Im Steve Clemons and i have a question in a time when handshakes rallies fundraisers and door knocking have all been cancelled what happens to the American Election campaign this year lets get to the bottom line. But how fast things are changing around us heres how we started last weeks show across the u. S. So far about 5000 cases of coronavirus have been recorded today that number stands at closer 250000 still rising listen to where the u. S. President was just 3 and a half weeks ago we have the greatest the greatest tourism country in the world so instead of leaving our country leaving our shores of stay here and again when you have 15 people and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to 0. Thats a pretty good job with a well that age like milk so now that everything is turned upside down travel plans social Gathering School the way we shop and work and of course the economy wasnt it inevitable that election campaigning would have to change as well candidates on both sides have dropped all the. Additional methods while normal life is put on hold but how can you ask for donations when people are stuck at home and potentially unable to work should the candidates pretend to go on business as usual or is that just tone deaf and have we just ushered in the era of the digital dominated campaign fortunately were joined by people who i hope have the answers from washington d. C. Amy daisey former c. E. O. Of the Democratic National committee and currently the executive director of the scion institute of policy and politics at American University and adam goodman a republican media strategist and over in potomac maryland doug for now a democratic advisor and partner at s. K. Dk a political Strategy Firm so glad youre all with us today id like to just start with amy for a minute just ask you the question is is there something sort of tin ear that something off about campaigning while the nation is struggling as it is with coronavirus today how do you bridge that the fact that were in an election season but we also have one of the Biggest Challenges this nation has ever had i know they needed challenging you would think with 110000000 americans understand how mordor you have a captive audience that its challenging the bottom line is is easy you have this environment where we used to be talking about the primary election the general election and then news other news things you know would come but this is just everybodys focus whether its the health you know aspect to it the economic aspect to it i think the election kind of on behind that in campaigns are just conversations that go to us that this is one of the most challenging conversations ive seen candidates have to have in quite some time and i dont have to question if you were the mayor of milwaukee or charlotte today would you welcome a Party Convention to your city. Well i know is of course advocating not long ago. That we cancel all primaries until we get a handle on this 19 and are ready to really focus on other things again i think its. You know you have to give people hope a sense of something to look forward to at this question yesterday about the olympics should it cancel the olympics the now Start Talking about shifting that date we have to set milestones ahead of us i believe just to give us a sense of optimism something to look forward to that we can still you know imagine could happen with that said i think america should walk here very nervous right now the last thing the what they want to do is hold a convention which bears with it any degree of personal risk to those who attend well doug im going to put the responsibility on you then tell us how a Campaign Today say youre in advise in Bernie Sanders or advising joe biden or or you were to jump parties and advise President Trump what happens to the rallies what happens to handshakes what happens to the people standing behind the president on on on the stage or coronavirus hearings which weve been seeing lately what happens to all of that. Well steve its a great question 1st of all no more rallies no more rallies for the foreseeable future youre not going to have the typical canvassing that occurs for voter Contact People going door to door thats not going to happen i think what youre going to see is a lot of virtual town halls youll see tele town halls youll see candidates i know president bidens building a Television Studio in his house so he can do more interaction with folks from there i think theyre going to use their platforms and all 3 have millions of people who follow them hopefully they use them in a positive way to provide Accurate Information on what the Current Situation is so theres a sort of balancing between traditional campaigning but also doing a service to the people that follow you so that they are totally informed on whats happening and the services you know theres going to be a huge stimulus that get signed in the next day or 2 and a lot of people are going to need to understand how to access those funds i mean the 3 of you are very very significant in the scaffolding of the Political Parties that are out there playing different kinds of roles and it just asked are we going to stumble ahead into this or this are going to be some master plan or sort of a new negotiation between parties on how this happens you know im reminded today i put out todays topic out on facebook and i said lets crowdsource this lets ask her some questions from the public and i got some fascinating tidbits things i didnt realize were her had forgotten Pamela Stevens writes that Ronald Reagan because of the how cold it was in 1904 move the inaugural parade indoors i mean that was initially its different than a coronavirus pandemic but it shows that change can happen and im interested in how we get through this do we just stumble forward do we are experiencing experimenting like we all are with you know a Virtual Campaign tour doug what do you think about that yeah i mean amy and adam and myself have done countless numbers of campaigns and i dont think any of any of us have done. The thing like it in a situation like this so im not sure finding senior advisors to be you know the folks who are explaining how to do this i dont think anyone knows how to operate in this field right now and i think it is a little bit of sorting it out and figuring out and calibrating write your message in a proper way so that its not tone deaf so i think a lot of these campaigns whether president ial on down are going to have to be you know theyre theyre basically operating day by day amy yeah and i think its not you know replacing is it a are we emphasizing more one area because you know digital on line these these tactics that campaigns of us have been growing and growing over the last several cycles but its more that were not able to use some of the traditional things that weve done we might have to over emphasize some of these on line platforms how are we going to you know access and get to to voters where they are and especially having that conversation to persuade and help them understand each is doug said you know each of these individuals has a different platform in the president s having you know a press conference every day center standers a certainly you know involved in the senate in talking about you know what work hes doing right now and again you know Vice President biden set up this studio but i think the challenge is youre over emphasizing one tactic in your tool box where others youre not able to do because of the actual physicality of what were under you know with these health risks adam one of the questions that came in from Mike Demarest was how would a negative campaign ad play out so with so much more going to digital platforms its a really interesting question because we know that you know we always want to pretend earnestly that negative campaigning will not be part of the race and thats a dominating big you know some of the largest races and particularly President Trump has shown no aversion to that but how will negative campaigning play out or be felt by people from your perspective. Well it will be received very poorly right now what people want is a shot the arm not a shot across the top and i think the normal play books are all out the window let me go back also see if i can to the to the last question whats happened in american politics in the last couple years and i know that doug and amy would reinforce this the conversations become nationalized we saw that in a big way in 2016 with the now president night states that using a kind of a National Bully pulpit less focused on the utilization of as in the normal tools of the trade and more to going to wreck the to the public but the National Conversation right now which would have been damaged i think joe biden. Or Bernie Sanders or whoever the democratic nominee is going to be up against ultimately President Trump that National Conversation is no longer about politics and anyone who tries to inject politics into the conversation is kind of shut it down right now and one thing that amy just said about President Trump having Daily Press Conferences the best advertisement for the president or those press conferences the best assurance that he has a chance a good chance to win reelection is how he does with a crowd of virus can personally if he does not handle that night seen as deftly as people would prefer i think that well well were all adam i hear what youre saying but i want to play a clip for you of the president engaging a member of the press Peter Alexander of m s n b c attic rotavirus hearing and it raises the question of whether you know the president s eyeballs are on the virus and whats happening the country or the president is using this as if it the Campaign Rally with listen to the clip. Of the. Americans were scared i guess nearly 200 dead 14000 who were said millions as you witnessed who are scared right now what you say to americans who are watching you right now who are. I said that youre a terrible reporter thats what i say. President were just i think its a very nasty question and i think its a very bad signal that youre putting out to the American People the American People are looking for answers and theyre looking for hope and your doings insatiate alyssum and the same with n. B. C. And con cass i dont i dont put comcast i could contest so so adam just back to you very quickly that to me feels Like Campaign mode not Coronavirus Briefing mode is there a difference and should there be a difference. You know theres a difference and i think you have a valid point i think all of us agree that the president the president. But theres a bigger message i think that hes trying to convey and maybe its not been you know effectively done so to this point which is a lot of the press and media steve are really focused on gotcha you know theyre trying to find ways to poke holes in the president s of the Coronavirus Task force efforts right now to get up to complete speed from a standing start and anything they find thats inconsistent it doesnt quite add up theyre going after with reckless abandon i think that is bad for the media i think the role right now is to inform not to inflame and i think it actually plays to the advantage of the president hussein lets talk about what were doing what we what we need to do as opposed to what i said 13 days ago where i missed a particular word or a particular piece of information that i had to clarify and suddenly that is blowing up you know the internet i think this is where i have to pull together and that is glued before the stage well i should note that Donald Trumps poll numbers are going up despite these moments of flare ups so works but im going to ask amy to respond to something i have here was sent in by matt cora doni and it is from people to judge its a tweet from people to judge who is no longer in the race but hes done something a bit different and people to judge right here in south bend a local organization that trains people in sewing skills has retooled to produce masks and support area medical providers one more example of people figuring out how to make a difference and theyre looking for help and this addresses the question of to some degree of real social need out there you know the protective gear the masks the other equipment and asking folks to come together at the local level but its a politician who was one of the candidates for the democratic nod on this race that is doing that and amy im interested in whether. Thats a way to diminish that awkward feeling of campaigning during the era of the coronavirus yeah i think its really important for anybody who is trying to challenge the current leadership to say that theyre solution driven so that they have ideas or that they highlight ideas of things that people are doing that are coming together you see this a lot with governor homos you know Daily Press Conference as well as talking about the need talking about the challenge but also highlighting things that are happening in the community that can benefit people or how people can engage so you know i think youve also seen with Vice President biden hes tried to show what his leadership would look Like Solutions hes calling around certainly to the leaders are tackling these problems but that is a part of it is to try and show that empathy that compassion and that finding solutions for this i think thats one of the struggles that people are really looking for right now is how do we solve this when its changing every week i think a leader can really highlight that and lean into that light here but it did she did to to show that there are solutions out there in the communities and also nationally as we have said these are nationalized you know campaigns doug i dont know what you are up to a few years ago during the Hillary Clinton donald trump race but of course one of the hangovers or overs of that has been the place of political ads meddling in elections particularly digitally by foreign governments so it i dont know i dont they could be responsible to have this conversation without asking about these other 2 big elephants in the room you know russian style meddling again as more and more goes into the Digital Space and to the controversy over facebook and the kinds of political ads its running twitter i should note has suspended running political ads but is this just benefiting 2 of the players that have you know sort of have had dark clouds over their head id be interested in your thoughts on whether or not were ending up in the same court we were in 4 years ago. Well look i think thats a really good question you know i think you have to be on the lookout and hopefully our Intelligence Community is on the lookout for that type of meddling whether its from russia or north korea or if you have a lot of it and so they are im not sure i have confidence they are i have not had confidence that the administration has taken the whole issue of foreign meddling in our elections seriously at all. I think that you know look theres there is a opportunity for these campaigns at least in the short term to be positioned to position themselves as as sort of Constructive Forces for good and what i mean by that is you know i got an email from a member of congress that they sent out that that was it to that was addressed to Senior Citizens and it was about them being on the lookout for frauds and went and scam artists who were trying to take advantage of this moment. Of the covert 19 and it wasnt political it was them using their platform using their office and i think incumbents have an opportunity here to provide to be that source of information and they should use their Digital Channels they should use facebook these folks should be doing Facebook Live interview interviews with experts every day to get that type of information that American People are craving Information Transparency even if its bad news they can handle that they just want the truth. Adam id be interested in your reactions on that as well i saw you nodding and the question of whether these other platforms whether we need to have now more significant governance we have not invested at significant levels in protecting the elections and where they where they are and it raises interesting questions that i think you know senator Amy Klobuchar and others have been pushing about mail in ballots and moving to a different form of paper if you will as opposed to digital side but the folks that you work with on the republican side do they look at this is a serious concern. Well i think its a serious challenge for all of us right and a concern as well. And in terms of where were going to go let me address something that just kind of reference in terms of giving information. And not to be combative or competitive but i had a piece of advice unsolicited of course for joe biden who visit pace it sure does something completely unexpecte