Airport tarmac, the president sounded like he really didnt want to be there. Dont forget, theyve been here for eight years before me. If they did a good job, i would have never run. I didnt need this. I didnt need this. Although, were having a good time and were doing a good job. No, but its true. If they did a good job, i wouldnt have run. Once again the mostly unmasked crowd was tightly packed as the pandemic continues its accelerated and uncontrolled churn across our country. Just yesterday, our country saw nearly 65,000 more positive cases. Thats now fueling a spike in hospitalizations. Numerous reports out tonight say the rise in cases could soon push some Hospital Systems to the breaking point. Tonight the president described his version of this crisis. Were rounding the turn on the pandemic. 56 and its a record. Epic job growth. Safe vaccines. That quickly end the pandemic. Its ending. Normal life, thats all we want. You know what we want . Normal life. Normal life. Will finally resume. Washington post reports the cdc says the pandemic is blamed for nearly 300,000 more deaths than would take place in the typical year. The virus has left our economy in tatters, of course, cratered the job market in nearly every state. Millions are hoping for assistance from washington in the form of another relief bill. Tonight, trump offered no specifics for those who are struggling. We will deliver record prosperity, epic growth. Next year will be the greatest economic year in the history of our country. This is an election between the trump superrecovery, which is happening right now, and a biden depression. Trump has been blaming house sploes for the lack of new legislation. Today he said he wants an even bigger bill than the 2. 2 trillion version the speaker is pushing for. Washington post and other outlets reporting Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has been warning the white house against striking a preelection stimulus deal with pelosi. Tonights rally included many of the messages weve heard before, including one of the president s signature themes. The biden harris war on police would be a catastrophe. For public safety. We will hire more police, increase penalties for assaults on law enforcement, and we will ban deadly sanctuary cities. Thats pretty much in line with what weve been hearing from him in the past about law and order. This election is about law and order. I think we have a very strong, very powerful law and order campaign. Im about law and order. Im about having you safe. You got law and order on one side and you have chaos on the other. And you know who likes trump because of law and order . The suburban women. I think were going to get a lot of democrats voting for us because of law and order. Were hitting what people want, law and order, which biden was unable to even talk about. Hes not strong for law and order, and Everybody Knows that. Yet, the tough thing for this white house is this, the latest New York Times sienna poll finding a majority of voters saying they think joe biden would, indeed, be a better choice on law and order. During a phone interview this morning on fox news, trump k continued to accuse his opponent of being a criminal and he publicly called on our attorney general to step in. 11 House Republicans have sent a letter they said the following. We request the department of justice immediately appoint an independent, unbiased special counsel to investigate these these issues that have been raised, as well as any corresponding legal or ethical issues that might be uncovered from the former Vice President s 47 years in public office. Will you be doing that . Will you be appointing a special prosecutor . Weve got to get the attorney general to angst. Hes got to act and hes got to act fast. Hes got to appoint somebody. This is major corruption and this has to be known about before the election, and, by the way, were doing very well. Were going to win the election. Were doing very well. This has to be done early. So the attorney general has to act. Remember, last time trump asked someone for assistance in investigating joe biden, it was the government of ukraine. Tonight trump continued to make allegations about joe bidens dealings with china. His family raked in millions of dollars from china and foreign nations. If biden wins, china wins. If biden wins, china will own the usa. But a breaking story tonight from the New York Times is raising new questions about mr. Trumps dealings with china. The paper says tax documents revealed trump spent a decade unsuccessfully pursuing work projects in china that he even had a previously unknown bank account in china. Meanwhile, joe biden is about to get a big assist from his former boss. Barack obama hits the trail tomorrow in philadelphia for the biden harris ticket. And theres one other headline that caught our attention tonight. Nbc news the first to report that lawyers who have been appointed to help 545 Migrant Children who were separated from their families by the trump administration, those lawyers have been unable to locate 545 sets of parents belonging to those children. Thats a glimpse of our world tonight as we welcome three of our returning veterans to start us off. Kimberly atkins, previously of both wbur and the boston herald. These days a member of the boston Globe Editorial board. Phillip rucker, pulitzer prizewinning author for the washington post. The longtime bestseller a very stable genius and robert costa, also with the post. He is also moderator of Washington Week on pbs. Phil rucker, to begin with your beat over at the white house, we have a short list of the people and institutions the president has attacked, i was going to say in the past couple of days. Most of these are just in the past couple of hours. They run the gamut from fauci to the Supreme Court to obviously joe and hunter biden, lesley stahl, our own colleague and friend kristen welker, hillary clinton, who was mentioned at tonights rally. Phil, is this a strategy . In 2016, this president got elected in part listing the grievances of the people. As he put it, the forgotten men and women. This time around it seems like Donald Trumps grievances, like he is painting himself as the forgotten man. Brian, thats such an excellent point, and, you know, we should keep in mind that one of the keys to trumps victory in 2016 was that in the final weeks of that campaign, he had a disciplined, methodical message. Sure, there was a lot of drama, sure there were a lot of distractions and tweets and whatnot, but at each rally he came out with a very clear message about the forgotten men and women that make america great. About his America First foreign policy. And it was very clear what he was selling to the voters. Fast forward to this point four years from now when you expect the incumbent president to be on the campaign trail making a coherent, cohesive Closing Argument to voters, and hes literally all over the map with his grievances, with venom. Threatening now to release some sort of videotape with the lesley stahl interview with 60 minutes that clearly went very poorly for the president , hence his reaction. He seems to be reacting to what happened minute by minute in the news cycle without a strategy, without a coherent message for voters. And its incumbent on him because all the polls show him trailing joe biden to put something together to turn this race around and to try to regain some momentum in this content with biden. There are only 14 days left and he seems to be sabotaging each day with his own undisciplined message. Kim, indeed, in this frogboiling experiment of American Life in the year 2020, id love to see polling to see what percentage of the public realizing its wrong for a sitting president to ask his sitting attorney general to investigate his opponent. Though as i mentioned, last time at least he asked ukraine to help. So perhaps hes trading up. Yes, hes asked ukraine. He asked china and russia during the 2016 election. This is clearly donald trump trying to rerun the same 2016 playbook. That he thinks led to his victory. And if you recall, in addition to calling for these Foreign Countries to seek Hillary Clintons emails, there was also the assist with the announcement of then fbi director james comey hinting at some sort of reopening of an investigation that turned out to be nothing, but it was enough perhaps in Donald Trumps mind that hes trying to conjure up the same sort of thing by pressuring attorney general barr to open some sort of investigation into joe biden for for something that we have seen that theres really no there there. But the difference is 2020 is very different than 2016. There may still be grievance among those who support donald trump, but nothing that donald trump does or says can take away from the pandemic, which in the United States, unlike many other countries, is seeing a severe resurgence. The numbers are going up. People are preparing to not be able to spend the holidays with their extended family. Theyre preparing for their businesses to be hit. More people are being sick and hospitalized. Thats the number one thing on the minds of people. And as much as donald trump says that its disappearing, the more he talks about a vaccine that does not yet exist, voters see in their own lives how it is impacting them. So as much as he would like to recreate 2016, he simply cant. Indeed, robert costa, times are different, and id like to conjure up this image. You live in erie, pa, youre a trump supporter, you put on your maga hat, go over to the airport. Its a cold night. You wait in the security line as air force one taxis in to a halt, the president emerges and you hear him say this. If we win pennsylvania, we win the whole thing. Before the plague came in, i had it made. I wasnt coming to erie. I mean, i have to be honest. Theres no way i was coming. I didnt have to. I would say, hey, erie, if you have a chance, get out and vote. We had this thing won. So, robert, i guess thats his way of saying he needs pennsylvania. Joe biden is a native son. Polling puts biden almost within the margin of error, but lets call it a slim lead. Talk about the stakes here. The comment by the president , brian, is actually quite revealing. In 2016 i took a 350mile road trip across pennsylvania in the final week of the campaign, and what i noticed in western pennsylvania, in northwestern pennsylvania, in central pennsylvania was an outpouring of enthusiasm among low propensity Republican Voters to come out for then candidate trump. And because of the turnout he had in central and western pennsylvania, he was able to beat secretary clinton in pennsylvania by a very narrow margin. Because she underperformed compared to the Obama Coalition in the city of philadelphia, and President Trump did better than expected in some of those suburban enclaves around philadelphia. Four years later, he needs to come to erie because he needs the turnout to be just as strong if not stronger because his entire campaign knows, the president knows that Vice President biden is doing better with suburban voters than secretary clinton was four years ago or around the same range, and Vice President biden is paying more attention to cities like philadelphia, like milwaukee and wisconsin, in the industrial midwest. Making sure that his numbers are going to be better than clintons in pennsylvania. And thats why you see the president tonight in erie. Thats the kind of place he needs an extraordinary turnout if he wants to be competitive and win the white house again. Phil rucker, i saw you flag the nbc news reporting on the separated children and all these hundreds of sets of parents that have not been able to be contacted by their lawyers. Strikes me that in normal times, if we ever see them again, this would be lead story on broadcasts like this one. But, again, the frogboiling experiment of what our lives have become in 2020, do you think regardless of the outcome of this election, that policy, the children separation, things like the muslim ban will go down as socalled original sins of this presidency . They very well may, brian. These are some of the real human tragedies of these four years in america. Those are 545 children who because they migrated to the United States with their parents or with other family members seeking a better life and a hope in a new country were separated from their families at the border. And effectively taken from their parents, stolen from their parents. Theyve not been able to be reunited. They are now orphans. The government was not able to keep track of who their parents were or where their parents went. You know, its a catastrophe what happened there and its unfortunate that there is so much chaos and drama in the news that we dont pay a whole lot of attention to this story, but i dont think its going to go away, and i think regardless of the outcome of the election, theres probably going to be an effort, at least in some corners of this country, to investigate this further and to, you know, try to figure out what went wrong here and who should be held accountable for these lives that have been destroyed. So, kim, a largely successful twoterm democratic president that according to public polling over the past decade or so is often called the most popular man in the world. Barack obama goes on the trail tomorrow for the biden harris ticket. While i guess we dont give former president s assignments, for lack of a better word, what do you think his assignment will be . It will be turnout. I mean, joe biden and the democrats down ballot from him need a big turnout in order to win. At this point, its not a matter of convincing voters that are sitting on their on the sidelines mostly making up their minds. Polling has showed that the vast majority of voters have made up their mind, and, in fact, it is those that are more likely to vote for biden who are more solid and less soft in their support than those who are supporting President Trump. So this is a get out the vote effort and democrats are pulling out their top guns, their most popular folks to get out there. I think the only democrat probably thats more popular than barack obama is michelle obama, and we are seeing that in the leadup to ensure that even though we have seen lots of people early voting, theres two there are two weeks left for votes to be cast. And they want to ensure that despite the pandemic, despite the dispersions cast on mailin voting and early voting that folks get out and vote. And robert costa, last word goes to you. Please explain to the laypeople in our audience, myself included, who dont speak washington why it is Mitch Mcconnell doesnt want to deal with a stimulus bill when people are hurting because it may interfere with the passage of judge barrett to the Supreme Court. In brief, brian, based on my reporting today, secretary mnuchin and speaker pelosi, they cut the heros act earlier in the year. Its always been the white house and the speaker cutting these deals. Two weeks before this president ial election, two weeks before many of his senators put his majority on the line, im told that leader mcconnell doesnt want to be pulled into another deal thats not cut by him. He wants to set the terms. He sees the number inching toward 2 trillion and hes ready to draw the line on that, even though many republicans who are vulnerable in the house and in the senate are saying to him privately, im told, that they need that jolt, they need that stimulus to show something to their voters if theyre in a tight race. But at this point the majority leader feels like the speaker could be outplaying the white house and hes not going to put his thumbprint on it and his thumb on the scale and say im going to endorse that deal. With that, our thanks to kimberly atkins, to phil rucker, to robert costa. Greatly appreciate the three of you starting us off tonight. Coming up for us, the calls are coming from inside the party now. More prominent republicans distance themselves from the president. And later, in some cases covid is the disease that moves in to stay. The survivor stories we should all hear months in the making. The illness they thought theyd shaken off is now the illness that wont go away. All of it as the 11th hour is just getting under way on this tuesday night. So youre a small business, or a big one. You were thriving, but then. Oh. Ah. Okay. Plan, pivot. How do you bounce back . You dont, you bounce forward, with serious and reliable internet. Powered by the largest gig Speed Network in america. But is it secure . Sure its secure. And even if the power goes down, your connection doesnt. So how do i do this . You dont do this. We do this, together. Bounce forward, with comcast business. Many have said there would come a moment. Well, this is the moment because this ballot is like none ever cast. Now, im a lifelong republican and im still a republican, but this ballot is how we restore the soul of our nation, electing a good man, joe biden, and a trailblazer, kamala harris, and ensuring a peaceful transfer of power. Dont kid yourself, folks, that takes guts. Former rnc chairman, friend of this broadcast, Michael Steele formally endorsed joe biden in that new ad for the Lincoln Project and a piece he wrote for our network. Hes one of a growing number of prominent republicans taking this opportunity to stand up to the president. Hes in good company, we add. Retired admiral William Mcraven who led the s. E. A. L. Team 6 operation that killed osama bin laden. He doesnt care easily either. Mcraven offered this rare and remarkable rebuke of the president. This is about the future. It is the challenges that we are going to face in the future. We have a leader who knows how to build alliances, who knows how to build coalitions, who can bring the country together to tackle these tough challenges. President trump has shown that he cannot do that. He cant do it domestically. He hasnt worked with the governors on everything from covid to the wildfir