Battleground states. Im not taking anything for granted. Im out here every day trying to earn votes. Look at the lines and voter misinformation going on. Weve all been part of a lot of elections but this one is different. President trumps crosscountry Campaign Continues today in arizona with what our nbc First Read Team is calling the 2016 playbook accusing his opponent of corruption and embracing new lock him up chants while the task force tries to contape the spread of the coronavirus. You vote for biden, he will surrender your jobs to in chao, he will surrounder your future to the virus. Hes going to lock down. Hes going to want us to lock down. Hell listen to the scientists. If i listened totally to the scientists, we would right now have a country that would be in a massive depression. I think its fortunate that the president of the United States benefited from science. I think deep down he believes in science. If he didnt, he would not have in trusted his health to the very competent physicians at the Walter Reed Army medical center. Do you feel at times theres an allout war against science . Oh, yeah, particularly over the last few years. Theres an antiauthority feeling in the world. And science has an air of authority to it. Joining me now, nbcs miami memoli in nashville ahead of thursdays big debate. Nbc Vaughn Hillyard in arizona ahead of the president s first rally today. Mike, lets talk about the campaign. They are doing everything they can to make sure complacency doesnt set in. We saw this weekend, the very searing truth is that donald trump can still win this race, and every indication we have shows this thing is going to come down to the wire. They are worried people will get overconfident, perhaps, with all these big numbers of largely democratic voters going to the polls early. That could cannibalize the vote actually taking place on election day. Yeah, andrea, its really quite a contrast, the two campaigns today. On the one hand you have the president insisting to his own staff that he still has a chance to win this thing. As you lay out, the Biden Campaign telling their supporters we still could very well lose this campaign. From the bidens campaign perspective, there are two reasons for that beyond just guarding against complacency, which is the word that omalley dylan used. One is democrats have 2016 still very much fresh in their minds. There was a graphic i noticed that both Trump Supporters and biden supporters were both tweeting at this weekend which showed at this very point four years ago Hillary Clinton according to a New York Times projection then had a 90 chance of being elected president of the United States. The Biden Campaign using that to remind everybody of what still might not happen and what they might not be expecting at this point. The other thing, andrea, which is hard to get away from at this point, the coronavirus is still very much on the upswing. Our experts are telling us in the next few weeks we could be heading into perhaps the darkest period in the pandemic. Thats why the Biden Campaign is doing everything they can to drive voters to voting by mail, get those votes bangked now. Senator Kamala Harris taking the stage in florida on the first day of early voting. Jill biden in pennsylvania where they have early vogue as well. President obama heading to philadelphia, perhaps the biggest turnout engine in the state trying to drive voters to early voting in the city. Moment for the Biden Campaign to get that vote banked now. Of course in pennsylvania, they have had so Many Republican court challenges, they are worried about Voter Suppression and all kinds of things happening at the polls. The latest polls show tightening in arizona where there had been a lead for National Ticket but where mark kelly still holds a significant lead in that senate race against martha mcsally. What are you expecting from the president at his rally today . I think you said it there, andrea. This is not the Republican Party of arizona that weve seen over the last seven decades, the one of goldwater, the one of mccain. In fact, cindy mccain if you turn on the television here you see stumping for joe biden and Kamala Harris. That is why the president is in arizona, he won the state by 3 1 2 points back in 2016. Thats why hes up here today, andrea. This is a place that went by a 21 margin for him back in 2016. Theres a couple thousand supporters here who have been waiting in line that are getting on these buses to head to his rally site here for this afternoon when he arrives to town. The stakes are so high in arizona with these 11 electoral votes on the line. When youre looking at the math, it becomes very difficult for trump to win his reelection, if he were to lose. Thats why hes going to his second stop in pima county, a heavily blue area. One official in the state telling me they must stop the bleeding. They are expecting high democratic turnout levels. In some of these areas outside of phoenix, it is crucial to juice these numbers in order to counter that deficit among the suburb voters and independent voters that the Trump Campaign is expecting. Andrea. Vaughn hillyard and mike memoli. Memoli in nashville where the debate is happening. Kristen welker, the moderator expecting looking forward to that on thursday. Lets bring in our panel, New York Times chief White House Correspondent peter baker author of the new best seller the man who ran washington, life and times of james a. Baker. Former democratic congresswoman donna edwards, a contribute be columnist at the washington post. Peter barraker some breaking ne trying to project confidence with his campaign team. Woulder going to learn, learning from monica alba. Hes calling dr. Fauci a disaster, quote, and saying theres always a bomb when he speaks, when fauci speaks. I guess this after that 60 minutes report last night, we showed a clip, then saying the president saying joe biden is a criminal who should be in jail, talking about his opponent, his rival who is going to be on the debate stage with him this week. Is the poll are the polls driving that or is it also the New York Times reporting on the front page today by your colleague Maggie Haberman that theres real concern among the insiders. There is concern among the insiders, they can see the polls like everybody else. Even polls they pay for cant disguise the hill that the president has to climb in the next two weeks in order to win a second term. I think you hear that frustration in that call that he made today, a call that multiple reporters ended up getting on. It wasnt that much of a secret call in the end. You heard his voice, you heard him express frustration with fauci. Now he said fauci is a bomb, even broached the idea of firing fauci but said if i fired fauci, there would be a bigger explosion. Making it clear in the clip his regard for scientists at this point seems to be at a low even for him. I dont know that he can fire fauci in the sense hes a career civil serve unless theres a cause, and theres not. But he can be sidelining him and he does seem to be side lining him to some extent. Youre hearing a Campaign Just two weeks away from an election day and, in fact, arguably a quarter of the way to the election day if you look how much people are voted and all the winds are blowing against him right now. And thanks. I want to play from our viewers some of what were hearing from the president and his rally crowds in just the last few days. Ill tell you something lock them up. You should lock them up. Lock up the bidens, lock up hillary. Lock em up. [ chanting ] inexplicable to be campaigning against Hillary Clinton, the whole lock him up, false conspiracy theories against the bidens really is stunning. He could be talking about the economy and making false claims about that, blame it on covid. He could be talking about the Supreme Court nominee who is popular with his base and what they have done with the courts. Yet hes going after Rudy Giuliani created false plots that we now have learned could well be tied to russian intelligence because giuliani was wittingly or unwittingly meeting with russian intelligence agents, people from the government. Hes playing his greatest hits, isnt he . Hes playing the hits from 2016. The problem is this time around hes fat elvis. It feels derivative. 2016 is a different time. Nobody cares about hillarys emails anymore. Yes, it is disturbing to have the president of the United States make it his signature line to imprison, indict and imprison his political opponents. This is a guy who seems to have lost the narrative here. Look, four years ago, a lot of americans wanted to burn it all down. This year a lot of americans just want to keep their jobs, want to stay alive, and want a return to normalcy. I think you see the gap between the things that work in 2016 and the mood of the country in 2020, which is why winds are against him this year. Don edwards, the president went on the attack against Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer again this weekend in her home state just a week after the arrest of more than a dozen men accused of plotting to have her kidnapped and perhaps killed. Her family under threat, and the threat increasing as we approach the election, according to Law Enforcement officials. Here is the president responding to chuck todd on meet the press. What youre doing in michigan has been amazing. Now, youve got to get your governor to open up your states. The schools have to be open. Right . It will happen. Lock em all up. Its incredibly disturbing that the president of the United States ten days after a plot to kidnap, put me on trial and execute me, ten days after that was uncovered, the president is at it again and inspiring and incentivizing and inciting this kind of domestic terrorism. So is that the message to suburban women he seems to be concerned about losing when he says youve got to like me . I think you know what, andrea, as we can see the president of the United States, one, hes running a 2016 campaign. Two, he hasnt done anything to bring on those new voters or suburban women that hes been losing. This message here against a woman who is governor, who is trying to lead her state out of covid is not a way to win them over. Its really shameful for the president of the United States. I just think right now weve seen that the president has tried all kinds of, you know, messages or pseudomessages, and they simply are not working. What were seeing is somebody who is desperate, who knows that he is losing, and cant find a way to really attack his opponent. I think that the American People have gotten much more savvy than they were in 2016 about these messages coming from who knows where and the kinds of threats that the president is making. Hes no longer this outsider challenger, hes an incumbent president of the United States leading a failed response in a failed economy, and that is his problem. Well, thank you very much. Donna edwards, peter baker, and Charlie Sikes, i do think this is the first time Charlie Sikes has talked about fat elvis on amr. Thanks for that. You made my day. Meanwhile, on the clock, Speaker Pelosi giving the white house 48 hours to get a covid funding deal done before the election. The darkest days, a grim warning from lead Health Expert on what the coming weeks could look like as cases rise in most states across the country. I know were all tired of hearing about this. Were all tired of the masks and of isolation and hearing the numbers and comparing the flu to covid, so we need to stay vigilant. We need to listen to the science, Pay Attention to the measures that work. To the measures that work you know whats good about this . Your signs pointing at my sign, so people are gonna look at my sign. Switch to progressive and you can save hundreds. You know, like the sign says. [ sneeze ] skip to cold relief fast with alka seltzer plus severe powerfast fizz. Dissolves quickly. Instantly ready to start working. Oh, what a relief it is so fast oh, you think thats a bad move . So youre saying i should go to subway for a delicious footlong. Amazing speech coach. I know. Now in the app get a free footlong, when you buy two. Because its footlong season. With acetaminophenction when you buy two. Fights pain in two ways. Advil targets pain at the source. While acetaminophen blocks pain signals. The future of pain relief is here. New advil dual action. You ready for this . cause were all set. So lets woah. Ready. Set. Woah. Universal orlando resort. Buy two days and get three days free at the parks. Restrictions apply. Democratic Vice President ial candidate Kamala Harris is officially back on the campaign trail after two of her Campaign Staffers tested positive for covid19. Harris is now in orlando, florida, early florida mobilization event. Inperson voting just started in florida this morning. Cam paper says harris was not in close contact with the infected staffers but they pulled her off the trail just out of an abundance of caution last week. She heads to jacksonville later today. Now to the latest on the coronavirus crisis. Here are the facts at this hour. The number of covid cases in the u. S. Now nearly 8. 2 million. With 220,000 americans have died from the virus. Cases in 38 states and d. C. Have increased at least 10 in the last two weeks with Public Health officials warning the worst is yet to come. Six to twelve weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic. Vaccines will not become available in any meaningful way until early to Third Quarter of next year. In north dakota, 4 of the population has contracted the virus. Most of them in the last few weeks, this with the added challenge of early voting beginning today. Nbcs National PoliticalReporter Josh Lederman in bismarck, north dakota. Hi, josh. Talk to me about what their capacity is. They dont have a lot of icu beds youd find in a metropolitan area. Thats right, andrea. Its really tough, because its really expensive to run a hospital that serves a largely rural area like this one. Even in the best of times, they dont have a whole lot of excess capacity because when they do they lose money. Now that they are in such a difficult position, they have such little wiggle room as the cases are starting to climb. Here at sanford medical, they added six icu beds to try to surge their capacity. Now, almost all of those beds are gone as well and compounding this problem for Public Health officials, andrea, is this continuing division in the state about whether masks should actually be mandatory. Take a listen. You know, from my perspective, the mask mandate, its going to be hard to enforce. You know, i think theres a segment of the population that doesnt want to do this. If the mandate is in place, well get a majority of additional people to start practicing that and start wearing a mask, knowing that its important and people need to make that choice and make the right choice. And andrea, just as we came on the air, we got the latest update from official here. The problem, once again, has gotten worse. Another 185 cases added to their active case rate. That means there are now 5,837 active covid cases in north dakota. Andrea. That is alarming, indeed, for a rural state, largely rural state. Thanks so much, josh lederman. Joining us dr. Peter hotez, director of Childrens Hospital center for vaccine development. Dr. Hotez, its always good to see you. You heard what he said to meet the press chuck todd, next 6 to 12 weeks will be the darkest days of the pandemic. Are federal and state officials prepared to handle that, or even better prevent the worst case outcome from happening . Yeah, andrea, unfortunately i think michael is correct. Were in for a very difficult and dark period in the nation. Look, the numbers are already going up to 70,000 new cases a day and with no obvious end in sight. If you look at some of the projections for institute of Health Metrics and evaluation, its been with us the whole year were looking at double the number of deaths by the week after the inauguration. So this could be one of the darkest times in our epidemic. There is good news. I do believe well have Vaccines Available by the middle of next year. Were also developing a covid19 vaccine, so things will get better. But were going to have to figure out a way to navigate this very difficult time. The other thing, andrea, that we havent really talked about, depending on how the election goes, this could be a lame duck executive branch of the federal government at the worst time in the epidemic. I dont know how that works, whether weve had a difficult time persuading the white house and White House Coronavirus task force to launch a national covid19 control program even when it was all hands on deck. Now that they will be partially absent, im really worried about how this goes. So im advising fri