the end of the day if you go to a state like Pennsylvania and maybe Trump does a little bit better in Philadelphia, where there are more Black voters and that carries him over the finish line? That's possible. But at this point, the president's surprising strengths don't outweigh what might be Biden's surprising strength, seniors and white voters in particular.</s>CURNOW: It just seems like November 3rd is about 500 million years away. Anything could happen. Harry, wonderful to see. Thanks so much, have a great. Weekend</s>ENTEN: You too.</s>CURNOW: So coming up on CNN, a drastic uptick calls for drastic measures in France, we will get a live report on how Paris is handling the new curfew.

French Cities Under Nighttime Curfew

CURNOW: European governments are in a mad scramble to get the coronavirus threat under control. New cases are sweeping across the continent. As you can see here, all the red and orange show the areas where the virus is spread up from the last. Week at least 10 percent more than the week before. Now France is setting new daily records for coronavirus infections. All the progress made during the summer, you see the shocking uptick of northwest cases here. On Saturday, over 33,000 new cases reported in France in 24 hours. So to slow the virus, Paris and nine other cities are under a curfew for the next four weeks. Melissa Bell joins us now. So are people respecting the new curfew?</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: This was the first full night of the curfew since it had come in Friday at midnight. So from 9 pm last night till 6 am this morning, the 20 million people who lived in the 10 cities found themselves in curfew. Heavy fines may have been given out, 135 euro fine if you're found without a proper document that explains why you are allowed to be out. Those 20 million French people spent the first night in full curfew. At some point we will get a full idea of how respectful they have been. It does appear to have gone pretty well how authorities wanted it to go, with shops, restaurants closing down at 9 pm, just before to give people time to get home so that by 9 pm they could be at home. Of course, this comes as that record figure was set on Saturday night. Those number of new cases, of course, this is going to take some time to have some impact on those figures. The question is, how long is it going to take for those figures to start coming down, whether these curfews will be effective. We probably won't be able to measure that for a good week, since those numbers will have a bearing on the people who find themselves in ICU and for the time being, things remain very tight nationally. The positivity rate higher than ever before, 13.1. So it really is a race against the clock to try to get these measures since we are in a state of emergency to bring those numbers down as quickly as they can for places like Paris and the hospitals begin to creak at the seams.</s>CURNOW: Melissa Bell, live in Paris, thanks for that. So after months of social distancing in Europe, restaurants are finally picking up speed and then a second wave of coronavirus hits. Now most countries on the continent are doing their best to encourage people to stay home. Here's more from Scott McLean on that.</s>SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Last call in London. Life is changing for people there, now subject to tighter tier 2 coronavirus rules. That means they can no longer mix with people from other households indoors and outside they're limited to groups of 6.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am with my friends. We don't know how long it's going to. Last</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): More than half the population of England is under new restrictions as well as many parts of Europe. Where that meal out with whoever, whenever, is now regulated by governments to try to stop the spread of the virus. Hospitality workers say it's bad for business.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Our pay is reduced. But the bills are not reduced. It's not right. But we don't have any choice.</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): But more countries are clamping down on eating out. Poland's prime minister is urging people in areas with high infection rates to stay at. Belgium is soon closing its bars, cafes and restaurants for a month.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I really believe the cafes and restaurants are really stigmatized. It's more than clear. We feel that we are the bad guys.</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): Germany's Angela Merkel is encouraging people to avoid social gatherings to stop a second wave of the virus.</s>ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): Please forsake any journey that is not absolutely essential and every party that is not absolutely essential. Stay at home where at all possible.</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): But some local businesses are fighting back. In Berlin, a court overturned a curfew for bars to close at 11 pm. But alcohol still can't be sold after that time. Bar and restaurant owners say they can't afford to lose their livelihood. But with the world surpassing more than 400,000 new cases a day Friday, many people in Europe, tougher restrictions may be something they have to live with, even though they're hard to digest -- Scott McLean, CNN, Berlin.</s>CURNOW: So the second Women's March of 2020 took place in cities across the U.S. to send a message straight to the White House.</s>CURNOW: What the protesters are saying weeks before the election. That's next.

Biden Leads In Polls, Warns Against Complacency

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Hi, welcome to our viewers in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me. I'm Robyn Curnow. Coming up on the show, the U.S. president on the campaign trail visiting states with huge spikes of coronavirus cases but he doesn't mention it. Also, COVID cases on the rise in north of England, with new restrictions recommended but the mayor of Manchester is pushing back. That is not sitting well with the prime minister. Thousands of women march across the U.S. protesting President Trump and his Supreme Court nominee. But will their message be heard?</s>CURNOW: Ten U.S. states reported on Friday the highest number of new COVID cases ever. That figure coming from Johns Hopkins University. One of those states is Wisconsin, where the president held a campaign rally on Saturday. As you can see here, he had one the same day in Michigan as well, which is also breaking COVID case records. Instead of mentioning these alarming new, figures the president criticized the state's governor for how she is handling the pandemic. We will just play you a little bit of that.</s>TRUMP: Get your schools open. The schools have to be open. Right?</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>CURNOW: So those are the chants that you just heard over Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, the same governor who was the target of an alleged kidnapping plot earlier on this month. She says this is exactly the kind of rhetoric that is putting her, her family and other officials in harm's way. She says it is just one of the ways Mr. Trump is trying to fire up his base, trailing by double digits in the polls and the election is just 16 days away. And the president did not focus much on the surge in cases in Wisconsin during his campaign rally there. He instead he promoted what he called his successes during the pandemic, as Jeremy Diamond now explains. Jeremy?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is now losing to Joe Biden, according to recent polls, by an average of 7 points. So the president campaigning here in Janesville, Wisconsin, trying to win back some support. Talking about his support for law enforcement in particular, speaking in this town of Janesville, Wisconsin, which is 60 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, of course, a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police. After that, of course, there were protests and some unrest which the president has amplified and talked about. But what he didn't talk about here is the surge here in Wisconsin of coronavirus cases happening in the state. Wisconsin is experiencing one of the worst surges in the country at the moment. Hospitalizations have tripled over the last month. And the state of Wisconsin experienced a record number of cases just the day before the president came here to Janesville to campaign. Now the White House's Coronavirus Task Force itself has warned about these types of events that the president hosted here. It wrote in its weekly report about the state of Wisconsin, saying, "Wisconsin's ability to limit further and avoid increases in hospitalizations and deaths will depend on increased observation of social distancing mitigation measures by the community until cases decline. "Lack of compliance with these measures will lead to preventable deaths." And so that is what is so startling is to see the White House Coronavirus Task Force say essentially that these very same events that the president is holding with thousands of people, packed closely together, no social distancing, very few people wearing masks, will lead to preventable deaths. Yet the president of the United States continues to hold these events. In fact, he has pledged to hold very similar events to the one we saw here in Janesville, Wisconsin, over the next few weeks, leading up to Election Day. Once a day, multiple times a day perhaps, in order to try to save his chances at reelection -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, in Janesville, Wisconsin.</s>CURNOW: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden is not resting on his favorable polling numbers.</s>CURNOW: The latest CNN poll shows him ahead 53 percent to the president's 42 percent but Biden's campaign manager is urging supporters to stay enthused and to fight as if they're trailing. "We cannot become complacent because the very searing truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race and every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire." Jason Carroll tells us, now where Mr. Biden is focusing. Next Jason?</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources and energy in the battleground states. And states that are doing early in-person voting, we're seeing some of those same images coming out of places like North Carolina. For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday; should be making two stops there. Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday, neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday; Harris, a couple of people in her orbit have tested positive For COVID-19. So they physically took her off the campaign trail for a couple of days. She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So looking ahead, again, you've got Biden; he's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida; she will be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania on Monday, she will be in Michigan on Tuesday. But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be out there campaigning for Biden. He'll be doing that in Philadelphia. And a number of Democrats are saying that, if there's one surrogate you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one.</s>CURNOW: So joining me now from Oxford, England, is Thomas Gift, director of the UCL Center on U.S. Politics. Thomas, hi. Lovely to see you. So a key point has come out of the last sort of few hours is that the Biden team has been warning voters not to be complacent. Where do you think they see their vulnerabilities?</s>THOMAS GIFT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON: Robyn, Biden's team has been warning about complacency for quite a while. That does come with the territory of having a sizeable lead. Concern for Democrats is that if enough voter feel like a Biden win is a foregone conclusion, some may decide to stay home on November 3rd. Simultaneously, Biden is warning against complacency and it may reflect that he's also worried about an enthusiasm gap. Even if Trump trails by 8-10 points, there are arguably more Republicans who excited about casting their ballot, than there are Democrats who are excited about voting for Biden. So it becomes a turnout game. Clearly Biden doesn't excite the liberal base as much as another candidate might from the Democratic primaries. So it still goes back to the challenge that we talked about in the spring, about coalescing the progressive and moderate wings of the party.</s>CURNOW: So what do you make then of this early voting? Certainly, it speaks to enthusiasm, potentially Democratic enthusiasm. But you rightfully mentioned enthusiasm on the other side with the Republicans. That is what massive turnout is about. It's about everybody coming out. What do you think is the message in that? What is the sign posting?</s>GIFT: All indications are that there will be a record number of mail- in ballots this year. Of course the participation of mail-in balloting is highly polarized by party. Many more Biden supporters are expected to cast their ballots through mail than Trump voters because of how the parties have framed the pandemic, with Trump downplaying the risk of voting in person and suggesting without evidence that mail in balloting could be susceptible to widespread fraud. But there's no doubt that mail-in ballots will be pivotal in swing states, which adds another layer of complexity. Both are making predictions about who might win on Election Night and how Trump might respond if the election ends up decided by a razor-thin margin. And it's worth pointing out that "The Washington Post" pointed out that in the primaries, half a million mail-in ballots across 23 states were disqualified for technical reasons. So worst-case scenario, if that becomes a 2020 version of hanging chads, we can only predict what the fallout might be from that.</s>CURNOW: And that was going to be my next question. How likely a scenario is it that this election is decided in the Supreme Court? Mr. Trump said that he wouldn't mind if it goes that way. But do you think that that is an option that is certainly motivating the Biden campaign?</s>GIFT: Well, it's a great question, Robyn, because lots of people are speculating about this.</s>GIFT: And in any year, I think the chances that an election gets decided by the court, like in Bush v. Gore, is limited. Still it's not an impossibility and both sides will be lawyered up if the election results are close. That's especially the case this year because the election logistics are so much more complex than anything we've seen in the past, with this overwhelming number of mail-in ballots because of the pandemic. One of the reasons Trump said he wanted Amy Coney Barrett confirmed before November 3rd is that she would be eligible to cast a vote in any case that might come before SCOTUS. Obviously, when we saw the Supreme Court render a verdict in Bush v. Gore, that was divisive. But the country is at a whole new level of polarization now. So if this election does get adjudicated by the court system, it could impose even more severe strains on America's social and political fabric.</s>CURNOW: Yes, I think you are so right there. So if we talk about where this election is going to be adjudicated, let's go down to the states. Where do you think the key battleground moments are going to be? Many seem to be in play like Texas or in Georgia but where do you think this is going to land up in terms of a swing location?</s>GIFT: Well, the consensus is that Trump's path to victory is narrower than Biden's. Trump's best chance in 2020 is to essentially duplicate the success he had in 2016 where he was able to narrowly edge out Clinton in just about every battleground state, Pennsylvania, Florida, Wisconsin, Ohio, North Carolina, you name it. The problem is that some of these states are looking if not out of reach for Trump, definitely uphill battles for him this year. Case in point, I will point out is Pennsylvania. That's my home state. And it's where both candidates have been spending considerable time. According to 538, most polls have Biden with about a 5- to 8-point lead there. It's really a microcosm of this ostensible shift away from Trump, not just among moderates and suburbs, in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but a number of small towns in the central part of the state, where voters have been hit by unemployment and also face other challenges associated with coronavirus.</s>CURNOW: Yes, and we've also seen white suburban women in Pennsylvania peeling away from the president in record numbers as well. So it's going to be interesting. It certainly is a microcosm of a state. 2 weeks to go until that election, it is certainly a generational one. Thomas Gift, great to speak to you, live from Oxford, thanks for your expertise and analysis.</s>GIFT: Thanks, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: The threat of coronavirus isn't stopping women's rights activists from mobilizing all over the U.S. Saturday's Women's March drew thousands of protesters in Washington and other major cities, voicing opposition to President Trump's Supreme Court pick and also encouraging women to vote. Suzanne Malveaux has more.</s>SUZANNE MALVEAUX, CNN U.S. CORRESPONDENT: The pink hats are back as thousands of women gather here on the National Mall at the Women's March. I covered back in 2017 when there were 5 million people who participated throughout the country, 200,000 in D.C. It is largely different and smaller because of COVID-19. That is the way they want it. But they got the several thousand women that have the energy and the passion. They want voters to come out. They said 43 percent of those eligible to vote back in 2016 did so. They want to get those numbers up. We are looking here, just in the back earlier, the rally began at Freedom Plaza and went to the U.S. Capitol and then to the Supreme Court. Here at the National Mall, this is where they are headed to text upon (ph). They want to text 5 million people, reach 5 million voters, female voters, many of them new, to encourage them to vote this time around. They say it is that important, it is that critical. They are talking about fighting for reproductive rights, climate change, racial equality among many of the causes I had a chance to talk to. Many of the participants. Here is just a sampling of what they are concerned about.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, I quarantined just to be able to go to this. But I only go out to go to the grocery store, that's all. I haven't seen my grandchildren. I haven't seen my children. So it is just -- the whole country is just horrible.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Women are being demeaned even worse right now, especially since that we are in a time where everything is tumultuous, the world is pretty much spinning in opposite directions, no matter whether it's Black Lives Matter, whether it's women's rights. It's all connected in some way, shape or another.</s>MALVEAUX: The priority of the marchers is to slow down the process of replacing the late justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the Supreme Court, not to rush it through but to wait for the next president to be elected. That was her dying wish. That is something that they want the White House and Congress to be clear on -- Suzanne Malveaux, CNN, Washington.</s>CURNOW: So the deadly coronavirus is surging again in the U.S. as we have been saying and experts say it could get much, much worse this time. That is because the virus has now spread pretty much everywhere. We'll show you how and where. Next.

Italy Reports Record New Cases As Second Wave Grips Europe

CURNOW: There's a new surge of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. Experts say it can be dramatically worse compared to spring or summer and here's why. The virus has made it to every region and not one of them seems to be safe. So take a look at this map. U.S. reported almost 70,000 new infections just on Friday. The most since July 29th, using data from Johns Hopkins University. That brings the total number of U.S. cases to over 8.1 million. That comes as 10 states reported their highest number of new COVID cases on Friday. As the weather cools in the U.S., COVID numbers are expected to rise even further, as Evan McMorris-Santoro now reports.</s>EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Public health officials in the United States are sounding the alarm as cases rise across the country and winter swiftly approaches. As you can see from this graphic, 10 states across the country recently reported their highest single-day total of new COVID cases since the pandemic began. Now Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that more states are showing bad numbers and things can get a lot worse.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: You can't enter into the cool months of the fall and the cold months of the winter with a high community infection baseline. And looking at the map and seeing the heat map, how it lights up with test positivity that is in more than 30-plus states, it is going in the wrong direction. It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures. And again I emphasize, without necessarily shutting down the country.</s>MCMORRIS-SANTORO: What Dr. Fauci is saying is that people need to realize the things that kept the virus in check in the spring are also important for the winter. A diligent adherence to social distancing rules and mask requirements. Without it, Fauci says, America could be in for a very tough winter -- Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.</s>CURNOW: And European governments are also scrambling to stop a second and more severe wave. New cases are sweeping the continent as this map shows. If the country is shaded red and orange, the virus numbers are really, really going the wrong way. Now the U.K. just recorded another 150 deaths in the past 24 hours.</s>CURNOW: And its leaders are feeling the pressure. The mayor of Manchester is pushing again back against prime minister Boris Johnson who's considering tougher restrictions. And in Germany, the country had 7,800 new cases on Saturday, a new record. One German governor warned the nation is in danger of losing control in some areas. And then in Italy, which was one of the hardest hit nations at the start of this, there were almost 11,000 new infections reported on Friday through Saturday which is a new daily high there. So with coronavirus on the rise in northern England, the prime minister Boris Johnson is calling the situation grave, yet the prime minister and the mayor of Manchester are at loggerheads over imposing additional restrictions. For more on that, I want to bring in Salma Abdelaziz, in Manchester. Tell us why the folks in Manchester are pushing back at Westminster.</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: This is essentially for the mayor of Manchester and his government a risk versus reward calculation. They say the risk to businesses shutting down under this 3 tier system is not worth the reward in terms of the number of infections that would be brought down. They argue a nationwide lockdown would be more effective in bringing case numbers and would provide more of an economic package for. Businesses. Of course the prime minister disagrees. Take a look at how this dispute has played out.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): An ordinary act of defiance from the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.</s>ANDY BURNHAM, MANCHESTER MAYOR: We've unanimously opposed the government's plans for tier 3. They are flawed and unfair.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): The city now faces an ultimatum from prime minister Boris Johnson.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: If agreement cannot be reached, I will need to intervene.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Downing Street implemented a 3 tier COVID-19 alert system to curb a second wave of coronavirus cases. Not abiding by these new measures, the government says, means more people will die. But Afzal Khan, a member of Parliament from Manchester, says it's the prime minister, not the mayor, who is putting lives at risk.</s>AFZAL KHAN, MANCHESTER GORTON MP: I'm disappointed. I think they've been incompetent. I've never seen anything like this from a British government.</s>ABDELAZIZ: So why won't you just implement tier 3 restrictions as the government requested?</s>KHAN: Of course it will help but it will not be what we need. We need more. I think that's my first concern. And second point is the impact economically will be huge.</s>ABDELAZIZ: This shopping district is absolutely packed. And that's what this debate is about. Even under the country's highest</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): It would also come with more financial support to help businesses survive a second hit. Pub owner Tim Flynn says, if he closes his doors under the 3 tier system, he may never be able to reopen. Again</s>TIM FLYNN, ,PUB OWNER: A local lockdown will not do. It I have no problem with the sharp two week</s>ABDELAZIZ: Do you support the mayor and him -- ?</s>FLYNN: I do support Andy Burnham 110 percent.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): He is not alone. On the streets of Manchester, it is hard to find support for the prime minister.</s>ABDELAZIZ: We are asking whether you support the mayor or the prime minister on coronavirus restrictions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the mayor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mayor. I'm on the mayor's side, definitely. Yes, I'm siding with the mayor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the mayor, yes.</s>ABDELAZIZ: What's your opinion of prime minister Boris Johnson?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't say it on</s>TV. ABDELAZIZ: While the government remains in a state of paralysis, the virus continues to spread.</s>ABDELAZIZ: Now talks between these 2 sides have stalled. There have been no direct negotiations between the government of Manchester and Downing Street since Thursday. That MP we did speak to in the piece says he expects, while there is nothing on the calendar, his personal expectation is that this could be resolved on Monday. We'll be hearing from both Boris Johnson officials and the mayor himself on the Sunday morning talk show in Britain.</s>CURNOW: Just got me as I sneezed so hopefully I didn't make that on air. But thank you very much. I know yesterday you heard someone yelling behind you. So we're even now. Thanks a lot. OK, so we're going to continue talking about coronavirus. Italy is facing that second spike as well. The country is reporting escalating record cases this, week and we know that schools have also shut down. This time the country is dealing with the pandemic much, much more aggressively as Ben Wedeman reports from Naples.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For the fourth day in a row, Italy has reported record high daily increases in the number of new coronavirus cases.</s>WEDEMAN: Numbers far higher than we saw earlier in the year, when Italy was the European epicenter of the pandemic. Yet deaths remain relatively low from coronavirus. Still, in the double digits. We are in Naples where the governor of this region has ordered schools and universities to be closed. Restaurants have to close their doors by 9 pm. We also had the time to speak with the region's senior infectious disease specialist, who told us that this region is taking a much more aggressive approach to testing. In the past in Italy you actually had to show symptoms of the disease. Now all you need is a doctor's referral. So testing is much more easily available for those who want it, regardless of whether they show symptoms. All of this it is hoped, will help stop this latest alarming surge, a second wave in this pandemic. I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Naples.</s>CURNOW: The U.S. president Trump owes a lot to suburban women for winning the 2016 election but this year many of them want him to lose. And that might cost him that important swing state. We've got that story, an important one, stick around. You're watching CNN.

Trump Losing White Female Voters In Swing States; Republican Seniors Voting For Biden

CURNOW: Welcome back to our viewers here in the United States and all around the world. Thanks for joining me.</s>CURNOW: I'm Robyn Curnow coming to you from CNN's world headquarters here in Atlanta and it is 29 minutes past the hour. So if it seems to you that more people are early voting for this presidential election, you'd be right. More voters than ever are going to the polls early or requesting absentee ballots. Let's just compare this time to back in 2016, 17 days before the election and there were only 7 million early voters in a bit more than half of the states. This time it's over 22 million in almost all of the states. But despite all of these high numbers, there is still no way to tell who is a favorite to win and that's because Joe Biden supporters are more likely to vote before Election Day than Trump supporters. And here in the state of Georgia, early voters are certainly coming out in droves. Look at these images, these lines. And polls haven't even been open a week. As of noon on Saturday, there were over 1 million in-person votes, that's up 134 percent from last election. Natasha Chen has been on the ground and she filed this report.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The wait in the afternoon is significantly shorter than what we saw this morning when the doors opened a 8 am. We saw people here who said that they had already been waiting more than 3 hours just to make sure that they could cast their vote. In fact if you see the fence line and the yellow tape over there that's currently empty, this morning at 7 or 8 that was completely full. So a lot of energy and enthusiasm from voters who say it's so important for them to cast their vote. In fact, across the state of Georgia, we are seeing more than a 100 percent increase in turnout, combining both early in-person voting with absentee ballots compared to this point in the 2016 election. We also met some first-time voters in line, who said they're very excited to be. . is what they said.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need change in this country right now and honestly it's important for the younger people to come out, because it's our country to run at this point. It's not for the older generation anymore. It's us that are coming up now.</s>CHEN: We also talked to her brother, Douglas (ph), who is 23. He said he missed Voting in the 2016 election because he made the mistake of thinking that the outcome was guaranteed. So he and his family talked to me about how every vote matters. A lot with similar sentiments, saying that the issues driving them to the polls is the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic and the government's response to police brutality -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Marietta, Georgia.</s>CURNOW: Thanks Natasha for. That So U.S. polls show that President Trump is deeply unpopular with many women. Voters and he is very much aware of that gender gap. It would also explain this appeal he made on Saturday.</s>TRUMP: They will kill your jobs, dismantle your police departments, dissolve your borders, raise your taxes, destroy your suburbs. And I saved your suburbs. Women, suburban women, you're supposed to love Trump.</s>CURNOW: Kate Bolduan went to Pennsylvania where 50 percent of white women voted for Trump in 2016. Here's what some of them are saying this time around.</s>HOLLI GEITNER (R), BIDEN SUPPORTER: You all right? I'm probably a good example of someone who's gone through a lot of change in four years.</s>KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Holli Geitner, a registered Republican, is a working parent of two kids living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and she wasn't alone. Fifty percent of white women in Pennsylvania did the same, according to exit polls.</s>BOLDUAN: What do you feel today about your vote four years ago?</s>GEITNER: I can tell you how I felt four years ago. Shame.</s>BOLDUAN: Do you regret your vote?</s>GEITNER: Where we are today? Yes, I do. I don't think that this is the "great again " that everyone thought it was going to be.</s>BOLDUAN: So Holli is voting for Joe Biden and so is Nin Bell.</s>BOLDUAN: What drew you to Donald Trump? Why did you vote for Donald Trump then?</s>NIN BELL, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: For his celebrity, 100 percent.</s>BOLDUAN: It was the brand?</s>BELL: It was.</s>BOLDUAN: The image?</s>BELL: Absolutely. Successful, funny. Like he was funny, I loved his show, "The Celebrity Apprentice." Never missed it.</s>BOLDUAN: Was there a moment when you decided I cannot support him anymore?</s>BELL: It was almost instantly.</s>BOLDUAN: It's not just outside the cities where suburban women are questioning their support for Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, it's even out here in Westmoreland County, rural Pennsylvania. Considered Trump Country. We're about to meet two of them.</s>JULIE BRADY, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: She's older.</s>JOAN SMELTZER, FORMER TRUMP SUPPORTER: I'm older.</s>BOLDUAN: Oh, you're definitely sisters. Joan Smeltzer and Julie Brady are registered Democrats and both voted for Trump in 2016.</s>SMELTZER: I felt like I got duped, I got it wrong.</s>SMELTZER: And it hurts my heart. It truly hurts my heart because the things that I saw I didn't take seriously enough.</s>BOLDUAN: Throughout the campaign he was making sexist, misogynistic remarks and then there was the "Access Hollywood" tape. How did you guys process and digest that, being out there and voting for him?</s>SMELTZER: It was not easy. I look at myself and I think how could I do that?</s>BRADY: I feel like I did a disservice to women by voting for this guy.</s>BOLDUAN: Was there a moment in the last four years when you said, I can't do this again?</s>BRADY: The COVID pandemic, the way he handled it. That that was the absolute last straw for me. He didn't create the virus but he kind of left us all in the dark guessing what was going on. And that wasn't fair to us.</s>BOLDUAN: Among the women we spoke to the coronavirus, the president's handling of the pandemic and the racial unrest following the police killing of George Floyd were the overwhelming driving issues.</s>GEITNER: George Floyd's killing was a pivotal moment for me. And when I read that he was begging for his mom, as a mother myself, it just brought me to my knees. And to see what's happened since, I feel like he's added fuel to flames of hatred. And that really bothers me.</s>CROWD: No justice. No peace.</s>BOLDUAN: Nim Bell who registered as a Republican in 2016 just to vote for Trump in the primaries now protests weekly in her town just outside Philadelphia. Often met by groups she used to consider herself a part of, Trump supporters, setting up counterdemonstrations.</s>BELL: I think Trump kind of thrives on that, on that division. I see it in my own town.</s>SMELTZER: Integrity, that's what we're lacking.</s>BRADY: And accountability.</s>SMELTZER: Yes.</s>BRADY: Being the mom of a 9-year old, that's one thing that I push with my son all the time is you made a bad decision, it's your fault, you learn from it, you move on. We have a president who nothing that happens is ever his fault, it's always somebody else's fault.</s>BOLDUAN: Well, there are consequences.</s>BRADY: There are consequences. He's about to find them out.</s>BOLDUAN: The women we talked to don't speak for every woman in Pennsylvania of course. But what they have to say and why shows the uphill battle that Donald Trump is facing right now in this battleground state. The latest polling shows Trump trailing Joe Biden by 23 points among women in Pennsylvania -- Kate Bolduan, CNN, New York.</s>CURNOW: Let's bring in our polling expert Harry Enten, he's a senior political writer. Harry, wonderful to see you. I know you crunch the numbers and I want to get your take. Which voting bloc do you think could swing this, either way? I want to talk about seniors and suburban women but I want to start with seniors.</s>HARRY ENTEN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: We are seeing some trends. Seniors was a group that Donald Trump won last time around. He won it by about 5 to 6 points. If you look at the polls right now, what do you see? You see Trump is trailing among seniors by 10 points over former vice president Joe Biden. If Biden ends up carrying seniors, he's going to be the first Democratic candidate to carry seniors in about 20 years, if not 24, depending on what poll you look at. So there's no doubt to me that Donald Trump has lost his grip on those voters age 65 and over and they are a group heavily in Joe Biden's corner at this point.</s>CURNOW: And I think COVID has a lot to do with that. Let's talk a little bit about suburban women. In many ways, Mr. Trump carried them as well last time around. Again, seeing a lot of trends that see them turning against the president. Why?</s>ENTEN: I mean, look, the current average of polls, suburban women are favoring vice president Biden by 21 points. Back in 2016, Hillary Clinton was only leading them by 12 percentage points. I think there are a number of reasons. The pandemic has something to do with it but it goes beyond that. Women at large are against the president of the United States, white women especially have moved significantly against the president. I think it has to do with a number of factors, including economic factors. Women want to make sure that there's the Affordable Care Act in place and obviously President Trump is trying to get rid of it. The tax cuts that passed a few years ago, women voters didn't like that. And the other thing I'll mention is that President Trump has been trying to say, I'm going to keep your neighborhoods safe for suburban women. But in fact they don't trust him on that issue whatsoever. A recent FOX News poll indicated that suburban women were much more in Joe Biden's corner when it came to racial equality and the police.</s>ENTEN: So there are a slew of factors that are running against the president when it comes to suburban women.</s>CURNOW: But still, we're hearing from the Biden campaign and Democrats, perhaps a little cautious after 2016. But they are urging folks not to be complacent. And then again, you know that the Electoral College can throw off anything. Can you put a number, a percentage on Mr. Trump's chances right now?</s>ENTEN: Here's what I essentially would say. If you were to take a die at a casino, what's the chance you're going to roll 6 on any one roll of the die? Then perhaps Trump's chances are a little worse than that. But over and over and over again, we have a little bit over 2 weeks to go. There are some historical examples where someone in Trump's position has come back to win. But there's no doubt, when you look at the national polls, when you look at the swing states, the president is behind at this point.</s>CURNOW: What do you make of early voting? I know you have been quite verbal about not taking any clues or signposts from early voting. Why is? That</s>ENTEN: I mean look, I should point out look. There are of a lot of voters casting ballots, over 22 million at this particular point. And the fact is that I think we're probably headed towards record turnout. We don't necessarily know who those voters are and, more than that, we know from the polls that Democrats have said that they're more likely to vote early while the president's supporters are more likely to vote on Election Day. We know, back in 2016, in two key swing states, Florida and North Carolina had a lot of early voters. Hillary Clinton won them. But President Trump carried both of the states because he did so well among the Election Day voters. Although you'd rather get your votes in case something happens at the last minute, an Election Day vote at the end of the day counts the same as an early vote.</s>CURNOW: Are you looking at any demographic -- we, are talking about suburban women, pensioners -- are you looking at any demographic who might surprise? For example, African American men or Hispanic men, who have certainly been courted by the Republican National Convention. Do you see that balancing out by a surprise group of supporters for the president?</s>ENTEN: Yes, you do look at the polls; there actually isn't much of a doubt in my mind that he is doing better among voters of color. He is doing better among African Americans than he did four years ago, he's doing better among Hispanic voters. The problem is that he's doing so much worse among white voters that that overrides some of the better strength that Trump has among voters of color. But would it be surprising that at the end of the day if you go to a state like Pennsylvania and maybe Trump does a little bit better in Philadelphia, where there are more Black voters and that carries him over the finish line? That's possible. But at this point, the president's surprising strengths don't outweigh what might be Biden's surprising strength, seniors and white voters in particular.</s>CURNOW: It just seems like November 3rd is about 500 million years away. Anything could happen. Harry, wonderful to see. Thanks so much, have a great. Weekend</s>ENTEN: You too.</s>CURNOW: So coming, up another symbolic flight is about to get underway in the Middle East. Coming up what the U.S. Treasury Secretary's trip could it mean for Arab-Israeli ties.

Mnuchin Leads U.S. Delegation To Israel, Bahrain, UAE

CURNOW: Live pictures here of a historic trip that is about to get underway in the Middle East. It's the first ever direct commercial flight from Israel to Bahrain and it's set to take off shortly in that plane behind the red carpet and the speakers. We know that the U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin will be on board. He's leading a U.S. delegation, along with Israeli officials. After Bahrain they're set to visit the UAE. So for the latest, let's go straight to Ben Gurion Airport in Israel. Oren Liebermann is standing by, right by the camera, taking these images. Talk us through what we can see now and what's going to happen next.</s>OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Robyn,</s>CURNOW: We will watch that and monitor those images. But also we're expecting the first-ever UAE delegation to visit Israel and that is also going to be seen as historic.</s>LIEBERMANN: Very much so. This is after the Israeli delegation visited the UAE a few weeks ago. Now it's the reciprocal visit. The UAE visiting here and because of the coronavirus in Israel, this will actually take place entirely at the airport. They will do an official statement, perhaps a signing ceremony. But all the meetings between delegations will be right at the airport because of coronavirus numbers through Israel, which have been improving but apparently are not good enough for the UAE to feel comfortable going to Jerusalem. Regardless, it will be a historic visit, the first ever official Emirati delegation to Israel. That will be on Tuesday on a Etihad (ph) flight from Abu Dhabi. So that, of course, a very big deal for Israel, for the U.S., for the Bahrainis, for the Gulf and for the Emiratis.</s>CURNOW: OK, we're going to leave it at that. I know you have a lot of work to do as these gentlemen are about to board that plane. Thanks to you, Oren Liebermann, and your team there on the ground there at Ben Gurion. Appreciate it. So we're learning more chilling details about this deadly attack on Friday in a Paris suburb. France's anti terror prosecutors said an 18 year old accused of beheading a teacher approached students outside this school and asked them to point out the victim. Officials say the attacker was a Russian refugee of Chechen origin and that he decapitated the teacher because he showed his class caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. Now some parents are shaken.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): My daughter attends this school. I knew him by sight. It's not a teacher she had had. But I knew him by sight. So it's unfortunate. You think of the family, just for giving a lecture on freedom of expression. When you put it into perspective, it's just a lesson. Human madness, that's where we are today in France. It's unfortunate, just a lesson, just a caricature. Frankly, it's hard to imagine that someone could do it just for that, a drawing, a simple drawing.</s>CURNOW: Well, the victim was a 47-year-old history and geography teacher. He was on his way home when he was attacked. So coming up here at CNN, stuck in limbo during the coronavirus. One rugby player has to decide whether to keep training and working for a dream that may never come true.

Kenya Stars Struggling Through Pandemic.

CURNOW: Results won't be official for another 3 weeks but New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern today is savoring her landslide victory in Saturday's general election. Her Labor Party won almost 50 percent of the vote in an apparent parliamentary majority. She said she will govern for every New Zealander and</s>JACINDA ARDERN, NEW ZEALAND PRIME MINISTER: Tonight we are living in an increasingly polarized world, a place where more and more people have lost the ability to see one another's point of view. I hope that this election, New Zealand has shown that this is not who we are, that, as a nation, we can listen and we can debate. After all, we are too small to lose sight of other people's perspective.</s>CURNOW: So Prime Minister Ardern's success at the polls was due in no small part to the measures she took to halt the spread of COVID in New Zealand. That allowed more than 46,000 maskless fans to attend a huge rugby match today near Auckland in the Bledisloe Cup between New Zealand and Australia. Isn't this amazing to see? Don't you wish you were there? Well maybe not, if you are an Aussie because the All Blacks beat the Wallabies 27 to 7. And athletes around the world are also navigating life during the pandemic. One of the stars of Kenya's rugby Sevens team was hoping he would have an Olympic medal by now. Instead he's training on his own and not getting paid. David McKenzie now reports.</s>DAVID MCKENZIE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Andrew Amonde likes to lead by example. After months of lockdown, the 14-year veteran and captain of Kenya Sevens rugby team is back training for his Olympic dreams.</s>ANDREW AMONDE, KENYA SEVENS: Sports can still go on despite having the pandemic around.</s>MCKENZIE: Training without his teammates or even a contract.</s>AMONDE: All of the contracts were canceled. And there is the dangers for free because I love the game, you know.</s>AMONDE: When I play the rugby, I came and developed a love for it. And I just thrown myself into it and it's something that I do with a passion.</s>MCKENZIE (voice-over): A love of the game tested by COVID-19. Organizers grabbed the popular global Sevens tournament when the pandemic struck. Suddenly out of cash, the Kenyan rugby union says, it was left with little choice. But you stopped paying its players. Amonde says the youngest team members were hardest hit.</s>AMONDE: There's no other can go now because there are no jobs for them now because they are fulltime rugby players. And the only thing they can wait for is for rugby to resume and for them to be get both their contracts.</s>MCKENZIE: When CNN visited the Sevens Team in 2018 they were on a high. Their success growing the fast paced Sevens game in Kenya, even competing for attention with the country's fabled runners. But the national team has struggled to win games since then. Amonde says its time to rebuild.</s>AMONDE: Getting -- to get your expectation level --</s>MCKENZIE: His goal is to medal in Tokyo -- that's a challenge. And the Kenyans' strict lockdown-rules. Amonde still can't compete or even practice with his teammates. Hard work and sacrifice is something Amonde and the Kenyan Sevens team know all about. If fans don't call them to or heroes for nothing -- David McKenzie, CNN.</s>CURNOW: Thanks, David, for that story. And thank you all for watching. I'm Robyn Curnow. I'm going to hand you over to my colleague, Anna Coren, who picks things up from here. Of course, CNN continues after the break.

Trump Versus Biden In Rural Pennsylvania; Biden Leads In Polls, Warns Against Complacency; Ten U.S. States Break COVID-19 Records; New Zealand Rugby's Win Against COVID-19; Women's March Focus: Protest Trump And Get Voters To Polls.

ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The president rallies as COVID spikes. Both battleground states he visited Saturday are seeing rising cases. But Donald Trump hardly mentioned the pandemic. Millions of Americans already have made up their minds and cast their ballots. We'll look at what record setting early voting numbers mean for the election. And later, what pandemic? New Zealand enables 46,000 rugby fans to watch the All Blacks with no masks or social distancing. Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Anna Coren. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.</s>COREN: Almost 14 million cases of COVID-19 have now been documented worldwide since the pandemic began. The virus is spreading unchecked almost everywhere. The global map is glowing with hot spots from the U.K. to Japan. We'll have the latest from Europe just ahead. No country has been hit harder than the United States. It only has a fraction of the world's population yet it accounts for one-fifth of all COVID infections and deaths. At least 10 states are reporting record numbers of new cases. That includes Michigan and Wisconsin. U.S. president Donald Trump held packed rallies in both states Saturday. Precautions such as masks and social distancing were largely ignored. Addressing the severity of the health crisis was not on the president's agenda. Instead, he continued to attack Michigan's governor for trying to shield her state from the virus. His words incited an ugly reaction. Take a listen.</s>TRUMP: Get your schools open. The schools have to be open. Right? Lock them all up.</s>COREN: The FBI says Whitmer was recently the target of a foiled kidnapping plot. She posted this reaction to the president on Twitter. "This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop." One factor pushing President Trump to hold the rallies is the poor poll numbers ahead of the election. We get more from Joe Johns in Muskegon, Michigan.</s>JOE JOHNS, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: The president in Muskegon, Michigan, a battleground state he narrowly won in 2016 for another Make America Great Again rally on an airport tarmac with a packed audience. This is a state where the president has a running feud with the governor over coronavirus restrictions. But here, there was not an overwhelming number of people wearing masks. And there was relatively no social distancing. People were packed in here like sardines. This state does not have a good record right now on coronavirus. In fact, on Friday 2,000 new cases were reported by the state and, on Saturday, about 1,800. So far Michigan has not turned the corner on the pandemic -- Joe Johns, CNN, Muskegon, Michigan.</s>COREN: Although Joe Biden has a significant lead in most polls, his campaign is warning supporters not to become complacent in the final two weeks. Here's Jason Carroll.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources and energy in the battleground states. And states that are doing early in-person voting, we're seeing some of those same images coming out of places like North Carolina. For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday; should be making two stops there. Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday, neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday.</s>CARROLL: Harris, for her part, as you know, a couple of people in her orbit have tested positive For COVID-19. So they physically took her off the campaign trail for a couple of days. She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So looking ahead, again, you've got Biden; he's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida; she will be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania on Monday, she will be in Michigan on Tuesday. But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be out there campaigning for Biden. He'll be doing that in Philadelphia. And a number of Democrats are saying that, if there's one surrogate you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one.</s>COREN: It's set to be a record-breaking year for early and mail-in voting ahead of the November 3rd U.S. election. Early voting officially begins on Monday in Florida. Around 2.5 million people have already cast mail-in ballots. About 2.7 million people voted by mail in 2016. More than 3 million mailed ballots have yet to be cast this year. Out west in Nevada, early voting began Saturday in Las Vegas and elsewhere in Clark County. So many cars streamed into drive-in polling locations, officials are calling it a ballot dropoff parade. In Georgia, early in-person voting keeps setting records. More than 1.3 million votes cast by mid Saturday. That's more than a 130 percent increase from 2016. But a high turnout isn't always a good thing for people who want quick and easy voting. CNN's Natasha Chen spent Saturday at a busy polling station in Georgia.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The wait in the afternoon is significantly shorter than what we saw this morning when the doors opened a 8 am. We saw people here who said that they had already been waiting more than 3 hours just to make sure that they could cast their vote. In fact if you see the fence line and the yellow tape over there that's currently empty, this morning at 7 or 8 that was completely full. So a lot of energy and enthusiasm from voters who say it's so important for them to cast their vote. In fact, across the state of Georgia, we are seeing more than a 100 percent increase in turnout, combining both early in-person voting with absentee ballots compared to this point in the 2016 election. We also met some first-time voters in line, who said they're very excited to be. . is what they said.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need change in this country right now and honestly it's important for the younger people to come out, because it's our country to run at this point. It's not for the older generation anymore. It's us that are coming up now.</s>CHEN: We also talked to her brother, Douglas (ph), who is 23. He said he missed Voting in the 2016 election because he made the mistake of thinking that the outcome was guaranteed. So he and his family talked to me about how every vote matters. A lot with similar sentiments, saying that the issues driving them to the polls is the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic and the government's response to police brutality -- Natasha Chen, CNN, Marietta, Georgia.</s>COREN: Let's bring in Robert Gutsche, who teaches sociology at Lancaster University in England. What is your take on the scenes we're witnessing across the U.S., where Americans are casting early voting? What does it say?</s>ROBERT GUTSCHE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY IN ENGLAND: For those who rallied for the republic as soon as a huge win and shows us maybe how voting needs to change and has needed to change for a long time in the United States. Not just in terms of early voting but through technology and through the Postal Service, something that Donald Trump actually was trying to get rid of. But this is showing a lot of enthusiasm and maybe having us think differently about trying to get everything done in such a short time. Now I don't know if that means people are going to want to wait a few days for results. That may need a few more years before we can do that over a few days. But this is a good sign for those who want to see the Republican, the democracy take hold.</s>COREN: Just over two weeks until Election Day. And obviously the sprint is both on for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. What strategies are you expecting from both sides?</s>GUTSCHE: Donald Trump's strategy all along has been to attack, attack and to make fun and shame. He's going to need to figure out how to balance that out with some policy. It's not just about make America great again like it was the first campaign. And it's not just about the emotion, either. Certainly that's driving a lot of his supporters. He's going to have to come down with more specific policies if he wants to get those people off the fence.</s>GUTSCHE: And for Joe Biden, he has to do the same thing. He's been laying low, trying to keep his gaffes low and trying to let Donald Trump make a ruckus and react to that. But we don't know what kind of president Joe Biden would be. So he needs to step up and tell us more about how he would govern, not just how he would govern differently from Donald Trump.</s>COREN: And what about seeing Obama on the campaign trail this week? Do you think that will be an obvious boost for Joe Biden?</s>GUTSCHE: Well, that's his ace in the hole. Right? And Barack Obama came out earlier for Biden. He's been playing it fair in the background, quiet, because this isn't Barack Obama's campaign. This is Joe Biden's campaign. But it is about time for Barack Obama to come out and do that for Harris and Biden. But that also might have a bit of a flip side to it. If people start to look at Joe Biden as Barack Obama and, said, well we didn't want him in office anyway, let's flip back to Trump. So all this stuff is coming down to what people find as a fundamental aspect of what they want in a president. So it will help. But for others, it might just rally even more Donald Trump support.</s>COREN: Robert, it's been a tumultuous first term for Donald Trump. Support for the president is eroding across the country, according to national polls. What do you think Trump can do to win back the voters who were with him in 2016?</s>GUTSCHE: Well, I do think some of what he might be losing is support among white women. That was a huge push for him in his first election. And I think we saw in this last town hall debate a softer side maybe to Donald Trump or how he can try and tone it down a bit. I think for him that might help, to keep it softer, not just for women but in that sense he wasn't attacking the woman sitting across from him, which we would hope and expect a candidate to behave that way. But for Donald Trump, that was something a bit new. And I think that response to seeing a lack of support or slipping support from that strong base that he's had. So he's going to have to think about that strategy. At the end of the day, people have to judge him on the way he's treated women in that case. That hasn't looked good. He has to figure out who he is and how he's going to answer to those past times, because, in the last few weeks, they have a lot of dirt they could dig up on Donald Trump and put out on the ads. And Democrats have to decide if they want to go that route.</s>COREN: President Trump only has two weeks to turn that image around. Great to get your analysis, Robert Gutsche, joining us from Lancaster University in England. Pennsylvania, nicknamed the Keystone State, is certainly a key battleground for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. The Democrat hopes to return the state back to his party's column. In one county in particular, an intense political dogfight has broken out between the two sides. CNN's chief political correspondent Dana Bash paid a visit.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A line forms outside well before opening waiting to enter the Trump House.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're ready for the next group to come in.</s>BASH: A mecca of sorts for the President's supporters in southwest, Pennsylvania where Trump's record turnout four years ago helped deliver his surprise Pennsylvania victory and the White House.</s>LESLIE ROSSI, OWNER AND CREATOR, THE TRUMP HOUSE: Shirt or hat per person. You get a sign or flag.</s>BASH: Leslie Rossi created the Trump House in 2016, where she pushed disaffected Democrats and never before voters to choose Trump.</s>ROSSI: We gave people a place to come to believe they could win.</s>BASH: Now Trump supporters show up daily for swag and yard signs and help registering to vote.</s>SCOTT HARRER, TRUMP SUPPORTER & FIRST-TIME VOTER: We need Trump in here again. I'm 65. I think it's time to register.</s>BASH (on camera): Have you not voted ever?</s>HARRER: No.</s>BASH (voice-over): Rural Westmoreland County has seen a surge in Republican registrations. They help with that here too.</s>RITA BLAIR, FORMER DEMOCRAT: I changed my registration from Democrat to Republican.</s>BASH (on camera): Why?</s>BLAIR: From what I've seen in the last past couple of years, I was ashamed to say I was a Democrat.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a great honor to have you here in --</s>BASH (voice-over): But Joe Biden isn't giving up here, campaigning in Westmoreland County this month. Hillary Clinton didn't come here in the general election. (on camera): It's not an area Democrats come in and campaign very often, but you're here. Why?</s>DR. JILL BIDEN, WIFE OF JOE BIDEN: I'm here because, like I said, we are not taking any vote for granted.</s>GINA CERILLI, (D), COUNTY COMMISSIONER, WESTMORELAND COUNTY, PA: They've seen the past four with the --</s>BASH (voice-over): Gina Cerilli is county commissioner of Westmoreland, P.A. Ten years ago, she was Ms. Pennsylvania in Donald Trump's Miss USA Pageant. Now she's an elected Democrat working to blunt Trump's advantage here.</s>CERILLI: In 2016, Donald Trump was a fresh face. He was new to politics. Everyone was excited. He made big promises. Bring back jobs. But frankly, Donald Trump broke those promises.</s>BASH: In small town Pennsylvania, signs matter. Trumps are everywhere, big and bold. But Biden's are out there, too.</s>CERILLI: When you see signs like this, it makes the Republicans and Democrats that voted for Trump in 2016 realize, I'm not alone.</s>BASH: A big Biden challenge, his supporters are being COVID careful.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never did we think we would be meeting via Zoom.</s>BASH: Phyllis Friend, head of Democratic Women of Westmoreland County, organizes from home. She's clear eyed about the Democrats' goal here in Trump country.</s>PHYLLIS FRIEND, HEAD OF DEMOCRATIC WOMEN OF WESTMORELAND: We can't win Pennsylvania for him, but we can add to the total numbers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, David, this is Jim. I volunteer for the Trump campaign. How are you doing?</s>BASH: As for Republicans, they never stopped traditional ways of getting out the vote: knocking on doors, walking in neighborhoods in masks and using a GOP data-driven app to find and persuade voters.</s>BRITTNEY ROBINSON, OPERATIONS MANAGER, PENNSYLVANIA RNC: Depending on who that voter is, we're able to tailor that message at the door and on the phone to how we think we need to target that voter and turn them out.</s>BASH: Given that President struggles in the suburbs, boosting the vote here is critical for Trump. (on camera): How important is it for him to get his numbers even higher than it was four years ago?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do think that we need to increase our voter turnout here for the president to offset some of what might be happening in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.</s>BASH (voice-over): Back at the Trump, Leslie Rossi shows us the log of visits from thousands of Trump supporters. (on camera): What do you think this year?</s>ROSSI: Oh, my numbers have tripled, tripled. Four years ago, my work was really hard here. I had to convince the voters to vote for the candidate. I had to convince them President Trump was the best choice for them. This time, I don't have to do any of that. They're all in.</s>BASH (voice-over): Whether enough are all in, could determine whether Trump wins Pennsylvania and a second term -- Dana Bash, CNN, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.</s>COREN: Health experts have warned coronavirus cases could rise as temperatures fall. That predicted surge may have arrived in the U.S. A look at the data straight ahead.

Italy Reports Record New Cases As Second Wave Grips Europe; French Cities Under Nighttime Curfew

COREN: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Anna Coren. You're watching CNN NEWSROOM. European governments are scrambling to get coronavirus spread under control. New cases are sweeping the continent. The red and orange show areas where the virus has spread from last week, at least 10 percent more than the week before. Germany recorded more than 7,800 new cases Saturday, a new record. One German governor warned the nation is in danger of, quote, "losing control in some areas." In Italy which was one of the hardest hit nations at the start of the pandemic, there were nearly 11,000 new infections recorded from Friday to Saturday. That's a new daily high. CNN has reporters covering the COVID crisis from all angles in Europe. Let's begin with Ben Wedeman.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For the fourth day in a row, Italy has reported record high daily increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. Numbers far higher than we saw earlier in the year, when Italy was the European epicenter of the pandemic. Yet deaths remain relatively low from coronavirus. Still, in the double digits. We are in Naples where the governor of this region has ordered schools and universities to be closed. Restaurants have to close their doors by 9 pm. We also had the time to speak with the region's senior infectious disease specialist, who told us that this region is taking a much more aggressive approach to testing. In the past in Italy you actually had to show symptoms of the disease. Now all you need is a doctor's referral. So testing is much more easily available for those who want it, regardless of whether they show symptoms. All of this it is hoped, will help stop this latest alarming surge, a second wave in this pandemic. I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN, reporting from Naples.</s>COREN: After a summer of managing COVID-19, France is setting shocking daily records for infections. A nighttime curfew is in effect in major cities to try to bring numbers down. Melissa Bell joins us from Paris. Why the spike and how do people feel about the new curfew?</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been going on for some weeks. We've seen the numbers regularly rising. Last week we saw several records broken. And again on Saturday another record broken. The French president said on national television the trouble is, with the second wave, the virus is spread out all over the country, even if there are major hot spots in some big cities, like, for instance, in greater Paris. It is the urban centers that are particularly worrying in terms of the pressure that's already being brought to bear on ICUs. For instance, here in the greater Paris region, there are more than 46 percent of ICU beds taken up by COVID-19 patients and those figures really threaten the function of the health care system that have led to this attempt through curfews to bring the figures down.</s>BELL: Last night a full night from 9:00 pm to 6:00 am, some 20 million French people found themselves ordered to be at home between 9:00 pm and 1:00 am. That seems to be fairly well respected. The question is whether it will bring down the massive rises as quickly as it needs to. We're seeing not only the number of new cases rise daily but also the positivity rate. It's now nationally at 13.1 percent. And that for authorities is extremely worrying. From yesterday as well, France has been in a state of emergency. So local authorities really can't introduce any further measures they feel are necessary, should the curfews not work fast enough.</s>COREN: Melissa Bell, joining us from Paris. Great to see you. Many thanks. As coronavirus cases continue to rise in northern England, prime minister Boris Johnson and the mayor of Manchester remain at loggerheads over imposing additional restrictions. Mr. Johnson has threatened to intervene if there's no agreement. Let's go to Salma Abdelaziz, live in Manchester. Salma, what's the issue?</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: This is essentially for the authorities of Manchester this is a risk versus reward calculation. They say the risk to businesses shutting down under this tier system is too high compared to the reward in terms of the number of infections that would be brought down. They argue a nationwide lockdown would provide more economic support for businesses and would be more effective in bringing case numbers down. Of course the prime minister disagrees. Take a look at how this dispute has played out.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): An ordinary act of defiance from the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.</s>ANDY BURNHAM, MANCHESTER MAYOR: We've unanimously opposed the government's plans for tier 3. They are flawed and unfair.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): The city now faces an ultimatum from prime minister Boris Johnson.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, U.K. PRIME MINISTER: If agreement cannot be reached, I will need to intervene.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): Downing Street implemented a 3 tier COVID-19 alert system to curb a second wave of coronavirus cases. Not abiding by these new measures, the government says, means more people will die. But Afzal Khan, a member of Parliament from Manchester, says it's the prime minister, not the mayor, who is putting lives at risk.</s>AFZAL KHAN, MANCHESTER GORTON MP: I'm disappointed. I think they've been incompetent. I've never seen anything like this from a British government.</s>ABDELAZIZ: So why won't you just implement tier 3 restrictions as the government requested?</s>KHAN: Of course it will help but it will not be what we need. We need more. I think that's my first concern. And second point is the impact economically will be huge.</s>ABDELAZIZ: This shopping district is absolutely packed. And that's what this debate is about. Even under the country's highest</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): It would also come with more financial support to help businesses survive a second hit. Pub owner Tim Flynn says, if he closes his doors under the 3 tier system, he may never be able to reopen. Again</s>TIM FLYNN, ,PUB OWNER: A local lockdown will not do. It I have no problem with the sharp two week</s>ABDELAZIZ: Do you support the mayor and him -- ?</s>FLYNN: I do support Andy Burnham 110 percent.</s>ABDELAZIZ (voice-over): He is not alone. On the streets of Manchester, it is hard to find support for the prime minister.</s>ABDELAZIZ: We are asking whether you support the mayor or the prime minister on coronavirus restrictions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For the mayor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mayor. I'm on the mayor's side, definitely. Yes, I'm siding with the mayor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the mayor, yes.</s>ABDELAZIZ: What's your opinion of prime minister Boris Johnson?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I can't say it on</s>TV. ABDELAZIZ: While the government remains in a state of paralysis, the virus continues to spread.</s>ABDELAZIZ: Now talks between these two sides have stalled. There have been no direct negotiations between the officials from Manchester and Downing Street since Thursday. That MP we did speak to in the piece says his personal expectation is that talks could resume on Monday. We'll be hearing from both Boris Johnson officials and the mayor himself on the Sunday morning talk shows in Britain. It's important to remember this is just one city in the U.K. Imagine having to negotiate each individual region and level -- Anna.</s>COREN: Yes. A lot of division. Salma Abdelaziz, joining us from Manchester, many thanks. Coming up on CNN, President Trump reacts to a horrific attack on a teacher in Paris. When we return, what he had to say during a political rally.

French Prosecutor Releases New Details On Paris Attack

COREN: U.S. president Donald Trump is offering his condolences to the French president after Friday's gruesome beheading of a teacher in Paris. Mr. Trump condemned the attack while speaking on Saturday in Wisconsin.</s>TRUMP: On behalf of the United States, I'd like to extend my sincere condolences to a friend of mine, president Macron of France where they had just yesterday a vicious, vicious Islamic terrorist attack. Beheading an innocent teacher near Paris. A horrible thing. They've apprehended nine people, who knows?</s>COREN: CNN's Jim Bittermann is in Paris with the latest on the investigation and he filed this report.</s>JIM BITTERMANN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The French anti-terrorism prosecutor has now added considerable detail to Friday's deadly attack on a schoolteacher in a Paris suburb. According to the prosecutor, the teacher, identified as 47-year-old Samuel Paty, was knifed to death and decapitated as he walked home from his school, by an 18-year-old refugee living in France. Earlier this month the teacher and led a class discussion about freedom of speech using pictures from the controversial magazine "Charlie Hebdo," which itself provoked a deadly attack in 2015 when it published caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. At least one father of the school took offense, filed a complaint with police and distributed the teacher's identity on the Internet. The assailant, gunned down by police when he refused to surrender his weapons, posted a message just after the attack saying he was responsible. It read, "I have executed one of thy dogs from hell who dared to belittle Muhammad" -- Jim Bittermann, CNN, Paris.</s>COREN: Absolutely tragic. It's a double victory for New Zealand.</s>COREN: How this rugby match became a symbolic win against COVID-19. That's ahead.

Trump Goes On Rally Blitz As 10 U.S. States Break COVID-19 Records; Thousands Of North Carolina Absentee Ballots Under Review; Biden Leads In Polls, Warns Against Complacency; Hospitalizations Climb Across U.S.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Lock them all up.</s>ANNA COREN, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): Donald Trump in Michigan. More focus on jailing the governor than controlling the state's spiking COVID cases. We'll tell you about the president's battleground blitz. But will it be enough with millions of Americans casting ballots in what's shaping up to be a record setting election for early voting. And later, Italy faces a growing coronavirus caseload with more cases per day than at the height of the first wave. Live from CNN Hong Kong, welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. I'm Anna Coren. CNN NEWSROOM starts right now.</s>COREN: Almost 40 million cases of COVID-19 have now been documented worldwide since the pandemic began. The virus is spreading unchecked almost everywhere. The global map is glowing with hot spots from the U.K. to Japan. We'll have the latest from Europe just ahead. No country has been hit harder than the United States. It only has a fraction of the world's population yet, it counts for one-fifth of all COVID infections and states. At least 10 states are reporting record numbers of new cases, including Michigan and Wisconsin. U.S. president Donald Trump held packed rallies in both states Saturday. Precautions such as masks and social distancing were largely ignored. Addressing the severity of the health crisis was not on the agenda. Instead, he continued to attack Michigan's Democratic governor Gretchen Whitmer for trying to shield her state from the virus. His words incited an ugly reaction. Take a listen.</s>TRUMP: Get your schools open, the schools have to be open, right?</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>COREN: The FBI says Whitmer was recently the target of a foiled kidnapping plot by domestic extremists. She posted this reaction to the president on Twitter. "This is exactly the rhetoric that has put me, my family, and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It needs to stop." Wisconsin posted the highest number of new COVID cases on Friday. And rallies like the president held on Saturday are the types of mass gatherings public health officials say should not happen. We have more from Jeremy Diamond from Wisconsin.</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is now losing to Joe Biden, according to recent polls, by an average of 7 points. So the president campaigning here in Janesville, Wisconsin, trying to win back some support. Talking about his support for law enforcement in particular, speaking in this town of Janesville, Wisconsin, which is 60 miles from Kenosha, Wisconsin, where, of course, a Black man, Jacob Blake, was shot by police. After that, of course, there were protests and some unrest which the president has amplified and talked about. But what he didn't talk about here is the surge here in Wisconsin of coronavirus cases happening in the state. Wisconsin is experiencing one of the worst surges in the country at the moment. Hospitalizations have tripled over the last month. And the state of Wisconsin experienced a record number of cases just the day before the president came here to Janesville to campaign. Now the White House's Coronavirus Task Force itself has warned about these types of events that the president hosted here. It wrote in its weekly report about the state of Wisconsin, saying, "Wisconsin's ability to limit further and avoid increases in hospitalizations and deaths will depend on increased observation of social distancing mitigation measures by the community until cases decline. "Lack of compliance with these measures will lead to preventable deaths." And so that is what is so startling is to see the White House Coronavirus Task Force say essentially that these very same events that the president is holding with thousands of people, packed closely together, no social distancing, very few people wearing masks, will lead to preventable deaths. Yet the president of the United States continues to hold these events. In fact, he has pledged to hold very similar events to the one we saw here in Janesville, Wisconsin, over the next few weeks, leading up to Election Day. Once a day, multiple times a day perhaps, in order to try to save his chances at reelection --</s>DIAMOND: -- Jeremy Diamond, CNN, in Janesville, Wisconsin.</s>COREN: Democratic challenger Joe Biden has a significant lead in most polls. His campaign is warning supporters not to become complacent in these final two weeks. For more, here's Jason Carroll.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: As expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources and energy in the battleground states. And states that are doing early in-person voting, we're seeing some of those same images coming out of places like North Carolina. For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday; should be making two stops there. Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday, neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday; Harris, a couple of people in her orbit have tested positive For COVID-19. So they physically took her off the campaign trail for a couple of days. She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So looking ahead, again, you've got Biden; he's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida; she will be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania on Monday, she will be in Michigan on Tuesday. But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be out there campaigning for Biden. He'll be doing that in Philadelphia. And a number of Democrats are saying that, if there's one surrogate you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one.</s>COREN: Well, it's set to be a record-breaking year for early and mail- in voting ahead of the November 3rd U.S. election. Early voting officially begins on Monday in Florida. About 2.7 million people voted by mail there in 2016. And the state reports more than 3 million mailed ballots have yet to be cast this year. Out west in Nevada, early voting began Saturday in Las Vegas and elsewhere in Clark County. So many cars streamed in to polling locations, officials are calling it a ballot dropoff parade. In Georgia, early in-person voting keeps setting records. More than 1.3 million votes were cast by mid Saturday. That's more than a 130 percent increase from 2016. North Carolina is also seeing a major jump in early in-person voting but its absentee ballot system has come under scrutiny. Dianne Gallagher reports.</s>DIANNE GALLAGHER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Every day for more than a month now Lee Zacharias checks the mail and comes up empty.</s>LEE ZACHARIAS, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I submitted my application August 20th in person at the board of elections office.</s>GALLAGHER (on camera): You have not voted yet, though?</s>ZACHARIAS: I have not received a ballot.</s>GALLAGHER (voice over): Like thousands of others in North Carolina, because of the pandemic --</s>ZACHARIAS: I have a compromised immune system.</s>GALLAGHER: Zacharias is voting by mail for the first time this year, or trying to. According to Ballot Trax, a new tool that North Carolina voters can use to check their status, her original ballot was mailed on September 11th. She contacted Guilford County in late September and was told Ballot Trax might not be accurate. So, to be safe, they canceled the original and sent her a new ballot, which she's still waiting to get.</s>ZACHARIAS: Makes me angry.</s>GALLAGHER: Across town, a different kind of voting problem. Forty- seven-year-old Vincent Gager returned his and his 83-year-old dad's ballots weeks ago. So he was shocked when we told him state data shows their ballots haven't been accepted.</s>VINCENT GAGER, NORTH CAROLINA VOTER: I've been doing it the same way for years. I sign his, you know, I'm -- I'm the witness because, you know, I'm his son.</s>GALLAGHER: He's not alone. So far, more than 1.3 million North Carolina voters have requested an absentee ballot and almost 40 percent of them have already been returned. But according to state data, nearly 7,200 are still under review, meaning the vote hasn't yet been accepted. Now, black voters make up only 16 percent of the total statewide ballot returns, but they account for almost 40 percent of the ballots listed as pending.</s>T. ANTHONY SPEARMAN, PRESIDENT, NORTH CAROLINA NAACP: This is no way to run an election.</s>GALLAGHER: Dr. T. Anthony Spearman is the president of the North Carolina NAACP. He's also a member of the board of elections in Guilford County, where nearly 6 percent of ballots returned by black voters are still listed as pending.</s>SPEARMAN: So many of them are for the first time undergoing this process and their naivety to it is causing some of these rejections.</s>GALLAGHER: As election workers review ballots for processing, they're supposed to notify a voter if they find a problem. Most issues can be fixed or cured without having to fill out a new ballot, but a slew of lawsuits surrounding what to do with ballots that are missing witness information led to the state board telling counties to do nothing.</s>GALLAGHER: And just wait for court guidance, leaving thousands of voters in limbo as the clock ticks down to Election Day.</s>SPEARMAN: And people are losing confidence. They're losing trust in the election cycle.</s>GALLAGHER: Creating suspicion in the shadows of North Carolina's ugly history of minority voter disenfranchisement.</s>GAGER: And I feel like they're trying to do voter suppression.</s>GALLAGHER: Still waiting on her ballot, Zacharias is suspicious, too.</s>ZACHARIAS: So I want to cast a vote.</s>GALLAGHER (on camera): Are you afraid that your state is going to prevent you from doing that?</s>ZACHARIAS: I don't know the answer.</s>COREN: Let's bring in Robert Gutsche, who teaches sociology at Lancaster University in England. What is your take on the scenes we're witnessing across the U.S., where Americans are casting early voting? What does it say?</s>ROBERT GUTSCHE, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, LANCASTER UNIVERSITY IN ENGLAND: For those who rallied for the republic as soon as a huge win and shows us maybe how voting needs to change and has needed to change for a long time in the United States. Not just in terms of early voting but through technology and through the Postal Service, something that Donald Trump actually was trying to get rid of. But this is showing a lot of enthusiasm and maybe having us think differently about trying to get everything done in such a short time. Now I don't know if that means people are going to want to wait a few days for results. That may need a few more years before we can do that over a few days. But this is a good sign for those who want to see the Republican, the democracy take hold.</s>COREN: Just over two weeks until Election Day. And obviously the sprint is both on for Donald Trump and Joe Biden. What strategies are you expecting from both sides?</s>GUTSCHE: Donald Trump's strategy all along has been to attack, attack and to make fun and shame. He's going to need to figure out how to balance that out with some policy. It's not just about make America great again like it was the first campaign. And it's not just about the emotion, either. Certainly that's driving a lot of his supporters. He's going to have to come down with more specific policies if he wants to get those people off the fence. And for Joe Biden, he has to do the same thing. He's been laying low, trying to keep his gaffes low and trying to let Donald Trump make a ruckus and react to that. But we don't know what kind of president Joe Biden would be. So he needs to step up and tell us more about how he would govern, not just how he would govern differently from Donald Trump.</s>COREN: And what about seeing Obama on the campaign trail this week? Do you think that will be an obvious boost for Joe Biden?</s>GUTSCHE: Well, that's his ace in the hole. Right? And Barack Obama came out earlier for Biden. He's been playing it fair in the background, quiet, because this isn't Barack Obama's campaign. This is Joe Biden's campaign. But it is about time for Barack Obama to come out and do that for Harris and Biden. But that also might have a bit of a flip side to it. If people start to look at Joe Biden as Barack Obama and, said, well we didn't want him in office anyway, let's flip back to Trump. So all this stuff is coming down to what people find as a fundamental aspect of what they want in a president. So it will help. But for others, it might just rally even more Donald Trump support.</s>COREN: Robert, it's been a tumultuous first term for Donald Trump. Support for the president is eroding across the country, according to national polls. What do you think Trump can do to win back the voters who were with him in 2016?</s>GUTSCHE: Well, I do think some of what he might be losing is support among white women. That was a huge push for him in his first election. And I think we saw in this last town hall debate a softer side maybe to Donald Trump or how he can try and tone it down a bit. I think for him that might help, to keep it softer, not just for women but in that sense he wasn't attacking the woman sitting across from him, which we would hope and expect a candidate to behave that way. But for Donald Trump, that was something a bit new. And I think that response to seeing a lack of support or slipping support from that strong base that he's had. So he's going to have to think about that strategy. At the end of the day, people have to judge him on the way he's treated women in that case.</s>GUTSCHE: That hasn't looked good. He has to figure out who he is and how he's going to answer to those past times, because, in the last few weeks, they have a lot of dirt they could dig up on Donald Trump and put out on the ads. And Democrats have to decide if they want to go that route.</s>COREN: President Trump only has two weeks to turn that image around. Great to get your analysis, Robert Gutsche, joining us from Lancaster University in England.</s>COREN: There's much more to come right here on CNN, including a look at the escalating coronavirus cases in the U.S. and whether the long- feared cold weather surge has arrived. And Disney Parks employees in the U.S. are facing layoffs as the pandemic decimates revenue. We'll look at the human cost behind the financial decisions.

Disney To Lay Off 28,000 U.S. Workers

COREN: Welcome back. Coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly in the U.S. as experts warn that a feared cold weather surge is underway. On Friday, 10 states reported their highest ever single day tallies of new infections. And more than 30 states are seeing more cases this week than they did the week before.</s>COREN: Hospitalizations are climbing nationwide. And the nation's daily average of new cases is up more than 60 percent since mid- September. According to Johns Hopkins University, the total cases in the U.S. is more than 8.1 million with almost 220,000 deaths.</s>COREN: We're now joined by Dr. Peter Drobac, an infectious disease and global health expert at the University of Oxford. What's your take on the rallies President Trump is holding in states where we are seeing record surges of coronavirus infections?</s>DR. PETER DROBAC, INFECTIOUS DISEASE AND GLOBAL HEALTH EXPERT, OXFORD UNIVERSITY: Frankly, it's irresponsible. Minnesota has been tracking the outcomes of a rally held there a couple weeks ago and has already documented 20 cases among people who attended the rally or counterprotested. And likely there are more infections seeded from there. We can very much see the rallies, which most people are in close contact and not wearing masks, can be super spreader events. And that they're happening in places where the amount of transmission is exploding is concerning.</s>COREN: The White House Coronavirus Task Force urged officials in Wisconsin last month and this week to prevent large social gatherings. It's being labeled a red zone with the fourth highest rate of positive cases per capita in the U.S. You have to assume that what the president has been doing is highly dangerous and could potentially be causing preventable deaths.</s>DROBAC: It certainly could. It's another example of the White House not following its own guidance. In Wisconsin we've seen a surge not just in infections but in hospitalizations up well over a third over the last week. There's a field hospital that's been set up in anticipation of a crush of new COVID patients coming. And so we may be starting to see the kinds of terrible scenes that we saw in New York and other places last spring occurring in places like the Midwest.</s>COREN: And Doctor, the fact that many of the people attending the rallies are not wearing masks, even though that is commonplace across much of the world?</s>DROBAC: It's one thing we know works. They are a tool to prevent the spread and also a tool of freedom. The more of us that wear masks, the higher likelihood we can keep things open and never have to lock down. If everybody was doing it, models estimate we could prevent 75,000 deaths with a simple intervention. It's extremely important. And the continued politicization of masks and the talk about so-called herd immunity strategy is dangerous right now. We're just on the cusp of things here. We've seen this wave of cases across much of the country right now. It's different than what we saw before, where -- in the spring where the virus hadn't seeded everywhere. Now it really has. As we move indoors to the winter, the ongoing first wave could turn into a tsunami.</s>COREN: I want to ask you about the 70,000 new infections reported in the U.S. on Friday. It's the highest number in a single day since July. Why are numbers still going up and will it get worse with winter?</s>DROBAC: Yes, there are a number of reasons why things aren't going up. The first is we don't have a coordinated national strategy for trying to address the COVID-19 pandemic. What we've seen obviously is that, as we move into the cooler months of the fall, more people are moving indoors, where the risk of transmission is much higher versus outdoors. We've had kids back in school, students back in universities. All of these things are starting to drive things up. Also if you go back to the spring, most of our cases were concentrated in a few areas. It hadn't, again, seeded some of the Midwest and Mountain West states to the extent they are now. We're seeing a much more kind of distributed surge in infections and a high level of community transmission across almost all the country. That's why I'm so worried. I think it's going to potentially get much worse unless we act quickly to turn the tide.</s>COREN: That was Dr. Peter Drobac, speaking with me with a short time ago. Disney is set to lay off 28,000 people in the U.S. after the coronavirus shattered attractions around the globe. Disney World in Florida has reopened but the company's California parks remain closed and it's left workers in a tough spot. Stephanie Elam has more.</s>STEPHANIE ELAM, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Disneyland: it's known as the happiest place on Earth. But for some people, it's more than a slogan.</s>MARK GRIFFIN, DISNEY HOLIDAY DECORATION DESIGNER: My return to Disney is like my return to home. I started there as a teenager.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Designer Mark Griffin gives Disneyland that holiday magic.</s>ELAM (voice-over): In two stints, he's worked more than a decade at the park. This month, he was told it would all be coming to an end.</s>ELAM: Disney announces they're laying off some 28,000 employees. How did that impact you?</s>GRIFFIN: It's devastating. We're all worried about our livelihood. I'm worried, am I going to be able to stay in this house? Am I going to keep a roof over my kids' heads? I'm 52 and I'm on food stamps for the first time in my life.</s>ELAM (voice-over): After Disney World's full reopening in July, Disneyland hoped to reopen as well. But California's summer COVID-19 spike led Governor Gavin Newsom to toughen his approach, delaying reopening indefinitely. On October 12th, he repeated his health first approach to theme parks.</s>GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): They're cities. They're small cities and there are people from all around the world that descend, not just people that are proximate to these theme parks that come together and mix.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Earlier this month, Disney fired back. Its chief medical officer tweeted, "We absolutely reject the suggestion that reopening Disneyland is incompatible with a health first approach. We have taken a robust science-based approach.</s>ELAM: The longer that Disneyland stays closed, the harder the impact on the economy and as much as Disneyland employs, the entire region relies on the tourism that comes here because of the park.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): 264,000 jobs lost in the Anaheim area during</s>COVID. ELAM (voice-over): Anaheim's Chamber of Commerce launched a campaign to push back against the governor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (voice-over): Let's reopen theme parks and reawaken our region.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Nineteen state lawmakers agreed, telling Newsom of news reports that outbreaks simply aren't being traced back to these theme parks that have already reopened. But Newsom wants his own answers. He sent his health officials to inspect safety protocols at Disney World in Florida and to tour California parks.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We wanted to show them first-hand it's not what you're thinking. Walking through a park and seeing all the different signage, the Plexiglas, the staff they'll have there, visibly cleaning all the high-touch surfaces.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Not everyone is jumping to reopen for the sake of the economy.</s>INES GUZMAN, HOUSEKEEPER: It scares me.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Ines Guzman is a housekeeper at the Disneyland Hotel and one of nearly 3,000 unite here local 11 service workers at the park.</s>GUZMAN: I love my job.</s>ELAM (voice-over): She wants to go back but is worried about the virus.</s>GUZMAN: If I bring that home, I could lose my mom, my children. That's a deadly disease.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Mark Griffin agrees. Safety is priority one, followed closely by a return of the magic.</s>GRIFFIN: We make the magic. The thought of losing that, I'm in kind of withdrawals from that.</s>ELAM: Is it part of your identity?</s>GRIFFIN: It's definitely part -- Disney is my identity.</s>ELAM (voice-over): Stephanie Elam, CNN, Anaheim, California.</s>COREN: After the break on CNN NEWSROOM, the coronavirus is surging once again across Europe. We'll take you to Italy to find out how it's changing its tactics to fight a second wave. Plus how a second wave of coronavirus is jeopardizing restaurants as they struggle to recover across Europe.

Italy Reports Record New Cases As Second Wave Grips Europe; COVID-19 Misconceptions.

COREN: Welcome back to our viewers in the United States and around the world. European governments are scrambling to get COVID-19 spread under control. New cases are sweeping the continent. The red and orange you can see here show areas where the virus spread is up from last week. At least 10 percent more than the week before. Germany recorded more than 7,800 new cases Saturday. That's a new record. One German governor warned the nation is in danger of, quote, "losing control" in some areas. Meanwhile in Italy, one of the hardest hit nations at the start of the pandemic, there were almost 11,000 new infections reported from Friday to Saturday. That's a new daily high. CNN has reporters covering the COVID crisis from across Europe. Let's join Ben Wedeman. A record number of new daily infections in Italy. The prime minister is due to announce new restrictions. What can we expect?</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. It's important to keep in mind this is the fourth day in a row that we've seen record highs, highs far higher than we saw earlier this year in March, which was the height of the pandemic here in Italy. Now just to give you an idea of where we are, we're in Naples outside a COVID hospital, where tents have been set up for COVID testing. This facility is open seven days a week. They test about 1,000 people a day. Unlike in the past, when you needed to show symptoms of COVID-19, now anybody can show up and get these tests for free. Now people can come as early as 5:00 am to get numbers. They open at 8:00 in the morning. And it seems to be a fairly smooth operation. And everyone we've spoken to who has come out of this testing center seems fairly satisfied with the efficiency and the speed of the work that's been doing here. Now yesterday we spoke with the senior infective disease specialist here in this region, who told us that they are testing numbers far larger than before. That explains why the numbers are so high, the positive numbers. But it's important to keep in mind that the number of deaths is actually relatively low. It's still in the double digits. It hasn't gotten anywhere near 100 at this point. Now in this region of Italy, the governor has ordered all schools and universities closed. Restaurants, in theory, are supposed to close their doors at 9:00. We were in a restaurant yesterday and it was past 9:00 and people were still going in. There's a lot of life in the streets. You don't really get the feeling that anything is out of the ordinary -- by COVID terms, of course. And, therefore, there doesn't seem to be a lot of panic or fear at this point. The government, it's believed, has done a thoroughly decent job under the circumstances in dealing with this. Now as you mentioned, Giuseppe Conte, the Italian prime minister will be speaking this evening and it's expected there will be some measures taken although we're nowhere near a lockdown we saw earlier this year being implemented.</s>WEDEMAN: There's a possibility of local overnight curfews along the lines of what France has implemented but they're trying to maintain this balance between effective measures to stop the surge of new cases and not damaging the economy any more than it has already been hurt from this pandemic.</s>COREN: Ben Wedeman, as always, great to see you, joining us from Naples in Italy. Restaurants in Europe seemed to be recovering from the initial impact of the pandemic. But the new wave could change that. CNN's Scott McLean reports.</s>SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Last call in London. Life is changing for people there, now subject to tighter tier 2 coronavirus rules. That means they can no longer mix with people from other households indoors and outside they're limited to groups of 6.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I am with my friends. We don't know how long it's going to. Last</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): More than half the population of England is under new restrictions as well as many parts of Europe. Where that meal out with whoever, whenever, is now regulated by governments to try to stop the spread of the virus. Hospitality workers say it's bad for business.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): Our pay is reduced. But the bills are not reduced. It's not right. But we don't have any choice.</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): But more countries are clamping down on eating out. Poland's prime minister is urging people in areas with high infection rates to stay at. Belgium is soon closing its bars, cafes and restaurants for a month.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE (through translator): I really believe the cafes and restaurants are really stigmatized. It's more than clear. We feel that we are the bad guys.</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): Germany's Angela Merkel is encouraging people to avoid social gatherings to stop a second wave of the virus.</s>ANGELA MERKEL, CHANCELLOR OF GERMANY (through translator): Please forsake any journey that is not absolutely essential and every party that is not absolutely essential. Stay at home where at all possible.</s>MCLEAN (voice-over): But some local businesses are fighting back. In Berlin, a court overturned a curfew for bars to close at 11 pm. But alcohol still can't be sold after that time. Bar and restaurant owners say they can't afford to lose their livelihood. But with the world surpassing more than 400,000 new cases a day Friday, many people in Europe, tougher restrictions may be something they have to live with, even though they're hard to digest -- Scott McLean, CNN, Berlin.</s>COREN: After a summer of managing the spread of COVID-19, France is now setting shocking daily records for infections. A nighttime curfew is now in effect in major cities to try to bring down the numbers. Melissa Bell joins us from Paris. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, said the curfew is necessity to avoid the risk of hospitals being overrun. Tell us about the strain the health system is currently under and how are people reacting to the curfew.</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Because of the nature of the pandemic localized, so in places like Marseille and the south of France, in greater Paris, already the ICUs are seeing serious strain on their resources. And here in the greater Paris region, more than 46 percent of ICU beds taken up by COVID patients. It is as much as the system can bear. As the French president said Wednesday, the second wave is likely to prove even more dangerous than the first because of now the fact that the virus has spread across the whole of France because also health workers are tired and there are this time around no spare beds. That is the severity of the situation that France is facing --</s>COREN: OK, we seem to have lost Melissa Bell joining us there in Paris. But as we said, the French president said that curfew that is now in place for the next month is necessary because of the strain that is currently on the health system. President Trump's former White House chief of staff John Kelly is telling friends extremely unflattering things about the president. When we return, former national security adviser John Bolton offers his perspective on Kelly's harsh assessment of their former boss. Plus we'll find out why a recent military parade in North Korea may have a loaded message for the United States.

Giuliani Targeted By Russian Intel For Disinformation

COREN: Welcome back. We want to go live to Bangkok, where protesters are filling the streets in Thailand's capital. Demonstrations and marches have been ongoing in Thailand since July. But we've seen them escalate in recent weeks. Protesters are calling for a new constitution, reform of the monarchy, the dissolution of parliament and resignation of the country's prime minister. The police earlier in the week used water cannon to clear demonstrators who had gathered in the main business district. Thai public broadcasting service showed rows of security troops advancing on the site. This protest right now is peaceful. But stay with CNN for any further developments. Many former Trump officials have had unkind words about their former boss. But some of the most disparaging comments yet are coming from a former White House chief of staff John Kelly. CNN recently learned Kelly has described President Trump to friends as the most flawed and dishonest person he's ever met. Former national security adviser John Bolton, also a harsh critic of the president, spoke about Kelly's remarks with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Here's some of the conversation.</s>JOHN BOLTON, FORMER TRUMP NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I hope John Kelly and the others would think about this. I think they would find a lot of support. They will be criticized by people who will call them traitor, there's no doubt about it. But we've got less than three weeks until the election. If we're going to hear it, let's hear it now.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: We've got 17 days, to be precise. Ambassador Bolton, let's talk about Russia for a moment. The U.S. intelligence community has known for months that Russia is actively trying to hurt the Biden campaign. And now, Rudy Giuliani has gone public with what may be misinformation tied to that effort. What do you make of this?</s>BOLTON: Well, I want to be clear that I'm not going to talk about anything that that I learned that was classified while I was in the White House. But this Ukraine situation really -- it just -- it was a tragedy that the people who wanted to impeach Trump were so determined to get it done quickly that they didn't look at the larger picture. I don't want to say Kiev is the -- you know, the Vienna of this century, the location of the iconic film, The Third Man. There a lot of Russian agents working Ukraine, not because of the United States, because they're trying to influence Ukraine.</s>BOLTON: And when people go there and supposedly get information about all these different conspiracy theories, if there aren't Russian agents working them, then the FSB is asleep on the job. So I think it's a dangerous situation. Some of these things we've seen report in the press, if they had come to normal U.S. intelligence operations, it would have been given a very, very hard counterintelligence scrub. We haven't seen that here obviously. This is really, potentially very damaging, very destabilizing to the United States, which is what Russia fundamentally wants. They're not really in this for one candidate or the other. They're in it fighting asymmetric warfare against the Constitution in our institutions.</s>COREN: Russia is not the only country focused on the U.S. election. North Korea is showcasing its military might. A calculated move during the final days of the campaign. Paula Hancocks looks at what this means for the U.S. and the region and whether Kim Jong-un will stay quiet as Americans vote.</s>PAULA HANCOCKS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Kim Jong-un had a dual message, rare tears of regret and appreciation for his domestic audience; for the United States, a glimpse of what analysts believe to be one of the world's biggest ballistic missiles.</s>JEFFREY LEWIS, MIDDLEBURY INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL STUDIES: This new missile is so large it could carry several nuclear weapons, three, perhaps four anywhere in the United States. So what this represents is a dramatic increase in the ability of North Korea to target nuclear weapons at the United States and overwhelm U.S. missile defenses.</s>HANCOCKS (voice-over): A new submarine launched ballistic missile also identified by weapons experts along with more conventional armaments, from tanks to body armor. Significant developments during a period the U.S. president Donald Trump had been talking to the North Korean leader, three face to face meetings and countless flattering letters did not get in the way of the North's military progress. Although secretary of state Mike Pompeo says the fact that they haven't tested these weapons shows diplomacy has worked. As for when the new ICBM tests could come, few believe North Korea would want to upset the apple cart before the U.S. election.</s>MARTIN NAVIAS, KINGS COLLEGE: I suspect we're moving closer to a North Korean test. And that will come in the not too distant future, especially if there's a new American administration. North Korea will test that administration. They will rattle the cage and they will gain attention.</s>HANCOCKS (voice-over): As for who Kim Jong-un would want to deal with come January...</s>NAVIAS: Kim Jong-un would prefer Donald Trump over Joe Biden. There's no question about that. Donald Trump, while he sometimes is erratic, Kim Jong-un has built up a relationship with him.</s>HANCOCKS (voice-over): Both the U.S. and South Korea agree Pyongyang's nuclear and weapons programs pose a significant threat.</s>LEWIS: So every day we wait and every bit of progress they make, I think, is ultimately irreversible.</s>HANCOCKS (voice-over): Each new weapon creating a new reality for future negotiations -- Paula Hancocks, CNN, Seoul.</s>COREN: We know a lot more about COVID-19 than we did six months ago but there are still misconceptions. After the break, Dr. Sanjay Gupta with the latest information.

Trump Recycles 2016 Campaign In Final Weeks Of Campaign; Trump Incites Domestic Terrorism In Campaign; Trump Refuses To Disavow QAnon

ANA CABRERA, CNN HOST: I'm Ana Cabrera in New York. Thanks for joining me. You are live in the CNN NEWSROOM. And just over two weeks until Election Day now, 16 days, to be exact, and stories of a superstitious President Trump are emerging. The president is trying to recreate the atmosphere of 2016, believing that is the key to victory. That means gathering the same advisers, the same rhetoric, the same big rallies including another one in Nevada tonight after stops this week in Wisconsin and Michigan, Florida, and Georgia. According to a person briefed on President Trump's Oval Office sessions this week, the president is convinced that his 2016 strategy will yield lightning in a bottle results again. But 2020 is not 2016. The reality star is now an incumbent saddled with a pandemic and a rising death count. Point to almost any spot on a map of the U.S. and COVID cases are trending in the wrong direction. The country is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day. That is up more than 60 percent since a dip in September. Experts say we have arrived at a fall surge we have been warned for months about. And yet the president who contracted COVID himself, is attacking the governor of Michigan for her pandemic restrictions.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Democrats would terminate our recovery with a draconian, unscientific lockdown like your governor is doing right now. And then I guess they said she was threatened, right? She was threatened. And she blamed me. She blamed me. And our people were the ones that worked with her people, so let's see what happens.</s>CABRERA: That "lock her up" chant, another nod to 2016, but this time it's said in the wake of very real and violent threats. Just over a week ago, federal authorities revealed Governor Whitmer was the target of a domestic terror plot. More than a dozen men allegedly planned to kidnap her and attack the state government. This morning, the governor put blame on the president's rhetoric.</s>GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), GOVERNOR OF MICHIGAN: You know, it's incredibly disturbing that the president of the United States, 10 days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me, 10 days after that was uncovered, the president is at it again and inspiring and incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It's got to end.</s>CABRERA: Let's head to Nevada. CNN's Ryan Nobles is in Carson City where the president will soon hold a rally. And Ryan, the Trump campaign is defending the president's comments over Governor Whitmer, right?</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: Yes, that's right, Ana. There's really no change in the president's rhetoric from before this alleged terror plot was uncovered until after it. The president still very critical of Gretchen Whitmer and inciting in many ways these crowds that are angry with her in the way she has responded to the pandemic. We should point out, restrictions that she put in place that were from the CDC guidance that was put out by the Trump administration. Still, this is very typical for President Trump at rallies like these. Going after his political opponents with very harsh terms and with very harsh rhetoric. And it's led to some of the targets of this rhetoric to say that the actions that have come after are specifically the result of that. Gretchen Whitmer said it. Ralph Northam, the governor of Virginia, who was also part of this alleged terror plot, also said the same thing. This morning on "State of the Union," Jake Tapper pressed Lara Trump, one of the president's senior advisor, his daughter-in-law, and a chief spokesperson about how the president is responding to all of it. And this is what she had to say.</s>LARA TRUMP, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: Well, look, he wasn't doing anything, I don't think, to provoke people to threaten this woman at all. He was having fun at a Trump rally. Look, the president was at a rally. It's a fun, light atmosphere. Of course, he wasn't encouraging people to threaten this woman. That's ridiculous.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Well, I don't think lock her up is fun.</s>NOBLES: And I should point out, Ana, having been to a lot of these Trump rallies. I've been there for many lock her up and lock him up chants, depending on who the political opponent the president is talking about, if the president is joking about it, you certainly don't get the sense that those in the crowd are joking about it. They seem very serious about it. And the fact that the president fires them up in that respect is a big part of the reason why many of them show up at these rallies and are supporting him in the fall, Ana.</s>CABRERA: And as we look at these images, it's hard to believe that Nevada is seeing a rise in cases. In fact, their positivity rate was 17.35 percent as of Friday, that's a seven-day average, and yet we see no social distancing, very little mask wearing there. Thank you, Ryan Nobles. I want to bring in now Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman. He is a Republican congressman from Virginia. He lost his party's nomination earlier this year. He recently blasted President Trump's refusal to condemn QAnon. And so thank you, congressman, for taking the time to talk with us. I want you to listen once more to the president and his supporters last night.</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>CABRERA: Congressman, the FBI is investigating an alleged domestic terror plot to kidnap and potentially harm the governor of Michigan. Is it appropriate or responsible for the president to not only not stop the chanting of "lock her up," but then also add, lock them all up?</s>REP. DENVER RIGGLEMAN (R-VA): Stop the chanting. You know, thank you for having me on, first of all, but I wish I could give you my bona fides right now, Ana, you know, on what I did in the intelligence world but I can't because I have lifetime obligations where I can't say that how bad things really are when it comes to conspiracy theories or people that are actually planning to do harm to sitting officials. There's a real danger of cascading effects, right. When you say something bad, sometimes people believe it. And right now, you know, when you look at tyranny, when you look at people that are uninformed, QAnon and conspiracy theories are really the vessels to which ignorance flows. And if you continue to hype this rhetoric or you don't tamp it down immediately, it can lead to very damaging things, and I think making light of any executive that has a kidnapping plot against them is very dangerous.</s>CABRERA: In fact, Michigan's attorney general told me last night she believes the president's earlier tweet to "liberate Michigan" was partly responsible for this plot to kidnap her. We also learned this group may have been targeting the governor of your home state of Virginia, another state Trump singled out to "be liberated." Is the president inciting potentially domestic terrorism?</s>RIGGLEMAN: You know, Ralph and I, we know each other. I don't know Gretchen Whitmer. I don't if he's inciting, you know, terrorism or see inciting these types of acts. I think, you know, liberate Michigan or things like that, I don't know if he's directly meaning that. The issue that we have is that this is -- it's sort of -- its evidence that's been building up with this type of rhetoric for some time. And that's the issue that we have, right, is that you have to be very careful about what you say after bad things are already happening especially when you see conspiracy theories like QAnon, that's also just labeling, and you probably know this, Ana. So we should hang Vice President Biden because, you know, he was the one who was responsible for SEAL Team 6 dying. And that's the issue that we have, is that you can't have autocracy like that. You know, where we go one, we go all. You know, that's really what QAnon's motto is. And some of these conspiracy theories had these interesting mottos. You know, that's from a movie. It's fictionalized, right. And that also could be the motto for Lemmings (ph). We've got to stamp out this ignorance and, you know, before you know it, we're going to have somebody saying that we should be spraying Gatorade on crops like from "Idiocracy." We can't go down this line of people acting like this. It's irresponsible and it's dangerous.</s>CABRERA: And the president himself continues to encourage groups like QAnon. In fact, this is what he said this week when he was asked again about whether he would denounce this group.</s>TRUMP: I know nothing about QAnon.</s>SAVANNAH GUTHRIE, NBC NEWS HOST: I just told you.</s>TRUMP: I know very little. You told me, but what you tell me doesn't necessarily make it fact. I hate to say that. I know nothing about it. I do know they are very much against pedophilia. They fight it very hard. But I know nothing about it. If you'd like me to --</s>GUTHRIE: They believe it's a satanic cult run by the deep state.</s>TRUMP: -- study the subject. I'll tell you --</s>CABRERA: So, the president was given another chance to condemn this far-right conspiracy group. He didn't take it. What did you make of his answer?</s>RIGGLEMAN: It has to happen. You know, first of all, do you know who's against pedophilia, Ana? Everybody who is not a pedophile.</s>CABRERA: Everybody. Right.</s>RIGGLEMAN: Well, everybody. I mean, and you know, everybody that's not a pedophile. And that's what I find a little bit ludicrous about this, is that, you know, a lot of conspiracy theories, and I'm sorry, my background on domestic terrorism and counterterrorism, a lot of conspiracy theories actually start with something that seems innocuous like save our children, right? Well, guess who talked about love and bringing people together and doing these incredible things for those and having a community where everybody is accepted, Jim Jones, right. So, you can't do this. You've got to look what's deeper. You got to go underneath the hood and see what's going on out there. And we certainly don't want our country to turn into a reality show. We got to know between truth and what's not true. And that means that public officials have to have facts and they have to do the research to really present a message that's cogent. And if we don't do that, we really run the risk of having sort of this un-logic or non-truth running our political discourse. And I think that's -- I think that would be awful, Ana. It would just be awful.</s>CABRERA: It's refreshing but unusual to hear a Republican lawmaker say what you're saying, but now because we're just a couple weeks out from the election, we are starting to see some Republicans at least, publicly criticize the president. We heard Senator Ben Sasse on a call with constituents saying among other things the president "kisses dictator's butts." Today, in the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram" there is this about Republican Senator John Cornyn, "Cornyn initially described his relationship with Trump as maybe like a lot of women who get married and think they're going to change their spouse and that doesn't usually work out very well." Cornyn continued, "I think what we found is that we're not going to change President Trump. He is who he is. You either love him or hate him and there's not much in between. What I try to do is not get into public confrontations and fights with him because as I have observed, those don't usually end too well." As someone who has been endorsed by the president and defended the president and now become critical on the way out the door, is your party in an abusive relationship with the president? I know they're now having buyer's remorse?</s>RIGGLEMAN: I think, you know, and I think you know my history a little bit why I'm going out the door. When President Trump says something I agree with, you know I did, but when he did and I didn't, and that got me in a bit of trouble. And as you know, you know, officiating a same- sex weddings, being for pre-existing conditions, you know, voting to open the government, you know, all of these stuff is what I got hit on. And, you know, as I sort of got railroaded out of it, and I think that's the issue. I think we have people that are afraid to say what's needed. Listen, I don't work for the president. I work for the people of the district, the 750,000 people, and I am not a big fan of autocracy. You know, I give a note to the constitution. I fought for this country. And really it's a disservice and disrespect to service members when you see, you know, conspiracy theories sort of put out there or perpetuated. But right now, you have to tell the truth. You have to say facts. And if QAnon is ridiculous, it's absurd, it's ignorant, you have conspiracy theories like that, you can't pander to the fringes just to make things happen, and that's the thing. I got into -- I was never in politics, Ana. I got into politics, I thought I could make a difference. This has been the most humbling thing I've ever went through, you know, when I'm -- you know, I get, you know, endorsed by the president at the same time I'm getting my teeth knocked in. It has been an absolute bizarre two years of my life, you know, to get into this. And I would say it's been one of the most humbling things I've ever been through and actually a little scary, too.</s>CABRERA: Quickly, if you will. Who will you be voting for in November?</s>RIGGLEMAN: Well, I'm telling you right now, you know, some of the policies of President Trump helped my rural district and I was leaning that way, but I think there's going to be a lot of people voting for Jo Jorgensen or looking for somebody else right now when you see the candidates. You know, I want to vote for President Trump based on USMCA, you know, based on what he did on criminal justice reform, but if he doesn't come out and repudiate this type of insanity, it's hard for military members like me to vote down that line. You have to vote for what's right and I'm going to look for integrity first and that's what I'm going to be voting that day, and if people don't like it, again, I really don't care.</s>CABRERA: Would you consider voting for Joe Biden?</s>RIGGLEMAN: I would consider it. I'm a free thinking American. I'm going to consider voting for everybody regardless of party because I think you've got to put people over party at some point. And I think you're going to find people looking for a third party or unaffiliated or independent candidates almost like this courageous center that says, we've had enough of this. And the fact that I haven't been in politics long and I've had one of the most bizarre two years of my life, it gives me the freedom to say what needs to be said. And I think what we're talking about right now is we have got to stop the insanity of conspiracy theories. And I think the only way to do that is to stop conspiracy theories that are anti-Semitic, and really that are fictional and really combines, you know, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion" with Dr. Sleep from Stephen King. That's ridiculous, Ana. And it's hard for me -- I don't even have the words. I want to use military terms that are very harsh, but I'm on national television and I just think it's ridiculous and I think people need to look at the facts themselves and not get it from one source.</s>CABRERA: Well, Congressman Denver Riggleman, thank you very much for taking the time. Thank you for your service as well.</s>RIGGLEMAN: Thank you, ma'am. Thank you.</s>CABRERA: After a chaotic first debate, a presidential health crisis, a controversial debate cancellation, competing town halls, Joe Biden and President Trump face off one last time. The final presidential debate is coming and special live coverage starts Thursday night at 7:00 eastern here on CNN. We're back after this.

Final Presidential Debate Between Trump And Biden

CABRERA: Democratic Presidential Nominee, Joe Biden on the campaign trail today urging North Carolina voters to cast their ballots early in that crucial battleground state that Trump won in 2016.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENT NOMINEE: Folks, as my coach used to say in college, its go time. I'm running as a proud Democrat but I will govern as an American president. No red states. No blue states. Just the United States. I promise you, I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who did.</s>CABRERA: And you hear all that honking. It's a drive-in event to keep social distancing. Biden will have some big help on the trail this week by the way. On Wednesday, former president Barrack Obama will campaign for him in Pennsylvania, his first event officially campaigning for Joe Biden. And there are expected to be a series of stops in the final stretch before Election Day. I want to bring in our senior political analyst, former adviser to four presidents, David Gergen and "USA Today" columnist Kirsten Powers. David, what impact do you think can Obama can have for Biden in this final stretch?</s>DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I don't think he can change the dynamics of the election overall but he certainly can help and persuade more people of color to vote and that's a big, big deal. Now, the early voting has been thunderous, it's been enthusiastic and Democrats seem to have a lead in it. In effect, if you continue that, you know, that would mean the front- runner is going to have (inaudible) November 3rd. I do think Obama can do some good for Joe Biden and Joe Bidens is lucky to have him out there.</s>CABRERA: Kirsten, we are four days out now from this highly anticipated final debate between President Trump and Joe Biden. The first debate, of course, was a mess. Unless any of us could forget, here's a reminder.</s>BIDEN: Under my proposal --</s>TRUMP: That's not what you said and that's not what the party has said.</s>BIDEN: That is -- that is simply a lie.</s>TRUMP: Your party doesn't --</s>BIDEN: The election is all --</s>TRUMP: You don't know what's on the ballot.</s>BIDEN: Donald, would you just be quiet for a minute.</s>TRUMP: And you don't know her view on Roe v. Wade. The things that we've done, insulin. I give you an example, insulin (inaudible) medicine.</s>BIDEN: Look, hang on. I'm not going to listen to him. He has --</s>TRUMP: You'd be surprised. You'd be surprised.</s>BIDEN: You know, you picked the wrong guy, the wrong night, at the wrong time.</s>TRUMP: Listen, (inaudible)</s>BIDEN: The question is -- the question is --</s>TRUMP: -- Supreme Court radical left --</s>BIDEN: Will you shut up, man.</s>CABRERA: That stresses me out reliving that. At this point, we still don't know if the debate commission is going to make any specific changes that would prevent the constant interruptions. What should they do?</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, COLUMNIST, USA TODAY: I mean, I feel like what they should do is they should have somebody in the control room in charge of the microphones and that when you're out of time, you know, the microphone is cut off. You don't even put it into the debate moderator's hands, otherwise, then they can start, you know, Trump would start yelling at the moderator. Because the problem is there's no way to stop Trump from doing this unless he has decided that it was harmful to him doing this in the first debate, you know, which I'm not sure that he has come to that conclusion, even though it clearly was. And even if he comes to that conclusion, I don't know if he can control himself. I mean, this is kind of how he interacts with people when he's agitated.</s>CABRERA: David, the president has been visiting states experiencing large spikes in COVID cases. He's holding rallies, devoid of social distancing, largely without masks. But then take a listen to what he told a local station in Wisconsin.</s>TRUMP: Well, I had a rally yesterday where I didn't see anybody without one. I mean, and you could see because the people were behind me. I mean, almost everybody has it. And you know, we hand them out at the rallies. We give masks to everybody at the rally. But the rallies, again, are outdoor and we have heard of no instances where -- and I've had big rallies. We're having 35,000, 40,000 people come at the rallies, and we've had no instance where we have had a problem.</s>CABRERA: First of all, when you look at the videos from the rallies and our reporters there are telling us many if not, most of the people are not wearing masks, so that is a fact check. But we also just learned the Minnesota Department of Health has traced 20 cases of COVID back to his rally there last month. So, the facts haven't changed regarding the coronavirus and these rallies aren't helping the COVID situation, but David, are they helping the president politically?</s>GERGEN: There's no evidence so far that they're helping the president politically, you know, because he's -- partly because, well, I guess big crowds and you have to give him that. And he bounces all over the place in terms of what his message is. Normally by late October, he ought to be hammering away at a message. (Inaudible) that is very simple, everybody understands what it is and people vote on that message. What is there to vote on, I mean, he hops around one subject to the next. But beyond that, we've just had a weekend that's just incredible that a president's adviser, a top adviser, has been cut off at the feet because he's sending out information about COVID and how to protect yourself that is simply untrue and Twitter has taken down, Dr. Atlas. And he put -- what message was he sending? Masks don't work. That was the message coming from a top White House adviser to the president, at the very time the president is saying, we take masks seriously. They don't. They're saying mixed messages and more Americans are going to die.</s>CABRERA: Yes, and that tweet from Dr. Atlas, you're right, has since been taken down by Twitter because it violated their policy about tweets that have false information and that could lead to harm, in fact, at a time when we know that not even Mitch McConnell will go to the White House because he doesn't think there are enough safety precautions. Kirsten, is there anyone left who can reason with the president and say, Dr. Atlas isn't the person you should be listening to?</s>POWERS: I don't think so. He seems really dug in on this -- whatever it is that he's doing. And I guess it's supposed to please his base, but I don't really understand why he ever went this route in terms of thinking, you know, this is what would please my base because the truth is, if he had told them to wear masks, they would have worn masks. They'll do anything that he says. You know, they make them wear masks, you know, standing behind him at a rally, no problem. They'll do it. If the president was wearing masks and he told them to wear masks, it wouldn't be a problem. Instead, he just cannot resist like fanning the flames of polarization. He cannot resist turning something into a political food fight that doesn't have to be because somehow that feeds him when -- if he would have just done this from the beginning, who knows where we would be. We'd probably be where other countries are. You know, we probably wouldn't be in a situation where we're looking at things actually getting worse.</s>CABRERA: And we're looking at live pictures right now from Carson City, Nevada. And you can see the big crowds there and people not all wearing masks, not social distancing, taking their lives and risking their lives by going to this event. David Gergen, Kirsten Powers, really appreciate both of you being here with us. Thank you.</s>GERGEN: Thank you, Ana. Good to see you, Kirsten.</s>POWERS: Thank you.</s>CABRERA: Good to see both of you. Be well. Public health experts warn the dreaded second wave of coronavirus is upon us as virtually every single state trends in the wrong direction. So, what is it about winter that makes the virus so much more dangerous? We'll ask a doctor next, live in the "CNN Newsroom."

U.S. In Second Wave Of Coronavirus

CABRERA: Scientists agree we are officially in the dreaded second wave. With temperatures cooling off across the country, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar explained what's behind the new coronavirus surge earlier this morning.</s>ALEX AZAR, HHS SECRETARY: Cases are increasing and we're seeing this happen because we're getting colder weather and losing that natural social distancing that happens from being out of doors. And people are getting tired. The American people have given so much. We're seeing mitigation fatigue right now.</s>CABRERA: Perhaps the most fatigued is President Trump.</s>TRUMP: We're rounding the corner. You'll see it. We're rounding the corner, but you got to open up. You got to go open up. Got to get the place going.</s>CABRERA: And here he is, heeding his own advice, attending large gatherings like church this morning in Las Vegas where you can see very few masks are being worn there. No social distancing whatsoever. And here's his rally in Carson City just set to start in a short time from now. Live pictures. Same scenario there. Dr. Rochelle Walensky is a CNN medical analyst, the chief of the infectious disease division at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Walensky, do you think that -- is it mitigation fatigue, is that to blame for the new surge in cases?</s>ROCHELLE WALENSKY, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Good evening, Ana. I think mitigation fatigue is part of it. Certainly, those of us who have been engaging in the distancing and the masking for months and months now are tired of it, but many of us are still engaging in those. And what I would say is you actually have to engage in mitigation fatigue or in mitigation efforts in order to fatigue from them. And I think what you're seeing from the footage is that there are so many people who are actually not even engaging in those efforts. And in fact, you see it in Nevada. I mean, the case rates in Nevada, the test positivity rates are over 28 percent. For every 100 tests, 28 are positive. And so, yes, mitigation fatigue may very well be a part of it, but I would say just lack of adherence to the protocols is a big part of it.</s>CABRERA: What is it about the winter months specifically that makes the season so much more dangerous for transmission?</s>WALENSKY: It's a great question. There's numerous things. First of all, we know that dryer air -- in dryer air, the virus can be suspended for longer. So those aerosols that might be more likely to fall to the floor are more likely to stay suspended in dryer air, and in fact, the virus can potentially travel further. So, it stays in the air for longer. It can travel further In terms of our own defenses, our host defenses, we know that our vitamin D levels start to drop in the winter, our melatonin levels drop and even our mucus membranes in our nose for example, are dryer and that it's more permissive for the virus to enter. And then of course, there are all the behavioral things, the facts that we intend to be inside more. We tend to gather more. We go to movies. We congregate more in the winter than we do in the summer where we're protected by the outdoors.</s>CABRERA: So, in addition to, you know, not gathering and, you know, staying inside but with our own families, would you also recommend people take melatonin and vitamin D supplements? Should we be using humidifiers? Could that help?</s>WALENSKY: You know, I would say all of those things -- well, certainly I would say that vitamin D has not been demonstrated to actually help and data, I think, are further needed. We have seen that some people with more severe disease have deficiencies in vitamin D, but if you have normal vitamin D levels, it's not at all been shown that vitamin D helps. So, I think potentially humidifiers could be helpful. They will keep your mucus membranes moister, but I think that we have to do all of these things in concert. And I wouldn't say that if you decide to have a humidifier in your bedroom that you can ignore any of the other efforts that we need to pay attention to.</s>CABRERA: I've heard some of the president's supporters pointing to the fact that numbers are going up everywhere, even in countries that had strict mandates and other restrictions in place. The E.U. for example, saw a day this week with more than 100,000 new coronavirus cases. It's above what we're seeing here in the U.S. So what do you tell people who argue against restrictions and other mitigation factors suggesting this big surge is inevitable regardless?</s>WALENSKY: I think that there is some truth to the fact that we anticipated that the fall and winter would get worse. And I guess the question is, we don't know how much worse it could have and would have gotten in the absence of all these efforts. And I would have guessed and I would guess today that in the absence of all of these efforts, we would be in a much deeper space than we are now. And I would say the more we can do to mitigate -- continued mitigation. You know, where we were in March, April in New York and Boston, we ran out of hospital beds. We were running out of hospital beds. We were running out of ventilators. We need to do everything in our power not to be in that space in the wintertime.</s>CABRERA: And we are hearing from some states, especially in the Midwest right now, who are, you know, raising the flag to say our hospital ICUs are starting to fill up and they are concerned. They're very concerned. Dr. Rochelle Walensky, thank you so much for bringing us your expertise and taking the time.</s>WALENSKY: Thanks so much for having me, Ana.</s>CABRERA: For months, New Jersey and Connecticut have put travel restrictions on states with high infection rates. Well, it appears both states have now qualified for their own restrictions. So, what happens now? That's next.

Travel Restrictions In Connecticut And New Jersey; Deadline For Stimulus Deal Set At 48 Hours

CABRERA: As coronavirus cases surge across the country, spikes in New Jersey and Connecticut appear to have qualified those states for their own joint travel restrictions with New York put in place back in June. Meaning, possible quarantine for travelers in the tri-state area? CNN's Evan McMorris-Santoro is following this for us. Evan, the big question, I guess, is what does this mean for travel between these states and people who might have to commute for work?</s>EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, that is the exact right question. And the short answer is, we don't know yet. But the answer does have huge implications for the economy here in this tri- state area. Just to put in perspective, I'm standing on the west side of Manhattan just outside CNN headquarters and I can see New Jersey over my left shoulder without having to look very hard. People cross back and forth between these three states all the time. And that's why the three governors really got together in the early days of this pandemic to create this tri-state partnership, try to combat the pandemic. And one of the ways they did it was with this quarantine procedure, which basically says there are two metrics, and if a state has one of those two metrics, people who travel in the tri-state area from those states have to quarantine for 14 days before they interact in the state. Now, that's been perfectly fine. That's been working. And the number of states currently across the country that qualify for that is 38 states. But now, CNN figures have shown that in recent -- in the last month, New Jersey and Connecticut have now crossed one of those thresholds. Meaning that, in theory, people traveling from New Jersey or from Connecticut into New York City would need to quarantine for 14 days. That's a crazy idea if you live in New York City. It's just a wild idea for the economy here. Is that going to happen? We just don't know yet. We do have some statements. Governor Ned Lamont of Connecticut told CNN in a statement that as our case rates climb -- one of his spokespeople told us, "As our case rates climb similar to the rest of the region, the administration will continue to work with our regional partners." And the governor's office in New Jersey point us to previous statements from the governor saying he's focused on bringing his numbers down. The person we really need to hear from is Governor Andrew Cuomo. He's the one that's going to help to decide whether or not this partnership stays in place or these quarantine rules go into place having just a huge impact on the economy for this very populous, very important part of the country, Ana.</s>CABRERA: Things just got a little more complicated. Evan McMorris- Santoro, keep us posted. Thank you. Coming up, the son of Ronald and Nancy Reagan join us live on what his parents would think of the Republican Party of today. But first, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has set a deadline for stimulus talks warning an agreement must be reached within the next 48 hours if Congress wants to pass a bill before the election. So, how could this impact markets when they open tomorrow? Here's CNN's Christine Romans with your "Before the Bell Report."</s>CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN HOST: Hi, Ana. Rising COVID cases and waning hopes for stimulus could trigger a pullback on Wall Street. Last week, stocks slipped as a pre-election fiscal aid package looked less likely. New coronavirus lockdown measures in Europe also rattled investors. This week, quarterly earnings will drive market action. Several airlines and big consumer brands deliver their corporate report cards. American Airlines, Southwest, Tesla, Coca-Cola, and CNN parent, AT&T are among the companies reporting results. So is Netflix. Analyst expect the streaming giant to report another quarter of strong subscriber growth. Shares have been on fire this year, up about 70 percent. Of course, investors will also be watching the final presidential debate this week. More than anything, Wall Street is hoping for a smooth election. Last week, Fitch warned that a contested outcome could cause it to downgrade America's AAA credit rating. In New York, I'm Christine Romans.

CNN Original Series, First Ladies: Nancy Reagan.

CABRERA: She was Ronald Reagan's strongest supporter, his sharpest negotiator, his lifelong protector. Tonight, the CNN Original Series First Ladies, looks at the life of Nancy Reagan.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reagan carries an unprecedented 49 states in the '84 election. And Nancy's eye turns towards securing his legacy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1997 I asked her, is there some area you felt you have an effect? And she said, oh, no, no, Ronnie knew exactly what he wanted to do from the moment he was elected. And then she paused and very, very softly added, well, maybe the whole Russian thing. And I was, like, the whole Russian thing? You mean the main thing of his administration?</s>CABRERA: Joining us now, Ron Reagan, son of the former president and First Lady. Thank you so much for being here.</s>RON REAGAN, SON OF RONALD AND NANCY REAGAN: Thanks for having me.</s>CABRERA: Your mother is credited as being so instrumental to your father's political career. She was often called the brains of the operation. What was the dynamic like between them in private with your family growing up?</s>REAGAN: Unaffected affection. My mother and father really just loved each other. They couldn't keep their hands off each other. In private, they were always telling one another that they loved each other. And so, I grew up in an atmosphere of a very romantic couple.</s>CABRERA: Which sounds wonderful. But, again, she was involved in, you know, what he was doing as president. I just wondered, did that involvement in White House matters extend to the family, to you and your siblings the way it does with this current White House?</s>REAGAN: No, not the way it does in this current White House, no. It would be terribly inappropriate. I'm sure my father would've thought so to practice the kind of nepotism that we see now. I mean, he would not be of a mind to appoint an unqualified person, whether that person was his child or not, to a position high in the White House, you know, given no experience there. Why would you do that? Why would I even accept something like that?</s>CABRERA: So here you are now, an outspoken liberal, despite your father being a Republican icon. You weren't just his son. You share the same name. Did you feel any added pressure to follow his path or was there actually more pressure to veer from that path, to chart your own?</s>REAGAN: I didn't really feel any pressure either way. I was never particularly interested in participating in politics as a politician. People would always ask me the question, of course. So, there was no -- no, there was no pressure. There was certainly no pressure within the family to do that. In fact, I think my father was probably relieved that I didn't go in that direction.</s>CABRERA: I guess what are your thoughts or what's your impression of how we have seen the president, President Trump's children, and their involvement in his administration and his campaign?</s>REAGAN: Well, they're certainly entitled to go campaign for their dad. My brother and sister, eldest brother and sister did that. And there's nothing wrong with that. When you cross the line is, you know, I hate to say it here and I don't mean to be blunt, but we've got a bunch of drifters there in the White House. They're treating this as a grift and, you know, that is no good.</s>CABRERA: How do you see it that way?</s>REAGAN: How do I see it that way? They're mixing business with pleasure I would say. They're mixing business with state craft. They're using the hotels and the golf clubs to profit off of the presidency. Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have no qualifications whatsoever to be in the position they're in, zero, zip, and they're using it to make money, basically.</s>CABRERA: We learned this week Maryland's Republican governor, Larry Hogan, cast a write-in vote for your father in the 2020 election. And he told "The Washington Post," "I know it's simply symbolic. It's not going to change the outcome in my state. But I thought it was just to cast a vote to show the kind of person I'd like to see in office." I asked CNN presidential historian, Douglas Brinkley, about that and he made this prediction.</s>DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, CNN PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: I think if Donald Trump loses that you'll see the Republican Party go back to, say, where the party of Ronald Reagan. You know, Reagan has been kind of downplayed by Donald Trump. He was really the golden person of the Republican Party, and suddenly he seems second tier. But without Donald Trump -- and you're seeing Senator Sasse doing the same thing, basically reclaiming a rebranded Republican Party for 2021 as a conservative party of Ronald Reagan.</s>CABRERA: Ron, what's your reaction to that?</s>REAGAN: I don't think the Republican Party or any other party can profit by looking backwards. We have to look forwards. Whatever party you belong to, you have to look to the future, particularly now we're at a crucial point in history. I think everybody feels that this is one of those notable points in history where we're going to take one fork or we're going to take the other. It's going to a dark road or it's going to be a more progressive road. So, I don't think going back to the days of Ronald Reagan is the answer for the Republican Party. But they don't have much else. They really don't have much else. And Donald Trump has done a tremendous amount of damage to this party. When I think of my father, I think of words like integrity, decency, dignity, honor, and patriotism, not nationalism but patriotism, all of those qualities are in very short supply in this White House. And, frankly, the Republican Party has been complicit in degrading those values.</s>CABRERA: Do you think your father would recognize the Republican Party right now?</s>REAGAN: He would be horrified by the Republican Party right now. The spinelessness in the face of this pathological entity in the White House right now would shock him.</s>CABRERA: George W. Bush has stayed silent on the race so far. If your father were alive today, do you think he would say something publicly and pick a side?</s>REAGAN: I have no idea what my father would do publicly. I can't speak for him that way. I know his character and I know what would horrify him, and I know that this administration would, but beyond that, I can't say what he would do.</s>CABRERA: Ron Reagan, it's a pleasure to talk with you. Thank you for sharing the insights about your family and the state of our country right now. And again, we're looking forward to hearing more about your mother tonight in our new episode of "First Ladies," all about the life and legacy of Nancy Reagan. [17:55:001] It airs tonight at 10:00 right here on CNN. That does it for me this evening. I'm Ana Cabrera. Thank you so much for joining me. Wolf Blitzer picks up our coverage with a special edition of "THE SITUATION ROOM" after a quick break. Have a great night.

Biden Holds Rally In North Carolinas 16 Days Before Election Day; Trump Tries To Recreate 2016 Atmosphere In Final Push To Election Day; Ten States Report Highest Number Of New COVID Cases On Friday; More Than 21 Million Votes Cast In 45 States And D.C.; Critical California Homeless Crisis Made Worse By Pandemic.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. Sixteen days now before election day and the candidates are stumping this weekend. Democratic nominee Joe Biden right now in Durham, North Carolina. Let's listen in.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'll tell you why, for real. I'll tell you why. It's about wiping Obamacare off the books. That's what it's about, because their nominee has said in the past the law should be struck down. If they get their way, 100 million Americans will lose their protections for pre-existing conditions, complication of COVID-19, over 7 million people infected will become the next preexisting condition, allowing insurers to jack up your premiums or deny your coverage all together. And women will again be charged more for their health just because they are women. Folks, we can do so much better. I will build on the Affordable Care Act so you can keep your private insurance. You can choose the Medicare-like option. We're going to increase subsidies and lower your premiums for the doctor for out-of-pocket spending. Look your governor has been working hard to expand Medicaid. But it's being blocked by Republican legislature. My plan will automatically enroll 357,000 uninsured North Carolinians in a public option for free, automatically. It's going to make a life changing difference for so many families. We can only do any of this if we come together as a country. We need to revive the spirit of bipartisanship in this country. The spirit of being able to work with one another. When I say that, and I've said that from the moment I announced, I'm told well, that maybe you used to be able do that, Joe. That was your reputation in the Senate and Vice President but things have changed. They don't work that way anymore. Well, I'm here to tell you, they can, they will and they must if we're going to get anything done in America. Folks, I'm running as a proud Democrat. But I will -- I -- are govern as an American president. No red states, no blue states, just the United States. I promise you, I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who did. That's the job of a president, a duty to care, to care for everyone in America. Folks, and you too have a sacred duty to vote and it matters. North Carolina matters. And Senator Harris and I are asking you for your trust and support. we'll always have your back, I promise you. So please. vote and help get out the vote. Go to IWillVote.com/NC. Early voting started on Thursday. We've got to keep the incredible momentum going. We can't let up. You can vote early in-person until the 31st. But don't wait. Go vote today and don't just votes for me and Senator Harris. You've got a governor's race, a Senate race, a record number of black women on the ballot, Congress, lieutenant governor, labor commissioner and the courts. Folks, they're ready to deliver for the North Carolina families, so vote. Vote. It's time. It really is time. when I announced my candidacy -- I hadn't planned on running again, to be very blunt. And I've said it before. My son had just died and I had no interest. And then I saw those folks come out</s>BIDEN: Folks, I mean it when I say this. It's time to restore America's soul. It's time to rebuild the backbone of America, the middle class. And this time bring everybody along, no matter your race, your age, your religion, your gender and ethnicity or disability. We can do this. The blinders have been taken off the American people. They've seen what's happening. It's time to unite America. Look, I'll never forget what President Kennedy said when I was a kid and that we're going to the moon. Every kid in school had to hear his speech. He used the line in that speech, my senate colleagues and in the White House heard me use all the time. He made the most impression on me, he asked the unasked question. Why are we doing this? His response was, he said, because we refuse to postpone. This is America. We refuse to postpone America's work. It must be done. There is nothing beyond our capacity. We have never, never, never, never failed. There's no limit on our future. The only thing that can tear America apart is America itself. Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. So let's get to know who we are. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. Science over fiction. And yes, we choose truth over lies. So folks, it's time to stand up. Stand up and take back our democracy. No more time left. God bless you all, and may God protect our troops. Thank you, thank you, thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. 16 days now before the last day of election. With all of the millions who are taking advantage of the early voting you see Democratic nominee Joe Biden there at a drive-in rally there in Durham, North Carolina talking about health care, and then expressing and reminding people about the moment that inspired him and around Charlottesville rally, white supremacy, rally there -- that was the inspiration for him getting into the race. He said he had no intention of running for presidency but that was the moment that inspired him to do so. And quite the contrast there of the social distancing in contrast to President Trump at a really yesterday in Michigan -- this very packed- in rally that he continues to carry out. Arlette Saenz traveling with Joe Biden at that rally in Durham, North Carolina. So it looked people were pretty fired up with the horns honking. What was the goal?</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well Fred, Joe Biden is here in North Carolina, as in-person early voting is under way in the state and he is simply tries to get his supporters out to vote, encouraging them to make a plan to vote in these final weeks before the election. And you heard Joe Biden really keep his focus on the coronavirus pandemic at the start of the speech, again hammering away at the president for his response, criticizing some of his recent comments suggesting that coronavirus was about to turn the corner in this country. And you also heard Biden hone in on the issue of health care. That is something that we expect the former vice president to really hit several times over the course of the next few weeks, as the campaign really believe that health care touches many facets, the through-line for this campaign as many people right now are dependent on health care due to the coronavirus pandemic and they believe that healthcare and, in expanding and protecting the Affordable Care Act, can be a winning argument for that. Now you also heard Biden talk about the need for bipartisanship. That is something that he stressed over the course of the campaign. And something he is trying to do more of that he is trying argue that the nation doesn't need to be so divisive in these times to get things done. Now, Biden is here in North Carolina, this critical battleground state. Tomorrow, we will actually see Kamala Harris back out on the campaign trail. She'll be traveling down to Florida. This comes after she had suspended some of her campaign travel after some members of her team had tested positive for coronavirus. But tomorrow she'll be traveling down to Florida as both of these candidates are trying to get out that vote in these final 16 days of the election.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Arlette Saenz, thank you so much. We'll check back with you. Appreciate it. All right. So with the elections happening in a little more than two weeks -- we should say the final day of voting -- all of that combined with the coronavirus pandemic surging across the country, signs of growing desperation now from President Donald J. Trump. As many states consider another lockdown, the president threatened to lock up his political opponents, doubling down on his attacks on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who was the target of a plot by domestic terrorists to kidnap and kill her.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You've got to get your governor to open up your state, ok? And get your schools open. Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right. Lock them all up.</s>WHITFIELD: Today the president's campaign telling CNN the attacks on Whitmer were just Trump having some fun.</s>LARA TRUMP, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: He wasn't doing anything, I don't think, to provoke people to threaten this woman at all. He was having fun at a Trump rally.</s>WHITFIELD: Kevin Liptak is in Las Vegas, where the president attended a church service today and will hold a rally later on in another part of the state. So Kevin, how is Whitmer responding to the president's attacks?</s>KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, she's basically saying the President is fanning the flames of domestic terrorism. And Fredricka, I was at that rally last night is Muskegon, Michigan. That was by far the loudest, most vitriolic reaction to anything the president said in that 90-minute rally. Of course, the president has made his views of Gretchen Whitmer known over the past several months. He's called a dictator, and he did nothing tamp down on this "lock her up" chant. He sort of paused, basked in it for a while and said lock them all up. Now Gretchen Whitmer was on NBC this morning responding. Listen to what she had to say.</s>GOVERNOR GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), MICHIGAN: You know, it's incredibly disturbing that the president of the United States, ten days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me, ten days after that was uncovered, the president is at it again, and inspiring and incentivizing, and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It's got to end. It is dangerous, not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere.</s>LIPTAK: Now that sentiment was echoed by Whitmer's digital director who wrote on Twitter that every time the president does this sort of rally, the violent rhetoric towards the governor escalates on social media. Now, of course, the lock her up chant is nothing new at a Trump rally. He's used it -- or his crowds have used it against Hillary Clinton, against Joe Biden. What is different this time is that plot uncovered by the FBI earlier this month by militia members to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. They were dissatisfied by her coronavirus lockdown orders. In the past the president has fanned some of those sentiments, he's tweeted out in all caps "Liberate Michigan". When armed protesters stormed the state capitol on Lansing in the spring, he backed them as well, saying that Whitmer should talk to them and negotiate them. Now the president made only passing mention of that plot last night in his rally. He seemed to tone it down a little bit, minimize it somewhat saying I guess they say she was threatened, and saying that instead the FBI should be looking at Antifa, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: So Kevin, let's take a look at another example of how the president appears to be using some of the same methods that he used in the 2016 campaign.</s>TRUMP: The Biden family is a criminal enterprise. Hillary Clinton is the ringleader of a criminal enterprise. They're going to release 400,000 criminals onto your streets and into your neighborhoods if Crazy Joe becomes president. This is Hillary Clinton's agenda, too, to release the violent criminals from jail. She wants them all released. Lock them all up.</s>WHITFIELD: So the president clearly believes that's a winning strategy. It may have worked for him in 2016, but can it, will it in 2020?</s>LIPTAK: Well, that's the big open question. And what we're hearing from advisers is that the president is digging into the strategy that he thinks worked four years ago. He's trying to recreate some of the atmospherics around his first campaign for president. He's assembled the same group of aides. He's trying to go on that same breakneck pace of rallies around the country despite the coronavirus. But what we're hearing from Republicans is there's deep concern. The political calculus has totally changed since then. For one the president is the incumbent. He carries all of the responsibilities and burden that a sitting president does. And the second is we're in a middle of a public health crisis that many Americans say in polls, the president has mishandled. Now today, the president is going to Orange County. He's just left here in Las Vegas to raise campaign cash. The last fundraising report from his campaign showed him far and well behind Joe Biden. He's also planning a campaign rally in Carson City later this afternoon. This morning he attended a church service here in Las Vegas. What we saw there was ample praise from the pastors on stage, saying that he was doing a great job.</s>LIPTAK: But in the crowd, the crowd was not socially distanced. It was an indoor service, and masks there were somewhat hit or miss, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Kevin Liptak, thank you so much. Keep us posted. We'll check back with you. All right. Let's talk further now. Joining me right now CNN senior political analyst Mark Preston. You know, we'll talk about the elections in a moment but first, you know, the Trump campaign and RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel are defending President Trump's attacks on Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer just days after authorities foiled, you know, that plot by extremists to kidnap here. Listen.</s>L. TRUMP: Look this is -- he wasn't doing anything, I don't think, to provoke people to threaten this woman at all. He was having fun at a Trump really and quite frankly, there are bigger issues than this. Right now for everyday Americans people want to get the country reopened. They want to get back to work.</s>RONNA MCDANIEL, RNC CHAIRMAN: The president and his FBI foiled this plot. And I think that Governor Whitmer is really inappropriate to try and labeling that the president -- these were sick individuals.</s>JASON MILLER, TRUMP CAMPAIGN SENIOR ADVISER: The fact of the matter is people in Michigan want to get their state opened back up. They feel that it's been way too heavy of a hand. It's hurting their economy.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Defending and deflecting, how is that helpful to the president?</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well look, I mean it's helpful to the president in the sense that if they can try to convince anybody to believe them and not the president, then it's a victory for them. It's just an incredibly hard position for any of the president's defenders right when they go up because they have to defend the indefensible. You know, we talk about this in political terms, and of course, you know we're just a couple of weeks away from the election. But when you look at it in moral terms is really what the president's biggest problem is right now, right? I mean the morality that we would go out and continue to incite violence in the way of rhetoric, and who knows who he could have incited at that rally last night or beyond, at a time when the FBI is putting people behind bars, because it was a credible threat to kidnap her and probably kill her. So look, I do think that Trump's biggest problem right now, Fred, is his likability, his empathy and his ability to try to connect with everyday people. And what he's doing right now is not helping.</s>WHITFIELD: And you know, the governor is putting, you know, a very confident face on. You know, she says she and her family continue to be threatened. And you know, it's shocking that the president would be, you know, potentially fanning the flames. So here we are in the homestretch of this 2020 election, what will the next couple of weeks look like. We have a debate coming up, you've had these the rallies for the president, you know people are packed in. you see, we just saw, the drive-in rally of the vice president. Really have people not made up their minds? Or at most, really made up their minds, it's just an issue of getting to the polls?</s>PRESTON: You know, I think heading into this election, it's more likely that more people have made up their minds than we have in the past, and that's because of the polarization that we have seen on both sides, quite frankly. So we have both camps that are firmly entrenched. But I do think that the sway voters, these Independents, these Reagan Catholic voters -- you know, we used to call them out in the Midwest where Democrats who became Republicans tend to be a little bit more conservative, I do think that the way that the president is carrying himself and acting right now is extremely detrimental to trying to get those folks to support him. I don't think he's going to change. I think he's going to be even worse. And I think what we just saw at the top of this hour where you've had Joe Biden going out there talking about coming together, and empathy and we're all one, is really the two contrasting images and messages that we're going to head into these final weeks and certainly the final days of the election.</s>WHITFIELD: Earlier today, Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor and Trump supporter, who also helped prepare the president for his debate, said he gave the president this advice.</s>CHRIS CHRISTIE, FORMER NEW JERSEY GOVERNOR: The president should be focused on the economic message. I think almost exclusively because that's where he has the greatest credibility. As you'll remember, on this show we talked about the memo I sent to the president over 110 days ago now, where I said if you run the campaign, you ran the 2016 in 2020, it's not going to be a winning campaign.</s>WHITFIELD: Uh-oh. Because doesn't it appear as though this is very much like the 2016 campaign?</s>PRESTON: Very much so. And look, I mean if we -- if we look at where we are right now, and if we're to peel back what's happened the past six or seven months that COVID had never happened, ok? That we were moving along, Donald Trump would be in a very good position right now to win reelection, potentially would be ahead in the polls. We may have seen something a little bit different in the primary but likely would have been against Joe Biden. But the way that the stock market is continuing to perform during this COVID is the same race, and that's where Chris Christie is right about Donald Trump. It's just that he can't stay on message and he has no empathy and that's what's going to hurt him.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Mark Preston, thanks so much.</s>PRESTON: Thanks, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Still ahead, falsehoods and flat-out wrong information from a member of the White House task force undermining the importance of masks. CNN fact-checks Dr. Scott Atlas. Plus a little movement in the fight to get financial help to struggling Americans. House speaker Pelosi signaling the Democrats and the White House must reach a deal in the next 48 hours. Will that happen? And Americans desperate for help are now living in storage containers, as the pandemic rips away their livelihoods. We'll take you there live.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) Sets 48-Hour Deadline For Stimulus Deal

WHITFIELD: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin must reach an agreement within 48 hours if they want to pass a coronavirus stimulus relief bill before Election Day, November 3rd. She told ABC this morning that if an agreement is to be done, then both sides need to stick with a framework.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: We're saying to them, we have to freeze the design on some of these things, are we going with it or not, and what is the language? I'm optimistic, because, again, we've been back and forth on all of this.</s>WHITFIELD: Democrats have been pushing for a relief bill worth more than $2 trillion and are far apart with Republicans on how much money is needed and how it should be spent. Last week on CNN, Speaker Pelosi responded to criticism from within her own party who complained about a lack of transparency and urgency in the negotiations. Here is an exchange with Wolf Blitzer.</s>PELOSI: Honest to God, I can't get over it, because Andrew Yang, he's lovely, Ro Khanna, he's lovely. They are not negotiating this situation. They have no idea of the particulars. They have no idea of what the language is here.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Madam Speaker, I certainly respect you, but I also respect Ro Khanna, I respect Andrew Yang, I respect members of the Democrats, who are members of the problem solvers, they want a deal, because so many people right now are suffering.</s>PELOSI: Well, the problem solvers, by the way, don't have any earned income tax credit or</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Meantime, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he is moving ahead with votes on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week on stimulus measures, including a standalone paycheck protection program. I want to bring in now Diane Swonk, she is Chief Economist at Grant Thornton and adviser to the Federal Reserve. Diane, good to see you. All right, so what do you think needs to be in this stimulus plan?</s>DIANE SWONK, CHIEF ECONOMIST, GRANT THORNTON: Well, we know now that the effective bang for the dollar is help and aid households, supplements in those unemployment insurance checks. We also know there needs to be money for testing and tracing and some aid for business. But more importantly, there needs to be money and transfers for the states. If we do not get transfers for the states, we know from the recession and subpar recovery that followed after '08 and '09 that we're going to see even longer time before we reach our previous peak in employment. You're going to see headwinds as layoffs at the state and local level compound. And that's something that's really important. We know the paycheck protection plan, actually, we had less bang for the dollar than many had hoped, and, in fact, it's one of the reasons it wasn't fully subscribed. There's a little over $130 billion in the PPP that did not get used. It could be reallocated. We certainly like to see that money reallocated but reallocated in a way that small businesses can really stay afloat in these COVID-tainted waters.</s>WHITFIELD: And then when realistically can the stimulus plan come about? This was House Speaker Pelosi today.</s>GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Are Americans going to get relief before Election Day?</s>PELOSI: Well, that depends on the administration. The fact is is that we cannot -- the heart of the matter is to stop the spread of the virus.</s>WHITFIELD: So, elaborate further on what would happen, in your view, if no stimulus plan in the short-term?</s>SWONNK: My concern is that what we see in the economy is after a big third quarter, we're going to see more than 30 percent gains in the third quarter, after two quarters record losses. This big bounce back the U.S. economy could stall or worse, we could metastasize into a longer lasting, more traditional recession with more scarring for the labor market. And that really means pointblank, this is food insecurity, which is already at a record high. By the beginning weeks of September, 10.5 percent of adults in the United States were reporting that they are living in households where they couldn't feed their families for an entire week. That's really startling. And that's up for May. So we're moving in the wrong direction at a time when supplements to unemployment insurance have already lapsed, and it's nonlinear. And so what we worry about is how this can metastasize into something worse, much more scarring, much more long lasting with a shadow that COVID cast on our economy for some time to come. We may not be able to regain what we lost in jobs until we get well into 2024, 2025 if we do not get stimulus today.</s>WHITFIELD: That is hardship for a really long time. Diane Swonk, thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right, straight ahead, Paul Vercammen reports on a creative solution to the homeless crisis.</s>PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right, Fred, shipping container homes. We talked to one parent of five children. He had been couch surfing, floor surfing, and this shipping container home just was a breath of fresh air. That's coming up. Stay with us.</s>WHITFIELD: Okay. And, first, are you looking for a socially distanced way to de-stress? In today's Staying Well, see how alone time in an isolation tank or float pool can do the trick.</s>DR. SAHIO KHALSA, LAUREATE INSTITUTE FOR BRAIN RESEARCH: There's about 2,000 pounds of Epsom salt in the water, more salt than the Dead Sea. The salt will do the work and it will keep you right at the top of the water. Floating does seem to modulate body signals, so it lowers your blood pressure, eases muscle tension.</s>KADRA TOMILOV, FLOAT THERAPY CLIENT: It's work that I have done, I did experience of being calm.</s>KHALSA: We looked at individuals with anxiety disorders, eating disorders. And we found floating is safe for those individuals, and that we see a pretty strong short-term reduction in anxiety after people float.</s>TOMILOV: I think stress is what brings all the sicknesses in people. Having children, working, it's a lot to deal with. And when you nurture your body, you are doing something for yourself.</s>KHALSA: Certainly, we have a lot more information coming at us these days than we did, say, a hundred years ago, although the architecture hasn't fundamentally changed. I think there is a feeling from some people that there's a need to disconnect.</s>TOMILOV: It's not that scary. I mean, I'm a scared person. If I can do it, anybody can do it.</s>WHITFIELD: Welcome back. The economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic has Southern California's homeless crisis at critical levels. The situation is so dire, some people are now living in shipping container communities. CNN's Paul Vercammen is in Newport Beach. Well, is this solution working?</s>VERCAMMEN: Well, we're seeing now a groundswell. It's in its infancy. We know that there's a veterans facility here called Potter's Lane. That's a shipping container community. We're seeing it in other spots. One thing that the key to Los Angeles is there's a social worker who lives in the container home and that social worker guides people through everything, from how to pay rent, to transportation, that sort of thing. We met up with John Kilgore, a father in his early 60s, five children. They had been couch surfing, floor surfing, moving from friend's spot to friend's spot, and finally got a call from People Concern and FlyawayHomes. They are partners in a project, and they told him we have got the keys to your shipping container homes. He had suffered through bad times. But when he walked in, the family was ecstatic.</s>JOHN KILGORE, SHIPPING CONTAINER HOME RESIDENT: We came in and, you know, it had been furnished and everything. We had everything we needed in there already. All we had to do is bring what little clothes we had. When we walked in there, their face lit up, and they were full of smiles and cheering. And they were just so happy to have you on the</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where I live.</s>VERCAMMEN: And you like it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I like it.</s>WHITFIELD: So that house has four bedrooms. It's made up of four containers. It has a bathroom and a kitchen. Many other projects are in the pipeline in Southern California. And FlyawayHomes has three in the pipeline, another under construction. So we're watching this closely to see if this is a solution. What the advocates say is they can build these faster, they can get it through the design process more quickly, and these homes, these container homes are malleable. You can move them, and put them in odd- shaped lots. So we're going to watch and see if this ends up being a long-term solution, as they're experimenting through Southern California, Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: Wow, that's an amazing sign of the times. Paul Vercammen, thank you so much. All right, still ahead, President Trump attacks the governor of Michigan. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell responds coming up live in the CNN NEWSROOM.

Trump Tries To Recreate 2016 Atmosphere In Final Push To Election Day; Twitter Removes Tweet By Trump Adviser Undermining Masks; Biden Looks To Win Over Voters In States Trump Won In 2016; Obama Campaigning For Biden

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I'm running as a proud Democrat but I will govern as an American president. No red states, no blue states, just the United States.</s>CABRERA: Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden campaigning in Durham, North Carolina, this afternoon, just 16 days out now from election day, urging voters to cast their ballots early. And CNN's Arlette Saenz is following the Biden campaign for us in Durham. Arlette, Biden is clearly trying to reach independent voters in states that voted for Trump in 2016. Is North Carolina a must win for Biden?</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ana, North Carolina isn't necessarily a must win for Joe Biden but a win here would help Biden cut off President Trump's path to the presidency so they are spending time in this state as they are trying to win back one of the states the president won in 2016. And you saw him here in Durham, North Carolina, earlier this afternoon at a drive-in style event. Everyone was socially distanced in their cars. And he was encouraging his supporters to make a plan to vote in these final days before the election, with in-person early voting under way here in North Carolina. Now Biden once again hammered away at the president for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, but he also offered this vision for the country, trying to argue that the country needs to step away from its divisive nature that it's currently in. Take a listen to a bit of his message that he had earlier today.</s>BIDEN: There's nothing beyond our capacity. We have never, never, never, never failed. There's no limit on our future. The only thing that can tear America apart is America itself. Everybody knows who Donald Trump is. So let him know who we are. We choose hope over fear. We choose unity over division. Science over fiction. And yes, we choose truth over lies.</s>SAENZ: So, that is a reliable message that Biden has been relaying over the course of his campaign, something he's really trying to hone in on in these final weeks before the election. Now this coming few days will have a busy campaign schedule for the former vice president's surrogates. Kamala Harris is heading down to Florida. Her first in-person trip after they had to suspend campaign travel for her after two members of her traveling team tested positive for coronavirus. And on Wednesday we're going to see President Barack Obama hitting the campaign trail. This is his first in-person appearance for his former vice president. Obama will be campaigning in Philadelphia. The Biden campaign really believes that he can help turn out black men, Latinos and young voters. And this will be a solo stop. Biden is expected to be deep in debate prep on that day but there is a possibility that Biden and Obama could appear together in those final days before the election -- Ana.</s>CABRERA: OK. The Arlette Saenz, pressure is on, 16 days and counting now. Thank you. Joining us is CNN's senior political analyst John Avlon and the host of PBS' "Firing Line," Margaret Hoover. So, guys, last night, President Trump told a crowd that former President Obama campaigning for Biden was actually great news for him. Listen.</s>TRUMP: They said, sir, what? Well, we have a little problem. What? Obama's going to campaign for him. I said, well, that's good news, he campaigned harder than Hillary Clinton did for Hillary. And it just made us stronger. I want him to campaign so much. I want him to campaign, you know, because we're going to do even better.</s>CABRERA: John, I'll start with you. Do you think he really believes that?</s>JOHN AVLON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: I'm sorry. I'm cracking up because whenever Donald Trump tells a story with someone calling him sir, he's lying. It's one of his many tales. Dan O'Dell (ph) has done a good job chronicling that for us. But, look, what he -- but whatever, you know, his version of events is, look, there may be some folks in Trump's base who are alienated by Barack Obama. But the reality is that the contrast between Trump and Obama is so clear that Obama is a real asset to the Democratic ticket. He brings energy, particularly if he campaigns in areas where he can get young African-American men and young Hispanics to really heed the call to turn out. That's an area where, you know, Hillary did not do nearly as well with African-Americans as Barack Obama did. He needs that number to be high. Same thing with the Hispanic vote. So, it's --</s>AVLON: -- positive --</s>CABRERA: Although, Barack Obama also campaigned for Hillary Clinton.</s>AVLON: Yes, but that was also Hillary Clinton.</s>MARGARET HOOVER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Look, here's -- there's a couple of things here. One, Barack Obama is -- does pull stronger with the suburban women Trump that has lost. And he can drive up numbers of African-Americans as John just said. But there's another thing most Republicans, who still support Donald Trump, that are looking at the numbers, had always counted on when -- six weeks ago, frankly, when it looked like Donald Trump was in a far stronger position than he appears to be now. And that's -- there is a small percentage of African-American men who are falling in favor of Trump. And --</s>AVLON: I mean, a very small number.</s>HOOVER: It is a very small number.</s>AVLON: To be clear.</s>HOOVER: I mean, to be clear, it's single digits, OK? Because Republicans traditionally don't win more than -- you know, between 10 percent and 20 percent of the African-American vote. But Trump supporters had count -- had counted on some African-American men falling away as part of, you know, this little bit that they could hang their hat on. So, when Barack Obama is out campaigning, all he's doing is solidifying the Obama coalition in an attempt to rally the troops. The big guns come out in the last two weeks.</s>CABRERA: So, Margaret, do you really think the president was in a stronger position six weeks ago? And, if that's the case, what changed?</s>HOOVER: A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I mean, six weeks ago, before the first debate, before the president, himself, succumbed to -- got sick with the Coronavirus, and that became the dominant issue in that campaign, and will remain so for the last few weeks, we were talking about law and order. We were talking about the economy recovering. The national mood and focus of the debate, the narrative was far more in favor of Donald Trump's re-election, frankly, and the wind was in his sails. I'm not saying he was ever going to run away with it, but what changed was the debate and what changed was Coronavirus taking over the narrative and really reminding us that that is -- that that's the center point of this debate.</s>AVLON: What she said.</s>CABRERA: And, still -- and, still, John, Biden's campaign manager did write this memo, sounding the alarm not to get complacent, saying, quote, "The very searing truth is Donald Trump can win this race, and every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire. Is this just about being overly cautious after the shock of 2016 or are they, perhaps, seeing something that worries them?</s>AVLON: No, look -- I mean, look, first of all, it's campaign 101. You should always campaign like you're behind. You should never be complacent. And, frankly, you know, Joe Biden is racking up big numbers that we haven't seen in decades in conventional polling. So, it makes sense his campaign's going to say, look, don't take this for granted. Every vote counts. Show up and vote because the only poll that matters on Election Day. So, you're darn right she's got to remind folks about that. That's just basic common sense in a campaign. Especially because Donald Trump did shock the world last time around because, in part, some Democrats got complacent and voted third-party.</s>HOOVER: Look, it's 16 days out from the election, Ana. As you know, as everybody knows, we still have another debate this week.</s>AVLON: Yes.</s>HOOVER: There's another opportunity for Donald Trump to at least change the narrative or to get some momentum in his own direction. Truly.</s>AVLON: Maybe.</s>HOOVER: I mean, and that could happen, right. So, I don't -- this goose is not cooked yet. OK? It's cooking but it's not cooked yet. And I think that's what, I'd say, everyone needs to keep in mind. There's still a lot can happen.</s>AVLON: That's right.</s>CABRERA: Margaret, Republicans, clearly, believe the president is trailing badly among women and in the suburbs. And they're worried, you know, they could lose not only the White House, but also the Senate. Listen to Republican Senator Ben Sasse this week.</s>SEN. BEN SASSE (R), NEBRASKA: I'm now looking at the possibility of a Republican blood bath in the Senate. And that's why I've never been on the Trump train. I think we are -- we are staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami.</s>CABRERA: Margaret, do you think that's what will happen?</s>HOOVER: I think we are staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami. I think, of all the Republicans who are going to return to the Senate, and Ben Sasse being one of them, he's -- it's a lonely minority.</s>HOOVER: And the part that's hard to hear about that, as a Republican who -- Sasse made a calculation to be on the Trump train. And now that he's cleared his primary and up for re-election, and he's safe, and he's going to return to the Senate, he's now not? And, on the one hand, I appreciate that he's being candid now. But it's just tough to square.</s>AVLON: I mean, but, you know, in the fullness of those comments he made, he's saying, look, he -- you know, he kisses, you know, the butts of dictators. He's spending like a drunken sailor. He's been terrible for the country. He's divisive. All things that are true that sound like a Democratic campaign ad, coming from a sitting Republican senator. But a lot of these folks are finding religion a little bit late because they have not stood up to Donald Trump, up to this point. But the reality is what people say in private is the truth. And that's the truth, what a lot of senators, including Republicans, think of Donald Trump.</s>CABRERA: Although, I would say that that phone call was not necessarily in private. That was a call with his constituents, 17,000 of them, we are told.</s>AVLON: Yes.</s>CABRERA: And, clearly, he had a sense that that could end up getting -- becoming public and, you know, widespread. I do want to also get your reaction, though, --</s>AVLON: (INAUDIBLE.) CABRERA: -- before you continue, because let's add in what we're now hearing from John Cornyn and what he told --</s>AVLON: Yes,.</s>CABRERA: -- the "Fort Worth Star-Telegram." That paper writes, quote, "Cornyn initially described his relationship with Trump as maybe like a lot of women who get married and think they're going to change their spouse, and that doesn't usually work out very well." And Cornyn continued, they write, I think what we found is that we're not going to change President Trump. He is who he is. You either love him or hate him, and there's not much in between. What I tried to do is not get in public confrontations and fights with him. Because, as I've observed, those usually don't end too well. So, is buyer's remorse starting to settle in for Republicans?</s>HOOVER: Well, look, I have buyer's remorse. Look, I think what it tells us is John Cornyn is worried about his race, too. I mean, and when --</s>AVLON: That says a lot.</s>HOOVER: -- you're worried in Texas -- and when you're worried in Texas, that's a problem. I don't know much about, you know, women in marriages trying to change their spouses, thinking you can change them. Otherwise, John Avlon would be a really die-hard Republican, at this point, if I had any success with that. But I do think -- you know, there is a lot of buyer's remorse. And it's too little too late. And what John Cornyn is trying to do, strategically, is peel off a little bit more of those suburban women, because they're there in Texas, too. And people who, frankly, probably agree with him. That this president has been an irresponsible leader of this country.</s>AVLON: Just -- in Texas, remember what all the Republicans said after the impeachment? It seems like a million years ago. It was just this year. I'm sure he'll change. He'll learn his lesson. Nope and nope.</s>CABRERA: He's still the same Donald Trump. You know, what -- that comment you made, Margaret, about John Avlon being Republican, if you had your way. It just goes to show Republicans and Democrats, people with different political feelings and leanings, can still get along, can still love each other.</s>AVLON: Absolutely.</s>CABRERA: Can we get back to those days? You're a beautiful example. We can all aspire to be like you.</s>AVLON: Take care.</s>HOOVER: Thanks, Ana.</s>CABRERA: Have a good one, guys. Thank you so much. Tonight, hear from former Trump administration officials, including John Bolton, Olivia Troy and Myles Taylor. They join CNN's Jake Tapper. "</s>THE INSIDERS: A WARNING FROM FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS." That's tonight at 9:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific on CNN.

Donald Trump Tries To Recreate 2016 Atmosphere In Final Push To Election Day; Ten States Report Highest Number Of New COVID-19 Cases On Friday.

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: With the election just over two weeks away and early voting are already underway, today, House Speaker Pelosi set a 48-hour deadline for the White House to reach a deal on the stimulus package to bring relief for millions of desperate Americans. First, the Biden team has announced plans to run a series of pricey campaign ads during a slate of NFL football games over the next week. The campaign preparing to air spots on some of the most popular real estate in television as the Democratic nominee focuses on winning back battleground states that went for President Trump back in 2016. CNN's Arlette Saenz joining me now from Durham, North Carolina where Biden just wrapped up a kind of drive-in rally event there. Arlette, what more are you learning?</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, Joe Biden was here in North Carolina encouraging his supporters to make plans to vote as the state is now in that in-person early voting period. And Biden spoke at this drive-in rally for around 20 minutes where you had people attending in their socially distant spaces, sitting in their cars, for some people even atop their cars as they listened to the former Vice President and he once again really honed in on the coronavirus pandemic, trying to present this contrast for the vision that he would have for handling the virus compared to President Trump. And he urged everyone on hand, supporters in the state to make sure that they are ready to get out and vote and really stress the need for bipartisanship as he is seeking to ease the division that is currently in the country. Take a listen to what he told voters here a little while ago.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Folks, as my coach used to say in college, "It's go time." I am running as a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president. No red states, no blue states, just the United States. I promise you, I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who did.</s>SAENZ: So that was a little bit of the former Vice President's message here today, and as you mentioned, the campaign is preparing to roll out some ads during NFL games tonight and also tomorrow during Monday Night Football. One of those ads set to run during the Steelers game, really focusing on the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic with one music venue owner talking about the impact that his business has faced due to President Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic here in the U.S. Now while Biden was here in North Carolina; tomorrow, Kamala Harris will return back to the campaign trail. She will campaign down in Florida, in Orlando and Jacksonville. This is her first trip after they had to suspend travel after a few members of her team tested positive for COVID-19. So she will be out on the trail tomorrow as both of these candidates are trying to make that pitch in these final 16 days before the election -- Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. A final stretch indeed. Arlette Saenz, thank you so much in Durham, North Carolina. All right, now to the President's feud with the Governor of Michigan. Kevin Liptak is in Las Vegas where the President attended a church service today and will hold a rally later on in another part of the state. So Kevin, how is the Governor, Whitmer, you know, responding to the President's attacks at his rallies?</s>KEVIN LIPTAK, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, she is essentially saying that the President is fanning the flames of domestic terrorism, and Fredricka, I was at that rally last night in Muskegon, Michigan. This criticism of the Governor was garnered by far the loudest, most vitriolic reaction from that crowd over the course of that 90-minute rally. And of course, the President has not been a fan of Gretchen Whitmer for a long time. He has criticized her for her work on coronavirus. He has actually called her a dictator. Listen to how she responded this morning on NBC.</s>GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D-MI): You know, it's incredibly disturbing that the President of the United States, 10 days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial, and execute me, 10 days after that was uncovered, the President is at it again and inspiring and incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It has got to end. It is dangerous not just for me and my family, but for public servants everywhere.</s>LIPTAK: Now that is a sentiment that was echoed by Whitmer's digital director on Twitter who wrote, "Every single time the President does this at a rally, the violent rhetoric towards her immediately escalates on social media." Of course, the "Lock her up" chant at Trump rallies is nothing new. He has directed at Hillary Clinton. He has directed at Joe Biden and at that rally last night, you could really feel in the crowd the anger building as the President sort of waited and kind of basked in it and then kind of just said, "Lock them all up."</s>LIPTAK: Now, what's different about this is that plot that was uncovered by the F.B.I. earlier this month by some members of a militia to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. They were disgruntled with her work on coronavirus, upset at her lockdown orders. Now, the President in the past has sided with those types of people. He has said to liberate Michigan, he has written that on Twitter when armed protesters stormed the Capitol in Lansing. He said that they should talk to Whitmer. Now the President referenced this plot only obliquely last night in the rally. He said, I guess, they said she was threatened, and instead, he said the F.B.I. should be looking at Antifa -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: And then Kevin, you know, this lock-her-up talk has really never stopped since the 2016 race. I mean, just take a look at you know, then and now.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The Biden family is a criminal enterprise. Hillary Clinton is the ringleader of a criminal enterprise. They're going to release 400,000 criminals onto your streets and into your neighborhoods, if crazy Joe becomes President. This is Hillary Clinton's agenda, too, to release the violent criminals from jail. She wants them all released.</s>AUDIENCE: (Chanting "Lock her up.")</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>WHITFIELD: So Kevin, what are you learning about why the President is taking this approach?</s>LIPTAK: Well, in talking to campaign advisers and political folks in the final stretch of this campaign, we are hearing that the President is intent on sort of replicating what he thinks worked for him four years ago in 2016. He is surrounding himself with similar officials. He is embarking on this breakneck pace of rallies, the same kind of schedule he carried out in the final days of 2016, despite the coronavirus pandemic, and he is sort of seizing on all of these grievances that he stoked during the 2016 campaign. One big difference, I think, between then and now is the grievances that the President is mentioning. Back then it was all about things like immigration and trade that he thinks had negatively impacted his supporters. Now, a lot of those grievances are about what has happened to him, whether it's the Russia investigation or the -- what he calls the fixed media. Now, the President was a church this morning. He is fundraising in California now. He will have a rally in Carson City, Nevada later this afternoon -- Fredricka.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, Kevin Liptak, thanks so much. All right. Coming up, we'll have reaction from Michigan Congresswoman Debbie Dingell on the President's attacks, the verbal attacks on Governor Whitmer. All right, joining me right now to discuss is Toluse Olorunnipa, CNN political analyst and a White House reporter for "The Washington Post." Good to see you, Toluse. So your colleagues at "The Washington Post" reported that Trump aides have been working to set aside division in a final sprint to Election Day. Despite this, the Trump campaign is defending President Trump's attacks on the Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer just days after authorities foiled a plot by extremists -- domestic terrorists to kidnap her. Listen to this from Lara Trump.</s>LARA TRUMP, SENIOR ADVISER, TRUMP 2020 CAMPAIGN: Well, look, this -- he wasn't doing anything, I don't think, to provoke people to threaten this woman at all. He was having fun at a Trump rally. The President was at a rally. It's a fun light atmosphere. Of course, he wasn't encouraging people to threaten this woman. That's ridiculous.</s>JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Well, I don't think "lock her up" is fun.</s>WHITFIELD: So continued, I guess, defense of the President that, you know, he is really just joking, and people are taking all this out of context.</s>TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, this is not the closing argument that the Trump campaign and the R.N.C. want to be making in the final two weeks of a campaign, but this is what the President is giving them, these "lock her up" chants and, you know, diverting from what they want to be the main message, which is, you know, focusing on the economy, focusing on policy, contrasting President Trump's vision for the economy and for the country to former Vice President Joe Biden's vision for the economy and for the country. But instead, we go down these various rabbit holes on the President's personal grievances, as Kevin said, and this is not really where the campaign wants to be. My colleagues did report that, you know, the R.N.C. and the campaign had a meeting earlier last week to try to bury the hatchet, get on the same page, and figure out the messaging for the final stretch of the campaign. But as much as they meet and try to strategize, when the President gets in front of a crowd, he does exactly what he wants to do. He diverts from the campaign strategy. He talks about things that are much different than what the campaign would want him to be talking about, and it is clear that he is going to do that for the final two weeks of this campaign. He is going to be on his own messaging tour where he, you know, airs his grievances, attacks his opponents and doesn't put forward the clear message that the campaign wants him to be putting forward about the economy and about his vision for the country.</s>WHITFIELD: Interesting. So this week, another debate, you know, the President is still not taking COVID very seriously. You know, saying at rallies it is going away. It'll disappear. We're rounding the corner -- when 10 states are seeing the highest one day coronavirus case counts.</s>WHITFIELD: You know, so Trump was at that last debate and he got there too late to be tested. Precautions are still to be taken for this one upcoming on Thursday. Is there any sense that the President will be more disciplined?</s>OLORUNNIPA: Yes, it's pretty clear that the President is flouting a lot of these coronavirus restrictions and these guidelines. He did so at the past debate. I think that Debate Commission is going to try to increase its scrutiny of the President to make sure that he is safe before he goes to another debate. But the problem is the President does not want to be talking about the coronavirus with two weeks to go before the election. He wants to be talking about other things. But the fact that the virus is spiraling and spiking in different parts of the country makes it hard for the President to change the debate, to change the narrative to something else. Now, you can expect him to bring forward all kinds of different attacks on Thursday at the debate whether he is talking about Vice President Joe Biden's son, Hunter or the media or corruption. He does not want to be talking about the fact that we are experiencing another spike of the coronavirus across the country and hundreds of Americans continue to die on a daily basis, even though he said and has said for months that we are rounding the turn and this is going to be behind us soon. So the President wants to try to change the focus away from the coronavirus, but it's going to be hard for him to do that when the numbers show what they show when he when he himself contracted the virus, and when he and his aides at the White House have been so flippant about following the guidelines when it comes to wearing masks or social distancing.</s>WHITFIELD: And perhaps, he is setting the stage by not only criticizing Savannah Guthrie of NBC after the Town Hall, but he is preemptively now criticizing the moderator for the upcoming event, NBS's Kristen Welker.</s>OLORUNNIPA: Yes, that's exactly right. They are trying to pre-spin this debate by attacking the moderators, saying the President cannot get a fair shot. It is going to be two against one. They are really trying to lower the bar, lower the expectation for the President, because this is the last sort of national attempt that the President is going to have to speak to a national audience and try to change the narrative of this race, and you know, attacking the moderator does not show that they have a lot of confidence in his ability to do that with just a few days left before voters go to the polls. But it's clear that they want to try to, you know, eke out any advantage in, and by sort of working the refs and attacking the moderator ahead of time, that seems to be how they're doing it at this point.</s>WHITFIELD: Vice President Biden is hoping to get some -- a big assist in the former President Barack Obama who will be hitting the campaign trail starting this week. How potentially influential would that be at this juncture?</s>OLORUNNIPA: Well, the Vice President, definitely needs support turning out the vote. We do see high numbers of turnout, but there are, you know, young voters and other groups that have not yet turned out at the levels that the vice president would need. So former President Barack Obama does have a track record with a lot of these voters. There are a lot of Obama-Trump voters that he is going to be trying to, talk to trying to turn out, trying to get to stick with former Vice President Joe Biden. So, he could be quite helpful in just sort of seeing them together if they end up campaigning together at some point, which I think is expected. Former President Obama, former Vice President Biden on the stage together may give people sort of that nostalgia of a time before Trump where you know, you didn't have to turn up -- you didn't have to turn down the television when the President came on the scene or your blood pressure didn't go up. I think that's what the Vice President is trying to do, and having former President Obama on the trail to help him do that could prove pivotal in the last few days of this race.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, another potentially pivotal week. Toluse Olorunnipa, thank you so much.</s>OLORUNNIPA: Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Coming up. Misinformation about masks: a member of the White House Coronavirus Taskforce sounding off on Twitter and contradicting science. Plus, Natasha Chen is live with voters as more than 22 million Americans cast their ballots early.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Fred, there are fewer places open for voting today around Georgia, but that hasn't stopped people from coming out. We are talking to them about how they are really loving the shorter waits on a Sunday. Plus, we have brand new numbers we will share with you from the Georgia Secretary of State's Office about how turnout is really breaking records.

Interview With Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI)

WHITFIELD: President Trump at a campaign rally in Michigan last night doubling down on his attacks on Michigan Governor, Gretchen Whitmer.</s>TRUMP: You've got to get your governor to open up your state. Okay? [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]</s>TRUMP: And get your schools open. Get your schools open. The schools have to be open, right? [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]</s>AUDIENCE: (Chanting "Lock her up.")</s>TRUMP: Lock them all up.</s>WHITFIELD: Whitmer was the target of an alleged plot by domestic terrorists to kidnap and kill her. Whitmer called the rhetoric dangerous and said it needs to stop. I'm joined now by Congresswoman Debbie Dingell. She is a Democrat from Michigan. Good to see you, Congresswoman. So today, the Trump campaign is saying the President was just having some fun. Did that sound like fun to you?</s>REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): No, it wasn't fun. And quite frankly, having been the target of some of his, quote-unquote "fun" in the past. You have no idea what it sets off. I just left the Governor. She is one tough, steady woman. But what happened yesterday is just totally unacceptable. We have to stop this fear and hatred in the country, Fredricka, and what he did last night. It's just after he knew there had been a militia threat is unacceptable and quite frankly for me, unforgiveable.</s>WHITFIELD: And do you feel like, all right, it's one thing that he was using that language when he was a citizen running for President, but now he is a sitting President, and using that language coming from his 2016 playbook. Is that what makes it more -- all the more shocking to you?</s>DINGELL: Well quite frankly, it's more shocking to me, because when he was using that, in 2016, which I didn't think was appropriate either, but at least he was targeting for a crime. Right now, we have a pandemic that has turned the world upside down. And quite frankly, the way that he has handled it has many questioning whether it was made worse or not. There are Republican and Democratic governors doing exactly what my governor is doing, and they are feeling the responsibility for the citizens of their state. They are trying to keep them from getting sick, and they are trying to keep them from dying. And for him to just -- what he has been doing from the beginning, if he would just wear a mask, he is a leader. He does -- people follow him. If he would just wear a mask, does he know how many thousands of lives he would save? And instead of wearing the mask, he talks and makes fun of, and encourages fear and hatred. He pits us against each other. The leader of the United States of America is supposed to pull us together, not tear us apart.</s>WHITFIELD: This pandemic has led to, you know, unbelievable pain and hardship. And the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi says the White House needs to make a deal on a new stimulus package within the next 48 hours for it to be done by Election Day. Do you think that's a realistic timeline?</s>DINGELL: Well, I think a realistic timeframe was months ago when we passed the first Heroes Bill, and they could have at least have come to the table and tried it, if they didn't agree with what we did, okay, well, can you agree? But now we're down to that election politics for the Republicans that are playing here. And this is about people's lives. I very carefully mask, physically distance out, talking to people. My Saturdays for 12 hours just talking and hearing what's on people's minds. They are scared. They are worried about winter. They are worried about their jobs. A lot of them are hungry. This is -- we need to do something. You know, I pray she can get something done in 48 hours. But Mitch McConnell doesn't sound like he wants to do anything, and the President could tell his Republicans we need to get this done and it would happen.</s>WHITFIELD: And so what are the sticking points? What do you want to say what must be in a stimulus package in your view?</s>DINGELL: Well, first of all, we've got to have a testing and tracing plan -- we put one together. They were looking at language, apparently they can't -- why they can't come to some kind of simple language on being able to test people and try to diminish the impact of community spread by tracing is beyond me. But since the White House themselves didn't trace, I guess, you can lean to that. We also need to get aid to state and local governments, which are really hurting. There are people laying off frontline workers, which is our firefighters, that ambulance drivers, the school teachers. That's absolutely got to be in it. We should have more support for PPP for our businesses. It's all got to be there, though. We can't just help out Wall Street and not help out working men and women across the country who are really hurting. One in four in Michigan doesn't have a job. People have lost their health insurance because it was tied to their jobs. A lot of people are just plain scared with the food insecurity problem in this country. It's not -- it's not those that we always worry about, it's a lot of people's neighbors that are worried about these.</s>WHITFIELD: This pandemic is the driving force behind the voting, the importance of the voting this year, and the early voting. Your state is among those that is seeing a sizable increase of early voters, already 1.2 million. However, are you concerned about Election Day and potential voter intimidation, especially on the heels of the President encouraging people to be vigilant about watching people at polling stations?</s>DINGELL: So we're all going to be very vigilant. Our Secretary of State this week has made it clear that guns cannot be present at the polling places. We've got an election protection plan in place, everybody. I don't care who you're voting for. I do care. But what's most important is that you do vote for the person that you think will do the best job, and you need to not be afraid to go vote. I've got a meeting this week with all of my law enforcement and my churches and my faith-based groups and civic groups who want to talk about Election Day. We're not going to let anybody be afraid. We're all going to work as a community bringing disparate people together so that everybody feels safe. But also encouraging people to vote now because we are seeing an increase in COVID, so that's another problem. We don't want to -- our numbers have gone up greatly in the last three or four days and we don't want people not voting on Election Day, because they're worried about COVID, too. They can vote now.</s>WHITFIELD: Right. Lots of concerns. Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, good to see you. Thank you so much. Be well.</s>DINGELL: Good to see you, Fredricka. Thank you.</s>WHITFIELD: All right, still ahead. A party divided: some Republicans are breaking ranks with President Trump. Will there be more defections just now 16 days before Election Day? And will that move backfire?

Trumps Visit Two States with COVID-19 Cases Spikes; Manchester Opposes Highest COVID-19 Alert Level; Italy Reports Daily Record Cases In Second Spike.

CURNOW: As the weather cools here in the US and across the Northern Hemisphere, COVID numbers are expected to rise according to the experts. Now ready, the US is seeing record increases. Evan McMorris- Santoro has the details on that. Evan.</s>EVAN MCMORRIS-SANTORO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Public health officials in the United States are sounding the alarm as cases rise across the country and winter swiftly approaches. As you can see from this graphic, 10 states across the country recently reported their highest single day total of new COVID cases since the pandemic began. Dr. Anthony Fauci warns that more states are showing bad numbers. And if that continues, things could get a lot worse.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, WHITE HOUSE CORONAVIRUS TASK FORCE: You can't enter into the cool months of the fall and the cold months of the winter with a high community infection baseline. And looking at the map and seeing the heat map, how it lights up with test positivity, that is in more than 30 plus states is going in the wrong direction. It's still not too late to vigorously apply good public health measures. And again, I emphasize without necessarily shutting down the country.</s>MCMORRIS-SANTORO: What Dr. Fauci is saying is that people need to realize the things that kept the virus in check in the spring are also important for the winter, a diligent adherence to social distancing rules and mask requirements. Without it, Fauci says, America could be in for a very tough winter. Evan McMorris-Santoro, CNN, New York.</s>CURNOW: Dr. Murtaza Akhter is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona's College of Medicine-Phoenix. Hi, doctor. So you've been working on the frontlines, and you hear that this is going to be a tough winter. Eight million people have coronavirus in the US right now. What's it like for you there in a hospital?</s>DR. MURTAZA AKHTER, CLINICAL ASSISTANT PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA COLLEGE OF MEDICINE-PHOENIX: Yes. Thanks for having me, Robyn. So, you know, that's exactly right. In the winter season, in most of the country, people go indoors more. Now, in Arizona is sort of the opposite where the weather gets nicer. But on the East Coast right now, and the weather has definitely gotten colder, where I just stepped in for my shift today. Back home it was quite cold, which means people will clearly be going indoors, and therefore they're going to spread more germs. Just like they do every year, but this year there's a pandemic along with COVID. And so, you know, we're seeing patients still coming to ER, whichever hospital I'm in. And the concern is, especially given the numbers rising in the country, and the weather getting colder, how much worse is potentially going to get. So we're all trying to brace for it.</s>CURNOW: Yes. And that's the point, is that how are you planning? Are you concerned about capacity with this new wave about to hit or hitting in many places? How concerned are you about, you know, these old standing issues of PPE and beds, and ICU space?</s>AKHTER: Yes, that's a great question. You know, we've gotten so used to this at this point that we almost take it a second nature. But we also assume that at some point, people would, you know, try to beat the pandemic distance, wear masks, et cetera. And clearly that isn't working. It seems like the American spirit has been killed and people have given up, and the numbers are rising everywhere. I really hope it gets curtailed quickly. I've been wrong about a lot of things in a pandemic, and I'm hoping that I'll be wrong about this, and maybe it won't get worse. But everything is looking in the wrong direction right now, and all the experts are saying in the winter it will get worse. And we're just hoping that we can, you know, get over the hump. They might be multiple humps, and conserve PPE, conserve hospital beds. I really thought we'd be really the tail end of this and I was totally wrong. It sounds like we're in it for the long haul, which is unfortunate for all of us.</s>CURNOW: So are you exhausted just at the thought of this? And what are folks saying to you when they come in sick and you know that this is the beginning of another hump, as you call it?</s>AKHTER: Absolutely exhausted. I'm on a group chat with doctors. I came for my shift and we're texting back and forth. And somebody asked what I now think is a ludicrous question of, do we think we'll ever track and trace. And, of course, most of us responding that that will never happened here. People here don't even quarantine, even if they're positive, and it's so demoralizing. We've already become demoralized. So we are beginning to lose hope on it. And we're just trying to fight through the battle lines and deal with the patients as they come in. I think a lot of patients probably also thought that maybe the worst of it was over. \ But there are plenty of people coming in very sick, very short of breath. And remember, in the ER we assume that they're COVID until the test result comes back which we don't necessarily know until they're admitted. And then, we find out after the fact that they had COVID. But that means for every patient we see, whether it's really sick respiratory distress or a mild asthma. If it down up, wear with the PPE and it puts the whole hospital on basically a backlog and that affects every patient not just COVID patients.</s>CURNOW: And as you say, it also affects you, doctors. I know there was recently a study that said men were more likely to die or at least be in the ICU longer. Are you seeing that anecdotally, in terms of your patients and people who are coming through that men are being disproportionately impacted here?</s>AKHTER: Yes, it does seem to me. Again, that's anecdotal. I like to use Big Data as a researcher, but even anecdotally, it seems like there are more men who come in. Now, there could be a variety of reasons for that. Some might say that men also do more dangerous things, whether you talk about smoking, or any on large groups, so whatever the case may be. And maybe they're on the frontlines more. It's hard to know, there could be a lot of confounders, but we do tend to see men more often. And, you know, honestly, that's sort of the case even with other illnesses, where men seem to have a more inflammatory response. So that part even scientifically is not necessarily surprising. But even anecdotally, yes, it seems like the people who come in who are often quite sick, or even if they're not sick, tend to males more than females. But, of course, the larger data is really where it's most relevant.</s>CURNOW: And let's talk also about -- you say you're exhausted. You're on this WhatsApp chat with other doctors, how are you guys dealing? And I mean, woman. I mean, collectively here, how are you all dealing mentally and emotionally with this? And do you have the sort of the stamina to just get through the next few months, potentially, the next six months? I mean, what is the effects of this for you?</s>AKHTER: You notice that it's kind of a double-edged sword, because on one hand, people will say volumes are so low. I have a lot of residents at multiple hospitals I work at who are looking for jobs, and they're struggling to find jobs. And you can never imagine the situation where doctors are struggling to find jobs. I was told that would never happen and it's happening. People are struggling to even find jobs because of how much the whole system has been affected. So on one hand, there are people who are looking for jobs who can't get them. On the other hand, there are people who are working all the time, and are seeing that this just never ending. And so, yes, it takes an emotional toll on everyone. Everybody would like to go back to normal and I get that. You know, everybody's kind of exhausted. But we just -- we cannot go back to normal while that pandemic is raging, and while we haven't controlled it. And so, the way I look at it, when I go into shift is, you know, this is my duty, this is my obligation. This is what I signed up for. The unfortunate part with a public health disaster and infectious disease is that even if I do everything in my part, any of the patients I see everything on their parts, to do everything right. All it takes is a few people to get sick, and to become super spreaders. And when, you know, leadership from the top down isn't coming down in a clear consistent message, what ends up happening is that the virus just never goes away. There's a clear distinction between our country and others, between certain states within countries. And it clearly comes to how well and how seriously you take COVID. And so, it really is frustrating. But again, in some sense, we signed up for this, we just didn't realize it will be that the people would respond to this poorly, to being able to distance and wearing masks. And that's what's unfortunate. But as for the medical part, we'll keep doing what we always do.</s>CURNOW: Yes. And in many ways, as you say this, this is kind of a very unique American reaction, the worst number of cases we're seeing in the world, the doctors like you are certainly on the frontline of something that you've never had never expected to deal with. And you want it to be over. But at the same time if a vaccine comes out, a lot of polls are saying people won't take it. So this might not be over, you know, as quickly as you want, even if a vaccine comes out in the next few months.</s>AKHTER: That's the most horrible thing. That, you know, I really was hoping the anti-vaxxers had gone into a hole and would never call that out. And now it seems like they are a prominent movement, and in particular with the COVID vaccine, which is so absolutely horrendous. Because I thought the vaccine really significantly decrease the disease burden, and I hope it will. But there's so many people who are saying I won't believe in the vaccine, no matter what the data are, no matter what the results are. I want there to be good data. I want there to be good data before people take it. But at the same time that people say I'm going to take a regardless, it's just -- it is really infuriating. It was always infuriating, especially if you talk to a pediatrician, when kids come in and their family members don't want to vaccinate them. And now you've got a worldwide pandemic, and people are saying similar things, which is really crazy. So you're right, it could last for quite a bit longer. And as one of my surgeon friends said, we're, you know, we're all like the Triceratops looking at the asteroid coming at Earth and thinking we'll be OK if we just find some shade. That's not how it works. You know, you don't want to just hope that you'll beat this disease just by hiding in the shade. You will have to be actively against it. In this case, that's distancing masks and the vaccine, and it's crazy that people are already being anti-vaxxers</s>CURNOW: That's quite an analogy and you send chills up my spine as you describe it. But, Dr. Murtaza, thank you so much for sharing. I know your frustrations, but I think we're all listening to you, very grateful for the hard work that you and your colleagues are doing. So I know it's tough, keep on going, sir. Thank you.</s>AKHTER: Appreciate it, thank you, Robyn, for everything you guys do. Thank you. So the fact is coronavirus is spiking all over the world. So I want to give you a breakdown. In Prague, in an expo center, this will be used as a field hospital for COVID patients. It could offer relief as regular hospitals in the Czech Republic started to fill up there. And then on Saturday, Prague set a new record for daily coronavirus infections, with more than 33,000 cases reported just in the last 24 hours. Paris and nine other French cities are under curfew for at least four weeks. Globally, there are several hotspots seen here in red and orange. Many of you are in those places. You know what I'm talking about here. Well, more than 39 million cases and there been more than 1 million deaths. Well, our correspondents are tracking all of these surges from around world. Jomana Karadsheh is following the spike in the Middle East from Istanbul. Ben Wedeman is in Naples, the latest on Italy's shattered records. And Salma Abdelaziz has been following the war (ph) between the mayor of Manchester and the British Prime Minister. So let's start there.</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: After an extraordinary act of defiance from the mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham.</s>ANDY BURNHAM, MAYOR, MANCHESTER: We have unanimously opposed the government's plans for Tier 3. They are flawed and unfair.</s>CURNOW: The city now faces an ultimatum from Prime Minister Boris Johnson.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, UK PRIME MINISTER: If agreement cannot be reached, I will need to intervene.</s>ABDELAZIZ: Downing Street implemented a three tier COVID alert system to curb a second wave of coronavirus cases, not abiding by these new measures, the government says, means more people will die. But Afzal Khan, a member of parliament from Manchester says it's the prime minister not the mayor who is putting lives at risk.</s>AFZAL KHAN, BRITIST LABOUR MP: I'm disappointed. I think they've been incompetent. I've never seen anything like this from a British government.</s>CURNOW: So why won't you just implement Tier 3 restriction as the government has requested?</s>KHAN: Of course it's going to help, but it will not be what we need. We need more. I think that's my first concern. And second point is the impact economically will be huge.</s>ABDELAZIZ: Take all around me. This shopping district is absolutely packed. And that's what this debate is about. Even under the country's highest level restrictions, pubs and bars would be shut down. Households would be banned from mixing together, but this would still be allowed. That's why some including the country's scientific advisors say a nationwide lockdown is needed. It would also come with more financial support to help businesses survive the second hit. Pub owner Tim Flynn says if he closes his doors under the three tier system, he may never be able to reopen again.</s>TIM FLYNN, OWNER, NEW OXFORD PUB: A local lockdown will not do it. I have no problem with a sharp two-week, three-week lockdown, both just local lockdown but not too soon. And they packages that are from the businesses is only peanuts.</s>ABDELAZIZ: Do you support the mayor and him</s>I FLYNN: I do support them 110%</s>ABDELAZIZ: He is not alone on the streets of Manchester. It's hard to find support for the Prime Minister. We're asking whether you support the mayor or the Prime Minister on coronavirus restrictions.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Probably the mayor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The mayor, I'm on the mayor side, definitely.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I'm siding with the mayor.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, the mayor, yes.</s>ABDELAZIZ: And what's your opinion of Prime Minister Boris Johnson?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm not going to say it on</s>TV. ABDELAZIZ: While the government remains in a state of paralysis, the virus continues to spread. Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, Manchester</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: For the fourth day in a row, Italy has reported record high daily increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. The number is far higher than what we saw earlier in the year when Italy was the European epicenter of the pandemic. Yet, deaths remain relatively low from coronavirus still in the double digits. Now, we're in Naples where the governor of this region has ordered schools and universities to be closed. Restaurants have to close their doors by 9:00 pm. We also had the chance to speak with the region senior infective disease specialist 1who told us that this region is taking a much more aggressive approach to testing. In the past, in Italy, you actually had to show symptoms of the disease, now all you need is a doctor's referral. So testing is much more easily available for those who want it regardless of whether they show symptoms. All of this, it is hope will help stop this latest alarming surge, a second wave in this pandemic. I'm Ben Wedeman, CNN reporting from Naples.</s>JOMANA KARADSHEH, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Several countries in the Middle East are facing a surge in COVID-19 cases, but the hardest hit country remains Iran battling another wave of the pandemic. Just this past week, it recorded the highest daily number of confirmed cases and death. The situation is especially dire in the capital, Tehran. Health officials there say they're running out of ICU beds. The government is putting in new restrictions, new measures, more fines for violators. But the one thing that Iran cannot afford right now is a lockdown because of the economic situation and the impact of devastating US sanctions.</s>CURNOW: So thanks there to Jomana, Selma and Ben for all of that reporting. We'll continue to bring you the latest on the global COVID numbers. So coming up here on CNN, President Trump's latest blunt words for the governor of Michigan, just days after a plot to kidnap her was foiled. That one's next.

Trump Still Getting More Coverage Than Biden

BRIAN STELTER, CNN ANCHOR: Hey, I'm Brian Stelter, live from New York, and this is RELIABLE SOURCES, our weekly look at the story behind the story. This hour, a tale of two moderators. Would-be demonstrator Steve Scully suspended by C-Span, while town hall host Savannah Guthrie at NBC is praised for her performance. Plus, we have new reporting about the debate coming up this Thursday. Plus, the origins of right wing media's latest obsession with Hunter Biden. Yeah, we are going there. And, later, a rare interview with commentator Andrew Sullivan on the role of the media in 2020. But, let me start with this. This is the media critique that I hear most often from all of you watching at home. It's that President Trump gets too much attention, too much air time, and he crowds out everyone and everything else. Every week I hear from viewers that say we are talking too much about Trump and not enough about Joe Biden. And this has been going on for five years. This screen grab is from August 2015 on this very show. I was pointing out that Trump was sucking up all the oxygen in the proverbial room during the GOP primary, winning far more nightly news coverage than other GOP candidates. Now, flash forward to 2020 and Trump still dominates TV. We checked CNN, MSNBC and Fox News this month, and Trump mentions outranked Biden mentions on all three channels. Here is another data point. Google searches for both candidates in the last 30 days, Trump is consistently ahead of Biden. So what's this about? Well, it reminds me of the old saying that plane crashes are news, but all of the planes that land safely don't make the news. Or maybe the better comparison is to a house. Pictures of an arsonist burning down a house are more shocking than, I don't know, speeches by a guy who is promising to repaint the house. I am sure you can think of a better comparison, but we know that the president is shocking. We know this phenomenon is real. Trump holds nor events and talks longer and tweets more. Biden, on the other hand, is protecting his lead in the polls with a less-is-more approach. Ezra Klein commented the other day that Biden's low visibility campaign is working and, he said, perhaps people like politicians more when they see them less. Tim Alberta recently wrote for "Politico" that it's impossible to actually measure Trump fatigue, but it is really even among, quote, die hard Trump supporters. They feel trapped inside a reality TV show and they want a break even if they don't want a new program. Trump really is testing the limits of the attention economy. But there's one big difference in this election cycle. His rallies are not being shown live all over the place. Sometimes you have to go to his website to watch them. Still, he says so many outrageous and offensive things, especially at those rallies, that he remains a massive news story, that newsroom have to cover. Look, even in my newsroom at CNN, within our editorial meetings for this program, RELIABLE SOURCES, we often talk about all the Trump drama and how it's crowding out news about Biden. We talk about whether we need to add a Biden segment to the program. And if so, what would that be? Well, here it is. This is our Trump and Biden segment talking about this disparity and how it's visible all over the place. Here is the question now though. Is all the attention, all the air time for Trump, is it working for him this time around, or is it not working against him? I am sure you heard about the ratings for the recent dueling town halls. Trump's town hall heard on three channels, and yet he still was outperformed by Biden who was on just one channel alone. Now, is that the ultimate sign of Trump fatigue? If so, what does it mean? And how does the press need to make sure that we are providing balanced, fair coverage of both of these candidates when there are so many natural differences in the newsworthiness of them? I am joined today by an all-star panel of guests who are going to be with me throughout the hour. With me is the staff writer for "The Atlantic" and author of "Twilight of Democracy", Anne Applebaum; Harvard Law School professor and co-director of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Yochai Benkler; the national correspondent for "Time" magazine and author of "The Ones We've Been Waiting For", Charlotte Alter; and the editor-in-chief for "The Daily Beast", Noah Shachtman. Noah, do you talk about this in your newsroom that I do with CNN, this Trump and Biden disparity?</s>NOAH SHACHTMAN, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, THE DAILY BEAST: Yeah, we talk about it all the time. It's real. It's important and it's unfortunate in a lot of ways. Look, in some ways it reflects the dynamics of the race, too, right? There is not really in some ways a race between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. There is a race between two coalitions, a pro-Trump coalition and an anti-Trump coalition headed by Joe Biden. Just look at Joe Biden's -- look at his coalition, right? He's got Angela Davis and Noam Chomsky on one end, and he's got Bill Kristol on the other end. These people don't agree with</s>STELTER: Charlotte, do you pick up on this in your interviews with voters? You have been writing about this for "Time" magazine recently, what you're hearing from voters in battleground states. Do they notice that Trump takes up all the oxygen in the room?</s>CHARLOTTE ALTER, NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT, TIME: Yeah, they do, and one of the things that I noticed in my trip across the battleground states, it's not just on the news that Trump is sort of dominating. His visibility out in the real world is overwhelming compared to Biden's. And that has a lot to do with, you know, problems the Biden campaign has had in terms of getting their yard signs out, you know, people complain about their yard signs being stolen, and I understand that the campaign is actively working on that and trying to fix that. But when you drive around, you see a lot more Trump than you see of Biden, and it sort of like reflects in some ways the news coverage. But also I think this is partly an enthusiasm gap between the two camps. The people who are pro-Trump are really pro-Trump, and some of the people who are not for Trump kind of don't really want to get into it as much it seems to me.</s>STELTER: Right. I was driving earned Bucks County, Pennsylvania, yesterday and counting the number of signs. Every time I thought Biden was ahead, there was another crop of Trump signs. And, of course, these are all just anecdotes, right? There is no real data we can use about signs. But, everybody, you know, we can't resist the count, can't resist watching this. Anne, you have a global perspective for us. You are coming from outside of the United States. I want to see your view inside the U.S. of this present situation. You know, a lot of liberals in the U.S. feel like the press has been tilted towards Trump even though the coverage is very critical some -- most of the time, because we are constantly talking about him, that means he is winning. How do you see it?</s>ANNE APPLEBAUM, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: Oh, I am not sure that talking about him all the time means that he's winning. You know, we saw what was the result of the first debate. Remember it seemed to Trump he was winning that debate and he seemed to say so afterwards because he was dominating the conversation, he was constantly interrupting Biden, you know, he made his points over and over again, repeated himself. And yet we saw afterwards that people were really repelled by that performance and they recoiled from it. And so, I'm not sure that more attention necessarily means more votes. You know, quite a lot of the attention is not just that the attention is negative. It's that the more people see of Trump -- remember that most people don't follow politics the way people on this program do. They don't watch it every minute. And the more they see him in action, the more they hear him, the more they seem to be repelled by him. So, it may not be a bad thing.</s>STELTER: And we're going to preview the next debate in just a couple of minutes. Yochai, I want to ask about the bigger picture, the status of this election, because almost every day the current president is saying and doing things to try to delegitimize this election. And his latest narrative, his latest lie is that Biden is illegitimate. These are a couple of tweets from October, one from earlier in the month, one from this morning, the meta message from the president, although a lot of this is nonsensical about made up conspiracy theories, is that Biden shouldn't be allowed to run or he is not allowed to run, that he is not qualified to run, that he is not legitimate, that he legally shouldn't be allowed to win the presidency. This is yet another flavor of this really dangerous narrative from the sitting president. Is this ultimately a test for American democracy? What is this?</s>YOCHAI BENKLER, PROFESSOR, HARVARD LAW SCHOOL: Absolutely it's a test for American democracy. And don't forget, this is a president who started his entire political existence with the birther movement and with the idea that the sitting president of the United States was constitutionally unable to be a president. So what you have is a sustained attack on the possibility that if you are not with him, you're at all eligible. And he has to differentiate himself in that way because he has nothing actually to show for himself. And we focus very heavily on Trump, but at some point, we should focus -- we should expand a little bit to look at the Republican Party more generally. And when you look at the --</s>STELTER: -- that the Republicans are in an electoral dead end. What does that mean?</s>BENKLER: Well, here's the basic -- here is the basic problem. They are stuck in, for 40 years now, the Republican coalition has basically been money, focused on deregulation and low taxes, funding a party where the votes come from the white identity voters backlash against the civil rights movement, and the fundamentalist backlash against the women's movement. So you have this coalition, and it kept becoming more and more constrained as it started to feed from Rush Limbaugh, from Fox News into its own extremism. And so, what you have now is essentially a party that can't expand beyond its base, and it's not just Trump claiming illegitimacy of Biden. You see it in Greg Abbott's effort to suppress the vote in Texas. You see it in Pennsylvania with the state legislature. Because they are a persistent minority party based on very narrow foundations with a very static coalition that is a shrinking part of the electorate, they have no choice but to lean as heavily as they can on the most anti-democratic aspects of the American republic.</s>STELTER: So, when we hear about minority rule and we hear about this backlash, you are putting it into context for us. Everybody, please stay with me. You're all coming back after the break. I want to talk about the moderators, the recent debate moderators, and town hall moderators, and a big problem that the commission on presidential debates has. That's next.

What to Expect at Thursday's Presidential Debate.

STELTER: After the chaos in Cleveland, aka, the first presidential debate of the fall, the commission that holds the debate said that additional structure was needed to ensure a more orderly discussion. They said there will be additional tools to maintain order, whatever that means. Eighteen days later, the commission has not announced anything about new structure or new tools. Will the producers cut the microphone of a serial interrupter? We don't know. But we shall see on Thursday hopefully, because President Trump says he, quote, will play the game and show up this time after skipping what was supposed to be the second debate of the season. He is working the ref already, unfairly attacking the moderator Kristen Welker of NBC, in a wake of a hit job story in "The New York Post". And look, this is a tried and true Trump tactic, right, making excuses ahead of time in case he does poorly. Here is Trump talking about Welker on Saturday.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I have known her for a long time. She's extraordinarily unfair, but that's all right.</s>STELTER: Okay. Here is Trump praising her back in January.</s>TRUMP: Congratulations on your show.</s>KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Thank you very much.</s>TRUMP: They made a very wise decision.</s>WELKER: Thank you very much. And we invite you for an interview whenever you are available.</s>TRUMP: Okay.</s>STELTER: Need I say more? All right. Charlotte Alter and Noah Shachtman are back with me. So, the second debate of the season was scrapped. There should be a third debate on Wednes -- Thursday coming up. We'll talk about that a little bit. Let's go back in time to these dueling town halls that were held last Thursday. Savannah Guthrie was praised by -- seemingly everybody in the journalism world for poking and prodding and following up on President Trump when he was dodging questions and spreading misinformation at Thursday's town hall. And for that, the president is trashing Savannah Guthrie. He has been trashing her for days now. Let's take a look at some of what he said about her.</s>TRUMP: And then, Savannah, it was like her face -- the anger, the craziness. OK. You watched last night and you see the anger and the hatred. I'm saying, look, let's just do this thing. Just take it easy. Relax. Just relax. Take it nice and easy, okay? Last night was -- she was out of line.</s>STELTER: All right. Charlotte, the president has well-documented issues with women journalists. Is this part of that trend?</s>ALTER: Yeah. I mean, listen, the president attacks everybody but he saves his most personal attacks for women and particularly for women journalists. And, you know, as we were talking about in the earlier segment, Trump, you know, he's not really necessarily running against Joe Biden. He is kind of running against the media itself. So, you know, that's why some of these negative coverage and some of these tough questions don't really seem to resonate with his base because the enemy, as he said many times, or as he tried to argue many times, are the questioners, are the refs, is the media itself. So, he's, you know, feeding into that situation that he has created where he is not really running against Joe Biden. He is running against the entire idea of media scrutiny and the entire idea that somebody would be really, you know, holding his feet to the fire in a way that Savannah Guthrie did.</s>STELTER: I am glad you said that. People didn't just see what the big deep story he is telling is, even though you can dismiss it as nonsense, it's a deep story about being everything out to get him -- everything and everyone being out to get him, every institution, even the Debate Commission. That's the story he tells every day at his rallies. And that's appealing or it's not. But that's the story he tells. And so, these clashes with Savannah Guthrie, you're right, they are part of a bigger narrative. So, Noah, do he see a tale of two moderators between Chris Wallace at the debate that is happen and then Savannah Guthrie at the town hall on NBC? Can we learn from their different strategies?</s>SHACHTMAN: Yeah, look, Chris Wallace, and I'd add George Stephanopoulos at the ABC debate, or at the ABC town hall with Biden just kind of let those guys go on and on and on unchecked. And, Savannah Guthrie, I thought, did a great job by getting -- trying to get answers out of Trump, getting in his face, really demanding that he answer the questions. And I am really hoping that in this next debate coming up, they follow the Savannah Guthrie model rather than the George Stephanopoulos or Chris Wallace model.</s>STELTER: Meanwhile, Steve Scully was to be the moderator of the second debate, one that was scrapped. He is the C-Span veteran, a journalist beloved by the Washington political class and yet he admitted to lying when he said he was hacked. He said his Twitter account was hacked and that's somehow why a tweet from him to Scaramucci -- popped up on his Twitter feed. He admitted he was lying and C-Span has suspended him for lying. How much damage does this -- how much damage does this do, Noah, to the national news media as a whole when you have a prominent journalist admitting to lying under pressure?</s>SHACHTMAN: Well, look, he is not the first prominent journalist to lie about some tweet that he was no longer proud of. He is not the first prominent journalist to claim to have been hacked and then not. It's a trend that pops up here and again, and it is ugly and it's really got to stop. This idea of, oh, it wasn't me, it was a random hacker is just ridiculous. People have got to own their mistakes. They have got to be able to say that they did wrong. Nobody's perfect. Perfect isn't on the menu. So people can say, hey look, I made a mistake with that tweet rather than blaming it on some phantom figure.</s>STELTER: Yeah, it definitely does damage. Looking ahead to this last debate, what should have been the third debate, it will be the second debate, Charlotte, the Debate Commission is being mum about what they are going to do, what they're going to change. I think they are afraid Trump is trying to back out again, so they're not commenting. I asked again this morning. I've been emailing and texting and not getting answers about what is going to change in the format, in the structure in order to have an actual debate. But that raises the broader question. Is this Debate Commission just, is it, you know, is it obsolete? You wrote a book about millennials and politics. The Debate Commission is the opposite. The Debate Commission skews very old. You got folks who have been around for decades who, you know, maybe they have the best of intentions. And I think that's true. They have the best of intentions. But is this debate commission idea obsolete?</s>ALTER: You know, I don't think that the idea of a debate commission is obsolete because I think that there need to be rules for any of these contests and there need to be rules for the events where the two candidates face off against each other. I do think that there are</s>STELTER: Right, exactly. And we will see between now and Thursday what the commission is going to do. Charlotte and Noah, please stay with me. Coming up here, how Fox News is like "Game of Thrones." How Fox is like "Breaking Bad." We're going to show you how this new anti-Biden narrative from the Murdoch media machine was manufactured.

CNN: Special Report: The Insiders, A Warning from Former Trump Officials.

BLITZER: I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. We're back tomorrow, 5:00 p.m. Eastern. "</s>THE INSIDERS: A WARNING FROM FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS" starts right now, right here on</s>CNN. JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Welcome to the CNN Special Report.</s>THE INSIDERS: A WARNING FROM FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington. The world has never before witnessed so many former top U.S. government officials warning about the president for whom they once worked. It's just never happened before. Not in these numbers and not with the same stark conclusion that President Trump in their view is unfit for the office he holds. The office he's asking you to return him to for a second term. It's a phenomenon that we cannot ignore. His former chief of staff, retired Marine general, John Kelly, has told friends about President Trump, quote, "The depths of his dishonesty is just astounding to me, the dishonesty. The transactional nature of every relationship, though it's more pathetic than anything else. He is the most flawed person I have ever met in my life," unquote. Trump's former Defense secretary, retired Marine general, James Mattis, said earlier this year, quote, "Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people, does not even pretend to try, instead he tries to divide us," unquote. This hour, you will hear from Trump administration insiders, some of whom have banded together to form the group Republican Voters Against Trump. These are people who know how President Trump makes decisions, to whom he listens, how he governs, from those inside the most exclusive meetings to those responsible for keeping our nation safe. Tonight, we begin with the pandemic that has killed more than 200,000 Americans. And two officials who were part of the early response from the Trump administration. Olivia Troye, a former member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, and Rick Bright who was directly involved in trying to develop a coronavirus vaccine. Let's talk about the Trump administration and the pandemic. Rick, let me start with you. President Trump frankly seems only more defiant after contracting and surviving coronavirus. He is holding rallies with no masks required, no distancing obviously. He is claiming he is immune, which is not borne out by science. Do you worry that his handling of the pandemic, which you've already criticized as reckless and careless, is only going to become more reckless and careless now that he's been infected?</s>RICK BRIGHT, OUSTED VACCINE DIRECTOR WHO FILED WHISTLEBLOWER COMPLAINT: I think it's beyond worry, Jake. I know that his actions, his words and the things that he's doing now are extending the duration and magnitude of this pandemic. The people attending these rallies that are not following public health guidelines, not wearing masks and social distancing, they are spreading that virus. And unfortunately, in some cases, it is the older people, the senior citizens in the community, in Florida, for example, who are going to get infected from that virus from people from that rally. And they're the ones who are going to die. So his actions today are actually leading to more deaths from the pandemic.</s>TAPPER: And, Olivia, you worked at the White House, on the Coronavirus Task Force. The president is directly putting the health and even lives of supporters and Americans at risk by holding these rallies all over the country. No masks, no distancing. Do you think he realizes that? Do you think he understand that he's putting their health at risk?</s>OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISER TO VP PENCE: I don't know how he wouldn't realize that. I mean, he has been briefed on how contagious the virus is. Repeatedly. He's been told by the experts on the task force, you know, like Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx and others who are every day have said this virus is very contagious and it spreads very easily and it spreads especially in mass gatherings. So he is fully aware of this and he still continues to behave this way.</s>TAPPER: Fauci told me that this is asking for trouble for the president to hold these rallies. President Trump yet again trying to attack, trying to undermine Dr. Fauci. You were in the White House, on the Coronavirus Task Force, and you saw the president sideline and attempt to discredit the nation's top infectious disease doctor. What did you see happen?</s>TROYE: I did. You know, I saw Dr. Fauci brief repeatedly. He attended every task force meeting that I was in, the entire tenure of the pandemic while I was still there. And I saw him at times -- I saw people in the room during the meetings, people -- senior White House officials look away and roll their eyes while he was briefing sometimes or they would try to push back and say, well, can't you, you know, spin the data this way? It seems that we're looking at -- we're not looking at increasing cases. Isn't it true that cases are decreasing? Or isn't it true that children are completely immune? These are people who do not have any medical or scientific backgrounds. And I saw this happen again when he would speak out publicly. And I saw, you know, them trying to manipulate the press briefings at the White House. I was complicit in that, Jake. I was the person that would have to call him at times when he was already on his way and say, Dr. Fauci, you're not needed today, I'm sorry.</s>TAPPER: Because they didn't want him at White House delivering facts, delivering truth?</s>TROYE: Correct. And they did this to other doctors as well. They did it to Dr. Redfield repeatedly. At times they did it to Dr. Birx where they say, you know, we don't want you briefing today, because she had posted a slide or something that just didn't fit with the narrative that this pandemic was going away and it was not as severe as it truly was.</s>TAPPER: But the facts speak for themselves. The pandemic is not going away. People are still dying. Infectious are going up. This probably doesn't surprise you as somebody who was on the medical and scientific side of things. But what's your response when you hear about how Fauci was undermined and not taken seriously by people who don't know anything about health?</s>BRIGHT: Jake, there's no one in our country that has more experience, has more knowledge, has more expertise about responding to an infectious disease or pandemic than Dr. Fauci. And his expertise in guiding us through that pandemic is sorely needed. The rhetoric that we're hearing from the White House, the narrative that we continually hear that overrules and undermines the scientific guidance from the best scientists in the world, actually, is actually frightening. Dr. Fauci, the experts at the CDC, the experts at the NIH and the FDA have the experience to pull our country through this pandemic. This White House, President Trump has ignored that truth from day one. He still refuses to admit that we have a problem. And the first action to get through any challenge, any crisis, is to admit you have a problem. His rhetoric today still tells us he is in complete denial. And he forces everyone around him, his inner circle, to believe and buy in and repeat that narrative. That narrative is what's causing more deaths today. He needs to admit the truth and he needs to be honest with Americans. He's not done that yet today.</s>TAPPER: And we should point out, you're a scientist. You're somebody that's been in public health for decades. You don't want to be here. You don't want to be talking about this. You would rather be in the administration trying to solve the problem of this pandemic.</s>BRIGHT: It is what I have studied to do, it's what I planned to do, what I prepared to do, it's what I exercised to do for many years, for decades actually. I have worked with the WHO. I've worked with the Gates Foundation, different organizations. I work in government. I have worked in industry. We all know what needs to be done. It is so frustrating to encounter a White House that is resistant to those actions. You know, we have practiced and planned and exercised all of the things that we need to do to address a pandemic. However, the one thing that we never anticipated in decades of planning was resistance from the president of the United States, resistance from the White House, refusal to admit there's a problem. We never anticipated that in any pandemic planning. That is why we're in the trouble we're in today because this president still refuses to acknowledge there's a problem.</s>TAPPER: Yes. You never war gamed for the person playing the president to say, I don't believe it. Why? Why does he do this, Oliva? You've seen him in the White House. You've helped -- you've been there when he asked Vice President Pence to take the lead of the Coronavirus Task Force. I mean, there are projections now that we're going to lose up to 400,000 Americans by February. Does he even comprehend this? Why doesn't he care?</s>TROYE: First, we've been talking about the fact that this virus would likely not go away. We knew, you know, he was briefed back in the spring that this virus, it would probably get worse in the fall and in the winter. And that we needed to be using all of these months to prepare for that situation. And as much as he would hear these briefings, and I know he understood it, I mean, I've heard the Woodward tapes, which were quite frankly appalling to me because it was proof that he had listened and he was repeating what he was briefed about. But he is so focused on this political narrative of strength and the pandemic not being real because he thinks that it hurts him. And rightly so. This pandemic response has been a failure led by him. And I think he just does not allow himself to live in the reality that the rest of us are living in.</s>TAPPER: So in other words, he thinks that he can BS his way back into re-election even though we all see the sickness and the death around us?</s>TROYE: Well, see, that's the problem when he is the loudest voice in the room because he has the platform of the Oval Office. He is the president. He has the biggest microphone or platform, so to speak where what he says people are listening to. And his words matter.</s>TAPPER: Olivia, Rick, thank you so much for your honesty. Really appreciate it. Up next, a former top official who says President Trump himself was the biggest obstacle to keeping the country safe. Plus, inside the Oval Office. An insider compares President Trump's attention span to that of a fruit fly. Stay with us.</s>TAPPER: Welcome back to THE INSIDERS. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington, D.C. This hour, we're bringing you the perspectives of former Trump administration officials who worry that another four years of him and his presidency would be devastating for the United States. Joining us now, Elizabeth Neumann, she's the former assistant secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Robert Cardillo, he's the former director of the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. And also Kyle Murphy, who is a senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. Thanks one and all for being here. Elizabeth, let me start with you. You call President Trump your biggest obstacle to keeping America safe when you were at the Department of Homeland Security. How so?</s>ELIZABETH NEUMANN, FORMER ASSISTANT SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY: There's so many ways, Jake. The fact is that he was not interested in doing the business of governing. So we were able to make progress if he wasn't paying attention to our issues. But let's just take the issue of the rise of domestic terrorism in our country. That's a very complex issue. It's one that requires defining the threat, articulating that threat for the American people, and then setting forth a strategy of how we're going to go after this emerging threat. And the president was not interested in exercising that kind of leadership. So thankfully, there were professionals at the FBI, at DHS, at the National Counterterrorism Center who committed to doing what we could at our various levels. But there were important conversations that have not been had, that won't happen as long as he is president. And we're delaying getting the tools and the laws updated that would then help law enforcement be able to go after this threat more effectively.</s>TAPPER: Kyle, you have briefed President Trump. What were those meetings like? What impression did you get from him?</s>KYLE MURPHY, FORMER SENIOR ANALYST, DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Right, Jake. So I was an apolitical civil servant who was detailed to the White House National Security Council staff. And in my role in the transition of the first couple of months of the Trump administration, I briefed the president ahead of several phone calls he was making to head of state counterparts overseas. And what I found was a president who was uninterested in the court challenges to U.S. national security, who was preoccupied with profit making and who was willing to betray the ideals of U.S. democracy and the rule of law in order to cozy up to dictators and sell weapons. This was fundamentally an unserious leader who didn't understand the challenges and the opportunities that were before him. And like Elizabeth said, what I saw most often was, you needed to work around the president if you were to get things done on behalf of the American people. And that's not the way in which the U.S. government should work.</s>TAPPER: Robert, you said that the president has, quote, "little patience for facts or data that do not come comport with his personal world view," unquote. What affect does that have?</s>ROBERT CARDILLO, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL GEOSPATIAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY: Well, Jake, you know, when you're an intelligence community official and you're trying to impart the complexity of an issue, of a threat, it is filled with details that one needs to delve into and to wrestle with. He had no tolerance for that kind of discussion. And as a matter of fact, whenever he would bump into something that was inconvenient or went against that core vision that he had, he would deflect or deny it. And so from a national security perspective, you can't then make good, sound decisions on behalf of the American people.</s>TAPPER: Can you give us an example?</s>CARDILLO: Well, the -- I can talk about the general topic that we had and it was around the North Korea threat. It was early in his administration. He was in learning mode, which is expected for any new president. But again, the conversation just bounced so much because, one, his attention span didn't allow to go deep or if it was heading in a direction that he either found not relevant or again too difficult, he would just move it along. And so the frustrating thing was, we couldn't get him to the hard point, which is where we need our president to be to make those tough decisions.</s>TAPPER: Elizabeth, when you talk about the inability to get President Trump to support the issue of domestic terrorism, I know that one of those issues has to do with the fact that President Trump has been reluctant to forcefully, clear-throatily condemn the white supremacists' domestic terror threat. Has there been an impact from that?</s>NEUMANN: The issue is not that once or twice in the course of a 20- year period that he has uttered the words I condemn white supremacy. The issue is all the other times where he has refused to use those words clearly and consistently. Multiple groups that have been emboldened by this, not just the Proud Boys, other white supremacist groups have been emboldened. They are chattering and talking about taking up arms in preparation for the election, on the other side of the election. We're in a very, very dangerous space right now. And what concerns me is not so much whether the man is racist or not. I mean, that's horrible if he is. But the issue is that he is also took an oath to protect our country from all enemies foreign and domestic. And right now, his rhetoric is actually making -- it's aiding and abetting our enemies. He is absolutely in violation of his oath. And I think it walks up to the line if not crosses the line of treason in terms of making our country less safe.</s>TAPPER: Kyle, you've authored hundreds of intelligence assessments about the threat abroad, of autocratic leaders. But you think that President Trump is acting like one himself.</s>MURPHY: That's right, Jake. And much like the example that Elizabeth just provided with white supremacists, I think we see this president getting closer to in both personal friendships but also in terms of style with famous autocrats around the world. Vladimir Putin in Russia, Kim Jong-un in North Korea, and others. And I think what I saw across my career in the U.S. government, in the intelligence community, looking at places where leaders would adopt the veneer of democracy and then utilize the tools of democracy to their own objectives and to increasingly seize power and control it in a smaller and smaller circle and for their own benefit. And I watched some of the same things happening in the United States.</s>TAPPER: And, Robert, you've called President Trump taking Putin's word when it comes to Russian interference an unprecedented betrayal of his oath to the Constitution. Explain what you mean by that and why you believe four more years of President Trump would be devastating.</s>CARDILLO: Well, Jake, he was presented in Finland with an opportunity to associate himself with, you know, his country's intelligence community, combined assessment of these apolitical professionals that serve above themselves for the nation. And he took what I guess he thinks is the easy way out and sided with his colleague, Vladimir Putin. And to me at that moment, it was a devastating moment. And I don't mean for the intelligence community. We can take it. I meant for the American people. Because, you know, Kyle just mentioned some of the risks that we see overseas. I'll add to that. One of the most fundamental foundations of our democracy, which is 244 years old, and people think of it as enduring and everlasting. It's not. It's an idea. And if the people, if the governed don't have confidence in their government and how it works to serve them, then we're moving into dangerous places. And I got to say, if there's four more years of his self-centered, it's all about me and everything else is either part of a deep state or some sort of, you know, hoax, I worry about that confidence that's necessary for our democracy to continue.</s>TAPPER: Robert, Kyle, Elizabeth, thank you all. Appreciate it. Coming up, a former official shares what he was told to never bring up in front of President Trump. This is THE INSIDERS. We'll be right back.</s>TAPPER: Welcome back. This is</s>THE INSIDERS: A WARNING FROM FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS. It takes some courage for former Trump administration officials to speak out in such a public way, no doubt risking fury straight from President Trump's fingertips to his Twitter following of almost 90 million people. The president who previously promised to hire only the best people now calls his former employees unstable and incapable. We asked the White House to respond to the sheer number of former employees now saying that President Trump is unfit and should not win re-election. The White House responded, quote, "These individuals are nothing more than fixtures of the swamp who never understood the importance of the president's agenda or why the American people elected him. And clearly, just want to cash in and be forgiven by their liberal D.C. friends. President Trump has an unprecedented number of accomplishments in spite of government bureaucrats who are only out for themselves, not the forgotten men and women of this country." This hour, you hear them in their own words and you can decide for yourself. Ahead, a former top military official and an adviser who was inside the Oval Office with President Trump nearly every day. But first, we go to two former officials from the Department of Homeland Security. We are approaching a historic election with millions of ballots already cast in the U.S. But already President Trump is saying that if he loses, that will only be because the election is rigged. That's not true, of course. But that's what he's saying. Joining me now are two former top Homeland Security officials, Miles Taylor, former chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security, and John Mitnick who was general counsel at DHS. And, Miles, we're on the cusp of a historic election. We know that Russia is currently now trying to interfere in our election again as they did in 2016. President Trump has been reluctant to say the least to confront Putin. In fact, Rudy Giuliani is out there peddling wares that he gathered from a Ukrainian politician that the U.S. Treasury Department says is a Russian agent. Is the U.S. ready for this election? Is it going to be fair?</s>MILES TAYLOR, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: Well, I'll say two things, Jake. To encourage Americans out there, I do believe that the integrity of the vote and the voting process itself is perhaps more secure than it's ever been because of the great work done by America's civil servants at the federal, state and local level since 2016. We are vastly more secure than we were in 2016. When it comes to that actual infrastructure of voting, the machines, the tallying processes, the cybersecurity element around it, that's the good news. The bad news, Jake, is that the president has not only disregarded this threat, he has flagrantly disregarded this threat to the point that we were told by the White House not to raise issues about Russia with the president. And we were told by the president that we should fire our top intelligence official at the Department of Homeland Security because one time he went to Congress and he told the truth about the Russia threat and said yes, they had intervened in 2016, and yes, they had shown a preference for Donald Trump. That wasn't our intelligence official sharing his opinion. It was him sharing the collective assessment of the entire U.S. intelligence community but the president wanted him fired. That sent a chilling message to the Department of Homeland Security workforce. But we weren't going to be pressured. We weren't going to shut up about it. We continued to talk about the threat. But the president also continued to threaten to fire people for discussing it. That was a concern. We considered the threat from Russia and their interference in our democratic affairs to be one of the top three Homeland Security challenges facing the nation. I think you would be hard pressed to say that the president considered it anywhere in the top 25.</s>TAPPER: And, John, I know because you were general counsel of the Department of Homeland Security, you're loath to get into the specifics of things that you saw and issues that you had with President Trump and the White House. But from a 30,000-foot view, you were one of the top officials of the Department of Homeland Security. Is our homeland less secure with President Trump in the White House?</s>JOHN MITNICK, FORMER GENERAL COUNSEL, DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY: I believe that it is less secure, Jake, for a number of reasons. First of all, the politization of the Department of Homeland Security which has only gotten worse over time. Also the chaos that exists within the department and the low morale that results are certainly a problem. And the fact that during Donald Trump's presidency, the senior leadership of the department was pushed to spend nearly all of their time on immigration border security issues, which are very, very important issues, but there were many other things, many other very vital functions the Department of Homeland Security carries out to secure the nation. And unfortunately, those sometimes get short shrift precisely because the senior officials are constantly being pushed to spend most or all of their time, 24/7 on immigration and border security. Again, they're important, but they have to be looked at in context.</s>TAPPER: Miles, does that square with your experience?</s>TAYLOR: That's absolutely right. I mean, look, at the end of the day, the Department of Homeland Security does so much more than border and immigration. But the president was solely focused on those issues. In fact, I'm hard pressed to think of a circumstance where we actually went to brief the president on anything other than border security and immigration or if we ever did, he rapidly changed the topic back to things like the border wall. And that wall or nothing approach to governing meant the president ignored some of the most critical homeland security threats to our country, cybersecurity challenges, counterterrorism, manmade and natural disasters, and foreign interference in our democracy. In fact, I would go as far as to say that on those other critical issues, the president was truly leading from behind. And that's I think at the end of the day led our country into danger.</s>TAPPER: John, what kind of pressures did the White House put on you?</s>MITNICK: Well, there was always pressure on me and the Office of the General Counsel -- let me say, Jake, that it was the honor of a lifetime and a privilege to lead the 2500-plus dedicated attorneys who work in the Department of Homeland Security and the hundreds of support professionals in the Office of the General Counsel. But the pressure was always there to, let's say, reach a certain conclusion. And I was not in a policy position. I was there to provide sound, unvarnished, candid legal advice.</s>TAPPER: Miles Taylor, John Mitnick, thank you both. The former commandant of the Coast Guard explains what led him to believe the president is unfit for office, next.</s>TAPPER: Welcome back to our CNN special. This is THE INSIDERS. Top officials from all corners of the Trump administration sounding the alarm about President Trump. With so much attention on the president's coronavirus diagnosis and his handling of the pandemic, which has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans, it may be easy to forget the very real other threats from abroad. And joining me now are two people who know those threats well. Former commandant of the Coast Guard, Admiral Paul Zukunft, and Chuck Park, a career foreign service officer. Thank you so much to both of you for joining us. And, Admiral, let me start with you. It's very rare for a former top ranking military official to speak out against a commander-in-chief, especially one for whom he served. But clearly you find it to be necessary. What specifically did you see, did you experience that brought you to the conclusion that President Trump is unfit for office?</s>ADM. PAUL ZUKUNFT (RET.), FORMER COAST GUARD COMMANDANT: Well, there's a number of facets to that, Jake. And the first one was really the holding of ransom if you will of the entire Coast Guard over a conflict over an appropriation for the wall. I volunteered here in Hawaii at a food bank. And so for several pay periods, every member of the Coast Guard was not paid. Our junior enlisted personnel were hurt the most. And it's ironic that our junior enlisted, when they take an oath to not just support and defend the Constitution of the United States but to obey the orders of the president of the United States specifically, yet they were held ransom and not paid. And when I saw them show up at the food bank, they were utterly embarrassed that they had to rely upon a food bank in order to feed their family. That was the first indication of breaking faith with our service members.</s>TAPPER: Chuck, in the Trump presidency, chaos is a feature. Not a bug. He thrives in chaos. What does that mean for U.S. allies? What does it mean for U.S. enemies?</s>CHUCK PARK, FORMER FOREIGN SERVICE OFFICER: That's an amazing question. So I have to say that, you know, I resigned after only about 10 years in the foreign service as a U.S. diplomat. And it became impossible, impossible to keep up to represent, to defend this president and his policies overseas. That's not just because of the incompetence and how, you know, these clear marching orders that we received via cable one morning could be completely thrown out the window, upended, you know, an hour later by some errant tweet from the president. But also because of a real moral crisis within the State Department. You know, as every other American heard in 2018, there were tapes of children crying in detention centers. There was an image of a man and his daughter face down in the muddy banks of the Rio Grande. So for me, the decision was, I could no longer faithfully follow orders amid the chaos and amid the true absence of any kind of moral consideration of our foreign policy. So the right thing for me to do was resign. But when you talk about the chaos, that's absolutely right. The State Department is being assaulted from the outside. The president keeps calling it the deep state. The deep state doesn't exist. Spoiler alert, there is no deep state. I was inside. There's no conspiracy trying to undermine it. There are a lot of faithful, career diplomats trying to keep up.</s>TAPPER: And what is the result of all this chaos on our allies and on our enemies?</s>PARK: There are a lot of really difficult conversations happening in rooms where we can no longer sit. There are quiet meetings of all of our friends in Europe, in NATO, in the G7 talking about us basically behind our backs. I had one experience in Canada where I was -- it was a think tank meeting of experts and a lot of senior Canadian diplomats were there, and maybe because of my appearance they didn't know that I was an American diplomat sitting kind of in the back seat listening and taking notes. And as a service to them, I won't quote them directly but they were incredibly concerned, incredibly concerned with just the madness coming out of the White House.</s>TAPPER: Admiral, we've lived through now in the Trump years a number of crises, whether it has to do with racial mistrust in this country, police brutality, whether it deals with the coronavirus. And as a leader, I'm wondering what you think of President Trump's leadership during these crises.</s>ZUKUNFT: Jake, I have dealt with probably one of the more complex crises, and that was the Deep Water Horizon oil spill back in 2010. It's easy to fix blame. But blame gets you no closer to a solution. Yet what we're seeing now is every crisis that hits the airwaves, it's an immediate finger pointing of who do we blame. But not just fixing blame, but it's then laced with hatred. And then that hatred devolves into a polarized nation. I remember very well, you know, mostly conservative values, I could sit down with a liberal and we could have a conversation, and topics we could agree to disagree on. But now it's a win and lose proposition. We've become a very polarized nation and are no closer to fixing the solution to a pandemic that is killing hundreds of Americans each and every day.</s>TAPPER: Admiral, President Trump famously or infamously said he knows more than the generals. He's also suggested that generals, admirals like to go to war because they are able to make money when they go into the Defense contracting industry. What kind of impact do those kinds of comments have on the people who run the military?</s>ZUKUNFT: Well, Jake, that's -- it's a little jaw-dropping. You know, when I served over 41 years on active duty, my first mantra was always say look out for my shipmates, look out for the most junior people in our service, and do everything I can within my sphere of influence to keep them out of harm's way. So we don't just, you know, jump into a conflict with no diplomatic end in sight. And it's a little bit ironic because coming from the smallest armed service and the most underfunded service, we are clearly -- I'm clearly not in a position to say, you know, we're trying to leverage the military industrial complex for personal gain. The only legacy any of us who have served is, did we leave the world a better place? Did we look out for our troops? And if you could answer those with great satisfaction, then you can sleep well at night. And I do.</s>TAPPER: Chuck, Admiral, thank you both. Appreciate your time. Up next, I'll talk to the man who was in the room where it happened, who tells me President Trump has the attention span of a fruit fly. THE INSIDERS continues right after this.</s>TAPPER: Welcome back to this CNN Special Report, "THE INSIDERS." Former top Trump officials who say President Trump is unfit for office from his handling of the pandemic to foreign affairs and the very core of American democracy. My next guest was inside, quote, "the room where it happened," as his book is aptly titled, counseling President Trump on some of the biggest decisions of his presidency. John Bolton, the former National Security adviser under President Trump, is here with me now. Mr. Ambassador, thanks so much for joining us. First of all, I just want to take a moment to acknowledge the fact that the reason we're doing this special is because there's never been anything like this in terms of so many top administration officials saying, after they leave the administration, this president is unfit.</s>JOHN BOLTON, FORMER NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER TO PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. I think it's an indication of what the central problem is with the Trump administration. It is in the Oval Office. It's the president himself. Dozens, scores of loyal Americans have tried to work for him and simply been unable to do it.</s>TAPPER: There's 215,000 deaths and counting from coronavirus in this nation. Yet, President Trump's own coronavirus infection has apparently changed nothing about his handling of the virus, including he's now back on the campaign trail holding these reckless rallies, exposing his own people potentially to the virus. Does that surprise you?</s>BOLTON: No. It's totally in character. He beat coronavirus. He is a winner, as he always is. And these other people, well, it's too bad. But as he said, that's the way it is. Look, I think the coronavirus crisis is probably the best example for public consumption of why Trump is not fit to be president. For now, close to 10 months, he has never had a strategy. He has never had a clue how he expected to get through this. He proceeded on an ad hoc fashion. He's had the attention span of a fruit fly with respect to this. The one thing that's kept his attention, where his attention span is infinite, is getting re-elected. And that hasn't changed the entire time.</s>TAPPER: You've been in the room with President Trump when big decisions are being made. Does anyone tell him what he does not want to hear? Is he capable of -- if somebody were in the room right now with him and said, you have to stop these rallies, you are risking your own supporters' health, you have to stop berating Dr. Anthony Fauci, who's trying to save lives, you have to come up with a plan, does he just ignore it?</s>BOLTON: Well, I think he ignores what he doesn't want to hear. I think again coronavirus is a good example. In January, February, NSC staff and others were saying, you've got a crisis. But he didn't want to hear bad news about Xi Jinping, didn't want to hear bad news about the Chinese economy. He particularly didn't want to hear bad news potentially for the U.S. economy, which was his ticket to re-election. You know, you're dealing with the president and you can't treat him like you're lecturing a bunch of high school students. So you do have to be respectful. And I've never seen anybody really be disrespectful to him. But if he doesn't agree with what you're saying, he simply does not take it in.</s>TAPPER: What do you think a second term of a Trump presidency would look like?</s>BOLTON: I think he will be utterly unrestricted. I think --</s>TAPPER: He's been restricted?</s>BOLTON: Well, as I explain in my book, one of the things in the national security space that was critical to getting what I consider to be the right policy judgments was making arguments about the domestic political consequences of making the wrong judgment. Forget the merits of the particular policy. He reacted to the political environment. And once reelected, that political guardrail is substantially reduced if not eliminated. I think the failed impeachment is another big mistake. He wasn't really restricted by what happened in impeachment. He's not deterred from engaging in that conduct again. The fact he was acquitted empowers him. I think that's a big risk in a second term.</s>TAPPER: We have no idea what's going to happen, although polls certainly favor Joe Biden right now but polls are not facts. They're analysis and predictions. If he loses, there is a lot of concern that he's not going to commit to a peaceful transfer of power. He's already trying to claim that the election is being stolen with no evidence of that. Is there -- are there any guardrails in the administration? Do you have concerns about General Milley or Secretary Esper or Chief of Staff Meadows? I mean, is there anyone there to say, sir, you lost, you have to leave?</s>BOLTON: Well, I think the Defense Department is in good hands with Esper and Milley. I have no concerns there as long as they're still in office. But let's be clear. Trump will not leave graciously if he loses. He will not leave graciously. Whether he carries it to the extreme, I don't think we know. I think it's very troubling that he has said I can't lose unless there's fraud. Of course he can lose in an honest election. And I think this is really on the leadership of the Republican Party. Elected officials, private citizens. That if it is clear what the outcome is, it's up to Republicans, not Democrats, to say this is on us. He's got to go.</s>TAPPER: Do you have faith in Republican officials that they will step forward and do that? There's not a lot of evidence. I mean, you see individuals like Mitch McConnell who are -- who disagree with the president on coronavirus or on election peaceful transfer power, but there's not a lot of profiles in courage up there.</s>BOLTON: I've been in touch with a lot of Republican elected officials and others over the past several months. I think they're ready for this moment. I think they can see the president trying to sow confusion and chaos, which is his natural best operating environment. I don't think they will stand up for him.</s>TAPPER: Do you think the Trump presidency has done irreparable harm to the United States?</s>BOLTON: I do not think after four years it's done irreparable harm, but one reason I'm not going to vote for him, and I'm not voting for Biden either, well, one reason I'm not going to vote for Trump is that eight years could cause irreparable injury both to the U.S. and its international relations but also to our constitutional system here in the U.S. And I think that's important for people to understand especially conservatives.</s>TAPPER: You vote in Maryland, which is a state -- it's a blue state, a reliably blue state. So the fact that you're not going to vote for Joe Biden even though you're decidedly not against Trump doesn't really have a long term effect potentially. Do you think you would be different if you lived in a battleground state where your vote might actually make more of a difference if you lived in Virginia or Colorado?</s>BOLTON: No, because I'm not going to vote against my philosophy. And I just point the example of George Meany, the president of AFL-CIO in 1972, told Richard Nixon for the first time, he wasn't going to vote for George McGovern, wasn't going to vote for Richard Nixon either. But that was what Meany considered to be the principled thing to do and that's the example I'm following.</s>TAPPER: Isn't -- but Trump is also against your core philosophies. It's not just the Democrats.</s>BOLTON: He's not a -- yes, look, let's be clear. Trump is not a conservative and he's not really a Republican. That's why conservatives and Republicans should fear his re-election. It's not going to get better in the second term.</s>TAPPER: Lastly, sir, your message to any voters out there who are considering voting for Donald Trump. What do you want to tell them? What should they know given the fact that you were, as your book says, in the room where it happened?</s>BOLTON: Well, I don't think Trump should get another term. Don't misunderstand. I do think voters in that situation should vote for a Republican senatorial candidate to help Republicans keep control of the Senate and be a check against the left-wing of the Democratic Party. That's certainly what I'm working to do.</s>TAPPER: Ambassador John Bolton, thank you so much for your time tonight. Appreciate it.</s>BOLTON: Thank you.</s>TAPPER: More of our CNN special, THE INSIDERS, after this quick break. Stay with us.</s>TAPPER: Welcome back to THE INSIDERS. The president's former chief of staff, retired Marine General John Kelly is quoted in John Bolton's book, worrying a couple of years ago about President Trump's erratic behavior, saying, quote, "What if we have a real crisis like 9/11, with the way he makes decisions," unquote. And now with the coronavirus pandemic, that crisis is here. You have heard a lot this hour from people who have worked with President Donald Trump who believe he should not win re-election. That he is uninterested in governing. That he is motivated only by his self-interests and that the United States of America is less secure with him in the Oval Office. Now in every presidency, there are people who disagree with various policies of a president for whom they serve. But as a historical matter, we cannot ignore the sheer number of officials who worked for this president and are now sounding a very public alarm about his fitness for the job. Now you can listen to them or you can ignore them. That is entirely up to you. But as journalists, we cannot pretend that they are not there shouting from the rooftops. I'm Jake Tapper in Washington. Thank you for watching.

Interview with Tony Blinken about Joe Biden's Foreign Policy

FAREED ZAKARIA, CNN ANCHOR: This is GPS, the GLOBAL PUBLIC SQUARE. We; come to all of you in the United States and around the world. I'm Fareed Zakaria, coming to you live from New York.</s>ZAKARIA: On today's show the American election is just 16 days away. And one of the biggest divides between Biden and Trump is on foreign policy. And yet it has hardly been mentioned on the campaign trail. I'll ask Tony Blinken, long-time adviser to Vice President Biden and former Trump official KT McFarland what their respective candidates would do in the next four years.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If Biden wins, China wins, all these other countries win. We get ripped off by everybody.</s>ZAKARIA: Also, millions of Americans have fallen below the poverty line in a matter of months and there is no new stimulus in sight. Meanwhile, many big companies are booming. If you thought American inequality was bad before, you ain't seen nothing yet. I'll talk to the former Treasury secretary Larry Summers about the problem and the solution. Finally, what, if anything, did we really learn from the Amy Coney Barrett hearings? Noah Feldman and Emily Bazelon are back with me to share their views.</s>ZAKARIA: But first, here's my take. Pandemics should be the great equalizer. They affect everyone, rich and poor, black and white, urban and rural, after all even the president of the United States contracted the virus. But COVID-19 has actually had the opposite effect. Early indications suggest the virus is ushering in the greatest rise in economic inequality in decades, both globally and within the United States. Despite all the concern about inequality within America, it's worth noting that global inequality, the gap between the richest and poorest around the world, had declined over the last few decades. Thanks to the rise of China, India and other countries. The share of people living in abject poverty, under $2 a day, is less than a quarter of what it was in 1990. But an astonishing set of statistics compiled by The Economist shows how years of progress are being undone in months. The World Bank estimates that about 100 million people are fallen back into extreme poverty this year. Sub-Saharan Africa, which had enjoyed positive economic growth every year for the last 25 years, will enter negative territory in 2020. The World Food Program, recipient of this year's Nobel Peace Prize, estimates that the numbers facing acute hunger will double this year to 265 million people. The Gates Foundation warns that vaccination rates for children are as low as they were more than two decades ago. Behind all these statistics are individual human beings who are starving or sick. Their children wasting away, desperate and deprived of hope. The divide between rich and poor is stark even in the United States. Two new studies estimate that between 6 million and 8 million people have been pushed into poverty over the last few months as federal relief has dried up. Millions of Americans cannot pay their electric bills or are skipping meals to save cash. A recent survey found that almost 40 percent of those who have lost work due to COVID don't have even a month's worth of savings. I put up some graphs a few weeks ago that I want to put up again because they really capture the economic hardship and divide. Job losses in the previous three recessions were pretty even between the top 25 percent of income earners in green and the bottom 25 percent in pink. But in the current recession the top 25 percent have bounced back completely while the bottom 25 percent have cratered. Look that line. We can see how this has happened. For those whose jobs can be done remotely, bankers, consultants, lawyers, executives, academics, life goes on with just a few hiccups. For many of those who worked in restaurants, hotels, cruise ships, theme parks, shopping malls, work has simply disappeared. The tragedy is that we know what needs to be done. In March, Congress and the administration acted swiftly and boldly to pass a massive relief and stimulus package which was so successful that it seems to have made many in Washington complacent. It has now largely expired and the two parties are back to their partisan warfare. The Democrats are right to want a much larger relief package than the administration is offering. Cities and states should not be punished for the collapse in tax revenues that resulted from the pandemic. But surely the best path for the country is for the Democrats to accept the concessions they have extracted from Republicans and then push for more after election day. This week Wolf Blitzer pressed Speaker Pelosi on why she would not take the administration's offer of $1.8 trillion in spending. Her response was defensive and combative. She unfairly accused Wolf of being an apologist for the Republican Party and she said the fundamental problem is --</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): They do not share our values.</s>ZAKARIA: But of course they don't. That's why there are two parties and you have to make compromises. None of this added up to a coherent position in a time of natural emergency. Senate Republicans, by the way, might well block what the Trump administration itself has offered. They've signaled great displeasure with the size of the package. But then why not pass the bill and put the pressure on Mitch McConnell and the Republicans? I cannot help but wonder if the relative normalcy of life for elites has prevented us from understanding the true severity of the problem. Look, for those of us using Zoom, things have been a bit disruptive and strange, but for tens of millions of people in America and hundreds of millions around the world this is the great depression. Can we please help them? Go to CNN.com/fareed for a link to my Washington Post column this week. You can also find a link to buy my book, Ten Lessons for a Post- Pandemic World, which I have drawn on for this commentary. Let's get started. We'll start today with what the next four years of America's foreign affairs would look like under a second term of President Trump or the first term of President Biden. Let me bring in Tony Blinken, he has been a foreign policy adviser to Joe Biden for almost two decades. He's on the Biden campaign team. Tony served in the Obama administration as deputy secretary of State and deputy National Security adviser. Welcome. Let me ask you first, Tony, we know what animates Donald Trump. He thinks that the world has screwed America, that it has gotten the short end of the stick from all these alliances and trade deals. What animates Joe Biden? What is at the heart of his foreign policy world view?</s>TONY BLINKEN, FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER TO JOE BIDEN: Fareed, Vice President Biden starts from this proposition. Whether we like it or not, the world simply doesn't organize itself. And until the Trump administration, the United States had played a lead role in doing a lot of that organizing, in helping to write the rules and shape the norms and animate the institutions that governed the ways nations interact. We made our share of mistakes along the way for sure, but we were better off for it. What's happened now is that President Trump has abdicated that responsibility. He's put us in full retreat from our allies and partners, from international organizations, from hard-won agreements. And here's the problem. When we're not engaged, when we're not leading, then one of two things. Either some other country tries to take our place, but probably not in a way that advances our own interests and values, or maybe just as bad, no one does and then you tend to have a vacuum that's filled by chaos or bad things before it's filled by good things. Either way, that's bad for us. So Joe Biden starts with the proposition that we need to reassert American engagement and American leadership. We would actually show up again day in and day out leading with diplomacy. And not to address the world as it was in 2009 or 2017 when we left office, but as it is and as we anticipate it will become with all sorts of rising powers and new actors. Many of them super empowered by technology and information that we have to bring along if we are going to make progress. And two quick things here. And they're flipsides of the same coin for Joe Biden. On the one hand, a dose of humility. Most of the world's problems are not in the first instance about us, even though they affect us and we can't just flip a switch and solve them. But also confidence because he believes that America acting at its best still has a greater ability than any other country on earth to move others in positive collective action.</s>ZAKARIA: There is one area where it seems as though President Biden might be a lot like President Trump, and that is China. I know Trump keeps accusing Biden of being too pro-Chinese. But Vice President Biden has made very tough statements about China. It sounds like he basically wants to follow a very similar policy, just with allies and pointing out that if you use allies, you'd be more successful. Is that fundamental divide you just described also true with what is likely to be the most important foreign policy issue which is U.S. policy for China?</s>BLINKEN: Fareed. there is a profound difference on their approach to China. But let's state this at the outset. China does pose a growing challenge. And arguably, it's the biggest challenge we face from another nation state. Economically, technologically, militarily, even diplomatically. But we've got to avoid simplistic labels and self- fulfilling prophecies. The relationship has adversarial aspects, it has competitive aspects, it has cooperative ones, too. So the question is, how do we put ourselves in a position of strength from which to engage China so the relationship moves forward more on our terms than on theirs? And here's the problem. Right now by every key metric China's strategic position is stronger and ours is weaker as a result of President Trump's leadership. And Chinese leaders believe that four years of the Trump administration has basically accelerated what they call our inevitable decline. They're dead wrong about inevitability but they're right about President Trump. He's helped them advance key strategic goals, weakening American alliances, pulling back from the world and so leaving a vacuum for China to fill, abdicating our values and letting China act with impunity in Xinjiang or Hong Kong. And maybe worst of all, debasing our own democracy by attacking its institutions, its people, its values every day and so reducing its appeal to the world. So in many ways, as Joe Biden sees this, and the big difference is this, the China challenge is less about their strength, rising though it is, and more about our self-inflicted weaknesses. And so what he would do that's so profoundly different from President Trump is invest in ourselves, in our workers, renew our own democracy, work with our allies and partners and actually assert our values. And that that's how you engage China from a position of strength. But the bottom line is this, Fareed, America and liberal democracy remain the system of choice for people who can choose and I think if anything what the last four years have shown is not their failure but rather how important they are to the strength of our democracy and the vitality of our leadership is to our own country and to the world. That's what we have to recapture and it starts with how we deal with China.</s>ZAKARIA: Vice President Biden, you were probably his adviser at the time, opposed the surge of troops in Afghanistan. If he was right then, isn't Trump right now to say let's withdraw American troops and get out? What is wrong with Trump's argument that we have been there for 20 years, at some point Afghanistan has to find a way to defend itself?</s>BLINKEN: Well, you're right that Vice President Biden opposed the surge during our own administration and he supports the diplomatic effort to bring this conflict to an end, to forge some kind of durable lasting peace that brings Afghans together. And he would pursue a draw down in that context. But he's also been clear that he would try to keep a small residual force in Afghanistan to make sure we have a place from which we can operate if al Qaeda or ISIS gain the capacity to strike us again. But there's a, you know, big difference between ending forever wars what he wants to do responsibly and what seems to be President Trump's rather itchy Twitter finger that typed an all-out order by which Christmas to give himself a political boost before the election. That caught our own military by surprise. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs refused to endorse it. The folks who did endorse it were of course the Taliban. One of them said that we hope President Trump will win election and wind up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. So that's the difference. We have to do this responsibly. We have to do it effectively.</s>ZAKARIA: Tony Blinken, always a pleasure to have you on. Thank you.</s>BLINKEN: Thanks, Fareed. Great to be with you.</s>ZAKARIA: When we come back, a former Trump official on what happens if Donald Trump is re-elected.

Interview with KT McFarland about Donald Trump's Foreign Policy.

ZAKARIA: The Trump administration has affirmed that a second term of foreign policy under Trump would like his term be ruled by two words. America first. We invited President Trump's National Security adviser, Robert O'Brien, to appear on GPS today, but the White House declined our offer. Joining me now is KT McFarland. She served as deputy national security adviser at the start of Donald Trump's term in office. Welcome. Let me ask you a question about, you know, what to me is the kind of the biggest argument Trump has always made for his foreign policy, which is the world has been ripping off the United States and the symbol of that failure Trump always argued during the campaign in 2016 was the trade deficit. Well, the trade deficit in 2016 when Donald Trump took office was $735 billion. It has gone up, not down, every quarter of the Trump administration's term in office. It is now $854 billion. So, I guess my question is, either by his own key metric Donald Trump has failed in his foreign policy, or he doesn't understand how the international economy and how the world works. Which is it?</s>KT MCFARLAND, FORMER DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: Neither. Look, I think it's important right now to correct a number of misconceptions. You know, Donald Trump and the people who work for him view the world in a very different way. It is really a tectonic change. And from what you and what other people have said, the impression is that there is no rationale to it, it's just all impulsive. No, I think that's actually wrong. There are three motivating points that drive Donald Trump's foreign policy and the first one is you call it America first, but it's the notion that in the last -- since the post-war period and even the post-Cold War period that the United States has underwritten the global order because of our superior economy, our superior military, and that we should keep doing it. Well, it's the understanding that that's no longer feasible with a trillion-dollar deficit a year and with allies who no longer need American support. These agreements, whether it's NATO or with Japan or with Korea, the security agreements or even the trade agreements, they were never meant to be permanent. They were never meant that the United States would pay for everybody forever. And now that these countries have succeeded beyond anyone's, you know, amazing beliefs that they might do, it's time for them to do their fair share. And so that was the impression that President Trump took at his NATO alliance negotiations and with the Asian countries as well. That we would no longer subsidize or underwrite the security or trade agreements with our allies. The second part of it, though, Fareed, is in the Middle East.</s>ZAKARIA: So then why is our trade deficit -- why does our trade deficit keep growing then if he's -- if he's succeeding at what he's doing --</s>MCFARLAND: But the trade deficit --</s>ZAKARIA: I don't understand. He said the trade deficit was a symbol of these bad deals. It keeps going up under him.</s>MCFARLAND: I don't think the trade deficit is the only metric by which you judge these things. I mean, we already have new trade agreements with Japan, with Korea, with Canada, with Mexico. We're negotiating with the British right now and the rest of the Europeans. And --</s>ZAKARIA: Right. And under those agreements the deficit keeps going up.</s>MCFARLAND: Well, I think you're -- you know, you've got a scab that you're picking, and that's the deficit. I'm trying to make a bigger point, which is that there are three motivating points to the Trump foreign policy and the first one is economic and the first one is the idea that other countries would contribute. I mean, for example, in NATO, our NATO allies are now going to contribute half a trillion dollars more to our common defense. But the second point of this is the Middle East, that we have been for 20 years, and even since the 1970s, we have been in the middle of Middle East tribal ethnic conflicts because we needed access to oil, we wanted to protect the right of Israel to exist. Well, President Trump looks at that and says --</s>ZAKARIA: Tell me -- tell me the third one.</s>MCFARLAND: -- what if we have our own energy?</s>ZAKARIA: Tell me the third one because I want to get to a few other things.</s>MCFARLAND: China.</s>ZAKARIA: Yes. China. So let's talk about China.</s>MCFARLAND: China.</s>ZAKARIA: What is Donald Trump's view on China? Because he's sometimes sounds very tough on it, but 25 times in the early part of this year he lavished praise on China, on President Xi in particular for his handling of the coronavirus, in particular for his transparency. He said, I thank you on behalf of the American people. What is going on? What is Donald Trump's view of China?</s>MCFARLAND: You know, I think the important thing about Donald Trump is don't always listen to what he says. He tweets a lot of stuff. He says a lot of stuff. Always watch what he does. And what he has done with regard to China is he's been the first American president to stand up to China in decades. You know, when Joe Biden was -- chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee when he was vice president, we could have stood up to China, we could have demanded a better trade relationship, and investment opportunities, but we never did. And now -- and that would have been easy to do then. Now it's hard to do. And President Trump has stood up to them. I mean, he stood up to them for -- and called them out for unfair trade practices, for intellectual property theft. He's negotiated hard for a first trade agreement, a phase one presumably would be followed by a phase two after we're through the election and through a pandemic. But I think the other thing is that President Trump has increased American defense spending. I mean, look what the Chinese have done in the South China Sea. They've claimed it as an internal Chinese lake, or you look at their own writings and their own -- they're quite open about it. They plan to replace the United States by mid-century as the dominant world power, dominant in trade, with the Eurasian trade route land base and maritime base route. They plan to replace the United States as the dominant communications power with a 5g network.</s>ZAKARIA: Can I -- can</s>I -- MCFARLAND: And they plan to replace the United States as the dominant technology power. Your turn.</s>ZAKARIA: Can I get one quick response from you on Russia? In 2016 during the transition --</s>MCFARLAND: Sure.</s>ZAKARIA: -- you wrote an e-mail that said, it's going to be tough to have a coherent Russia policy because Russia threw the election to Donald Trump. Do you still believe that?</s>MCFARLAND: I think you're quoting that a little bit out of context. I don't know what your sources are. But the e-mail that I wrote was that it would be very difficult to improve relations with the Russians if the country perceived that we had -- that they had thrown the election to Donald Trump. And I think that's been borne out. Look, I don't know where you've gotten your quotes from. I have got the original e-mail, the FBI has. So, you know, that is taken out of context. And it's not what --</s>ZAKARIA: All right.</s>MCFARLAND: You're making it sound like the opposite of what I intended it for, and it was the opposite of how it was perceived by the Trump transition officials.</s>ZAKARIA: All right. Well, people can look it up and draw their own conclusions. But I want to thank you for coming on. It's been a fascinating conversation.</s>MCFARLAND: Thank you.</s>ZAKARIA: Next on GPS, the former Treasury secretary Larry Summers says COVID could end up costing the United States $16 trillion when we come back.

Trump Holding Multiple Rallies A Day In Battleground States; Turnout In this Year's Election Expected To Exceed 2016.

JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): The coronavirus is surging just about everywhere.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is going to be a very tough winter.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There should be warning bells going off around the country.</s>KING: Plus, the pandemic election effect. Early voting is off the charts.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We make sure we get our vote counted today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I hate the division, because that's not who we are.</s>KING: And two weeks out, Republicans are in a panic.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Suburban women, will you please like me? I saved your damn neighborhood. Okay?</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: How many of you have been unable to hug your grandkids the last seven months?</s>KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John king. To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday. The numbers tell the coronavirus is surging again across America and dangerously so. More than 57,000 new infections reported Saturday. More than a half million new U.S. cases added in just the past ten days. The trend line is up and it is ominous. But the president of the United States wants you to ignore the numbers, to ignore the facts.</s>TRUMP: Vaccines are coming soon, the therapeutics and, frankly, the cure. Just mortality, we're a winner, on the excess mortality, and what we've done has been amazing. And we have done an amazing job. And we're rounding the corner. We got the vaccines rolled up. But even without it, we're rounding the corner. You'll see it.</s>KING: Joe Biden's 2020 bet is that you can handle the truth.</s>BIDEN: He's living in a dream world. He keeps telling us that this virus is going to disappear like America. My Lord. It's not disappearing. In fact, it's on the rise again. It's getting worse as predicted. Mishandling the pandemic isn't enough for Trump. On top of that, he's still trying to take away your health care.</s>KING: Election Day is two weeks from Tuesday. But America is picking its next president right now. More than 22 million ballots cast as records early and mail-in voting are being shattered by the day. Biden is leading, convincingly if you study the numbers. But 2016 is a haunting memory for Democrats. Biden's campaign manager wrote a memo against putting too much faith in poll numbers. Republicans, though, clearly believe those numbers. The president trail so badly among women, and in the suburbs, his party is in a panic, worried it will lose not only the White House but the Senate and more.</s>SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): I'm looking at the possibility of a Republican blood bath in the Senate. That's why I've never been on the Trump train. I think we're staring down the barrel of a blue tsunami.</s>KING: The president thinks or at least he says he'll shock us again.</s>TRUMP: The enthusiasm and not only in Michigan, but the enthusiasm all over the country is far greater. And it was great four years ago. It's far greater right now than it ever was.</s>KING: With us this Sunday to share their reporting and their insights, Maggie Haberman at "The New York Times", Josh Dawsey at "The Washington Post". Maggie, it's a different campaign but it is the same question we face at this point in 2016. Can the president of the United States, he was candidate Trump then, he's an incumbent now, which is a big difference, can he pull this off with 16 weeks to go when all the numbers say it looks bleak?</s>MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Look, John, that's the open question, right? There's two weeks and two days and one more debate to go. And that debate is what the Trump folks see as their chance to try to change the arc of the race. If they do, it will be at a time when a large percentage of the voter who is voted in 2016 have already voted this time. Just in terms of numbers. So, look, it's not over until it's over. I think it's a mistake some people want to call the race today because we still have two more weeks to go, but none of these trends are good for the president. Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton, John. He has not been in the public eye the same way Hillary Clinton was over 30 years. He's not a woman, and he's harder for Trump to caricature. So, for all those reasons, Trump seems to think the answer is seeing more of Trump and nothing has indicated that that's a wise strategy over the last year.</s>KING: Right, it's a great point you make, and we can show our viewers just the activity on the campaign trail this week. Joe Biden is being cautious and careful. He says the coronavirus mandates that and is doing debate prep. The president has been running around to states. You see all the rallies for the president. In part, he's trying to prove he's recovered from the coronavirus, and he looks energetic on the trail. The question is, does the same approach work? Josh, you write about this with one of your colleagues in "The Post" today, an internal debate within Team Trump over what to go focus on how and to do it in this final couple of weeks. If you listen to the president on the campaign trail, some of it is attacking Biden personally, some of it is about the economy, there still seems to be -- the candidate at least can't pick one thing. Listen.</s>TRUMP: He makes Hillary Clinton, I call her crooked Hillary, as you've possibly heard, look like amateur hour. This election is a choice between a Trump super recovery and a Biden depression. And, you now, they're going to raise your taxes substantially, like quadruple.</s>KING: There is a debate, both of you reported this, Josh, that there's a debate over, should it be more about the economy what a second term would like? Should it be try to do what Joe Biden what they did to Hillary Clinton, say she's corrupt, too? You should hate all politicians, hate us all. The president seems to want the kitchen sink.</s>JOSH DAWSEY, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: He does. And the president has continued to make the argument about corruption this week. But one of the arguments has made is that Biden is a senile and doddering old man, but some of his advisers said to him your poll numbers among seniors are low. It's a problem for you and you're not helping yourself. You saw this week he tweeted Biden for president with a senior citizen home. The president, he seems to be falling about a bit in his messaging. He's trying to depict Biden as too liberal at times and sometimes he says he's too conservative on certain issues like crime and policing. And there's lots of places where he hasn't figured out exactly how to caricature Joe Biden. We have 16 days left, and his team is trying to push a more ebullient economic message that he can do a recovery, but that's hard when you have an unemployment rate that's, you know, 8 percent or so, and you have a lot of people still out to work and you have a country that's not back to normal. It's hard to make the economic message resonant as it would be otherwise.</s>KING: And it's harder, Maggie, because he's the incumbent president. Now, everybody knew Donald Trump in 2016 because of his celebrity, but he was a blank slate as a politician and as a leader and he could say, I'm a great businessman, that's how I run the government. Now, we've had almost four years of him running the government. And you touched on this shortly, but it's just the difference is Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. That's an important point. If you look at the exit polls from 2016 and you go back here, Hillary Clinton won women by 13 points. It went up to 19 points for the Democrats in the midterms in 2018. Look at this, 23 points, and this is "New York Times"/Siena College poll, some saw even bigger gender gap. In the suburbs, the president won narrowly but he won the suburbs. That's why he's president of the United States. Joe Biden is up 14 points in the suburbs right now. And to Josh's point, Maggie, the president carried senior citizens, candidate Trump did by 7 points, Joe Biden is now up plus 9. So, as the president tries to plot a comeback, he has more holes to fill, if you will.</s>HABERMAN: That's exactly right. And, look, his folks have tried to suggest they can try to fill it with other segments of the population. They hope to get a rise in his support among black voters. They hope that they can get a rise in his support among Latino voters. They hope they can have an increase in non-college educated white men who are voting for him. And that's clearly their plan. It remains to be seen whether that's enough and polling indicates that it is not. To your point on seniors, this is where the president's mishandling of the coronavirus over a very long period of time now has really damaged him. Those briefings he would do at the beginning of the pandemic where he would scream at reporters and complained that he was being unfairly and acted erratically, those frightened seniors, who are people who watch a lot of television. And he did himself no favors and has continued not to instead of after getting the coronavirus himself, and coming out of the hospital and saying, I really understand why so many of you were scared, he tried to essentially cover up the idea that he had been sick in the first place. And none of this has been to his help.</s>KING: And, Josh, part of the challenge now is the president is being outspent nearly two to one on television by Joe Biden, the Democrats campaigns at every level, flush with cash right now. And, look, the Trump campaign pulled it off in 2016. They took money out of Florida. They took money out of North Carolina. They put it into Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan and they trusted the DNA of North Carolina and Florida to be Republican in the end, even though they were closed. But the issue, as I just discuss with Maggie, there's so many states where the president needs help right now. Can they pull it off again?</s>DAWSEY: Well, they have money, but they certainly don't have as much as Biden or as much they would like. They're kind of playing proverbial whack-a-mole in some ways. I mean, they have certain states where if you believe the polling, their internal polling, and public polling, where they're in real trouble. You know, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, you know, Arizona, places that are not looking good for the president. And there are other places where they look better. You know, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, states where they're more sure of. But none of these states are sure fire bets for them. And they even have places like Georgia where they have to play defense. You saw the president in Macon on Friday. So, they have a -- they have resources that are pretty right now scant for what they want to do. They need to be in a lot of places all the time. And that's the challenge with 16 days to go.</s>KING: And we're beginning to see some Republicans who think this is lost already. Again, we all lived through 2016. So, I will go there after we count the vote. So, we'll count first and decide who wins. But you see Republicans who think they're about to lose who are now trying to separate themselves from the president. Listen to Ben Sasse at a town hall, tele town hall with voters earlier this week.</s>SEN. BEN SASSE (R-NE): At the beginning of the COVID crisis, he refused to treat it seriously for months. He treated like a news cycle by news cycle PR crisis rather than a multiyear public health challenge, which is what it is. The United States regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women and spends like a drunken sailor.</s>KING: Some of this is, the battle for Republicans think the president is going to lose, and so, they're trying to plant their flag for the post-Trump Republican Party fight. That right will be fascinating if -- if we get to that point. In the 16 days left, does that dissidents in the Republican Party, I know the president says Ben Sasse is a never Trumper, Ben -- he's a RINO or whatever, but does the dissidence in the party, maybe not in Nebraska, but in other places, is that another complicating factor for the president when you have more and more, not a lot, but more and more Republicans saying I've got a problem here?</s>HABERMAN: There are a lot of senior Republicans, John, who would like to see the president doing more to help the Senate majority. Even if he's attacking people who are in better shape, frankly, than he is in his own race, like Ben Sasse, or Susan Collins. Overall, he's creating a climate where it looks as if the Republicans are going after each other. Republicans in some of the battle grounds who are running behind the president in their own races need his help. And creating this sense of division does not help. I think there is the point that's very important here which is some of this is looking forward to what this could look like, again, could -- could look like on November 4th. The president I think believes he has a tight-fisted grip over his party and people will not abandon him and do whatever he wants. I think you're seeing signs that Republicans, if the president loses are going to move to drop him somewhat fast.</s>KING: We'll watch how that plays out. It's going to be fascinating. As Maggie noted at the top, one more presidential debate this week. Also, some fascinating Senate and House debates will happen this final two weeks. We'll keep track of all and to watch these dynamics. Maggie, Josh, grateful for the reporting and insights. Ahead for us, how Democrats see the final two weeks. Next, though, the coronavirus case count is surging and the president's top COVID adviser says, get this, he says skip the mask.

COVID-19 Infectious, Hospitalizations Surge Across U.S.

KING: The doctor the president listens to most about the coronavirus is mocking masks again. The views of the doctor run counter to the verdict of public health experts and his green light for recklessness comes at a dangerous moment. Let's look at the latest numbers. If you look at the trend map right now, we have 29 states, red and orange in the states trending in the wrong direction, 29 of them. Deep red, 50 percent more new COVID infections right now compared to a week ago. Orange, between 10 and 15 percent, more new infections right now than a week ago. So, 29 states trending in the wrong direction, 19 states holding steady. Many of them at high levels today, only two states reporting fewer than a week ago. The country is trending in the wrong direction. If you look at the case curve, again trending in the wrong direction. First peak, second peak, now heading up again, top of the third peak still uncertain. More than 60,000, close to 70 new infections on Friday, just shy of 60,000 on Saturday, weekends, the numbers tend to go down a little bit. The red line tells you all you need to know. We're heading back up in the ballpark of 60,000 new infections a day. Nine of the last 11 days, 50 plus. You see the line heading back up. Now, the line is heading up because states are setting records, 21 states reporting records in the past week of their average new cases, 21 states. This is not around the final turn. This is trouble. You see it laid out on the map here. In terms of regions going up, that's across the country, the Midwest trending up. The Northeast trending up. Lower case counts because they pushed the curve down early. The South plateau, trending up a little bit. Maybe the West starting to trend up slowly. Why is this happening? Well, here's why this is happening. Look across the country, the deeper the blue and gray on this map, the higher the positivity rate. Twenty-six percent in Idaho, 29 percent in Nevada, 37 percent in South Dakota, 49 percent in Iowa, 25 percent in Wisconsin, double digits down here in the Southeast, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Higher percentage of positivity now means more cases today. A higher percentage of people with COVID, guess what, means infections more cases tomorrow. Let's begin our Sunday conversation with our two favorite doctors. Dr. Ashish Jha, he's dean of the Brown University of public health and Dr. Megan Ranney is an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown. Dr. Jha, I want to start with Dr. Scott Atlas in the middle of this, and I want to go back to this case curve in the middle of this, going back up, in the ballpark of 60,000 cases a day when Dr. Anthony Fauci says wear a mask, when Dr. Redfield at the CDC says wear a mask, Scott Atlas tweets out yesterday, masks? No. Masks? No. Is there any doubt about the science here? Is there any doubt at all about the science here?</s>DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALHT: Yeah. Good morning, John. Thank you for having me on. From the beginning of this pandemic, we've really faced two enemies. The virus which is infectious and deadly and a campaign of disinformation that has made it so much hard tore fight the pandemic. And it's really striking to have the top doctor in the White House be a source of that disinformation. The evidence on masks is pretty clear at this point. They help. They help a lot. The debate is are they -- will they bring the whole pandemic to an end or end up being an important part of the solution? No serious person is debating whether they are an important part of fighting this pandemic or not.</s>KING: You say no serious person, but a person who has the ear of the president of the United States at a time the president could be talking truth to the American people. Dr. Ranney, I want to bring up the issue here, let me move down here, the hospitalizations. This is the business you live in every day, and even in places like the Northeast which shoved down the curve sees we're trickling back up again. We have hospitalizations early on April, we came down some, back up in the summer surge. Here comes the bend again. Hospitalizations starting to go up, and I'll go below here and look at the death. You can tell the death line has been the number of rates. They're horrific. But it's been relatively plateau, but you see all the red above the blue. That means the trend line is going to start going back up. What is the situation now in emergency rooms like yours and your colleagues across the country getting worse again, right?</s>DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, LIFESPAN/BROWN UNIVERSITY: Yeah. John, it is absolutely getting worse again. My colleagues across the country are sharing stories of their ERs being overwhelmed, their ICUs being full, running out of nursing staff because their nurses are getting sick. We are facing the same situation we're in in April and May in the Northeast and in July in the South. And the trouble now is we're seeing it literally across the country. So, of course, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin are the worst of it right now. But we're hearing similar stories from my colleagues literally across the country, including here in the Northeast. We're starting to see hospitalizations tick up. We are seeing people who are much sicker than they have been since that first wave in the Northeast in the spring.</s>KING: And, Dr. Jha, from the beginning you've been calling for testing and more testing as much as possible. I just want to show some numbers here. First is positivity right. If you look at the national positivity rate, above 6 percent. 6.2 percent. The average is not there, but you're seeing more days above 6 percent. That's bad. Everyone from the beginning says get it to five and try to shove it down to stop community spread. I just showed the map -- I just showed the map of these double digits in the states we talked about this for months getting colder and everything and the like. But the issue is when you look at the -- there's more tests, right? There's more tests. But is there enough testing? The president says we're getting more positives because we have more tests. Is that fair?</s>JHA: Yeah, so what we've been talking about for months, Sean, is what's driving the cases is more infections. And, you know, 6 percent nationally is bad, but you have to remember, California is at about 2.5 percent. New York is about 1 percent. These are big states. And if California and New York are that low, that means there are lots of places in the country at 10, 12, 15 percent or even 30 percent. And the key thing your viewers need to know is when you're at 10 percent or 20 percent, it means you're missing most of the cases out there. I suspect North Dakota is probably missing 80, 90 percent of all infections. You can't stop the outbreak if you miss most of the cases.</s>KING: And so, Dr. Ranney in that context, we have Halloween coming up, we have Thanksgiving coming up. I just want you to listen quickly here to Dr. Fauci who says please, please, I know you have coronavirus fatigue. Be careful.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: My children are in three separate states throughout the country, and in order for them to get here, they would all have to go to an airport, get on a plane, travel with public transportation. They themselves because of their concern for me and my age have decided they are not going to come home for Thanksgiving, even though all three of them want very much to come home for Thanksgiving.</s>KING: How do you balance the urgency again of the count going back up with the inevitable coronavirus fatigue many people have?</s>RANNEY: You know, John, this is the impossible situation that we're in this fall, that we don't have to be in it. Had we followed the basic precautions earlier, we could have been in a situation where we could have seen our families for Thanksgiving. But, unfortunately, given the rising case counts across the country, it is most likely unsafe to get together with elderly relatives for Thanksgiving. If you are going to do it, do it outside for a very short period of time, and not including food. So, get together with people who are close by you who don't have to travel and see each other outside. And for a Halloween, I'm a parent myself. I have young children who are looking forward to trick or treating. We're going to try to do it safely. We have cloth masks and social distancing. Staying in stable pods of the same kids they see every day at school. And that's what our governor is recommending here in Rhode Island and what I hope Americans across the country do. No big parties. No huge groups of kids going house to house. We have to maintain some sense of normalcy, but we have to do it with extra precautions in place given that this virus unfortunately is still spreading like wildfire among us.</s>KING: Dr. Ranney, Dr. Jha, grateful again and as always for your insights, especially leaning on you a lot as we start to go sadly back up. Doctors, thanks so much. Next for us, back to the campaign. It is deja vu for the Democrats. A big lead over Donald Trump with two weeks to go. Plus, what would losing mean?</s>TRUMP: Can you imagine if I lose? My whole life, what am I going to go? I'm going to say I lost to the worst candidate in the history of politics. I'm not going to feel so good. Maybe I'll have to leave the country. I don't know.</s>BIDEN: I hope that it doesn't say that we are as racially, ethnically and religiously at odds with one another as it appears the president wants us to be.

Biden Holds Advantage In Most Battleground State Polls

KING: Sixteen days to election day and here is the biggest question. Can Donald Trump change this map? Can Donald Trump find a path to victory meaning a path to 270 electoral votes? You see how we have it right now. Lopsided for Joe Biden, 290 electoral votes now either solid or leading Biden's way. Only 164 for President Trump. So he needs to engineer a huge comeback. Look at the tossup states on our board plus Maine's second congressional district. Just look at these tossup states. Let's assume they've all voted Republican before they all voted Republican in 2016. Even if Trump won Iowa, won Ohio, won North Carolina, won Georgia, and won Florida -- even if he swept the tossup states on our board it would still not be enough. Joe Biden would still have the lead. Donald Trump's hill is steeper than steep because Joe Biden is competitive in every one of these states. And yet, Democrats are nervous, warning against complacency, worried they have seen this movie before.</s>KING: Sixteen days out, here's the biggest question. Can you find a viable path to victory for Donald Trump? A viable path to 27 electoral votes. Well, it's incredibly difficult because of the state of play right now. We have Hillary Clinton at 307 electoral votes. Donald Trump at just 179. It takes 270 to win. Can Trump turn it around? Yes, but it would be extraordinarily hard.</s>KING: With us this Sunday, Lisa Lerer of "The New York Times" and NPR's Asma Khalid. That's a little creepy when you look back at the flashback. But that is where we were four years ago on this day. The question Asma, is the Biden campaign sent out this email from the campaign manager yesterday to supporters and donors saying don't believe the numbers. Please don't believe the numbers. But one of the interesting things about this race that makes a difference is the stability. If you go back to Joe Biden's lead, this is NBC/Wall Street Journal polling, a 12-point lead over Donald Trump at the beginning of the year. There you go right there, a 9-point lead now if you play it out there. So stability in the lead. If you look at the biggest most important voting group in America, that is women voters, let me try to slid this one over here. Look at this. This is the gender gap, NBC/Wall Street Journal numbers. It was big at the beginning of the year. It is even bigger now. So there are comparisons to 2016 but there also are big differences including the stability of the Biden lead.</s>ASMA KHALID, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, NPR: That's right. I mean, I think, you know, for a long time over the summer, I was looking at some sort of inflection. We're trying to see if there would be an inflection point. And really, I would say the story line of the summer leading into the fall has been the remarkable consistency of the polls. You know, that being said, I also think that there are key demographic groups that Joe Biden seems to be doing better with than Hillary Clinton was ever able to do, and chief among them to me, honestly John, perhaps the most fascinating demographic group is white voters. We recently did a poll, the NPR-PBS News/Marist poll that actually showed Joe Biden winning with white voters. You know, that is a phenomenal statistic if true, because no Democrat in recent presidential history has been able to win white voters. You know, I would say I hear the same in my reporting when I was out there doing, you know, interviews with young, disaffected, disillusioned black and brown voters. They may not like Joe Biden but they understand the stakes are very different than they were in 2016.</s>KING: Right. And that is a big difference in a sense Lisa. You have an incumbent president, Hillary Clinton was viewed by some voters as the incumbent, I guess, because she had been Obama's secretary of state. But you have an incumbent president in the middle of a pandemic, and the American people have cast a pretty decisive verdict. They don't like what they've seen from the president. And to that Joe Biden tries to, you know, almost send the message, I'm not flashy, but I'm steady. Listen here to part of his message is, you know, when the president speaks, you must be able to trust it.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The words of a president matter.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Absolutely.</s>BIDEN: No matter whether they're good, bad, indifferent, they matter. And when the president doesn't wear a mask or makes fun of folks like me when I was wearing a mask for a long time, then as you know, people say well, it mustn't be that important.</s>KING: I always joke my first campaign was 1988. Michael Dukakis said this election is not about ideology, it's about competence. I guess he was 30 years ahead of his time.</s>LISA LERER, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": Yes, I mean I think that's been the message that Joe Biden since the beginning. He's cast his candidacy as sort of a return to normalcy where voters don't have to think about what's coming out of the White House every day and they can escape this chaotic tone of this administration, a tone and a feeling that's only escalated in the midst of this extraordinary pandemic. But I also think it's really important to remember something else about 2016 which was that then as you point out, Donald Trump was, of course, running against Hillary Clinton. And when you look at the numbers, you had a race between two of the most divisive, polarizing candidates that the country had seen in a really long time.</s>LERER: That is not this race. I mean, I've talked to people who have run focus groups for both candidates. And those who ran focus groups for Hillary Clinton recounted voters giving this tortured sort of explanation of her personality and whether they could vote for her and even if they didn't like Trump, they felt like maybe Hillary Clinton had been in the public eye in a divisive way for too long. And when talked to people who've run focus groups for Joe Biden, they say what they hear from voters is that people don't know a lot about him but you know, they like him. So he has a very different brand, a very different reputation in the American public. And that's really helping him in this moment.</s>KING: You have both spent time in recent days talking to the people who drive American politics, and that would be women. Women will be 50 percent plus, probably 52 percent, 53 percent of the electorate nationally. It will be around that number, higher in some states as we get through it. Also this is from a piece you did. "I think we trust him after seeing what he's done. That's a lot of our reservations. I don't know that we like him, but our goal isn't to be liked, it's to be respected." That's from Linda Holloway out in very important Bloomfield, Michigan. She's a Trump supporter. And Lisa this is from your reporting. "In the last four years, my children have grown and developed more than he has in regards to the way he speaks to other people and the way he speaks about other people." That from an Ohio voter who's going to vote for Biden now who voted for Gary Johnson last time. Asma, to you first, when you talk to these women, especially suburban women -- who again, that is why Nancy Pelosi is speaker -- the suburban revolt against Trump in 2018 changed America. The question is will it change America again?</s>KHALID: You know, I was out in Michigan. And I specifically spent time in two key congressional districts that did flip from Republican to Democrat in 2018. And what I consistently heard from, you know, you could call them suburban women, right. This is the key demographic that Donald Trump had been pleading to support him. They said that they were sort of awakened to politics in 2018. Many of them are energized and engaged more far more so this election cycle. You know, I think where Donald Trump still retains support in the suburbs is among sort of a key core base of women who say, you know, we don't like how he speaks, but we're still going to back him. The challenge for him is that is less than 50 percent of the public and really at this point, he needs to be expanding the base. He has shown no signs specifically among suburban women that he's capable of doing that.</s>KING: And Lisa, your voter there is important because the third-party candidates are not polling anywhere near like they did last time. So you have a Johnson supporter from '16, who's a Biden supporter now. In the newspaper today, you also write about other disaffected Democrats or Independents who couldn't vote for Hillary Clinton who can vote for Biden. So as we talk about Trump trying to find new voters, Biden may have a pool, too.</s>LERER: Right. When we look at the numbers for people who voted third party, which as you point out isn't as strong -- it doesn't have as strong of appeal this time around or didn't vote at all in the 2016 election, a lot of what we're seeing is those people are in higher numbers going to Joe Biden. But I do think as you point out, the suburbs will be key here. Republicans have really never won a presidential race in recent history without winning the suburbs. And part of what's happening here is the suburbs are changing. I think Donald Trump when he tries to, you know, talk about suburban housewives and law and order and win back these areas of the country, the suburbs, he doesn't quite have a sense of what they are now. They're increasingly diverse. They're the bulk of America. These are areas that have followed a lot of the demographic trends that are hurting the Republican Party in the long-term. And so the question is not only whether Donald Trump will lose these areas and perhaps cost himself the presidency, but whether Republicans can win them back or are these voters lost for the Republican Party for a very long time?</s>KING: That's a fascinating -- one of the fascinating questions we will deal with in the next 16 days and then beyond. Asma, Lisa -- grateful for the reporting and the insights. Up next for us a global perspective, America almost alone. In a global pandemic, most other leaders respect science and they acknowledge facts.

Global COVID-19 Leadership Test: Surges In Europe And U.S.

KING: This is a global pandemic and as a result of that, a global leadership test. New Zealand's prime minister instituted an early coronavirus lockdown and her Labor Party was just rewarded with a landslide in national election. The virus is surging again across Europe where several leaders this past week imposed new restrictions.</s>ANGELA MERKEL, GERMAN CHANCELLOR (through translator): I am convinced that what we do or do not do in the coming days and weeks will be decisive for how we get through this pandemic. We can see the infection figures curve is going up. In some cases very steeply.</s>BORIS JOHNSON, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: No one wants to have to implement these measures which damage local businesses, curtail individual freedom and impose significant strains on people's mental health. But these decisions were necessary because of the rate of increase.</s>KING: Notice the chancellor and the prime minister acknowledged the COVID spike, meaning they acknowledge the facts. President Trump ignores them.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The lockdowns are doing tremendous damage to these Democrat-run states. The cure cannot be worse than the problem itself, can it. The vaccine will end the pandemic, but it's ending anyway. I mean they go crazy when I say it. It's going to peter out and it's going to end.</s>KING: CNN chief international anchor, Christiane Amanpour is with us this Sunday. Christiane, grateful for your time. When you listen to the president of the United States and you listen to these other world leaders, I would say it's Mars and Venus, but Mars and Venus are at least in the same galaxy. This is a parallel universe.</s>CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well look I didn't see the data to that last President Trump sound bite but clearly it's not going away. And what we are here in Europe in the midst of the second wave which everybody warned us about at the very beginning. There was going to be a first wave and a second wave. And of course, we haven't yet got to the flu season in full flung. So yes, Europe and parts of the world are experiencing a big spike because what happened was at the very beginning they really did take very harsh lockdown measures and you saw it flatten very quickly across most of Europe. And then you saw what now looks to be a rather early and scattershot lifting of the lockdown. They were desperate to get this so-called V- shape recovery, desperate to get the economy. Obviously, people were desperate. But over the summer you had socializing and you had travel for vacations. At the end of the summer, you had kids going back to university. And that's, you know, a big source of the spike. And now you have the leaders making their comments about how they need to take very careful measures now in restricting. Boris Johnson is still a little bit all over the place because he doesn't want to do a national lockdown. People don't really understand his three-tier system and his regional restrictions. So that's a little bit of a problem. And also hospitals across Europe are seeing an uptick in the number of cases going into hospital.</s>KING: And it's an interesting moment here because we're 16 days away from the American election. The president always says we're the envy of the world. Well, we are not.</s>KING: We're leading in cases and we're leading in deaths. His response has been criticized. And people around the world seem to agree. This is from a Pew poll. If you look at this here. Has the United States done a good job in dealing with the coronavirus? 20 percent of the people in Spain say that. 18 percent in Italy. 16 percent in the U.K. 15 percent in France. Only 9 percent in Germany. You know this better than I from your program "AMANPOUR" and from your conversations. But my inbox from diplomats and others around the world is they keep asking what the hell is going on in the United States of America?</s>AMANPOUR: Well yes. And if you see some of the rather the latest polls on the international view of the United States, It is all based around COVID. And over the summer and over the spring they were at the lowest levels since the height of the Iraq war which was when the last time America was so unpopular abroad. So that was a big, big deal. I think it's interesting to see the levels there. You see that Germany only 9 percent thought the U.S. was doing a great job. That's because of all the large European economies, Germany did the very, very best at the beginning. It had a very sophisticated test and trace. It had ICU beds. It had surplus, medicine, surplus beds, surplus you know, resources. And it really dealt with it very, very strongly. So the people there were saying, well hang on a second. You know, look at the catastrophe that's happening in the U.S. which has -- what does it have? It has I think 4 percent of the world's population and 25 percent of the world's cases. So it was pretty dramatic to watch. And I think leadership here, John, is very important to focus on and you've been doing so at the beginning of your program. You mentioned correctly that Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand has been reelected in a landslide. That's because of competence. That's because eliminated the virus. And that's a very specific and technical word. Here Boris Johnson has not done such a good job and even his own party members consider him the second worst cabinet minister in the U.K. and his polls are in the -- I was going to use a word I shouldn't -- but his polls are pretty, pretty low below, you know, where they would like to be right now. And it's all because of competence. And really people, we're being told by public health officials now in the United States and around the world, need also to cooperate. They need to wear the masks. They need to socially distance. They need not to be jammed up against each other indoors. There are fairly simple things individuals can do that actually make a difference. And one can't overemphasize that enough.</s>KING: And when people in your program ask about the response in the United States, what comes up the most?</s>AMANPOUR: I think what comes up the most is this lack of reverence or lack of respect for facts and for science. Lack of respect for doctors and nurses who up until now have been held up as the most, you know, respected professions, right. I mean wherever you go people want to be a doctor. they want to be a nurse. They want to be a teacher. They want to be a scientist. But yet, these professionals who are giving their best advice are being disrespected by a very, very large part of society. And that's something that in most parts of Europe, most parts of the world including places like Vietnam, let's not forget, and South Korea and other places, Asia has got this under control. They have respected the science and they have respected those professionals. People can't understand why masks have become in England as well, in the U.K., which has got its own populist problem here, have become such a bone of political contention. And the notion that the United States and Britain believe themselves to be exceptional nations has also backfired in the view of a lot of people around the world. That it can't happen to us. We can't be in such a terrible situation. It will magically go away. Well, we've seen that it takes actual action to make it go away.</s>KING: We have seen that and we're now going through it both on your side of the Atlantic and ours, back up the hill; back up to another uncertain peak. Christian Amanpour, grateful for you time this Sunday. Thank you. Up next for us, voting in a pandemic. Long lines, very long lines for early voting and yes, lots of lawsuits.

Trump Trailing Biden In Battleground States, GOP Strongholds; Trump Tries To Win Over Voters In Nevada, A State He Lost In 2016; Trump Holds Rallies In Michigan And Wisconsin Even As Both States See Record Surges In COVID Cases; Whitmer Aide Slams Trump Over "Violent Rhetoric"; Twitter Removes Tweet By Trump's COVID Adviser That Undermined Wearing Masks; Biden Campaigning In North Carolina Today, Harris In Florida Monday; Obama To Hit Campaign Trail For Biden Next Week; More Than 22 Million Ballots Have Been Cast So Far.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is now responding to President Trump's call to have her jailed.</s>CROWD: Lock her up. Lock her up.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Lock them all up.</s>RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: This is extraordinarily dangerous. Immediately after the FBI uncovers a plot to kidnap and possibly kill her.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is not changing his tune. Continuing to insist despite all evidence to the contrary that we are turning the corner on coronavirus.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We're hearing that his Minnesota rallies last month are now being blamed for more than a dozen COVID infections. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE There is now a long track record of rallies that have led to infections.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In just three weeks the CDC says that we could be having up to 6,700 new hospitalizations each and every day.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY weekend with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Beautiful shot to start the day. Good morning to you. Looking at San Francisco. Listen, we've got 16 days now left until the 2020 Election Day. Twenty-two million people have already cast their votes.</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: Yes. Today former Vice President Joe Biden's trying to lock in a lead in North Carolina. That's a state President Trump won in 2016.</s>BLACKWELL: And President Trump meanwhile is trying to close the gap in Nevada. He lost that state the first time around.</s>PAUL: So the latest national poll has Joe Biden in front. His campaign manager, however, says do not get complacent. CNN's Sarah Westwood is at the White House. So, Sarah, we know President Trump's waking up in Nevada this morning. Again, he lost that state in 2016. What do we know about his strategy and what we'll see today?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Good morning, Victor and Christi. And, yes, that state is one that the president lost by under three points in 2016, and it's perhaps a sign that the campaign is trying to preserve alternative paths to 270 electoral votes for the president if he has hopes of winning re-election. He's also been spending some time in states that he won handily in 2016 like Georgia and Florida. And also with his packed schedule hitting states that he won by just a hair in 2016 and that he is perhaps hoping to try to turn his way again. Like Wisconsin and Michigan, those are the two states that we saw him campaigning in yesterday despite the fact that coronavirus cases in both states are on the rise, and local officials have warned about holding such large gatherings in both of those states. Now while he was in Michigan, the president went after the Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, for keeping the schools closed and many facilities closed as the state battles coronavirus. Those comments raised some eyebrows because the FBI just recently foiled a plot to kidnap that governor, Governor Whitmer, and the president just weeks later is going after her there. Governor Whitmer responded pretty quickly on Twitter. And I want to read you her response. She said, "This is exactly the rhetoric that put me, my family, and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to save the lives of our fellow Americans. It has to stop." And interestingly, one of the aides to the governor, her deputy digital director, also responded on Twitter saying that violent rhetoric is directed towards the governor every time the president goes after her like this in a rally. She wrote, "I am the Governor's Deputy Digital Director. I see everything that is said about and to her online. Every single time the president does this at a rally, the violent rhetoric towards her immediately escalates on social media. It has to stop. It just has to." Now, we expect the president to maintain a very demanding schedule like this during this final sprint to Election Day, Victor and Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: Sarah, we also on Twitter saw the White House adviser, Dr. Scott Atlas, really the only member of the task force we see in the White House, pushing this false narrative that masks do not work in trying to control the spread of the coronavirus. What's going on here?</s>WESTWOOD: Yes, Dr. Atlas posted on Twitter undermining the confidence in the effectiveness of masks, questioning whether they are effective in preventing the spread of coronavirus. That goes directly against the advice from Trump's own administration, from his CDC that people should be wearing masks when they're in public settings, when they're around people who are not members of their household. That tweet was flagged and subsequently removed by Twitter for violating the rules, spreading disinformation about masks. But, again it just fits a pattern. For many Trump administration officials offering conflicting and often just wrong information about coronavirus leading to public confusion and sometimes the greater spread of the virus continuing in this country, Victor and Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Sarah Westwood for us at the White House. Thank you.</s>PAUL: Well, former Vice President Joe Biden in North Carolina as we said today. President Trump won that state in 2016. But the Biden campaign's strategy wants to lock in voters in those key states, the swing ones.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's go to Jason Carroll this morning. Jason has the latest for us. Jason?</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Christi, as expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources, and energy into battleground states, and states where they're doing early in-person voting. They're seeing some of those same images coming out of places such as North Carolina. For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same in Florida on Monday. She'll be making two stops there. Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday, neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday. Harris, for her part, as you know a couple of people within her orbit tested positive for COVID-19. So out of an abundance of caution they physically kept her off of the campaign trail for a few days. She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So looking ahead, again, you've got Biden. He's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida. She'll be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania on Monday. She will be in Michigan on Tuesday, Jill Biden. But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be out there campaigning for Biden. He's going to be doing that in Philadelphia and -- and a number of Democrats are saying if there is one surrogate that you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one -- Victor, Christi.</s>BLACKWELL: Jason Carroll, thanks so much. Let's talk about where we are in this race. Sixteen days now left until the Election Day. Fifteen percent of the total ballots cast for president in 2016 have already been cast.</s>PAUL: More than 22 million ballots is what have been cast across 45 states and the District of Columbia thus far to this date. This is according to a survey of ballot data by CNN, Edison Research and Catalyst. We need to tell you Catalyst is a data company that provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics and non- profit issue advocacy organizations.</s>BLACKWELL: Now the information coming in from 27 states that report party affiliation so that Democrats are leading the way with more than 5.4 million ballots cast so far. Republicans have cast more than 2.4 million votes there. Keep in mind, the polling shows Democrats prefer voting early or by mail. Republicans prefer to vote on Election Day. We also have to say that although these are Democrats who cast their ballots doesn't mean that they necessarily are guaranteed to vote for the Democratic candidate.</s>PAUL: Right. Among 36 states reporting ballots cast by gender, more than 7.3 million men have voted, they are being outpaced by the nearly 9 million women who have cast ballots today. Let's bring in Mark Preston, CNN senior political analyst to talk about that. Women are a key part of this, we know, Mark. Good morning. It's so good to see you.</s>MARK PRESTON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Good morning.</s>PAUL: I want to listen here to a woman in Florida that Jeff Zeleny spoke with. She voted for President Trump in 2016. Here's what she says today.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's so dishonest. And the worst is that whenever he is caught in a lie, he blames it on somebody else. It's always somebody else. He's impossible.</s>PAUL: And then let's listen to President Trump last night in Wisconsin. Actually, this was in Michigan. I apologize. Let's listen to what he had to say, specifically to women.</s>TRUMP: Women, suburban women, you're supposed to love Trump. Suburban women, they should like me more than anybody here tonight because I ended the regulation that destroyed your neighborhood. I ended the regulation that brought crime to the suburbs, and you're going to live the American dream. And that's what you're going to do. Can I ask you to do me a favor? Suburban women, will you please like me? Please.</s>PAUL: All right. So he was referring when he was -- he was talking about destroying your neighborhood, he was talking about his interpretation of Obama-era fair housing rules and low-income housing. But I want to -- I want to check that, Mark, with you because he also was using or did not stop the crowd from yelling "lock her up" which we had heard. That was for the Michigan governor. Last time it was for Hillary Clinton. We also have heard him talk about Savannah Guthrie and how she conducted herself, that she was very angry. We heard something similar in 2016 from him about Megyn Kelly in a debate. He needs these women's votes and I'm just curious because this illustrates this consistent derogatory view of strong women. What is the calculus in his mind, in his campaign, that the language he's using is going to benefit him?</s>PRESTON: Now, Christi, that's entirely unfair for you to think that I could actually get in the mind of Donald Trump.</s>PAUL: Sorry.</s>PRESTON: Look -- and I'm only kidding. Look, let's go back to several years ago, right, before he became president. He stood on a debate stage in really a hollowed political place for Republicans, the Ronald Reagan Library. Sat on a debate stage and turned around and made a derogatory comment about the looks of one of his Republican contenders, you know, Carly Fiorina, that he was challenging. So, Donald Trump lives in a bygone era. You know, I often think, Christi, is he running a campaign from like 1954? Is this a campaign that would -- that would perhaps work in a way that it is not working now if it was 50 years ago? And perhaps that is true. You know, if you listen to the tone of how he asked for their support last night, it was very condescending. And it's a tone that is not going to work very well, I think, at this point with suburban women. And we are seeing that play out in the polls. Now, specifically why did they support him last time? Well, if you look at last time, Hillary Clinton was a very polarizing figure. You know, there are a lot of people who didn't like her personally. They also didn't like about how the fact that her husband had served two terms, she had served her adult life in government, and that there was this idea that she was entitled to become the next president. That's all gone right now. We have seen what has happened with COVID- 19, we have seen the incompetence of what happens when people are dying when our government is not taking care of them, Christi.</s>PAUL: So there's also this reporting from Arlette Saenz that the Biden campaign manager, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon, in a memo that I think is going out today says, we need to campaign like we're trailing even though the majority of the polls show that they're double digits ahead of President Trump. Some will argue it seems like 2016. The polls said one thing and election night said another. Is that the contention, that people will vote for him and they just won't admit it? Is that a contention that's still valid on a sizable scale or is that what Biden's concerned about?</s>PRESTON: Yes. Look, it's not only that. People forget the stock market is doing very well right now. So as well as we are seeing these terrible unemployment numbers, we are seeing people die, our loved ones die, we all know someone who has been connected to this awful disease. The fact of the matter is the stock market is still doing well. So, if you're doing well and you still have a job and the stock market's doing well, then that's a concern right now if you're a Democrat. And specifically, Joe Biden got two pieces of good news this week, right? He got that he's continuing to be ahead in the polls and he has a huge cash advantage over Donald Trump. Except you don't want your supporters to know that. You want your supporters to know that you're against the ropes or at least you want them to think you're against the ropes, because otherwise complacency will lead to defeat. And I think they're very, very, very cognizant of that as they look at what happened in 2016.</s>PAUL: So how do you think that's going to shape what we see this week in this last debate? First of all -- and we'll talk about both sides, but what is the one takeaway you think each of these candidates needs to leave the American voter with once that debate is over? Let's start with Vice President Biden.</s>PRESTON: I think he has to show that he has energy and that he has focus and that he has command. The empathy will come through. I think Joe Biden could do well if he makes no mistakes. Donald Trump, on the other hand, I think that he has to show empathy, he has to show that he's in control. But we haven't seen him show any of that in this campaign, let alone in this presidency. So I don't necessarily think he's going to take that advice. It is going to be quite a show, though, I think, this last debate.</s>PAUL: All right. Mark Preston, we are so grateful to have your expertise and your thoughts this morning. Thank you for waking up early for us on a weekend.</s>PRESTON: Hey, thanks for having me.</s>PAUL: Always. Thanks, Mark. So the conversation continues later today on "STATE OF THE UNION." Jake Tapper is joined by Lara Trump, Delaware Senator Chris Coons, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Fareed Zakaria. "STATE OF THE UNION" airing at 9:00 Eastern, right here on</s>CNN. BLACKWELL: Still to come, there are two places in the U.S. where COVID-19 cases are trending in the right direction. Just two states. Health experts are warning that the surge has the potential to get far worse.</s>PAUL: Also, comedian Seth Rogen tells CNN's Chloe Melas what's getting him through the pandemic.</s>SETH ROGEN, COMEDIAN: I smoke weed from the second I wake up. Whatever you need to do to get through the day, as long as it's not hurting other people, do what you got to do.

Trump, Biden Campaigning In Key Battleground States Today; Michigan Governor Whitmer On Trump Rally Rhetoric: This Puts "Lives In Danger"; Only Two States Trending Downwards As Coronavirus Surges

CAROL ROSENSTEIN, CNN HERO: Medicine with a side effect? It's pure joy. Where's my Kleenex?</s>CHRISTI PAUL, CNN ANCHOR: For more on how Carol is using music to fight the impact of coronavirus isolation now, go to CNNheroes.com.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan is now responding to President Trump's call to have her jailed.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Lock 'em all up.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is extraordinarily dangerous. Immediately after the FBI uncovers a plot to kidnap and possibly kill her.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The president is not changing his tune, continuing to insist despite all evidence to the contrary that we are turning the corner on coronavirus.</s>BLITZER: We're hearing that his Minnesota rallies last month are now being blamed for more than a dozen COVID infections.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There is a long track record of rallies that have led to infections.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In just three weeks, the CDC says that we could be having up to 6,700 new hospitalizations each and every day.</s>ANNOUNCER: This is NEW DAY WEEKEND with Victor Blackwell and Christi Paul.</s>PAUL: The sun is up in New York. We hope that you are as well. Thank you so much for making us part of your morning. We appreciate your company here because there's a lot to talk about with only 16 days left until we hit Election Day itself. Twenty-two million people have already cast their votes.</s>VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: Today, former Vice President Joe Biden is trying to lock in a lead in North Carolina. That's a state that President Trump won in 2016.</s>PAUL: President Trump meanwhile is trying to close the gap in Nevada. He lost that state the first time around.</s>BLACKWELL: The latest national poll has Joe Biden out front. But his campaign manager, however, says do not get complacent. CNN's Sarah Westwood is following the latest for us now from the White House. The president, Sarah, is in Nevada this morning. He lost that state in 2016. He's got a bit of a gap to close. What is the strategy as we know it from the campaign?</s>SARAH WESTWOOD, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Hey, good morning, Victor and Christi. And President Trump waking up this morning in Nevada. It's a state that he lost by just under three points last time. So perhaps, his campaign is looking at alternate paths to 270 electoral votes as polls show that he is trailing Joe Biden in some of the other battleground states. But he's been visiting a variety of places during this homestretch of the campaign trail including some states that he won handily in 2016 like Georgia and Florida. And some were similar like Michigan, Wisconsin, and those two states is where he focused yesterday with a pair of campaign events. In Wisconsin and Michigan, two states that are seeing spikes in coronavirus cases, and where local officials warned that the president should not be holding these large events without taking the proper social distancing precautions. Now, in Michigan, the president went after Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer for keeping the state closed. He urged her to open the schools and even sort of joined in with the last lock her up chant that had broken out at the rally. And that sort of raised some eyebrows because less than two weeks, the FBI just uncovered a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer. And she responded pretty quickly on Twitter, I want to read you that tweet. She said: This is rhetoric that put me, my family, and other government officials' lives in danger while we try to saves the lives of our fellow Americans. It has to stop. Now, interestingly, the governor's deputy digital director also responded on Twitter, and I want to read that, as well. I see everything that is said about and to her online. Every time the president does this at a rally, the violent rhetoric towards her immediately escalates on social media. It has to stop. It just has to. Now, we do expect the president to keep up his very demanding schedule heading into the final two weeks of Election Day, perhaps hitting multiple states a day until then -- Victor and Christi.</s>PAUL: So while he's on the campaign trail, we know that White House adviser Dr. Scott Atlas is pushing this false narrative that masks do not work. Help us understand what happened here.</s>WESTWOOD: Right. Dr. Scott Atlas, one of the most visible at this point members of the coronavirus task force, one of the president's advisers on this topic, posted on Twitter yesterday, questioning the effectiveness of masks. Twitter flagged and subsequently removed the tweet from its platform. It's just sort of remarkable, though, that someone working for the president on coronavirus can have messages that are so misleading that Twitter is forced to take them down. And that's what we saw happen yesterday, Victor and Christi.</s>PAUL: Uh-huh. No doubt. Sarah Westwood, appreciate the updates, thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. Thank you, Sarah. Here's why Dr. Atlas' tweet was removed. This is from Twitter: Dr. Atlas' tweet was in violation of Twitter's COVID-19 misleading information policy. It says: The policy prohibits sharing false and misleading content related to COVID-19 which could lead to harm.</s>PAUL: It goes on to say it specifically includes guidance on claims related to misleading information, statements or assertions that had been confirmed to be false or misleading by subject matter experts such as public health authorities.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's bring in now, epidemiologist and CNN contributor, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed. Doctor, good morning to you. Listen, the president on I believe it was Thursday in these dueling town halls tried to sell that he has no problems with masks, but then also saying that 85 percent of people who wear masks contract coronavirus, which is bunk. And now, the only doctor he appears to be listening to in the White House is selling this. What's the conclusion you received from what Dr. Atlas tweeted?</s>DR. ABDUL EL-SAYED, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Well, what it looks like is he's trying to make masks a battlefield in his ongoing war against science. About 217,000 people now are casualties of that war. There is no evidence and certainly no consensus of the scientists, either in public or the scientists that work on the task force or the scientists that work in the administration, none of them have reached any sort of consensus that says that masks do not work. You have these folks who push these theories about why masks aren't the right way to go, but it seems to be more broadly in line with trying to look at what the president has done on the coronavirus which is minimal, and then to tailor their interpretation of the science to make the president feel good about himself. And this -- this pandemic response led by one man's ego rather than a pandemic response led by the science is exactly why the United States accounts for nearly 20 percent of all deaths in the entire world to coronavirus. And so, it looks like Scott Atlas is just another of these handpicked phony doctors who uses MD as a fig leaf for the president's narcissism. It's inappropriate. It's wrong, and people are dying because of it. And Twitter rightly flagged it and removed it.</s>PAUL: What do you make, however, of the fact that this is a doctor speaking for the White House where the president himself suffered from this virus? Now granted he received treatment and got better in treatment that is not available really to the general public. But the fact that the president actually had COVID and this doctor from the White House is saying masks don't work is -- it's jolting, I think, to people.</s>EL-SAYED: I agree. It's astounding, and it frankly speaks to the moral decay at the court here. Look, Scott Atlas is not an epidemiologist. He's an infectious disease doctor. He's a doctor whose job it is to visualize people's internal organs. He's a radiologist. And it'd be like asking a painter to do your roof because the painter works on houses. This guy has a history of being someone who just speaks in idiosyncrasies about science, and the president I guess like what he had to say on Twitter and decided to give him a job. I want to step back, though, and I want the viewers to appreciate that this is part of a broader argument, a strategy per se, politically, not a public health strategy, a political strategy to argue for this quote/unquote herd immunity. And what we're hearing is people saying, well, if you just let people get sick, right, and the virus moves through people and they'll acquire immunity to the illness, and we won't have this problem anywhere, but the key thing is you have to protect the most vulnerable people. Now, here's the thing, here's why this political strategy is ridiculous, because the president himself is considered one of those vulnerable people. And he is the most powerful, most protected person in the world. He could not protect himself from COVID-19. This strategy won't work. It is not a public health strategy. It is a political strategy to look at the failure of a response and then back justify it with some bunk scientific hypothesis. And then to tell us somehow that this is what we ought to be doing. It is absurd and, frankly, with respect to Scott Atlas, anybody who would bastardize their MD this way and use it to justify the failure of a response to a public health epidemic, honestly, honestly, you have to ask what that oath that you took when you started med school and you graduated at med school meant to you.</s>BLACKWELL: Here, Doctor, he also tweeted a link to this libertarian group's right on masks which challenges masks, talks about herd immunities. And I read it, here's a portion of it. It says that, we can defend against it, the coronavirus, by our immune systems and trusting those with stronger immune systems to protect the weaker despite the propaganda. Herd immunity was the standard before March, 2020. It is not a fringe concept. But when you consider that we have to remind people this president in February knew exactly how contagious and deadly this virus was because there's a recording of him saying it. And now we watch him day after day put thousands of people together with no social distancing and some of them with masks, many without, and stand in front of them and tell people that we are rounding the corner as we get nearly 70,000 new cases a day, hospitalizations climbing, deaths growing in some states, as well. The juxtaposition is standing in front him.</s>EL-SAYED: Yeah. You cannot care about humans. You cannot care about human life and know that what you are doing is putting people at risk for contracting a disease that you yourself got, and almost died from, right? It was clear that the president had a serious case of COVID-19. He knows exactly what this is. In fact, he</s>BLACKWELL: I don't know that it's -- necessarily things coming out of the task force. It is this one doctor. We are listening, the president is listening to a radiologist, as you said, who has no expertise in infectious diseases when he has Dr. Birx, when he has Dr. Fauci, when there is the commissioner of the FDA, Dr. Hahn, when he's got the director of the NIH, Dr. Collins. When you have experts, you go out and get a radiologist who says what you want to hear and you put him at the podium in the briefing room instead of the experts who have been doing this for decades. The president may listen to Dr. Atlas about this. I haven't heard yet why the rest of us should. Dr. Abdul -- go ahead. Just wrap it up.</s>EL-SAYED: Victor, the only thing I was going to say is you're right. There's a task force and there's some great, credible scientists on the task force. And yet the only person we hear from is the least credible member, right? So, you got to ask, well, why is that the stuff we keep hearing from the task force is seems through the least credible, right, most politically focused member of the task force. It's just super frustrating. I really appreciate being on with you, guys.</s>BLACKWELL: Thank you.</s>PAUL: We appreciate having your voice in this and your expertise to break this down and remind us how important this is and why it's so important. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, thank you so much.</s>EL-SAYED: Thank you.</s>PAUL: Absolutely. All righty. Looking ahead to today, former Vice President Joe Biden is in North Carolina. Now, yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren told voters what's at stake in this election.</s>SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): And now, Donald Trump and the Republicans in the Senate are trying to steal another Supreme Court seat. They are trying to advance an extremist right-wing agenda, a big part of which is to overturn the Affordable Care Act, to end protection for people with pre-existing conditions, to end Roe versus Wade, and to crush our unions.</s>BLACKWELL: CNN's Jason Carroll has more on Biden's campaign and the surrogates who will be out this week. Jason, get us up to speed.</s>JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Victor and Christi, as expected, the campaign putting much of its time, resources, and energy into battleground states, and states where they're doing early in-person voting. They're seeing some of the same images coming out of places such as North Carolina. For his part, Vice President Joe Biden will be in Durham, North Carolina, today, speaking to voters, telling them to be patient and to get out there and vote. Senator Kamala Harris will be doing the same on Florida on Monday. She'll be making two stops there. Biden not out on the campaign trail on Saturday. Neither was Harris. Biden met with advisers from his campaign on Saturday. Harris for her part, as you know, a couple of people within her orbit tested positive for COVID-19. So, out of an abundance of caution, they physically kept her off of the campaign trail for a few days. She did test negative for COVID-19 on Saturday. So, looking ahead again, you've got Biden, he's going to be in North Carolina today. You've got Senator Harris in Florida. She'll be there on Monday. Jill Biden will be in Pennsylvania Monday. She will be in Michigan on Tuesday, Joe Biden. But Wednesday is the big day. That is the day that former President Barack Obama will be campaigning for Biden. He's going to be doing that in Philadelphia. And a number of Democrats are saying, if there's one surrogate that you want out there stumping for you, that would be the one -- Victor, Christi.</s>PAUL: All right. Thank you so much, Jason. So, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Senate Republicans are going to try putting up a stand-alone bill to help small businesses. They want to do that on Tuesday, and then on Wednesday, they'll try to advance a separate $500 million stimulus package. Here's a thing, it's not likely that they'll have the votes to pass the aid in the Senate. Stimulus bill is the same measure House Democrats blocked last month.</s>BLACKWELL: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office says that she spoke with Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin for a little more than an hour last night over the phone. An aide says in a statement that there was encouraging news on testing, but there are differences they say that must be addressed in comprehensive manners in the next 48 hours. The statement also says the decisions must be made by the White House in order to demonstrate that the administration is serious about reaching a bipartisan agreement that provides for Americans with the greatest needs during the pandemic.</s>PAUL: Well, still to come, there are only two states, just two in the U.S. where COVID-19 cases are trending in the right direction. Health experts are warning the surge has the potential to get much worse. We'll tell you what they're saying now.

States See Spike In Turnout As Early In-Person Voting Begins

BLACKWELL: We are now 16 days out from Election Day, but already 15 percent of the total ballots cast for president in 2016 have already been cast.</s>PAUL: Uh-huh, more than 22 million ballots we're talking about have been cast already. This is across 45 states and the District of Columbia. This is according to a survey of ballot data by CNN, Edison Research, and Catalyst. And we need to tell you, Catalyst is a data company. It provides data, analytics and other services to Democrats, academics, and non-profit issue advocacy organizations.</s>BLACKWELL: Now, the information is coming in from 27 states that report party affiliation show that Democrats are leading the way with more than 5.4 million ballots cast so far. Republicans have cast more than 2.4 million votes. Keep in mind polling shows that Democrats prefer voting early or by mail. Republicans prefer to vote on Election Day, and just because a Democrat casts a ballot, there's no guarantee that it is for the Democratic candidate. Just keep that in mind when you look at the numbers.</s>PAUL: Uh-huh. Among 36 states reporting ballots cast by gender, more than 7.3 million men have voted, but they're outpaced by nearly 9 million women who have also cast ballots to date. Experts predict with all of that that we just gave you this larger turnout this election compared to 2016 and why, just look at your screen. It's scenes like this that suggest there is definitely voter enthusiasm here.</s>BLACKWELL: Yeah, we see these long lines all the time across the country. In Kansas, North Carolina, this weekend, Georgia, as well, Nevada kicked off early voting yesterday. And to bring it back to Georgia, it's setting new early voting records with a more than 134 percent jump from this time in 2016.</s>PAUL: So we've been speaking to voters about what issues are driving them to the polls, who they're voting for.</s>BLACKWELL: And here's some of what we hearing --</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We need change in this country right now. Honestly, it's important for the younger people to come out, because this is -- it's our country to run at this point. It's not for the older generation anymore. It's us that are coming up now.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is my first presidential election. I really want to get out my right to vote. I'm excited to get out here this morning to come and cast my ballot and see the change that I want. And vote for the candidate that I think will, you know, get our country to a better place, to what I want to see happen in our country.</s>REPORTER: Do you minds sharing who that it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's Joe Biden.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This election for us is really about health care, and obviously, the pandemic, two very important subjects for us, and then racial equality, as well. We just felt it was -- this is an important election, and wanted to make sure our voices were heard, and came down and dropped off the ballots.</s>REPORTER: What does this election hinge on?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Making America great again. I like everything that Trump has done for me. Don't like his Twitters and all, but I like what's going on.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's done so many great things that I have notion to complain about over the last -- I have nothing on this complain about over the last four years. Certainly don't want Biden or Harris.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. With me now to talk about the election, CNN political analyst Julian Zelizer, professor at Princeton, author of many, many books. Julian, good morning to you it. Good to have you back.</s>JULIAN ZELIZER, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. Good morning.</s>BLACKWELL: Let's start here with what we heard from a couple of voters who were heading in to a Trump rally I believe that was in Michigan. Listen, these Trump rallies, they are in states often with huge jumps in percentage of positives, we've got the sloppiness like we heard from Senator Perdue on Kamala Harris' name. We've even got -- put the picture up -- a crowd-surfing state rep in Georgia during a pandemic. He tweeted this out, for some reason he's proud of this. And really anybody who goes to these things is not undecided, they're really Trump voters. Are they worth it to the campaign to have these displays repeatedly?</s>ZELIZER: Well, I think the rallies which have always been a way to energize President Trump during the campaign and to energize supporters have now become this symbolic moment where the campaign is trying to defy what the experts say, what scientists say, and show that they're taking a very different path on dealing with COVID. So it's definitely not worth the human cost. But I think that's how the campaign thinks of these politically.</s>BLACKWELL: The Biden campaign, let's turn to that. The national polls showing often a double-digit lead across the country, leads in many of the swing states. But a memo was sent out by the campaign manager this weekend. It says that supporters should not become complacent because the very searing truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race. And every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire. And polls don't show a lot of undecideds. But what do we know about Trump voters beyond some of the problems in the state polls in 2016? Do we see that there are, as some call them, these shy Trump voters who aren't often showing up in these polls?</s>ZELIZER: Well, there's some evidence that like 2016 the polls aren't capturing all of President Trump's support. But just as important in the end, polls don't win elections, votes do. And I think all great campaigns always act as if they're behind to make sure that there's no complacency come election day. And we know Trump supporters are very enthusiastic. They're very likely to come out on Election Day and cast their ballot. And I think what Democrats are worried about that either because of the polls or because of fears of the pandemic and health concerns or fears of voter intimidation, you know, they don't ultimately come out in the next few weeks. And so I think that's what the Biden campaign is struggling about. And I think that's a serious concern. We saw last time just a very narrow margin of voters turned this election, and I think Democrats are trying to prevent that from happening again.</s>BLACKWELL: So, Speaker Pelosi and Secretary Mnuchin -- Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, they had a conversation last week, lasted a little more than an hour. Still an impasse at passing some coronavirus relief bill. A marker passed just a couple of days ago in which the president of the United States and the speaker of the House have not spoken to one another in a year. I want you to listen to what the president promised as a candidate in 2016.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: You have to get them in a room, and you have to get people to sign things. I hate what Obama does with gun legislation where he doesn't talk to anybody. He just goes out and signs like last time executive orders. In theory, you're supposed to -- you know, the old-fashioned way, get everybody into a room and getting that people agree on. Ronald Reagan did it with Tip O'Neill. I'm not saying I'll get along with him. I'm not saying anything. All I'm saying is I'll make great deals and we'll get them done.</s>BLACKWELL: Ronald Reagan and Tim O'Neill, he says. We've got the photo of their last meeting in the cabinet room. Put this into historical context for us, and is there some precedent for a speaker and a president having not spoken, especially with as much as is on the table now in a year.</s>ZELIZER: No. I'm really hard-pressed to think of any comparable situation. Even in very tense moments like 2008 when Nancy Pelosi, Speaker Pelosi and President Bush were at odds on almost every issue. In the middle of the financial crisis, they were meeting. The lines of communication were open. President Obama actually did meet with Speaker Boehner when relations with Congress were at an all-time low. And you can keep going back all the way to the 19th century. And these lines of communications are usually kept open. So, this is an unusual moment and it's not good because we're in a crisis. So, it creates a degree of instability in our ability to govern.</s>BLACKWELL: Yeah, we just -- I got the wrap on our conversation. I'm going to tweet out the link to your piece on CNN.com about the president's legacy which, of course, includes the vote that will come on Amy Coney Barrett this week. But you discuss how it stretches far beyond just the Supreme Court and the lower federal courts. Julian Zelizer, always good to have you, sir.</s>ZELIZER: Thank you.</s>BLACKWELL: All right. And today on "STATE OF THE UNION," Jake Tapper will have Lara Trump, Delaware Senator Chris Coons, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, and Fareed Zakaria. "STATE OF THE UNION" airs at 9:00 and 12:00 Eastern, right here on</s>CNN. PAUL: I want to tell you what's happening with the family of Breonna Taylor, the 26-year-old EMT that was killed by Louisville police. They affect took part in a peaceful rally in New York yesterday and their intention was encouraging people to get out and vote. Taylor's mother, Tamika Palmer, joined activities at that event with a clear message. She says, change is necessary.</s>REV. STEPHEN GREEN, QUEENS UNTIL FREEDOM: We believe that going to the ballot box in massive numbers, in a collective, unified voice to talk about changing this nation and shifting it on a trajectory moving forward.</s>PAUL: The rally started outside the Trump International Hotel. It was organized by the social justice group Until Freedom. And in Washington, D.C., yesterday, demonstrators had a few things they wanted the president to hear.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think we are sicker. I think we are poorer. I think we are less happy. And I think that's all because of the Trump administration.</s>PAUL: That's just one of many women's marches that were happening across the country.</s>BLACKWELL: Also, how a former QAnon believer escaped what's called a virtual cult. We've got his story coming up.

How A Former QAnon Believer Escaped The Virtual Cult.

PAUL: Look at the thousands of people here. They were actually gathering in cities across the country yesterday for this year's women's march. The event -- it was in honor of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It was also a protest of President Trump's Supreme Court pick, Judge Amy Coney Barrett.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want my country back.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: For more women to be in office. For more people to realize that our voice matters at the end of the day. And to go out and vote, man. That's what I want to see.</s>BLACKWELL: A former QAnon follower has revealed to CNN how the conspiracy theory hooked him in.</s>PAUL: Yeah. Here he is telling CNN's Donie O'Sullivan how the virtual cult is tearing families apart.</s>JITARTH JADEJA, FORMER QANON BELIEVER: Looking back, it seems so obvious that I was like probably in a deep depression when I found</s>Q. DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Jitarth Jadeja who is 32 said he found QAnon on the Internet in 2017. Though Australian, he had previously lived in the U.S. and was already interested in American politics.</s>JADEJA: I think superficially it did seem like it gave me comfort. I didn't realize the nefarious kind of impact it was having on me because it was very insidious how it slowly disconnected me from reality.</s>O'SULLIVAN: QAnon is a baseless conspiracy theory with a growing online community of believers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are</s>Q. O'SULLIVAN: At the heart of the theory is Q, an anonymous insider who reportedly revealed information via cryptic posts. The theory claims there is a deep state within the U.S. government that is controlled by a cabal of Satan-worshipping pedophiles, and that President Donald Trump is trying to take them down.</s>JADEJA: I would have been so happy to see Hillary Clinton dragged in front of a military tribunal. That's what bothers me to this day. How willing and happy and joyfully I would have reacted to something that I would normally hadn't want no part in.</s>O'SULLIVAN: Jadeja followed QAnon for over two years, long enough he says to share theories with his father.</s>JADEJA: We used to talk about it a lot. We'd show each other things like, did you see, that did you see that?</s>CINDY OTIS, VP OF ANALYSIS, ALETHEA GROUP: We tend to underestimate the extent to which these sorts of narratives are appealing. You have people who are essentially looking for answers. They want to know why bad things are happening in their lives. And so, it's a very compelling narrative to say all of this is orchestrated. There's a cabal coming after you. They're trying to make your life miserable. You want an answer to why bad things are happening, here they are.</s>O'SULLIVAN: While there aren't good estimates for a number of Q followers, it's clear their ranks are growing. And now, the FBI has wondered the conspiracy theories like QAnon could very loyal motivate criminal, sometimes violent activity in the U.S. For Jadeja, cracks had already begun to form about QAnon when he noticed illogical consistencies in theories. The turning point came when he watched a video that disproved the final part of the conspiracy he believed in.</s>JADEJA: That kind of like shattered me. Like I've never felt so down -- it was the worst feeling in my life. I'm like, I cannot trust my thoughts and emotions anymore. I don't know what to do. I was full of self-loathing.</s>O'SULLIVAN (on camera): You obviously went down the q rabbit hole and got back out. For people who are very deep into entrenched and believe in it now, is there any way to sort of bring them back?</s>JADEJA: Yeah. There is. But it has to start with empathy and understanding, allowing them to keep their dignity, because otherwise, what's their incentive? You have to admit you were so wrong for so many years, and that you were made a fool of.</s>O'SULLIVAN (voice-over): Jadeja says he feels deep guilt over sharing QAnon theories with his dad. Jadeja's father did not respond to CNN's multiple attempts to contact him.</s>JADEJA: And that is why this is a big problem. Not just because people are being taken in and their families are like being ripped apart. This is -- this is an existential battle between good and evil that these people think they're fighting.</s>O'SULLIVAN: And, you know, only now are social media companies taking action against QAnon. But, really, they're trying to close the barn door her after the horse has bolted. This conspiracy theory has been around for three years. People who I have spoken to at Trump rallies and QAnon events, people who believe this conspiracy theory say they first learned about it since the beginning of the COVID lockdown in March. People have a lot more time on their hands, there's been a lot more time indoors, and they're spending a lot more time on line. They have seen this conspiracy theory on platforms like Instagram and Facebook and YouTube and Twitter. So while it's good that the social media companies are taking steps now against QAnon, it might be a bit too little, too late -- Victor and Christi.

Interview With Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE)

TAPPER: Welcome back the STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Jake Tapper. Judge Amy Coney Barrett appears to be on something of a glide path to the U.S. Supreme Court, with Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee all but certainly vote this week to send her nomination to the full Senate for a vote ahead of the election. Now Democratic nominee Joe Biden says seeing how that process plays out could determine whether he will consider supporting a push to add more justices to the court next year if he wins. Joining me now, a close friend of Biden's, Democratic Senator Chris Coons, also a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Coons, thanks for joining us. We have a lot to get to. But, first, I just want to get your reaction to what you heard from the president's senior adviser, Lara Trump, especially when she said, even though obviously she's not qualified to diagnose such a thing, that the vice president, Biden, suffers from a cognitive decline.</s>SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Thanks for a chance to be on, Jake. That was just a remarkable statement by Lara Trump, obviously unfounded, inappropriate. What I also found particularly troubling, when you pressed her about the Michigan rally at which President Trump was encouraging folks to chant "Lock her up" in response to Governor Whitmer being threatened by more than a dozen folks who've now been arrested by the FBI, domestic terrorists who were threatening to kidnap her and potentially kill her, her comment was, he was just having fun. If that means that, for a president, fun is fueling division and encouraging folks to say and do things that are threatening and completely inappropriate, well, that's a reminder of what kind of president we currently have, in sharp contrast to Joe Biden, someone who can and will bring our country together.</s>TAPPER: Let's talk about the campaign. In a memo to supporters yesterday, Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon warned that the race is closer than polling suggests and that -- quote -- "We cannot become complacent, because the very searing truth is that Donald Trump can still win this race, and every indication we have shows that this thing is going to come down to the wire." So she's warning that people shouldn't be complacent. President Trump visited two swing states yesterday. He's in a third today. I get you don't like what he's saying, but if the Biden campaign is so worried about complacency, where was Joe Biden yesterday? He had a whole day without any public events with less than three weeks to go.</s>COONS: Well, Jake, Joe Biden takes no votes for granted. As you know, both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have crisscrossed the country, campaigning in critical, decisive swing states.</s>TAPPER: Not the way that President Trump is saying.</s>COONS: And I, frankly, think we can't take -- President Trump is campaigning in an unsafe way that doesn't follow the directions of public health experts. Joe Biden has continued to be engaged and effective in laying out a clear plan for how he's going to get us out of this pandemic and the recession that President Trump's bungled mishandling of the pandemic has made worse than it ever needed to be.</s>TAPPER: OK. Look, I take your point on the unsafe rallies that the president's having. But Joe Biden didn't have any events yesterday. I'm not saying he should be having unsafe events. But why is he taking a day off with less than three weeks to go before the election?</s>COONS: Jake, Joe Biden has campaigned tirelessly, but he has campaigned safely. And, as you saw, this past week, during the national town halls that both of them held, it is a sharp contrast between President Trump, who's frenzied, who continues to lie just incessantly morning, noon and night, and President -- excuse me -- former Vice President Biden, who is laying out a clear and compelling plan. Polling is showing that it's making a difference, particularly with suburban women. But I agree with you that we shouldn't take anything for granted in these last few weeks, and it is still possible for President Trump to win reelection. That's why I say, don't focus on the national polls. Focus on getting out and voting.</s>TAPPER: I would just say that I think it's pretty much the opposite of the word tireless to take a day off. But let's move on. The Senate Judiciary Committee is poised to vote on Judge Barrett's nomination to the Supreme Court on Thursday. Take a listen to what the top Democrat on that committee, Dianne Feinstein, had to say about this week's hearing.</s>SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA): Mr. Chairman, I just want to thank you. This has been one of the best set of hearings that I have participated in. And I want to thank you for your fairness and the opportunity of going back and forth.</s>TAPPER: And then, afterwards, she gave him a big hug. California Congresswoman Katie Porter said that she disagree strongly with Feinstein. Groups like NARAL, Demand Justice have called for her to be replaced as ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. Should Dianne Feinstein be replaced as the Democratic leader on that committee?</s>COONS: Well, Jake, across the four days of hearings, Senator Feinstein was clear in her opposition to Judge Barrett, and she has a long record of fighting for reproductive rights, for gender equity, as did Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I think she carried the torch well for those of us on the Democratic side who were fighting this nomination. And I don't think we should put too much weight on just a few sentences at the end of four long days, where she was being gracious to the chairman. She and I and all the Democrats on the committee are angry at Chairman Graham for racing through this partisan confirmation process.</s>TAPPER: OK.</s>COONS: Unprecedented for us to have the Senate hearing a confirmation just two weeks, a little more than two weeks, before a presidential election.</s>TAPPER: So, that's a no, she shouldn't be replaced. If Barrett is confirmed, and Democrats win back the Senate, would you vote to expand the number of justices on the Supreme Court if it came up for a vote? Is that something you would be in favor of?</s>COONS: Well, Jake, like Joe Biden, I'm not a fan of expanding the court. But we have a few weeks here to see whether there are four Republicans who will step back from this precipice. It is President Trump who has pressed for this nominee, so he can have a key vote to overturn the Affordable Care Act in the middle of a pandemic. It is the Republican majority that's responsible for racing forward with this extreme unqualified nominee, unqualified because of her extreme judicial philosophy. And that's who should be bearing the brunt at the ballot box in this election, that they're doing this to get someone on the court just in time, a week after the election...</s>TAPPER: Right.</s>COONS: ... to take away critical health care protections from a majority of Americans. We need to focus on that.</s>TAPPER: So, you oppose...</s>COONS: And then, if we happen to be in the fact pattern where we have a President Biden...</s>TAPPER: Yes.</s>COONS: ... we will have to look at what the right steps are to rebalance our federal judiciary.</s>TAPPER: So, your mind is open about adding justices to the Supreme Court, yes or no? Just your mind is open?</s>COONS: Yes.</s>TAPPER: Your mind is open. OK. Let's talk about coronavirus relief negotiations. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell plans to put forward a $500 billion relief bill. You have called it a political stunt. The fact is that nearly 900,000 Americans filed for jobless claims last week, the highest level since August. There is no other deal in sight between the White House and Congress. Why not vote for this, at least as a stopgap effort, so that some Americans have more money, so that they don't fall into poverty?</s>COONS: That is a great question Jake. And, frankly, no one would like to see us do another round of PPP loans and grants than me. Democrats have been trying for months, since the Democratic majority in the House passed and sent over to the Senate a broad, appropriately broad relief bill that would deal with everything, from rent and mortgage payments, to nutrition, to another round of unemployment support, to assistance for state and local governments, to also expanding the PPP program. But to do this at the last moment, and where we haven't seen Majority Leader McConnell's text. so it probably includes a get-out-of-jail- free card for every employer in the country, regardless of whether they have been reckless or responsible. That was the piece of the last bill, the only bill that he's put on the floor in months...</s>TAPPER: OK.</s>COONS: ... that made it difficult for any Democrat to support it. We have to see what he brings to the floor. But Democrats have worked on this for months. Mitch McConnell hasn't even been part of the negotiations.</s>TAPPER: All right, Senator Chris Coons, Democrat of Delaware, thanks so much for your time today. We appreciate it. Is it safe for your child to trick or treat or return to school? What about seeing family for Thanksgiving? I will ask the governor of a state facing rising coronavirus cases next.

Interview With Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D-IL)

TAPPER: Welcome back to STATE OF THE UNION. I'm Jake Tapper. It is the last thing anyone wants to hear, but coronavirus cases in the U.S. are going in the wrong direction. Let's take Illinois, which broke two of their own records this week for the highest number of cases recorded in a single day, with coronavirus deaths in the state at their highest level since this June. Joining me now, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker. Governor Pritzker, President Trump had some thoughts about you at his rally last night across the border in Wisconsin. Take a listen.</s>D. TRUMP: I'll tell you what. Illinois could use a new governor.</s>TRUMP: That guy doesn't know what's happening. They got to open up that state. They got open up that state. You watch what happens. On November 4, they will all say, all right, now everybody -- they're only doing this for politics. I really believe that.</s>TAPPER: You heard a similar argument from the president's daughter- in-law, Lara Trump, earlier on the show, that people are frustrated; they want the state to open up. What's your response?</s>GOV. J.B. PRITZKER (D-IL): Well, frankly, the president has made it nearly impossible for states to open up any more than they are now. We have the -- this pandemic has been around now for seven to eight months. And without much help from the federal government, we have been fighting it off. Illinois has one of the lowest positivity rates among the Midwest, but we're bordered by Wisconsin, where he was speaking, which has a 27 percent positivity rate. Ours is about a fourth of that. We're bordered by Iowa. We're bordered by Indiana. All three of those are in the top seven or eight states for positivity rates. So, it is dangerous right now. We want people to wear masks. We want people to socially distance. We need to make sure that we have certain mitigations in place. And, of course, we have already opened up much of our economy. But we have to maintain certain capacity limits and make sure that our people are safe and healthy.</s>TAPPER: All right, now in the interest of fairness, let's talk about a couple things that President Trump and his administration have done well. They have been able to help with ventilators. Operation Warp Speed to find a vaccine has been going well. There is this hunt that's been going well with therapeutics. So, it's not that everything has been going wrong. But, obviously, there are issues you have with the Trump administration, and specifically President Trump. What is he doing to -- that makes it more difficult for you to do your job, given that I just told you -- I just told the viewers some things that he's doing to make it easier?</s>PRITZKER: Well, you just saw one of them, which is, he's modeling bad behavior. He doesn't wear a mask in public. He has rallies where they don't encourage people to wear masks in public. Truly, this is now rhetoric that people understand, and particularly in rural areas in my state, that, well, the president doesn't wear a mask, we don't need to wear a mask, it's not that dangerous. The truth of the matter is that it is very dangerous. And even if there are therapeutics that are coming online that are helping people, our hospitalizations are going up. People are having long-hauler syndrome once they're out of the hospital, even if they survive. And, of course, as you just said, our death rate is increasing. We're now headed into a new wave of coronavirus all over the country. And it's very, very dangerous.</s>TAPPER: Yes. On Friday, your state reported more than 4,500 new cases, breaking its single-day case record. By every measure, frankly, Illinois appears headed in the wrong direction. Why? What's going wrong in your state?</s>PRITZKER: Well, I don't think it's so much that things are going wrong specifically in our state. I mean, we are having a national wave of coronavirus.</s>TAPPER: Right.</s>PRITZKER: But I will say to you that we also are the third highest testing state in the country. So, when you see the case numbers, it is because we're testing much more. Still, our positivity rate, which is going up, is far below most other states.</s>TAPPER: OK, but why?</s>PRITZKER: And we're proud of that fact. But -- yes.</s>TAPPER: You agree that you're going in the wrong -- you agree you're going in the wrong direction. Why is that?</s>PRITZKER: I do. And that's because people are not following the mitigations, because the modeling is so bad at the leadership level at the federal level. We are trying to get the word out. We're trying to continue to convince people to do the right thing. But it is the president's allies in our state, all across the state, who are simply saying to people, don't pay any attention to the mitigations, don't follow the rules. Indeed, there are bars and restaurants which are restricted from expanding their indoor service that are just ignoring the rules, and they're just filling the place up. And when people stop by, and they see that, well, no one else is wearing a mask, maybe that's OK.</s>TAPPER: Yes.</s>PRITZKER: It's not OK.</s>TAPPER: Illinois is currently in phase four of your recovery plan. That means -- quote -- "There is a continued decline in the rate of infection in new COVID cases." That's not true, frankly, anymore in any of the 11 regions of your state. They're all seeing cases rise. Are you going to roll back to an earlier phase and reimpose further restrictions?</s>PRITZKER: Well, we have already done that. We have resurgence mitigations, as we call them, on a regional basis. When regions have rising hospitalizations, rising cases, that's one area where we will increase mitigations. The other is passing an 8 percent positivity rate, which, of course, is very, very high. In either of those circumstances, we impose additional mitigations on a regional basis. On a statewide basis, we haven't looked at increasing mitigations. But, as regions flip over and need these resurgence mitigations more and more, we may end up in a situation where a majority of our regions, or even all of them, are in these resurgences.</s>TAPPER: You have warned residents of your state that the virus is not taking a holiday. What's your message to Illinois residents on the fence about whether or not it's safe for them to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families? As you know, there's a lot of emotional and psychological stress that has come from this pandemic, as well as physically ailing, health issues.</s>PRITZKER: That's certainly true for everyone. Let me just say that our public health professionals have recommended that people find ways to gather virtually, continue to gather virtually. We're heading into multiple holidays. And we know that people want to get together, and we know that there's some fatigue out there. But the reality is that this virus hasn't gone away. We do need to continue to keep ourselves safe from it. And that means that, if you can gather virtually, I urge you, please do that. To the extent that you decide you want to get together with certain of your relatives or friends, please keep distance, wear a mask. Even Halloween, whether you're wearing a mask for Halloween, wear a surgical mask underneath that. Make sure that you're maintaining some distance. Wait for other kids and parents to go through the line at somebody's house to get candy before you go. We just have to be extra careful. And especially as we get into colder weather now...</s>TAPPER: Right.</s>PRITZKER: ... we have got to keep the virus numbers down.</s>TAPPER: Governor Pritzker, Speaker Pelosi just said on another network that they have effectively -- they have to reach a deal in the next 48 hours if they want to pass some sort of stimulus, some sort of relief bill before the election, but that she, the White House, and Senate Republicans are still far apart on an acceptable price tag. Is it fair to say that anything, including Majority Leader McConnell's bill, in your view, would be better than nothing? Would $500 billion be better than nothing?</s>PRITZKER: Well, certainly, that's true. But let's also realize that Speaker Pelosi is negotiating on two fronts. One is with the White House's representative. And that's Mnuchin. And the other is with McConnell in the Senate. And the reality is, they need to get together on whatever they're going to agree upon, and then come to the table with Speaker Pelosi. But, yes, it is true that people, average working people out here, need help.</s>TAPPER: All right, Governor Pritzker, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate it. And our thoughts are with the people of Illinois.

Trump On Rally Blitz As U.S. Sees Surge In COVID Cases

WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. 16 days remain until Election Day here in the United States, and President Trump is in Nevada holding another campaign rally in an attempt to save his re-election chances in key battleground states. Take a look at this live picture that's coming in from his upcoming rally in Carson City, Nevada. He's held eight rallies in recent days despite the rising numbers of new COVID-19 cases. The president's rallies go against the recommendations of his own White House coronavirus task force that recommend against large gatherings and urge mask-wearing. After tonight's event, President Trump will have held packed rallies in three of the five states that are currently reporting, get this, positivity rates higher than 20 percent. All this as new cases of the virus are spiking across the country. Take a look at this map. Only two states in the entire United States are not seeing spikes, those two states, Missouri and Vermont. Yesterday alone, the U.S. reported more than 57,000 new cases. Experts say this is the fall surge they've been warning about for months, the months the president spent telling Americans would never come since it was just disappear. Let's go to Carson City, Nevada, right now. CNN's Ryan Nobles is standing by just ahead of the president's rally. Ryan, CNN is learning the president is trying to recreate the 2016 atmosphere believing that is his key to victory in 2020. Does that explain the messaging we've been hearing from him over these past few days?</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: It certainly does, Wolf. Donald Trump is who Donald Trump is. He was a certain way during the 2016 campaign. He's acted in a certain way as president of the United States. And there's no reason to think that posture is going to change as we close in on this election in 2020. And, in fact, President Trump firmly believes that it is his style, it is the way that he reaches out specifically to his base that is going to be the key to his victory. This despite the fact that poll after poll shows him trailing Vice President Joe Biden not just nationally but in many of these key swing states, including Nevada where we are right now. But I have to tell you, Wolf, when you ask Republicans about these polls and when you ask the president himself about these polls, the first thing they say is look back to 2016. In 2016, all the pundits and prognosticators were saying that President Trump had a very little chance to win, and he eked out an impressive victory. Now, the dynamics have changed quite a bit from 2016 to 2020. The president is now an incumbent. He had now has a record to run on. And, of course, he is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. But, Wolf, I talked to a Republican operative today who has very close ties to the Trump campaign. This isn't someone who works for the campaign but talks to folks in the campaign on a regular basis. And he says that, essentially, the way that the Trump campaign has to approach this is one way and one way only, you're not going to change Donald Trump, you have to win or lose based on him and his approach. So there's no reason to think that it's going to change between now and Election Day. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: Does the campaign, Ryan, appear to be taking any serious COVID precautions, such as wearing masks, social distancing for today's event?</s>NOBLES: No. Wolf, the simple answer to that question is no. They really haven't since they started up these rallies again in earnest in July. That hasn't changed even after the president's own coronavirus diagnosis. There is very little to no social distancing whatsoever. There are very few masks. Now, they are taking temperatures as people come in. They are offering hand sanitizer. They're encouraging people to wear masks but very few are. Wolf, they do not take the coronavirus pandemic seriously, and there is very little effort here to stop the spread even in a state like Nevada where we're seeing these numbers spike once again. Wolf?</s>BLITZER: Yes. It's so, so disturbing yesterday in Michigan and Wisconsin, now Nevada. All right, Ryan, thank you very much. Joining us now, Dr. Patrice Harris, the immediate past president of the American Medical Association. Also with us, Dr. Jeremy Faust, the emergency physician at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Dr. Faust, the president, once again, holding, as you see, this packed rally in the midst of a very deadly pandemic. That's eight in the past few days alone. What message is this sending to the American people?</s>DR. JEREMY FAUST, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL: Wolf, I think the message that it's sending to the American people is that he's willing to put other people at risk to further his campaign. That's a huge risk. And it also shows that he learned very little from his experience. When Chris Christie went to the hospital and, really, it sounds like, he had a rough bout, and fortunately recovered, he said, I wish I had listened and worn a mask. He said he should have done that and he was essentially admitting that he made a mistake. I think those kinds of words better late than never, because people hear that and say that could be me. So when the president does this and puts people at risk, I think that it shows he didn't learn much from his case and other people will see that and the harm could be devastating. We hope that it won't be the case.</s>BLITZER: We hope that it won't be, but everyone is so worried right now. Dr. Harris, we saw the president yesterday, as they said visit two states seeing major spikes in COVID cases right now in Michigan and Wisconsin. Is visiting these states bottom line reckless behavior on the part of President Trump and his re-election campaign?</s>DR. PATRICE HARRIS, FORMER PRESIDENT, AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION: Wolf, the messages that were true in March when we were at the beginning stages of this pandemic are true today, and, in fact, maybe even more true as we are seeing more hospitalizations, percent positivity rates, increasing across most states in this country. We still should be -- and this is everyone and no one is excluded. We should be wearing masks. We should not be gathering in large crowds. And actually we seen some spread and transmission in large crowds. So, you know, the message hasn't changed and we all from the very top to the very bottom need to be clear and consistent in our messaging if we do not want to get to the worst-case scenario in this country.</s>BLITZER: Yes, it looks like it's getting worse by the day. Dr. Faust, Minnesota Health Officials now have traced at least 20 infections back to a Trump campaign rally in that state in September but President Trump and his campaign have defended their decision to hold these rallies, saying they're safer because they're outside. Is that enough?</s>FAUST: There is actually a really important analysis to have here. I'm glad you asked it, Wolf. First of all, any mass gathering indoors or out has risks and the virus doesn't care whether you're Democrat, Republican or in independent. But what it does care about is what you do. So why did we not see a lot of spikes in cases after the George Floyd protests? And the answer is actually from the National Bureau of Economic Research that in 315 cities that they looked, a lot of people stayed home who were at the protests and those who were there wore masks. Compare that to Sturgis, the motorcycle rally, it happened in South Dakota, also outdoors, huge spikes in South Dakota after that. Why? Because people go to restaurants, they go to hotels, they weren't wearing masks. So what the virus cares about is gatherings and, yes, outdoor is better than indoor but what is happening around the behaviors and affects every single one of us regardless of your politics.</s>BLITZER: Earlier today, Dr. Harris, Twitter removed a tweet from Dr. Scott Atlas, one of the president's top advisers on COVID. And tweet Dr. Atlas casts doubt, seriously. He casts doubt on the effectiveness of wearing masks to curve the spread of coronavirus. What is your reaction to this, to this suggestion that, you know what, masks, not all that important?</s>HARRIS: You know, we have to be guided by the science and the evidence. And, Wolf, just yesterday I was rereading studies, and study after study after study, let us know that mask help. We can reduce the spread by wearing masks. So the science is clear here. There is no debate about that. There is no credible debate about whether or not wearing masks helps and we should all, any of us, particularly those of us in the medical and public health communities should be making sure we are speaking from the evidence and from the science.</s>BLITZER: Let me get Dr. Faust to weigh in. As I said, Dr. Faust, the tweet has been removed. But the bigger picture here, what does this mean for Americans who aren't seeing a cohesive message from the top? And, Dr. Scott Atlas, he's a physician. He's a neuroradiologist, he's not an epidemiologist but apparently has the most say right now as far as the president is concerned when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic.</s>FAUST: Yes, he's out of his element. He's way so in the left field that it's harmful. I wish he wouldn't say any of the stuff and I don't know why he is, quite frankly, because it's harmful and it's really useless. As Dr. Harris says, we -- if you look at the science, if you look at the studies, question number one, is wearing masks in any way, shape or form harmful? No. Even for people with lung disease, it's been looked at. It doesn't have any effect on oxygenation, not a problem. And so many studies, and there are some that are, quite frankly, not well done and some that are a little bit better well done that are showing that it can help. So it's one of these things where there is really no harm and there's a lot of benefit. And we are letting this happen right as we enter October, November, which is when in 1918, quite frankly, all hell broke loose in this country. So we don't want to be in that situation. We know we've learned so much the past many months so why don't we apply that, because I really hope that a vaccine is coming so that it's actually possible that these lives will be saved.</s>BLITZER: We all hope a vaccine is coming when it's safe and effective, obviously. You know, Dr. Harris, in an opinion article published Friday in the New England Journal of Medicine, the author said vaccine trials most openly enroll and give priority to minority groups that have been hit hardest by this pandemic. Tell us why it's so important for more minorities to be included in these vaccine trials and what's the best way to go about doing that?</s>HARRIS: It is so important to have a diversity of participants in this vaccine trial actually in any clinical research trial that would give us the most confidence when we are recommending these vaccines to our broad population. However, I, of course, know this and know from speaking to many in African-American and Latin X communities that there is a level of mistrust and distrust and that in some instances is warranted. And so I always say certainly the best way to gain trust is to earn trust. And that's why we at the AMA, and I know all credible physicians and public health leaders in this country have committed to being guided by the science and the data when a vaccine is ultimately recommended. And so I and others will continue outreach. We want to make sure that everyone across this country but particularly those who have a shared disproportionate burden, negative burden of this disease get the information they need so that they would be willing to take a vaccine once one is developed.</s>BLITZER: Dr. Patrice Harris, thanks so much. Dr. Jeremy Faust, thanks to you as well. Always important to have both of you here in THE SITUATION ROOM with me, albeit virtually. But thank you so much. Coming up, 16 days remain until Election Day here in the U.S. and the president is calling for his political rivals, get this, to be jailed and questioning the legitimacy of the results. The former secretary of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson, there you see him, he is standing by. We have lots to discuss and we will when we come back.

Giuliani: 50-50 Chance My Associate Is A Russian Spy

BLITZER: The FBI has warned that Russia is actively trying to sow chaos here in the United States, specifically in the upcoming U.S. election. And now, the president is parroting smears about Joe Biden that authorities think are part of an active Russian misinformation effort involving the president's attorney, Rudy Giuliani. I'm joined by the former Homeland Security secretary under President Obama, Jeh Johnson. Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for joining us. And as you know, the FBI is looking into where Rudy Giuliani's information came from. What does it say to you that a member, a key member of the president's inner circle is apparently peddling this type of very questionable material and that the president is actually running with it?</s>JEH JOHNSON, FORMER SECRETARY OF HOMELAND SECURITY UNDER PRESIDENT OBAMA: Wolf, my first reaction is it's sad and pathetic. Rudy Giuliani hired me 32 years ago to be an assistant United States attorney in Manhattan when he was U.S. attorney. On 9/11, he was America's mayor. He was a role model for me when I was secretary of Homeland Security for his acts of leadership on 9/11. To see him reduced to peddling political dirt on behalf of Donald Trump that may have come from the Russian government is pathetic to me. And my message to Rudy, frankly, is think about your legacy after your public life is over. Do you want to be remembered as America's mayor or do you want to be remembered as someone seen possibly as a useful idiot for the Russian government? So it's sad and pathetic. The Russians, we know, are active in this space. That's what Donald Trump's own intelligence community has told us. And so the government needs to put in place sufficient deterrents. If that doesn't work, we need an informed electorate to pierce through all of the misinformation and be smart about their vote.</s>BLITZER: The president himself, we are told, was warned by U.S. intelligence officials that Giuliani was, in fact, being used by Russian intelligence to give him Russian misinformation to sow political dissent, chaos here in the United States, that according to The Washington Post. Do you believe he has become, from your own words, a useful idiot for Russian intelligence here in the United States?</s>JOHNSON: It certainly appears that way. I don't read intelligence briefs anymore, Wolf, but it certainly does appear that way. And if you're a patriotic American, you ought to be asking yourself, is this the role I should be playing in our democracy in the runoff to an election just 16 days from an election? And I don't understand what's happened to Rudy. I thought he was smarter than this. I thought he was more savvy than this. He seems to be on some sort of mission that is very, very misguided in my judgment.</s>BLITZER: As you know well, last night, the president called for his political opponents, in his words, to be locked up, including the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who was actually the target of an alleged kidnapping terrorist plot in Michigan. Is the president, from your prospective, as a former secretary Homeland Security, fanning the flames potentially of domestic terror and extremism?</s>JOHNSON: Well, he is certainly not doing what just about every president in my lifetime up to now would do in this situation, which is to try to calm things down. Wolf, I said a year-and-a-half ago in an op-ed, leaders do lead and Americans do follow the examples and standards their leaders set. A downward spiral in the rhetoric of our leaders lowers the bar for all the rest of us, makes previously intolerable, tolerable and for the dangerously deranged few who lurk in our society violence inevitable. And we had a taste of that. Thankfully, the Department of Justice, the FBI, Michigan law enforcement stepped in and prevented something really bad from happening. But national leadership in this environment does make a difference. People do listen to their leaders and their leaders, particularly those with a Twitter following like Donald Trump. Well, he do have the ability to influence behavior. I wish the president would accept responsibility for that.</s>BLITZER: Yes. He's got almost 90 million followers on Twitter. He has, and you worked closely with then Vice President Biden when you were secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration. He is now saying that Biden, in his words, this is the president of the United States, is a national security threat and a member of an organized crime family. What is your reaction when you hear those kinds of disgusting smears leveled against the former vice president of the United States?</s>JOHNSON: The word I'm thinking of I cannot use on your show, Wolf. But it's political noise. It's overheated political noise. I really believe that the American voters are smarter than that. They should know better than that from Joe Biden's record of over 40 years in public life.</s>BLITZER: Let me get your thoughts on the current uptick in coronavirus here in the United States. We all know that social distancing, wearing masks will prevent deaths during this pandemic but we've seen so many people still ignoring government guidance from the CDC and others on this. How should the federal government go about this to get people to take this seriously and save potentially in the weeks and months ahead thousands of American lives?</s>JOHNSON: Earlier on, the government should have been more aggressive about invoking the Defense Production Act to allocate resources in a better way. Now, it really comes down to the right messaging. As you just pointed out, this little 10 cent device really does save lives if people are willing to use it. And so it's up to our leaders to emphasize the importance of a good hygiene, physical distancing. It's it tragic because since mid-April, Wolf, we have known that mask does make a difference. We've known how to flatten the curve and combat this virus. But we're now seeing our second resurgence here in the fall because people are lowering their guards and they're getting sloppy and we see another spike and that's -- it's really tragic. We could have done better. This did not have to happen, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jeh Johnson, the former secretary of Homeland Security, thanks so much for joining us, Mr. Secretary.</s>JOHNSON: Thank you.</s>BLITZER: President Trump's round robin of political campaign rallies continues later today using the same lines from state to state, like lock them up. But will his strategy from 2016 work in 2020? We have more on that when we come back.

Numerous Polls Show Voters Trust Biden Over Trump On Pandemic

BLITZER: With only 16 days left in the campaign, the president's closing flurry of rallies coincides with record surges of coronavirus cases across the country and a dangerous rise in hospitalizations. The White House task force says failure to use measures like social distancing will lead to preventable deaths. That was in their weekly report on Wisconsin. The state posted a record high yesterday on the very same day the president held a huge rally there without social distancing. CNN Politics Reporter and Editor at Large Chris Cillizza is joining us right now. Chris, these rallies go against guidance from the CDC and most of the president's own top medical advisers. What do you make of his refusal to scale back these campaign events at such a dangerous time?</s>CHRIS CILLIZZA, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Sure. I mean, two things, one, he likes to hear his name chanted and to be applauded, which who doesn't, right? But he is the president of the United States. You have a different sort of responsibility. And number two, Wolf, Donald Trump, we've seen this time and time again, public statements, tweets, things just the way he acts. He's got a twisted understanding of what it means to be masculine. He thinks that this is tough. He thinks this is showing the virus who is boss. You know, I'll say -- I said it last week, I'm going to say it again with you. The coronavirus doesn't care whether you believe in it or not or whether you're a Democrat or a Republican, whether you like Donald Trump or hate Donald Trump. He seems to not get that. I'll remind people, it's not just that they don't respect social distancing at his rallies that they don't really enforce mask policies. It's also this is a president who mocks the former vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, at 77 years old, for wearing a mask, for being careful and following guidelines. It's not just sort of Donald Trump being ignoring the rules. It's even worse than that, actually.</s>BLITZER: You would have thought the president would have learned something from his own bout with COVID-19. He spent four days at the Walter Reed Medical Center outside of Washington, D.C., but he didn't emerge apparently changed very much afterwards. Poll after poll, Chris, shows that voters trust Joe Biden more than they President Trump when it comes to the pandemic. Aren't these rallies widening potentially that credibility gap?</s>CILLIZZA: Yes. I mean, look, Wolf, there are 16 days left in the election, as you said. Donald Trump did surprise many people, myself included, when he won last time. That said, he is further behind now than he was against Hillary Clinton. He is being outspent worse now than he was against Hillary Clinton in important states. And, and this is the most important thing, it gets back to your question, Wolf, he is not a radical outsider running to shake up Washington. He's an incumbent president with a four-year record that right now and maybe for all time, but certainly right now is being defined at how he has responded and candidly not responded to a pandemic that has killed over 200,000 Americans, second over eight million, you know, projections, I don't want to get into all the numbers and projections, but that it could get significantly worse as you're talking with Secretary Johnson in the last segment. So I think it's a very different race. I think there are a lot of people who are haunted by the ghosts of 2016 that Donald -- we didn't think Donald Trump was going to win, he wound up winning. It was a very different race. Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump is not an outsider, he's the incumbent. The coronavirus has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans and a large majority, Wolf, to your point, in our polling and every other poll I've seen, disapproved of the way in which he has handled it and trusts Joe Biden more than Donald Trump to get it right.</s>BLITZER: When it comes to the coronavirus.</s>CILLIZZA: Right.</s>BLITZER: Trump campaign rallies are unlikely I suspect to broaden the president's coalition.</s>CILLIZZA: No.</s>BLITZER: At this late stage in the race, 16 days left to go, is it enough for the president to just cater to his base out there, make sure they all show up and vote?</s>CILLIZZA: No. No. It's not. I'll remind people, and this doesn't take away from the fact Donald Trump won the electoral college, but when people say, well, it was enough last time. But Donald Trump lost the popular vote by 2.8 million votes. So yes, he won the presidency the way we elected -- I think no one I don't think should question that. That said, it's not as though his base won in 56 percent of the vote last time around, the popular vote. And no, it's not enough, Wolf. But I think the issue here is that people around him know that his base isn't just a nothing. You know what, honestly? Maybe even Donald Trump knows it but this car doesn't have another gear, Wolf. There is no other place that he can go. He has one message to one group of people and it's fear. It's playing into anxiety. It's playing into a lot of times racial and xenophobic animosity. That's the message. There isn't a message -- the message that suburban women can be, where you live would be burned down if it wasn't for Donald Trump. That's not working. I would urge people to go and look at Kate Bolduan's piece that she did -- out colleague that she did across Philadelphia, in the Pittsburgh suburbs and the Philadelphia suburbs, talking to women who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and they basically said this whole suburban message that the suburbs are going to be lit on fire, I'm not buying it.</s>BLITZER: Yes. Kate did an excellent, excellent report. Chris Cillizza, thank you very much for that.</s>CILLIZZA: Thank you, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: After a chaotic first debate, a presidential health crisis, a controversial debate cancellation and competing town halls, Joe Biden and Donald Trump, they will face-off one last time. The final presidential debate is coming up and a special, our special live coverage will start Thursday 7:00 p.m. Eastern. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi says only 48 hours remain to get a stimulus deal done to get much needed relief to Americans before the November 3rd election. So will lawmakers be able to get it done? Congressman Max Rose of New York is standing by live. We will discuss.

Interview With Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) About The Coronavirus Relief Bill

BLITZER: President Trump just landed in Reno, Nevada, briefly, very briefly, spoke to reporters and he said this. Listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: All of the crowds have been incredible and they have been incredible size, too. I don't think there's anybody that's covered that properly because the kind of size that we have, I don't think has ever been done before and the enthusiasm that we have, I don't think anybody has ever had more enthusiasm. So it's a real honor. We will see you in a little while, I assume you're all going and we'll see you over in Carson City.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: -- update on the stimulus talk</s>TRUMP: We're talking about it. I think Nancy Pelosi is maybe coming along. We'll find out. We want to do it. I want to do it at a bigger number than she wants. That doesn't mean all the Republicans agree with me but I think they will in the end. If she would go along, I think they would, too, on stimulus. So let's see what happens. Thank you very much. See you over there.</s>BLITZER: You just heard the president say he wants a bigger economic stimulus package than the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi earlier today said the clock is ticking and a deal must be reached with the Treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin within the next 48 hours if they want to pass a desperately needed stimulus bill before the November 3rd election. A bill that millions of Americans right now are so desperate to see pass in some form. Listen to this.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Forty-eight only relates to if we want to get it done before the election, which we do.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Well, don't you?</s>PELOSI: Yes, so which we do but we're saying to them, we have to freeze the design on some of these things. Are we going with it or not? And what is the language? I'm optimistic.</s>BLITZER: Democratic Congressman Max Rose of New York is joining us right now. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us. Let me get your reaction to what we just heard from the president and from the speaker. Are you optimistic that a deal between the administration and the House of Representatives can be worked out in the next 48 hours and then presumably the president will squeeze the Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell to pass it in the Senate?</s>REP. MAX ROSE (D-NY): Well, look, I'm not sure if I'm a big fan of a 48-hour deadline. No one should be walking away from these negotiations, not while we have millions of Americans suffering and millions of Americans who don't want to wait five months, six months until a new administration and a new Senate gets settled in. Now, hearing the president say those words, I'm happy to hear he wants a big stimulus. Suffice it to say that's not where he was two months ago. The Democratic Party needs to learn to a certain extent how to declare victory and go home. It was through sheer force of will, reason and persuasion that we pushed the Republican party to the point that they are at. We should pass a bold and nonetheless bipartisan bill out of the House and then put the pressure and the focus of the nation where it should be, on Mitch McConnell, who has only expressed support for this point for a skinny bill. It's a good thing we can have a skinny plan to beat the Nazis. But we -- let me cause up by saying this, though, about Mitch McConnell. He's not a demigod. OK. He's just a rich guy from the Midwest. We have pushed him before to do the right thing. Just remember the Victims Compensation Fund where we were there for 9/11 first responders. At first, he was saying we don't have the money or that's just a blue state problem, and then we forced him to do it. The stories of 9/11 first responders forced him to do it and we will do it again with COVID relief.</s>BLITZER: Well, tell us what's going on in your congressional district Staten Island, in New York, parts of Brooklyn, I understand. How desperate are a lot of the people there? How badly do they need some serious economic assistance right now to help them pay the bills, pay the rent, feed their families?</s>ROSE: Well, people are in desperate need of direct assistance, whether it is extended unemployment, stimulus checks and the like. But we also cannot forget about the importance of state and local aid. If we don't have that, you will see thousands of New York City workers, whether it's cops, firemen, teachers, sanitation workers and so many others potentially laid off. You'll see a dramatic reduction in social services. You'll see tolls increased. You'll see transportation cut incredibly and transportation is a social justice issue. So at this point, everything is on the line. That's why we need a bold bill. We can't have something small like Mitch McConnell had pushed in the past. We have to have something that is commensurate with the scale of the public health and economic crisis that we're facing right now.</s>BLITZER: So what's your message to the speaker? You're a Democrat. She's obviously the top Democrat in the House of Representatives. The speaker of the House. What's your message to her at this very sensitive moment?</s>ROSE: Sure. Well, the first message is, and this is a message to the entire Democratic leadership, do not under any circumstances figure this next election into your calculations. OK. We should not for a second be saying to ourselves or publicly, we're not going to make a deal with the Trump administration because it could potentially help him in his campaign. That is why the American people hate politics. The second message is, of course, don't give up on things like state and local aid. OK. Then we're just passing a Mitch McConnell skinny bill. We are so close to being there for the American people and in the process we will show them that we can still be bipartisan in this country and we can still put country first.</s>BLITZER: But do you believe that if Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, and the speaker work out a deal, the president will in fact squeeze, pressure Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority in the Senate to pass it as well so he can sign it into law and that money can go to all those desperate people out there?</s>ROSE: Listen, Mitch McConnell has demonstrated time and again that he is a fully owned subsidiary of Donald Trump, Incorporated. He's a blind sycophant. So he, I do believe, that will do it. Not because he necessarily cares. But with that being said as well, though, I'll never give up hope on this country. OK? I'll never give up hope that we will finally be able to meet this crisis with a dramatic governmental action, state and local aid, more money for testing, more stimulus checks and the like, because as we've said time and again, millions of people are suffering.</s>BLITZER: They certainly are. But you've heard it and I've heard it as well from some Democrats if a deal is worked out with only 16 or 15 or 14 days left, the president will use that to his political advantage, get the checks going out there and it could help him potentially get reelected. You've heard that from some of your Democratic colleagues, right?</s>ROSE: Stop. This is everything that's wrong here. OK? Think about it from this perspective. OK? If you are struggling to make rent, if you're struggling to keep your small business open, do you think people care about an election? If we delay this until the Biden administration, we're talking about three, four, five months, the American people cannot wait. If we continue to just kick the can down the road until the next election and the next election, this vicious cycle in American politics will never end. We have to meet the needs of the American people. That's why they elected us. Not to plan for our next election.</s>BLITZER: If it's not done between now and November 3rd, do you think it could be done during the lame-duck session assuming if the president were to lose the election?</s>ROSE: Absolutely, I think that that's possible. As I said, and this is why I oppose some, you know, 48-hour deadline. It was wrong when Donald Trump walked away from the negotiating table. It would be wrong if the Democrats walk away from the negotiating table. And that is the case after the election as well because all I know and all I can guarantee is that with each passing day without action, the American people will be suffering more. This pandemic is not going away and this economic crisis is not going away, and the only ones that can step in the United States Congress and the president of the United States.</s>BLITZER: It's a huge, huge moment right now. We'll see what happens. The pressure is clearly there. Congressman Max Rose of New York, thanks so much for joining us.</s>ROSE: Thank you again.</s>BLITZER: So there is more news we're following here in THE SITUATION ROOM. Israel right now is making its second attempt at lifting its coronavirus lockdown after its first lockdown ended too quickly resulting in a dramatic, very painful deadly surge of new cases. We'll take you there for the latest straight ahead in THE SITUATION ROOM.

Europe Scrambles To Contain Second Wave Of COVID Infections; Israel Eases Restrictions After Decrease In New Infections.

BLITZER: Europe is scrambling right now to contain a second wave of coronavirus infections across the continent. Countries are implementing stricter rules to try to tamp down the spike in cases but for the fifth straight day, Italy is now reporting another record number of new COVID cases. CNN's Ben Wedeman has more on that from Naples -- Ben.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, this evening the Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte announced new measures to try to slow the second wave of coronavirus here with the focus on limiting public gatherings, particularly nightlife. The urgency of the situation was driven home today when the authorities announced for the fifth day in a row record increases in the number of new COVID cases. The numbers, however, don't tell the entire story. Testing is five times what it was before, and the number of patients in intensive care is just a fifth of what it was back then. Winter, however, is coming and this second wave of coronavirus is just beginning -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Ben Wedeman, in Naples, Italy, for us. In France right now, they are also setting a new record for coronavirus infections with more than 32,000 new cases in 24 hours over the weekend. CNN's Melissa Bell has more on what officials there are doing to try to turn things around -- Melissa.</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, here in France we saw in 10 French cities including the greater Paris region the first full night of curfew between 9:00 p.m. and 6:00 a.m. People were at home. Shops, restaurants, anything that might have been open after 9:00 p.m. was made to close and this is going to go on for at least the next four weeks. The idea, of course bringing France's soaring COVID-19 figures back under control. And yet even as that first night of full curfew came into effect, Wolf, another record announced on Saturday night. More than 32,000 new cases for the whole of France. Positivity rate also record 13.1 percent. The number is rising fast. It is a question of whether the curfews can bring them back under control in order that the knock-on effect, which is the number of people entering ICUs is also brought under control. We are now here in France in a state of emergency which means that should extra restrictions be necessary if the curfews in those 10 cities are not enough to get those figures back under control, more restrictions can be introduced by local authorities -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right, Melissa Bell reporting from France, thank you. In England, meanwhile, the mayor of Manchester is now explaining why he's going against Prime Minister Boris Johnson's call to raise the COVID alert level in his city. CNN's Salma Abdelaziz has that -- Salma.</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, the mayor of greater Manchester took to the Sunday talk shows to explain why he has refused to raise the COVID alert level of this city to very high. He's essentially making a risk versus reward argument. The mayor says that under these limited local lockdowns, the risk to affected businesses is too high in exchange for too little reward in terms of bringing the infection rates down. That's why he's arguing for a nationwide lockdown instead. He says that would be more effective at bringing infection rates down and would provide a larger economic package for businesses. Now Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government has given an unequivocal no to calls for a nationwide lockdown. It's important to remember, Wolf, that Manchester is just one city. Imagine having to negotiate on a regional level, city by city, town by town, that's what's so difficult about these localized restrictions -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. Salma, thank you. Salma Abdelaziz reporting for us. Let's go to Israel right now where the government there has just eased restrictions from its second major lockdown. CNN's Oren Liebermann is joining us from Jerusalem -- Oren.</s>OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, Israel has begun easing restrictions as part of its second general lockdown because of continued drop in coronavirus numbers. We saw a couple of days last week with about 1500 new cases a day. That's down from a record 9,000 cases in one day just a few weeks ago. Crucially the infection rate also dropping now in mid to low single digits. A dramatic improvement from the more than 10 percent we saw at the height of the second wave of infections. As part of the easing, citizens will not be required to stay within a kilometer of their home, beaches will reopen, natural parks, and some businesses as well. Now there are some red cities throughout the country. Those will remain closed because of a high infection rate. The prime minister saying he wants to see numbers drop there as well before they are reopened --Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. Oren Liebermann in Jerusalem, thanks very much. Thanks to all of our international correspondents. Coming up, as cases of the coronavirus are spiking here in the United States, the president is out on the campaign trail holding yet another packed rally tonight. This as a top doctor on his Coronavirus Task Force is actually questioning whether masks are effective.

Dr. Fauci Says He's Not Surprised President Trump Got COVID-19; Trump On Rally Blitz As U.S. Sees Surge In COVID Cases

ANNOUNCER: This is CNN breaking news.</s>WOLF BLITZER, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers here in the United States and around the world. I'm Wolf Blitzer in Washington. This is a special edition of THE SITUATION ROOM. And we begin this hour with a very blunt assessment from the nation's leading infectious disease expert. We're talking about Dr. Anthony Fauci. He now says it doesn't come as a shock to him at all that President Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19. Listen to this.</s>DR. JONATHAN LAPOOK, CBS HOST, "60 MINUTES": Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people and almost nobody wearing a mask. When I saw that on TV, I said, oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that. That's got to be a problem. And then sure enough, it turned out to be a super spreader event.</s>BLITZER: Dr. Fauci also said it doesn't make any sense at all why President Trump equates wearing a mask with weakness. His very stark comments come as serious concern grows over a very disturbing rise in coronavirus cases across the country. Just take a look at this map. Only two states in the U.S. are not reporting spikes. Those states, Missouri and Vermont. Yesterday alone, the U.S. reported more than 57,000 new infections worldwide. Total cases are approaching 40 million. Experts say this is the fall surge they have been warning about for many months. But despite these horrible numbers, President Trump ignores the advice of even his own Coronavirus Task Force. He is going out there on the campaign trail from coast to coast. Take a look at some live pictures coming in from a rally he's holding in Carson City, Nevada. Joining us now, Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, CNN medical analyst Dr. Celine Gounder, she also hosts the "American Diagnosis and Epidemic" podcast. Also with us CNN's Ryan Nobles. He's covering the president at that rally in Nevada. Dr. Jha, you know Dr. Fauci. Are you surprised to hear him speak out so bluntly about the president right now that he was not surprised at all that the president came down with coronavirus?</s>DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Wolf, thank you for having me on. You know, I am not surprised. Dr. Fauci is somebody who always speaks his mind. Abd when asked a direct question, he will tell you what he is thinking. And what he was thinking is what all of us have been thinking for months, which is, we have been surprised the president didn't get infected earlier given the poor sort of protections they had around him. And of course, you know, Dr. Fauci is just telling us what everybody I think already knew.</s>BLITZER: Let me -- Dr. Gounder, hold on for a moment. I want to go to Ryan Nobles. He's on the scene for us. Tell us a little bit about the timing of what's going on right now. All of a sudden, 16 days before the election, we hear from Dr. Fauci speaking rather bluntly.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yes, it is pretty interesting, Wolf. And, you know, as of late, President Trump has attempted to distance himself somewhat from Dr. Fauci. He's always been careful to not directly criticize Anthony Fauci because he certainly has a lot of confidence from the American people. But I was at a rally with President Trump a couple of days ago in North Carolina. He accused Dr. Fauci of being a Democrat. He also said that, you know, he doesn't necessarily agree with Fauci's assessment on a lot of these big topics that have a lot of agreement across a wide spectrum of the scientific community. And just a few minutes ago at this rally here, President Trump specifically attacked, you know, the steps that Democratic governors in many states have taken and even Republican governors have taken to stop the spread of the coronavirus, the lockdowns and restrictions they put in place. And President Trump even said, he almost mocked people that tell him that he should follow the lead of scientists. He said, if I followed the lead of scientists, then I would have driven this country into a massive depression. So it seems, you know, as these cases coronavirus cases continue to rise, even after the president himself has contracted the coronavirus pandemic, he still doesn't seem to be getting the full picture as to just how serious this virus is -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: I want to play some more of what Dr. Fauci just said on "60 Minutes." He was asked about the Trump campaign ad that totally misrepresented him as praising the president for his pandemic response. Listen to this.</s>FAUCI: I do not and nor will I ever publicly endorse any political candidate. And here I am, they're sticking me right in the middle of a campaign ad, which I thought was outrageous. I was referring to something entirely different. I was referring to the grueling work of the task force that, God, we were knocking ourselves out seven days a week. I don't think we could possibly have done any more than that.</s>UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Did the steam start to come out of your ears?</s>FAUCI: No, it did. Quite frankly, I got really ticked off.</s>BLITZER: Dr. Gounder, from what you know of Dr. Fauci, Dr. Jha knows him, I know him, and I assume you him well. How big of a breach of personal ethics was this for him?</s>DR. CELINE GOUNDER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I think Dr. Fauci is one of the most circumspect people I have ever spoken to when it comes to politics. He is very careful with his words. And frankly, I am surprised in contrast to Dr. Jha that he is even saying what he is saying now about being surprised or not being surprised that the president came down with coronavirus. He is very careful not to take sides politically, to stick with the science. And so I do understand his frustration with being thrust in the middle of a political situation when that's really what he tries to avoid.</s>BLITZER: You know, Dr. Jha, the president, I want you to respond to this because he's continuing to hold, even as we speak, these large in-person campaign rallies, people are packed in. No social distancing at all. Most of these people not wearing masks. Three this weekend alone, his campaign Web site shows many more are planned over the next 16 days. Potentially, correct me if I'm wrong, Dr. Jha, endangering many thousands of Americans out there. What goes through your mind when you see these images?</s>JHA: Yes, Wolf, it's just a level of carelessness and a level of sort of lack of regard for his own supporters. What we know is that people who have attended these rallies have gotten infected, have gotten sick. Many of them have been hospitalized. And you would think that the president would care about that, I mean, care about his own supporters and protecting them. He doesn't. And it baffles me. It has baffled me from the beginning. And it continues to baffle me. You'd think if all -- if nothing else, that he would at least care about the people who are such fervent supporters of him and his agenda.</s>BLITZER: I want to play a little bit more of what Dr. Fauci said just now, his analysis of the president's belief in science. Listen.</s>LAPOOK: Do you find it at all ironic that the president, who has not always consistently followed the advice of public health officials and scientists, seems to have been made better by science?</s>FAUCI: Well, I don't think it's ironic. I think it's fortunate that the president of the United States benefitted from science. You know, I think deep down, he believes in science. If he didn't, he would not have entrusted his health to the very competent physicians at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center.</s>LAPOOK: But at the same time, he hasn't worn masks consistently.</s>FAUCI: Yes, but --</s>LAPOOK: He's pushed back against things you've said.</s>FAUCI: See, I think that's less anti-science than it's more a statement.</s>LAPOOK: What kind of a statement?</s>FAUCI: You know, a statement of strength, like we're strong, we don't need a mask, that kind of thing. He sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.</s>LAPOOK: Does that make sense to you?</s>FAUCI: No, it doesn't. Of course not.</s>BLITZER: Let me get Dr. Gounder's reaction to that. What do you think?</s>GOUNDER: Well, Wolf, it would be like saying our troops in Afghanistan don't need body armor, our police don't need bulletproof vests. Does that make you weaker as a policeman? That you're not wearing a bulletproof vest or is that just recognizing the risk of the job inherent to the job, and that you're just taking the right steps to protect yourself? You know, I think that's really a nonsensical kind of perspective to say that wearing masks doesn't work, won't protect you, because we know for a fact masks are probably the number one, two and three most important things you could do to prevent the spread of coronavirus.</s>BLITZER: Let me ask Ryan Nobles, he's there out in Nevada at this rally, what are we hearing from the president on this day, Ryan, about coronavirus? What's his message?</s>NOBLES: Well, Wolf, his big message is that he feels as though the steps that many local governments have taken to restrict people's movements to stop the spread of the virus has been too much. He attacked Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan. He attacked the governor of Nevada, who's also a Democrat. And he suggested that his advice on how to handle this, which is basically just to open the country back up, makes more sense than the advice that scientists have given. Take a listen to what the president just said.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If you vote for Biden, he will surrender your jobs to China. He will surrender your future to the virus. He's going to lock down. Just wants to lock down. He'll listen to the scientists. If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression instead of -- we're like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers. And that's despite the fact that we have like five or six of these Democrats keeping their states closed because they're trying to hurt us on November 3rd. But the numbers are so good anyway. They'd be even better.</s>NOBLES: So what's interesting about the president's response to this, Wolf, is that, you know, there are scientists that argue that if the president had taken these more aggressive steps early on, that perhaps the economy would have opened at a much quicker rate and that might have benefitted him more politically. Even the simple advice of asking people to wear a mask might have actually helped him our politically and helped the economy out. So even his rationale, his thinking, which he often says that the cure cannot be worse than the virus itself, doesn't really make all that much sense if you listen to the Dr. Faucis of the world and you listened to the other doctors that have talked about this. And I also have to tell you, Wolf. I know I talked to a number of voters here today, they trust the president on this. They believe that they don't need to wear a mask because he tells them that they don't need to wear a mask. And that's part of the reason why you see so many people here not wearing a mask. And you have to assume that when they go about their daily lives, they're doing the same thing -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Ryan, I want you to stand by. Dr. Gounder, please stand by. Dr. Jha, please stand by. We have more to discuss on the breaking news. More from Dr. Anthony Fauci, what he is now saying about when he might be ready to get a vaccine to deal with coronavirus. More on the breaking news right after this.

Anthony Fauci Says He Will Take COVID-19 Vaccine If Approved By The FDA

BLITZER: We're following the breaking news. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease expert, speaking out in a brand new interview on "60 Minutes." And he also said this. Listen.</s>LAPOOK: If the FDA says it's OK to take the vaccine, are you going to take it?</s>FAUCI: I'm going to look at the data upon which the FDA makes that decision. I trust the permanent professionals in the FDA. The director, the commissioner of the FDA has been very public that he will not let politics interfere. We have an advisory committee to the FDA, were made up of independent people who I trust. Put all those things together, if the final outcome is that the FDA approves it, I will take it.</s>BLITZER: Important words from Dr. Fauci. Joining us, again, Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean at the Brown University School of Public Health, and CNN Medical Analyst, Dr. Celine Gounder. So what's your reaction, Dr. Gounder, if the FDA says the vaccine is safe and effective, would you take it?</s>GOUNDER: I'll be following exactly the same process as Dr. Fauci. I'll be looking at what data was submitted to the FDA to get that approval. Did they complete at least two months of follow-up after all of the doses of vaccine, in some cases it's two doses that are required? Have they conducted at least two months of follow up after that to make sure there are no adverse side effects? And is it safe and effective? And if I see all of those boxes are checked, then, yes, I would move forward and I would get the vaccine.</s>BLITZER: What about you, Dr. Jha?</s>JHA: I'd follow exactly those guidelines that Dr. Gounder just said. Look, the two-month guidance is from the FDA and the scientists there about how will we know if this vaccine is safe. If we get that, then -- and if Dr. Fauci takes it and says -- then sort of gives his stamp of approval, I think that will also help. But at the end of the day, it's going to be about the science and the data that's underlying it. And that's what I think we all need to look at.</s>BLITZER: Are both of you optimistic that there will be a safe and effective vaccine -- Dr. Gounder, I'll start with you -- by the end of this year?</s>GOUNDER: I think we will have a safe and effective vaccine. But then we're looking at a massive manufacturing and distribution problem. The Pfizer vaccine, for example, which is the one that may well get an FDA approval in late November, we're looking at maybe 50 million doses in the first batch and 100 million doses by the end of the year. But that's a vaccine that requires two doses. You have to divide that by two in terms of the number of people actually vaccinated, 25 million and 50 million by the end of the year. There are 330 million people in the U.S. Not to mention these are vaccines that need to be refrigerated, really frozen at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit, something that most doctor's offices can't do. So this is going to be for many, many reasons a massive logistical and manufacturing challenge.</s>BLITZER: It's not going to be like getting a flu shot, going to the drugstore and getting a flu shot, and going home. You know, Dr. Jha, the -- I'm anxious to get your thoughts on that as well.</s>JHA: Yes, absolutely. I would not be surprised, Wolf, if we have two or three vaccines that get Emergency Use Authorization before the end of the year. I agree that the Pfizer vaccine is probably on track to be the first. But we've got Moderna, we've got J & J which I know has had a little bit of a pause. So there are others as well. And I wouldn't be surprised if we have a few. But I completely agree with Dr. Gounder that most Americans are going to be getting vaccinated in 2021. And we're probably looking at a March-April, if things go very well, timeframe when a, let's say, large proportion of the American people get access to the vaccines.</s>BLITZER: Yes. But even if we do get a safe and effective vaccine, Dr. Jha, and Dr. Fauci told me a few weeks ago, even if it's 70 percent effective, which would be very good, that means, what, 30 percent of those who get the vaccine would still be possibly capable of getting coronavirus. Right?</s>JHA: Yes, absolutely. So let's be very clear on what a vaccine will do. It will make a big difference. It will bring the level of infections down. It will not make this virus magically disappear. We're probably still going to be wearing masks for a while. Some of the high-risk activities will still be very difficult. I suspect a second generation or third generation of vaccines will get better on those numbers and life will start coming back through a new normal after that. But it will help a lot. Even a 70 percent or 80 percent effective vaccine will make a big difference in community transmission.</s>BLITZER: Certainly will. Although, I think for most of next year all of us are still going to be wearing masks. You know, Dr. Gounder, the White House Coronavirus Task Force member Dr. Scott Atlas, he actually posted a tweet that sought to undermine the importance of facemasks. Twitter actually took the tweet down, saying their site prohibits sharing false or misleading content related to COVID-19 that potentially could lead to harm. The deleted tweet also claimed that the World Health Organization, the CDC discounted the usefulness of masks. A reminder, Dr. Atlas is a radiologist, a neuroradiologist, not an infectious disease specialist. What's your reaction to what his allegations are about masks, especially since he seems to have the ear of the president right now?</s>GOUNDER: Wolf, Dr. Atlas is one of the top proponents of the herd immunity approach which would mean everybody would eventually become infected, which would mean many, many people would die as a result. And you probably would still not achieve herd immunity. We have never achieved herd immunity with a natural infection. For example, smallpox, we had in the human population for centuries, for millennia. And it took a vaccine to get to herd immunity. Ditto for measles. You know, and so basically this is a policy, you know, being anti-mask. It's really a policy of herd immunity, which is simply just not going to work.</s>BLITZER: What do you think, Dr. Jha?</s>JHA: Yes, I thought that tweet was totally irresponsible. I flagged it early as something that was a source of disinformation, particularly disappointing coming from the White House. You know, I have to say that that kind of disinformation coming from the White House and from other sources in the government has really made it hard to fight the pandemic. Masks work. And people need to be wearing them.</s>BLITZER: It's not hard to put on a mask. Just wear a mask. You'll save lives out there if you do. Dr. Ashish Jha, Dr. Gounder, thank you to both of you for joining us. Appreciate it very much.</s>JHA: Thank you, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: All right. We're just days away from the final presidential debate. After a disastrous first debate between President Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden which ended with the president actually diagnosed with coronavirus, and the public wondering if he did in fact get tested before the debate. We'll speak about that and more with the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Tom Perez, there you see him. He's standing by. We'll discuss what's going on when we come back.

Interview With DNC Chair Tom Perez About Election Turnout

BLITZER: Only 16 days to go. And according to the latest figures from the U.S. Elections Project, a turnout tracking database, more than 27 million Americans have already cast their ballots. 27 million. That's more than six times the number of votes cast by this point back in 2016. Tom Perez is the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. He is joining us right now. Tom, thank you so much for joining us. And as you've seen and all of us have seen these images, despite the long lines, the occasional technical glitches in some places, people are definitely showing up to vote in huge numbers already. So what does that tell you?</s>TOM PEREZ, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: People are motivated. And they're motivated everywhere. You look at these numbers and they're really off the charts. You look at Wisconsin. They had about 135,000 people who voted absentee four years ago. They are already over 800,000. They're going to have about three million people vote. So they already have a quarter of the people have already voted in Wisconsin. You go to Florida where over two million early votes have been cast. And roughly, half are Democratic ballots. And what's interesting, Wolf, about it is, people often say, well, it's not a big deal because a lot of it, those people who would have voted on election day. Well, actually that's not the case. In Florida, 350,000 of those ballots that I just mentioned that are Democratic ballots were people who didn't vote in the last two elections. So we're seeing incredible energy. And we take nothing for granted. We know this is going to be close. But that energy that we see out there, it's everywhere. And, you know, Joe Biden is playing offense. Donald Trump is playing defense. There's energy in Texas, there's energy in Iowa, there's energy in Ohio, there's energy in Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida. All over the map there is energy, Wolf. And we are telling everyone, make a plan. Go to iwillvote.com and get out there and vote. And that is how we win. I think we will have record turnout this year, Wolf. I have no doubt about it because our democracy as we know is on the ballot.</s>BLITZER: Despite the coronavirus that's out there because some people would be afraid to go wait in long lines. That is totally understandable. Do you think that the polls, the respected public opinion polls in those key battleground states are more accurate this time than they were four years ago?</s>PEREZ: Well, I always tell our team, don't get on the poller-coaster. We've seen polls that are promising but the only polls that count are the polls after election day, the results after election day. So there is not an iota of complacency on the Biden team. We are all sprinting to the finish line. We know it's going to be close. When people tell me, oh, so, you know, the vice president is up by 11, I don't believe it. And we tell people, it's going to be close. Get out there. Make sure you make a plan to vote. And people have options, Wolf. I like -- it's really important in a pandemic era that people have options on how to vote. And I want people to exercise whatever option they want. But make sure you make a plan. And don't wait until November 2nd to make a plan. Make a plan, make it early. And then whether it's -- a lot of states, like Florida, tomorrow, in-person early voting starts. And when you have a couple weeks for in-person early voting that can help to minimize the lines. I expect there will still be lines. There's no doubt about it. But when you do have two weeks, you can be more COVID compliant moving forward. And so we're going to continue to see this energy. People -- we're in crisis right now.</s>BLITZER: Yes.</s>PEREZ: And the reason why there's so many people voting, we're in crisis. We're a country in crisis. This president doesn't have a plan for the coronavirus. He doesn't have a plan for the economy. He doesn't have a plan to deal with the George Floyd situations. He doesn't have a plan for the climate crisis. And people want leadership that will get us out of all of these crises. The coronavirus is the third leading cause of death in the United States right now. And the president had the audacity literally yesterday to say we've turned the corner. I don't know what corner he is talking about. Maybe it's a pentagon or an octagon. But there's about seven more corners to turn before we are going to get out of this.</s>BLITZER: Yes. It seems to be getting worse by the day. And if you are going to vote with a mail-in ballot, make sure you follow the instructions, the signatures and all that kind of stuff to make sure your vote really does count. So read the instructions very carefully. There's a presidential debate as we all know, the last presidential debate will be the second. It's scheduled for Thursday night in Nashville, Tennessee. Is everything all set? Is there any doubt in your mind whether or not it will happen given some of the problems that we have seen with the first debate, the second debate was canceled after the president refused to do it virtually?</s>PEREZ: Well, Vice President Biden is preparing and he will follow the -- whatever the directives of the debate commission are. He certainly expects to be there. And he looks forward to it. He is going to be prepared to answer those questions. We're a country in crisis. Joe Biden has a plan to get us out of thus coronavirus. He has a plan for building back better our economy. He has a plan to make sure that we come together as a nation because people are sick and tired, Wolf, of being sick and tired. They are sick and tired of a president who just continues to divide. And this debate is an opportunity for both candidates to make a closing argument. And, you know, the problem with President Trump is he doesn't have an argument. His closing argument in Michigan yesterday was lock her up. And that just -- that just encourages more violent extreme activity. Joe Biden has a very clear plan to get out of this, to listen to scientists, to build back our economy better. This is not the first rodeo for Joe Biden. He came in in '09 in the middle of the Great Recession and we left to Donald Trump an economy that had the longest uninterrupted streak of private sector job growth in our history. Joe Biden has the experience to do this. And what I hear from voters is --</s>BLITZER: Yes. Go ahead.</s>PEREZ: I want a president who can unite us, plainly and simply.</s>BLITZER: Because I suspect what we're going to hear from the president at the debate Thursday night is some really, really nasty allegations against the former vice president. He tweeted this week, Biden is a national security threat, he is a member of an organized crime family. I suspect you're gearing up to hear that as well.</s>PEREZ: Well, when you don't have any answers to the crises of the moment, you have to distract. In 2018, it was the caravans. In 2020, you know, he'll use socialism. Even though as the senator from Nebraska correctly points out, the authoritarian leader in the United States right now is Donald Trump. So he'll try to use those distractions. But the American people are on to him by now. They understand that he just doesn't have a plan for the coronavirus and he doesn't have their back. Health care is on the ballot.</s>BLITZER: All right.</s>PEREZ: And in the middle of a pandemic, he is trying to do away with coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Health care was the issue in '17, '18 and '19. And I think it's even a bigger issue now, Wolf, because of the pandemic. And more people have pre-existing conditions. And they're ramming through, trying to ram through a Supreme Court nominee to accomplish in the courts what they couldn't accomplish in the Congress, which was to do away with the Affordable Care Act. Folks, health care is on the ballot on November 3rd and it's on the docket of the Supreme Court a week later. We need to get out there and send a very strong message about what our values are. We want to make sure we protect coverage for people with pre-existing condition. So make a plan. Go to iwillvote.com. This is the election of our lifetime. Vote like your life depends on it because frankly it does.</s>BLITZER: It's going to be a huge turnout, I am sure. Tom Perez of the DNC, thanks so much for joining us.</s>PEREZ: Always a pleasure, Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Thank you. Former Trump administration officials including John Bolton, Olivia Troye, Miles Taylor, they will join my colleague, Jake Tapper, with an urgent message for America, "</s>THE INSIDERS: A WARNING FROM FORMER TRUMP OFFICIALS." That's coming up right at the top of the hour right after the special SITUATION ROOM. Coming up, we're learning more about the alleged kidnapping plot of the Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer. We'll have more on that. We're getting new information. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

New Video Appears To Show Michigan Suspects In Training

BLITZER: We're getting a new look right now, some really chilling new videos of the suspects accused in a plot to kidnap the Michigan governor, Gretchen Whitmer. In at least one of them, they are seen carrying out what appears to be training exercises. Sara Sidner is covering the story for us, doing a lot of reporting. Sara, you're getting other new details as well. Update our viewers on what's going on. This is all so disturbing that these individuals, 13 or 14 of them, actually were plotting to kidnap a democratically elected governor.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is the allegation, Wolf. We're now seeing these stunning new images released in the alleged kidnapping plot against Michigan's governor. Now the videos were entered as evidence in court by federal prosecutors.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): You are looking at evidence that was played in federal court of the field training exercises federal prosecutors say were carried out in a plot to storm Michigan's capital and kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. CNN affiliate WXMI obtained the video from the U.S. Attorney's office after the preliminary hearings for six men federally charged with conspiracy to kidnap a sitting governor. Several pieces of federal evidence were played in court.</s>BRANDON CASERTA, SUSPECT: I'm sick of being robbed and enslaved by the state. Period. I'm sick of it. And these are the guys who are actually doing it. You know? So if -- you know, if we're doing a recon or something and we come up on some of them, dude, you better not give them a chance. You either tell them to go right now or else they're going to die, period. That's what it's going to be, dude, because they are the</s>SIDNER: The suspects' alleged deeds and words were shown to the federal judge so she could decide if there was enough evidence to go to a grand jury. In this video, the lead FBI agent acknowledged in testimony the defendant Adam Fox is inside a basement appearing to be speed reloading his weapon to, quote, "minimize the time" that your weapon is inoperable in case of a gunfight. Prosecutors say the video was taken inside this vacuum shop in Grand Rapids. (</s>On camera): The owner of this vacuum shop says Adam Fox lived here for the last couple of weeks. He says he lived behind this door and down into the basement.</s>BRIANT TITUS, STORE OWNER: -- basement where he stayed.</s>SIDNER: OK.</s>TITUS: And he was only going to stay until November.</s>SIDNER: Why did you decide it was time for him to go?</s>TITUS: He was buying more like attachments for like an AR-15 and he was buying like food. And I'm not stupid. I was in the Marine Corps. So that I told him he had to go.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): Briant Titus says he had no idea what was going on in his business' basement after hours. The FBI testified this is inside another defendant's basement where you can see an arsenal of weapons in a gun locker, including an illegal short barrel rifle. Beyond the videos, the FBI says they also infiltrated encrypted chats and text chains laying out the plot. In one encrypted chat, the suspects allegedly used code names and discussed killing Governor Whitmer, not just kidnapping her. The FBI identified the codename "Beaker" as suspect Daniel Harris who writes, "Laying in bed, craziest idea, have one person go to her house, knock on the door and when she answers, just cap her. At this point, F it." Someone with the codename "Text" responds, "LOL, only if it would be that easy." Beaker replies, "I mean, F, catch her walking into a building and act like passersby and fixing dome her. Then yourself whoever does it. Why create a manhunt? Do it in broad daylight and then end it." Text replies, "Good point. Or recon the house and snipe her." The alleged plot was never carried out. The six men along with seven others were arrested in an October FBI raid. Six were charged federally. The rest charged by the state for acts of terror.</s>SIDNER: And we're now learning that there is an eighth suspect that has been arrested in the state's case bringing the total accused in this plot, Wolf, to 14. Of course it goes without saying, all of the defendants are innocent until proven guilty. We reached out to their attorneys after receiving this video. We have not heard back from them -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Excellent, excellent reporting, Sara Sidner, on the scene for us as usual. Terrific, terrific work. This is so, so scary. Thank you so much for that. We'll take a quick break. More news right after this.

The Legacy Of First Lady Nancy Reagan.

BLITZER: Nancy Reagan is known as the doting wife of President Ronald Reagan but in reality she played much more than a supporting role in the first Hollywood presidency. This week on CNN's Original Series "FIRST LADIES" we take a close look at how Nancy Reagan was a major force from behind the scenes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Reagan carries an unprecedented 49 states in the '84 election. And Nancy's eye turns toward securing his legacy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: In 1997, I asked her, was there some area that you felt you had an effect? And she said, no, no, no. Ron knew exactly what he wanted to do from the moment he was elected. And then she paused and very, very softly added, well, maybe the whole Russian thing. And I was like, the whole Russian thing? You mean the main thing of his administration?</s>BLITZER: Our White House correspondent Kate Bennett is joining us now. Kate, Nancy Reagan has been credited as being the political brains behind her husband Ronald Reagan. How instrumental -- and you've done a lot of reporting on this. How instrumental was she in getting President Reagan's political career really going?</s>KATE BENNETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: She was the engine behind the machine of Ronald Reagan. Everything he did, Nancy either approved or thought of or she was right by his side. You know, when you look back on pictures, and this program tonight is great because we really see her inside the Oval Office, in the situation room. She seems like she's more in the West Wing than she was in the East Wing. And that really goes back to her protecting Ronald Reagan and really wanting him to shine. But she was involved, Wolf. She was really a part of the entire political machine.</s>BLITZER: She certainly was. And Nancy Reagan also tried to emulate Jackie Kennedy in some ways, especially her attempt at bringing glamour to the White House. But she was highly criticized at times for her decorating, for the way she dressed. Why was the media and the public for that matter so tough on her in those areas?</s>BENNETT: Well, this was the '80s. So there were two things going on in the country. There was sort of the super wealthy dynasty moment and then there was also a country in financial decline. And those two things sort of met up in the White House. Nancy Reagan asked friends from back home to donate money to fix up the White House. The Carters hadn't done anything for renovation. And she wanted new furniture and upgrades. And also she would borrow clothes from designers, which is a no-no for first ladies. First ladies must pay for their own clothes. So she got hit by the press there, too. So the era of sort of freebies and luxury, those moments kind of went away when Nancy Reagan got busted really by the media for playing into her role as first lady and getting some of those things, sometimes for free.</s>BLITZER: The assassination attempt on President Reagan, of course, had a huge impact on Nancy Reagan and her mission to protect her husband. It even leads her to turn to some questionable sources to try to keep things in her control. Tell us about that.</s>BENNETT: I think we all -- I'm old enough to remember that Nancy Reagan's astrology fixation. And you sort of wonder whether or not it was true. Here's a very smart first lady. Very worldly. She's been around. And yet she's making phone calls to an astrologer. But she actually was. She was so scared after Ronald Reagan was shot that she really was grasping at straws and she found this astrologer who would tell her certainly days that were good for travel and certain days that weren't. And certain days that were maybe OK. And she really relied on this. It was much more psychological to help her cope with this life that she still had to live with the president, with his life possibly always hanging in the balance. So she turned to astrology of all things. The first lady calling from the East Wing of her residence to her astrologer. But it was certainly true and there's more of this side tonight.</s>BLITZER: Very interesting indeed. All first ladies, as you know, Kate, they take out a favorite cause during their time in the White House. Nancy Reagan's "Just Say No to Drugs" campaign was one of the most well-known. So what's the legacy of that program?</s>BENNETT: Well, I remember that I had a "Just Say No" sticker on my notebook in elementary school so certainly it was popular. You know, I think there's a different stigma now with drugs and addiction and more, you know, wanting people to get help and understanding that addiction is a disease. Nancy Reagan was just don't do it, don't do it at all. We all remember Mr. T from the "A Team" going to the White House and "Just Say No" really became her signature campaign.</s>BLITZER: And it was so, so important and so well done. Kate Bennett, thank you so much for joining us. And to our viewers, please make sure you tune in to the new episode of the CNN Original Series "FIRST LADIES." That will air at 10:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific tonight, only here on CNN. We'll be right back.

Sen. Kamala Harris Questions Trump's Supreme Court Nominee; Sen. Harris Presses Judge Barrett on Obamacare, Abortion.; Trump Holds Rally in Pennsylvania with Few Masks; Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (D) on Kidnapping Threat Points to Trump's Rhetoric

SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), DEMOCRATIC VICE PRESIDENT NOMINEE: Insurance companies reinstating annual and lifetime caps and more than 20 million Americans losing insurance at the worst possible time, again in the midst of a pandemic, including nearly 2 million Texans, 607,000 North Carolinians, 288,000 South Carolinians, 227,000 Iowans and 4.2 million Californians. And the pain of losing these protections would disproportionately be felt among the 9 million African-American, Latino, Asian and Native Americans who gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act. But this isn't about statistics. This is about millions of real people living real lives, who deserve their government and its institutions to see them and to heed their call. And I know a Republican member of this committee said earlier today that the people who will lose health care are somehow not relevant to this hearing. I disagree. Helping these people is supposed to be why we are all here. Why we all ran for office in the first place and I'm here fight for people like Felicia Perez (ph) and this is her. Felicia (ph) is a writer, a public speaker and former high school teacher from Southern California who now teaches at the University of Nevada, Reno. She has multiple preexisting conditions, including arthritis, asthma and a rare autoimmune disorder that caused tumors that have wrapped around her optic nerve and part of her brain. Her life depends on periodic cancer fighting infusions that cost $160,000 a year. Felicia (ph) is terrified. She knows that without the Affordable Care Act, she could not afford ongoing treatment. The treatment she needs to stay alive and here's exactly what she said and I will quote, "My life is in the hands of people I do not know, who do not know me, who are essentially telling me I don't matter, that my life doesn't matter, that my health doesn't matter. That the day-to- day quality of my life doesn't matter and that's really hard." Tragically, Felicia's (ph) story is not unique. Her fears are shared by millions of Americans, the Affordable Care Act and its protections hinge on this Supreme Court and the outcome of this hearing. Before being elected, President Trump promised that every justice he put forward, "Will do the right thing like Bush's appointee John Roberts on Obamacare." Judge Barrett, 18 months later, you criticize the Chief Justice for upholding the Affordable Care Act when you concluded, "Chief Justice Roberts pushed the Affordable Care Act beyond its plausible meaning to save the statute." My question is how many months after you published that article did President Trump nominate you to be a judge on the Court of Appeals?</s>JUDGE AMY CONEY BARRETT, SUPREME COURT NOMINEE: Sen. Harris, I apologize, I don't remember the timing of that article. I was nominated, I believe, my nomination to the court of appeals was announced in May of 2017.</s>HARRIS: That's correct.</s>BARRETT: But I don't remember when the article came out.</s>HARRIS: The article was published in January of 2017, so that would have been five months later. Justice Ginsburg whose seat you're seeking to fill provided the critical fifth vote in a 5-4 decision that upheld the Affordable Care Act. So let's lay this out for everyone who's watching. As I've discussed previously, one, Republicans have spent a decade trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act. Two, Donald Trump promised to name a Supreme Court justice and Supreme Court justices who would tear down the Affordable Care Act. Three, President Trump is before the Supreme Court right now arguing that it be struck in its entirety. Four, the Supreme Court could be just one vote away from overturning the Affordable Care Act and all of its protections, including for everyone who has a pre-existing condition or may ever get a pre- existing condition. In other words, the Affordable Care Act and all its protections hinge on this seat and the outcome of this hearing. And I believe it's very important the American people understand the issues at stake and what's at play. Judge Barrett, the day after President Trump announced your nomination to the Supreme Court, he tweeted, "Obamacare will be replaced with a much better and far cheaper alternative if it is terminated in the Supreme Court." But in reality, there's no alternative that protects the millions of Americans who depend on the Affordable Care Act every day. The horrifying truth is that President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are fighting to take health care away from the American people in the middle of a pandemic, as I have said. President Trump has said that he wants to protect the American people's health care, but the reality is right now he is asking the Supreme Court to take it away, period. Sen. Klobuchar, Judge Barrett asked you earlier today but did not receive an answer. Prior to your nomination, were you aware of President Trump's statements committing to nominate judges who will strike down the Affordable Care Act and I'd appreciate a yes or no answer, please.</s>BARRETT: Well, Sen. Harris, I want to be very, very careful. I'm under oath. As I'm sitting here, I don't recall seeing those statements. But if - let's see - I don't recall seeing or hearing those statements, but I don't really know what context they were in. So I guess I can't really definitively give you a yes or no answer. What I would like to say is I don't recall hearing about or seeing such statements.</s>HARRIS: Well, I imagine you were surrounded by a team of folks that helped prepare you for this nomination hearing. Did they ...</s>BARRETT: I have had - yes.</s>HARRIS: ... let me finish, if you don't mind.</s>BARRETT: Oh, I'm so sorry.</s>HARRIS: Did they inform you of the President's statements and that this might be a question that was presented to you during the course of this hearing?</s>BARRETT: When I had my calls with senators, it came up many of the Democratic senators wanted to know about the Affordable Care Act and to satisfy themselves that I had not made any pre commitments to the President about it.</s>HARRIS: And so you then became aware of the President's statement, is that correct?</s>BARRETT: Let's see, Sen. Harris, in the context of these conversations, I honestly can't remember whether senators framed the questions in the context of President Trump's comments, perhaps so. I think from my perspective, the most important thing is to say that I have never made a commitment. I've never been asked to make a commitment and I hope that the committee would trust in my integrity not to even entertain such an idea and that I wouldn't violate my oath if I were confirmed and heard that case.</s>HARRIS: So just so I'm clear and then we can move on, are you saying that you are now - before I said it - aware or not aware that President Trump made these comments about who he would nominate to the United States Supreme Court?</s>BARRETT: Sen. Harris, what I was saying, I thought you initially framed the question as whether I was aware before this nomination process began and answered to that question.</s>HARRIS: I'm now asking if you are aware - were you aware of before this hearing again like you said.</s>BARRETT: So you're changing - you're asking me now whether I was aware before the hearing began?</s>HARRIS: As a follow up question, I am. Yes.</s>BARRETT: And what I said was that when I had my calls with Democratic senators, this question came up and I don't recall, but it may well have been that they referenced those comments in the course of those calls, even if so that wasn't something that I heard or saw directly by reading it myself.</s>HARRIS: Sen. Leahy asked you earlier today, but I think it bears repeating. Do you think it is important for the American people to believe that Supreme Court justices are independent and fair and impartial? And that is a yes or no answer, please.</s>BARRETT: Yes, Sen. Harris.</s>HARRIS: A number of my colleagues have asked you today whether you would recuse yourself from cases on the Affordable Care Act. You did not directly answer their questions and instead, you described a process by which that would work or happen. And so my question is - isn't it true that at the end of that process, regardless of that process, that it would be you who ultimately would make the decision about whether or not you would recuse yourself?</s>BARRETT: That is true and I can't have you elicit a commitment from me about how I would make that decision in advance, that would be wrong.</s>HARRIS: Right, and what I've asked you is that isn't not correct that that is the process but ultimately it would be you and you alone that would make the decision about whether you would be recused. You've already opined on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act and that position satisfied the President's promise to only nominate judges who would tear down the Affordable Care Act. And Senate Republicans rushed this process so that you could rule on this very case. The reasonable question about your impartiality will undoubtedly paying over this Court's ultimate decision in the Affordable Care Act case if you refuse to recuse yourself. I strongly believe that. Supreme Court justices routinely consider the consequences of their decisions on people's lives. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court ruled against President Trump in his effort to repeal DACA protections for dreamers, children, of course, who have arrived in the United States many before they could talk or walk. Chief Justice Roberts wrote the opinion for a 5-4 majority that included the crucial vote of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The court rejected the Trump's administration's attempt to end protections for dreamers. Chief Justice Roberts said the administration had not taken into consideration the fact that many dreamers rely on those protections when they started their careers and businesses, when they served in the military of the United States, when they bought homes and when they started families. Sen. Hirono asked you whether it is appropriate for Supreme Court justice to consider real world impacts. But you're sitting judge now, so my question is in deciding whether to uphold government action, do you currently consider the consequences of your rulings on people's lives?</s>BARRETT: Well, Sen. Harris, that's part of the decision of every case.</s>HARRIS: And so you do.</s>BARRETT: Every case has consequences on people's lives. So, of course, I do in every case. That's part of the judicial decision making process.</s>HARRIS: And would you do that as - if you are actually voted on the United States Supreme Court? Would you do that fair as well?</s>BARRETT: Senator, considering how the resolution of a dispute will affect parties, will affect people as part of the judicial decision making process and I will continue engaging in that process to the best of my ability.</s>HARRIS: So if the Affordable Care Act is struck down more than a hundred million Americans with pre existing conditions like heart disease, diabetes and cancer would pay more for insurance or be denied coverage entirely. More than 20 million Americans could lose their health coverage entirely, including nearly 3 million black Americans and over 5 million Latino Americans who received access to health insurance because of the Affordable Care Act. Insurers will once again be able to discriminate against that more than 50 percent of African- Americans and nearly 40 percent of Latinos with pre existing conditions. Insurers will be able to deny coverage to more than one quarter of Native Americans with conditions like diabetes, heart disease and cancer. All of this in the midst of a pandemic that is not going away anytime soon. A pandemic that when age is taken into account has been three times as deadly for black, Latino, Pacific Islander and Native Americans. A pandemic that has killed approximately one in 1,000 black Americans, one in 1,200 Native Americans and one in 1,500 Latino Americans. Judge Barrett, would you consider the 135 million people who gave protections under the Affordable Care Act when deciding a case that challenges that law?</s>BARRETT: Sen. Harris, if I were to be confirmed and conclude that I was not - that I was able to sit on the case pursuant to the recusal statute and then if I heard the case and decided the case, I would consider all of the protections that Congress put in place. And as I said earlier during this hearing, the question would be figuring out whether Congress, assuming that the mandate is unconstitutional now, whether that consistent with your intent, this is Congress' law, would permit this act to stand or whether the flawed portion of it could just be excised out. And that is a question not of what judges want, it's not a question of the Supreme Court. It's a question of what Congress wanted in the statute. And that is the statute that you enacted and extended this health care coverage to millions of Americans.</s>HARRIS: Well, would you give the fact that 135 million Americans with pre existing conditions are now depending on the protections of the Affordable Care Act? What weight would you get that?</s>BARRETT: Well, Sen. Harris, as I mentioned to Sen. Hirono, stare decisis takes reliance interests into account, because as I've said before, stare decisis is about keeping stability in the law. So the law often takes into account reliance interests. I can't really say sitting here, how they would play in a way in this case, because that's part of the legal calculus of the case. So I can't really give you the kind of commitment or pre commitment that you're asking for me of how I would weigh factors or how I would structure my decision making process.</s>HARRIS: I would ask you to consider if you are confirmed on the court ...</s>BARRETT: Thank you.</s>HARRIS: ... incredible benefit of the Affordable Care Act and that a destruction of its protections will have a devastating impact on millions, hundreds of millions of Americans. Judge Barrett, you testified yesterday that justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opened the door for many women in law and I certainly believe and know that to be true as a personal matter. She was a trailblazer for women's equality and gender equity. As a law student, as a teacher, as a civil rights lawyer and as the second woman ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court, Justice Ginsburg broke many barriers for women across the country. We, I believe, all fondly remember her as a person who had patients, she had the will and the vision to make our country a more equal place and a more just place. And one of the things she fought for was a woman's right to control her own body and to make decisions about her own body and health care and reproductive choices. The Constitution of the United States protects a woman's right to choose whether or when to become a parent. And it protects a woman's right to choose abortion. Women of Color, immigrant women, women with low incomes and women in rural areas face significant barriers when attempting to access birth control, cancer screenings and comprehensive reproductive healthcare. Moreover, anti choice activists and politicians have been working for decades to pass laws and file lawsuits designed to overturn Roe and the precedents that followed. The threat to choice is real. Just last year, the court heard a case that gave him an opportunity to revisit and overturn its abortion precedent. In a case called June Medical Services. The Supreme Court struck down a medically unnecessary restriction that would have closed all but one abortion clinic in Louisiana. Chief Justice Roberts agreed with the Court's for liberal members that the court was bound by its own precedent to strike down the Louisiana law, because it was virtually identical to a Texas law that the court ruled unconstitutional in 2016. As a result, women in the state were able to receive the full range of reproductive care. But Chief Justice Roberts wrote his own separate opinion in the case to make clear that in the future, he could not be counted on to uphold a woman's right to choose. Justice Ginsburg provided the critical fifth vote to strike down the unconstitutional abortion restriction in June Medical Services. So we must be honest about the impact of her passing and the impact it will have on the Court's decisions in cases regarding women's access to reproductive health care. Now, my Republican colleagues have said that there is a minimal chance that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe. But back in January, 39 Republican senators, including 10 members of this very committee signed their names to a Supreme Court brief that asked the Court to 'take up the issue of rather whether Roe should be reconsidered and if appropriate, overruled'. So let's not make any mistake about it, allowing President Trump to determine who fills the seat of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a champion for women's rights and a critical vote in so many decisions that sustained the right to choose poses a threat to safe and legal abortion in our country. After all, President Trump said that overturning Roe v. Wade will 'happen automatically in my opinion because I am putting pro life justices on the court'. Judge Barrett, several times today you have quoted Justice Ginsburg's testimony about not making predictions in future cases. However, she was far more forthcoming at her confirmation hearing about the essential rights of women. In 1993, Justice Ginsburg's confirmation hearing shows that she testified that 'the decision whether or not to bury child is central to a woman's life to her well being and dignity. It is a decision she must make for herself when government controls that decision. For her, she is being treated as less than a fully adult human responsible for her own choices'. Then Judge Ginsburg went on to say, "It is essential to witness equality with man, that she'd be the decision maker that her choice be controlling. If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex." Now, Justice Ginsburg did not tell the committee how she would vote in any particular case, but she did freely discuss how she viewed a woman's right to choose. But Judge Barrett, your record clearly shows you hold a different view. In 2006, you signed your name to an advertisement published in the South Bend Tribune. It described Roe v. Wade as 'an exercise of raw judicial power' and call for putting 'an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade'. You've signed a similar ad in 2013 that described Roe as 'infamous and expressed opposition to abortion'. Also in 2013, you wrote an article about Supreme Court precedent in which you excluded Roe from a list of well-settled cases that you said, "No justice would overrule even if she disagrees." Suggesting, of course, that you believe Roe is susceptible to being overturned. On the 40th anniversary of Roe, you delivered a speech in which you said that the Court's recognition of the right to choose was 'created through judicial fiat rather than grounded in the Constitution'. And during your tenure on the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, you have been willing to reconsider abortion restrictions that other Republican appointed judges found unconstitutional. As the Senate considers filling the seat of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg who was straightforward enough in her confirmation hearing to say that the right to choose is 'essential to woman's equality'. I would suggest that we not pretend that we don't know how this nominee views a woman's right to choose or make her own healthcare decisions. Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent that the following three documents be entered into the record. A letter opposing Judge Barrett's nomination from the NAACP, a statement opposing Judge Barrett's nomination from the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund and a report opposing Judge Barrett's nomination from the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund.</s>SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC): Without objection.</s>HARRIS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.</s>GRAHAM: Thank you.</s>HARRIS: Thank you.</s>GRAHAM: Thank you very much, Sen. Harris. Sen. Kennedy.</s>SEN. JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): Mr. Chairman, I have ...</s>ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: And you just listened to Sen. Kamala Harris, vice presidential nominee, of course, questioning and giving her comments to Judge Amy Coney Barrett. I want to get straight to Jeffrey Toobin. So, Jeff, when you look at this overall, obviously, very, very strong there on abortion at the end from Sen. Harris. She also, of course, went very strongly on the Affordable Care Act. How do you think she did? Obviously, this was a mix of mostly - she was speaking. She was sort of giving a speech, but others did as well, including Republicans. That's the way these things go. How do you think she did overall in her half an hour?</s>JEFFREY TOOBIN, CNN CHIEF LEGAL ANALYST: Well, I think she accomplished what you wanted to do, which was give a ringing defense of the Affordable Care Act. I think the Democrats in general have made the decision that they really have no chance of stopping Judge Barrett from being confirmed. But they know as everyone knows there's an election coming up and one of the key issues is whether the Affordable Care Act survives. And they have used over and over again, each Democrat has used their opportunity for questioning to defend the substance of the Act and raise the threat that if Donald Trump is reelected and if his judges, including judge Barrett are confirmed, then the Affordable Care Act is in mortal danger. So in that respect, I think Sen. Harris achieved what she wanted to achieve, but I don't think anyone should be under the impression it's going to jeopardize whether she's confirmed to the Supreme Court because it doesn't.</s>BURNETT: Right. I mean, that book is written as we say. So Laura, then at the end, Sen. Harris again sort of making a case. At the end, she didn't even need or give Judge Barrett a chance to respond to her points on Roe vs. Wade. But she laid out a very clear case that Judge Ginsburg in her confirmation hearings never said how she would rule, but she was very clear on a woman's right to choose and she laid that out. And then she laid out Judge Barrett's record over the past decade plus, making it very clear that Judge Barrett's point of view on abortion rights is very clear, she opposes them. That was a very lawyer-like case she made.</s>LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Well, it was that moment when she said let's not pretend which frankly has been part and parcel of many Supreme Court nomination processes, where everyone adheres to that so called Ginsburg rule of no previews, no forecasts, no hints. But, of course, as you know and you noted as Sen. Kamala Harris noted, although she did say that and she is noted for that pithy phrase, she actually did demonstrate what she believed at the time of the confirmation hearing. But these confirmation hearings are largely have been and morphed into being able to adhere to a script that demonstrates and says her impartiality that she refused to be a political Marionette for any reason and you will only abide by the law and you forget and ignore the aspect that one of the reasons you have been nominated by whatever president you've been nominated by, is for your personal beliefs and your ideologies.</s>BURNETT: Right.</s>COATES: And so she pointed that out just saying I'm not going to ask the question, because we already know what you stand for and what scripture will give, and then gave the script via letter of so many organizations who devote their lives to these issues and said, none of them buy it either.</s>BURNETT: Yes. Right. That part there at the end, ending it with I'm submitting this not with a question. Kirsten, what stood out to you?</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think that this is really about the election what Sen. Harris was doing, it's not, as Jeffrey was saying, the Democrats know that she's going to get confirmed. And so everything that she was saying was with an eye towards voters. The two issues that she focused on, the Affordable Care Act which is something that most Democratic voters or moderate Democratic voters or modern independents, that would be leaning Democratic, it's a top issue for them. And Roe v. Wade which has the support of the majority of Americans, these are two issues that are very important in terms of voting, even voters who may be personally pro life, most of them or many of them, I should say many of them don't support overturning Roe v. Wade. So I think that she had a real eye towards people who are voting and that was really her target audience.</s>BURNETT: So Jeff, to that front, we have seen her doing our cross examinations. We saw it on the debate stage with Joe Biden. We've seen it with her questioning of Justice Kavanaugh. But what you saw tonight was very different and she was very aware that she's on - in the evening when Americans are watching.</s>TOOBIN: Right. And this was - I mean, Judge Barrett was really a spectator for the vast majority of the time Sen. Harris was speaking. And that it was a free half hour of wide coverage and she used it to make Democratic talking points in the election, BECAUSE that's what she's focused on. That's what the Democratic Party is focused on, because they know that this issue - that this Supreme Court nomination looks like a done deal. But at the same time, I don't want to talk about the Supreme Court nomination as if it somehow doesn't matter and is just a sideshow to the presidential election. This is about whether Roe v. Wade is going to be overturned. This is about a nominee who is more outspoken on the abortion issue than any nominee in the history of the court. So there's never been a Supreme Court nominee before who had signed petitions about ...</s>BURNETT: Ending the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade.</s>TOOBIN: Right. So this crazy, you know, pretense that she somehow has an open mind about whether abortion should be legal or not, I mean, I don't think anyone should be fooled by that. So the stakes of this Supreme Court nomination are enormous, even though the Democrats are focusing much more on the presidential elections, because they at least have a chance in that one.</s>BURNETT: And, Laura, she did also refuse to answer the questions that Senator Harris was putting right about the Affordable Care Act. Senator Harris again, most of that, was making the case, as Jeff points out right, for the Affordable Care Act to Americans. But that it was very clear she was not going to get any clear answer on the issue of justice -- you know, Barrett, did she even know that President Trump said I won't nominate anyone who said they're going to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, right? There was a little bit of verbal semantics going on. I don't know who mentioned what to me on phone call. That was a moment that seemed a bit more trademark Kamala Harris.</s>LAURA COATES, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: It seemed a bit more trademark in terms we heard from William Barr as well about when you say "suggest," what was the issue suggest, what does that word mean, or with Brett Kavanaugh, when she was confirmed about the notion of who he had spoken to at a prior law firm in any context whatsoever. And you see, what happens there is when you essentially refuse to admit the obvious, you undermine your even credibility. She could have simply said, well, yes, I'm aware that the president has made these statements. But as she tried to articulate in the past, she's not seeking to be something beholden to the president, rather than the rule of law. She could have easily dismissed that statement had she been paying attention perhaps to exactly what it was that she was going to concede. So I heard that and thought, that's a very easy question, as is earlier in the day when she was asked the question about why you won't showcase your hand, what would you do if the president of the United States tried to say you could move or delay the action. And se said, well, I'm not a legal pundit, and I was offended by that particular statement, being a legal pundit, I am. But the idea of saying instead I want more information and research. Well, this is a very easy answer. Congress is the one who has to change it. When she says I don't want to answer or show my hand or previews or forecast when the Constitution and the law already does it for you, it's a little absurd and disingenuous.</s>BURNETT: And now, this is all about to go behind closed doors, so there's two questions. One, what we learned about Justice Barrett. And two, Kirsten, Senator Harris and how significant tonight was with her making the case to the Democratic base. But you're pointing out, you think it was more broad than that, right? When she's talking about 130 million Americans, and, you know, she's clearly trying to make the case to people in the middle, right? Who may have looked at her specifically on the issue of health care, right, as being way more on the left, that this is a much more important issue for people who are in the middle type of voters.</s>KIRSTEN POWERS, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. The Biden campaign is laser focused on those voters. So I think that she -- I don't think she was coming here to thrill the Democratic base necessarily. I think she was coming here to say look, Roe v. Wade is almost definitely going to be overturned. Or this person sitting in front of us wants to overturn it. And the majority of voters don't support that. And so, I think that's something that people don't need to be reminded of that this is what the Republicans want to do, and when it comes to health care, that, you know, there are very serious consequences to what's happening here and it's a really stark contrast between the Republicans and the Democrats. And, you know, Amy Coney Barrett saying I haven't made any assurances to anybody is a meaningless statement. They don't have to ask for assurances. She's been vetted thoroughly by the Federalist Society. They would not have -- would not be supporting her, Republicans would not be supporting her if they didn't believe very strongly that she was going to overturn the ACA and that she was going to support overturning Roe v. Wade.</s>BURNETT: And as you point out, Jeff, right, to be on, you know, the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to say it was created by judicial fiat on that day, right? We know where she stands on that, that's very clear. She was asked earlier today by Senator Graham, people say you are a female Scalia. What do you say? And what I thought was interesting, Jeff, is the bottom line is she said, you would not be getting Justice Scalia, you would be getting Justice Barrett. But that's not what she said. Tell me why.</s>TOOBIN: Because what she said was, you know, that she suggested perhaps there was a sexist implication that she wasn't thinking for herself. But including when she spoke at the super spreader event at the White House, and today when she talked about originalism -- I mean, she went the whole way with originalism. She said, you know, I believe the Constitution means what people in the 18th century understood it to mean. You know what people in the 18th century didn't understand it to mean? It didn't mean anything about women's rights. It didn't believe anything about gay people's rights, it didn't believe anything about abortion. So if the people in the 18th century didn't believe in those, I'm not going to rule in favor of those rights. That's a big deal. That's a very different view of the Constitution than the majority of the -- even the more conservative members like John Roberts have held. They have seen how the meaning of the Constitution has changed. But Justice Scalia didn't, and Justice Scalia did if the people in the 18th century didn't believe it, I'm not ruling that way, and neither is Judge Barrett. And that's a very consequential thing.</s>BURNETT: Incredibly consequential and people think about the right of privacy, such as anyone believes it exists. Obviously, it's not in there. Thank you all very much. I appreciate your time. And as Judge Amy Coney Barrett continues to take questions from senators, President Trump is here, rally in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Live pictures here, thousands of people. Another day, another thing of the same, right? The camera has been there. Very few masks. There is no social distancing. The president today announcing he's going to be holding a lot more rallies like this across the country, even as Dr. Anthony Fuci made it clear he thinks they're a danger and warned a resurgence of coronavirus is coming.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: We're seeing an uptick in test positivity, which is highly predictive of a resurgence of cases, which historically we know leads to an increase in hospitalizations, and then ultimately an increase in deaths.</s>BURNETT: Well, Pennsylvania, where the president is tonight, is a state seeing an increase in cases, and like every other Trump rally, when the cameras are turned on and they focus on the president, the supporters behind him, mostly, almost all wear masks. That is not a coincidence, as our Jeremy Diamond reports, it's all for show, a dangerous reality show, one which includes launching a new attack on the nation's top infectious disease expert. Trump tonight tweeting about Fauci, quote, Tony's pitching arm is far more accurate than his prognostications. Fauci, though, not backing down.</s>FAUCI: I'm certainly not going to give up. This is too important a problem. I mean, I've devoted my entire professional life to fighting infectious diseases.</s>BURNETT: Jeremy Diamond is traveling with the president, OUTFRONT live in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where, of course, most of the people in that audience behind you are not wearing masks. What are you learning about why we see people behind the president with the masks on, but when you're in the crowd and you walk through, and you see cameras, we don't see any?</s>JEREMY DIAMOND, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Erin. Listen, we have -- we've heard President Trump even as recently as last night mocking Joe Biden for putting social distancing measures in place. He has not required nor has his campaign required the attendees attending his rallies to require masks. But one thing that the president understands perhaps is optics. And that is why the campaign asks every person who is behind the president, who is in that VIP area, to actually wear a mask during the duration of the rally. They are actually given special masks that have the campaign's own branding on it. So, clearly, the president understands the value of the optics. But it's an illusion, Erin, because the overwhelming majority of the thousands of people who are at this rally or any of the recent rallies I've been to in the last several weeks, they are not wearing masks and they're certainly not social distancing, either. What is clear, Erin, is that this is how the president is going to forge ahead for these next three weeks. He has promised to gather thousands of thousands of people for the next three weeks between now and Election Day in person for these rallies where there's no social distancing or masks are not required. And they're nowhere perhaps more than in the state of Pennsylvania, Erin, the president has visited Pennsylvania six times in the last month and a half. And a campaign source telling me today that the president will visit this state perhaps more than any other battleground state the most between today and Election Day -- Erin.</s>BURNETT: All right. Thank you very much, Jeremy. So, you see what you see tonight, and you could be seeing more of this in Pennsylvania than any other battleground state from this president. Joining me now, Pennsylvania's Democratic lieutenant governor, John Fetterman. What's your reaction to that? You see the crowd and, you know, you hear the reporting, right? So behind them they get the MAGA masks and in front, we all see for ourselves very few masks. And now, we're hearing that he's going to go to Pennsylvania a lot between now and Election Day and keep doing the same thing. What do you say to the president?</s>LT. GOV. JOHN FETTERMAN (D), PENNSYLVANIA: Well, I just -- I saw that scene and I just thought back to less than two weeks ago, I was with Vice President Biden in Johnstown. And we had an event, too. And all of us were wearing masks, all of us were practicing social distancing, and Vice President Biden has been successful in avoiding contracting coronavirus or turning any of his events into spreading events. You know, the president understands what I've been saying for a long time now, is that Pennsylvania is going to pick the president, so it's not a surprise that he's going to be coming to our state many, many more times. But it's also true that he is going to behave the way he behaves because there's three weeks left, and he's certainly not going to change course on a lot of what I would describe personally as reckless kind of public health measures at his rallies.</s>BURNETT: So, you know, what do you say, though, given your state, right? The trend lines are not good. New cases are on the rise, you hear the warnings from Dr. Fauci. And yet, it's very clear that you're going to see, you know, thousands and thousands of people shoulder to shoulder, maskless at these sort of rallies. What risks do they pose?</s>FETTERMAN: It's -- it's an unfortunate risk. The tragedy in all of this, and the death and the economic destruction is that we have made each other the virus -- I mean, excuse me, we've made each other the enemy, not the virus. The virus is the true enemy. And this is only going to get settled on November 3rd. And I'm optimistic Pennsylvania is going to return to the blue column, whether it's the polling or the energy you see on the ground. But I'm not going to underestimate the president's strength in Pennsylvania for a second. But what I can say is that Pennsylvania respects science. You know, the governor and I do. We have made important steps to make sure that Pennsylvanians stay safe. And our results on the long-term demonstrate that. But the president's rallies contradict that. But I think he's going to get checked on November 3rd. And we both agree that Pennsylvania is going to likely pick the next president.</s>BURNETT: So, let me ask you about one other thing, Lieutenant Governor, the pretty disturbing thing that happened to you, your family personally. But in the context of what we're seeing across this country, it's important to talk about. Your wife Gisele at the grocery store, a woman recognizes her, begins to scream at her, telling her she doesn't belong, calling her the "N" word. And here's the end of the incident which Gisele captured on video.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Dude, you're a</s>BURNETT: So how did you feel when you heard about this, when you saw that video?</s>FETTERMAN: I obviously was sad and concerned for my wife, first and foremost. And she called me immediately afterward and was shaken up. But she's gotten over that. And I just want to thank everybody for their love and support, both, you know, here and locally in western Pennsylvania, across Pennsylvania, across the country, the incident has really resonated. But like her, I'm also calling for a measure of, you know, compassion or at least understanding for that woman. She's obviously dealing with a lot of issues. And she is certainly not reflective of the great people of Pennsylvania. It was an isolated incident. But it is undeniable there is -- there is an energy out there, and I think that energy -- I think we can all agree isn't helpful. It's toxic and it's destructive. Once again, I think a lot of this is going to be settled on November 3rd here in Pennsylvania.</s>BURNETT: Lieutenant Governor, I appreciate your time. Thank you.</s>FETTERMAN: Thank you for having me.</s>BURNETT: All right. And now, Dr. Jonathan Reiner, director of the cardiac cath lab at George Washington University Hospital who also advised the White House medical team under President George W. Bush. So, Dr. Reiner, another night, another Trump rally in a state where the trend lines are moving in the wrong direction. And obviously, we just pointed out he's going to be going to Pennsylvania a lot. He's going to do everything he can to get as many images like what we just saw on people's screens, right? So they're not going to look at the polls. They're going to see those numbers, right? He's trying to use that to energize his base. So what do you say to that, given the resurgence in cases across this country?</s>DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: I say that the president is doing a lot of the virus' work. He's like the caddie for the virus. If you look at the battleground states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, the virus is surging in all of those states. And the president is going to go to all of those states. If you think about unmasked people in mass gatherings, it's like dry brush in a forest fire. The -- when the fire encounters that dry brush, it ignites and intensifies the fire. That's what happens in a pandemic when you put together unmasked people. The president is making it easier for the virus to spread those states. It's -- you know, maybe this helps him electorally. I don't understand the politics here. But it's very damaging to the public health.</s>BURNETT: So, President Trump today again, attacks Dr. Fauci, even though he's also using Dr. Fauci in a campaign ad to say that Dr. Fauci endorses him. So, putting that completely aside, the sort of hypocrisy of that, today, Trump tweeted that Fauci's pitching arm is, quote, far more accurate than his prognostications, which was a reference to Dr. Fauci's first pitch at an MLB game. So, where does this go, this Fauci-Trump issue? And Fauci has made it clear, he's not going anywhere, certainly not by choice.</s>REINER: Right. Well, I'll remind everybody that the president never threw out that first pitch that he promised to throw in New York this year. So I await his pitching prowess. This is so unnecessary. And so, what a distraction. Forty-seven thousand new cases today. Another almost 700 deaths in the United States. There are 38,000 people hospitalized with this virus. I don't want to hear this nonsense about the president talking about Dr. Fauci's pitching arm. I want to hear policy. I want to hear the president talking about masks and testing.</s>BURNETT: Yeah.</s>REINER: I want to hear that. I don't want to hear this. It's too much of a distraction.</s>BURNETT: So, we have a couple of big trials halted, and this is something that matters to all Americans here. Johnson and Johnson's vaccine, right, due to an unexplained illness, that they're trying to figure that out, right, before they proceed. Ely Lilly's antibody treatment, we're not sure why that was paused. Now, it's not uncommon for things to happen, right? It's par for the course. Dr. Fauci has pointed that out. That's why it takes time, right, they usually get resolved. You can move ahead.</s>REINER: Right.</s>BURNETT: But when it comes to Eli Lilly, this is a treatment the president has touted recently. Even though it is, and I want to be clear, not the actual treatment he received. Here he is.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Regeneron was -- I view it as a cure, not just a therapeutic. I view it as a cure because I took it. And Eli Lilly has a great drug. So we have these drugs, Eli Lilly and the others that are so good. Eli Lilly has something very comparable. It's phenomenal.</s>BURNETT: Is he -- is he setting up false expectations for people?</s>REINER: He always has. He's the quick fix president. There are no quick fixes here. This is why we have to do science. I'm not actually discouraged by these, you know, pauses. This is why we do clinical trials. We'll get it right and we'll have great therapeutics. I'm not really worried about these, you know, speed bumps.</s>BURNETT: All right. Well, Dr. Reiner, thank you.</s>REINER: My pleasure.</s>BURNETT: And an alarming development to a story that we've been following here. Another sitting Democratic governor, this time Virginia's governor, Ralph Northam, has been targeted by the same extremist group allegedly plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. Sara Sidner is OUTFRONT.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): New disturbing details about the alleged plot in Michigan to take over state governments. In federal government, an FBI agent testified in June, the suspects discussed kidnapping not only the Michigan governor but the Virginia governor, as well. They specifically had the issues with the governors of Michigan and Virginia, he said, because of various coronavirus-related lockdown orders. Those also happened to be two of the Democratic governors who President Trump attacked in April over their stay at home orders, tweeting: liberate Michigan and liberate Virginia.</s>GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D), MICHIGAN: We know every time that this White House identifies me or takes a shot at me, we see an increase in rhetoric online, violent rhetoric. And so there's always a connection.</s>SIDNER: The president responded denying any role in citing extremists. But yet again attacking Whitmer, saying she's doing a terrible job. Attorney General Bill Barr has failed to speak publicly about the case, even as more details emerge. In the federal preliminary hearing, another new detail came to light in the alleged plot against Whitmer that was not spelled out in federal or state charges against 13 men accused in the plot. The FBI testified part of the plan to kidnap Governor Whitmer included snatching her from her north Michigan lakefront vacation home, taking her out to the middle of Lake Michigan and leaving her stranded in a boat. The agents said the plot wasn't all talk. There was plenty of action, and even video of the men firing their rifles fashioned with silencers. We traveled deep into the woods to an area residents say the FBI raided in Michigan.</s>CLIFF DEMOS, LUTHER RESIDENT: Guns, semiautomatics, small IED bombs, those kind of things is what they were using up here. (on camera): And that isn't the norm?</s>DEMOS: No.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): A hundred seventy-five miles away, the FBI raided another area agents say training took place. (on camera): That house there with the Confederate Flag here in Munith, Michigan, is one of the homes the FBI raided in this alleged plot to kidnap the governor. Now, we were able to talk to several neighbors who said they noticed something unusual a day or so before the FBI showed up. They heard a massive explosion emanating from this property. They said it rattled their floors and knocked their pictures askew. (voice-over): The FBI agent testified they have evidence one of the suspects attempted to make an improvised explosive device to blow up the bridge near the governor's home to keep police at bay. There was also video played from inside the basement where one of the alleged plot leaders, Adam Fox, lived. Prosecutors say the men are caught on video speed loading their weapons in case there was a gun fight. The whole alleged plot has folks in these villages concerned about self-style militias they know are still operating around here.</s>DEMOS: Are there other militia groups here? You bet they are.</s>SIDNER (on camera): And are people beginning to be afraid of them?</s>DEMOS: They are beginning to be a little more concerned.</s>SIDNER: Now, we're learning that the Trump campaign ended up canceling a rally at a gun range here, after learning a former employee of that range was arrested in this alleged kidnapping plot. It turns out that really has now been moved to another venue, Erin.</s>BURNETT: Sarah, thank you. I want to go straight now then to the former FBI deputy director, Andrew McCabe. Deputy Director McCabe, so, you know, according to court documents, you know, the people planning this, discussed taking action again against multiple state governments that they believe are violating the U.S. Constitution, right? So, now, you are hearing Whitmer and you're hearing Northam in Virginia. Do you think this plot could be even bigger?</s>ANDREW MCCABE, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: It certainly could, Erin. I think it's really important to concentrate on the words that the FBI agent used. You know, he described in court today that on June 6th, that Adam Fox and Barry Croft, two of the individuals who are now facing federal charges for their involvement in the Michigan plot, met with about 12 or more other militia members, from 5 different states. They talked about grabbing governors and they specifically mentioned, of course, the Michigan and Virginia governors. But that doesn't -- that language doesn't rule out any other activities that are being thought about or possibly considered or planned, in any one of those other three or four states. So I think it's, that's what we really need to look at first. And then you overlay on to that, Erin, the fact that these militia groups, these right ring anti-government groups, have been multiplying in the last few years. There is not a state in this country that doesn't have some of this militia presence in the state. They are all very different. Some of them are obviously more extreme than others. So, I'm quite sure that my former colleagues in the FBI are spending a lot of time looking at those groups right now, in kind of on the lookout for planned acts of violence.</s>BURNETT: So the FBI agent, you know, when you say pay attention to the words, also testified that the motive of the plot was to target a sitting governor over shutdown orders during the pandemic. Now, we know Trump tweeted in April about the shutdown orders, all caps: Liberate Michigan, liberate Virginia, right? Specifically telling those two states to be open. So, now, you have those two states governors obviously specifically named here. Correlation may not be causality but this is quite something.</s>MCCABE: Yeah, it really is. I mean, look, I can tell you, as a 21 year FBI agent, the FBI agents, we don't believe in coincidence, right? So, the fact that the president specifically called out the governors of -- specifically called out to liberate Michigan and Virginia, now you have plots in Michigan in Virginia, that would really be hard to explain that as a coincidence. I'd also like to point out, Erin, that President Trump was very specific and has made a bunch of comments about the Virginia governor's impact on people's Second Amendment rights. And Second Amendment right is something that are very, very important to these militia members, the anti-government folks, like the Boogaloo Boys, things like that. So, that is a specific kind of triggering language that will get the attention of these groups and could certainly cause some of them to take violent action.</s>BURNETT: Right. Deputy Director, I appreciate your time, thank you.</s>MCCABE: Thank you.</s>BURNETT: And as President Trump holds a rally tonight in the must-win state of Pennsylvania, Joe Biden is another swing state, Florida. [19:55;06] He's telling voters, quote: We win Florida and it's all over. Biden with a similar message in Ohio yesterday.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: If we win Ohio, the game is over. I think we win just -- Ohio and Florida are two critically important states are very close, that Trump won significantly the last two times and we feel really good. The polling data, I don't count on that, but I'm going to try to earn all the votes them. Ohio I think is a -- is a toss-up right now.</s>BURNETT: OUTFRONT now, John Kasich, the former Republican governor of Ohio. And, Governor, I've stood in your state in a very cold election night. We know there's been no Republican who has won the White House within Ohio. And in 96 years, no one Republican has won the White House without Florida. So, Biden's point about taking those states would hold. It's crucial. But the latest poll shows Biden and Trump neck and neck in Ohio. Right? They are -- it seems completely tied. What do you see and feel?</s>JOHN KASICH, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Erin, it's independent men who are beginning to move towards Joe Biden. Our seniors who would normally be locked down with the incumbent are now moving away from him. And, of course, women in the suburbs have had it with him. So, you put those kind of things together and you have why this thing is so close. But I must also tell you, Erin, in a way it's a little bit maybe bragging on my part, but I won 86 out of 88 counties a couple of elections ago.</s>BURNETT: Yeah.</s>KASICH: And it demoralized the Democratic machine. As a result of that they're having a hard time being able to carry out the basic things that they need to do. It is extremely close. I probably would still give this to Trump in Ohio, but nothing would surprise me here.</s>BURNETT: So, but that's interesting. You're saying despite what you're seeing with seniors, despite what you're seeing with certain groups of white men, right now, today election, you still would give Ohio to Trump?</s>KASICH: And it's because the Republican machine has been -- people have been pretty happy with Republicans, and the Democrats, they just weren't winning anything. Obama won. But then this blow out that they suffered when I ran for reelection was literally 86 out of 88 counties. It's sort -- the debate (ph), the machinery is not there. And you need machinery. I think these things come together is making this close. Again I wouldn't be surprised if Biden won Ohio. The same thing is happening in Florida, you know, with seniors moving the other way, independent men and, of course, the suburbs. So, the women in the suburbs have had it and demonstrated it through to two midterm elections. So, you know, this is really -- this is really something. Now, you know, you mentioned Pennsylvania. Again it's pretty close. I would give that one to Biden. Michigan -- Michigan is gone. Biden is going to win Michigan. Then you look at Minnesota and Wisconsin, two critical states, and interestingly enough in the state of Wisconsin, we're beginning to see Biden open up the lead. So, look, there are no landslides in American politics today, Erin. The country is too split right now.</s>BUIRNETT: Polarized.</s>KASICH: I would give the edge in this election to Joe Biden</s>BURNETT: So let me ask, you when you talk about seniors, is that related to coronavirus and the president's handling of coronavirus?</s>KASICH: Yes, yes, it is. And the one thing that Joe Biden had a show in that last debate, is -- was he -- is he strong going to be able to carry out the job as president? The seniors were looking at that. And he passed that test. And that's why seniors have not totally settled down yet. But they are moving away from Trump, undecided, trending towards Biden. And a lot of it has to do with that. The other thing that the Trump people have missed out on, Erin, is they're not talking about the most important issue and that's jobs. And, you know, we have a COVID economy now. You hear Biden talking about it. You hear Harris talking about.</s>BURNETT: Yeah.</s>KASICH: You don't hear Trump saying much about it. He's been an attack dog, you know, the Democrats are socialists and all that. I don't think that's very effective. He's been off message and, you know, he's talking about the virus but he's not reassuring people on the virus, and secondly, he's not talking about jobs. It always gets down to jobs.</s>BURNETT: It does. And, of course, obviously, you have endorsed Biden. Let me just ask you one thing, though, in terms of this whole thing with the voting, right?</s>KASICH: Yeah.</s>BURNETT: They said Biden voters vote early. And Trump voters vote on Election Day.</s>KASICH: They have.</s>BURNETT: So you're going to hear Trump winning on election night, but then the votes may change. Ohio can start counting up before Election Day on absentee ballots. Could we know an election night or early the day after which way Ohio went?</s>KASICH: Yeah. We -- well, we could because they can process the ballots and then quickly count. Then we've been absentee balloting here for 15 years. So, there's -- we're really used to doing. So, it's very possible, we will know on election night. But, you know, you get to count the ballots a couple of days after election day as long as they were postmarked before the election. So, it's something, Erin.</s>BURNETT: Depends who close it is.</s>KASICH: It's why you're doing well in the news. It never ends.</s>BURNETT: All right. Governor Kasich, I appreciate your time, as always sir, thank you.</s>KASICH: OK, Erin, thank you.</s>BURNETT: And thanks to all of you as well. Let's hand it off now to Anderson.

Donald Trump Says People are Tired of COVID

CHRISTOPHER CROSS, GRAMMY-WINNING SINGER: So please be careful, you know.</s>ERIN BURNETT, CNN HOST: I hope people will listen to you. I know that they will because it is -- it is true. Someone like you, you know, a lot of people look at you and think, oh, how could it happen to you? But it did and you're dealing with it, and I thank you for sharing it with us. And I wish you all the very, very best in getting 100 percent better. Chris, thank you.</s>CROSS: Thank you very much, Erin. It's good to talk to you.</s>BURNETT: You, too. And thanks to all of you. Anderson starts now.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: Good evening. With 220,000 Americans now dead from the coronavirus, we begin tonight with the President's own words and how they speak to his priorities which seem to revolve right now around settling grudges not saving lives. The first clips you'll hear are from a campaign conference call that he phoned in today. Now, before we play it for you, you should know that today marked day one of what the White House officially declared to be -- and I'm not making this up -- National Character Counts Week. Reading from the proclamation quote, "Throughout this week, we recommit to being more kind, loving understanding and virtuous." This is actually signed by Donald J. Trump. Clearly, he did not write it. But he did sign it. So with that in mind, here's the President on the campaign conference call today.</s>DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: People are tired of COVID. I have the biggest rallies I've ever had and we have COVID. People are saying, whatever. Just leave us alone. They're tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all of these idiots, these people, these people that have gotten it wrong. Fauci is a nice guy. He's been here for 500 years. He called every one of them wrong and he is like this wonderful guy, a wonderful sage. And yet we keep him. Every time he goes on television, there's always a bomb. But there's a bigger bomb if you fire him</s>COOPER: Now, CNN was given access to the call by a source, not that the President would mind because here's what he said a moment later.</s>TRUMP: If there is a reporter on, you can have it just the way I say it. I couldn't care less.</s>COOPER: "I couldn't care less," says the President. Perhaps, we finally have the answer to that question Melania Trump's coat once posed? "I really don't care, do you?" The President couldn't care less that Dr. Anthony Fauci is the nation's foremost infectious disease researcher. The President couldn't care less than he is a non-partisan career professional who has been in this job since 1984, and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by a Republican President. The President couldn't care less that Dr. Fauci and I'm now I'm quoting from Dr. Fauci's official biography, has advised six presidents on HIV-AIDS and many other domestic and global health issues. He was one of the principal architects of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, PEPFAR, a program that has saved millions of lives throughout the developing world. That is the man the President is mocking and couldn't care less that we know it, or that we hear the sarcasm and contempt for a lifelong public servant, and quote, "all these idiots," because as he doesn't mind saying, he is one smart guy.</s>TRUMP: You know, my uncle is a great -- first he was at M.I.T. He taught at M.I.T., for I think, like a record number of years. He was a great super genius, Dr. John Trump. I like this stuff. I really get it. People are surprised that I understand it. Every one of these doctors said how do you know so much about this? Maybe I have a natural ability, and maybe I should have done that instead of running for President.</s>COOPER: Dr. Redfield there behind him kind of smiling, laughing along, not realizing he is soon going to get kneecapped and made irrelevant. When the President said that, just 14 people had died by the way, not 14,000 or 1,400, fourteen people had died. Two hundred and twenty thousand lives later, the President still believes he knows better than the experts.</s>TRUMP: If you vote for Biden, he will surrender you jobs to China. He will surrender your future to the virus. He is going to lock down, he just wants to lock down. He'll listen to the scientists. If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression instead of we're like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers.</s>COOPER: Listen to the scientists. There is a difference between slavishly following scientists and listening to scientists, I am not sure why the President is mocking the idea of listening to scientists. If the President had listened to the scientists when the C.D.C. put out guidelines recommending mask wearing, he could have helped save tens of thousands of lives and opened up the economy sooner. Instead, he immediately mocked C.D.C. guidelines, literally as he was announcing them, and he gave his supporters license to disregard basic public health measures. And to his economic analysis that were like a rocket ship right now. According to the latest numbers from the Labor Department, 898,000 people filed first time jobless claims in the week ending October 10th. It's up 53,000 from the week before. So no, the economy is not going up like a rocket ship. What is going up, which the President won't tell you is the number of people infected with COVID. The President doesn't want to say that. We're rounding the corner, rounding the turn, he says. The scientists at Johns Hopkins University who have the grim unfortunate job of gathering case and mortality figures, they will tell you that if you listen to them, which the President doesn't.</s>COOPER: The country is now averaging 55,000 new cases a day. Those are the numbers and the facts. And as that climb, so does the number of people getting sick enough to need hospital care, which traditionally lags case numbers by several weeks, and of course, so does rising mortality, which if experience holds, will start showing up not long from now.</s>DR. MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: We do have vaccines and therapeutics coming down the pike. But when you actually look at the time period for that, the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic.</s>CHATTERLEY: Darkest of the entire pandemic. That's epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who we've had as a guest on the program and our Town Halls. He says the challenge going forward is getting a message to the public that quote, "reflects the science and reflects reality," which isn't easy when the only taskforce member or taskforce adviser the President does listen to is this guy, Dr. Scott Atlas. He doesn't have the qualifications as an epidemiologist, he is a radiologist. Apparently, he is very good at that. He has appeared on FOX News a lot. Over the weekend he tweeted quote, "Mask work? No." Unquote, followed by a series of misrepresentations about the science. Twitter took it down, prompting Taskforce member Dr. Deborah Birx, a source telling CNN to express relief to her friends. Dr. Birx, like Dr. Fauci and Osterholm, but unlike Dr. Atlas, is an expert in this field. The sourcing, she also told friends that fighting the virus is quote "hard enough without Atlas." Yet he now has the presidency ear and he is preaching what he is preaching his music to the President's ear. He is apparently a mass skeptic who reportedly is interested in herd immunity, which actually experts say is only is one thing if it's achieved through vaccination and something far deadlier if you try to do it by simply letting people get infected. That seems to be the course the President is taking, because, you know, his uncle taught at M.I.T., I guess. By the way, his uncle, John Trump was a physicist and electrical engineer. Apparently, a pretty good one as well, but not a virologist, not an infectious disease specialist, not an epidemiologist or a biostatistician, nor is Dr. Atlas, but Dr. Atlas is telling the President, apparently what he wants to hear. Well, the former C.D.C. Director on shortly will discuss what's misunderstood about the whole idea of herd immunity or herd mentality as the President has called it, namely to getting a lot of apparently healthy people sick is somehow a good idea. Dr. Anthony Fauci does not believe in that and he is not telling the President what he wants to hear. Here he is talking about the White House reception for Amy Coney Barrett, the one at which most people including the President and Dr. Atlas were not wearing masks.</s>QUESTION: Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask. When I saw that on TV, I said, "Oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that. That's got to be a problem." And then sure enough, it turned out to be a super spreader event.</s>COOPER: Which is certainly true given how many people attended the event, subsequently became ill including the President, former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who came away, seemingly chastened by his experience. He is now taking opportunities to call on people to cover their faces, maintain social distancing, and stay away from large gatherings. As for the President, he, of course, is now attacking the legitimate experts and mocking his opponent for believing in science, which raises the question from the top if putting out a clear science based message for fighting COVID isn't such a priority. Then what else is? Well, here's the President yesterday in Carson City, Nevada.</s>TRUMP: The dishwashers, they've had a little problem, they didn't get enough water. Like so people would run them 10 times, so they end up using more water. So I hate to say the three things. It's the shower. It's the sink and you know, the third element in the bathroom. But I don't say it because every time I say it, they only talk about that one, because it's sort of gross to talk about, right? So I won't -- I won't talk about the fact that people have to flush their toilet 15 times. I will not talk about it. I'll only talk about showers and okay, but there are three things. I won't talk about it. Then on the shower, the worst. You ever to get under show where no water comes in? And me, I want that here to be so beautiful. [LAUGHTER] [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]</s>TRUMP: Right? I want the hair to look good. I go into some of these hotels, you know, when you travel, I go into these hotels, new hotels, they do a nice job. It's not their fault. And I get in there, I say, oh, I can look at it now. I know they have everything. I say, oh here we go. Turn on the water. Drip, drip, drip, drip, drip. But now you go into it a shower and the water pours out. You go into a sink and you can wash your hands very nicely, beautiful. And the third thing, don't worry about it, okay.</s>COOPER: Yes, that took a lot. There's so much to say. But given that the White House has declared a National Character Counts Week, I'm just going to recommit to being more kind, loving, understanding and virtuous. As should we all. More now on all this from CNN's Jim Acosta at the White House? Jim, do we know if there was a particular reason the President lashed out at Fauci? Was it just that he saw him on "60 Minutes" the night before or was it a general rage emitted pandemic, you know, and anxiety of the election?</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: I think that's part of it. As you know, Anderson, the President counter punches. He believes in counterpunching. But keep in mind, we might be at the end of the Fauci rage news cycle and at that the beginning of the Debate Commission, Supreme Court rage news cycle with these late breaking developments that the Debate Commission is going to approve of some muting of the microphones at the upcoming debate on Thursday, and the Supreme Court is going to allow mail-in ballots to come in past Election Day potentially, and that is also a defeat for the Republicans. And so he is not going to be happy with either one of those developments. But Anderson, I will tell you talking to some Trump campaign advisers this evening in terms of what the President has been saying about Dr. Fauci. I mean, I talked to one adviser earlier today who said this is not smart. This reminds Americans of the President's handling of the coronavirus pandemic. That is a subject they would like to avoid. And I talked to another adviser this evening and said this just doesn't make any sense. This is not what they want to be talking about two weeks before the election.</s>COOPER: Yes, it's so interesting, because you know, for a long time, he tried to get as close to Fauci as possible, because he -- and he has talked about this publicly -- knew about Fauci's favorability ratings that he was viewed as widely respected, and the President tried to glom on to that as much as possible. Interesting that in the final days of the campaign, he is choosing to go after somebody who is well-respected and has a track record of service. Jim Acosta, thanks very much. We have perspective now on the President's ongoing assaults on science and scientists. Joining us for that, former C.D.C. director, Dr. Tom Frieden and also Dr. Sanjay Gupta, our chief medical correspondent. Dr. Frieden, you hear the President mocking Dr. Fauci, undermining his contributions to science. I mean, does this just again, given that we are about to -- I mean, the President says we are surrounding a turn, if we're rounding a turn, it sounds like we're about to round a turn into an oncoming truck. Given what's about to happen in this country, does this make any sense?</s>DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN, FORMER C.D.C. DIRECTOR: Well, I can't talk about the politics, but I can talk about the science. What's happening is that because of a failed Federal response, we're having a steady increase in cases in much of the U.S., the Midwest, and the West. We have still very high case count throughout much of the South. And this is a reflection of a failed Federal response. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing with one individual. It's about whether you follow policies that will protect people, and that gets us into the whole herd immunity discussion, which has been really very distressing to hear, because you're talking about sacrificing the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans based on a theory that's almost certainly wrong.</s>COOPER: Yes, I mean, Sanjay, I just don't -- I don't understand just the morale -- I mean, I don't understand how somebody who is the leader of this country, knowing that the projections are, according to Chris Murray, who we've had on, you and I talked to you just a couple days ago, by early February, an additional some 200,000 people, I think it will -- I think it was up to about 400,000 people will be dead by then. So a growth from 220,000 or so right now to 400,000 by the end of February, that could be drastically reduced by 70,000 or more if 95 percent of the country wore masks. The fact that the leader of this country is not doing everything he can to save as many lives as possible and get people to wear masks. It's -- it is just unconscionable.</s>DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, I think you cannot disentangle anything from politics nowadays. I mean, you know, I hate to say it, I agree with Tom Frieden, of course that you know, we want to talk about the science here. The problem is, this isn't a scientific discussion anymore, right? I mean, Anderson, you laid out the numbers. People know the numbers. You've got a significant percentage of the country that hears they could be part of a movement to save tens of thousands of lives by wearing a mask, and they basically say I'll pass, ain't going to do it. So what is that? That's not -- that's not a scientific discussion. We could explain, we can show over and over again, as we have been doing for months about the efficacy of masks. We can show what the virus looks like in someone who wears a mask and who doesn't wear a mask, the likelihood of transmission dropping six fold, saving tens of thousands of lives like you said. What is this discussion that we're having at this point? I mean, it was vile what the President said about Dr. Fauci who is spending most of his time trying to come up with vaccine, you know, and therapeutics and things like that and is speaking to the American people because he wants to educate them and then getting attacked for it. It's totally about politics. I hate to say it because I'm a medical reporter. But my job -- I mean, this has become a political discussion, Anderson, and I hate it. You know, like it or not, that's what it's become, though.</s>COOPER: Dr. Frieden, I want to play something President Trump said earlier today at one of his rallies. Listen.</s>TRUMP: They are getting tired of the pandemic, aren't they? Getting tired of the pandemic. You turn on CNN, that's all they cover. COVID, COVID pandemic, COVID, COVID, COVID. Whoa, whoa, you know why they're trying to talk everybody out of voting? People aren't buying at CNN, you dumb bastards. They are not buying it. [CHEERING AND APPLAUSE]</s>COOPER: He used the same line about Dr. Fauci of people getting tired of hearing Fauci talk about the pandemic. I agree, everyone is tired of the pandemic. I don't know anyone, you know -- I know, in particular, you know, doctors and nurses, and, you know, medical technicians, and everybody who has really put their lives on the line. And, you know, grocery store, checkout people, and delivery people who have risked their lives to enable the rest of us to be able to stay at home more and to be able to stay safe. I agree, people are tired of it. That doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean that the virus gets tired. The virus is the same virus as it was before. It doesn't know that we're tired. It doesn't care that we're tired.</s>FRIEDEN: Right, I think it's true that all of us are sick and tired of this virus, but the virus isn't tired of making us sick. And the fact is that we have the possibility of really making a big difference. The response to we're tired of it shouldn't be, let's give up because that's essentially what herd immunity is saying. Let's infect a bunch of young people and protect the vulnerable. It's an alluring argument. It's just, oh, you know, young people, they're going to do okay; older people, vulnerable people, we can protect them, and we can get our society back. Well, that is such a failure and fallacy. That's about surrendering. It's about waving the white flag. And here's a number that is just stunning. If we were to do that, if we were to pursue the policy that Dr. Atlas, although he claims he is not suggesting it is clearly suggesting and allow the virus to spread among young people. COVID would have killed more people in about a year, more Americans in about a year than all of the wars of the 20th century killed. Now, it's just commonsense, the way to protect the vulnerable is to have fewer infections, not more infections. And there's no way -- one out of five people in this country is over the age of 65, about half of adults have an underlying condition that increases their risk of COVID. And young people who may be otherwise healthy can get very sick and even die from this infection, and we don't know what the long term impact is going to be for some people who have lingering symptoms. So this idea that we should let it rip in young people surrender to COVID is just not only mistake, but a deadly mistake.</s>COOPER: I mean, Sanjay and this is a medical question. But, you know, again, for the leader of the of the country who likes to compare himself to Winston Churchill, you know, if Churchill, while you know, England was in the darkest days of World War II, and you know, getting bombed, had just said, you know what, I know, we're all tired of this. We're just tired of it. We're tired of the people reporting this on the news. We're tired of this. Let's just -- let's just, you know, give up to it. I mean, it's again, it is unconscionable, and I don't know, I don't even have a question. I just think it's -- I just -- I am stunned that we are in this situation that you who have been talking about this round the clock since February -- January-February, we're still talking about the exact same things every freaking night. It's unconscionable.</s>GUPTA: Right. It is. I mean, I think that it's still important to talk about it. I mean, I think that's why we do it. I think that there are people, I like to believe, that are still going to listen to this. And you know, Tom Frieden presented this model of boxing and the virus a while ago. You know, Tony Fauci talks about five things that we could do that is all within our power that we could do. We could bend this curve downward, and it's not -- before a vaccine even needs to be there. You know, just wearing the mask when you go outside, socially distancing, avoided crowded indoor places and large crowds and wash your hands. I mean, you know, there's no need for panic. But if you present a problem, you've got to also present a plan which is there, people just did not adhere to it. This is the patient who is sick, and despite the fact that they did not listen to the treatment is now pissed off at the doctor because they're still getting sick. They didn't do what was supposed to be done, and now they're upset about it. So we could still, you know, turn this into a different direction. But you know, it is really frustrating, Anderson that we are still in this position here in October.</s>COOPER: And, you know, our Gary Tuchman was at a Trump rally the other day and asked somebody you know, who is not wearing a mask and says she doesn't believe in masks. He asked her, you know, if the President said you should wear a mask, she instantly without even him finishing the question said, oh, I'd wear a mask. I mean, it's that -- it would be that easy for this President to save tens of thousands of lives, to raise the number of people in this country wearing a mask. Dr. Frieden, I appreciate it. Dr. Gupta -- Sanjay, thank you very much. Next, more on the breaking news from the Supreme Court that Jim Acosta mentioned involving the swing state of Pennsylvania. More as well on the Debate Commission's decision just announced on microphones and interruptions. And later just days after arrests in the alleged plot to kidnap Michigan's Governor, the President is basking new calls from his supporters to lock her up. We'll talk about it with Michigan's Attorney General.

Supreme Court Rules that Mail-in ballots can be Accepted in Pennsylvania up to Three Days after the Election; Debate Commission Clamps Down on Interruptions.

COOPER: We touched on this at the top. There's breaking news on two fronts: a major ruling on which ballots counts in perhaps the decisive state in this election in Pennsylvania; also a big decision on how the next debate will look and sound. First Pennsylvania, CNN's Pamela Brown has the late details on that, so what are we learning about this Supreme Court ruling?</s>PAMELA BROWN, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, this is a significant ruling, Anderson and could really have a big impact on the election because now we're learning from the Supreme Court ruling that mail-in ballots can be accepted in the crucial battleground state of Pennsylvania up to three days after the election, even if the postmark is not legible. This is a huge win for Democrats and a big loss for Republicans bottom line, and what is so fascinating also about this ruling is that Chief Justice Roberts sided with the liberals on this. It was four to four, therefore, the lower court's ruling on this stands. What this means practically is that thousands of Pennsylvanians will now have their votes count in this election because otherwise it may have been where if their ballots may have been received after Election Day, which would have meant it would have been thrown out, if it were not for this final ruling from the Supreme Court that says no, these mail-in ballots can be received up to three days after the election, even if the postmark isn't legible. Of course, this is all because of the coronavirus and changes that Democrats have pushed for; Republicans have argued, Anderson, that ballots should not be accepted after Election Day, especially if you can't tell the postmark, that this could cause chaos and could cause fraud, it could invite people to try to vote after Election Day, but clearly the High Court in this matter, decided that was not the case that Pennsylvania will now accept these ballots after Election Day. And again, this is a state that Donald Trump won by a very narrow margin in 2016. It is a very important state for both of these candidates in this year's election. So very significant ruling here, Anderson.</s>COOPER: And what could it mean for other pre-election challenges?</s>BROWN: Well, it certainly sets the tone. Look, we're just a couple of weeks out from Election Day. And there are still these ongoing challenges. One in particular is in Wisconsin, but this is the other way in Wisconsin, where you have the Democrats appealing to the Supreme Court because the lower court ruled that the ballot should not be accepted after Election Day. And so we're still waiting for the High Court to rule on that and don't expect it -- don't expect the High Court's ruling on that to be just like this. There's something very distinct about this, not as the Justices have signaled. They don't want to meddle too much this close to the election and changing the rules. So in Pennsylvania again, this was a lower court's decision that is being upheld with Chief Justice Roberts siding with the liberals; and so Wisconsin, it will be interesting to see how they rule on that -- Anderson.</s>COOPER: Pamela Brown, thanks so much. Appreciate it. More now on the breaking news on Thursday's Trump-Biden debate. The Commission on Presidential Debates has a plan to prevent interruptions at least for part of the debates. CNN's Brian Stelter joins us now with details. So, explain the new rules the Debate Commission have adopted.</s>BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: During the two-minute period, Anderson, where each candidate is asked a question and is supposed to have two minutes uninterrupted, the microphone for the other candidate will be cut off. This is a direct result of President Trump stepping on Joe Biden during the first debate, cutting him off repeatedly, and to a lesser extent, Biden did a little bit of that as well. But it was really Trump trying to railroad the debate last month. Now for this debate in that crucial two-minute portion, Biden will be able to speak freely, no interruptions from Trump, and vice versa. However, for the rest of the debate, Anderson, the mics will be on. It'll be a free for all. It'll be up to moderator Kristen Welker to maintain order. The Debate Commission was under intense pressure to do something after the first debate. What they've done here is a halfway measure, halfway between what the Biden camp might have wanted, and what the Trump camp might have wanted. By the way, the Trump campaign is railing against moderator, Kristen Welker. They're complaining about the topic selection. And now there's this new rule, which is really just a way to enforce existing rules. But if President Trump wants to attack the Debate Commission and threaten not to show up, well, here's another reason to.</s>COOPER: And just in terms of -- I mean, just because they mute the microphones, if the President is speaking, I don't know how, you know, directional these mics are, but you would still be able to hear the President trying to interrupt.</s>STELTER: Yes, that's right. You know that as a former moderator in these events. You will be able to hear the candidates talking to each other, interrupting each other, even if viewers at home are not able to hear all of it. So, we will see if the President goes in and tries that tactic, again, against Biden. Biden, of course, off the campaign trail this week. We assume, he is getting ready for the debate, perhaps preparing to be interrupted by Trump. But it's notable the Commission is doing anything at all. This is an old-fashioned Commission that doesn't want to be choosing anybody's side. It's a bipartisan Commission. It seems like a very, in some ways a stale commission that's not keeping up with the times. So the fact that they are coming in and making some change is notable even if it's only a halfway measure.</s>COOPER: Yes. Brian Stelter, appreciate it. Thanks very much. Perspective now from CNN political director, David Chalian, CNN chief political correspondent Dana Bash, and CNN election law analyst, Richard Hasen, author of "Election Meltdown: Dirty Tricks, Distrust and the Threat to American Democracy." David, with Pennsylvania being such a critical state in deciding the election, how important a win for Democrats is this decision from the Supreme Court?</s>DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: It's a big win for Democrats because across the country in these battleground states, they've been looking to extend receipt deadlines when the ballots can still be received and counted, given the fact that we're in the midst of a pandemic and so many more Americans are going to be voting by mail than have been before. But Anderson, the real critical sort of effect that I think this is going to have is that everyone is going to need to be really patient on election night. This is a critical state, we know that it can determine who gets to 270. And now you're dealing with a state that has very little history of absentee vote by mail, it's usually all sort of Election Day in person voting, they're going to have an enormous amount of mail to count. And now, they're going to have the ability to get that counting done for three days following Election Day. You remember, you heard about the red mirage, we know Election Day voters are more inclined to support Trump and the Republicans. So when the returns come in of the Election Day vote on election night, Pennsylvania could look very favorable for Trump. But we don't know that that's the reality until all these absentee votes are counted, which now has an extended deadline to do so. And that's when you'll start to see this blue shift in a state like Pennsylvania, that again, could determine the outcome.</s>ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST: Richard, I mean, it's a loss for Republicans who've been pushing prevent ballots arriving after Election Day to be counted. Does it impact Republicans? I mean, how many impact how Republicans try and litigate the voting in Pennsylvania after Election Day?</s>RICHARD L. HASEN, CNN ELECTION LAW ANALYST: Well, I mean, the big news here is that the court split four to four. And by the time we get to Election Day, there's a very good chance we're going to have a ninth justice on the court. Justice Barrett. If she acts as a conservative justice along with Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Thomas, there could be a majority that if there's a dispute between the state Supreme Court, which is Democratic dominated, and the state legislature, which is Republican dominant, as we saw here, she could end up siding with the Republicans and you know, this could come in like a Bush versus Gore 2.0 kind of situation.</s>COOPER: Dana, it's not clear, though, what impact of any of this may have in other states who are facing these kind of same issues?</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: That's a great question. I don't think we know that this has a specific impact. You know, oftentimes, when the Supreme Court rules on something, it has a, you know, an effect across the board. And it doesn't seem to be the case here. David mentioned that in Pennsylvania, though, they don't have a lot of history with mail-in ballots. This is the first time that that, you know, mail-in ballots have been allowed across the board, not just for absentee voting, and it is a brand new situation. They had a little bit of a test drive during the primary season and some local elections. But by and large, it is new, which is, you know, part of the reason it seems why they're being given some leeway.</s>COOPER: Yes.</s>BASH: It's another reason, though, Anderson, I can tell you that I've been talking to Republicans about this today, that they are banging their heads against the wall, because if only the President had been encouraging and discouraging mail-in voting, this could actually help -- be helpful to the President as much as it is potentially the Democrats</s>COOPER: We'll also imagine they're banging their heads against the wall because once again, Dana, John Roberts has been the deciding vote against --</s>BASH: Exactly.</s>COOPER: -- President Trump and he's a conservative justice. He was appointed by President George W. Bush.</s>BASH: Yes. And Donald Trump at David Chalian and I were in the elevator together. And he and I will quote you, David, at the Donald Trump's head is probably exploding right now over John Roberts, because again, and again and again. He had -- he John Roberts has been a decisive and deciding vote in rulings that have gone straight at Donald Trump's desires, both in policy and in politics now. And, you know, it is part of the reason why, you know, he has been so aggressive along with Mitch McConnell, in completely filling up the federal bench, not just the Supreme Court, which we've seen, but across the board, the district level and the appellate level.</s>COOPER: And Richard, as you said, 4-4 decision, I mean, it does show how critical Amy Coney Barrett vote will be.</s>HASEN: Yes. And you know, if you think about it took the court 13 days and nobody issued an opinion. So, what was going on behind the scenes is probably Roberts was struggling mightily to find some common ground or, you know, some way that they could decide this without dividing this way. But it'd be really tough if your first vote on the Supreme Court is in favor of the president who says he was rushing to put you on the court to help decide the election. That would be a very tough position for Judge Barrett to be and I certainly hope we don't get to that point come November 4th.</s>COOPER: David Chalian, I mean, the debate commission, you know, releasing this new rule for the debate on Thursday, they're going to mute the candidates microphone just during the opening two minute answer to each topic question. I mean, they're not, you know, they may mute one of the candidates mics, but the audience can still hear the other candidate if they choose to interrupt. And if it's the president trying to sort of throw Joe Biden, you know, off his train of thought whether his mic is on or not. It has the same impact.</s>CHALIAN: Yes. I mean, he could also decide to walk over to his lectern or whatever Donald Trump wants to do to create cast. But here's the problem, Anderson. So, you have this, I don't even know, I know, the Commission's not saying it's an actual rule change, but more of a way to enforce the rules so that those two minutes can be uninterrupted as both campaigns agreed to. But you're right to note that it's there's no foolproof way of doing this. So, Donald Trump, if he wants to repeat a performance, like you had at the first debate, he can do so. I don't think there's a political adviser in his team that would advise him to do so because that debate was a disaster for him, it did not work. It didn't work with the voters, it didn't accomplish any of his political goals. So, I don't know if we're going to see him try to recreate that kind of chaos, because it really did not help him at all. But I don't think this one adjustment from the Commission on Presidential Debates is going to actually prevent that from happening if Donald Trump decides to sort of light himself on fire again.</s>COOPER: Dana, do you see though the President abiding by the rules this time? Or I mean -- what do you think?</s>BASH: No. It's very hard to see him abiding by the rules. I will say that my reporting is that he certainly gotten, maybe I shouldn't say gotten the message. He's heard the message loud and clear about how bad his debate performance was, certainly by now in the in the sort of 24, 48 hours afterwards, he was calling friends saying that didn't I do great. By now, you know, the message is certainly gotten to him. It's always an open question, as we all know from, you know, being on this roller coaster ride for five years, whether or not he's taken to take that to heart and actually implement the changes that he's been told he must make in order to not have a debacle like what, like two weeks ago.</s>COOPER: David, do you think is possible that the, the debate might not happen? I mean, the -- you know, there's some claiming maybe, you know, the Trump campaign wrote a letter to the Debate Commission, that they're unhappy about the topics as well.</s>CHALIAN: Yes. Again, I think this is more about sort of pre-debate, distraction. And we've seen the Trump campaign when they did this, in advance of the first debate in the vice presidential debate sort of create a story about the debates going in. But it seems hard if you're in Donald Trump's position, Anderson, which is you are the underdog in this race for reelection, to turn down the last opportunity to be in front of tens of millions of Americans for free at a concentrated time to try and actually sell your message at the end here and get to 270 electoral votes. That just seems something that I would be very surprised if Donald Trump walked away from that opportunity.</s>COOPER: Yes, I mean, Dana and we touched on this earlier, but attacking Fauci if the goal is to get to 270 electoral votes. Does that -- does this help?</s>BASH: No, absolutely not. Anderson. I have been working the phones today talking to several people who are very familiar with the President's, but the data behind what he's trying to do with how he operates. And to a person, these are people who want him to be reelected. Nobody has said this is a great idea. They're all shaking their heads, they're all completely. I wouldn't say that they are surprised. But they are very frustrated, because they understand that only this -- not even maybe his whole base, the smallest percentage of his base, maybe those who go to his rallies and boo with the name Fauci and maybe encourage the president to talk badly about him. That's about it. The reason the President did what he did today is because it is he's upset that Fauci said what he said on 60 Minutes with, which is the White House with had a super spreader event. And because as we've seen so many times before, President doesn't like that Fauci gets good press, and he can't stand it. And so, he got out in front with a message that is dominating today and is not a message that is a winning one for him two weeks from tomorrow.</s>COOPER: David, President Trump also, you know, what he was framed as an attack said Biden would quote, listen to the scientists. And he said that as though is a disparaging thing.</s>CHALIAN: Yes, I actually think it can turn into a Biden campaign that I mean, Biden, exactly right. He says every day, he's going to listen to the scientists. This is what's so remarkable about what the President did. It is exactly this, these two things, the dismissing of the science, and the personal insult. This is the thing that has turned away independence, suburban women, seniors, all the groups that he actually needs to take a little bit of slice back from to get to 270 electoral votes. It is this precise strategy tactic that drives them away and doesn't bring them back and it makes his job all that much harder to get reelected.</s>COOPER: Dana, what are you hearing just internally for about the Trump campaign? I mean, obviously, you know, they're projecting confidence publicly.</s>BASH: They are and internally, they're worried. I mean, Pete, some people I talked to argue that some of the numbers that they are seeing internally are not as bad as what we are seeing publicly. But there's also a good reason for them to be arguing that because the President doesn't want to hear and see some of the stories that have been out there over the weekend, and even today, about how depressed and, you know, people are feeling very bad inside the campaign and at the Republican National Committee. And the fact is that there is infighting, that there is disagreement at the top. And, you know, we all know from covering campaigns, you don't hear a lot about that from people who feel confident that they're going to win. The sort of blame game and the finger pointing often starts to happen when people think that they have a very good chance of not winning.</s>COOPER: Yes. Although, I seem to remember some finger pointing and blame, you know, from the Trump campaign in 2016.</s>BASH: True.</s>COOPER: Shortly before the election results.</s>CHALIAN: You are so right.</s>COOPER: We're coming in.</s>BASH: Fairpoint.</s>COOPER: Yes. David Chalian, Dana Bash, Richard Hasen, thanks so much. About Pennsylvania, President Obama will be campaigning there Wednesday in Philadelphia, where he made his closing argument for Hillary Clinton four years ago.</s>BARACK OBAMA, FMR PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: I know it's been a long campaign. There's been a lot of noise and a lot of distraction.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.</s>OBAMA: At times, it's felt more like a reality show or even a parody. But tomorrow, tomorrow, Philadelphia, the choice you face when you step into that voting booth --</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>OBAMA: -- could not be clear and could not be more serious.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.</s>OBAMA: On the economy, Donald Trump is uniquely unqualified to be our chief executive. That's why most CEOs and economists don't support him.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.</s>OBAMA: He would trigger a reckless trade war that cost jobs, stripped 20 million Americans of their health insurance, roll back the new rules designed to check Wall Street recklessness and protect consumers and would roll back the regulations we put in place to preserve this planet for our kids.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's right.</s>OBAMA: On foreign policy, Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief.</s>COOPER: Former Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett was in Philadelphia when he said that. She's the author of Finding My Voice When The Perfect Plan Crumbles, The Adventure Begins. She joins me now. Valerie, thanks for being with us. First of all, this debate commission rules change. What do you make of the idea of them muting the candidate's mic -- the other candidates microphones during these two minutes, where they're both supposed to have two minutes uninterrupted? Well, that worked?</s>VALERIE JARRETT, FMR SENIOR ADVISER TO PRES. OBAMA: Well, first of all, good evening, Anderson. Well, what else are we supposed to do, and President Trump had a complete disregard for the rules that he and his campaign had agreed to ahead of time. So, it's unfortunate that they have to do this. But I think what the American people want is to be able to hear directly from the candidates, unfiltered by the other candidate and interrupting so I support the real change.</s>COOPER: And your reaction to the Supreme Court ruling in Pennsylvania ballots, particularly as President Obama tries to, you know, sharp Joe Biden's support there this week.</s>JARRETT: While I think it was obviously the right ruling, the goal is to try to make sure that every American who wants to participate in our election can do so. And if the ballots are in before the deadline, they should be able to do so. And in this case, they're saying there's a grace period, because we know that the Postal Service hasn't taken the necessary steps to accommodate the great influx of ballots coming in. And I'm just smiling, because having listened to the video, you just played a President Obama, somewhere in the crowd shout out. That's right. Well, you know what everything he said in his remarks four years ago, has proven to be true. And I think this time, the American people are onto President Trump and will vote accordingly, which is why we're seeing such large numbers of people showing up for the early vote.</s>COOPER: And by the way, I just been listening to that. I am funny that you mentioned that the guy shouting, that's right. I could not listen to anything else. But that guy, I wondered if at the time President Obama was like, who's this guy who's cutting? I mean, color responses. There's a long tradition in churches, but I was like, wow, all right, you know, just let the president speak.</s>JARRETT: It felt like church and it felt like President Obama nailed it. He everything that he said, turned out to be true. And now the American people have a second opportunity to vote not on the aspirations of a candidate but the track record of a president.</s>COOPER: We heard from President, Mr. Obama during the obviously the Democratic Convention, very stark, personal terms. How do you think the former president tends to kind of walk that line on Wednesday, clearly, you know, was going to make it about Joe Biden and the future? There's obviously his legacy as well. Say nothing in fact, the President has called for his indictment, among other thing, which adds a whole other layer to this.</s>JARRETT: Well, I think what President Obama's laser like focused on is making an affirmative case for why his vice president who he had the opportunity to work with every single day for eight years is the best person to become the next President of the United States. And in so doing, he will make that case strongly based on Joe Biden's competency, his track record, his experience, his temperament, and his empathy, all of which President Obama saw up close, not just on good days, but I'm really hard days, he saw how Joe focus singularly on the American people and never on himself. But Anderson, it's also an opportunity to make a pretty stark contrast with President Trump, who is the opposite of Joe Biden. And I think President Obama is obviously immensely popular, not just within the Democratic Party, but all across our country. And he is the perfect person to have out there on the campaign trail, as we enter into the final two weeks of the election.</s>COOPER: If President Obama wins, what happens? I mean --</s>JARRETT: If President Obama wins?</s>COOPER: Excuse me, excuse me, if President Trump wins, what do the next four years look like?</s>JARRETT: Honestly, I just can't imagine, you know, every day I think, well, we reached a new low. And how are we going lower? I don't know that our country is recognizable, both domestically, as polarized, as this President has tried to make us and internationally where we are no longer the envy of the world, no longer that beacon of hope. But people around the world feel sorry for us and confused. And we have given up the important leadership role that took decades and decades of generations to achieve. So, it is the most important election of our lifetime. And I think, the American people understand that, which is why you've seen such, you know, so many people who've turned out already, and people are making plans to vote it is the conversation everywhere you go, are you going to vote? How are you going to do it safely in the middle of a of a pandemic, given that the Trump administration and many of the secretaries of state have not taken the necessary steps to do this in a way that avoids people having to stand in long lines for 12 hours? How could that happen in America? How are we not better prepared than this? But what gives me hope is the resilience and the grit of people who showed up including my 91-year-old mother, who went to early vote in Chicago on Saturday, she stood in line for a half an hour. She got there right when the polls open, and she is really proud to have participated and that's the case all around this country.</s>COOPER: Valerie Jarrett, I appreciate your time. Thank you so much.</s>JARRETT: You're welcome. Thank you Anderson.</s>COOPER: One final note on the new debate rules. Just moments ago the Trump campaign issued a statement saying they will in fact be at the debate. CNN coverage begins Thursday night 7:00 p.m. Eastern time. Just add tonight jarring new video and tax and what Michigan's governor calls dangerous rhetoric from the President regarding the alleged kidnapping plot, authority say potentially could have ended the death of Governor Gretchen Whitmer.

A Flare-Up Of Violence Between Armenia And Azerbaijan; The Work Of A CNN Hero To Bring Music To Senior Citizens.

CARL AZUZ, CNN 10 ANCHOR: Welcome to CNN 10, where we objectively explain world events in 10 minutes. My name is Carl Azuz. Glad to be starting off the week with you. Our first story concerns a conflict involving Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries located in Southwestern Asia. They both won their independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. But even before that, they were fighting each other over a region that they both believe should be part of their territory. The region is named Nagorno Karabakh. It`s located inside the borders of Azerbaijan, but most of the people who live there are ethnic Armenians. Nagorno Karabakh declared its independence from Azerbaijan in 1991. Since then, it`s ruled itself with the support of Armenia. But that country and Azerbaijan continued to fight over the region after a ceasefire was declared in 1994. It was a shaky agreement. It did calm down a lot of the classes, but it did not calm the tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan. They have continued to grapple over the issue of Nagorno Karabakh. The fighting flared up again between them on September 27th. We don`t know who`s at fault. Each side blames the other for shooting first, and it was the same thing, over a truce they agreed to over a week ago. Clashes followed and both sides blamed each other. Over the past few weeks, the region of Nagorno Karabakh says more than 700 members of its military had died in clashes with Azerbaijan. Here`s why all of this is internationally significant: the nation of Russia supports Armenia. The nation of Turkey supports Azerbaijan. So, if the fighting continues, there are concerns it could eventually mean the involvement of two much larger countries. The United Nations, the European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United States have all called for Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop fighting immediately.</s>AZUZ (voice-over): Ten-second trivia: What is the fattiest organ in the human body? Is it the skin, the liver, the large intestine or the brain? Believe it or not, it`s the brain. That`s about 60 percent, the fattiest organ we have.</s>AZUZ: According to two professors at the University of Central Florida, there is something available to practically everyone that can lower stress, reduce pain, helped with symptoms of depression and improve our thinking and motor skills. It`s not a drug. It`s music. For years, CNN Hero Carol Rosenstein had started bands to help people like her husband who`s battling Parkinson`s disease and dementia. Like a lot of CNN Heroes, Rosenstein has found new ways to reach and help people despite the restrictions related to coronavirus. And her ongoing work is music to the ears of many senior citizens.</s>CAROL ROSENSTEIN, 2018 CNN HERO/MUSIC MENDS MINDS: COVID just makes it doubly difficult for our seniors to sustain their levels of wellness because they`ve got so much isolation going on in their environments. This isolation is bringing with it a huge toll because we us humans are so accustomed to togetherness. We are going to see people deteriorating faster.</s>DR. MICHAEL THAUT, DIRECTOR, MUSIC AND HEALTH SCIENCE RESEARCH CENTER: People have declined much faster because they were, you know, for months and months in this very restrictive environment. A lot of people probably didn`t realize what if it`s a hospital (ph), or many areas that we`re thrown into. Music is language of the brain, stirring up feelings, thinking processes, the motor system. We have substantial, hard science evidence our music can help the brain. Some of the areas that musical memories are located in are actually not attacked by Alzheimer`s disease. It`s there, they`re preserved, When people with severe memory disorders, there is a musical memory trigger that can remember the music, but they will also remember usually some autobiographical other memories that are connected to this particular song. And so, there is a moment of memory of restoration, so they don`t just remember the song, they also remember at least for a moment to where they are and who they are. And so, music can recreate some of their thinking, feeling and expression and movement experiences that we need. Even if a spouse just sits down with the partner, and says, what`s the music today, or we can sing together in order to</s>THAUT: While you`re listening to a piece of music together, all these things help. I can play music with somebody and I still maintain social distancing. Music can travel, can bridge distances.</s>ROSENSTEIN: It`s so important at this time to connect and to reach out to our seniors. In some way, it`s critical for everyone feel the love that we are missing in person, and we have to do this safely at this time. It`s imperative and one of the easiest ways, especially if you`re living distances apart, is to use our Internet and be able to reach out and speak to our loved ones, so that they are reassured that they are not alone. Thank you, everybody, for our coming to our party today. I am deeply honored.</s>AZUZ: Our last story today concerns protective face masks. In some areas, they`re optional. In some, they`re recommended. In some, they are the law. But wherever people stand on wearing them, we have seen some pretty creative solutions out there from the silly and somewhat scary, to designer masks that can run upwards of $140. But this is the first time we`ve heard of a scented one.</s>JEANNE MOOS, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It`s the smell that won`t let sleeping dogs lie.</s>VOICE: Bacon, bacon, where`s the bacon?</s>MOOS: It`s on your face. The Hormel bacon folks figured what better scent in which to swaddle your nose.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s one of those foods that just really makes everything better.</s>MOOS: Even a pandemic? They came up with what Hormel calls a smellicious innovation. The breathable bacon mask is now reality, though you have to win the right to wear one. Enter for a chance to whiff. A PR person who got one tweeted: This smells so good, I`m considering wearing it all day even though I have no plans to leave the house. Someone else joked: Accidentally nibbled a hole in my bacon scented face mask. "Don`t eat bacon. Inhale it" is the mask`s motto.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s not too overpowering.</s>MOOS: Sure, there are plenty of novelty masks out there, from a dog`s mouth to lips, to shark teeth, to missing teeth, to a burger. Someone even mocked up actual bacon into the shape of a mask. But none of those actually smell.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Similar to what you`d see on scratch and sniff, so we actually found an ink that we could print on the back of these masks. It smells just like a bacon.</s>MOOS: Other companies like Banana Republic have made masks promoting themselves. But they didn`t literally lace a stink. The bacon mask reminds us of short-lived invention from the `80s, the scent alarm clock that woke you up with a scent of bacon. The pork-a-rama on a mask will start to dissipate after two or three washings. Until then, keep the dog away from your face.</s>VOICE-OVER: Boy, boy, boy, it`s bacon.</s>MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN, New York.</s>VOICE-OVER: It`s bacon.</s>AZUZ: If you think masks feel hot, that one is sizzling. It`s one way to be bacon up enthusiasm for something that could get you pork belly laughs whenever you wear it. It`d be pretty piggish to wear it on a farm, though. I don`t know sow someone could be that boorish. The animals might showed (ph) at you and you really wouldn`t be able to swine about it. I`m Carl Azuz. How-ging (ph) up your day with pig puns on CNN 10. Shout-out to Cascade High School. It is in Leavenworth, Washington, and that`s the school picked from the subscriptions and comments we received at YouTube.com/CNN10. END

Trump Campaigns without Mask as COVID-19 Spikes; Biden Holds Socially Distant Rally, Promises Unity; Voters in Georgia Wait in Long Lines to Cast Early Ballots

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Hi. Welcome to all of our viewers around the world. Thanks for joining me. I'm Robyn Curnow live from CNN's world news headquarters here in Atlanta. So just coming up, battleground blitz. Donald Trump and Joe Biden are touring the U.S. with two very different messages and election day fast approaching. And it's hard to believe that there's one country whose economy is actually growing amid the coronavirus pandemic. And we'll look at the unique way good Samaritans are helping the homeless in Los Angeles.</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.</s>CURNOW: So it's just over two weeks to go until election day in the U.S., and the president, Donald Trump, is on a campaign blitz. He spent the weekend crisscrossing the country, and he'll begin this week with two rallies in Arizona on Monday. Now, the president was in Nevada on Sunday evening, and yet again, despite COVID cases surging throughout the country, there was no social distancing and very few masks. President Trump seems to be going back to his playbook from 2016, holding several rallies a day and making baseless accusations against his Democratic rival, Joe Biden. But unlike four years ago, President Trump is also dealing with this pandemic. So right now, the U.S. is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day. That's up more than 60 percent since mid-September. And, experts say, the country is already in the midst of the autumn surge they have long predicted. Well, Ryan Nobles is on the campaign trail with President Trump, and he has the details on this -- Ryan.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is in the middle of a very busy campaign schedule, a campaign schedule that's actually picking up since he was diagnosed with the coronavirus pandemic. (voice-over): The president, just in the past few, traveling to key states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and he ended the weekend with a trip here to Carson City, Nevada. And it was at that event in Nevada that he talked about his response to the coronavirus pandemic and actually ridiculed some of the scientists who have been giving him advice when it relates to the virus. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression, instead of we're like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers. And that's despite the fact that we have, like, five or six of these Democrats keeping their states closed, because they're trying to hurt us on November 3. But the numbers are so good anyway. They'd be even better.</s>NOBLES: And this torrid campaign pace is expected to continue, the president expected to make stops next week in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina. And of course, he'll travel to Nashville on Thursday for the final debate of the 2020 campaign. Ryan Nobles, CNN, Carson City, Nevada.</s>CURNOW: And as we just saw there, President Trump still doesn't wear masks, despite having just recovered from the coronavirus himself. And America's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, believes it's because the president doesn't want to appear weak. Listen to what he says.</s>DR. JONATHAN LAPOOK, CBS CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: He hasn't worn masks consistently. He's pushed back against things you've said.</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: Yes. I think that's less an anti-science than it's more a statement.</s>LAPOOK: What kind of a statement?</s>FAUCI: You know, a statement of strength. Like, we're strong. We don't need -- we don't need a mask, that kind of thing.</s>LAPOOK: Does that --</s>FAUCI: It maybe sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.</s>LAPOOK: Does that make sense to you?</s>FAUCI: No, it doesn't. Of course not.</s>CURNOW: Dr. Fauci also says he wasn't surprised when the U.S. president got coronavirus.</s>LAPOOK: Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?</s>FAUCI: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask. When I saw that on TV, I said, Oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that. That's got to be a problem. And then, sure enough, it turned out to be a super-spreader event.</s>CURNOW: Well, Democratic candidate Joe Biden is running a very different style of campaign than the president in style and in substance. Arlette Saenz tells us what Biden's been saying and where he's been going.</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joe Biden traveled here to Durham, North Carolina, as in-person early voting is underway in the state. The former vice president holding a socially-distant drive-in-style rally, as he encouraged his supporters to make a plan to vote in the final weeks of this election. Now, Joe Biden, once again, hammered away at the president for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, as he believes this is a central issue in these final weeks before the election. And Joe Biden also talked about how the country needs to overcome division and how he is a president who will look out for all Americans. Take a listen.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Folks, as my coach used to say in college, it's go time. I'm running as a proud Democrat. But I will govern as an American president. No red states, no blue states, just the United States. I promise you, I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who did.</s>SAENZ: Now, North Carolina is one of those states President Trump won back in 2016 that Joe Biden is trying to flip in these final two weeks before the election. And on Monday, his running mate Kamala Harris is returning to the campaign trail. She will campaign in the state of Florida. This comes after her -- the campaign had suspended her travel for a few days after two members of her traveling team tested positive for coronavirus. Kamala Harris tested negative for coronavirus on Sunday and will resume campaigning on Monday. And later in the week, on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest Democratic political surrogate out there is hitting the campaign trail for Joe Biden. President Obama will campaign in Philadelphia, his first in- person campaign appearance as he's making that pitch for his former VP. Arlette Saenz, CNN, Durham, North Carolina.</s>CURNOW: Well, Americans aren't wasting time before the elections. Millions have already turned out for early voting. More than 27 million, in fact. That number represents almost 20 percent of the amount of votes in last -- in the last presidential election. Meanwhile, here in Georgia, there's a record turnout for in-person voting. Natasha Chen tells us why voters here are just so energized.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Over the weekend, we saw Georgians come out in droves to polling places. In some cases, waiting three or four hours to cast their ballots, especially in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb north of Atlanta, on Saturday. We saw people arriving hours before doors even opened. But they were undaunted by that. We saw people bringing their lawn chairs, their pets, their small children, their breakfasts, and they were determined to wait, however long it would take to cast their ballots in person. On Sunday, we saw the wait times get a lot shorter. Some people were not even aware that Sunday voting was available to them. So in many cases, they were able to vote within just a few minutes. In both cases across the two days, we spoke to voters who said that it was critical for them to make sure their ballot was cast this time around. They said they were motivated by issues such as the response to the coronavirus pandemic and divisiveness in this country.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is such an important election. There is so much at stake, and in today's society right now, with so much racial divide going on. We need candidates who's going to be -- who will be sensitive to that. And the person who gets elected needs to be held accountable for everything</s>CHEN: The Georgia secretary of state's office said that, compared to this point in the early voting process in 2016, the total voter turnout has increased by more than 150 percent. That's including both in-person early voting, as well as absentee ballots. Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta, Georgia.</s>CURNOW: Tara Setmayer is the former Republican congressional communications director. She's also the host of "Honestly Speaking with Tara." Great to have you on the show. Lovely to see you.</s>TARA SETMAYER, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Thank you.</s>CURNOW: So it's two -- it's two weeks to go. These candidates are crisscrossing the country, as presidential candidates do. But what do their itineraries tell you?</s>SETMAYER: Well, it's clear that the president of the United States is worried about several states that he shouldn't be campaigning in at this point. Ruby-red areas that were Republican strongholds at one point, like Georgia, and Texas. The president is -- and Republicans, are paying attention to that. The president was in Georgia recently, which has been ruby-red for a very long time. But demographic shifts have turned Georgia potentially purple. The fact that he actually was sending surrogates into places like Nebraska, or you know, Arizona and Nevada, Wisconsin. These are places that the president won last time, that he is in trouble of losing this time. The margin was razor-thin, in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. And he's focusing on Pennsylvania, but he's -- you know, in areas like Wisconsin and Michigan, the lead is pretty significant for Joe Biden, where the Trump campaign has pulled their ads on television to repurpose that money elsewhere. Because they also are running low on cash at this point in the election, which is never a good sign.</s>CURNOW: Yes, I want to talk about that in a moment. But I do want to talk about the issue, the crisis of COVID. And it seems to be a question of what color is the sky in your world? Because one candidate is ignoring the pandemic, and the other one is focusing on it. I mean, it just is like pink, or blue, or green? I mean, what are the voters -- where are voters on the issue of corona? Is it going to change their minds?</s>SETMAYER: I think we've already seen that. Prior to the COVID crisis, the president was in a very good position to win reelection. The economy was doing well, and people often vote with their pocketbooks. But once coronavirus hit, that was a real -- a real true test of leadership. And the American people have seen the abject failure of Donald Trump's governing and end of his administrations. We have 220,000 dead Americans. We have over a million infections. We lead the world in these areas, and we shouldn't. And it's directly related to the president's refusal to face the facts that coronavirus was, in fact, deadly, and do what he needed to do to protect the American people. He weaponized mask wearing. He's turned it into an us-versus-them, blue states versus red states. We've seen his rhetoric create and embolden some of these domestic terrorist, right-wing groups, who were recently arrested, threatening a governor in Michigan because of her stance to protect the people of Michigan by locking down during coronavirus. And all of these things are having a direct impact on the American electorate and, I believe, the coronavirus failure by Donald Trump and his cavalier attitude toward it will be the ultimate demise of his candidacy.</s>CURNOW: That's interesting. But let's also remember, it's still two weeks to go, and at this time four years ago, I mean, many people still just assumed Hillary Clinton had it in the bag. The Trump administration -- the Trump then-campaign was criticized for going and campaigning in certain areas. Afterwards, it looked like they had very good data, and they were targeting the right areas. So how -- how much faith do you put in the polls? How much of a path to victory do you think he still has? And do you think fund-raising, not polls, is perhaps the key to identifying where we're going?</s>SETMAYER: So I'll start with the fund-raising first. Joe Biden, three months in a row, has raised money in record amounts. Almost $360 million in August and September. And then $382 million most recently. Those are incredible numbers. Donald Trump is not raising money anywhere near at that rate. They had a billion dollars and squandered most of it. So they have about $200 million they're working with, which is not a lot in the last final weeks. So the fund-raising issue is, definitely, advantage Biden. As far as the polling, 2016 is very different than 2020, because Joe Biden is not Hillary Clinton. They are completely different candidates. And where Hillary Clinton had a real difficult time connecting with voters, even their own Democrat coalition, Joe Biden doesn't have that problem. He is -- his life, his legacy, is one of compassion and empathy and the ability to connect with people through loss. And what a perfect time for someone like Joe Biden to be in the forefront and to become the leader of the country and, possibly, heal this nation. So the contrast couldn't be any more stark. And as far as polling is concerned, even -- the pollsters were wrong, on state levels, in 2016. But not nationally. They were actually pretty close. But we all know, the national poll doesn't -- the national polls don't matter, because we don't have a national vote. But the pollsters changed a lot of the mistakes that they made in 2016. And even if all of the fundamentals were the same, and they didn't change anything, Biden is leading significantly enough in some of these areas that it's above the margin of error in places like Pennsylvania and Michigan. Both states that Donald Trump won with razor-thin margins, and where he's losing considerably now. So Biden is in a much better position, but his campaign will never admit that, and they will continue to tell people it's closer than it appears, so that there's -- complacency doesn't set in, because a landslide victory is really what they need. Because if it's close, no one quite knows how Donald Trump will handle that, and possibly, throw everything into chaos moving forward, even if he loses.</s>CURNOW: How jumpy is the Republican Party? Particularly because this party, and its members, have supported him, or stayed silent? And how much of a cohesion is there two weeks before this election?</s>SETMAYER: Well, I spent over 20 years in Republican politics, and I can tell you that the Republicans are in full-on five-alarm fire. It is a 911-er. They see the writing on the wall. They see the suburban areas in this country, where Donald Trump is hemorrhaging voters, particularly with women. Joe Biden is beating Donald Trump by 23 points with women. He's tied 48-48 with men. And the trend lines in 2018, where Republicans lost control of the House, those trend lines are continuing in suburban areas. When Donald Trump is losing by 7 points to Joe Biden in an area like Nebraska, 2nd District, which is the Omaha suburb, that is indicative of how -- how poorly Trump is doing in other places like Dallas, in Texas, Charlotte in North Carolina. And Republican senators who are running for reelection, like John Cornyn in Texas, and in North Carolina, Ben Sasse in Nebraska, they see what -- that Donald Trump is an albatross. And they've already begun to start to warn about a bloodbath electorally. And you know, people seem to find religion when they're electoral fortunes are on the line. And that's what you're probably going to see more of as Donald Trump loses.</s>CURNOW: Tara Setmayer, thanks so much, joining me a little bit earlier. Thanks Tara. So coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, new restrictions are in place as coronavirus cases soar in Italy. A report from Naples after the break. And the mayor of Manchester pushes back against Boris Johnson over Britain's COVID's alert system. He says the city will not bow to the pandemic or to the U.K.'s response to it. That story, as well, coming up.

Manchester Refuses to Raise Alert Level to Top Tier; Italy Tightens Restrictions as COVID-19 Cases Surge

CURNOW: So the U.S. is averaging more than 55,000 new cases of coronavirus a day, putting it in the midst of what experts call the dreaded autumn surge. Well, nearly 220,000 Americans have died from the virus since the pandemic began, and a leading epidemiologist says the worst is still to come.</s>MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASE RESEARCH AND POLICY: We do have vaccines and therapeutics coming down the pike. But when you actually look at the time period for that, the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic.</s>CURNOW: So he predicts the U.S. could see upwards of 75,000 infections a day between now and the new year. And meantime, the top infectious disease expert specialist says the vaccine development is really on a good track. Many Americans are still concerned the approval process could be politicized. CBS News asked if the Food and Drug Administration's approval will be enough.</s>LAPOOK: If the FDA says it's OK to take the vaccine, are you going to take it?</s>FAUCI: I'm going to look at the data upon which the FDA makes that decision. I trust the permanent professionals in the FDA. The director, the commissioner of the FDA has been very public that he will not let politics interfere. We have an advisory committee to the FDA who are made up of independent people who I trust. Put all those things together, if the final outcome is that the FDA approves it, I will take it.</s>CURNOW: So coronavirus -- coronavirus cases continue to also spike in Europe, as well. And some leaders are at odds with the public or with each other about how to slow the spread. So I want to take a look at Europe's current situation. Take a look at this map. As you can see here, there are very few nations that are in good shape. The U.K., Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Czech Republic are among countries in Europe that have recorded their highest ever confirmed COVID infections this month. France is also dealing with a staggering COVID rebound. Hundreds of police officers were on the streets in Paris and several other cities late on Saturday night. They were actually enforcing the nation's new 9 p.m. curfew. The country is trying this tactic for at least a month to slow the virus. And Switzerland is also tightening its COVID-19 restrictions. Masks will now be mandated indoors in places like shops, restaurants, post offices and banks. They will be required in schools and childcare facilities, as well. The country has seen a spike in infections over the past few days with a total of over 74,000 confirmed cases, 14,000 of which occurred just in the past week. And leaders in Manchester, England, are refusing to raise their coronavirus level to "very high," which is the top tier of the bridge alert system. The mayor argues the system is flawed and government aid is nowhere near sufficient to do it any good. Salma Abdelaziz has more from Manchester.</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The mayor of greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, took to the Sunday talk shows to explain why he has refused to raise the COVID alert level of this city to very high, the top tier. That would come with tougher new restrictions that would shut down bars, pubs, potentially gyms, and ban any households from mixing together. The mayor's argument is essentially one of risks versus reward. He said that, under these tier 3 restrictions, the risk to affected businesses is too high in exchange for too little reward in terms of actually bringing the infection rate down. That is why the mayor has argued for a nationwide lockdown instead. That would be more effective, he says, bringing down infection rates. And it would come with a larger financial package to help support businesses survive this second hit. Now, we did see Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet minister, Michael Gove, on the Sunday talk shows, as well. He gave a resounding no to any calls for a nationwide lockdown. Mayor Andy Burnham has said, short of a U.K.-wide shutdown, he wants to negotiate a better deal for the city. He's called for 80 percent of wages, for anyone affected to be paid by the government under these Tier 3 restrictions. Now, both sides, the leader of Greater Manchester and Downing Street say they want to negotiate, say they want to reach a deal. So far, though, no talks are scheduled. They have been stalled since Thursday. I did speak to a local politician who told me he expects that talks could resume on Monday. He told me in the past, they've only gotten a 20-minute heads-up before talks with Downing Street. Salma Abdelaziz, CNN, Manchester.</s>CURNOW: Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte is tightening coronavirus restrictions there as cases reach a record day -- a daily record for the fifth straight day. We know that restaurants are limiting table service, and mayors are allowed to impose curfews. Ben Wedeman visited Naples to see just how that city is managing the surge -- Ben.</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Italy is well into the second wave of coronavirus. Though it's not immediately apparent in Naples, the capital of the Campania region which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. Infectious disease specialist Alessandro Perrella says it's not just about the numbers.</s>ALESSANDRO PERRELLA, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: We have an increasing number of positive people. Positive. Not an increasing number of patients. It's very different.</s>WEDEMAN: What's different is the testing. Earlier this year, only those showing COVID-like symptoms were tested. Now everyone can do it. The majority of people who prove positive are asymptomatic, isolating until recovery. The number of people in intensive care now approximately a fifth of what it was before. (on camera): Day after day Italy is reporting record increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. But at the same time, Italy is testing like never before at this hospital here in Naples. Seven days a week, at least 1,000 tests are conducted quickly and for free. (voice-over): Five times as many tests are being conducted now than at the height of the first wave in March. The once unwieldy process now routine. "How long was the wait? Half an hour," says Abramo (ph). "When will you receive the result?" I ask. "The whole family did it. Tomorrow morning, we'll get a message with the results by phone," he says. There's no air of panic, but there is concern. "We're not worried," says Valentina. "What worries us is not being able to work." The number of new cases is erupting in Italy, and the peak of this wave is far off. Better prepared this time, Italy is still bracing for a long, hard winter. Ben Wedeman, CNN, Naples.</s>CURNOW: Thanks, Ben, for that. So Israel is easing some of its restrictions with cases there continuing to fall. We know that businesses that don't require close contact with customers are now allowed to open, along with national parks, beaches, and schools for younger children. Also, people will now be allowed to travel more than a kilometer from their home. And the Al Aqsa Mosque compound also reopened with people allowed to worship as long as they're socially distant. Meanwhile, the Palestinian's chief negotiator, Saab Erekat, was rushed to Jerusalem -- to a Jerusalem hospital on Sunday with a worsening case of COVID. Erekat was -- is 65 and considered high risk because of a lung transplant three years ago. The hospital says he needed oxygen when he arrived, and he's in a serious but stable condition. And across, France thousands of people have been rallying in support of free speech and educators after the beheading of a French teacher. Some demonstrators held signs reading no to Islamization. Others displayed the front page of "Charlie Hebdo," the satirical magazine targeted by extremists for pushing -- for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad. The victims of Friday's attack had used those same images of the prophet in his class on freedom of expression. An 18-year-old refugee from Chechnya claimed responsibility for the brutal murder and was killed by police on Friday. And a convicted murderer who helped stop a terror attack on London Bridge last year will likely have his sentence reduced. That's thanks to a pardon of sorts from the queen. Steven Gallant famously used a narwal tusk to gallantly confront the Islamist attacker who fatally stabbed two people. Viral video of the incident shows Gallant stabbing him with the tusk before police shot him dead. Gallant was on leave from prison to attend an event on prisoners' education when the attack took place. Queen Elizabeth granted him a rarely used prerogative of mercy to get him considered for early parole. And coming up on CNN, the world's second largest economy is bouncing back. We'll look at China's recovery.

China's Economy Grows 4.9% in Third Quarter; People Turning to Shipping Containers as Living Spaces

CURNOW: Welcome back to our viewers all around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow. You're watching CNN. So China's economy is steadily recovering from the turmoil caused by the pandemic. Its gross domestic product grew 4.9 percent in the third quarter on the year. Now, that was slightly lower than analysts had forecast. But take a look also at the markets. Asian markets mostly in the green. So Selina Wang is in Hong Kong with details on all of this. So what is the major takeaway from these GDP numbers we're seeing from China. It's pretty impressive, considering where they've been and where everyone else is.</s>SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Robyn. These numbers really just reinforce a contrast between what China is dealing with and the rest of the world. While the rest of the world is suffering the worst crisis since the Great Depression, China's economy is actually growing. In fact, it's the only large country expected to post growth this year. It was, as you said, the first country to go under a strict lockdown, but it's also been early to reopen, get its economy back and running, and get life back to normal. That third quarter GDP growth of 4.9 percent, while it is less than what economists had expected, it is a reminder here that, until a country gets the virus under control, it cannot successfully and sustainably reopen its economy. There are no shortcuts here. And China's strategy of mass testing, contact tracing, as well as selective restrictions, has really worked so far. And we -- we look at the breakdown of those numbers. We see consumption growing, as well, bouncing back to more than three percent in September. We saw that bounce back in growth reflected in China's recent mass travel holiday, the Golden Week holiday, when more than half a billion people in China were traveling and spending money. However, Robyn, those consumption numbers are still significantly lower than last year. And another risk factor to China's growth here is those unemployment numbers. We know that millions of people in China lost their jobs amid the pandemic. People working in factories and restaurants, delivery people. And we don't know how many people have actually gotten their jobs back. China's unemployment stats show that unemployment is starting to decrease. But China's data only captures part of the workforce. So, given the immense pressure that is still on the unemployed, as well as the fact that you have pressures on people's incomes, it is not clear how sustainable this recovery is going to be. There have been concerns among economists I've been speaking to that China is relying too much on state-led infrastructure to boost its economy, rather than consumption.</s>CURNOW: Now, that's interesting. So then what do risks such as the tensions between the U.S. and China pose to this recovery. I mean, how much are they looking outwards, as well?</s>WANG: Well, over the long term, decoupling U.S.-China tensions are certainly one of the biggest risk factors to China's economy. But in the short term, during COVID-19, interestingly, China's role in the global supply chain has actually become even more important. That's because they've managed to keep the pandemic under control and keep their factories up and running. In fact, I spoke to an economist at Oxford Economics, who made the point that American multinationals in this environment are still willing to engage with China. And actually, U.S. foreign direct investment actually increased during the first half of the year into China. But of course, over the long term, if we see trade tensions continue to escalate, that will pose a challenge to China's continued growth in exports. In addition to tensions, you have the fact that until the rest of the world can get the pandemic under control and get their consumption and demand back to where it was before, there will continue to be pressure on China's exports to the rest of the world, as well.</s>CURNOW: OK. Thanks for that update there, live from Hong Kong. Selina Wang. So U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she and the treasury secretary have agreed on a coronavirus stimulus plan within 48 hours, if it's going to pass before election day. Last week, the White House proposed a $1.8 trillion plan, but Pelosi said it didn't offer enough worker protections, aid to state and local governments, and help to renters. She said the White House also watered down language on a national plan for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.</s>REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): We're saying to them we have to freeze the design on some of these things. Are we going with it or not? And what is the language? I'm optimistic, because again, we've been back and forth on all of this.</s>CURNOW: So as the standoff continues in Washington, millions of Americans we know are suffering. The economic fallout from COVID has California's homeless crisis at critical, critical levels as Paul Vercammen now shows us how some people -- some people are managing to stay off the streets. Take a look.</s>PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Robyn, John Kilgore, in his early sixties with five children, was couch surfing, floor surfing. They were staying anywhere they could. They needed to get off the streets. The people concerned in Fly-Away Homes teamed up to provide housing in a shipping container, and the family when they moved in? Ecstatic.</s>JOHN KILGORE, LIVES IN SHIPPING CONTAINERS: We came in, and you know, and then with it being furnished and everything, we had everything we needed in there already. All we had to do was bring what little clothes we had. And when we walked in there and their face lit up, and they was full of smiles and cheering. And they were just so happy that -- you know what I'm saying? Which made me happy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where I live.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And you like it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I like it.</s>VERCAMMEN: The Kilgores' home has a kitchen, a family room, a bathroom. We're seeing several of these projects now in the pipeline. There's an on-site manager, a social worker who helps these formerly homeless people navigate through transportation, paying the rent, dealing with things such as taxes and other health issues. We'll wait and see if this becomes a trend in southern California, but for now it's chipping away at the larger homeless problem. Back to you now, Robyn.</s>CURNOW: Thanks so much, Paul, for that. Really appreciate it. Fascinating stuff. Also, so, so sad. We'll keep in touch with Paul on that. So no matter what happens in this election, and whoa, is it an election, a top strategist says President Trump won't give up on a second term. The details on that ahead.</s>RITA BLAIR, CHANGED PARTY AFFILIATION: Changed my registration from Democrat to Republican.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Why?</s>BLAIR: From what I've seen in the last past couple of years, I'm afraid to say I was a Democrat.</s>CURNOW: Trump supporters in the critical state of Pennsylvania sound off with polls showing the president could be in trouble there.

Battle for Votes in Trump Stronghold in Pennsylvania; Bolton: Trump Has 'The Attention Span of a Fruit Fly'.

CURNOW: Welcome back. I'm Robyn Curnow. Twenty-two soldiers are missing after a landslide caused by heavy rain swept through a military camp in Vietnam. The flooding there has killed at least 20 people this month, with more than 12,000 evacuated from their homes. And President Trump's former chief strategist says the world won't hear the last of Mr. Trump if he loses the upcoming election. In an interview with "The Australian," Steve Bannon said, "I'll make this prediction right now: if for any reason the election is stolen from, or in some sort of way Joe Biden is declared the winner, Trump will announce he's going to run for reelection in 2024. You're not going to see the end of Donald Trump." So now, after the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania, President Trump won it four years ago, but recent polls put Joe Biden in the lead. Dana Bash visits a Trump stronghold which Democrats believe could now be in play.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A line forms outside well before opening, waiting to enter the Trump House.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're ready for the next group. Come on in.</s>BASH: A mecca of sorts for the president's supporters in southwest Pennsylvania, where Trump's record turnout four years ago helped deliver his surprise Pennsylvania victory and the White House.</s>LESLIE ROSSI, RUNS TRUMP HOUSE: Shirt or hat per person. You get a sign or a flag.</s>BASH: Leslie Rossi created the Trump House in 2016, where she pushed disaffected Democrats and never-before voters to choose Trump.</s>ROSSI: We gave people a place to come to to believe they could win. Hi. Welcome to the Trump House.</s>BASH: Now, Trump supporters show up daily for swag and yard signs and help registering to vote.</s>SCOTT HARRER, TRUMP SUPPORTER: We need Trump in there again. I'm 65. I think it's time to register.</s>BASH (on camera): Had you not -- have you not voted ever?</s>HARRER: No.</s>BASH (voice-over): Rural Westmoreland County has seen a surge in Republican registrations. They help with that here, too.</s>BLAIR: Changed my registration from Democrat to Republican.</s>BASH (on camera): Why?</s>BLAIR: From what I've seen in the last, past couple of years, I'm ashamed to say I was a Democrat.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a great honor to have you here in Latrobe.</s>BASH (voice-over): Joe Biden is ahead in Pennsylvania polls. Yet his campaign motto is every vote matters. Campaigning here in Westmoreland County this month, which Hillary Clinton did not in the 2016 general election. (on camera): Not an area Democrats come and campaign very often, but you're here. Why?</s>JILL BIDEN, FORMER SECOND LADY OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm here because, like I said, we are not taking any vote for granted.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They've seen the last four years of the president --</s>BASH (voice-over): Gina Cerilli is county commissioner in Westmoreland, Pa. Ten years ago she was Miss Pennsylvania in Donald Trump's "Miss USA" pageant. Now she's an elected Democrat working to blunt Trump's advantage here.</s>CERILLI: In 2016, Donald Trump was a fresh face. He was new to politics. Everyone was excited. He made big promises. Bring back jobs. But frankly, Donald Trump broke those promises.</s>BASH: In small-town Pennsylvania, signs matter. Trump's are everywhere, big and bold. But Biden's are out there, too.</s>CERILLI: When you see signs like this, it makes the Republicans and the Democrats that voted for Trump in 2016 realize, I'm not alone.</s>BASH: A big Biden challenge: his supporters are being COVID careful.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Never did we think we would be meeting by Zoom.</s>BASH: Phyllis Friend, head of Democratic Women of Westmoreland County, organizes from home. She's clear-eyed about the Democrats' goal here in Trump country.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We can't win Pennsylvania for him, but we can add to the total numbers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, David. This is Joe. I'm a volunteer for the Trump campaign. How are you doing?</s>BASH: As for Republicans, they never stopped traditional ways of getting out the vote: knocking on doors, walking in neighborhoods in masks, and using a GOP data-driven app to find and persuade voters.</s>BRITTNEY ROBINSON, RUNS PENNSYLVANIA RNC OPERATION: Depending on who that voter is, we're able to tailor that message at the door and on the phone to how we think we need to target that voter and bring them out.</s>BASH: Given the president's struggles in the suburbs, boosting the vote here is critical for Trump. (on camera): How important is it for him to get his numbers even higher than it was four years ago?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do think that we need to increase our voter turnout here for the president to offset some of what may be happening in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.</s>BASH (voice-over): Back at the Trump House, Leslie Rossi shows us the log of visits from thousands of Trump supporters. (on camera): What are you seeing this year?</s>ROSSI: My numbers have tripled. Tripled. Four years ago, my work was really hard here. I had to convince the voters to vote for the candidate. I had to convince them President Trump was the best choice for them. This time, I don't have to do any of that. They're all in.</s>BASH (voice-over): Whether enough are all in could determine whether Trump can overcome the headwinds he faces to win Pennsylvania and a second term. Dana Bash, CNN, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.</s>CURNOW: Well, thanks for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Robyn Curnow. I will be back in 15 minutes' time with more news. But for now, I'm going to hand you over to WORLD SPORT. Enjoy.

Joe Biden Trying to Flip States Trump Won; Experts Say that the United States is in Midst of Dreaded Autumn Surge

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN Newsroom. And I'm rosemary church. Just ahead, a wild weekend of campaigning. President Donald Trump looks toward the election packing swing state rallies with mostly mask-less supporters. This as coronavirus cases rise across the United States. Plus, Europe works to fight its second wave of COVID-19 but some leaders are pushing back on more lockdowns and restrictions. And we hear from Russia's opposition leader on surviving a poison attack. What he has to say to the U.S. president about it. We will have a live report from Moscow on that. Good to have you with us. Well, the U.S. enters the homestretch of the presidential election campaign amid spiraling coronavirus cases, hospitalizations and deaths. And this, as experts say, the predicted cold weather surge is here. Nevertheless, President Donald Trump spent the weekend holding rallies in key states, some of which are also COVID hotspots. On the heels of his Wisconsin appearance, the same day the state posted a record number of new daily cases, Mr. Trump went to Nevada. And that state just posted its biggest one-day jump in new infections since mid-August. Look at how tightly people are packed together at this Carson City rally. Some people are wearing masks but not Mr. Trump. He's not wearing a mask at this Las Vegas church appearance either nor the White House officials with him. The country's top infectious doctor thinks the president's refusal to mask up is a bad image.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He hasn't worn masks consistently.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's pushed back against that. You said.</s>ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: See, I think that's less than an anti-science than it's more a statement.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What kind of a statement?</s>FAUCI: You know, a statement of strength, like we're stronger we don't need -- we need a mask that kind of thing.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that --</s>FAUCI: Sometimes equates wearing a mask with weakness.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does that make sense to you?</s>FAUCI: No, it doesn't. Of course not.</s>CHURCH: But the mixed messaging doesn't stop there. Twitter removed the tweet from White House Coronavirus Task Force adviser Scott Atlas for spreading misinformation. The tweet read masks work? No. Twitter said the message puts lives at risk. The U.S. health secretary was asked about the contradictory messages. Take a listen.</s>ALEX AZAR, SECRETARY, UNITED STATES HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: We have it in our individual control ticket to be reconnected to education, to worship, to work, to healthcare and also to our people and civic like, Chuck. Wear a face covering when you can't be socially distant, Chuck.</s>CHUCK TODD, HOST, MSNBC: So why has that message so difficult for the president?</s>AZAR: I think it's a difficult message for all western democracies. We're seeing that in Europe. People are tired, the American people have given so much.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is in the middle of a very busy campaign schedule, a campaign schedule that's actually picked up since he was diagnosed with the coronavirus pandemic. The president just in the past few days traveling to key states, including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and he ended the weekend with a trip here to Carson City, Nevada. It was at that event in Nevada that he talked about his response to the coronavirus pandemic and actually ridiculed some of the scientists who've been giving his him advice when it relates to the virus. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: If I listen just totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression instead of we're like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers. And that's despite the fact that we have like five or six of these Democrats keeping their states close because they're trying to hurt us on November 3rd. But the numbers are so good anyway. They'd be even better.</s>NOBLES: And this toward campaign pace is expected to continue. The president expected to make stops next week in Pennsylvania, and in North Carolina, and of course, he'll travel to Nashville on Thursday for the final debate of the 2020 campaign. Ryan Nobles, CNN, Carson City, Nevada.</s>CHURCH: Also, out on the trail Democratic candidate Joe Biden who is running a very different style of campaign than President Trump in style and substance. Arlette Saenz tells us what Biden has been saying and where he is going next.</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN POLITICAL REPORTER: Joe Biden traveled here to Durham, North Carolina as in person early voting is underway in the state. The former vice holding a socially distant drive-in style rally as he encourages his supporters to make a plan to vote in the final weeks of this election. Now Joe Biden once again hammered away at the president for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, as he believes this is a central issue in these final weeks before the election. And Joe Biden also talked about how the country needs to overcome division and, now he is a president who will look out for all Americans. Take a listen.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Folks, as my coach used to say in college, it's, go time. I'm running as a proud Democrat, but I will govern as an American president.</s>BIDEN: No red states, no blue states, just the United States. I promise you. I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who did.</s>SAENZ: Now North Carolina is one of those states that President Trump won back in 2016 that Joe Biden is trying to flip in these final two weeks before the election. And on Monday, his running mate Kamala Harris is returning to the campaign trail. She will campaign in the state of Florida. This comes after her -- the campaign had suspended her travels for a few days after two members of her traveling team tested positive for coronavirus. Kamala Harris tested negative for coronavirus on Sunday and will resume campaigning on Monday. And later in the week on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest Democratic political surrogate out there is hitting the campaign trail for Joe Biden, President Obama will campaign in Philadelphia, his first in person campaign appearances as he's making that pitch for his former V.P. Arlette Saenz, CNN, Durham, North Carolina.</s>CHURCH: Joining me now is Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, she is the chief clinical officer at Providence Health System. Thank you for being with us and for all that you do, doctor.</s>AMY COMPTON-PHILLIPS, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: Thank you so much for having me, Rosemary</s>CHURCH: So, the U.S. is now averaging more than 55,000 COVID-19 cases a day, with masks the major weapon we all have to fight this virus, yet we are seeing the doctor now advising President Trump, Scott Atlas tweeting that masks don't work. Twitter took his tweet down because of the risks of false content leading to harm, but this reveals a lot about the president's thinking, doesn't it? What do you say about those who questioned the science behind masks?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: So, my advice would be to stick with the science and the science is really vetted by the experts at the CDC. Something we've seen with this pandemic and one of the reasons why we have concerns about the national leadership around the pandemic is that we need to let science speaks and not take one person's opinion and amplify that. And that's what's happened. The mixed messaging, you know, the CDC saying one thing, which is where the expertise lies and then I belief for some reason, I still don't understand it that counter what the science says of being promoted by another arm of the government really is incredibly complicated for people to tease their way through believe the CDC masks work.</s>CHURCH: Yes, absolutely. It's confusing people though nonetheless. And of course, the irony is that if President Trump asked his supporters to wear masks, they would do just that and those actions could very well increase his chances of reelection, but he refuses to do it for whatever reason. What impact would a national mask mandate have on the United States if he calls from one right now?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, you know, it would have to slow down the spread of the virus. Because what masks do is they inhibit the person wearing it from spreading the germ to other people and they also ensure that if do you get the virus you get a lower viral load because if you breathe in, you get a less severe, likely a less severe bout of the disease, because you inhale less viral particles. And because of that, it slows the spread and it makes the condition less bad in people who get it. And so, I would believe that if we were able to have everybody wear a mask, we could within a span of a couple of weeks, really get our level of infection much, much better than where it is today. It's the easy way for us to help getting control of this pandemic.</s>CHURCH: And I love how you explained that because really by wearing the mask, if you do it but a less severe case that's almost like getting the vaccination, isn't it?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, it might not be like getting the vaccination, you know, we would prefer people not to get the disease at all, so don't wear a mask and try to inhale the virus, right? But, so better to not to get the germ at all, but if you are going to get the germ, better to a lower viral load when you do breathe in through the mask.</s>CHURCH: Right. And we are currently witnessing the autumn surge in cases that experts had warn us about, and yet we are seeing more reckless behavior at these Trump rallies. No masks or no social distancing. And Dr. Fauci said Sunday night on 60 Minutes that this is exactly why the president's COVID diagnosis came as no surprise to him. How concerned are you when you watch these rallies and how might they impact where the current surge in cases is going?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: I am very concerned, Rosemary. I mean, this kind of behavior and it's so unnecessary. It's easy to wear a mask. It's not that hard. We do it in hospitals, we do it in medical clinics all day long every day. It really is not that hard, it's such a simple solution, all it would take is the president and all the leadership in government to be aligned on saying wear a mask, go protect yourself. We would save countless lives. So, I am disheartened when that's not the message that comes across.</s>CHURCH: And Dr. Fauci also says that he intends to take a COVID-19 vaccine once it's approved, and of course if there is sufficient medical data to support that. How important is it that he gets that message out?</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Well, it's really important that he gets that message out and that the rest of the scientific community and the physicians and the doctors and the nurses get that vaccine in the same way that we do flu vaccines, right? That virtually every person working in the clinical space gets a flu vaccine, so we aren't the vectors that spread the flu onto others, since we take care of people with flu. Right? So Dr. Fauci needs to do that not only to inspire others but so does every doctor and nurse in the nation, once it's proven safe and effective so that we can make sure where we can speak not only with our heads but with our hearts that we've done it ourselves and that we're here to protect the public and see if we can do it, so can you. So, we really need to do the change that we want to see.</s>CHURCH: Such important messages there. Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, always a pleasure to talk with you. Many thanks.</s>COMPTON-PHILLIPS: Thank you so much.</s>CHURCH: And still ahead, tracking coronavirus around the world. We will take you live to Manchester, England, a city taking a stand against tougher restrictions. That's just one location where CNN is covering the pandemic and while some countries struggle with the surge, other see calls for hope. Do stay with us. We're back in just a moment.

COVID-19 on its Second Wave; Greater Manchester Complain of Tough Restrictions; Czechs Tired of Wearing Masks

CHURCH: Well now to the latest on the spread of the coronavirus worldwide. Malaysia announced a new record high in daily cases on Sunday. That's the country's highest since the outbreak began. In Europe surge in case numbers are proving hard to control. Later today, Ireland will become the latest country to announce tough new measures. Italy's prime minister introduce tighter rules on Sunday, they include limits on restaurant service and a ban on local festivals. In England, newly leaked documents show the Manchester area is close to running out of ICU capacity. This revelation comes as the local government keeps resisting tough new restrictions. And in France, authorities announced nearly 30,000 new cases on Sunday. Most major French cities are now under a nightly curfew. And CNN's Salma Abdelaziz is covering this story from Manchester, England and CNN's Melissa Bell is live for us in Paris. Good to see both. So, Salma, let's start with you. Tensions rising among local leaders in the midst of new COVID restrictions. What's the latest on this, particularly with this revelation of ICU capacity reaching its highs?</s>SALMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN PRODUCER: Well, Rosemary, we finally have a breakthrough after days of a standoff between Greater Manchester's authorities and that of Downing Street. We now have heard that the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, did have constructive talks with a member of Prime Minister Boris Johnson's government on Sunday. We've also heard from the housing secretary that a greater financial package will be offered to Manchester to help it deal with the second blow. Now it just kind of go through this debate because it's been going on for so many days. Essentially, the mayor of Greater Manchester has argued that this is a risk versus reward calculation for the city. He says that under these limited regional restrictions, the risk to local businesses is too high in exchange for the reward in terms of how much he would be able to bring the infection rates down. That's why he called for a nationwide lockdown. Now the government's answers, answer to a call for a nationwide lockdown has been resounding no. So short of that the mayor is essentially trying to negotiate a better financial deal for his city. He's called for an 80 percent furlough scheme. That means that 80 percent of people who are affected, or rather, 80 percent of wages for those who were affected would be paid for by the government. We are expecting talks to resume today and potentially a settlement to be reached. But all of this is important to remember, but in all of this it's important to remember, Manchester is just one city. Imagine having to negotiate these regional restrictions town by town, city by city. That's the challenge here, Rosemary.</s>CHURCH: Yes. And so many others as well. Thanks for that. And Melissa, let's go to you now. France is seeing record COVID cases across the country despite a curfew being in place and more of those to come of course. So, what's the latest on this?</s>MELISSA BELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's right, Rosemary. It's now been four days of daily rises above 25,000 new cases. And of course, that is way above what the French president had said the system can sustain. He wants to get those back between three and 5,000. And what Salma was just talking about is very much the kind of conversation that's been happening in France. Ever since the French government decided to devolve regionally the responses to COVID and it's meant that a lot of mayors, a lot of local authorities have pushed back over these sorts of restrictions that have been brought in. Not least these curfews from 9 p.m. until 6 a.m. in Stanford (Inaudible) including here in Paris, you have to be at home and everything is shut be on 9 p.m. or you can face a fine if you go out, you don't have a document explaining why you're out and why you're out as exceptional and necessary. But what it means for the restaurant sector that had so successfully pushed back on one attempt to have them close just a few weeks ago and some of those maximum alert places like here in Paris. They are going to suffer from this as well. From 9 p.m., it means that for a lot of them it's going to be huge losses to their businesses. And that was really something that they fought back against. But it is, of course, just as Salma was just saying in Manchester, in the end all about the system, the healthcare system's ability to cope here in Paris where at 48.8 percent of ICU beds taken out by COVID-19 patients. If you take Guadeloupe, a French overseas territory in the Caribbean which is also one of those maximum alert areas and has been for some weeks, practically all of the ICU beds now just shy of all of them are taken up by COVID-19 patients. And of course, that is what has to stop. Still, these curfews have now been in place since Friday night at midnight. It's going to take some time for them to show some kind of effect on the rises in daily numbers. And in the meantime, those record rises that we've seen several of these last few days will of course, in the next couple of weeks, have an effect on the ICUs. And all eyes are very much on what's going to happen there.</s>CHURCH: Absolutely. Melissa Bell and Salma Abdelaziz, thank you both for joining us and bringing us up to date on the situations. I appreciate it. Well there were scenes of anger in the Czech capital on Sunday as thousands of people protested new coronavirus restrictions. The large crowd gathered in Prague's old town square. The demonstration started peacefully but there were some clashes with police. Protesters were frustrated over restrictions including the closures of bars and restaurants. The Czech Republic has seen a surge of new cases, making it one of Europe's hardest hit countries. And CNN's Scott McLean is tracking the situation for us in the Czech Republic. He is live in Berlin at this hour. Good to see you, Scott. And so, it has to be said, the Czech Republic initially showed the whole world how to beat this pandemic by wearing masks. But then they stop doing it and now they are paying the price. What happened?</s>SCOTT MCLEAN, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: It's a great question, Rosemary. You know, the Czech Republic may have been too good at controlling the first wave of the virus for their own good. Czechs never saw a mass casualties, they never saw overflowing hospitals, and so in the spring the virus didn't really seem all that harmful. Only now are people there realizing that well, they may have underestimated it. The Czech Republic now has per capita about three times new cases than the U.K. And four times more than even the United States.</s>MCLEAN: In this Prague ICU the sickest coronavirus patients are treated by staff in full hazmat suits. Some are hooked up to ventilators, others placed face down. For now, there is still a bed for everyone.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE (on-screen text): We have other back up beds prepared in other departments in case the capacity exceeds our current possibilities.</s>MCLEAN: The government is also building a temporary field hospital it expects to need in just weeks. The Czech Republic has more new cases per million people than any other major country on earth. This is technically the second wave of infection. The first was barely a blip on the radar after the government moved quickly to close borders and implement the lockdown. Just like many other countries. What set the Czech Republic apart?</s>PETR LUDWIG, DATA SCIENTIST: We were the first country in Europe with the mandate for masks from the government.</s>MCLEAN: In mid-March, months before the WHO was recommending masks, Czech data scientist, Petr Ludwig, read the scientific evidence supporting masks and made this video to explain why he was convinced they were the answer.</s>LUDWIG (on-screen text): More importantly, masks protect you from spreading COVID-19.</s>MCLEAN: The video went viral and a few days later, the populist Czech Prime Minister, Andrej Babis, made masks mandatory everywhere outside the home. With medical masks still scarce, Czechs started sowing. The mask mandate was unpopular but wildly effective. By late June Prague threw a party to mark the end of the pandemic. Dr. Roman Prymula is the newly appointed health minister. Do you think you maybe did a victory lap a little bit too soon?</s>ROMAN PRYMULA, CZECH HEALTH MINISTER: That's true because we had many experts, and those were not epidemiologists, not virologists but they were arguing that, OK, the disease is there but it's very mild. So, they tried to push politicians just to skip out of strict countermeasures.</s>MCLEAN: With almost no restrictions the number of cases started to slowly bounce back in late summer. The top government epidemiologists called on the prime minister to reinstate the mask mandate. Why do you think the prime minister said no?</s>LUDWIG: I think it was because we had an election. After the election they started to push some harder rules again but it was much too late because we already had an exponential growth.</s>MCLEAN: The government close schools and bars but the same strict mask rule so effective in the spring still hasn't been fully reinstated. You don't think a mandatory mask mandate would have prevented you being in the situation that you are in right now?</s>PRYMULA: I think just now we have a mandate for protective masks but indoor. There is discussion if to introduce it outdoor as well. But it's not only wearing a mask, it's an issue of other countermeasures, and particularly social contact. This is the reason why the situation is still not under control.</s>LUDWIG: I think that one of the main causes is really populism. During the first wave they were convinced that people want masks, so they pushed masks. Now they are convinced that people don't want to wear a mask, so they are against it.</s>MCLEAN: And one Czech scientist that I spoke to said that despite the success of that mandatory mask mandate, Czechs really hate wearing them. They don't have the same kind of mask wearing culture that some Asian countries do. And as you mentioned at that protest in Prague this weekend, a lot of people turned out but there is no social distancing and few masks in sight. And with the hospitals nearing their capacities, the Czech medical chamber and now also the Czech health minister they are calling on Czech doctors abroad to come back to the country to help deal with the growing number of patients. Rosemary?</s>CHURCH: It is a concern. And of course, people may hate wearing masks but they worked. We see it. The scientific evidence. Scott McLean, many thanks for bringing us up to date on that situation. I appreciate it. Well, as COVID-19 cases rise in the United States, President Donald Trump is on a campaign blitz but without a mask. More on that, next. Plus, a glimmer of hope. How China's economy is bouncing back from the worldwide pandemic. We'll explain.

President Trump Defy Health Protocols; More Than 27 Million Ballots Cast in Early Voting; Pelosi Sets 48-Hour Deadline to Approve Stimulus Deal Before the Election; China's Economy Grows 4.9 Percent in Third Quarter

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Here in the United States, COVID-19 case counts are trending upward as the country heads into what health experts called the dreaded autumn surge. Right now, the U.S. is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day and nearly 220,000 Americans have died from the virus since the pandemic began. Only Missouri and Vermont recorded a more than 10 percent improvement in the average number of reported cases over the past week. Cases in Connecticut and Florida, on the other hand, increased by 50 percent or more. Despite the rise in cases, Dr. Anthony Fauci isn't advocating for a lockdown just yet.</s>ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: They'd have to get really, really bad. First of all, the country is fatigued with restrictions. So we want to use public health measures not to get in the way of opening the economy, but to being a safe gateway to opening the economy. So instead of having an opposition, open up the economy, get jobs back, or shut down. No. Put "shut down" away and say, we're gonna use public health measures to help us safely get to where we want to go.</s>CHURCH: But those measures Dr. Fauci speaking of haven't been followed by President Trump. In the last week, Mr. Trump attended rallies across multiple states with little mask wearing and social distancing, and it seems his administration is once again giving out mixed signals.</s>ALEX AZAR, U.S. SECRETARY OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES: The president is leading the overall whole of government response and he's making all of us, as public health leaders, available to help educate the public. But what matters right now is the message that we're trying to get across, which is cases are increasing.</s>CHURCH: Well, Americans aren't wasting any time before the election. Millions have already turned out for early voting, more than 27 million, in fact. That number represents almost 20 percent of the amount of votes in the last presidential election. Here in Georgia, there is a record turnout in person voting. Natasha Chen tells us why voters here are so energized.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Over the weekend, we saw Georgians come out in droves to polling places, in some cases waiting three or four hours to cast their ballots, especially in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb north of Atlanta, on Saturday. We saw people arriving hours before doors even open. But they were undaunted by that. We saw people bringing their lounge chairs, their pets, their small children, their breakfasts, and they were determined to wait however long it would take to cast their ballots in person. On Sunday, we saw the wait times get a lot shorter. Some people were not even aware that Sunday voting was available to them. So, in many cases, they were able to vote within just a few minutes. In both cases across the two days, we spoke to voters who said that it was critical for them to make sure their ballot was cast this time around. They said they were motivated by issues such as the response to the coronavirus pandemic and divisiveness in this country.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is such an important election. There is so much at stake in today's society right now with so much racial divide going on. We need candidate who is going to be -- who will be sensitive to that. And the person who gets elected needs to be held accountable for everything.</s>CHEN: The Georgia secretary of state's office said that compared to this point in the early voting process in 2016, the total voter turnout has increased by more than 150 percent. That's including both in-person early voting as well as absentee ballots. Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta, Georgia.</s>CHURCH: And now to the critical battleground state of Pennsylvania. President Trump won it four years ago but recent polls put Joe Biden in the lead. Dana Bash visits a Trump's stronghold which Democrats believe could now be in play.</s>DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A line forms outside well before opening, waiting to enter the Trump house.</s>BASH (voice-over): A mecca of sorts for the president's supporters in Southwest Pennsylvania, where Trump's record turnout four years ago helped deliver his surprise Pennsylvania victory and the White House.</s>BASH (voice-over): Leslie Rossi created the Trump house in 2016, where she pushed disaffected Democrats and never before voters to choose Trump.</s>ROSSI: We give people a place to come to believe they could win.</s>BASH (voice-over): Now, Trump supporters show up daily for swag and yard signs, and help registering to vote.</s>SCOTT HARRER, TRUMP SUPPORTER: We need Trump in there again. I'm 65. I think it's time to register.</s>BASH: Have you not voted ever?</s>HARRER: No.</s>BASH (voice-over): Rural Westmoreland County seen a surge in republican registrations. They help with that here, too.</s>RITA BLAIR, CHANGED PARTY AFFILIATION FROM DEMOCRAT TO REPUBLICAN: Changed my registration from Democrat to a Republican.</s>BASH: Why?</s>BLAIR: From what I've seen in the last couple of years, I'm ashamed to say I was a Democrat.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It's a great honor to have you here.</s>BASH (voice-over): Joe Biden is ahead in Pennsylvania polls. Yet his campaign motto is every vote matters, campaigning here in Westmoreland County this month, which Hillary Clinton did not in the 2016 general election. It is not an area Democrats come and campaign very often, but you're here. Why?</s>JILL BIDEN, WIFE OF DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE JOE BIDEN: I am here because, like I said, we are not taking any vote for granted.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: They have seen the past four years of the presidency --</s>BASH (voice-over): Gina Cerilli is county commissioner of Westmoreland, PA. Ten years ago, she was Miss Pennsylvania in Donald Trump's Miss USA pageant. Now, she's an elected Democrat working to blunt Trump's advantage here.</s>GINA CERILLI, WESTMORELAND COUNTY COMMISIONER: In 2016, Donald Trump was a fresh face. He was new to politics. Everyone was excited. He made big promises. Bring back jobs. But frankly, Donald Trump broke those promises.</s>BASH (voice-over): In small town Pennsylvania, signs matter. Trumps are everywhere, big and bold, but Bidens are out there, too.</s>CERILLI: When you see signs like this, it makes the Republicans and the Democrats who voted for Trump in 2016 realize I'm not alone.</s>BASH (voice-over): A big Biden challenge, his supporters are being COVID careful.</s>BASH (voice-over): Phyllis Friend (ph), head of Democratic Women of Westmoreland County, organizes from home. She's clear eyed about the Democrats goal here in Trump country.</s>PHYLLIS FRIEND, HEAD OF DEMOCRATIC WOMEN OF WESTMORELAND COUNTY: We can't win Pennsylvania for him but we can add to the total numbers.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hey, David. This is</s>BASH (voice-over): As for Republicans, they never stop traditional ways of getting out the vote.</s>BASH (voice-over): Knocking on doors, walking in neighborhoods in masks, and using a GOP data-driven app to find and persuade voters.</s>BRITTNEY ROBINSON, RUNS PENNSYLVANIA RNC OPERATION: Depending on who that voter is, we are able to tailor that message at the door and on the phone to how we think we need to target that voter and turn them out.</s>BASH (voice-over): Given the president's struggles in the suburbs, boosting the vote here is critical for Trump. How important is it for him to get his numbers even higher than it was four years ago?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I do think that we need to increase our voter turnout here for the president to offset some of what might be happening in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.</s>BASH (voice-over): Back at the Trump house, Leslie Rossi shows us the log of visit from thousands of Trump supporters. What do you think this year?</s>ROSSI: Oh, my numbers have tripled, tripled. Four years ago, my work was really hard here. I had to convince the voters to vote for the candidate. I had to convince them President Trump was the best voice for the. This time, I don't have to do any of that. They're all in.</s>BASH (voice-over): Whether enough or all in could determine whether Trump can overcome the headwinds he faces to win Pennsylvania and the second term. Dana Bash, CNN, Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania.</s>CHURCH: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she and the treasury secretary have to agree on a coronavirus stimulus plan within 48 hours if it's going to pass before Election Day. Last week, the White House proposed a 1.8 trillion-dollar plan. But Pelosi said it didn't offer enough worker protections, aid to state and local governments, and help for renters. She said the White House also watered down language on a national plan for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing. But she remains optimistic a plan will pass.</s>NANCY PELOSI, SPEAKER OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We're saying that we have to freeze the design on some of these things. Are we going with it or not and what is the language? I'm optimistic because, again, we have been back and forth in all of this.</s>CHURCH: And while struggling Americans wait for a stimulus deal, a federal judge on Sunday struck down a Trump administration rule that could have stripped food stamps from nearly 700,000 people in the midst of a pandemic. Nineteen states, the city of New York and the District of Columbia, have sued to block the rule change. It was expected to say five and a half billion dollars over five years. Well, meantime, China's economy is steadily recovering from the pandemic lockdowns. Gross domestic product grew 4.9 percent in the third quarter year on year. That was slightly lower than analysts had forecast. Markets across Asia responded positively to the news.</s>CHURCH: As you see there, Japan's Nikkei is up more one percent and Hong Kong's Hang Seng is up at nearly -- has gone to 0.68 percent. So, CNN's Selina Wang joins us now from Hong Kong to talk more about this. So Selina, what is the major takeaway from China's GDP numbers and what role might be deteriorating relationship with the U.S. have on this recovery?</s>SELINA WANG, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Rosemary, the numbers point to a very different picture between the rest of the world and China. While the global economy is dealing with the worst crisis since the great depression, China's economy grew 4.9 percent in the third quarter. Yes, that is lower than what analysts had expected, but it is still substantial growth. It is really a reminder here that until a country gets a pandemic under control, it is impossible for that economy to recover and hang on to that recovery. There are no shortcuts here. And so far, China's process of the lockdowns, mass testing, contact tracing has worked. We are seeing this pick up, as well in consumption, which grew three percent in September, and it was evident in terms of China's mass trouble (ph) holiday when more than half a billion people in China were traveling and spending inside the country. Now, of course, there is always skepticism about the accuracy of China's official reported numbers, but the economists I speak to say that based on outside sources and cases that they're looking at, directionally, the story of China's rebound is significant. Now, like other countries, though, China's recovery is uneven and it has disproportionately affected China's poor population. China still has high unemployment though the official numbers show that it is getting slightly lower. But the data the China reports doesn't capture the full picture. It's unclear how many of those millions of people who lost their jobs during the thick of the pandemic have now gotten those jobs back. Now, Rosemary, when it comes to those U.S.-China tensions, interestingly here, even though there's talks about decoupling because China has managed to handle the pandemic and reopen its factories, economists say that China's role in the global supply chain is important as ever.</s>CHURCH: Right. Of course, the big difference you see in China, aggressive testing and people wearing masks. It's going to be hard to see that happen here in the United States. Selina Wang, many thanks for joining us live from Hong Kong. Well, coming up, Israel is easing COVID restrictions as cases continue to fall. We'll go live to Jerusalem after the short break. Stay with us.

Israel is Easing COVID Restrictions and Senior Official Saeb Erekat in Israel Hospital with COVID

CHURCH: Israel is easing some of its coronavirus restrictions with cases there continuing to fall. Businesses that don't require close contact with customers are allowed to open, along with national parks, beaches, and schools for younger children. Meanwhile, the Palestinian chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, was rushed to a Jerusalem hospital on Sunday with a worsening case of COVID-19. Our Oren Liebermann joins us now live from Jerusalem to bring us up- to-date on the situation. So Oren, what more are you learning about Saeb Erekat's condition this hour?</s>OREN LIEBERMANN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Robyn, Hadassah Medical Center where he is being treated in Jerusalem said his condition has deteriorated this morning and he is in critical condition. He is on a ventilator and is under general anaesthesia at the moment. He came into the hospital yesterday, taken from his home in Jericho in the West Bank, where he was in serious but stable condition and remained in that condition overnight. But again, the hospital said this morning, his condition deteriorated, and he is now in critical condition. He is ventilated and is under general anaesthesia. He was diagnosed about a week and a half ago, according to his office at the PLO's Negotiations Affairs Department, and all along here has been a high-risk case because of a lung transplant he underwent in 2017 in the United States. So these are of course critical hours for Saeb Erekat as he remains in critical condition at a hospital in Jerusalem. Robyn?</s>CHURCH: Yeah, absolutely. It's actually Rosemary, Oren. So, Israel is now easing restrictions. But is there any concern that that move could be premature as we've seen so many other times across the globe?</s>LIEBERMANN: Rosemary, I apologize for the confusion there, and yes, there certainly is concern here. If you compare when Israel came out of its first lockdown to when Israel is coming out of this lockdown, the numbers are dramatically different. It was less than a death a day on average after the first lockdown. New cases were in the teens at that point or under about 20 or 30. The numbers are simply much higher at this point. The deaths per day are still in double digits, although low double digits. There are hundreds, if not more than a thousand cases a day. According to ministry of health data, there were 892 cases yesterday, and the infection rate, though relatively low in mid to low single digits, is still much higher than it was when Israel came out of its first lockdown. We know how that went. Within a few weeks, the numbers started rising rapidly again and Israel had to return to a second general lockdown. So what happens now when the numbers are already higher than when it came out of the first lockdown? Well, we will see. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said it would be better this time and coming out of lockdown will be slower. Will it work? We will certainly know that answer in a few weeks. Rosemary?</s>CHURCH: Oren Liebermann is joining us live from Jerusalem. Many thanks. Leading Kremlin critic is speaking out about his horrific poisoning. Just ahead, we will find out how Alexei Navalny thinks President Trump should get involved. We will explain.

Democratic Joe Biden Holds Socially Distanced Rally Sunday; Trump Holds Rally in Nevada as Cases Surge Across State; Fauci Says He Was Not Surprised Trump Caught Coronavirus; Voters in Georgia Wait in Long Lines to Cast Early Ballots; New Video Shows Suspects Allegedly Discussed Killing Michigan Governor; Pelosi: Need Deal in 48 House to Pass Before Election

ROSEMARY CHURCH, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, and welcome to our viewers joining us here in the United States and all around the world. You are watching CNN NEWSROOM, and I'm Rosemary Church. Just ahead, a tale of two campaigns. U.S. President Donald Trump and Joe Biden hold vastly different events as the pandemic rages on in the United States. Also, ahead, record numbers of Americans are casting their ballots early. We will get a check on the state of the race. And as global COVID cases inch closer to yet another grim milestone, we're live in Europe where cases are at an all-time high. As the U.S. enters the predicted cold weather surge of coronavirus cases, the presidential candidates are in the final sprint to election day. At Democrat Joe Biden's event in Durham, North Carolina, there were masks and plenty of space. Not so for team Trump. This was the scene at the President's reelection rally in Nevada on Sunday. The state just reported its biggest one-day jump in new infections in weeks. All across the country, case counts, hospitalizations, and deaths are all headed up. Even so, Dr. Anthony Fauci does not expect a national lockdown.</s>DR. JONATHAN LAPOOK, CBS CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: How bad would things have to get for you to advocate a national lock down?</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: They'd have to get really, really bad. First of all, the country is fatigued with restrictions, so we want to use public health measures not to get in the way of opening the economy, but to being a safe gateway to opening the economy.</s>CHURCH: And CNN's Ryan Nobles is traveling with the Trump campaign. He has the latest from Carson City.</s>RYAN NOBLES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: President Trump is in the middle of a very busy campaign schedule, a campaign schedule that's actually picking up since he was diagnosed with the coronavirus pandemic. The president, just in the past few day, traveling to key states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, and he ended the weekend with a trip here to Carson City, Nevada. And it was at that event in Nevada that he talked about his response to the coronavirus pandemic and actually ridiculed some of the scientists who have been giving him advice when it relates to the virus. Take a listen.</s>DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If I listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression, instead of we're like a rocket ship. Take a look at the numbers. And that's despite the fact that we have, like, five or six of these Democrats keeping their states closed, because they're trying to hurt us on November 3. But the numbers are so good anyway. They'd be even better.</s>NOBLES: And this torrid campaign pace is expected to continue, the President expected to make stops next week in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina. And of course, he'll travel to Nashville on Thursday for the final debate of the 2020 campaign. Ryan Nobles, CNN, Carson City, Nevada.</s>CHURCH: And rallies like the ones you just saw there are part of the reason Dr. Anthony Fauci was not surprised the President contracted COVID-19. In an interview with 60 minutes, Dr. Fauci also cited the Rose Garden event in late September that sickened so many other people.</s>LAPOOK: Were you surprised that President Trump got sick?</s>FAUCI: Absolutely not. I was worried that he was going to get sick when I saw him in a completely precarious situation of crowded, no separation between people, and almost nobody wearing a mask. When I saw that on TV, I said, oh, my goodness. Nothing good can come out of that. That's got to be a problem. And then, sure enough, it turned out to be a super-spreader event.</s>CHURCH: And Democratic candidate Joe Biden is running a very different style of campaign than President Trump, in style and substance. Arlette Saenz tells us what Biden has been saying and where he's going next.</s>ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Joe Biden traveled here to Durham, North Carolina, as in-person early voting is underway in the state. The former vice president holding a socially distant drive-in-style rally, as he encouraged his supporters to make a plan to vote in the final weeks of this election. Now, Joe Biden, once again, hammered away at the President for his response to the coronavirus pandemic, as he believes this is a central issue in these final weeks before the election. And Joe Biden also talked about how the country needs to overcome division and how he is a president who will look out for all Americans. Take a listen.</s>JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Folks, as my coach used to say in college, it's go time. I'm running as a proud Democrat. But I will govern as an American president. No red states, no blue states, just the United States. I promise you I'll work as hard for those who don't support me as those who did.</s>SAENZ: Now, North Carolina is one of those states President Trump won back in 2016 that Joe Biden is trying to flip in these final two weeks before the election. And on Monday, his running mate Kamala Harris is returning to the campaign trail. She will campaign in the state of Florida. This comes after her -- the campaign had suspended her travel for a few days after two members of her traveling team tested positive for coronavirus. Kamala Harris tested negative for coronavirus on Sunday and will resume campaigning on Monday. And later in the week, on Wednesday, perhaps the biggest Democratic political surrogate out there is hitting the campaign trail for Joe Biden. President Obama will campaign in Philadelphia, his first in- person campaign appearance as he's making that pitch for his former VP. Arlette Saenz, CNN, Durham, North Carolina.</s>CHURCH: The final televised debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden happens on Thursday. But already millions of voters have made their decision at the ballot box. More than 27 million, in fact. That number represents almost 20 percent of the total number of votes cast four years ago, and here in Georgia, there is a record turnout for early, in-person voting. CNN's Natasha Chen tells us why voters here are so energized.</s>NATASHA CHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Over the weekend, we saw Georgians come out in droves to polling places. In some cases, waiting three or four hours to cast their ballots, especially in Marietta, Georgia, a suburb north of Atlanta, on Saturday. We saw people arriving hours before doors even opened. But they were undaunted by that. We saw people bringing their lawn chairs, their pets, their small children, their breakfast, and they were determined to wait, however long it would take to cast their ballots in person. On Sunday, we saw the wait times get a lot shorter. Some people were not even aware that Sunday voting was available to them. So, in many cases, they were able to vote within just a few minutes. In both cases across the two days, we spoke to voters who said that it was critical for them to make sure their ballot was cast this time around. They said they were motivated by issues such as the response to the coronavirus pandemic and divisiveness in this country.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is such an important election. There is so much at stake, and in today's society right now, with so much racial divide going on. We need candidates who's going to be -- who will be sensitive to that. And the person who gets elected needs to be held accountable for everything</s>CHEN: The Georgia secretary of state's office said that compared to this point in the early voting process in 2016, the total voter turnout has increased by more than 150 percent. That's including both in-person early voting, as well as absentee ballots. Natasha Chen, CNN, Atlanta, Georgia.</s>CHURCH: President Trump took aim at Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer this weekend, less than two weeks after an alleged plot to kidnap her was revealed. At a rally in Michigan Saturday, he led the crowd in chants of lock her up.</s>CROWD CHANTS: Lock her up. Lock her up. Lock her up.</s>CHURCH: Whitmer herself responded Sunday. She accused Mr. Trump of encouraging domestic terrorism.</s>GOV. GRETCHEN WHITMER (D) MICHIGAN: You know, it's incredibly disturbing that the President of the United States ten days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me. Ten days after that was uncovered, the President is at it again, and inspiring and incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. It is wrong. It's got to end.</s>CHURCH: Meantime, chilling videos of the suspects accused in the plot to kidnap Whitmer have been released. In at least one of them, they can be seen conducting what appear to be training exercises. The videos are now part of the evidence being used against the suspects. Sara Sidner has details.</s>SARA SIDNER, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): You are looking at evidence that was played in federal court of the field training exercises federal prosecutors say were carried out in a plot to storm Michigan's capital and kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer. CNN affiliate WXMI obtained the video from the U.S. Attorney's office after the preliminary hearings for six men federally charged with conspiracy to kidnap a sitting governor. Several pieces of federal evidence were played in court. Including this video of suspect Brandon Caserta ranting about the government.</s>BRANDON CASERTA, SUSPECT: I'm sick of being robbed and enslaved by the state. Period. I'm sick of it. And these are the guys who are actually doing it. You know? So, if, you know, if we're doing a recon or something and we come up on some of them, dude, you better not give them a chance. You either tell them to go right now or else they're going to die, period. That's what it's going to be, dude, because they are the</s>SIDNER: The suspects' alleged deeds and words were shown to the federal judge so she could decide if there was enough evidence to go to a grand jury. In this video, the lead FBI agent acknowledged in testimony that defendant Adam Fox is inside a basement appearing to be speed reloading his weapon to, quote, minimize the time that your weapon is inoperable in case of a gunfight. Prosecutors say the video was taken inside this vacuum shop in Grand Rapids. (on camera): The owner of this vacuum shop says Adam Fox lived here for the last couple of weeks. He says he lived behind this door and down into the basement.</s>BRIANT TITUS, STORE OWNER: -- basement where he stayed.</s>SIDNER: OK.</s>TITUS: And he was only going to stay there until November.</s>SIDNER: Why did you decide it was time for him to go?</s>TITUS: He was buying more like attachments for like an AR-15 and he was buying like food. And I'm not stupid. I was in the Marine Corps. So that I told him he had to go.</s>SIDNER (voice-over): Briant Titus says he had no idea what was going on in his business' basement after hours. The FBI testified this is inside another defendant's basement where you can see an arsenal of weapons in a gun locker, including an illegal short barrel rifle. Beyond the videos, the FBI says they also infiltrated encrypted chats and text chains laying out the plot. In one encrypted chat, the suspects allegedly used code names and discussed killing Governor Whitmer, not just kidnapping her. The FBI identified the codename "Beaker" as suspect Daniel Harris who writes, laying in bed, craziest idea, have one person go to her house, knock on the door and when she answers, just cap her. At this point, F it. Someone with the codename "Text" responds, LOL, only if it would be that easy. Beaker replies, I mean, F, catch her walking into a building and act like passersby and fixing dome her. Then yourself whoever does it. Why create a manhunt? Do it in broad daylight and then end it. Text replies, good point. Or recon the house and snipe her. The alleged plot was never carried out. The six men along with seven others were arrested in an October FBI raid. Six were charged federally. The rest charged by the state for acts of terror. (on camera): We are now learning an 8th suspect has been arrested in the state's case bringing the total number of people allegedly involved in this plot to 14. Now we heard that from one of the defendant's attorneys, federal suspect Ty Garbin's attorney told us, as soon as his client learned of this alleged plot, he disavowed and withdrew from it and he's innocent of all charges. Now it goes without saying that all of the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty. Back to you.</s>CHURCH: Sara Sidner, many thanks. Well, ahead on CNN, the coronavirus pandemic is forcing many people into homelessness. See how one California town has found a creative solution. Plus, U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a 48-hour deadline to reach a coronavirus stimulus deal. And a glimmer of hope, how China's economy is bouncing back from the worldwide pandemic. We'll explain.

U.S. Enters Election Home Stretch as COVID Numbers Rise; China's Economy Grows 4.9 Percent in Third Quarter.

CHURCH: Welcome back, everyone. Well, COVID-19 is making a housing crisis in parts of the U.S. even worse, and that is especially true in California. But CNN's Paul Vercammen shows us how some people are managing to stay off the streets.</s>PAUL VERCAMMEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: John Kilgore in his early sixties with five children, was couch surfing, floor surfing. They were staying anywhere they could. They needed to get off the streets. The people concerned in Fly-Away Homes teamed up to provide housing in a shipping container, and the family when they moved in, ecstatic.</s>JOHN KILGORE, LIVES IN SHIPPING CONTAINERS: We came in, and you know, and then with it being furnished and everything, we had everything we needed in there already. All we had to do was bring what little clothes we had. And when we walked in there and their face lit up, and they was full of smiles and cheering. And they were just so happy that -- you know what I'm saying? Which made me happy.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is where I live.</s>VERCAMMEN (on camera): And you like it?</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And I like it.</s>VERCAMMEN: The Kilgores' home has a kitchen, a family room, a bathroom. We're seeing several of these projects now in the pipeline. There's an on-site manager, a social worker who helps these formerly homeless people navigate through transportation, paying the rent, dealing with things such as taxes and other health issues. We'll wait and see if this becomes a trend in southern California, but for now it's chipping away at the larger homeless problem. Back to you now.</s>CHURCH: Absolutely. Thanks so much to CNN's Paul Vercammen with that report. As you saw, so many Americans struggling financially because of this pandemic. U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says a deal on a stimulus package needs to be struck within 48 hours to get aid out before election day. And CNN's Eleni Giokos joins us now from Johannesburg to talk more on this. Good to see you, Eleni. So, Pelosi says a deal needs to be struck within 48 hours. That doesn't mean it will happen. Of course, we've seen this, haven't we, despite so many Americans living in poverty due to this pandemic. So, can they get this done? What is the likely impact if they can't?</s>ELENI GIOKOS, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I mean, it's such a good question, and you and I have been talking about this for a few months now. And the stimulus plan actually came to an end. Many of those programs expired at the end of July, and here we are. We've got 48 hours and Nancy Pelosi saying she's feeling hopefully that they could find common ground basically by the end of close on Tuesday. This after a conversation with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Saturday. Now the big point of divergence still remains here, Rosemary, we're talking about the sheer size. So yes, Republicans want a smaller package. The Democrats are still pushing for over $2 trillion. Nancy Pelosi also interestingly said over the weekend that she was very disappointed that half of the language had either been changed or removed regarding testing and even, you know, any tracking or tracing with regards to COVID as well as assistance to minority communities. On the other end of the spectrum here, we keep hearing how important the stimulus package is, and if we don't see any kind of resolution now in 48 hours, the chances of getting this passed before elections and paid out before elections becomes very unlikely. This is why the markets came under pressure over the past few weeks. The probabilities are diminishing. Now if we wait until after the elections, the big question is here, is it going to be a Democratic win or a Republican win. And some of the analysts I've been talking to saying that if it is a Democratic win, then we're looking at a bigger stimulus package. But get this, President Donald Trump over the weekend said that he's looking for a larger stimulus package than what the Democrats have been talking about. This is the first time we have seen his side of the aisle finally talking about a far bigger number that ranges over $2 trillion. If that is the case, then common ground might be found and the problems that we had seen over the past few weeks will finally come to an end. Remember, millions of Americans are currently suffering, and we know there are many people that were relying on that enhanced unemployment as an example, with eviction protections. So, it's vital now, Rosemary, more than ever.</s>CHURCH: Yes, indeed, we'll keep an eye on this and see what happens. Eleni Giokos bring us the very latest on that. Appreciate it. Well, a number of countries are also dealing with the economic turmoil caused by the pandemic, including China. But new figures show it economy is now steadily recovering. With gross domestic product growing 4.9 percent in the third quarter year on year. CNN's Selina Wang joins us now from Hong Kong with more on this. Good to see you. So, while the rest of the world is struggling with COVID- 19, China is showing this recovery. What do these numbers reveal?</s>SELINA WANG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Rosemary, great to be with you. We've been talking about this divergent picture between China and the rest of the world for several months now as China continues to go back to normal life and reopen its economy. What these numbers show is that while the rest of the world is in the worst recession since the Great Depression, China's economy managed to grow 4.9 percent in the third quarter. What this reinforces, Rosemary, is that unless a country is able to get the virus under control, and that is the only way it can really sustainably reopen its economy. There is no shortcut here. And China's process so far of lock downs early, of mass testing, of contact tracing, has worked thus far. You compare that to in the U.S., which is expected to contract, more than 4 percent this year, the eurozone expected to shrink, for its economy to shrink, more than 8 percent this year. And China is the only major country expected to post growth this year. We are seeing this reflected in China's spending as well. People are opening their wallets again. We saw that over China's golden week holiday, with more than half a billion people were traveling and spending within the country. But there are some risk factors to this rebound as well, like other countries, China's economic rebound has been uneven. The poor and low income have been disproportionately affected by this pandemic. We know millions of people lost their jobs amid the pandemic and China's numbers do not give us clarity as to how many of those people have gotten their jobs back. In addition to that, you continue to see pressure on low income spending as well. And there are questions as to how sustainable China's economic rebound is if you still have these pressures on employment and spending. But something interesting to point out, Rosemary, is that despite all of these talks about U.S./China decoupling, the economists I speak to say that U.S. multinationals are still interested in engaging in China, and in fact, in the first half of this year, for direct investment from the U.S. to China actually increased.</s>CHURCH: All right. Selina Wang, bringing us up to date from Hong Kong, many thanks. Well, we are getting new details of a U.S. effort to secure the release of American prisoners believed held by the Syrian government. CNN has learned a top Trump administration official traveled to Damascus this fall to meet members of the Assad regime. One of the Americans believed to be held, Austin Tice, a journalist who went missing in Syria in 2012. Neither the State Department nor the families of those missing have responded to CNN's request for comment. And still ahead, struggling with a second wave as European countries face rising coronavirus cases. They're also facing some resistance over toughening restrictions. We're live in Paris, Berlin and Manchester, England next.

Manchester U.K. Rejects COVID Measures; Italy's COVID Numbers Rise, So Do Tests And Tracing; U.S. Averages 55,000 New Cases A Day; Czech Republican Sees Record Number of New Cases

ROBYN CURNOW, CNN ANCHOR: Hi. Welcome to all of our viewers all around the world. I'm Robyn Curnow live from CNN's world news headquarters here in Atlanta. So just ahead. With COVID spiking across Europe, some pushback in the U.K. Manchester's mayor is refusing to raise the city's alert level. Plus the top U.S. expert on the virus reveals his thoughts about President Trump's bout with the illness. And the Czech Republic's mask mandate was successful in fending off the virus at first, so why is the country now the hardest hit in Europe?</s>ANNOUNCER: Live from CNN Center, this is CNN NEWSROOM with Robyn Curnow.</s>CURNOW: We begin with our -- we begin our coverage with this daunting task facing European leaders as a staggering second wave of coronavirus hits the continent. So let's take a big picture look at what's happening on the continent right now. As you can see here there are very few nations in good shape. The U.K., Germany, Italy, Poland and the Czech Republic are among countries in Europe that just this month have recorded their highest ever cases. Now some European leaders are at odds with the public or at least each other about how to regain control of the virus. Leaders in Manchester, for example, are refusing to raise their coronavirus level to high alert which is the top tier of the British alert system. The mayor argues the system is flawed and the government is nowhere sufficient to do any good. So here's Selma Abdelaziz with more on that.</s>SELMA ABDELAZIZ, CNN REPORTER: The mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, took to the Sunday talk shows to explain why he has refused to raise the COVID alert level of this city to very high, the top tier. That would come with tougher new restrictions that would shut down pubs, bars, potentially gyms and ban any households from mixing together. The mayor's argument is essentially one of risk versus reward. He said that under these tier three restrictions the risk to affected businesses is too high in exchange for too little reward in terms of actually bringing the infection rates down. That's why the mayor has argued for a nationwide lockdown instead. That would be more effective, he says, at bringing down infection rates and it would come with a larger financial package to help support businesses survive this second hit. Now we did see Prime minister Boris Johnson's cabinet member, Michael Gove, on the Sunday talk shows as well. He gave a resounding "no" to any calls for a nationwide lockdown. Mayor Andy Burnham has said short of a U.K.-wide shutdown he wants to negotiate a better deal for the city. He's called for 80 percent of wages for anyone affected to be paid by the government under these tier three restrictions. Now both sides, the leadership of Greater Manchester and Downing Street, say they want to negotiate, say they want to reach a deal. So far, though, no talks are scheduled, they have been stalled since Thursday. I did speak to a local politician who told me he expects that talks could resume on Monday. He told me in the past they've only gotten a 20-minute heads up before talks with Downing Street. Selma Abdelaziz, CNN, Manchester.</s>CURNOW: Meantime, Italy is tightening coronavirus restrictions as cases reach a record there. So restaurants are limiting table service and mayors are allowed to impose curfews. As Ben Wedeman now reports from Naples.</s>UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: (Sings)</s>BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SNR. INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Italy is well into the second wave of coronavirus though it's not immediately apparent in Naples, the capital of the Campagna region, which has one of the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the country. Infectious disease specialist, Alessandro Perrella, says it's not just about the numbers.</s>ALESSANDRO PERRELLA, INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST: We have an increasing number of positive people. Positive. Not an increasing number of patients. It's very different.</s>WEDEMAN: What's different is the testing. Earlier this year only those showing COVID-like symptoms were tested, now everyone can do it. The majority of people who prove positive are asymptomatic, isolating until recovery. The number of people in intensive care now approximately a fifth of what it was before. Day after day, Italy is reporting record increases in the number of new coronavirus cases. But at the same time, Italy is testing like never before at this hospital here in Naples. Seven days a week, at least 1,000 tests are conducted quickly and for free. Five times as many tests are being conducted now than at the height of the first wave in March. A once unwieldy process now routine.</s>CURNOW: So Switzerland is tightening its COVID restrictions. Masks will now be mandated indoors in places like shops, restaurants, post offices and banks. They will also be required in schools and childcare facilities. The country has seen a spike in infections over the past few days with a total of over 74,000 confirmed cases, 14,000 of which occurred just in the past week. And Israel is easing some of its restrictions with cases there continuing to fall. Businesses that don't require close contact with customers are allowed to open. Along with national parks, schools for younger children and beaches. Also, people will now be allowed to travel more than a kilometer from their home. And the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound will be re-opened as well with people allowed to worship as long as they're socially distanced. Meanwhile, the Palestinian's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, was rushed to a Jerusalem hospital on Sunday with a worsening case of COVID. Erekat is 65 and considered high risk because of a lung transplant three years ago. Now the hospital says he needed oxygen when he arrived and is in a serious but stable condition. Meanwhile, the U.S. is averaging more than 55,000 new cases a day. Putting it at the midst of what experts call the dreaded autumn surge. Nearly 220,000 Americans have died from the virus since the pandemic began and a leading epidemiologist says the worst is still yet to come.</s>MICHAEL OSTERHOLM, DIRECTOR, CENTER OF INFECTIOUS RESEARCH & POLICY: We do have vaccines and therapeutics coming down the pike. But when you actually look at the time period for that, the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic.</s>CURNOW: He predicts the U.S. could see upwards of 75,000 infections a day between now and the year's end. Meantime, a top U.S. infectious diseases expert has said vaccine development is on a really good track. But Americans are still concerned the approval process could be politicized. "CBS NEWS" asked if the Food & Drug Administration's approval will be enough.</s>DR. JON LAPOOK, HOST, "CBS 60 MINUTES: " If the FDA says it's OK to take the vaccine, are you going to take it?</s>DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: I'm going to look at the data upon which the FDA makes that decision. I trust the permanent professionals in the FDA. The director, the commissioner of the FDA has been very public that he will not let politics interfere. We have an advisory committee to the FDA, we're made up of independent people who I trust. Put all those things together, if the final outcome is that the FDA approves it, I will take it.</s>CURNOW: U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she and the treasury secretary have to agree on a coronavirus stimulus plan within 48 hours if it's going to pass before election day. Last week the White House proposed a $1.8 trillion plan but Pelosi said it didn't offer enough worker protections, aid to state and local governments and help for renters. She said the White House also watered down language on a national plan for COVID-19 testing and contact tracing.</s>SEN. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: We're saying we have to freeze the design on some of these things. Are we going with it or not and what is the language? I'm optimistic because again we've been back and forth on all of this.</s>CURNOW: So still to come. It's a tale of two rallies. While Trump supporters stood shoulder to shoulder in Nevada, Biden backers cheered their candidate from their cars. We'll have the latest on their battleground blitz.