Infections. As cases surge across the country. Again, the credibility issues of the cdc, thanks to President Trump, will people listen . Welcome to thursday. Its meet the press daily. Im chuck todd. 12 days to go. More than 40 million votes have already been cast. Tonights debate in nashville may be the president s last chance to do something to close the gap with joe biden. His window to change the trajectory of this race is closing. Quickly. That immediately raises the question. What could he do right now, tonight, that could change the trajectory of this race . What would that look like for a president with this lack of credibility and this level of instability . Heading into tonight, the president has sought to undermine the confidence in the election results. Last night his director of National IntelligenceJohn Ratcliffe warned that iran is behind a series of spoofed emails that were there to benefit the president , though they claim that iran was trying to embarrass the president. The white house basically confirmed that some of those emails were threatening democrats if they didnt vote for trump. Ratcliffe told the public its part of an effort to hurt trump. Something he did not tell lawmakers when he briefed them behind closed doors according to chuck schumer. At that announcement last night, Christopher Wray assured the public that his agency is doing everything it can to secure the election. Then the headline this morning is the president is considering firing chris wray. It has nothing to do with election interference. The president is upset with his attorney general bill barr who has so far bucked the president s public demands to announce some sort of public investigation into his political rival joe biden or his son hunter biden. All, of course, as the president pushes unverified reports involving Hunter Bidens emails which hes trying to use to paint joe biden as corrupt. Its in this environment of pervasive instability and uncertainty that joe biden leads by double digits in national polls. So to come back to the big question right now, how does the incumbent president change the trajectory of this race tonight by trying to create more instability . Doesnt make a lot of sense for an incumbent. Joining me, Hallie Jackson on the Trump Campaign beat and ali vitali on the Biden Campaign beat. Also robert costa, for the Washington Post and nbc news political analyst. Hallie, ill start with you. In this sort of you know, you throw up your hands trying to figure out what the president s focus is. They release an interview with 60 minutes early. It just seems to me the president is looking for anything to change the subject. Jumpstart, look for some sort of some sort of empathetic moment, whatever it is. But he looks like he looks a bit unstable and a bit flailing. Whats the latest . So part of this, chuck, it seems, based on the president s actions and the actions of his white house is to build up an opponent who is not joe biden. And that opponent is members of the media. And you saw that today, notably, over the last couple of days with this discussion drawn out about the 60 minutes interview. The president leaving it and it getting posted on the president s facebook page. The shot of just him answering Lesley Stahls questions there. The Trump Campaign and the president himself, he has done this for years, chuck. You know this. His work to essentially tell his supporters and sell this argument to his supporters that he is being treated unfairly by members of the media. That is something that he believes energizes his base and, right now, that is one of the things he wants to do is make sure that his base turns out if they do not. Thats the base line of what has to happen. His base has to turn out, and then he has to get people on top of that to be successful in some of these key battleground states. You talk about the strategy for tonight. So often when we have these conversations, theres a distinction and difference between what im hearing from sources in and around the president s orbit versus what we hear publicly from the president himself. Theres a little bit of that heading into tonight. There are aides and allies, according to our teams reporting who are telling the president. Dont interrupt as much. Let that mute button do the work. Let joe biden say what he has to say. And there are people who have both publicly and privately said, and suggested that perhaps joe biden will actually not come out so well in their view if they do let him, if the president does let him speak for a little bit. The president himself, though, hes reiterated that the president will jump in if he feels its necessary. There will be a focus, the expectation is ofor example, hunter biden on joe biden and china. Thats something the president is expected to talk about tonight and to try to pivot those questions that hes going to get from the moderator to his advantage. Bottom line, chuck, this has been a pretty stable race so far. The numbers are not where the president s team wants them to be. They can talk a lot about their internal polls showing them Something Different and that is up to them of what theyre seeing in those numbers. But the bottom line is publicly what were seeing is a race thats putting the president in the back seat, which is not necessarily where he wants to be. Y hes used to being an underdog. His, his campaign will point to their underdog win in 2016 but the dynamics here are very different. And their opponent, their actual opponent, joe biden, is a very different opponent than Hillary Clinton four years ago, chuck. Hallie, look, i get all that. When you talk to the campaign, it can sound like youre covering a normal campaign, a normal candidate. But i want to get back to the sitting president of the United States who apparently is, you know, going bonkers about an interview with lesley stahl. Wants to fire his fbi director. Is upset with bill barr. I understand the conventional thinking that his aides are trying to preach to us in reporting. But were ignoring the elephant in the room here. Donald trumps behavior. I mean, chuck, you laid it out. Its erratic in many ways. In many instances, it doesnt actually serve him well. Right . Theres not a ground swell of support from people, from undecided voters who say the top issue for them is the questions that 60 minutes asks. Thats not what the polling shows and thats not the way the president is going to be reaching those voters. Yet, chuck, the president , as you know, has always been driven by, i guess i would call it his internal motivations. He does believe that he is the best person to define his own strategy and to define his own communication with the american public. Its an instinct that he thinks has served him well in the past and got him elected president. But theres a real question mark as to whether thats going to be the same this time around. A lot of it is airing grievances he has. You saw that in the excerpts released from 60 minutes. Lesley stahl begins the interview by acknowledging there will be tough questions. And thats something that for 37 minutes, it appears the president is fixated on and comes back to at the end extremely frustrated that he got tough questions from lesley stahl. Questions like, we should note, priorities for a second term and what he thinks the oh, i know. The foreign adversary who is the most concern to the United States. Its a huge question mark as we answer the last 12 days of the election. But the president does feel that he is the person best poised to lead his campaign right now and to lead his strategy. Hallie jackson, always the difficult task of trying to figure out, is it the president s sources that know whats going to happen or is the president not listening to anybody and just going to do what he does, which is what i think a lot of us are wondering at this point. Hallie jackson, thank you. Ali vitali, the Biden Campaign, is joe biden going to be an aggressive debater or is joe biden just hoping to do no harm again tonight . Well, chuck, you couldnt have more of a contrast from the president s seemingly spaghetti at the wall approach hes taken over the last few weeks versus the way biden has been on the campaign trail and even on the debate stage the first time these two candidates met, which is a slow and steady to win the race kind of strategy. If you parse through the chaos of that last debate stage, we heard so many of the same kernels of messaging that weve heard from joe biden on the campaign trail over the course of the last few weeks. For the debate stage tonight, there are measures in place to make it a little less chaotic, but the reality is youve still got the same two candidates standing on the stage. The style of which they talk to each other and debate each other is going to still be very, very different. So the Biden Campaign preparing for two versions of a candidate trump. Either the guy they met on the debate stage three weeks ago who is brash, aggressive, who interrupts or the guy who is being advised by some aides to be a little more reserved fop pull back. Let joe biden do the talking and hope that biden can put himself in a messy situation. But in the reality, youre probably going to hear from biden. A lot of the things we heard from him on the campaign trail. Continuing to put the messaging on to the pandemic, to the economy and, of course, in these last closing weeks weve heard from surrogates from Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders to barack obama yesterday on the campaign trail reminding people that they need to get out and vote. The stability of this race could breed complacency. Thats something this campaign is nervous about. The difference now from the last debate is tens of millions of them have already voted. If theyll tune in, i talked to a guy at a biden event. Of course im going to tune in. He still wants to be part of the process, even though hes already cast his vote. Thats a question i have. With 40 million to 50 million already voting, what does that do to the audience size watching tonight . That will be something for us to watch. Hallie jackson and ali vitali getting us started there. Let me bring in robert costa. Im fixated on this with the president and his just amazing instability. Were sort of we had four years of this, but when you really look at him particularly since he since he contracted the virus, the flailing. This business with 60 minutes is yet another, you know, unstable moment. Flailing at Christopher Wray because hes trying to recreate 2016. He wants a letter or something. I guess thats what hes trying to do here. He knows hes behind and just trying to find, what worked in october of 16 . Lets try it again. The fbi bailed me out. Maybe theyll do it again. But this is not a confident incumbent, thats for sure. There is a Common Thread running through the president s conduct at this late stage in the campaign. Hes trying to stoke his core voters, his Political Base just weeks before the election. Days before the election. And you can tie what how hes handling the fbi, the department of justice to his trip to erie, pennsylvania. In the final days of this campaign, there are not many if any, overtures to the political center, to suburban voters. Hes trying to score some Foreign Policy wins and tout the economy. But this is really about, as hallie said, his grievances, his own personal grievances in connecting them in some way to his voters. You know, robert, one of the best stats i saw came from dave weigel in his column where he noted, i think its that rally, mentioned of hunter biden, 4. Mentions of Amy Coney Barrett, 0. Thats a revealing number because just four weeks ago, five weeks ago, Senate Republicans were telling me, chuck, that they believe the barrett nomination and hopeful confirmation on their end would lead to Republican Voters being enthusiastic. Conservative voters concerned about the president s conduct would say, well, at least he got us some justices on the Supreme Court. He lowered our taxes. But this is a president who, from day one, has always had a grip over the Republican Party but a tenuous relationship with its ideology and its traditional strategy. And once again, hes relying on his own stinktinstincts, his ow approach. Theyd rather see the president talk about judge barrett and the confirmation process but he refuses to do so in any coherent way. It is interesting to me that on the hunter biden, that the campaign has decided to also agree with the president and go all in on this strategy. Sometimes the president has a twitter feed strategy, has a rally strategy but it isnt always backed up with paid media. Is this a bunch of folks around the in the Trump Campaign going, well, this is what he wants so were just going to do it, or this is the hail mary were going to try . You have to look at who is around President Trump. At this point in 2016, he had Kellyanne Conway and steve bannon at his side who did have a strategy. Even though they both have their critics. They had a plan, which was to rally in the industrial midwest to have an antiestablishment message. Now you have bill stepien, a Campaign Manager who is much more operational based on my reporting. Jared kushner is, of course, a strategist, but the president is frustrated with the level of television spending and you have a chief of staff in mark meadows who is more the president s confidante than Master Campaign strategist. Youve laid it out really well. That does seem to be it, but then again, i think the president believes hes his own Campaign Strategist and considering what happened in 2016, he may be a victim of, in a weird way, his own success there. Robert costa, thank you, sir. Dont miss tonights final debate between President Trump and joe biden. It will be moderated by nbc News White House correspondent and weekend today anchor kristen welker. Our predebate coverage starts at 7 00 p. M. And more on nbc news at 8 00 p. M. You can also catch brian, rachel, joy and nicolle for msnbcs brand of predebate coverage. That starts at 8 00. Weve got you covered whatever platform you choose. Judge Amy Coney Barrett is one step closer to becoming the Newest Supreme Court justice. The Senate JudiciaryCommittee Voted Unanimously this morning, sort of, to advance her nomination to the senate. We say unanimously because democrats boycotted the vote. The full senate is expected to take up barretts nomination on monday which is all but certain to pass on a party line vote. And then some. Up ahead about last nights press conference on election security. Why democrats are criticizing as President Trump weigh ws whethe to fire his fbi director. Guaranteed electoral wins for the gop . Theyre not in kansas anymore. How did this historically red state become so competitive in 2020 . Still fresh unstopables inwash scent booster downy unstopables we knew that this was really, really bad. We had ample forewarning. But we did almost no testing, almost no contact tracing. Completely ignored the science, completely ignored the warning signs. There were things that could have been done. A lot of people have died needlessly, and theres nothing more frustrating than feeling like youre fighting against someone who should have your back. We are not going to stamp this out unless we have a change of leadership. Ff pac is responsible for the content of this ad. Iphone 12 and iphone 12 pro are here on verizon 5g announcer 5g just got real. With the coverage of 5g nationwide, and, in more and more cities, the performance of 5g ultra wideband. Get iphone 12 on us when you switch. Only on verizon. Noand if youre troubledan a lifby falls and bleeds,ers. Worry follows you everywhere. Over 100,000 people have left blood thinners behind with watchman. Its a onetime, minimally invasive procedure that reduces stroke risk and bleeding worryfor life. Watchman. Its one time. For a lifetime. But not every tomato ends in the same kind of heinz ketchup. Because you cant be everyones favorite ketchup without making a ketchup for everyone. Welcome back. As we said at the top of todays show in announcing the foreign election interference, John Ratcliffe also said it was meant to damage President Trump. But just a reminder, those emails were sent to democratic voters that was threatening them if they did not vote for trump. Nbc news asked Robert Obrien about that today, and this is how he responded. Take a listen. Some of these ploys are very sophisticated. So if they have an email campaign thats targeted at democrats and supposedly from the proud boys or from some group and then the media comes out and says oh, look at President Trumps supporters are doing this, thats something that definitely damages President Trump. The response by the Trump Administration has angered democrats who say the alleged interference is intended to sow confusion about the 2020 election, not just damage a specific candidate. Joining me is ken dilanian and clint watts. Ken, i want to start with you. You have talked to a few more of your sources trying to get a better understanding of what was irans intent on what they did. What can you tell us . Thats right. And i think its a mix