Good evening from new york. Im chris hayes. The fundamental conceit was that we were falling behind, that we were the laughing stock of the world. So i, donald trump, will restore us to preeminence, to our rightful place in the world. Make America Great again. The core of that entire premise is, was, a con. And the Trump Campaign has admitted as much when they coined the reelection slogan make America Great again again. Might be the single biggest admission of failure in the history of american president ial politics. And first the idea america was in utter shambles in 2016 was a ridiculous premise. But now we are precisely what donald trump said we were before he was elected. It was the ultimate act of projection. Indeed, of prediction. He said we were the laughing stock of the world and then he made us into the laughing stock of the world. Coronavirus hit the whole world. You know, back in the early days of the pandemic, march and april sitting here talking to you with this camera, we all struggled together. There was this incredible sense of international solidarity. We watched china shut down, right, when the outbreaks started. Read the stories of the crazy quarantines and we saw the images of the empty streets in italy. And then in france and in spain and then it came here. First the west coast and then to new york city. At one point, we had nearly four billion people under lockdown across the world. The empty plazas and stores, we were all in it together. Six months later, that is no longer the case. Almost everyone else has moved on. This is wuhan, china, where it all started at a water park. These are the spanish steps in italy. This is the beach in australia. And a rugby match in new zealand. People are going to concerts, sporting events. Theyre going to weddings and funerals. Most of these countries have basically beaten the virus, but not here. In the United States, our leadership failed. Donald trump failed. The rest of the world was able to follow the advice of Public Health experts and suppress the virus. They are still fighting outbreaks, thats true. But they pale in comparison to what we see on a daily basis in this country. If you pay the price of vigilance and selfcontrol you reap the rewards of freedom. We went through all the trouble and all the costs and all the disruption of closing down the country, the misery, the trauma, the dislocation, the economic pain. Once you go through all that, you have to push through those last few weeks of shut down that seem excessive to really smother the virus because you only want to have to do that once. And the places that did all that, they get to enjoy the benefits now. Theyre all moving on with their lives, and we are not. One of the biggest ways this hits home is that they are sending their kids to school, and we are not. Chinese state media released these images of kids returning to school in wuhan, basically taunting the u. S. For our failures to do the same. Look at you, americans. This thing started here, and we dealt with it. Now look where we are, and look where you are. Instead of any kind of plan, coordinated health response, donald trump just stamped his feet and demanded that schools open. And his new coronavirus adviser talked about getting calls from around the world wondering why American Kids arent going to school. Look at whats happened in the other countries. The uk, canada, sweden, switzerland, germany, denmark, the netherlands, france, italy, spain. They are all opening schools. We here in the United States, i have people all over the world calling me and emailing me, what is going on here . Yeah. Thats exactly right. Yeah, theyre opening schools. They didnt have an enormous second wave like we did that freaked everybody out. They dont have 200,000 nearly deaths. They dont have 40,000 cases a day in perpetuity as their lowlevel plateau. The big reason people feel its not safe for kids to go to school or work in those schools for the teachers is that the guy you worked for, scott atlas, messed everything up so much. The reality is a huge percentage of kids are not in fulltime in Person School in this country, which is really, really bad for kids. And the central contention of the biden harris campaign, the thing they are running on more than anything is in the words of joe biden it doesnt have to be this way. Let me be clear. If President Trump and his administration had done their jobs early on with this crisis, american schools would be open and they would be open safety. Instead, American Families all across this country are paying the price for his failures. The campaign rolled out a plan to get life back to normal and schools back open. Joining me now one of the people advising the Biden Campaign on that plan, an Infectious Disease expert who teaches at harvard medical school. She advised on this plan. Its great to have you, dr. Katz. First i guess i would start with the scott atlas point. I think it is a complicated question i want to dive into it. But the rest of the world is sending people to school. The rest of the world is doing a lot of things were not. Whats the reason that thats the case . Well, thank you so much for having me on, chris. Its a pleasure to be here. And i have to say that the points that you outlined are really critical, that this has been a National Disaster and we need to be extraordinarily focussed at this point. And you could go back and trace the landscape. It goes right back to the earliest phases of this pandemic, when schools really should have been involved right from the get go in terms of planning how we were going to reopen schools in the fall. There is right now i think the two things that killed off school this fall to the extent that we are not having in Person School was the second wave that freaked everybody out completely understandably in arizona and in florida and in texas, and that happened right as that planning was happening. I mean, i watched as School Systems said were going to be in person. Oh, were no longer gong to be. And then i think combined with that, trump coming down and saying you have to open up, i think it scared a lot of people away. Do you think were correct in our assessment of risk right now in areas of the country like new york city that have very low Community Transmission . I mean, are people overly scarred such that we should be having more kids in school than we do . So i think thats a great question. And i think, you know, this comes down to basic bread and butter pandemic responses. We needed and we still need adequate testing across this country, and we need to be able to test as part of a reopening of schools program. And thats not just diagnostic testing and diagnostic testing meaning just testing people when theyre symptomatic. We need to be able to test people in a much broader way because we know that 40 of the transmissions occur among people who are a symptomatic, and thats particularly true among children. If we are going to protect these children and protect the adults that are part of this school system, whether they are educators or other people involved in the school, we absolutely need to be having widely available tests. So what would that look like in terms of i mean, if joe biden were the president right now and had the resources at his disposal, what would a plan look like for really focussing the nations power and governing capacity on getting kids to school as soon as possible and as quickly possible. Youre absolutely right that since were behind the eight ball here, we have to play catchup. That means a federal, coordinated response at every level. We need a national plan. Right now counties and states at every level have had to it rate on their own plan. And the virus, as we know, doesnt stop at a state border. It crosses from community to community. And outbreaks can happen so quickly. We have seen how contagious this virus is. So a plan that would work well would be a National Coordinated response using all of the resources that a federal government can put behind an opening like this because this is the critical piece to helping our economy get back on its feet and to helping ensure that our children get educated, which is such a critical piece of this moment. Yeah. I think that i mean, i understand, obviously, the concerns about safety. But, i mean, the lost the educational the lost hours of in Person Instruction for children, particularly the equity distributions of that, i dont think they can be overstated. And i just read about a private school in new york city that has signed a very expensive contract with testing apparatus so they could do rapid fire tests to get testing in the school. We know the data we have shows inequities children from lowerincome households in terms of their attainment declined more during the quarantine. This is an enormous, enormous problem for the whole country that were seeing right now. Absolutely. Its a huge issue of equity. And were talking about the digital divide. Were talking about exacerbating food insecurity, and were talking about prolonged periods where caregivers cannot go back to work because theyre caring for their children at home. Its a huge issue of disparities. And youre right that wealthier schools are able to pay for things like testing for their staff and students. And of course it also comes down to the infrastructures that schools have to keep their whole community safe, and that means cohorting students. That means social distancing. And that means, of course, abundant masks for children and their educators to have available. Dr. Ingrid katz who worked advising the Biden Campaign on the plan that they have to get us back in school. Thank you so much for sharing some time tonight. Thank you so much for having me. With two months until election day, how voters are reacting to the polar opposite messages from the candidate. David plouffe and alex wagoner join me next. Oner join me next the big events are back. Xfinity is your home for the return of live sports. I made a mistake about something. I thought you could defeat hate. It only hides. It only hides. And when someone in authority breathes oxygen under that rock, it legitimizes those folks that come on out, come out from under the rocks. So whats happened is that we end up in a circumstance like you had here in kenosha and have here in kenosha. Joe biden was in kenosha, wisconsin this afternoon with a notably different message. We wore a mask, first of all. We spoke to community leaders. He talked to jacob blake. Bidens visit comes after a week long news cycle about the unrest in kenosha, particularly suggesting the unrest was going to help trump and hurt biden. But then we got a bunch of polls that that pretty clearly isnt and hasnt been the case. A new poll released yesterday shows half of likely voters feel having trump as president makes them less safe. Why trumps message has failed to move the voters he needs. Joining me now is david pluff who ran president obamas president ial campaign. He has a back out titled a citizens guide to beating donald trump. And my old friend alex wagner who just got back from doing some interviews from wisconsin. Since you just got back from wisconsin, let me start with you. I think there is a permanent worry and liberal freakout about a certain kind of white pop you laos backlash politics because it has worked in the past and it was part of reagans appeal in 1980. When people freak out about it it is not like based on nothing. This freakout seems to maybe not have actually connected with what was happening on the polling on the ground. Im curious why you think the message hasnt worked or hasnt penetrated to the extent it hasnt. Well, okay. Two things, chris. I think that i will call it bedwetting because i think its part of the cycle of election politics as we get closer to the election day the polls tighten and people start freaking out. Were also talking about the state of wisconsin which lives on in infamy, the thing everybody talked about in the wake of clintons defeat was and she didnt even visit wisconsin in the general. When wisconsin looks iffy and volatile, people start freaking out. And i think thats what happened a little bit in terms of the narrative that biden can be in serious trouble. You know, what we saw this week was a study in two dramatically different responses. And trump, as he has gotten more dark, more down the qanon conspiracy rabbit hole, biden plants to counter that offering real talk, im the guy you know. Im not a radical socialist, im here to help and up lift. One of the most marketed changes in terms of dealing with all this is to say, yes, we see the systemic injustice, yes, we want to fix it, but we are doing our part to offer uplift because as i walk the streets of kenosha, which are nothing like i have seen in an American City in recent days. The double header of the pandemic and the unrest has turned this city into a shell of what it used to be. People want out. They want to know that there is going to be light at the end of the tunnel, even if they cant see it. And i think the Biden Campaign clearly understands that as much as we have to diagnose a problem and combat it, they need to offer people some glimmer of an idea that america can get back on its feet again. Yeah. I think thats well said. You are obviously still in milwaukee as the identifier shows. I think it relates to something. My sort of view of this, david. My theory is the rnc, the four day convention, as sort of aggressively disingenuous as it was and all of its sort of like shockingly bad faith and lies, it was more pitched towards playing against the medial voter i thought. The diversity of folks that came on the stage talking about criminal Justice Reform and the gross swearing in ceremony for new immigrants which happened in the white house and he didnt even tell the people, all of it was really gross, but as messaging, it played against type in a way that i thought was effective. As soon as it was done, trump got right back to type. Like he cant sustain any message that cuts against the type. That to me has been the dynamic the last few days. I wonder what you think about it. Well, chris, yeah, i think there were elements of the convention. I think most of that convention was aimed at their base which tells you they dont like where it is and their core strategy here is just to jack turn out amongst particularly those white men in those white states. Trump is who he is. He behaved himself on twitter for him last week. But come friday hes back to his antics. Hes an incumbent now. Hes in charge. So when he says there is things around control and unrest, people say why dont you fix it and he looks like hes compounding the problems behavior. Look at the two candidates problem in kenosha. Is base is when there is challenge or crisis or tragedy to make us feel better, to console, to be compassionate. Every time trump has gone to where obama and bush and reagan and clinton and kennedy and eisenhower have gone, its about him attacking people. So at the end of the day, listen, some of these dark messages about socialism and crime and this isnt going to be the real america, we face them with barack obama. So i think joe biden is very well positioned to fend these off. And ultimately, this is, chris, trumps problem. Hes behind in the race. I dont think its going to tighten, but hes behind. So hes got to pull biden and hes showing no ability with his interviews, which have been disastrous this week, his appearance in kenosha, his social media activity to do anything other than try to grow the qanon base. When you are down five or six points and your opponent is at 50 , 51 , you have to pull votes from him. It is mathematically impossible to do just the base. I think people are coming out for this guy, and thats the one concern i have, is can democrats match that turnout. You are talking about the inability to display compassion. By the way, i have to note where hes standing in the rubble of that business talking to a guy whos not the actual owner of that business. Hes one of the previous owners of the business because the actual owner of the business didnt want to have anything to do with trump so he found the previous owner to play the role in the manufactured photoop. I just have to note that. At the atlantic, there is this remarkable piece today where i dont think anyone is shocked by what trump says anymore at all. It was one week into him being president saying i like people that havent been captured but four senior military sources with one crazy quote after another that show this attitude of contempt for military service as a suckers bet, not wanting to visit a u. S. Military cemetery in france saying why should i go to that cemetery. Its filled with losers. They referred to 1,800 marines as suckers for getting killed. Asking john kelly over the grave of his son, what did he get out of it. Told the senior staff were not going to support that losers funeral. I guess i dont think anything like this can change the dynamics of the race. But i do think it is interesting that some people are talking to Jeffrey Goldberg now, and that says something to me, too. Jeffrey goldberg gets lot of people to talk to him. But i agree with you, chris. I think there is this trump has a category cal aversion to empathy. In kenosha he was asked by a reporter what words do you have for the family of jacob blake. And trump couldnt even muster a shred of kindness and just said i would feel bad for anybody that lost their life that way. I mean, this goes back to this original, i think. The cruelty is the point. The cruelty has been central to trumps brand. And empathy is a rebuttal to cruelty. So i think both for personal reasons and pactical reasons is unwilling to completely open himself up to the crushing humanity of the moment. That is where biden is so uniquely positioned. You know, the country is grieving on a number of fronts. Biden talks about the loss of his family members but he is uniquely positioned to talk about the mourning, which is what we are in a prolonged period of, especially in contrast with the commander in chief who is more than reluctant to do it, just refuses to do it. I want to play this quickly for you, this ad that jumps off that point. In 2004, the only republican to win a plurality of votes since 1992, incumbent george w. H. Bush and he had this ad that was wildly successful. It was all about this guy that led the nation to war and the nation was in bad shape, showing how warm and compassionate he was. Watc