Voting. Youre going to have a catastrophic situation. With universal mailin votes. He doesnt want an election. Our Convention Coverage starts this morning with senator Bernie Sanders, top Trump Campaign strategist jason miller. Nate silver. And insight and analysis from our powerhouse roundtable. Announcer from abc news, its this week. Here now, chief anchor george stephanopoulos. Good morning, and welcome to this week. Four years ago, on the eve of the democratic convention, we were in philadelphia as the delegates gathered. All set to broadcast from the Convention Hall as all networks have done since the dawn of the tv era. Not this year. The pandemic thats upended so much of our lives has essentially cancelled the convention, the delegates wont beeakers will be taking a virtual stage. Beaming in from all over the country. In an epic display of social distancing. One thing that wont change from four years ago, the kickoff speaker will be the runnerup of did nomination, Bernie Sanders. He joins us now. Thank you for joining us this morning. Youre in the same position you were in four years ago, runnerup to the candidate who wanted reform not revolution, but your party has been moving your way on many of the big issues. Will you declare victory tomorrow night . One of the points that ill make is that Progressive Movement has been making enormous progress, not only in electing candidates to congress and to state legislatures, but also electing candidates who running for district attorney, who are transforming justice. And also, george, as youve indicated on all of the ideas that we have been campaigning, the right to understanding that health care is a human right, the need to raise the minimum wage to at least 15 an hour, the understanding that Climate Change is an existential threat and that we can create millions of jobs transforming our energy system. You know what, weve made enormous progress in bringing the American People in our direction, especially the younger direction. Not quite all of your issues. Not medicare for all, several of your supporters areup set about that. Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib put out a tweet, shes voting against the platform for that reason and actually nominating you for president. Whats your message to them . My message is, were going to continue the fight for medicare for all. We have a Healthcare System today thats dysfunctional, too many are uninsured, too many people are underinsured. Too many people are going banks rupt because of insurance. Function of health care is to guarantee health care to all, not make our profits for the Drug Companies and the insurance companies, that fight continues the day after joe biden is elected president. Kamala harris endorsed medicare for all. Do you believe shes an ally in this fight for medicare for all . Well, i believe kamala is somebody whos incredibly smart, incredibly tough, and i would not like to be Vice President pence in a debate with her. I think shes an asset for the biden campaign. I think shell do great on the campaign trail. Not all of your supporters agree, including your former press secretary, put out a tweet saying, were in the midst of the largest protest movement in the american history, the subject of which is excessive policing, and the Democratic Party chose as a top cop, the author of. I would say that the overwhelming majority of progressives understand that its absolutely imperative that donald trump be defeated, that we have a president whos trying to undermine american democracy, a president whos turned his back on the working families of this country, a president who has done a horrible job in terms of the pandemic, does not believe in science, is not dealing with the existential threat of Climate Change. So, obviously, there may be disagreements. Lot of my supporters arent enthusiastic about joe biden. You know why . I ran against joe biden. But i think theres overwhelming understanding that donald trump must be defeated, biden must be elected. And that the day after hes elected well do everything we can to create a government that works for all of us and not 1 . Last night you called on the postmaster general louis dejoy to resign. Alt his press conference yesterday, the president defended dejoy and said, he pinned the blame, the funding problems on democrats, lets take a look. The democrats arent willing to provide other things and therefore theyre not going to get the funding for that. But you are going to have a catastrophic situation. With universal mailin votes and on top of it, the democrats arent willing to give people the money and the post office the money. Your response . Look, youve got a pathological liar in the white house, which is one of many reasons why he has to be defeated. Three months ago, the Democratic House of representatives passed a heroes bill which would fund the post office, make sure that workers in this country continue to get 600 supplement to their unemployment insurance, if theyre unemployed get at least 1200 and provide massive help to cities and states. To say that the democrats arent working on behalf of working people is another lie from donald trump. But theres a stalemate now in the talks theres not a stalemate. Theres not a stalemate. Democrats sat down, Mitch Mcconnell did not participate in the negotiations. You had donald trump any day could invite democrats and republicans to the white house, he didnt. Their job was to stymie and make sure there were no agreements because half of the republicans in the United States senate do not want to contribute another nickel to American Workers during this crisis. Thats the reality. Whoever is to blame its still a stalemate. Do you have to come back, cancel the recess right now and put more pressure on this issue on the president and his team . Well, number one, im deeply, deeply concerned about trumps effort to undermine american democracy by defunding the Postal Service, and thats not me talking, thats what donald trump said himself a few days ago. He said i dont want millions of people to be casting mailin ballots. Were in a pandemic now, mr. President , people shouldnt have to put their lives on the line to get sick, maybe die, in order to cast a vote. Of course, we need mailin ballots. Here in vermont, on tuesday, we had a primary, recordbreaking turnout. Most of the people voted by mailin ballots. It went perfectly well. What trump parentally believes a low turnout will work for him. He wants to discourage people from voting, from mailin ballots because he think its will work to his favor. Thats pathetic. Thats not what a president of the United States should be doing. So what do you do about it . I think nancy pelosi has a good idea, i think the house should come back and make sure that the u. S. Postal service is fully funded. We got to do everything we can to get rid of this new postmaster general, whos clearly a Campaign Contributor for President Trump trying to undermine the Postal Service and make it clear to the American People, whether youre a progressive, a moderate or a conservative, this goes beyond political ideological. This goes to the fact of whether or not were a democracy. Or well continue to have a president making it impossible for millions of people to vote. I hope the American People say, sorry, mr. President , people fought and day for american democracy, youre not going to destroy it. Lets get a response from the Trump Campaign. Were joined by seniored a viedzer, jason miller. Jason, thank you for joining us this morning. Before we get into the meat of the interview, we extend our condolences to President Trump and his family for the death of his younger Brother Robert last night. Thank you. Appreciate that very much. Its a very solemn here at trump headquarters. I know the president would very much appreciate those words, george. And do you have any idea i know the president was planning on campaigning every day this week, including going to wisconsin, will those plans have to be changed at this point . I havent spoken with the president at this morning. Well probably be putting some more information out there later this afternoon, possibly first day tomorrow morning. No changes at the moment. Lets talk about Bernie Sanders, right now, he said that the president was undermining democracy by defunding the Postal Service, how do you respond . I think, george, you hit the nail on the head, when you asked Bernie Sanders what was his plan to fix this, and he punted to nancy pelosi whos on vacation, the entire house has taken an august recess. Theyre not even here dealing with it. I think its a little disingenuous for the democrats to be making noise on this. Not in february, march, april, may, popping up now. I think whats really going on here is, theyre trying to change the rules and try to institute something that normally takes five, ten years to take place. The fact of the matter is, weve seen universal mailin voting has been a disaster and to rush this everyone remembers the hanging chads in florida in 2000, imagine that in ten, 15 states across the country. In fact, jason, the democrats did take action early in the spring. They passed an emergency funding bill for the Postal Service. Its not just the democrats raising concerns about this right now, mitt romney the nominee for the Republican Party in 2012 has responded to these claims of possible widespread voter fraud. Lets take a look. I dont know of any evidence that voting by mail would increase voter fraud. The good news is that, if there were some allegation of impropriety, get signatures matched with the voters. In fact, thats whats been happening in states where they have had elections. No, not at all. Mitt romney is wrong. Mitt romney was wrong in 2012 and blew the election to barack obama. Which we should have won. Mitt romney should take a look at patterson, new jersey, a quarter of the votes were thrown out. Take a look at Carolyn Maloney, is the winner of that. Look at nevada but let me stop right there, because when the votes are thrown out, that shows that the system are working, the votes that could have been fraudulent, get taken out. If indeed they dont meet the requirements. But to carry on for six weeks afterward, did Carolyn Maloney really win that race . Her opponent doesnt think so. You take a look at patterson, new jersey, a quarter of the vote george, even when your marketplace competitor, cbs did a test run, mailed out cards, a return rate, they had 3 . A state where you have 10,000 votes separating the two candidates like we did in wisconsin last time, youre going to throw a 3 error rate potentially into that. The fact of the matter is, it takes time. It takes upwards of five, ten years to safely and responsibly get this in place. Democrats are now trying to rush this through. And have wholesale changes in five, ten weeks. Even worse, george, take a look at nevada, a bill they passed in the dead of night where theyre trying to allow ballot harvesting, trying to allow people to send in applications after the election date, everyone should have one vote. Safe and secure in how thats done. You cant have ballots coming in up to a week later. This is like tip oneill back in the day holding up the vote until he gets enough votes to win. Thats the goal here for the democrats. In pennsylvania, your campaign has sued the state over the plans for mailin ballots, the judge ordered you to produce evidence that it leads to widespread voter fraud, did you turn that evidence in and what was it . Yes, so for the public examples that have been out there, earlier this year, it went to the mailin voting in philadelphia, you still had a number of people, a large number of people who voted in person in addition to doing the mailin, we also had the example of the philadelphia elections judge who indicted and sentenced earlier this year. Someone who had been scamming the polls earlier this year and making money off of it. What does that have to do with mailin voting . Additional aspects of fraud indicated that in the case. The president , the Vice President , many of his top advisers voted by mail all the time. Your campaign is also encouraging voters in states like North Carolina to vote by mail, doesnt that undercut the president s case . No, not at all. What the president is calling about universal vote by mail. To be clear on this, despite the avalanche of news coverage, this is where we literally have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of live ballots being sent out to people. Look, it could be going to someone who no longer lives at that location, dead people, where dogs and cats have received official communications from registrars, from secretaries of states, it takes a long time for states to put this together safely and securely, and to rush this through its a disaster. They could be doing it better if the president would agree to more funding for the Postal Service. Why arent they back in washington trying to come up with solution. This is all about politics. Respectively speaking i think the media is being taken for a ride by the Democratic Party. They dont want to talk about joe biden heading into the democratic convention. The fact that joe biden doesnt have anyone on the sunday shows talking about his candidacy is because its a complete disaster. 30 years ago, you had a great slogan, its the economy, stupid, one of the greatest in the alltime history. Bernie sanders and Kamala Harris are trying to say, hey, stupid, i want to raise your taxes. The wrong message to be sending coming out of this covid recovery. Right now, the National Polling has him up about eight points over President Trump right now. Actually were in a better place than we were four years ago. Going into, all the trend lines are looking positive. In the Battle Grounds either leading or margin of error. Weve seen a lot of progress. I like where we are in minnesota, michigan, definitely moving in the right direction. Id also point out that joe biden knows that he has real problems with his own base, that he has problems with his candidacy. Thats why hes running advertisements reaching out to africanamericans in the general election. Not something you normally see from democrats in a general election. He knows his base is weak. He had to pick a radical progressive like Kamala Harris to come on his ticket. We feel good about where things are going. The democrats will get a bump this week in the polls for sure, this is something historically democrats get a nice bump from the convention, i wouldnt be surprised if its upwards of eight to ten points, i think it will be a pretty sizable bump. This convention might play well in brooklyn, new york, not so much in brooklyn, iowa. With all the glitz and trimmings. What are you seeing that were not seeing, the polling has biden up in michigan, hes up in pennsylvania. Hes up in wisconsin. Hes up in minnesota where you just talked about as well. By two points. By two points in minnesota. Thats part of the reason well be back in minnesota tomorrow with the president. We think this is a state that we can flip. We lost by 45,000, 50,000 votes last goround. We think this is our crosshairs. The stage is shifting quite a bit. With the terrible leadership coming from the governor weve seen in the state. George, the media pollsters havent corrected their models since 2016. The same way they undercounted trump voters and missed so much nothing fundamentally has changed. Take a look go to the most recent Washington Post abc poll where you undercounted republicans by 27 . The exit polls from cnn and other folks had it at 36 democrat, 33 republican in 2016. And the most recent National Survey that we saw from abc and Washington Post only had 24 republican sampling. Theres no scenario where 27 of republicans have all republicans have all just magically gone pouf and disappeared. Were looking at models that were corrected in 2016, correct in 2020. We feel good about where we are. Finally, before we go, the president was asked yesterday whether he thinks Kamala Harris for the second time is eligible for running for president. Heres what he said. Will you say now that Kamala Harris is eligible to run and be Vice President or president based on being born in oakland, california . I have nothing to do with that. I read something about it. The lawyer happens to be the lawyer happens to be a brilliant lawyer. He wrote an article saying there could be a problem. Its not something that im going to pursuing. During the 2016 primaries, the president raised similar questions about ted cruz, you were working for ted cruz at the time. You responded to those allegations then forcefully. Even Lindsey Graham said that kamala is unequivocally an american citizen. Why cant the president say clear slily, he sees eligible to run for president. He said last night at his press conference its not something thats not what he said. Im telling you exactly what he said. Not something that the campaign is pursuing, no