Franken and senator joe mansion on the president s words to bob woodward and the president spreads disinformation about voting in North Carolina as ballots go out. Ill talk to the states attorney general. First, there are basically 50 days left until election day and the president hoping to be on offense at this point against joe biden is having to play a certain type of defense on opening nfl sunday. It is because of selfinflicted wounds. The president s own words coming back to haunt him. Reportedly calling americas war dead losers and suckers. And in taped conversations with bob woodward acknowledging in march how he sought to down play how lethal the coronavirus pandemic might be. While many states are seeing a decrease in cases, the number of american dead is set to surpass 200,000. In polling out today from abc news Shows Americans still overwhelmingly blame the president for the countrys problem so the president is trying a kitchen sink approach trotting out everything from new Supreme Court picks to nicknames to conspiracy theories. He has proclaimed himself an environmentalists after banning offshore drilling in florida. Hes been toting a noble prize nomination. Hes claimed authority to defer payroll taxes if he suspends it, hes claimed hes lowered medicare premiums joe biden without any evidence. Hell destroy your social security, hell destroy protests to preexisting conditions social security. For weeks and yet for all of this his own dollars on the race. Some democrats are expressing concerns about joe bidens campaign. The former Vice President not holding any Public Events this weekend as the president prepares once again to hold a rally tonight again inside, indoors in nevada. With that id like to welcome in my panel for this evening. Phillip rucker and content executive shaun that thomas and joining me by phone, White House Reporter for the Associated PressJonathan Lamarre traveling with the president in nevada. They are msnbc political analysts or contributors. Phil rutter, let me start with you broadly on the state of this race. We just walked through all of the ways in which the president is touching on old themes, things hes said before, some new ones. They really do seem to be trying to throw everything they possibly can at what has been a pretty tough week in terms of the woodward revelations and of course the Jeffrey Goldbergs reporting from the week before. How bad does the white house think the president s taped comments to woodward actually are in terms of harming his reelection chances . Well, kasie, they certainly are damaging to some degree. The president s advisors continue to believe that he is doing better in this race than some of the public polling significauggests and think they ground that was lost during the spring and summer. You know, clearly hes behind joe biden pretty much everywhere where it matters but the president feels like they have a fighting chance here and that theyre within a margin of error and can close this race in the final weeks. The problem for trump is that the last two weeks have been really abysmal. He has been unable to drive a consistent campaign message. Hes been wanting to talk about law and order. Hes been wanting to sort of put biden onto the defensive but instead, its been the treatment of the military over his horrible remarks about generals as reported in the atlantic by Jeffrey Goldberg and for this past week over his admission to journalists bob wood waward he intentionally misled and lied to the American People about the legitimate of the coronavirus pandemic but the bad news continues for the president. Phil, you mentioned the white house feels like they may be closing the gap. Quickly, do they attribute that to anything . Is it law and order or Something Else . They attribute it to their internal polling which we have not seen ourselves there is no way to verify that. They think its because the president has been out there with a high level of energy on the campaign trail compared to joe bidens, you know, less traveled and so forth. They think trump has really been out touching states and driving that law and order message to his advantage. Speaking of travel, Jonathan Lamarre, since youre in nevada and it seems like there is abrupt planning changes in terms of what the president is doing tonight but can you explain this decision to i mean, we have seen obviously the white house be willing to pack people outside but after that tulsa rally which was the last major indoor event, there were clearly very difficult repercussions. What has made the Trump Campaign decide okay, actually, were going to put a bunch of people inside breathing the same air while this pandemic is not under control. Kasie, congratulations on the new show and so pleased to be on the last one of your original time slot. Probably not coming to you from the van as were about to link up with the president ial motorcade. I love it. I miss it. To go to the rally tonight. Quickly, yes, we have the president has since that tulsa rally, which you mentioned, which a number of his own staff received covid19 positive diagnose noseknow diagnoses. They traced a spike in cases to the rally. He has abandoned indoor events. He put rallies on pause all together for a time and has reconcentrated them largely at airplane hangers in recent weeks. They have certainly grown. There were a few hundred people. Now its thousands and thousands. Last night, he had one in a small town in northern nevada after local officials blocked his effort to have one at the airport in reno and there were four or 5,000 more people there, very few masks. Not much in the way of social distancing, but it was outdoors. All of them have recently been out doors. Tonight in henderson, nevada, which is outside las vegas, it will be indoors at a manufacturing facility. The pictures indicate very little social distancing. The Campaign Said people that have temperatures checked for command to limit to how effective that is and people can be positive and asymptomatic. Masks will be recommended but not required. Some of that tonight might be enough to have an outdoor event but a statement that the president has to try to say the last few days on the campaign trail that he feels the nation is turning the corner, rounding the corner on the virus every though 1,000 americans are losing their life every day. Hes trying to sell the story that the virus is largely in the Rearview Mirror and trying to portray a push and return to normalcy to draft his approach to what democrats are doing saying biden and state governors are trying to hold the country back with their over zealous restrictions. As much as we hear from the president will be his message and certainly, we expect to hear a lot of that defiance but the return to an indoor event. That tells half the story itself. Well, certainly, we know that they also had trouble getting people to show up at that tulsa rally. Its telling in terms of the state of the country and how people feel about doing these things. Shauna thomas, the Biden Campaign is very clearly confident that their strategy of not knocking on doors, of doing everything virtually and digitally is not only a disadvantage when it comes to fighting against the Trump Campaign but in fact, an advantage that lines up valuewise with where their voters are and where they thing swing voters want them to be and, you know, watching a potentially indoor event right after the president came out and said, oh, yeah, or we learned, rather, i told say that the president told bob woodward that yes, i sought to down play this all the time. This is the biggest way you can possibly down play it is hold a massive event and say yeah, come on. Come in. Pact together. Dont worry about it. How do you see these two contrasting approaches playing out for the next few final weeks really of this campaign . I mean, i think Vice President bidens campaign wants to seem like they are the campaign who is taking the coronavirus seriously but hes not in the white house yet so he cant help the whole country. Most of the polls weve seen, some of the polls that weve seen that show the president doing a little bit better still say joe biden more people actually trust joe biden to handle the coronavirus more so than they trust President Trump to handle the coronavirus. So i would say if the Biden Campaign, they see those numbers. They think at least some of their tactics by, you know, biden wearing a mask, senator harris wearing a mask, them doing these smaller events actually plays in their favor. I think the Trump Campaign, though, by holding these events its his way of saying whether this is true or not, were turning the corner like youre saying but then he has the ability to try to equate that to the economy. And as you know, a lot of these same polls that say hey, we trust joe biden more when it comes to covid19, they most of them if not all of them are saying we still trust President Trump more when it comes to the economy. So if President Trump can say look at these campaign crowds, you know, everything is going to get better. The people out here think its going to get better and then on top of that hopefully that will make the economy better, then he does actually have a message. Now if he can stay on that message, i dont know but i think those are the two things that they are going for, and we will and maybe it doesnt change anything, but at least, there is something to compare them with. Phil rucker, lets talk for a second about new rolling we have out from swing states. There is New York Times polling of minnesota and nevada, New Hampshire, wisconsin shows the race tightening in some places. New hampshire in particular biden 45. Trump 42. Nevada biden 46. Trump 42. What at this point is the white houses well, what kind of a map are they looking at in terms of winning. More numbers in arizona and minnesota. They want to put minnesota on the map. Do they think thats possible . Are they anticipating surprises in places we may not be looking at as closely as we have in the past . Kasie, the states you just showed on the slide, minnesota, nevada and New Hampshire are three states where the Trump Campaign is hoping for a surprise. All three states went for Hillary Clinton in 2016. Biden has been leading in all three. There are places trump is making an effort to make them more competitive and perhaps turn them in his favor. Thats born out of necessity because trump is struggling in other states he needs to win. Biden had a narrow lead in florida although that state is famously a tossup every four years. Importantly, biden had a pretty solid lead in arizona that has long been a republican state and a state trump really needs to put into his column and wisconsin, michigan and pennsylvania, three of the top tier Battle Ground states trump won in 2016 and is trying to win again. So what you have in the Trump Campaign is an effort to pull other starts onto the map to give trump other options to get to 270 electoral votes should he fall short in arizona orr flori or arizona. Trumps push on law and order and protests in kenosha and warnings biden would make the suburbs unsafe for voters, they were really hoping that would shift the needle in trumps favor in wisconsin and in minnesota where of course, the black lives Matter Movement picked up a lot of steam this summer in minneapolis. It continues to show biden with the lead in both states. Its a very good point. Of course, the other big piece of this is were already lackoog ahead to what happens after election day. Youre seeing a lot of groundwork. A lot of disinformation coming from the president. Lets take a look at what the president said recently about a quote unquote rigged election. Watch. The democrats are trying to rig this election because it the only way they will win. The only way they will win is rig it. They will send out 80 million ballots and its democrats. They are trying to rig this election. Now they are trying to rig an election and we cant let that happen. I hope youre going to be poll watchers. So Jonathan Lamarre, that was last night in nevada. I think there are a lot of people that hear that and worry about what happens after election day, if in fact, it is a very close race and perhaps there is not a clear winner when we wake up because the votes have not yet all been counted. What is the white house preparing for in the aftermath of election day and put those comments from the president in context for us because it seems like its really sending a message to his supporters that is potentially really dangerous. Yeah, hes been hammering that theme for sometime now, kasie and last night was perhaps his sharpest language yet suggesting democrats could win if it were rigged. Hes been sewing seeds of doubt for sometime particularly without any evidence suggesting that mail in voting would be a source of wide spread voter fraud, after course, a lot of states are shipping mail in voting and a lot more voters than before plan to use mail in voting this time around because the pan ddemic because they don feel its safe to go to the ballot box and the president has taken this as a puzzle. Hes trying to suggest that it would be a legitimate election and i think there is a real scenario where because he is encouraged so many of his followers, republicans to vote in earn many, democrperson, dem would be safer to vote by mail on Election Night we may not have a clear winner and the results counted, the in person results done quicker may show donald trump ahead and i think there is a real suggest and fear among team d amo amo amongst democrats we would see legal challenges towards those votes. Remember of course, what happened in 2000. They had that in 2004 that we didnt have that at large in the aftermath of election day legal challenge after legal challenge. It could be messy. It could be ugly. It could last days or weeks and it seems like the president is stirring up supporters to be ready for that chaos and perhaps, even, to create that chaos. A lot of responsibility on all of our shoulders to make sure we get it right and are cautious in how we characterize this as the campaign wears on. Thank you and congratulations and to that point, before we go to break, i want to take a brief point of personal privilege. If youre watching, this is the very last episode of kasie d. C. On sunday nights. Starting september 21st, ill relaunch way too early right before morning joe at 5 00 a. M. Before morning joe. Bring your coffee mugs. Were really going to need them. It has been really a true honor to share this time with you for the last three years, and throughout tonight, well be looking back on how things have changed and maybe a little bit about how theyve stayed the same. And on that note, one of the very first kasie d. C. Kwt gue will come back. Joe mansion. I wont vote for this or that. Im not looking for the democrat or republican way but the american way and i keep saying that all the time and think god, what are we here for . 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From the network more people rely on. This is 5g built right. Only on verizon. Eagerly awaiting the opening of the teams new stadium. With a bona fide showstopper. Look out 99 is gonna get ya. If youre hungry for a starstudded showdown on the leagues biggest stage. Another beauty on sunday night football. See you sunday night. Cowboys. Rams. Sunday night football on nbc. Xfinity is your home for the return of football. It goes through, air, bob. Thats tougher than the touch. You dont have to touch things. The air, you breathe the air. Thats how its passed. And so thats a very tricky one. Thats a very delicate one. I dont know how the president is survive this. I dont know how he can. Hes saying he knew in february that we should be taking this and using everything that we have to fight this pandemic, and not take it seriously as he wanted to down play it . Mr. President , my goodness, thats your job. That was West Virginia senator joe mansion talking to me earlier this week after the president acknowledged months ago he knew how deadly the virus was but instead, close to down play it to help his reelection. For more, im joined by senator mansion the Ranking Member on the eninner gergy committee. Thanks so much for being here tonight. Good to be with you. Can i take a personal privilege to say thank you and congratulations on a great job youve done to develop kasie d. C. I cant wait to see your next show. Thank you. Im going to be calling you at unholy hours of the day to come on. Thats all right. I want to be one of your first guests again. I was one of the first on kasie d. C. And your last telecast im privileged and honored to be leary. Thank you very much. Were honored to have you. Lets start off on the conversation we had earlier this week. Seeing how this has played out, how the president has tried to de