Businesses because the Positivity Rate is again above 3 . Theres a messy public fight with white house scientists. The president insists we have rounded the final turn. Joe biden insists things remain bleak. The president and democrat will share a stage in ohio. This is the Pandemic Campaign in a year like no other. We are 35 days to election day. This debate is a 90minute National Platform to rally supporters and try to persuade those that are not locked in on a candidate. The incumbent is an underdog. The race tilts decidedly joe bidens way. Polling reinforces that advantage and underscores the president s debate and final weeks challenge. Without pennsylvania the path to 270 electoral votes not impossible but it is highly improbable. We know this. The president does things his way, meaning he wings it. And debates apparently are no exception. The White House Team said the president spent little time in formal debate prep, roughly two hours. Lets go to cleveland now and kaitlan collins. The burden heavily on then couplen the incumbent. Reporter president s in the past struggle in the first debate and saw it when barack obama debated mitt romney and the advantage is not the president s tonight and the aides hoping its a chance for the president to make up some ground because for the last several weeks, of course, you have seen the polls coming out where in these key states that the president needs to win he is not gaining ground like the advisers hoped he would. Theyre looking for that tonight but they have not spent a lot of time preparing for that and most has to do less with the president s advisers and staff and more with the candidate himself resisting what candidates do before a debate like this with a formal mock debate and somebody plays joe biden or someone plays donald trump and pretend like theyre on the stage. The president did not do that and instead done the sporadic question and answer sessions with people like chris christie, rudy giuliani, and other Campaign Staffers and white house staffers. And that is really been the president s preferred method of getting ready saying that his daily preparations by being at work is enough to prepare him. Of course, he is not a typical candidate, never has been, wasnt in 2016. But in 2016, i was speaking with someone that helped the president with debate prep back then, john, saying that he was resistant to doing it before the first debate and then after when that access Hollywood Tape came out he was in the middle of debate prep because he wanted to start it then. Whether or not the way he prepares changes it remains to be seen but this will be the first time to see the two candidates on stage together and the president s team preparing him with the one liners, questions of son hunter and will come up they say here in cleveland tonight in a few hours, john. Nine hours from now. They begin 90minute debate. Grateful for the live reporting. Behind the curtain perspective of veterans. Democrat karen finney, republican michael steele. Karen, the 2016 debates between donald trump and Hillary Clinton, the general election debates, came after we saw a very unconventional style and successful style for donald trump and the republican primary debates and when facing off with Hillary Clinton we got what weve become used to, sometimes the president seems to be rambling and still makes the point. Listen. The birth certificate produced in 2011. You continue to question the president s legitimacy in 2012, 13, 14, 15. Yeah. What do you say to americans i say nothing. I have very, very good relationships over the last little while with the africanamerican community. I think you can see that. And i feel that they really wanted me to come to that conclusion and i think i did a great job and a Great Service not only for the country but even for the president in getting him to produce his birth certificate. He has stuck to that, that the whole episode and getting the birth certificate a Great Service to the country. Right. But now we are in a moment, john, where people are taking to the streets in a moment of racial reckoning and the feeling is that this president is not doing anything to bring us together, to heal this country and when i talk to voters in focus groups across the country, the man they want to see on a stage tonight is the commander in chief trying to heal the nation, they recognize his actions frankly of like we saw in portland sending federal resources there was not helpful so the style is not going to work when americans are in the middle of a crisis. Michael, the Vice President ial debates do not get as much attention but give those debating national tv exposure, lets go back. This is october 11, 2012. Paul ryan trying to make a point and then joe biden saying, wait a minute. I have never met two guys more down on america across the board. Get out of the way. Stop talking about how you care about people. Show me something. Show me a policy. Show me a policy where you take responsibility and by the way, they talk about this great recession. Like it fell out of the sky. Where did it come from . It came from this man voting to put two wars on a credit card. What did you learn from that experience about joe biden the debater . I think its important to remember the context there. The reason that joe biden kind of took the uncle joe act to 11 is because president obama did so badly in the first president ial debate. President trump seems to be repeating every error of an incumbent president not doing the prep, not taking the opponent seriously and joe biden is a very, very experienced debater. Hes done this more often than anyone in American Public life. At this point if he walks out on stage, puts a mirror under the nostrils and proves that hes alive and knows it hes exceeded what the president sets out for. I think the test is higher than that but i get your point. The president saying he cant stay up late and both gave Convention Speeches that went after 11 00 at night. Joe biden had more energy than the president. Karen, michael, one thing we know from the president s approach to secretary clinton in 2012 is its personal and slashing. This is a debate over character. It is not only women and this video that raidses questions of fitness to be our president , hes targeted immigrants, africanamericans, latinos, people with disabilities, p. O. W. S, muslims. Bill clinton was abusive to women. Hillary clinton attacked the same women and viciously. I think its disgraceful and she should be ashamed of herself if you want to know the truth. Karen, this is part of a trademark trump strategy thats important to think about going into tonight that joe biden is leading in the race and what he does when the character is questioned instead of almost defending himself he says the other person is just as bad or worse. Yes, he does this sort of muddy the waters and we certainly saw it in 2016 and frankly already in this cycle with attempts to try to mislead about what was happening with hunter biden and Vice President biden so Vice President biden absolutely needs to be prepared for that. One of the biggest challenges, a similar challenge that hillary faced in 2016 is to not get drawn into the personal attacks and the drama, a distraction from what biden needs to do tonight to both try to hold trump accountable for his abysmal record and incompetence on covid and then put forward the positive plan. When we prep people, right, it is about how much time you have to make your case and you have to make sure that you are using every single minute very judiciously. So one of the you analyze the debate moments and people that work in washington, believe theres a professional way to do this, they see President Trumps debate answers and find word salad and nonsensical but, michael, you listen to most of the president s answer and what is he talking about but lets listen because he does manage to sneak in a point. If they dont start treating us fairly and stop devaluing and let their currency rise so our companies can compete and we dont lose all of the millions of jobs that we lose i would start taxing goods that come in from china. Who the hell has to lose 505 billion a year . Im sorry, sir. You lost but i do want to understand this. Its not that complicated, actually. I have many friends that deal with china. They cant deal they dont want the product. When they finally get the product it is taxed and if you look at what happened with boeing and with so Many Companies that deal, so we dont have an equal playing field. Its kind of all over the place there. Neil cavuto is trying to challenge him. The point is he got in boeing right up the road given the neighborhood that it might sound nuts but he is making a point. Yeah. He talked about not prepping. I suspect he is actually underestimating the amount of time he spent in prep on this debate. He likes to pretend he wings it but in North Charleston he was ready with an answer that worked for him and made an effective point for him about why the jobs in the area wouldnt be lost as a result of the trade war he was promising to inflict on the American People. Another big flashback and then explain your stakes for tonight but i want people to understand these are two guys we have met in 2016 campaign and joe bidens debate styles. John mccain has been the consummate maverick in the senate over all the years. Can i respond . The maverick john mccain. I love him. Been a maverick but not what matters to peoples lives. Thats a bunch of malarkey. Why . Not a single said he said is accurate. This is a bunch of stuff. Heres the deal. What does that mean . Simply inaccurate. Irish. It is. We irish call it malarkey. Your husband signed nafta, one of the worst things that ever happened to the manufacturing industry. That is your opinion. Go to new england, ohio, pennsylvania, anywhere you want, secretary clinton, see devastation. People have been their lives have been destroyed for doing one fifth of what you have done and it is a disgrace and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Karen finney, i expect the ethics issue to come up and question joe biden and hunter biden and the like but wont have nasty women. How different is the dynamic to debate a man . Much different. The body language will communicate Different Things and watching for Different Things watching two men. With hillary we were thinking how would she hold her own with trump . He is as we saw in that one very iconic example menacing her around the stage, that communicated a lot about him not just through what was being said and in this instance i think what well see is two men in their nice suits trying to make their arguments and i think what you will see from biden is an attempt to be competent, calm leader for the troubled times. That is a very different dynamic than what we had in 2016 and he has a very Different Task than what hillary had. And, michael, for the president when you are behind in the battleground state polls, you need to change the dynamic of the race, can you do that talking about yourself or is the president s only choice and often a preference to tear down the other guy . Right. If this is a referendum he loses. It is a choice and got to swing for the fences with probably whats going to be nasty, personal attacks on the Vice President , attacking his surviving son and that biden will gaffe, make a mistake, prove himself incompetent or senile. Thats the president s bet and less than nine hours away. Appreciate the insights from both of you. There it is right now. Watch the first president ial debate on cnn beginning at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. Cdc puts the white house puts pressure on the cdc to reopen americas schools. For the past 25 years, masimo has been monitoring patients in hospitals around the world so that doctors and nurses can make sure you feel safe. As new challenges have arisen, weve grown to bring that same safety and support to the place that you want to be most. Together. Masimo. Together in hospital. Together at home. This just in to us, mayor of new york city warning of an inflection point. The mayor calling the numbers, quote, cause for real concern adding the city will be taking serious action, what does he mean . Cnns Alexander Field is joining us on this. He means that further restrictions could be implemented and warning people to sit up and Pay Attention to the numbers. A single data point causing concern with state and city leaders. A 3. 2 Positivity Rate but its positive tests on a single day, the important number to keep an eye on is the 7day rolling average, the 7day rolling average right now even with the up tick at 1. 38 and doesnt necessarily trigger a shutdown, the threshold for closing schools is 3 . We are not there yet but this is the week that the majority of students in the nations Largest School district return for inperson learning in the classrooms and the city doesnt want to see them have to shut back down so we know that theyre going to take some action, flooding the city with testing, focusing specifically on nine zip codes out of 146 zip codes in the city where they see an uptick in cases, referred to as the brooklyn queens cluster. People in the zip codes are encouraged to get tested and the governor said hell send 200 Rapid Testing many sheens throughout new york city, largely targeting those affected zip codes available for schools to request so that students can be tested. John . Very important development. Grateful for the quick hustle on reporting there. A rare event at the white house, a meeting of the Coronavirus Task force amid a messy disagreement. Several of the scientists not happy the president is listening to the newest member of the task force, dr. Scott atlas and dr. Birx is central to new reporting showing how the white house put pressure on the cdc to try to get the cdc to play down the risks of reopening schools this fall. More in a moment but lets look at the latest numbers. 23 states trending up. More new infections this week compared to the data a week ago. You see across the plains and out into the west where the states are, not the most populous states but look at that, 23 states, 20 Holding Steady. Seven states at the moment trending down. Just want to highlight georgia, florida, texas and arizona were a big part of the summer surge in cases and this week reporting newer new infections than a week ago. Again the trouble is in the less populous states across the plains and the prairie. The state testing rate, the Positivity Rate, you just heard a slight uptick in new york to 3 . It is 21 in idaho. 25 highest in the country in south dakota. You see it in the teens. 16 in kansas. 11 in florida. Arizona down to 5. You want to get it to five and shove it down. One of the issues right now not just the politics of the pressure on the cdc is now is this back to School Experiment going . Four states require inperson, some, k12 instruction. Not every day but some. Iowa, arkansas, florida and texas. Two Holding Steady in the case count at the moment. Texas and florida down in the case count at the moment. Theres controversy now, olivia troy worked for the president , a key aide on the task force and said the president wasnt up to the challenge, wasnt taking seriously the pandemic. She said the White House Task force put pressure on the cdc, play down the risks of sending kids back to school. What i saw firsthand was a lot of manipulation of the data trying to figure out how to tell a story that was less grim than the reality really was. It was people within the white house specifically tasking more junior level staff to try to find alternate data, data that fit the narrative they wanted which was it only affects people above the age of 75 and doesnt affect Younger School children to open up the schools, open them up now. Lets get more from cnns nick valencia. Nick . Reporter john, we know that from the beginning of the pandemic speaking to sources at the center for Disease Control and prevention they were sidelined by the white house and work within the margins set by the white house and fallen victim to the politics of washington. We have seen it with director dr. Robert redfield, walking a fine line with President Trump and another example. Olivia troye worked for Vice President mike pence, she was part of the white house Coronavirus Task force and described a situation that was a nightmare she said. She said in june she was pressured with junior staffers by mark short the chief of staff for Vice President pence to find data that supported the president s mission to safely reopen schools. She says that this pressure was just continuing to happen all along. Listen to what she said last night to cnns chris cuomo. Well, i think you have seen from the beginning the president s narrative is everything is fine, normal, lets get the economy going again. He told the governors to open the schools. You need to try to make it seem like everythings okay when in reality its not and i think its because this response is so broken along the way that it was anything to tell anything but the truth. Reporter john, i spoke to an official that was part of the safely reopening schools guidance at the cdc. They told me that they believed at the time that the science was there. However, they did say that the president , the comments that he was making publicly, were clearly challenging to the cdc professionals working on that guidance behind the scenes. John . Dynamic we have talked about far too much i guess. The president trying to influence the science. Important reporting, thank you so much. Also weig