Day weekend as such a clear underdog since george bush in 1992. The u. S. Unemployment rate is still at 8. 4 . 190,000 deaths from the coronavirus. Let me repeat that. 190,000 dead americans. There is unrest in cities across the nation over Police Brutality and racial injustice. And now the president is on defense after a report in the atlantic late last week that he called americans who died in battle losers and suckers. Those are the headwinds the president is facing as a new cbs poll of likely voters has joe biden leading donald trump 5242. It might come as no surprise then that the president has been trying to recast his handling of the economic damage suffered from the coronavirus and his response to the virus itself. The president held a press conference at the white house today to do just that, but he had some trouble sticking to the facts. He painted an overly rosie picture of the economy, even though just over half of the 22 million total jobs lost between february and april have still not returned and he struggled to defend himself against accusations that his push for a Covid Vaccine has focussed more on pal ti on politics and science. Yes. You have asserted repeatedly that a vaccine will be on the market by before the election. No, i didnt say they will. I said by the end of the year. No, but youre not quoting me accurately. I said that vaccines will be on the market by the end of the year, but they may even be developed and fully develop and tested and everything else. For the record, the president just quoted a november 1st delivery date for a vaccine last week. He even said it might come before a very special day. Earlier in that News Conference, again, thats before election day. Meanwhile joe biden made his 7th trip to pennsylvania since the pandemic and he also focussed on coronavirus, defending himself against accusations that he doesnt want a vaccine because it will hurt his election chances. I want full transparency on a vaccine. One of the problems is hes playing with politics is he said so many things that arent true and im worried if we do have a vaccine, people will be afraid to take it. Thank god we have it. If i could get a vaccine tomorrow, id do it. If it cost me the election, id do it. We need a vaccine, and we need it now. You have to listen to the scientists. In a few moments joe biden will be meeting with the groups headquarters in harrisburg, pennsylvania and the Labor Day Weekend marks another first for the campaigns. This is the first time both candidates for Vice President are on the trail on the same day in the same state. Vice president mike pence and senator Kamala Harris are on opposite ends of wisconsin, a battleground state, increasingly essential to President Trumps electoral map. A cbs news poll of wisconsin voters finds joe biden ahead of the president 50 44. The Vice President is in lacrosse and senator harris is making her first trip to the battleground state since joining the democratic ticket. She is expected to speak at a round table with black Business Leaders and pastors in milwaukee later this hour. Well bring you those remarks live once they happen. But leading off our discussion this hour are robert gibbs, former press secretary in the obama administration. And christina greer, associate professor of political science. Both of you welcome. I notice in that News Conference and there is a ton to talk to. The president kept saying his first and only priority is to keep americans safe, and thats one he has been tauting this vaccine. At the same time, hes not wearing a mask. Hes not social distancing at his rallies. In fact, hes encouraging people not to wear masks. Look at this exchange he had with one of the white house reporters as he tried to ask the president a question just today. Youre going to have to take that off, please. How many feet are you away. Ill speak a lot louder. If you dont take it off, youre very muffled. So if you would take it off. I can speak a lot louder. Is that better . Its better, yeah. Its better. Robert, his actions do not match up with our words. Are americans seeing this . Are the americans that will sway the election seeing this . Well, i think if you look at some of the polling last week, the amount of people that can swing this election and havent already made up their minds is a tiny, tiny number. But i do think every time he goes out and tries to demonstrate leadership on Something Like the coronavirus, Something Like this happens, and it undermines that message. I think these press conferences at the white house have far reached their point of diminishing marginal reasons. I think there is very little to be gained. Yet, he still continues to do it. Jeff mason is probably one of the nicest human beings on the planet. So to get into an argument with jeff about wearing a mask, it shows you the kind of leader from a Public Health perspective that donald trump has been as president , and it is no wonder that we have seen just a botched attempt at blunting what never had to be the way it is right now. Even if jeff mason was one of the meanest people you have ever come into contact with, still arguing with him over whether to wear a mask is not in the Public Health it is not good for anybody to have someone not wear a mask. You should be practicing that social responsibility when you are in public, especially when you are in National Television in a public place to show it matters and the president should be the one helping him to do so. Meanwhile, christina, the Vice President the former Vice President joe biden is out there saying the president is waiving the white flag on covid saying that the president is not actually fighting the fight. He isnt living up to his words. Lets listen to this, and ive got a question on the other end. He is just sort of waived the white flag on dealing with covid. And he, all he wants to do is just reopen, but the way he is reopening is causing us to, you know, shut down. Look at whats happening with schools right now. You have kids trying to get them back in school right now. Its pretty tough. How effective is that dueling imagery of both the president arguing with jeff mason, not wearing a mask himself, those Campaign Rallies and then joe biden at a socially distant round table wearing a mask the entire time . I think joe biden is showing hes not only got leadership but empathy. This is not just 190,000 plus americans who have died. This is 190,000 families who have lost someone, 190,000 communities. For those of us who live in new york, next week or later on this week, were going to solemnly remember what happened on 9 11 when almost 3,000 americans died. This is 9 11 happening on a consistent basis numberswise and the president is shrugging his shoulders. Hes talking about the economy. Hes talking about everything but the grieving so Many Americans are going through, not just emotionally because of a virus that didnt need to spread this wide but also so many families are worried about the financial ramifications, businesses that have been lost, evictions coming down the pike, occupations and jobs that will never come back. So there is widespread failure on so many Different Levels by the president. And then you have joe biden who is leading by example. I dont think anyone wants to campaign with masks on, i dont think anyone wants to have social distancing. We know about campaigns. It is about pressing the flesh, touching voters and listening to them and hearing what they have to say. Joe biden cant do that. But hes doing his best to try to understand the plight of americans, something that donald trump, you know, time and time again has just shown that he cant do and hes just quite honestly not interested in doing. So we have the economy that is not good for millions and millions and millions of americans. We have the virus, which is approaching 200,000 dead. It could get up to 400,000 later this year if mask wearing is disregarded, social distancing disregarded. But then you have also the president playing defense, robert, on this military story, this story that dropped in the atlantic where the president said soldiers that died in war are losers and suckers. It is very detailed. People in the white house have gone on the record to say that its not true, but thats basically the press job. The people that were in the story, john kelly has not come out and said this is not true. We havent heard anything from general jim mattis, who was the president s defense secretary. When you talk about who is swayable in this election, do stories like this turn people . Do they move the needle for those people who are on the fence, or is it like the john mccain story back in 2015 when the president went after john mccain, everybody assumed that that was the death nail for his campaign and he only got stronger after that . I do think this is troublesome for the president. As you mentioned and at that News Conference was asked pointedly had he asked john kelly to come out and say this wasnt true. He said he hadnt and my guess is because he didnt want john kelly to let the world know what is true, that the quotes in that story sound an awful lot like the president that Many Americans have heard. I do think this affects even the small number of people that have yet to make up their minds or are yet persuadable because i think stories like this when you see the president at a News Conference or you see his activities and rhetoric last week, they see not somebody who is putting chaos in its place, i think they see somebody who is foemting chaos. What they see is and theyre trying to project a person that looks, talks and acts president ial versus somebody that doesnt. And you mentioned that poll with wisconsin. If you look at the eight sort of swing state polls that we have seen over the past four or five days, there are eight polls in five swing states. All five of those States Donald trump won in 2016. Hes currently leading in none of them. His average is 44 . Hes polling his under 2016 result in every one of them and joe biden is polling above what Hillary Clinton got in every one of them. So the president is in a terrible position with eight weeks to go. Robert, but there is going to be a lot of people out there who will say the polls didnt show him winning in 2016. Why should we rely on these polls right now two months before the election . And, look, everybody is going to have 2016 flashbacks until the vote is in in 2020 and those that want a different result see it. Again, i would say joe biden is polling at a different level than Hillary Clinton got in those states, so hes showing and demonstrating a stronger candidacy than the one that Hillary Clinton had just four years ago. Undoubtedly, weve still got some big moments left in this campaign. Three weeks from tomorrow will be the first president ial debate. It will be a big debate, undoubtedly and probably maybe bigger than we have seen in a while in president ial contests because we just havent had the churning daytoday of a Political Campaign because of this pandemic. So there is definitely twists and turns to go. But if you are one of the campaigns right now, you would rather be where joe biden is. The biggest thing we havent talked about is the New York Times talking about the Trump Campaign having money problems. Just a few months ago, everyone thought joe biden wouldnt have the money and donald trump had more money than they know what to do. Now they seem to be cutting tv because they dont have that money. It shows you the relative strengths and weaknesses. You beat me to that question, which is how much does money matter at this point . How much does television campaigning matter at this point in the race, especially since were in a pandemic and you cant do as christina was saying the glad handing that campaigning rely on. It does mean a lot. It means you are able to project a message in a place you may not be every day. On a newscast that youre not on every night. So i do think it is important, particularly now, again, when you cant project quite like you used to be able to. And, again, i think it is stunning. Joe biden raised 365 million last month, which is that in and of itself is stunning. But it is remarkable that a campaign that was bragging about all of its resources is now cutting television, is now cutting those ads, whether its on broadcast tv or on digital. It is a stunning development. Money shouldnt matter at this point in a race because everyone should have so much of it that youre trying to figure out what to spend it on. But it is remarkable if you have a Campaign Like the president s campaign literally not advertising in places because of a money crunch. And the New York Times is reporting they cut that funding because he wasnt seeing any effect in the polling of what that funding was doing. On that note, christina, on them not having as much money and them being, im sure, where to spend it, how to best use it, the Washington Post had a really great summary of how the president is campaigning right now, what hes relying on. It is not his record. For President Trump and his allies, it was a week spent spreading doctors and misleading videos, disseminating videos at a rapid clip through the use of selectively edited videos, deceptive videos. The slew of misleading tweets stood in contrast to the approach made by biden, the former Vice President who in 2019 took a pledge promising not to participate in the spread of disinformation over social media, including rejecting the use of deep fake videos. What does it say to you that hes relying on lies to campaign right now . This is also a campaign right now that i call the spaghetti noodle campaign. You cant decide or understand how they want to attack joe biden and Kamala Harris. One they dayre sre saying he the radical left. The other hes part of the hyper democrats. So they dont have a strategy. They cant run on the president s record. How can you run on a record when a 190,000 plus americans have died and the number keeps counts . How can you run on a record where it is 8. 4 unemployment and we know thats drastically underreported. We know for black and latino communities, that is much higher. How can you run on a record where he says everything is fake and hes golfing when other families are at funerals. Yes, it is not surprising that this president is relying on, you know, the support from qanon and other noncredible news sources. It is not surprising he is using a desperate tactic because this is a president and administration that dont really have a strategy, especially a campaign strategy. This is a president who didnt actually want to govern. This is something that, you know, he thought he would lose and spend the next four years harassing Hillary Clinton and making money off of it. Now he sees this is a job much harder and hes not capable. He knows it and doesnt know how to get out of the situation. One last quick question. Who are you more focussed on right now, the voter that voted for obama and then voted for trump or the voter that did not come out for Hillary Clinton in 2016 . Im focussed on the voter that did not come out, and im really focussed on how biden and harris are going to motivate that voter. Thanks so much. Robert, thank you as well. Thanks for starting us off really strongly at this hour. We appreciate it. Coming up, the financial storm created by the pandemic. While fridays jobs report had a glimmer of hope, the rate of permanent job losses went up, and the thousands of people showing up at food banks across the country showed just how desperate the situation is for some right now. Thats next. And later, with just 57 days until election day, Steve Kornacki will join us with who is leading in the key battleground states. Stay with us. We will be right back. D customir insurance so you only pay for what you need. What do you think . I dont see it. Only pay for what you need. Liberty. 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