Own party dismayed and hes called on the sitting attorney general to arrest his political rivals. If all that wasnt enough, donald trump took a full two hours out of his day today to rant and rave in what he called a virtual rally on Rush Limbaughs radio show. In the end it was limbaugh who ended the interview, reminding the president of his jampacked schedule. Its no small wonder democrats in congress are today talking about the 25th amendment, drawing attention to questions and concerns about Donald Trumps physical and mental competence. But the threat to Donald Trumps presidency at this point lies at the ballot box with polls suggesting Donald Trumps chances of mounting a comeback against joe biden are slipping away. The New York Times describes trumps, quote, increasing frustration over his political fortunes with surveys that show him trailing mr. Biden by double digits. The times says its not just the public polling that has warning lights flashing red inside trump world, internal data in the Republican Party is conjuring political doomsday scenarios with republicans increasingly concerned that Donald Trumps devolving behavior is to blame. The times writes it this way, quote, one week after he rampaged through the first president ial debate and then was hospitalized with the coronavirus only to keep minimizing the disease as it spread through his white house, the president s conduct is not only undermining his own campaign but threatening his entire party. New polls show mr. Trumps support is collapsing nationally as he alienates women, seniors and suburbanites. Hes trailing not just in mustwin battlegrounds but according to private gop surveys, he is repelling independence to the point where mr. Biden has drawn closer in red states like montana, kansas city and missouri. The president digging himself deeper into a political route of his own making is where we start today. White house reporter for the associated press, jonathan la mere is here. Also joining us, real clear politics associate editor and columnist, a. B. Stoddard and a contribu contribu contributor. I understand you have some reports about the president s plans tomorrow. Thats right, nicolle. Hello from the humble a. P. White house booth here in the west wing just steps from the Briefing Room. We indeed know that tomorrow the president will be having his first inperson event since his coronavirus diagnosis. We have reported, other outlets have as well,gathering a group lawn of the white house tomorrow. Details are still being worked out. The timing has not been announced but it will be aboabou about there will be several hundred people tomorrow at some point during the day and it should be noted it will come two weeks to the day from the scotus event also on the south lawn and rose garden, the exact same event that many Health Experts believe was perhaps a super spreader where we know a number of white house officials, senators, other republicans who were in attendance have all contracted covid19. The president himself of course began to show symptoms a few days after that event. His diagnosis came later that week, and two weeks to the day he will be having another event in the exact same location. It does seem like the travel that he floated last night on Sean Hannitys show suggested perhaps a rally in florida on saturday, maybe one in pennsylvania on sunday, it seems like that is not coming together just yet. Our reporting suggests it will be monday when he returns to the road with an event, probably not a rally, probably a smaller event in western pennsylvania. Then we will go from there and of course we are now only three and a half weeks or so from the election and the candidate has been sidelined and certainly as we know is itching to get back out there. Hes been on a media blitz and certainly not been shy about using twitter but this raises all sorts of questions as to what this event tomorrow could look like. Will masks be required . What sort of social distancing will be inacted . What sort of Safety Measures will be taken for staff, reporters there and others . And most of all, what exactly is the president s condition . We still do not know if he is still contagious. We still do not know when or if he has taken a test. Has he tested negative at this point . Hes been cagey in interviews, so has the white house doctor. Were expecting another update later today but there has been no word whatsoever on the president s condition today and i will note, tomorrow will be the first time anyone outside of a select few members of the staff will have seen him. The public nor the press, we have not laid eyes on him since monday upon his return from Walter Reed Medical Center. Oh, but we have, jonathan, in those for the history books videos where he is coiffed and saying befuddling things. I want to ask you a few questions though. First, do you feel safe there in the Briefing Room on the white house grounds . Nicolle, thats a good question. Ill note i am in a small enclosed space by myself. If i step out of this Little Office i put my mask on. I have an n95 mask, as do all the other reporters who are here. The whca, the white house correspond ents association has strongly encouraged that only those in the press pool be here. There arent other reporters hanging around. There are no events to cover. Certainly its a different feeling west wing. It is basically a ghost town. As i said, we have not seen the president. There are very few staffers out and about, in part because so many of them have either contracted the coronavirus and are isolating at home or others are in quarantine, maybe not sick themselves but have been exposed. It has an eerie, almost ghost townlike feel to it. Jonathan, has he tested negative . To get into my Grocery Store in my town, i have my temperature checked and i have to attest to being not having tested positive for coronavirus in the last 14 days. So he couldnt in his condition go into my Grocery Store but hes going to host an event there at the white house . Nicolle, we simply dont know. They have not said if hes tested negative or not. I can tell you that i did. The press pool receives a rapid test every day that were here. I tested negative this morning, as did my colleagues, the few of us who are here today. The president , they have steadfastly not said not only in terms of whether he has tested negative since being diagnosed with covid19 but of course we still dont know when his last negative test was before he was diagnosed with covid19. That remains the outstanding question. We know he tested positive upon return from that fundraiser in bedminster, new jersey a week ago thursday but it remains unclear. The white house simply will not say when his last negative test was and thats raising all sorts of questions and speculation that perhaps it wasnt thursday morning, perhaps it wasnt even wednesday morning, perhaps it wasnt even tuesday morning, the morning of the debate with joe biden. They are simply not saying, and it stands to reason the longer they dont want to say, the worse the news is. Jason johnson, i dont know if this guy is the lone survivor of the press office, but one of, i guess, the not infected staffers, Kaleigh Mcenany has tested positive as i believe four of her deputies. One of them was on Hallie Jacksons program this morning. She pressed him brilliantly and he declined to answer the questions. Lets watch the contortions theyre going through. When was the president s last negative test prior to his diagnosis . So, we dont have that. You dont know or you dont want to say . We dont have that. I dont personally know. What does that mean . There are have you asked . I think wednesday you said you were going to look into that. The president doesnt check all of his hipaa rights at the door when he becomes president. So its a privacy thing then, the reason why youre not saying the last negative test, hipaa . That is one reason. Weve had numerous updates per day nobodys answered this question, have they . Extremely transparent but im not sure why youre but youre not about this piece of information. Its not something that has had been pehealth value. Did the president comply with the Cleveland Clinic debate requirements to be negative 72 hours youre doing it backwards. The president is very interested in getting back im focused on getting an answer to this question. The 72hour requirement to test negative, did the president comply, yes or no . We are looking at how the president can get out there without transmitting the virus. That is not the question in front of you. I just want to be clear. Again, yes or no, do you have an answer . We only have time to talk to the white house about very important issues. God bless Hallie Jackson. Theres a whole lot of patience involved in trying to pin them down but the truth is their message is we plan to lie to you. We read out the results of george w. Bushs coloscopy. There are no hipaa rights for the president of the United States, especially when theres an Infectious Disease with no cure. What do you make of this, Jason Johnson . One, like you, nicolle, hats off to Hallie Jackson for holding him accountable and pointing out in another part of the interview, they said the president is engaging in social distancing and she said weve seen the videos, no, he isnt. The fact that i can find out more about the covid status of nfl players from my Fantasy Football Team than we can find out about the president of the United States whos supposed to be the leader of the third world and has his finger on the button, thats a problem. I shouldnt be able to find out more from Roger Goodell than i can from the white house. Their lying is not only dangerous, not only a form of gaslighting, but it also creates an environment where if we do eventually get an answer, we dont trust them. This erodes the relationships that the people who are supposedly running our government need to have with the press in order to get anything done. I dont know that you can i cant think of anything that you and Mitch Mcconnell agree on but im guessing youre going to agree with this piece of his judgment, Jason Johnson. Heres him and the last time he was at the white house. I havent been to the white house since august 6th, and i personally didnt feel that they were approaching the protection from this illness in the same way that i thought was appropriate for the senate. Its sort of in the category of how bad is it . Its so bad that Mitch Mcconnell wont step food on the white house premises. Im glad to see that Mitch Mcconnell is concerned about his own health and coronavirus. I wish he were as concerned about the American People and actually would push through some sort of care form for all the people who have been put out of their homes and the people who cant make their rent and the people who are losing their health care. If anything, nicolle, what that demonstrates is the perpetual hypocrisy of the Republican Party. They will protect themselves. He will not go to the white house. He will not have a oneonone conversation with his boss but he wont pass any legislation to protect the American People as they suffer by the hundreds and thousands, not just in death but also in sickness and also financially. I might have to play that clip every day between now and election day because i read a lot of the smart reporting from folks with their ear to the ground of whats happening in the Republican Senate races and i think its as simple as that, jason. They wont endanger themselves in some instances but they will not do a single thing to protect people who dont have the luxuries of working at home or social distancing. A. B. , i want to turn to the president s grasp on reality and what we can detect from his public utterances and his behavior thats outward facing about his grasp on reality. He last night took off after william barr, i think the most subservient official left in his cabinet, Christopher Wray whos on his bad side for telling the truth about the integrity of our elections. He released a video this week with other National Security officials in which he was clearly communicating with the American People and people around the world about the election being accurate and fair and something you can trust. Donald trump didnt like that. And mike pompeo, who this was the weirdest of all, i think hes mad at him for not turning over hillarys emails. I guess donald trump is still looking for them. His attack on barr was the most interesting. He said he has enough information to indict joe biden and barack obama. Its clear that somewhere along the line trump had it in his mind that the end game of the durham probe was an indictment for president obama and Vice President biden. Or someone. The reporters of the party and the right conservative media has been waiting for this and touting this for a very long time. I dont think any of them really expected indictments of a former president or Vice President , but President Trump always likes to tell us that theyre indictable and they committed the greatest crime in the history of american politics, but this pressure on bill barr who has come to the rescue of donald trump before the Mueller Report was released, after it was released and every single week and month since in ways that have completely destroyed his reputation as a fair player and someone who is doing the business of the American People, instead of serving as a personal cronie and lawyer of President Trump, the pressure has been on him all along obviously that this report would come out before the election. People have been asking about this report for a year and a half. Ive always said if it comes out before the election it means that they actually have something that they can tell us is really consequential, even if its a bit player who gets in trouble. If it comes out after the election it was a ruse all along so they could Say Something was under investigation, an investigation of the investigators. I think that trump is always erratic and quick to create conspiracies and crap all over people who work for him, but i think that whatever has happened since he left walter reed is likely to escalate in the weeks to come. No question that he always blames other people for his sinking poll numbers, and bill barr will be the last person who gets blasted on fox for this. Its such a good point. Just to pick up on one of your points, a. B. , he is someone who understands the damaging effect of the cloud of an investigation, and youre right, he wanted to leave a cloud of an investigation into the origins of the russia investigation as sort of retribution for the investigation into him. I want to read you a tweet because it seems that even he believes hes going to lose. He tweeted this about the legislation introduced by pelosi about the 25th amendment. He tweeted, crazy nancy pelosi is looking at the 25th amendment in order to replace joe biden with Kamala Harris. The democrats want that to happen fast, because sleepy joe is out of it. He seems to be already moving on to next february when hes in trump tower rage tweeting against the new president. Trump cant hide anything forever. Right. Hes done a lot of that this week. He said that he never needed any medication and of course he just today said that he might have really been in trouble without the experimental medication that he received, that he could have the things that come out of his mouth. But i wonder even though weve heard him slip a few times saying if joe wins or if i lose, but i wonder if this isnt just the focus that they want which is on Kamala Harris becoming president and that kind of focus on that. Joe wont make it two months, shes going to be president , shes a monster, is it meant to in his head juice his support. Let me just push on that a little bit, Jason Johnson. I think thats the right question but what does it say about whats left in one juices their support by calling a woman a monster . Thats been par for the course for the Trump Campaign but the problem is and i think this is really key when we saw the debate earlier this week. One, theres nothing monstrous or terrible about senator harris, and if your best Campaign Pitch 20something days away is basically choose your own adventure of if joe biden becomes president and the 25th amendment and then we get Kamala Harris, thats your pitch . Thats not something thats going to compel people and make people end up following you one way or another. I think we saw this over the course of the summer, the attempt to demonize senator harris, the attempt to make her out to be a bad person, the attempt to make her out to be some terrible woman who throws brown people in jail, none of that stuff resonates with the American People. In particular, and i got to say this, in the face of covid she still comes off as more competent than anybody in his administration. Hes not helping himself with this. Again, sexism