Transcripts For MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell

MSNBCW The Last Word With Lawrence ODonnell October 31, 2020

Ill see you in that 8 00 to 10 00 hour from whatever Camera Position they find for me. Sort of a tech rehearsal for election night. Rachel, your weekend between now and sunday night, just fully relaxing, get your mind right . Just get your mind off this stuff, right . Can i tell you what im actually doing . Please. First of all, im, you know, im building my Research Binder and stressing out and printing out 7,000 pages of paper, like i always do, but ive also committed to susan that im going to decorate my pickup truck for a halloween car parade. We bought a 6 1 2foot wide furry spider that i have to figure out to put on the vehicle with spooky lighting, and im not very handy, and so i have a feeling thats going to take a significant number of the hours between now and midnight on halloween, which i figure has to be the deadline for that sort of thing. Instagram cannot wait for the pictures, rachel. Instagram will not get them. I know. I know. Thank you, rachel. Have a great weekend. Thanks. See you sunday. Thank you. There was supposed to be one more debate in one of the campaigns for senate in georgia sunday night, and now thats not going to happen because of this. Its not just that youre a crook, senator. Its that youre attacking the health of the people that you represent. Thats jon ossoff in the last debate that he had against republican senator david perdue who has now decided to drop out of the debate scheduled for sunday night because david perdue seems to have decided that he cannot survive another minute on the debate stage with jon ossoff. And he may be right about that. Jon ossoff has a tiny lead in the polls in georgia, which is amazing for a democrat. Jon ossoff will continue to press his case against david perdue right here on this program at the end of this hour. Jon ossoff, candidate for senate in georgia will get tonights last word. Tonights first word goes to joe biden on the day when the four years of waiting has come down to four days of waiting. Only four days left. Many of americans are already voting. Millions more are going to vote. By late tuesday night. And i believe when you use your power, the power of a vote, were going to change the course of the country and, quite frankly, the world, right here in iowa with all of you. In the final days, please keep your sense of empowerment. Keep your sense of optimism of what we can do together because you know we can do anything. Keep your sense of optimism. That was joe Biden Campaigning in iowa today where donald trump won by ten points four years ago and where one poll shows joe biden ahead by three. So theres plenty to be optimistic about if you want joe biden to be the next president of the United States and Kamala Harris to be the next Vice President of the United States. Joe biden is actually giving you a piece of personal life advice for this weekend, and these four days when he says keep your sense of optimism, because thats how the professionals do it. Thats how they get through it. Ive been asking some successful president ial Campaign Managers on this program how they deal with the emotions the anxieties of the final week and you would get talking about concentrate on the data, doing their jobs. But i know how the candidates get through it. Ive seen enough of that. When i was working in the United States senate and i watched new candidates for Senate Working their way to the finish line of a campaign, or veteran the incumbent senators running for reelection, i saw how they handled the final days of the campaign, the way joe biden is doing it now. They choose optimism. Candidates running in a campaign where they have a good chance of winning and an equally good chance of losing simply choose optimism because it is a choice. You can spend this weekend and the next few days wracked with anxiety and fear and maybe even pessimism, or you can choose optimism. If your optimism turns out to be wrong, you have plenty of time for fear and anxiety starting on wednesday, but why ruin this weekend . Do what joe bidens doing. Choose optimism. Do what i learned to do in political campaigns. Choose optimism. Work hard if youre one of the thousands and thousands of people who are working for a candidate, calling people, texting people, trying to get people to vote, and do it with optimism. And pride. That youre doing everything you possibly can to try to move this country closer to its ideals, and you have a lot to be optimistic about, starting with the miracle in the state of texas. Today early voting in texas surpassed the total voter turnout in the last president ial election in texas. Today is the last day of early voting in texas, and so the next surge will come on election day, and texas could go either way. Nonpartisan professional political analyses in texas are saying texas is in play for the democrats. A democratic candidate for president has not won texas in 44 years. Democratic candidates for president and Vice President dont usually bother to go to texas, but thats where Kamala Harris was today, trying to win texas because Kamala Harris is choosing optimism and working hard to win. Thats what the best athletes do. They choose optimism and then they work hard to win. A new Fox National Poll of likely voters shows joe biden ahead of donald trump by eight points, 5244. That is outside the 2. 5 margin of error. So thats a real lead. Think about that. Think about how much rupert murdoch, the billionaire owner of fox, hates paying for a poll that says joe biden has an eightpoint lead over his friend, donald trump. Joe bidens polling leads are significantly higher than Hillary Clintons polling leads were going into the final weekend of the president ial campaign four years ago. The more people named donald trump who speak on any given campaign day, the more damage is done to the trump campaign. Donald trump jr. Went on ruperts Propaganda Network to say, these are his boards, i kept hearing about new infections, but i was, like, why arent they talking about deaths . Oh, because the number is almost nothing. Because weve gotten control of this thing. Thats what donald trump jr. Said. The deaths are almost nothing. What he means is no trump family members have died yet from covid19. Americans, 969 died today on a day that set a record for the new number of infections in a single day. 982 died yesterday, and that is more than triple the number of people who were killed in those hijacked airplanes on 9 11, 246 americans were killed that day in those airplanes, and every single day in this country now a number more than triple the number who were killed in those planes on 9 11 are killed by the coronavirus in this country. And donald trump jr. Says that that number is nothing. 969 deaths today is nothing to a trump. Today the other person named donald trump campaigned for reelection in michigan, lied about doctors who treat covid patients. Donald trump said, i mean, our doctors are very smart, very smart people. So what they do is say, im sorry, but everybody dies of covid. Thats what he said. Donald trump attacked the profession that saved his life when he got covid19. He says doctors are lying about what this pandemic is doing to us. Joe biden responded to that in minnesota today. Doctors and nurses go to work every day to save lives. They do their jobs. Donald trump should stop attacking them and do his job. [ horns honking ] folks, this is the same man who weeks ago when he was told were losing 1,000 lives a day, you remember what he said . He said it is what it is. Thats thoughtful. Well, it is what it is because he is who he is. Donald trump has waved the white flag and surrendered to this virus. But the American People dont give up. They dont cower. Neither will i. Kamala harris optimism brought her to texas today where she offered this Closing Argument in what she is working very hard to write into the history books as the first democratic president ial Campaign Victory in texas in 44 years. My final point is this. This moment will pass. It will pass. And years from now our children and our grandchildren and others, they will look at us, each one of us, theyre going to look in our eyes and they will ask us, where were you at that moment . And, you see, were going to be able to tell them so much more than just how we felt, fort worth. We will tell them what we did. [ cheers ] we will tell them what we did. We will tell them on this particular friday afternoon on the last day of early voting in texas, we were sitting in a field hanging out with kamala. We will tell them we texted everybody, called everybody, emailed everybody we knew that, yes, we knew we were kind of getting on their nerves, but we also knew thatd get over it, that we reminded people of the path that we are on, that the shoulders upon which we stand that we reminded people about what is at stake, and that we reminded people about their power. And in this moment where we are dealing with crises, we reminded our friends and our neighbors and our family that you are not alone, dont let anyone make you feel small, that you are big, you are strong, you have power, and at election time, that power will be through your vote. And you will tell them when they ask that you elected joe biden, the president of the United States. [ cheers ] thank you, fort worth, and god bless texas. [ cheers ] on this final friday night of the president ial Campaign Leading off our discussion, renee graham, editor for the boston globe. Also with us, Steve Hildebrandt who served as Deputy National Campaign Manager for Barack Obamas 2008 president ial campaign. Renee, id like you to reflect on where we are after four years of waiting for this day to vote in the next president ial election, which we start counting the votes in four days from now. Whats remarkable is the tremendous sense of urgency people feel about voting this year in a way i dont know they felt in 2016. Thats because they know whats at stake. They know what this country cannot endure any longer. And i think thats really important in the way people are going out. If you think about the way that the gop had this bottomless bag of tricks to suppress the vote, i think theres been a backlash to that. People understand that to allow that to happen is to allow further erosion of democracy, and what the gop has been doing is bleeding out this democracy by making it more and more difficult for people to vote. And theyre not having it. They want a future in this country. They want a democracy that is sound and that is strong. As flawed as it is, people are willing to fight for it, and thats exactly what were seeing with these incredible numbers in states like texas. Steve, i normally think about my questions to guests and try to pose them careful but im just going to throw it at you the way campaign professionals throw it at each other in the final days of a campaign, pretty much any day of a campaign, they say, steve, what do you know . I know were going to win, lawrence. Okay. You know, i think i think weve been seeing this coming for several months. I try to look at Donald Trumps numbers and polling, and for months and months and months what weve seen is 41 , 42 , he doesnt get over there in the national polling. He rarely gets to 44 . He just isnt climbing, hes never climbed above that number, and i think thats very telling as to where were at. And for the last year hes done nothing to try to reach out to independents, to undecided voters to really try to grow his number. From that perspective, i mean, from what ive seen over the years in campaigns is, if youre not there and youve done nothing to try to change that number, the last four days isnt going to change it for you. I am very optimistic and feel very good about where were at. You never trust donald trump to not pull something in the last few hours of this campaign, but i think the one thing that needs to be said is america is exhausted. Theyre just exhausted. We have had political peril in this country for nearly five years if you count the year of his campaigning, and i think people are just ready to move forward and try and see a better country than weve seen in the last five years. Renee, speaking of that better country, joe biden seems to be trying to model that every day on the campaign trail. Were going to look in a moment at video of joe biden dealing with hecklers today, people, trump voters who wanted to make some noise at his event. This happens on a day when the people named donald trump alternately say that more than 900 people dying in america is literally nothing and that doctors are lying about how many people actually are dying from covid19 and how many people have covid19. Lets look at that new world of decency that joe biden modelled today. These guys are not very polite, but theyre like trump. [ cheers ] look, theyre going to be okay. Were going to take care of them as well. We need to come together to fight for all these folks. We have four days left to get it done, four days. So renee, if theres a biden presidency, there wont be a president threatening anybody who says something, you know, some kind of heckling or anything like that at a biden event as weve seen donald trump do. Imagine how donald trump would have handled that moment. You know, he would have yelled at the person and encouraged violence against that person. Thats not who joe biden is. And so you have this contrast between decency and this sort of ruthless, unvarnished inhumanity. Were in the middle of a pandemic and the president continually says were rounding the corner. Well, were rounding the corner if theres an even worse hell awaiting us. You have his son talking about, well, its nothing. You dont call 900 people dying a day nothing. So the contrast between these two men is extraordinary because you have him embracing you have barbecued embracing these people who are heckling him and hes like, im going to work for you too. Hes repenting the difference, hes not denigrating them. These last five years have been horrible. Its really been a test of the american will to withstand what donald trump has been dishing out, and we know hes not done yet. So the idea that joe biden could stand there with so few left before election day and embrace the people who were heckling him, embrace the people who are trying to put him down and sort of ruin his moment i think really speaks to where this country needs to go and that sense of optimism. Steve, what are the differences youre seeing in joe bidens polling tonight versus Hillary Clintons polling on the friday night before election day four years ago . Obviously a slightly larger lead, not just in the national polling, but in each of these states. You know, hes in the game in more places than she is. I think you look at the map where we definitely would have, you know, traditional blue states, and then if you add pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, even minnesota, you know, he has substantial leads in those states. I think its going to be pretty solid that he will win those states. If he does, he gets beyond 270 and wins the presidency. But lawrence, this is pretty amazing. Georgias a new battleground state. Texas is a new battleground state. Arizona is a new battleground state. North carolina, iowa, you know, you got all of these extra states, so to speak, that give joe biden numerous paths to the presidency, and hes in the game and ahead in some of those states. So this is very real. I think the difference between what happened with hillary, say, in texas where she wanted to play and in georgia where she wanted to play, we have hundreds of thousands of new voters that are coming out for democrats in those two states that she didnt have back then. Its taken another president ial cycle to get there. You know, we have different elected officials, say, in houston with the mayor who made a big difference in how we get people registered and turned out and how were doing the vote. Georgia, 750,000 new voters. I mean, these are gamechanging numbers that are going to allow two states that havent been in play for a very long time that are absolutely in play just as much as florida or North Carolina or these others are. Steve hilled brand, renee graham, thank you very much for joining us on this friday night. Really appreciate it. Thank you, lawrence. Thank you. Up next, we have new video emerged today showing bins of mail at a post office in floridas Miamidade County that raised concerns. And those concerns were brought into a federal court in washington, d. C. , today. Well talk to the democratic leader of the Florida House who made sure this country saw that video today. He sounded the alarm. He joins us next. This is the feeling of total protection now that we protect your identity, and mobile phone, as well as auto home and life youve never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today coto build a house, you need ary ststrong foundation. 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And this video from florida caught my eye today on twitter where it was posted by our next guest, kionne mcghee, democratic leader of the Florida House of representatives. This twee

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