Office with him, thats despite trumps ongoing battle with coronavirus and with no reason to believe that hes not still infectious and thus a danger to everyone and anyone who comes in contact with him, trump has been pushing to the oval even as the New York Times describes the west wing as a situation many see as, quote, spiraling out of control, adding, quote, the pandemic that mr. Trump has treated cavalierly for months seem to have locked its grip on the white house. Fears over the safety of the hundreds of people serving in President Trumps super spreading administration running in concert with worry over the political carnage evident in Donald Trumps standing in the polls. The times adds this, quote, west wing aides shaken by polls showing the president badly trailing joe biden, worried that they were living through the final days of the Trump Administration. Those concerns only amplified by an erratic series of tweets last night, even for trump. Trump abruptly calling off talks on Coronavirus Relief and then demanding congress approve said relief or some version of it, all within the span of just a few hours. President ial conduct so puzzling as we said even for trump, Maggie Haberman and annie carnie of the New York Times reported, quote, some white house Staff Members wondered whether mr. Trumps behavior was spurred by a cocktail of drugs hes been taking to treat the coronavirus, including dexamethasone, a steroid that can cause mood swings and can give a false sense of energy and euphoria. The president s condition and consequences for his white house, his campaign and our country is where we start today with some of our favorite reporters and friends. Yamiche alcindor is back. Democratic strategist, basil smikle and the director of Infectious Disease research and policy at the university of minnesota. Doctor, let me start with you. Your analysis since the beginning has always been sober but its always been blunt. What are we possibly looking at when we analyze donald trump for all his surreal antics. Theres never been a question about his mental and physical state being altered by an untested drug cocktail that hes on to treat the novel coronavirus. What could we be witnessing in his conduct . Since im not a clinician and im not taking care of him, as an observer from the Public Health world, obviously it doesnt make a lot of sense. But then, we have to look at the fact that weve had this challenge ongoing without a National Plan, without a way to actually safely protect the west wing from this virus. Right now im not sure what is real and not. The late tom clancy once said to me the only difference between reality and fiction is that fiction has to make sense and im afraid im among those who now believe that that might be true. There are so many places we could go there. The other thing that i think confounds a lot of people is when you have a Vice President that polls show people trust in the area of coronavirus more than they trust donald trump frankly, why not, if youre undergoing experimental care and theyve made a lot of the nature of his treatments being experimental, why not just from a medical perspective, well dive into the politics with yamiche and basil but why not transfer authority and control and focus on a recovery with a patient like the president of the United States . Again, all i can say is that as a nation we want our leaders to be of full capability to respond and as someone who has personally experienced what its like to be on steroids as such for a medical condition at one time i can attest to the fact that it does create some challenges of thinking. I surely cant judge whether his thinking is different today than it was yesterday. I can just keep coming back to the fact that we have a hell of a problem with coronavirus right now and we continue to be averted into this kinds of issues and not addressing what happens. For example, in the upper midwest were turning on fire right now here just like we saw earlier this summer in georgia, florida, texas, arizona and california and were missing out on that story and were focused on unfortunately whats happening at the white house. Lets correct that right here and right now. Take me through also as i was coming up here i saw a news flash that boston has already announced that they will shut down all Public Schools there because their infection rate passed 4 . Is it your view that the virus is still raging across this country in an uncontained way . Nicolle, we had predicted over two months ago that probably post labor day when College Students came back we would first see a big increase in cases in that group. That would spill over to the public. Weve also seen that basically so much of the public has now not only experienced pandemic fatigue but as youre seeing, pandemic anger, people who dont believe that this pandemic is real and therefore not only will they not comply with Public Health issues as we know we need to enforce to limit transmission but theyre actually flaunting not supporting it. If you put that together with all the outbreaks were seeing right now with funerals, weddings, family reunions, bars and restaurant visits, i can go through the laundry list, were seeing a major increase in cases. I think that within a few weeks to clearly by the time of the election this country could very well be far in excess of new cases per day than we saw earlier this summer when we were a house on fire. I dont think were understanding it. Just today in my state of wisconsin here theyre now setting up tent hospitals in milwaukee to handle the overflow of cases. This is going to continue to get worse. Well put a pin in Donald Trumps roid rage and stay on this. Ive got a few more questions about the current state of covid in america. From what you just said, you talked about pandemic anger, what is the impact to that sort of low din of pandemic anger, of a president whos diagnosed, whos hospitalized early after his diagnosis, treated with the best drugs available to a human being, coming out and saying, eh, its not that bad, dont let it dominate your life . First of all, as you so well know and youve covered it very well on this show, weve got over 200,000 americans who have died from this virus. God knows how many around the world. All of those families, friends, colleagues, et cetera, they understand that its not just simple. We also understand that many of them dont have access to the kind of care that the president had. So again, i wish the president , his family and all those involved with the white house the very best, but as a nation we are failing desperately in trying to deal with this pandemic right now. We need a plan. What is our plan . We dont have one. We didnt have a plan to protect the white house. So i keep coming back to that as the case numbers begin to increase dramatically. We also need to ask ourselves its not that i dont care what goes on in washington d. C. But in many ways i dont anymore because its theatre. What we need to do is in Public Health we need to understand on the ground we are losing this battle and more and more every day. Thats what we need to focus on and i appreciate that you have focused on that a lot on this show and thats what we need to continue to do. Again, i dont want to move the lens off of where youve placed it which is on the fight against coronavirus absent a white house that is working and rowing in the same direction but i do want to understand what detrimental impact not having a National Plan and not having a president who models or channels the kind of behaviors that save lives with the kinds of events you just described, funerals, weddings, gatherings. Were heading into a time where the actual conversations people are having is should i put my family of four in a car and drive to a relatives house and try to have some semblance of a normal holiday. What should inform those decisions . You know, i think at this point we are in our covid year. Were not like where we were last year, whether it be school, holidays, work, social settings, and hopefully not like well be in a year or more from now. In our covid year nothing is going to be the same and we should come to expect that. I just did a podcast last week on the holidays. Start planning now. Dont take the virus home to mom, dad, grandma and grandpa. Weve seen too many examples of where grandma and grandpa are dead two weeks after you visited. This is a time for us to think carefully about if we love the ones that are around us were going to do whatever we can to protect them. Right now in our state, minnesota and its happening around the country, 40 of the cases dont have any clue where they picked up the virus because theyre back out into the public. They just are doing what theyre normally doing. So when they do go visit family, when they visit relatives, when they go to a wedding, imagine you go attend a wedding this weekend and three weeks from now the father or the grandfather of the groom and bride are dead. That is happening with increasing frequency. People have to understand that this is real. We cant cut through much of whats happening right now in washington. This dominates all the discussion. And again, i care what happens to our leaders but i really care whats happening in our communities. I appreciate this opportunity to keep reminding people this is real and dont wait to find out how real it is when you lose one of your loved ones. Were seeing the death numbers go up and the cases go up. That is going to happen well into the fall and with indoor air now becoming a big part of this where were going to be indoors more and more where transmission will be heightened, this is the time we have to just be clearcut in our messages. This is real. What should inform decisions about sending a child into a classroom . At an emotional level i understand how impossible these choices are. If you have to go to work and you dont have child care and have the luxury of working from home, a lot of parents say my kids going. What should inform is that . It seems to me that kids carry virus, transmit virus and in rare instance kids get very sick and can die from the virus but theres nothing different about a classroom than an office and most people, again, who are able to work from home are working from home, not in offices. Youre absolutely right. Let me just say as a grandfather of five young grandchildren all in that setting, i think about this a lot. Lets start first by just distinguishing between kids. Those who are roughly 11 years of age and older and theres nothing magic about that number are really younger adolescence and then into older kids and universities, theyre transmitting the virus. Were seeing outbreaks occur with them. Were seeing some of them sick at a much lower rate than we would expect to see for example even in young adults. When we get into children younger than, say, 10 years of age or younger, there we actually see even less illness. We see some transmission surely. We have had limited evidence of transmission to teachers and then the virus comes home, but one of the real questions about this disease which we havent answered well is why do we see less severe illness in this group than we do even with in u influen influenza. Thats the good news but as you pointed out, not every child will be totally protected. We have over 100 children who have died who are under age 11 in this country. Its a point from an educational standpoint and the question is what is the right answer and i dont think any of us have that right now. In terms of getting a handle on the virus, the two candidates have taken a very different position and i dont have any idea what your political views are and i dont want to know but in terms of the choices facing the future of this country and the toll that this pandemic takes on them, tony fauci talked about 400,000 americans that could die by the end of this year. Win or lose, donald trump will be in the oval office potentially covid positive as we understand him to be in there today until the end of the year. Are there opportunities to get off that path . First of all, let me say i agree with tony. Second of all, ive served rolls in the last five president ial administrations and as a statement official in minnesota i worked for two republican governors, two democrat governors, one independent and my family cant tell you my partisan politics. Im just a private in the Public Health army. Take my comments in that regard, just trying to call balls and strikes. Yes, theres a lot we can do. We need to help support those governors for example who now by de facto have had to become the leader of 50 places out there against this fight. Here we have a state like wisconsin and even here in minnesota where were seeing this major expansion of cases. We have two democratic governors who are trying very hard to put into place limiting size of large groups coming together, curtailing certain hours in bars and restaurants which we know theres tremendous transmission, and in both states you have legislative leaders of the opposite party trying to take away all of the authority that these governors have. This is just wrong. It is wrong from a Public Health standpoint. So what we need to do is just stick with the science. I dont care what your partisan politics are. Theres a lot limit this. Look no further than the state of new york. Here was a state that was a house on fire in april. Mistakes made, an incredible number of deaths. But since that time theyve really gotten it right. Under the governors leadership they have gotten the number of cases down to what no other state or even the District Of Columbia have been able to do. Even now as they loosen up the economy and let people go out into the public more, theyre seeing some increase in cases in certain neighborhoods in new york city. Theyre tightening down again. We can do this a lot better but it takes leadership, takes courage, and it takes collaboration. Right now were having a hard time with all of those. I didnt mean to interrogate you for the first 15 minutes of this program but you made points that startled me into it and im glad we did. Stand by while we turn our attention to yamiche and basil. Its such a good point that every moment we spend not talking about how to protect americans from this raging pandemic about how to help them and advise them with science at the center of it and how to inch back into something resembling a pandemic normal, donald trump manages to just grab the spotlight. Now hes doing so as a covid patient himself who was in very serious care and condition at least a couple days ago. He seems to have gone rogue inside his own white house and traveled to the oval office today. What is your reporting suggest was behind this . Did doctors say this was a good idea . Do we know if there were any contacts on his way there . Are they evacuated, wearing ppe in the residence . What do we understand about this white house trying to function around a covid patient in the president . Can i first also say that i was literally taking notes as the doctor was talking. Me too. I was like, can i see my mom for christmas, what does he say . I think its so important to really continue to focus on the fact that were in the middle of a pandemic that is killing so many people so as a viewer, im grateful for you, nicolle, for letting us listen to that. In terms of the white house, the president , im told just a few minutes ago, is in the oval office. Mark meadows has been in there with at least one other white house official. Im told that they are all having to wear full ppe gear. The white house is insisting that theyre handling this appropriately. I posed the question how did he get to the oval office . Were people exposed . A white house official told me no one was exposed supposedly. They said he walked outside and thats how he got to the oval office. Of course there are still secret Service Agents that have to guard the president and a number of people are still involved with the movement of the president being the most protected person in our country, again, someone who couldnt protect himself from the virus. I think what were seeing here is President Trump wanting to look confident, wanting to look like hes in charge, wanting to also look like hes focused on getting some sort of stimulus deal passed even though we saw yesterday in this remarkable tweet the president unilaterally deciding that he does not want to go forward with covid relief until after hes reelected in his mind. He said he wants to focus on the Supreme Court nominee. Obviously he heard all of the backlash from those tweets including from republicans who i have to tell you when i was talking to them, a number were gob smacked at the idea that the president would take this and say its all about me, im the reason why these talks arent going. Now you see the white house pushing back and saying maybe we can get some checks done, maybe do airlines. Nancy pelosi and democrats are saying we tried to do piecemeal deals and you said no and yesterday you said that you dont want a deal so what is actually the strategy. The only strategy i can think of is the fact that the president wants to look like hes in charge right now as he continues to be on this cocktail of experimental drugs that were not quite sure how theyre affecting his body because the president s doctor, at least for the last two days, has not briefed. We still dont know whether or not he has lung damage, whether or not when is the last time he tested nothing, how many people have been exposed. Thats with two dozen white house officials and growing testing positive for this virus. Its a remarkable situation. Basil, let me bring you in on the political moment donald trump finds himself in. I think universally every american wishes the president a recovery from covid and is glad that he has access to the best care in the world, but if you trust the polls, joe biden has opened up near historic lead against an incumbent president , that if donald trump comes back from this and i think it was four years ago today that the access Hollywood Tape came out, that John Podestas hacked emails started leaking so i know theres a lot of recent history and a lot of reasons to remain on our footing where we know anything could happen. But this momen