Because of a cough related to her diagnosis. More than 40 states and washington, d. C. , are experiencing an increase in coronavirus cases over the last 14 days, alone. There are over 500 deaths in just the last 24 hours. And on the economic front, the deadline is nearing for House Speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin to hash out terms of a possible covid relief deal. The markets, though, are currently up and we could know something as soon as their 3 00 p. M. Call is over. Well bring that to you once we get word on it. A new national poll, though, says 72 of voters actually support a new 2 trillion stimulus bill. Congressional republicans including Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell, though, oppose a large package, but the president hopes to forge ahead, anyway. Would you pass it with mostly democratic votes . Id take all the votes you could get. Whether its democrat or republican. But we want to begin in pennsylvania, joining us now is nbc news political reporter monica alba. Shes in erie, pennsylvania, the site of the president s rally later this evening. And sarah longwell, republican pollster, founder of Republican Voters against trump and publisher of the ball wowark. Moni monica, let me start with you. The president made this characterization of his campaign, watch. Im not running scared. Im running angry i think im running angry. Im running happy. And im running very content because ive done a great job. Angry, happy, content. What is he angry about, and are we expected to see that anger on display today . Reporter i would add to that list, ayman, hes running ning nostalgically, his 2016 playbook, airing his grievances and not coming up with a different message even though hes been in message for nearly four years in order to try to sway voters who may not have been with him in 2016. Those are the critical ones hell have to reach if he has a hope of doing well in a state like pennsylvania where i am here today. You asked, ayman, what hes angry about. This is a president who really feels that the polls are a reflection of just simply a litany of unfair things that have come to his feet. He feels like everybody is working against him and its that kind of anger that has come across in the last few rallies. Thats why you see this evolution of a chant that started nearly five years ago, lock her up in relation to Hillary Clinton now being used and applied to the other of the president s critics and rivals. Hes now really embolden chant. Hes joined in in that as well. You can expect to see more of that tonight in erie, pennsylvania, ayman. Sarah, youve been conducting focus groups with people who voted for President Trump back in 2016. You talk asbout them in a new piece for politico titled donald trump has a problem white women in pennsylvania. We get a sense of that from the president whos been making a plea for suburban women to come out and support him. Will he win their socievotes th year . Not unless he has some kind of dramatic turnaround. The problem for the president is he wants to ignore the coronavirus and the coronavirus is what most of these women care about. It is whats dominating their lives. You know, when i asked them how they think things in the country are going, they say its going very badly and they talk about a lot of the personal pain that theyre experiencing. They want a plan. They want something to be done. They want somebody who is taking the virus seriously. But the president insists on talking about Hunter Bidens hard drive or going after dr. Fauci. These women like dr. Fauci. And so, you know, i thihave bee doing these focus groups for about three years so ive watched the president alienate these women in real time ever since the coronavirus hit. I just watch more and more of them move away from him because they dont think hes handling it well. Yeah, and yet despite that on the flip side, you wrote a piece in the atlantic about why people are actually sticking with President Trump, despite all of this. What did your focus groups tell you on that front . Yeah, you know, look, i think donald trump is losing enough of these women to potentially lose the election, but theres plenty of people who are sticking with him. Even people who dont like him at all personally, and for a lot of them, it comes down to one thing. They think democrats are worse. They dont like elites. They dont like the media who they think are unfair. And they certainly dont like or trust democrats. And so that tends to be, you know, one of the phrases that comes up a lot is they say better the poison you know than the poison you dont know. Thats something that ive heard from a number of these voters, and so, look, despite how bad things are, there are certainly people who are going to stick with him no matter what, but hes if he cant hold on to all of this 2016 voters and expand his base, hes going to have a big problem in 2020 and right now, what i see in the last focus group i did of noncollege white women, not a single one was going to vote for him again. Monica, a new nbc News Survey Monkey poll shows a majority of people dont trust what trump has said about his health since testing positive for covid19. There certainly is a credibility gap here. How is trump trying to convince voters to trust him on the really big issues . Reporter its difficult, ayman, because he hasnt answered basic questions, such as when he last tested negative before that positive diagnosis. Or even other simple queries about his condition. But i think what happened today is quite an Interesting Development with the first lady who, herself, tested positive when the president did and said she had been recovering is now dealing with a lingering cough and then she will no longer be making that trip to eerie, pennsylvania. Tonight was going to be her first rally on the campaign trail in 16 months. So the fact that she is actually taking that quite seriously is a bit of a contrast to the president who is back on the trail as soon as he was cleared to do so. Even though there were questions about what his doctors were telling us. They werent providing a full picture once they did say he was able to resume those public events, but the president has had more than a dozen rallies in the last week, alone. The first lady really hasnt been a part of this reelect effort, which is quote a difference from her predecessors. It doesnt seem like shes going to be very involved in the final push though she was expected to be at the doe bait in nashville on thursday. If shes feeling bet e that will probably be the next place shell appear. She hasnt done much campaigning for four more years in the white house on behalf of her president , at least this cycle, ayman. All right, monica alba, sarah longwell, thank you both starting us off this hour. Meanwhile, there will be a new feature when President Trump and joe biden face off in their second and final debate thursday night. Both candidates will have their microphones cut during their opponents initial answers in each of the 15minute segments meaning there will now be 4 minutes of uninterrupted time split between candidates and 11 minutes left for exchanges between the candidates. The president reacted to that news this morning. Well, i think the whole thing is crazy. This commission, i have problems with them four years ago where they stifled out my mic. But i do it, anyway. I mean, i do it, anyway. But this is the way it is. Its so set up. All right. Joining me now is the chairman of the commission on president ial debates. He was also the chairman of the Republican National committee from 1983 to 1989. Under president ronald reagan. Mr. Chair, thank you so much for joining us. I appreciate your time. Sir, let me get your thoughts on something your successors rnc chair ron tha mcdaniel is sayin and accusing the commission of, which is election interference, those are her words, not mine. What is your response to the president and the chair of the rnc saying also that this is a setup . Well, you know, weve been doing this with the commission for over 30 years. Weve done over 30 of the general election president ial and Vice President ial debates weve never had a cycle like this one. First of all, the president this morning and some of his people said that this was supposed to be a Foreign Policy debate and we somehow changed the rules. Not the case, it was never to be a Foreign Policy focus. I asked them to go back and look at the debate in 2016. Both the debates, lester holt did the first one, Chris Wallace did the last one. There was no focus on Foreign Policy for one and domestic on the other, so the debate people at the Trump Organization knew that there was no focus on Foreign Policy. Now, whether they told the president or not, i cant say. Now, with regard to the microphones, both parties agreed before the first debate, and also agreed again for the second, that when we start the 6minute the 15minute segments, that the first 4 minutes are divided into 2 minutes for each candidate without interruption. If you watched the first debate, easy to see that those rules were not followed even though they agreed to it. All the commission has done is not create a new rule. We didnt touch the rules. All we did was put in a situation where if someone is interrupting, they wont be allowed to interrupt. When, for example, if President Trump is the first one to go forward, he will speak for two minutes without interruption and joe bidens microphone will be turned off during that period of time. When the president finishes and joe biden starts his two minutes, the president s microphone goes off. Once they both have completed their two minutes, then the microphones are on for the rest of the debate for that section. So, the allegations that are there are just false. Theyre not true. Its not the way things happen. And were Going Forward as we said. And the president has agreed to debate. Were yet to hear definitively from the biden campaign, but were hopefully looking forward to having a good debate, a little more controlled, a little more civility, when we get to nashville thursday. Let me just be just ask you really quickly in your experience doing this, have you ever come under such attack by an incumbent president who is participating in a debate the way that they have . Have you ever experienced anything like this . Have you seen anything like this or heard anything like this about the credibility and the integrity of the debates the way we have . Well, not like this, but okay. We always incumbent president s as a rule dont want to debate if they can avoid it. Right. I mean, its something so weve always faced some criticism. But not like this. I was also really upset about the criticism they laid on Kristen Welker whos going to be the moderator for the final debate. Right. Well get to that yeah, were going to get to that in a second. At the time she was named yes, go ahead. Sorry, were going to get to that in just a second. Okay. I want to button up a point you were talking about. That goes back to the first debate. This time around, youre not changing the rules, you going to enforce the rules. Correct. The rules were very clear as you mentioned, youre not supposed to interrupt. Last first debate, only one thats happened, President Trump interrupted biden 72 times. Biden interrupted the president 22 times. In all honesty, all fairness, isnt this new muting policy simply a way to get President Trump to abide by the rules . No, were not doing it just based on President Trump. Were basing it on both candidates. We are nonpartisan. Were doing something that we think is in the best interest of the american people, to get some order in this debate that hopefully will enforce the rules so that they can hear the candidates without interruption and get to learn where they are on these issues that are so important going into this election. You brought up the issue of Kristen Welker. We have the president , once again, our colleague here, being attacked on a regular basis by the president and his media e quo ca echo chamber, if you will. Do you think thats acceptable, the sitting president is attacking the debate moderator like that and also egging on members of the Media Echo Chamber that support him . Well, let me say this, when we named kristen to be the moderator for the final debate and when she posted the six issues that she was going to cover, jason miller, whos one of the most senior advisers to the campaign, went on another networks show and he said this, i have a very high opinion of Kristen Welker. I think shes going to do an excellent job as the moderator for the third debate. I think shes a journalist whos very fair in her approach and i think that shell be a very good choice for this third debate. Now suddenly as we get one week, a couple days from the debate, their story has changed. I think its unfair. I think kristens, you know, being put through the wringer here. Very undeservedly. Shes taking it well. I talked to her yesterday. And shes ready to go. I think shes going to do a great job and fair job. Yeah, i think we can all agree on that. Let me ask you this about the enforceability of the rules because, again, the president did not according to at least a lot of reporting abide by the rules the first time around. If the president shows up, if he shows up to this debate without proof of a negative covid test, will the commission allow him to debate . On matters of medical protocols we from the very beginning announced the Cleveland Clinic was going to be an adviser to us and on all matters concerning testing, whether or not someone has tested enough and so forth, thats going to be the Cleveland Clinic who is partnering with hca health care in nashville, theyre working together. Theyre the ones who will determine whether sufficient testing has been done. They will advise us. Im not a doctor. We dont have any doctors on the commission. Sure. Well go with them. Theyre the ones determining social distancing and things of that nature. Okay. Sure. I respect that. What im asking is thats about whos conducting the testing and the voracity of the medical tests but once they come back to you and say to you, we were not able to get a negative test from the president , with werent able to actually test the president , what will the commission do if they do not provide if the Cleveland Clinic does not provide you a clear result on the debate day . Well, ayman, ive been in politics a long time. One of the things i dont do is answer those kind of questions because i dont know the answer. Were going to we would consult, of course, with the medical staff thats helping us and were relying on them to provide us with advice as to how to proceed. Fair enough. Whether its how many people in the audience. I dont answer hypothetical questions like that. Okay. Sorry, i only asked that because lot of americans want to know that the rules are being enforced and i go back to this point that at the first debate, the trump family, as you very well know, flaunted not wearing face masks and your partners at the Cleveland Clinic approached them and nothing was done about it. Who, if anyone, is going to enforce the mask policy this time around . We have talked to both teams, both the Trump Campaign and the biden campaign, they all have indicated that they will wear masks and keep their masks on. It was a little rub in the first debate as to whether or not there were people in the audience on the biden side wearing biden masks. No one is supposed to wear a sweatshirt, tshirt, or a mask, or a hat, and so there was a little back and forth that went on. Ive talked to both sides. Theyve both agreed theyre going to follow the rules. Youre not allowed in the hall without wearing a mask. If you take your mask off, you will be approached and be told that if you dont put it back on that your ticket, says on the back of the ticket youre going to comply with all protocols, your ticket will be canceled and youll be asked to leave the hall. All right. Frank fahrenkopf, sir, thanks for your time. I appreciate the insight. Good, ayman. Thank you. Youre welcome. Lets get a quick update on covid relief on capitol hill. Just moments ago Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell changed gears and said that if House Speaker nancy pelosi and treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin reach a deal that passes the house, he will, in fact, bring it to the senate floor. Joining us now, senior washington correspondent for politico, anna palmer. Shes also coauthor of politico playbook. So quite a stunning turnaround, i have to admit, having covered this story and followed it pretty closely. Mitch mcconnell was saying the numbers they were talking about was just too big for his members to support. Is this considered a win for nancy pelosi . Well, i think its really important to really parse out what he says. Mitch mcconnell is a man of few words so he uses those words very carefully. He said, at some point. So he is not committing to bringing this to the floor and voting on it before the election, but it is a concession that hes saying that they would look at putting this on the floor and having a vote on it. That is more than he said. Hes been very cold, as you just said, to the idea of doing anything on this because of the price tag and a lot of Senate Republicans, his members, are very against this because they dont want to have a highprice bill before or after the election. Speaker pelosi and the white house any closer to a deal today, given what were expe expected, i guess any now, to get some news about, that phone conversation between the secretary of the treasury