With a marine taking the traditional post outside the oval office door you see here. In every administration thats the universal sign the president is in and the white house confirmed there was a basically that he was working there a few minutes later, building on the chief of staffs comments trump wanted to go to work regardless. His schedule right now is fluid. Were looking at his prognosis from a health standpoint. He wanted to go to the oval yesterday. If he decides to go to the oval, we have safety protocols there. Medical experts are dubious because trump has been breaking safety protocols before and after he got covid from the instantly infamous ride outside walter reed, which history may record as one of the most absurd actions to a president under hospital care and distancing and Contact Tracing to protect their people as at least 18 people have covid. Miller, one of three aides who tested positive after this walk to marine one last week and today is the exactly the time these facts matter, when the record matters, when the powerful can be put under scrutiny so you can make up your own mind and your own vote. Administrations record on covid Takes Center Stage tonight as the leader of his Covid Task Force mike pence is debating camilKamala Harris in a few hou when pence and covid will be a focal point. Joining me is al sharpton, host of politics matter and hes been on the debate stage himself before and knows what these High Pressure events are like and are harder than they look and joined by tdr. Jennifer pina. Good evening to both of you. Good evening. Rev, what is important in your view tonight given the medical context that i just mentioned . I think what is extremely important is that were going to have the head of the president s Coronavirus Task force. The vice presidedebating. And i think that he will have the disadvantage of having to do that while the president who appointed him to that task and who is his running mate has violated every coronavirus protocol that has been announced, has made a mockery of being in quarantine or even in isolation by going on a joyride on one day and making a dramatic and entry into the steps, stepping up the exterior steps outside the white house and tearing off the face mask and going to work today. I dont know how you could have had a worse set of circumstances for Vice President pence to have to go on that debate stage tonight and face a prosecutor, a trained prosecutor when im just giving you the bill of particulars how to nail him early, often and all night long. Dr. Pina, from your view, is the president clearly violating the cdc rules and Doctors Orders . Absolutely. I mean, today was another example of that lack of attention to preventive measures, the fact he was Walking Around the white house and potentially working back in the oval office. We already know prevention works. Wear a mask, social distance and hes still not out of the woods, as many Health Professionals including dr. Fauci mentioned. We dont know when the last negative test was. There is still a possibility hes an active virus shedder and again, a potential spreader of disease. And there has been no medical Briefing Since donald trump actually left the hospital. Today his doctor put out a statement that looked a lot more like and we follow this, like a publicity statement than medical. It said among other things trump himself said he quote felt great. You dont really need a doctor to repeat hearsay. We could in court the patient and reports from inside what is an anxious white house where reporters and staff are at risk. We have the New York Times reporting staff wondering out loud whether trumps behavior was spurred by a cocktail of drugs and steroids hes taking that can cause mood swings and give a false level of energy and euphoria. Your thoughts, doctor . Well, regarding the memo, as health care professionals, it is our job to be trustful and transparent with patients. It is not our job to play politics. I like to say pills and politics dont mix. Its our job to be consultants and give an accurate account of the persons health. So publicity stunts really dont impress me regarding an actual medical brief. In terms of the anxiety around the white house, its a warranted anxiety. Again, this is a patient potentially who is a spreader. We have people who have potentially still not been contacted by the Contact Tracing effort or that have not been followed up on and you have a Vice President thats about to take the stage who is somebody who could potentially have been exposed and also eventually test positive. Im actually glad to see the plexiglass was agreed to eventually but that still places everybody on that stage at risk today. Yeah, you mentioned that i want to get to that first to the doctor and al sharpton, call it something that everyone understands as a Global Impact and people are living with and yet, the Trump Campaign and this is well documented tried to spend several weeks changing the topic to anything but. The existence of that plexiglass on that stage seems as a reminder that the Vice President who runs the Covid Task Force is obviously at risk because task force or not, the white house he works in, the boss he works for, the person he wants four more years violates that. Can you walk us through it . You were a former physician to the Vice President. Well, i think its a good reminder to the American People that behind that flplexiglass stands the president in charge of the Coronavirus Task force. Again, it also reminds people that this should be a very important topic to talk about because it doesnt just affect peoples health. This has implications regarding health care, the aca, preexisting conditions and how thats going to come into play for people who have covid diagnose s and symptoms afterward. We know the black and latino communities are disproportionately affected by this. It has a lot of tent kiacletent you will. This will open up the discussion up to so many more topics. Rev, im curious what you think having been on the debate stages. Everyone has ideas before and after, you know, the pregame and the monday morning quarterbacking, youve done it. Its challenging. You have to pick your moments. You had some sinkezingers, ari if trump returns to the white house, hell be tempted to go to the oval. He cant do that. This is from monday. He cant break quarantine or do the things the rest of us arent supposed to do. How he handles himself is a metaphor for how he handles the nation. Like so many other tweets, reverend, this felt like a plaintiff cry. Hes hoping the Republican White House realizes it. They dont. This tweet hasnt aged well given they are violating all of that. Your thoughts about how important it is in story telling, in the challenge tonight on that debate stage for Kamala Harris to say do you want to know how their policy works . Look how it fails to protect them. Absolutely it gives the story line to camillk kamal and you dw how to defend it. The narrative that the republicans and the president and Vice President have tried to sell is that everything is all right, its not as bad as you think, trump comes out of the hospital and say, you know, dont let it dominate your life. So thats why he goes to the oval office today. Hes trying to sell this where 200 over 211,000 people died, millions infected. Rev, would you say those 211,000 people let it dominate their life . It did. They arent with us anymore. It ended their life. Thats how much it dominated. The setting and im looking at if i were on that stage as i was in 04 with the primary debates, the setting is hes got to defend this through plexiglass. I mean, the visual will kacance out anything. It like me sitting in jail looking through the bars talking about i might go on vacation. You look like youre out of your mind looking through a plexiglass trying to tell everybody everyone is all right. Thats one. Secondly, he has no idea what this president may be doing while hes talking. Can you imagine sitting on stage and you have twitter in chief that may be undermining anything you are saying. He may tweet in the middle of the debate i changed my mind again about having covid relief. Oh, lets change it back. I want to help the airlines. This man is not well in a normal circumstance. Who knows what the medicine is doing to him and for you to have to get up there and defend that case, almost makes me feel sorry for Vice President pence. The only reason i dont is hes in charge of it. He is the copilot of this disastrous flight were on. All well put. And clearly, for the record, rev, youre almost sorry for Vice President pence. Almost. And stress almost. Matter of fact, put it in capitals. Capital, almost. Got it. I want to play something from the speaker of the house because we are and weve said it before but we are in this time if it was the end of the movie and the pandemic was in the white house not only hitting the president and infecting him and he couldnt work, it would feel far featured. The speaker is arguing this has become more dangerous than other places that have less funding, fewer guards but follow the rules. Take a look. Is it time to pick up the phone . Do you want to go over to the white house . Whats the best way to work this out now . I wouldnt go anywhere near the white house. It one of the most dangerous places in the country both in terms of the assault that it makes on truth as well as health. Doctor, is that in your view medically sound or an over statement . Well, i would like to say the ladder but i have latter but i have to say the former. Given what weve seen in the last few days, joyrides, masks off, Walking Around the white house. It really has become the center of the most recent seeding event and id like to echo the reverend in terms of the comment about, you know, the president saying dont let this dominate you. I would like to tell the American People dont let arrogance dominate you. It is arrogant to think that anybody is going to be safe from this virus, and as a medical professional, i have to remind people as well the Patients Experience when youre a president is a very different experience than every other Patients Experience. You cant use that as a norm if you were in fact infected with this virus. Yeah, there is also, of course, the attention on the Contact Tracing and errors raise the question of other peoples vulnerability that goes with a big issue tonight. I want to read this serious stuff. The daily beast reporting that the white house without drying to drum up too much notice was quietly trying to tell veterans groups it may have exposed them to covid saying on friday at the complex there was a risk of the virus emerging from the grounds. Your view, doctor, of how they are handling this . Well, im glad they finally increased the Contact Tracing and actually partnered with the cdc to try to reach the people who have been contacted potentially. But at the beginning, that was notwas reactive strategy. It required a lot of members of the senior staff to become infected for this to actually trigger. Im glad its happening now but it should have happened before. Prevention is the key. And again, it should be more of a proactive strategy, not reactive. All sound points, dr. Pina, a former physician of Vice President pence and medical expert. Reverend sharpton, in a lighter note well check in with you in the coming days ahead if you find Vice President pence does poorly enough tonight youll go to full sorry for him. Only time will tell, sir. Well see. I hope they start feeling sorry for the American People and start dealing with covid relief and start giving us a real cohaerent platform of how we deal with this virus. I would much rather see them feel sorry for the American People. I hear you on that and thats a point of unity and nonpartisanship that is well needed right now. Again, my thanks to both of you. We have our shortest break 30 seconds and im joined tonight by senator Elizabeth Warren in the program. We have a look at mike pences record, issues that could come up tonight but next michelle goldberg. Well get into the latest on 2020 in 30 seconds. To the latesn 2020 in 30 seconds fraudsters, theyre out to get your medicare number so they can bill fake claims in your good name. Dont give them that chance. Just calling to confirm your medicare number. Do you have your card available . For example, if the caller says theyre from medicare, watch out. Its probably a scam. Dont give out your card number. And always check your claims statements for errors. Report fraudulent charges to 1800medicare. Guard your card. Learn more at medicare. Gov fraud. Im joined by New York Times columnist michelle goldberg. She had been writing about a white house infected with propaganda. Good to see you, michelle. Good to see you, ari. Im going to bring up, im talking to the control room. The first thing i want to get into with you, i think we have this, regarding a lot of the metrics and indicator coming up. Do we have that, you guys . Yeah, let me show this. Polling that shows biden now by a wide margin 24 points he won the debate. Approval of his handing of the pandemic, the president meanwhile plummeting to a new low of 37 if you thought it should be lower fine, more people think that and then were tracking actual met trirics in voting. When you look at this, this is remarkable. We had 75,000 very early traditionally. Were in a pandemic and 5 million plus people have already voted. This is part one of the story and looks like bad news for trump. Part two i want to get to but your view on this first set of data. You can go on and on. There is other data about democrats just unbelievable fundraising. The fact that you see republicans having to put money into states like kansas and iowa and South Carolina of all places so yes, there is a number of double digit polls for joe biden including one which typically leans republican and so, you know, democrats should continue to be wary. They should take nothing for granted. I think they will continue to be traumatized by 2016 but it objectively right now donald trump is very far behind. Yeah, just briefly to build on your point, hes far behind in the headtohead but has the kind of drag that is, i think, signs it is different than 16 in how much negativity there is about his actual performance. Right . Which is differentno nonincumbent contest. I want to bring in something else. People need to understand whether you like it or not or tweet back at us, michelle, this is something we touched on briefly and i have updated numbers in the Battle Ground states where trump did win narrowly last time. We want to compare bidens lead to what Hillary Clinton had in the ski stakey states. In florida biden is two points above where clinton was at this time in 16. Her lead didnt hold. She went on to lose. In north carolina, clinton was polling about a point higher than biden is now there and in ohio, clinton was about two points higher than biden is now both basically tied in the margin of error with trump. Michelle, these are the kind of states unlike, say, a michigan which a democrat must win, those are states that tend to put democrats over 270. States that obama benefitted from. Your view of what it means that this state polling unlike the National Sort of narrative suggests that joe biden doesnt have an insurmountable lead or neck and neck. He doesnt have an insurmountable lead. The latest numbers trump has a 16 or 17 chance of winning the election at this point. If you go to the doctor and they say youre probably going to be fine but you have a 16 or 17 chance of dying, youre not going to sleep well that night. So, yes, donald trump could still win the election. I think that one thing thats very different this year than 2016, even if the spread in the polls looks different is the absolute figures. Right . So joe bidens lead over donald trump if you look at some of the averages isnt that different than Hillary Clintons lead over donald trump in some of the averages at this point in 2016 but in terms of absolute numbers, joe biden has many more voters. So hes i think at 51 in one of the averages in pennsylvania. Which means that there is just a lot fewer undecided voters that can break trumps way. You know, trump would have to win there is not enough undecided voters for him to win if these hold. In some other states, he would have to win all of the undecided voters in order to be put over the top, you know, and things could change lets break down the point lets pause and break down the way youre explaining this is like were on the debate headline on the screen but were shifting here to this second point, chapwhich is the potenti warning signs. Most people think at large trump lost the debate. They think hes bad on covid. Youre explaining why if people further go into supporting biden at that level, youre saying its a big problem to reverse that they would have to change their minds and thats unlikely in this moment . Well, i think, yes, its unlikely. I think that when you look at the polls from 2016, what you see is that Hillary Clinton is ahead but you have a large number of voters who are undecided and those voters vote for trump in a lot of places. Here, people seem to be more locked in. It not that trump has to win over the undecideds. Pennsylvania he would have to win some people back from biden