And you may recall the senator from such events as this one, that would be the white house rose garden event on september 26th, that dr. Anthony fauci described as a super spreader event for Amy Coney Barrett where senator lee was seen hugging people. And here is lee maskless three days later with judge barrett. He is one of at least 12 people who were at that super spreader event diagnosed with covid. And while he wasnt hospitalized he has had and maybe still has a pretty serious case by his own admission. I had fatigue, i had some fevers, and sometimes i felt like it might feel to be 98 years old and in a boxing match. Mike lee is not fully out of the woods. His doctor today released a letter that acknowledged that while lee is improving, he is basically still experiencing symptoms selfreported, and yet there he was the hearing room today, speaking without a mask, so committed to ramming through a justice, to giving trump and conservatives a 63 majority on the court for a generation so they can do things like, i dont know, maybe take away Americans Health care. So committed to that project, while he may have contracted the virus at the last big event for this justice, even though he is still experiencing symptoms, he rushed back into that room to breathe all over his colleagues. He could have done it on zoom. Weve all spent seven months working remotely, but no, no, no, no, no. Why . Well, because they just dont seem to care how many people get sick and how many people die so long as they can push their justice through. Kamala harris who chose to attend the hearing via videoconferencing, smart call, told Committee Members what they were doing was completely irresponsible. This hearing has brought together more than 50 people to sit inside a closed door room for hours while our nation is facing a deadly airborne virus. This committee has ignored common sense requests to keep people safe, including not requiring testing for all members, despite a coronavirus outbreak among senators of this very committee. Shes right. Far Lindsey Graham, you may recall chairs the committee in a tough reelection battle in South Carolina against jaime harrison. Hes been in contact with covidpositive senators and has refused to get a covid test apparently for fear, oh, my word, he might test positive and not be able to ram through the judge before election day. Neither would another Committee Member get tested, senator chuck grassley. Look at this. There is mike lee and Lindsey Graham standing directly above the 87yearold grassley this morning and chatting. Lets hope the masks were on tied. Donald trumps party wants to ram through this judge and no cement the majority for a generation, no matter who gets sick, whether in their own circle or in america at large. They will do whatever it takes. And they get prickly and petulant when you try to get them to be just a little bit responsible on even the most minor things. No one has worked closer with the president while he was shedding viral load as chief of staff mark meadows has and this morning meadows lost his cool when reporters on capitol hill had the nerve to suggest he maybe wear a mask while speaking to them. I tell you what, let me do this, let me pull this away yep, pull away. And then that way i can take this off to talk. Well, im more than ten feet away. Im not going to talk through the mask. Im not going to talk through a mask. You poor guy. Oh, my gosh, what a burden to talk through a mask. Man. I understand where youre coming from. Its not like millions have been doing this for months so that more people dont die. But i understand. That attitude is no surprise coming from someone working for a man who made a point of removing his mask while still infected with covid and then returning to the white house. In ohio today, joe biden said the president s approach to the virus is somehow only getting worse. His reckless personal conduct since his diagnosis has been unconscionable. The longer donald trump is president , the more reckless he seems to get. The behavior on display from this president and from some enablers in the senate today is why we are now in the third wave of coronavirus. It is why we have one of the highest death tolls per capita of rich countries. It is why cases continue to spike. Look at that. You can see the line of the pink chart climbing. Nearly 50,000 new case as day. Next to it, more worrying, hospitalizations in the blue chart and thats ticking up again. There are now 35,000 americans in the hospital right now as i speak to you, with this virus. Thats trending up too. Were still averaging 700 deaths daily. We are entering the third wave three weeks before the election. Those are the numbers. This is what it looks like around the country. The headlines, rolling average of infections hits new high in 13 states. Only 16, 16, icu beds left in north dakota. North dakotas new covid19 cases doubled the number of hospital beds available in the state. A Missouri Health official warning of a concerning rise of hospitalizations in just the st. Louis area while a kansas Health Official starkly seeing kansas is losing the battle on covid19. The white house has already shrugged its shoulders at more than 200,000 americans dead, 215,000. Its like about Anthony Faucis opinion about its response. Fauci had to scold the Trump Campaign for using his comments out of context in a new ad to make it look like he was lauding trump. Fauci is also warning we could have 200,000 more deaths if we dont do the right thing. Here is what he says. That models show unless necessary precautions are taken for this fall and winter we could have 300,000 to 400,000 deaths in the use. Necessary precautions. Those people rushing back into the room while they have covid to take their mask off and talk, those people that wont talk through the mask because its such a burden. Do you trust these people, this white house and that party to take those precautions . The stuff is a matter of life and death. There are tens of thousands of people right now who arent sick, who are going to get sick and die if the right precautions arent taken. They dont appear to care how many people die if they can get their Supreme Court justice through or somehow get this president reelected. It sounds almost deranged and hyperbolic to say it but it is absolutely the plain and indisputable truth. Im joined by erin bank of the daily beast who coauthored a new very well reported piece titled trump fans will never wear masks, horrified Covid Task Force admits. Erin, some of whats reported in your piece is publicly intuitable because of what weve seen but the personal petulant animous, i thought this was so remarkable. You saw from meadows today as a reflection of the president himself, i thought this was so remarkable. I want to read this piece and get you to talk about it. If you stepped into a meeting with the president and you wore a mask when he and the rest of the room were not, you would likely hear from the president himself said a Trump Administration official who has been in the room in such cases. Its well known in the building if you want to be taken seriously by the president you should take his lead on the mask thing and not be the guy wearing a mask in a gathering with him as if youre saying youre sticking it to trump. Say more about that. Yes, so this sort of sentiment about do i wear a mask in the white house, do i not wear a mask in the white house, will i get in trouble if i do wear a mask goes back until the early days of the pandemic in the spring during the peak season of covid, the feeling on staff was that they were going to actually get in trouble if they wore masks in the white house because either their bosses had told them something about them perhaps getting in trouble, or the president wasnt wearing a mask so, we have to have a unified look of the white house. And that sort of idea and feeling about masks has persisted throughout this pandemic. Through the summer months it became a symbol for people who are trump supporters, a symbol of not wearing it became a symbol of defying it. You were supporting the president s personal choice not to wear a mask. Meanwhile you have scientists and doctors who work with the Coronavirus Task force in the community telling your everyday average american you have to wear a mask. This is the way were going to stop the spread and yet you have the president and his advisers and his staff choosing not to do so because they say its a personal liberty, its their decision not to wear a mask. We all know the consequences of not social distancing, of not washing your hands and not wearing a mask. It can only lead to more community spread. Theres a moment in your piece when he comes back i think there was some hope in some quarters i did not share this hope because ive been alive for the last seven months, that the president s diagnosis would somehow change the trajectory of how seriously people would take it including the president and you talked to someone in the piece that he talks about the moment that he comes back and sort of thee atcally takes the mask off, out of the hospital. Thats when i realized the time for americans to take all these Health Precautions seriously in order to prevent the spread was totally over, said one senior Health Official who works with the Coronavirus Task force. Think about that quote. Yeah. This was an amazing turning point. Ive been speaking to officials who work with the Coronavirus Task force and the immediate vicinity of the Coronavirus Task force that say that this was a real turning point for them because they realized in that moment with trump sort of whisking away his mask that the public messaging on social distancing and particularly mask wearing had sort of fallen off the radar, right . That this was a turning point in the sense in trying to get all these americans to wear a mask that you now cant, right . Its so far gone that public messaging theres no turning back. I think its just important, i think people who have been following this closely who watch the show have a sense of this but i want to state it as clearly as i can. I think weve often talked about the president bungling the response and incompetence. Whats revealing they are working affirmatively, intentionally to take actions to promote the spread of the coronavirus. Whether thats the intention or not, what they are doing is actively working to have more people get sick. Its not like, oh, we screwed this up. They are actually taking affirmative steps to get more people sick. Yeah, you hear a lot of the president and white house officials quoting cdc guidelines about mask wearing but theyre misinterpreting what the guidelines say and theyre cherry picking guidelines that work for them. At the end of the day mask wearing is essential. If theyre pushing a message that says you dont need to wear a mask or its your personal choice and dont worry about it, everything is under control that is in complete opposition to what people like dr. Birx, dr. Fauci and dr. Redfield are pushing and what they say will help prevent not only the spread but future deaths. Really well done. Thank you. Thank you. I want to now bring in dr. Richard besser, forming acting director of the cdc. Nonpartisan, wrote covid in the white house should be americas wakeup call. Also with me lydia troy, former aide to mike pence who served on that Coronavirus Task force. Weve been talking about and now plans to vote for biden because of trumps flatout disregard for human life during the pandemic. Olivia, he will start with you. As someone who worked on the task force, watching the two developments, parallel developments the last two weeks, the white houses response to having birthed a cluster through reckless behaviors inside the facility and the fact that the cases are growing in the country, more important in many ways, and the messaging from republicans, mike lee and all those today what is going through your mind as you watch that . You know, its appalling to me they continue to behave in this manner and it shows their complete disconnect and disregard for people. These are selfish actions by these individuals. These are supposed to be the gop leaders, right, of our country. And watching mark meadows during that interview take his mask off and put it back on and basically throw a tantrum, no different than the president has thrown in the past, just shows how willing and how committed they are to perpetrating this information in support of the president. There is also something so wildly out of touch about these childish tantrums like oh, i cant remotely attend the meeting. I cant talk to you through a mask. Buddy, welcome to the world. What the hell do you think weve been doing for seven months . Im sorry in the white house you get to do everything in person, you dont have to wear a mask. Welcome to the universe we inhabit. Dr. Besser, that relates to where we find ourselves now. Many people have foretold the difficult fall and winter from cdc director dr. Redfield to Anthony Fauci and to many experts who said we start to move indoors, we are seeing a big wave happen in other peer countries, the uk, france and spain, really worrying new cases being posted. Are we in a third wave . What is your assessment of this moment . Yeah, you know, chris, i dont tend to use the phrase third wave because the virus hasnt gone away. Right. The number of cases weve seen in states and cities is a direct reflection on whether the people in those places are following the guidance of Public Health. In many states, red states and blue state, weve seen the cases go down. Weve seen hospitalizations going down. And what were seeing now is in many places where people are not following the guidance, where people arent Wearing Masks and the behaviors is such that it allows the virus to spread. Were seeing the numbers go up. The challenge is everywhere we will be facing the same situation of colder weather, lower monument, more indoor activities where the virus will do well. If were not together as a nation in terms of Wearing Masks and washing hands and social distancing then well be in real trouble and the models predict hundreds of thousands more deaths will be true. Its not a foregone conclusion that they will. We have a choice as a nation to make. If we dont get onboard with Public Health those models will, unfortunately, become a horrible reality. Yeah, i think im pretty confident on the if part of it, if were together as a nation, if were not together it will be bad. I know the answer to the first part of that, unfortunately. We have seen polling suggesting that 75 of the population is complying. But youve got this crazy political season, olivia, where the white house is using dr. Faucis comments praising the task force, praising you and your colleagues work, independent of sabotage by the president. Fauci telling my previous guest erin banco the Trump Campaign is, effect, harassing me because they wont take down the quote. What is it like to watch fauci be used by the campaign as some kind of imprimatur of how well the president has done on this . Its angering. I was furious when i saw that ad. This is trump hypocrisy 101 being displayed headon. To publicly undermine dr. Fauci repeatedly and to try to discredit him when he was out there trying to tell the truth about what was going on, i personally saw them block him from being in the White House Press briefings. I was the one that actually had to sometimes make the call and call him and say, dr. Fauci, youre not going to be needed today, and i would try to figure out the best way or most polite way to do it because i was disrespecting his time when he was already on his way to the white house at times. I mean, this is the level were dealing with here. And so when i saw that ad, i really said how dare you how dare you try to use him now as your political pawn, someone who has served for decades unwaveringly and given everything he has in his career in a nonbiased manner, in a nonpolitical manner, and suddenly now youre trying to use his words out of context to support your political agenda because you know that discrediting and undermining the task force and him hasnt quite worked out in your favor so lets flip the switch and suddenly were dr. Fauci fans again . Im not buying it. Dr. Besser, you talked about behavior and behaviors over population levels in various places. It just strikes me we have this problem which is that it is hard to maintain the kind of vigilance we need, a. B, theres a thermostatic relationship between population behaviors and perception of risks so that people, so if the virus and Community Transmission have gone down, people tend to be more lenient and they take more liberties. Understandably they do things like i havent gotten a haircut in a few months. Let me do that now. Then what you see is those rate the conditions for a spike. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. Is there any way out of that cycle . I think there is. The narrative you just laid out when the numbers go way down and hospitalizations go way down, that is the time to slowly, carefully follow Public Health advice, try and get people back to more activity. So that is the time where you can go get your haircut if its at a barbershop or salon following the cdc guidance and has barriers up and decreased numbers of people. The goal is to use Public Health not as a barrier to Economic Activity but as the road map. The big challenge right now, chris, is that Public Health is being put forward as the enemy of economic recovery instead of the way to sustained Economic Activity. If we can get past that then what well see is we will be able to do more activities than we currently do because if people are following all the guidance were going to see less transmission. Dr. Richard besser and olivia troye, thank you for speaking with me tonight. Thanks, chris. Up next confirm