That he may fire dr. Anthony fauci after the election. Lets begin our coverage with alexandra field live in pittsburgh. Alexand alexandra . Reporter alisyn, good morning. People here in pittsburgh are already lining up to drop off their mailin ballots this close to the election, theyre being warned not to put them through the postal service, do it in person. Everyone else is being urged to get to the polls. Both campaigns locked in a battle for the state of pennsylvania, barnstorming in the final hours before election day. President donald trump will be making a fourstate swing today including a stop in scranton. Hes dispatched Vice President mike pence to erie and latrobe. As for the Biden Campaign, they are bringing in the star power to try and seal the deal here in the keystone state. Youve got lady gaga campaigning with joe biden in pittsburgh. Youve got senator Kamala Harris with john legend in philadelphia. This is a state that trump was able to flip with just 44,000 votes back in 2016. Its a state the democrats want back. Joe biden delivering a singular message now to try to appeal to a broad swathe of voters. Hes telling them hes the best leader to get them through the covid crisis. Were going to beat this virus. Were going to get it under control. But the truth is, to beat the virus, we first got to beat donald trump. Hes the virus. Reporter more than 6 Million People voted in pennsylvania in 2016. This time around, some 3 Million People requested mailin ballots. 2. 4 million of those ballots have already been returned and alisyn, this is giving the campaign some critical data. It lets them know where people voted already and where they need to go to turn out the vote now. Alisyn . Alex, thank you very much for all of that. President trump will be very busy campaigning today. Hell hold five rallies in four battleground states. His first stop is North Carolina, where we find Suzanne Malveaux live in fayetteville with more. Whats happening on the ground, sue stand . Reporter good morning, alisyn. Secret service is conducting their sweep as the rally goers are beginning to enter. It will begin in about three hours or so, this is a must win state for the president. The polls showing it very, very tight here. This is where he captured the state by 173,000 back in 2016, but also a state that went to barack obama in 2008. North carolina voters are shattering all kinds of records, early voting records. We have seen 4. 3 million early voters at 62 of all registered voters here have already cast their ballots that, is 95 , if you could imagine that, of all those North Carolina voters of 2016. Not everything has gone smoothly, not everything has gone well. National attention, however, this weekend out of graham, North Carolina, where several hundred peaceful marchers who were simply trying to go from the courthouse to a Polling Center multiracial, multigenerational, they actually did a silent i have jil for george floyd in the street, that is when local authorities told them to clear the street, go to the sidewalk, apparently not fast enough for these authorities, pepper spraying the crowd. Social media showing pictures and video as well of children who were throwing up from the pepper spray, a woman in a motorized wheelchair as well impacted by the spray, about a dozen folks arrested. When it was all said and done, the reverend who led this group, reverend Greg Drumwright making a statement yesterday outraged by all of this. Police authorities defending their reaction. Take a listen. I understand that some people were saying we pepper sprayed children and other, disabled folks. Again, i want to reiterate we never directly sprayed anyone in the face. It was all directed towards the ground in an effort to disperse the crowd. Governor roy cooper is saying that it was unacceptable, that it was an example of voter intimidation that those marchers say theyll be back on tuesday on election day to assert their rights. There are several voters, many people who are nervous about tomorrow, because of what theyve seen over the weekend. John . Yes, hopefully they will not be deterred to go cast their votes. Suzanne malveaux thanks so much for being with us. Joining us now, cnn political analyst maggie haberman, White House Correspondent for the new york times, Mark Mckinnon producer of the circus and joel benningson, worked on the campaigns of president obama and Hillary Clinton. What an august group this morning. Maggie, let me start with you. You are so well sourced inside the white house and the Trump Campaign. What are they saying this morning . Look, theyve been signaling surprising amount of optimism given the polls were seeing over the last couple of days. There is widespread recognition the president is likely to lose the popular vote by a wider margin than he did in 2016 and he can in their minds eke out a victory with a win in michigan, wisconsin or pennsylvania. Thats certainly possible. Pennsylvania is pretty tight. I think that they are well aware that its very possible if there is not a clear call by tomorrow night, they are going to drag this out over several days and fight over balballots. Theyre not keeping that a secret. The president is according to everyone i have spoken to volatile, that he is up and down in terms of how he is perceiving this. They are very happy with what theyre seeing on the ground in terms of crowds but as you know as well as i do, crowds in a president ial race do not indicate every metric of voter engagement. Joel, on the flipside, what are you seeing, what positive signs are you seeing that signal a democratic win that you may not have seen in 2016 . I think there are a couple of things, alisyn. Number one is very important dynamic in 2016 you had both candidates had very high unfavorable ratings, about 57 , they were both what we call underwater. Right now Vice President bidens favorable rating is 51 favorable, 44 unfavorable. Donald trumps is still about 13 points underwater. I think the other things that are going on here are a couple of voting blocks trump needs to win, suburban voters 49 of the electorate nationally, donald trump carried them by four points in 2016. Right now joe biden is leading with suburban voters by 17 points. Also similarly, your poll this weekend showed biden winning with seniors by 11 points, voters over the age of 65. This is a critical voting block. Trump won them by seven points so trump is campaigning, and i think they know it, that theres erosion around the coalition they built last time. This doesnt mean this race is over by any means but there are certainly indicators here with these groups where trumps margin is shrinking. The third one i would throw in would be white noncollege voters. Trump won them by 37 points last time and right now, according to your poll, hes only leading them by about 16 or 18 points so the margin has been cut in half there. I think thats why theyre scrambling in a lot of these battleground states. They know theyre under pressure here pretty heavily with groups they are underperforming with. Mark mckinnon, monday, 34 hours until the first polls close in indiana and kentucky. What do you see . Where are we headed . 2016 caveats, blah, blah, blah if you asked me or Joel Benenson back in february what are the worst possible things for the reelection, the democrats nominate a centrist pragmatic nominee from pennsylvania, the key state in the crowned jewel of the midwest you have to win, two, theres a global pandemic, three, the president contracts that virus, four, the virus spikes in all the swing states in the last week and then the president goes negative on doctors and dr. Fauci, the most popular Infectious Disease expert in the world. Id say that sets you up for a problematic strategic scenario for winning. That was last night, mark. Do you think that saying he would fire fauci after the election, do you think theres still time to sway voters heading to the ballot box . Do you think that that will have an impact . I think its pretty cooked in. It will reinforce feelings that people already have. Trump supporters dont like fauci and biden supporters love him, so i just think its going to reinforce feelings that people already have. Its a motivation in the last 24 hours is key, in 2016 the one thing i try to ignore the data and say as a campaign guy, where is the momentum . In 2016 it felt like there was a wind at trumps back. Feels there is a wind at bidens back. The president cant really fire anthony fauci. Right. So not only does he make a point of raising the possibility or at least humoring the possibility at a rally last night, he does it in a way he cant execute it, right, so he gets all the negatives from firing dr. Fauci and if he wants to, he cant do it. Maggie, obviously the Trump Campaign is going hard at pennsylvania and we know why, thats very obvious. Obviously we know theyve been on the phone with everyone projecting a more positive tone than they have certainly two or three weeks ago but even in the positive tone, you do hear concerns about certain places, georgia keeps coming up in trump world. Theyre nerve bus georgia, with why . Theyre nervous about georgia and North Carolina, two states where there are a lot of suburbanites who are really not happy with the president s conduct. There are two states where there are high black populations they can turn out for joe biden and against this president and again, it is interesting as you say, they are seeing this in their own numbers. Over the last two days ive heard more optimism about georgia from the Trump Campaign and i want to ask, i dont pay a ton of attention to everybodys projected optimism or pessimism in the final days. Theyre saying what they need to say. However, they have seen georgia and North Carolina as two trouble spots over the last two weeks at least, and that is alarming to them. I get it. I want to make clear, youre telling us what youre hearing from them. Right they would not be doing their jobs if they werent projecting optimism to you and the rest of us. But it is true, those are two spots that they are concerned about. Theyre concerned about arizona as well for similar reasons, and when you are an incumbent president headed into an election and three states that are key to a victory are on this much of, in their perception a knifes edge, might be much worse than that, thats problematic. So joel, one of the things that im hearing from the trump sources is that part of the reason theyre optimistic is because theyve registered so many more republicans they think than democrats have, and that they think that theyre turning those out, that theres a narrowing of the gap between at first registered democrats were showing up a lot in early voting and now somehow registered republicans are. Do you put stock in that . I dont know whether anything they say is accurate. We have a history of close elections in this country for president. We dont have a lot of blowouts, so we know in 2016 it was extremely close. Id say the only things that are different now is that were seeing the Trump Campaign play as maggie just pointed out a little more defense than in the past. So i think the reality is closer to the truth than professing being more sanguine about registering voters. I also think they know that if you look at the three states in what democrats always call their blue wall, pennsylvania, wisconsin and michigan, theres no question, those states have tightened but theyre not anywhere near as much as they had tightened in the days before the election in 2016. Biden has slightly bigger leads right now in pennsylvania than Hillary Clinton had. He has bigger leads in michigan than Hillary Clinton had at this point. Wisconsin is about the same. If joe biden wins those three states, hes going to be president of the United States. I think thats why the Trump Campaign knows theyre on defense, not just in those states, but theyre playing defense in any other state. If they lose North Carolina and arizona, it gets very hard to see them getting to a map of 270 electoral votes. I feel like im getting smarter just speaking to joel and mark and maggie, but not smart enough. Theres still room for more growth so friends, dont go anywhere. Well keep talking to you. Theres a lot of other news this morning. The fbi is investigating this incident involving a Biden Campaign bus and a group of trump supporters. Well have more on that coming up. Back with us, maggie haberman, Mark Mckinnon and Joel Benenson. Great to see all of you guys again. Thanks for sticking around. We talked a lot about pennsylvania. Lets talk, mark, about florida. What are you looking at . Florida, florida, florida, as tim russert famously said. I still have fever dreams from 2000. Its a key state obviously but a state that trump and republicans have to win or theres really almost an impossible pathway, and so the one thing that could happen in this election, we talk about all the nightmare scenarios and chaos that could happen. The one thing that could change all of that is if florida goes for biden, then it will be over early, clearly and finally. So if youre watching tuesday night, tomorrow night, and the vote comes in for biden in florida, you can go to bed. Given everything that youve seen well id like to give that to joel. My observation is biden is doing better with seniors which is key to florida. The Trump Campaign says were making up for that with cuban americans in america and africanamerican voters. I would ask joel, is that enough, can biden make it through in florida with seniors or trump make it up with hispanics and africanamerican voters and noncollege whites . If only we had Joel Benenson here, oh, wait. Im here. Look, i think florida, we know is historically been very close. Donald trump won it by one point last time. I dont think this is a state he owns. They claim theyre trying to make inroads there, but at the same time, trump has an enormous problem. He ran last time as the outsider. He was the rebel. He was going to shake things up in washington. He was going to drain the swamp. Hes been president of the United States for four years now, and hes presided over the worst pandemic in the history of this country. There are 9 million cases, almost a quarter of a million americans dead. He owns that right now. Hes responsible for it. He likes to pass the buck. Thats what hes really good at. Americans know this comes back to a president who does his job or doesnt and most elections when theres an incumbent running are a referendum on the incumbent. So i think yes, there are some shifts happening in florida. It is a state that republicans have to win. Joe biden doesnt have to win it. If he wins it, its going to be pretty earlier call than most of us are expecting right now. Maggie, on the subject that joel was talking about the pandemic, we understand that the white house is making plans or the president is making plans to hold his Election Night festivities indoors in the east room . Yes. With hundreds of people . I guess it may not sway the election holding a possible super spreader event but might make people sick. It might make people sick. Its unclear whether theyre planning on testing people or not but as we know the rapid test the white house has been using has a high false negative rate in general and either way, its quite a closing message for a president who has spent the arc of this pandemic beginning back in february going into the end of january, going until now minimizing it, downplaying it and defying what his own administration has advised about how to handle it, certainly in this case its guidance against having a couple hundred people indoors. That is whats going to happen and there are all kinds of issues with this, logistical issue in terms of getting around washington, the mere fact of all these people in the same room, originally this party was expected to be at the trump hotel in washington, d. C. , and it was moved i think for a couple of reasons. One is the trump folks are concerned about the potential for having their Liquor License taken away by washington, d. C. Officials who have a cap of 50 or less than gatherings. So thats one issue but the other issue, john, is this gives the president some measure of control, if the evening is not going the way he wants it, if its looking like hes in trouble, lets say biden has a blowout night. This means that trump isnt required or expected to show up somewhere outside the white house and he can control a little bit more of what he sees and finally lets him be surrounded by the thing he wants all the time, which is a crowd. Mark, 231,000 americans have been killed by coronavirus, and if this election is a referendum on the handling of coronavirus, it seems that President Trump in these waning days has leaned into that, just leaned into that, been sort of celebrating the masklessness and telling fox tv host to take off her mask and holding this possible super spreader event, theyre not trying to avoid that anymore. Yes, and think about this, and ive been in a lot of these swing states when the Trump Campaign has come through and done these rallies. In every single swing state over the last week, the coronavirus has been spiking. So the lead story on all of those news stations and in those newspapers is trump comes to town in huge rally events with most people not wearing masks, not socially distancing and coronavirus spikes. Thats the double header of the story, so not only is it not a good story, its doubling down on a bad story for people in those states and were talking about florida. You think seniors arent noticing the issue on the virus spiking . So you know, key constituencies, especially seniors in florida, f