Foundation of american democr y democracy. We say i cant breathe. When all in starts right now. Good evening from new york, im chris hayes. Were 49 days out from the election the country continues to be in the grips of a once in a century catastrophic pandemic. We lost over 196,000 americans in fact, just today we recorded over 1,000 american deaths i get it i get why the shock of the results of 2016 and its election has led so many people in the media and in politics and a lot of you right there on the other side of this screen, the viewers, the ones i talk to or email me, to believe that President Trump has some unquantifiable, almost imaginable power to hypnotize the voting poll louse. A lot of people feel the polls cant be right but that is not true based on the data we have right now President Trump is significantly down in the polls. Seven points behind joe biden according to the 538 average that gap is larger and much more consistent than the polling in 2016 and every day that trump remains down shows what hes trying to do, sort of transparently and desperately to stoke fear and division with his strategy is not working. No matter how many times people write articles or pundits talk about it on tv, the things the president is running on, fear, chaos, violence, are not persuading the voters he needs to persuade. Just look at the National Polling picture over the past couple of months the race has remained, again, shockingly, remarkably stable, with biden ahead by around seven or eight points. Today, there are also some new high quality polls from battleground states. Joe biden is up three points from voters in north carolina, 4946 thats bad news for President Trump. In florida, biden is up five points and the most important result today in wisconsin, where joe biden is up ten points, 52 to 42 . All right. Just over three weeks ago ke noeka, wisconsin, a Police Officer shot a black man, jacob blake, in the back seven times kenosha was racked by protests, there was arson, property damage, scuffles with police and youll remember a white vigilante charged with shooting and killing wo pr ining two pros there were headlines, how chaos in kenosha is already swaying some voters in isconsin. Its playing into trumps hands. Dems fear swingstate damage from kenosha unrest. That one from politico four days after the shooting this was going to be it, the thing that swung the polls in the president s direction, particularly in that Battle Ground state, the message from President Trump and the Republican Party was yeah, you keep protesting libs, you black lives matter folks, keep pushing and see what happens heres what happened the day jacob blake was shot, biden was up serve points in wisconsin, today he is up 6. 8 points the numbers basically have not moved. The race has not changed wisconsin voters were also asked in that new poll out today how worried they are about the risk of crime in their communities. 63 said they are not worried. Crime, along with racism, has been one of the president s main messages down the stretch of this campaigning he deployed federal forces to portland, oregon specifically to create viral mayhem content, right . Hes been warning suburban white women that new jersey senator cory booker is coming to invade their neighborhoods with low Income Housing a most desperate attempts at stoking racist backlash, and based on the data we have, maybe all of it is bunk, but i dont think so its not working i mean, when i look at american politics over the last year, i said this before on the program, sometimes i feel like my head might explode. Even i ask myself why am i doing the show so much has happened, so much has happened and so little has changed in public opinion. But one place where we can see a striking and clear cause and effect is among seniors. Take a look at this data from wisconsin. Biden leads among seniors by 24 points, 60 to 36 over 70 of seniors polled in wisconsin said they are very or somewhat worried about coronavirus. Biden is leading among seniors nationally in multiple polls a recent survey showed him up 11 points a democrat has not won voters over the age of 65 in two decades. Think about that two decades. But the reality is, nearly 200,000 people have died from the coronavirus in this country. The vast majority of the people we have lost have been Senior Citizens and President Trump has been running on a message that says old peoples deaths dont really count. Because they probably would have died soon any way. And grandma should suck it up and look at senile joe biden with one foot in the grave and amazingly that seems to be turning off seniors. President trump is not invincible he does not have some imagine wall stay over the electorate. We are in the midst of a disaster that disaster is moving public opinion, and it structures the dynamics of this race. For more on the state of the president ial race with 49 days to go, im joined by michelle goldberg, and mehdi hasan, good friends of the show. Michelle, i have to say, i get the ptsd and i get also the fear of white blaacklash as a powerf force. Those are true, there was a polling miss in 2016, white backlash can be powerful but there is a reluctance to try to see things afresh right now in terms of as clear eyed as possible as what is and is not working for President Trump. Yeah. And i mean, i have the ptsd. And i think that one thing, because it was so traumatic in 2016, its easy to forget that despite a lot of certainty going into election night, the polls were pretty unstable throughout the fall i went back and read some old stories during the conventions, and i didnt realize until i revisited it that there were polls during the Democratic Convention showing President Trump winning by a couple of points things fluctuated. Even though people couldnt imagine this, in some sense, we were in some sense we were sort of more we were less willing to let the numbers guide us in 2016 than we are now but i hope, and this isnt the first time were seeing this, right . In 2018, the president ran on the caravan and ran on white backlash and given 2016, some of us feared it work and we saw it didnt mehdi, im curious what your view of this is, why it has or hasnt worked. I mean, the president has obviously leaned into this there really has been there really have been distressing scenes in kenosha, in the aftermath of that Police Shooting there is a long legacy of appeals to this kind of identity politics for white people being very successful. What is your read of what is happening and why it isnt working . Its a great question i think the simple answer is to go back to something you said in the introduction, is he a candidate who has magical powers that he can defy the laws of politics in this country the laws of politics in this country say if youre an incumbent and theres violence and chaos on your watch, you get blamed for it. This is not 1968 even if it was, the roll rolese reversed then it was a republican challenging a sitting democratic president. Now its a republican president with a democrat challenging him. I know the chair of the gop, they are obsessed with pretending that joe biden is the sitting president , so that they can blame him for covid19 and 190,000 dead they can blame him for violence and chaos. But even in our kind of fact free world, even if our foxiified facebook world, people know that donald trump is president. That sticks and he has to defend that its his record on the line there. At one point, you mentioned consistency. Take seniors the democrats havent won seniors in 20 years. Biden was neck and neck even before covid so everything he declared in early 2019, more than 500 days ago, every single day hes led donald trump and hes eaten into Donald Trumps key groups, seniors, white people without a college education. And joe biden benefits from not being Hillary Clinton. That is one of the very simple short answers as to why hes doing well people didnt like Hillary Clinton. They dont have the same animus towards joe biden. Theres the traditional metrics of campaigns here. In 2016, those traditional mettics got thrown out the window but when you look at the idea that trump started his reelection on the first day sooner than anyone else, raising more money than anyone there are now apparently somewhat cash strapped biden and the democrats raising 364 million to 210 million if you didnt know the race and it was just x and y and you were talking about a statewide race, and you had to wipe all your preconceptions, you would have a pretty clear sense of whos win thing race, michelle right or if it was reversed, if Hillary Clinton was president and she had the numbers that President Trump has, the fundraising that President Trump has, democrats probably would have given up. They would be in utter despair i do think, though, that its important, again, because there are a lot of reasons for democrats to still be as anxious as they are. We still dont know if this is going to be a free and Fair Election we do have the kind of the influence of the Electoral College, even if joe biden is ahead in swing states. So the trick for democrats is to feel confident, not be paralyzed by anxiety and understand the end to this nightmare is within their reach. And at the same time, not to be complacent i think people probably wont be complacent, because they were there once before. But i do think people should look back on 2016 and think about what they wish they had done in the months before that happened and do that now its a great point. I agree. Like i dont think theres much risk for complacency in some ways, when we talk about mailin voting and sort of the efforts of vote suppression and these crazy lawsuits being filed left and right, the danger there is some sense of impotence ive talked to Voting Rights advocates, the story itself about your vote is going to get lost in the mail acts as a disincentive like the fundamental lever here, which is like things are bad in the country, we should vote out the incumbent president , that that at least rustily working to me is an incentive to keep pushing on the lever and nothing is a sure thing michelle laid out the reasons he could win again. The Electoral College has a massive bias towards him but creaking out the incumbent, what we have done is we have overcorrected. In 2016, many of us, myself included, thought trump cant win. Now we have the other extreme where a lot of people think trump cant lose i think we need to find a middle ground when we talk about polls in 2016, they got some things wrong statewide. Heres the big question, we had an election since 2016, the 2018 midterms, there was a blue wave. They did very well Winning Senate and governorship races in michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania those are all good signs i dont know anyone who doesnt like President Trump who is complacent about this election ive never meant anyone that goes, hes done for, not a single american who says that. To your point about 2018, michelle, that was also the product of sort of structural factors and backlash, but it was like a lot of people did put their energy into voter contact and mobilizing in lots of ways the Campaign Manager for joe biden gave a press call where she talked about were not knocking on doors because we dont think its safe, but were doing a ton of voter contact there is a lot going on in this campaign i think thats another reason that people are so anxious, right . In the past, if you were anxious, you could go to a swing state and get a sense of the situation on the ground. Now a lot of the campaigning is so invisible i spoke to the chair of the Democratic Party in wisconsin today. And sort of said, you know, should i be anxious that people arent out there knocking doors for democrats . And he is really confident that these phone calls and relational organizing, you know, they have kind of an app where you can reach out to people in your contacts who need to be reached by volunteers. They have the tools but you cant see it if youre not involved and, again, its also a big experiment we can feel confident. We can think that this is going to work. But its a fact that were going into this election with a set of conditions that are unprecedented. Always great to talk to both of you next up, public trust in a Coronavirus Vaccine is dwindling as the president claims one could be ready just in time for the election what will happen when we do get a vaccine, which is crucial . After this tech at safelite, were here for you with safe, convenient service. Tech well come right to you. Upbeat music tech youll get a text when were on our way. Tech before we arrive, just leave your keys on the dash. Well replace your windshield with safe, nocontact service. 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We miss your lets do this look, the sound of your laugh cry screams, and how you make every day here the best day ever. We cant wait to get you back so weve added temp checks, face coverings, social distancing and extra sanitizing to get the good times going again. Were finally back. And cant wait until you are too. Buy now and get two days free at the parks. Restrictions apply. President trump has destroyed the reputational capital, the trust, the corner stone of constructing the infrastructure needed to deliver us from this nightmare and to vaccinate americans against this virus. The polling shows we have a real problem on our hands people were asked if they were to get a vaccine in april, 72 yes. This month, the number is just 51 . Astoundingly, in a new poll, only 26 of people said they trust what President Trump has to say about vaccines. Thats only about a quarter of those polled a big driver of this is that President Trump has politicized the treatment and vaccine process from the very beginning. We have actual concrete examples of him pressure the food and Drug Administration specifically on the unproven treatments of hydroxychloroquine and plasma. Hes also but promised a vaccine by election day, despite the fact that Scientists Say that is almost not possible. Hes taken the reputational capital of these scientific Public Health agencies, which were already under assault from antivaxers, and hes blown it for his shortterm personal benefit. Now, republicans have the gal to turn around and try to make it a political issue if democrats say theyre uneasy about this. Like Vice President ial nominee Kamala Harris expressing concerns so lets just say theres a vaccine that is approved, and even distributed before the election, would you get it well, i think thats going to be an issue for all of us. I will say that i would not trust President Trump. And it would have to be a credible source of information a credible source of information thats perfectly reasonable in my mind. Last night, the democrat running for senate was asked about taking a vaccine if there were a vaccine by november 3rd or the end of the year, would you take the vaccine and would you encourage your family members to take the vaccine . Ive got questions, and i think we have seen entirely too many times, and especially in recent years, politics intervening in what should be driven by health and science so do i read you to say you would be hesitant to receive the vaccine if it were approved by the end of the year . Im going to yes, i would be hesitant, but im going to ask a lot of questions i think thats incumbent on all of us right now, in this environment, with the way we have seen politics intervening in washington. Here to discuss what the president is doing to the credibility of Coronavirus Vaccine is jeffrey sax, chairman of the covid19 commission, which created an outline to the Global Response to the pandemic, including the production and distribution of vaccines jeffrey, i know you have had experience in this youve had experience arguing with antivaxers and the developmental in Development Context of vaccine deployment. The first question is, you know, i dont think kyle cunninghams answer is worded precisely as i would, but it strikes me as important for folks to make a distinction between what President Trump says about vaccines and who they do trust and how they would ascertain the trustworthines trustworthiness. I think we have to start with a very different point, which is we reached 200,000 deaths of americans as of today, and the rate of deaths per population in our country is 100 times higher than it is in many other countries in the world so we have had an antiscience, ignorant, reckless process in this country that you could say led by President Trump, but it leads to cha