Summary
Former President Barack Obama delivered a rousing speech in Philadelphia for Democratic presidential candidate, former Vice President Joe Biden. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe said both Iran and Russia have obtained U.S. voter registration information in an effort to interfere in the election, including Iran posing as the far-right group, Proud Boys to send intimidating e-mails to voters. Donald Trump has made clear he's coming after Hunter Biden at Thursday's debate for allegedly profiting off his father's position. Rudy Giuliani denies inappropriate behavior in upcoming "Borat" movie.
Transcript
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL, MSNBC HOST: Trymaine Lee, the podcast is Into America. Trymaine Lee gets the LAST WORD tonight. Thank you, Trymaine, I really appreciate it.
"THE 11TH HOUR" with Brian Williams starts now.
BRIAN WILLIAMS, MSNBC HOST: And good evening once again. Day 1,371 this was of the Trump administration, 13 days until Election Day, 22 hours remain until Trump and Biden meet in Nashville, Tennessee for their final debate moderated by our own colleague, Kristen Welker.
Tonight, we saw Trump and Obama, though on separate stages in separate battleground states. Obama went first at a drive in rally in Philadelphia, where he went big with a withering attack on the incumbent.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, (D) FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: He hasn't shown any interest in doing the work, or helping anybody but himself and his friends, or treating the presidency, like a reality show that he can use to get attention. And by the way, even then his TV ratings are down. So you know that upsets him.
But the thing is, this is not a reality show. This is reality. The only people truly better off than they were four years ago, or the billionaires who got his tax cuts, we know that he continues to do business with China, because he's got a secret Chinese bank account. How is that possible? Can you imagine if I had a secret Chinese bank account when I was running for reelection? You think Fox News might have been a little concerned about that? They would have called me Beijing Barry. I get that this President wants full credit for the economy he inherited. And zero blame for the pandemic that he ignored.
But you know what? The job doesn't work that way. Tweeting at the television doesn't fix things. Making stuff up doesn't make people's lives better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Donald Trump followed up tonight with what has now become routine a packed rally this time in North Carolina, where he covered a range of topics from boasting about his response to the coronavirus to random broadsides and grievances, including a few swipes back at Barack Obama.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) UNITED STATES PRESIDENT: That pandemic is rounding the corner. They hate it when I say it. All you hear is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. They want to scare the hell out of everyone. 60 minutes -- take 60 minutes, she said, you are begging for women to love you. You said women, please love you. You'll see, you'll see, where did you see? We have a little surprise for 60 minutes. They've said he is so stupid. Then they say he's not really smart. Then they say he's trying to take over the entire country. You know, Obama is now campaigning. There was nobody that campaigned harder for crooked Hillary Clinton than Obama. He said he will not be a president that I want. I think the only one, the only one more unhappy than crooked Hillary that night was Barack Hussein Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: While the President was on stage and a case of curious timing, and we'll say it straight up possibly dubious motives. There was a hastily arranged press conference at FBI headquarters in Washington. It was extensively about threatening emails that are going around meant to look like they were sent out by the far right group, the Proud Boys. The emails appear to tell Democratic voters to switch to the Republican Party. Some of them threaten them if they don't vote for Trump.
We'll have more on this unusual press conference just ahead in our broadcast tonight. Not long after tonight's event, The Washington Post reported Trump is considering firing the FBI director Chris Wray after Election Day. Paper also says Attorney General Bill Barr's position isn't looking that secure either these days. Despite this latest palace intrigue, there's still a pandemic and most of the nation is now caught firmly in the grip of this latest wave of infections.
Late this afternoon, in fact, the CDC offered this grim assessment.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAY BUTLER, MD, DEP. DR. INFECTIOUS DISEASE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL: We're seeing a distressing trend here in the United States with COVID-19 cases increasing in nearly 75% of the country. We've seen nearly 60,000 cases a day on average as well as 700 deaths.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Total confirmed cases in the U.S. now top 8.3 million with the death toll now over 223,000. Over 1000 people died in just the past day alone. In a previously taped Town Hall event for Sinclair broadcasting, Trump was again defending his track record in handling this virus.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: With COVID, is there anything that you think you could have done differently if you had a mulligan or a do over on one aspect of the way you handle it? What would it be?
TRUMP: Not much. Look, it's all over the world. You have a lot of great leaders. There's a lot of smart people. It's all over the world that came out of China, China should have stopped it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Negotiations over another coronavirus relief bill still underway. Senate Democrats today blocked Republicans effort to pass a $500 billion bill. Over in the House Speaker Pelosi is still pushing for relief in the $2.2 trillion range. Trump White House has offered a $1.8 trillion proposal. Republican senators are also focused on getting Judge Amy Coney Barrett confirmed today. She met with senators ahead of tomorrow's plan vote to move her nomination out of committee until the full Senate.
Tonight on this network, the Minority Leader Chuck Schumer confirmed the 10 Democrats on the Judiciary Committee will boycott that vote. There's also a rather interesting development tonight concerning Trump's personal lawyer and former mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani. He had a hand in helping to get the president impeached and appears to be in the lead and pushing the President's latest allegations about his opponent.
Well, it turns out Rudy also has a cameo in the latest Sacha Baron Cohen Borat film. NBC News has obtained a copy of the film that appears to show Giuliani and an actress playing a reporter going into a hotel bedroom for drinks in what may be a compromising few moments.
Tonight, Giuliani called the video a complete fabrication says a suspicious looking screengrab from the scene is simply him tucking in his shirt after removing his microphone following an interview. He says he called the police once he realized Sacha Baron Cohen was behind it.
It's a lot, but let's bring in our leadoff discussion group for this pre-debate Wednesday night, Jonathan Lemire, White House Reporter for The Associated Press, Annie Karni, White House Reporter for The New York Times, Jason Johnson, Campaign Veteran, a journalist and contributor over at The Grio and a professor of politics at Morgan State University. Good evening, and welcome to you all.
Annie, let's see. We're 21 hours in change away from the start of this debate now. Some of our colleagues with a straight face have teased out a plotline that features the president unrolling a new tone tomorrow night. Has he had any debate prep that you've been able to learn? Do you expect anything different tomorrow night?
ANNIE KARNI, THE NEW YORK TIMES WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: No, there has been no debate prep. There were a few sessions on his calendar. But he did not partake in those. He -- the hope among his aides is that he will let Biden do more talking. And then he will lay out a vision for his second term.
It's, you know, less than two weeks until Election Day, and he is still not laid out or clear vision for a second term, despite multiple attempts by his friendliest interlocutors like Sean Hannity asking him to do so.
So, I don't expect -- it would be surprising if he had something to say on that. Now, the other thing is, they want him to debut a new town. He has had no debate prep sessions, and over the past few days, we've seen him really take on at fights with people who are not Joe Biden. They -- first it was Fauci, then it was Lesley Stahl from 60 minutes, there was Obama a little bit of the rally. He seems to be looking for other targets when many of his aides want him to really just be drawing a contrast with Biden.
Another thing that was offered to him as a as a way to, you know, attract some of the voters who might be turned off by his tone and his twitter feed is to use humor and say, I promise in a second term, not to tweet as much. That would also be a new term that we've never seen him do. So he's been given some ideas of how to do better in the second debate. But at this point, I think your viewers are probably tired of new tone and at this point, Trump is going to do what he wants to do.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, perhaps they're a pretty savvy bunch. Hey, Jason, I want to play for you a little bit more of, let's call him Joe Biden's leading surrogate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: With Joe and Kamala at the helm, you're not going to have to think about the crazy things they said every day. You'll be able to go about your lives knowing that the President is not going to retweet conspiracy theories about secret commands running the world or that Navy SEALs didn't actually kill bin Laden. Think about that. The President of the United States retweeted that. Imagine.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Jason not unlike a wine review, I found hints of Chris Rock and Seinfeld in today's delivery. Do you think it can be as effective as it was kind of reassuring to Democrats in the base after all, his job was to get out the vote in Pennsylvania?
JASON JOHNSON, PROFESSOR MORGAN STATE UNIVERSITY: Yeah, Brian, I thought it was fantastic. In fact, what I heard was a little of, of Jon Lovitz, playing Michael Dukakis on SNL like 25 years ago. How could I lose to this guy, right? I mean, there's -- there was such exasperation in Barack Obama speech of like, this guy is clearly incompetent. He, he tweets, insane theories, you can't not vote for him. You know, it's red meat for the base. It's catharsis for people who are watching it. But I also think this is really interesting, Brian.
If you think about it, you know, the biggest most important surrogate for Joe Biden would be Barack Obama, and he hasn't been deployed until these last two weeks. That is indicative of campaign that is very confident, you would think that if Biden was really, really concerned that Barack Obama would have been out basically past Labor Day, so I think this is a sign that perhaps Joe Biden's thinking I can run up the numbers in places like Pennsylvania, as opposed to I got to send Barack Obama there to make sure I secure these locations. So I think this is a good sign strategically for the campaign and a good sign that this is the kind of rhetoric that they're on that they're selling. Look, we already know this guy is competent and the incumbent is terrible, as opposed to we're desperate and we're concerned.
WILLIAMS: And Jonathan Lemire, take us out on the trail figuratively, with you talk about these Trump rallies as events as performance are compared to 2016. How do they compare especially in terms of crowds and energy and the like?
JONATHAN LEMIRE, ASSOCIATED PRESS WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Well, for the MAGA set, their rock concerts and certainly the president is playing a lot of the Greatest Hits night after night. I was there last night with him in Erie, Pennsylvania when he spoke for about an hour. But there are some key differences and some similarities to 2016. First of all, let's start the crowd size. They have gotten significantly bigger in recent weeks. We are now approaching 2016 size. After the pandemic, after he scuttles rallies for a while he sort of slowly brought them back and they were significantly smaller. They have now we're that's thousands of people every night. Most evenings, very few and masks never any social distancing. Let's remember these are major events being held in the pandemic. So that's different than four years ago.
But aids are frustrated. Another change is that in four years ago, particularly in the stretch run of the campaign, the President was for him, relatively disciplined. He had his key issues he would hammer night after night, whether it be on immigration or trade or alleging Hillary Clinton corruption. It's far more scattershot this time around. He's not zeroed in on a message. There's a lot more personal grievance. Certainly they've always been attacks on the media, but they've been escalated even further in these weeks. And last night, he did deliver what his aides want to be his closing message. He said, look, it was about the economy and he told the people there. He's like you vote for me, you vote for the economic recovery that's already be gone from this pandemic. If you vote for Joe Biden, you'll get socialist economic policies and other depression. That's what his aides wanted to say. He did say it, but it was drowned out by Annie said, feuds with Fauci and Lesley Stahl and other scattershot messaging that his aides are deeply frustrated has blunted the impact of what he's really trying to deliver as a closing message.
WILLIAMS: And Annie back over to you, talk some more about your reporting that that for this boss who only likes to hear good news more than most, what these glimmers of hope are that aids are passing along to him these days?
KARNI: There's some better polls, they're not great polls, but there's a lot of excitement among his aides about an ABC poll that came out yesterday that showed up one point race in North Carolina. They are saying that they're seeing his numbers come back from the hit they took after the double whammy of the first debate where he -- his performance was widely panned, and then his hospitalization for the coronavirus. It seems like he has convinced most of his supporters that his health is fine. He's doing multiple rallies a day. So they've seen their numbers kind of come back from that horrible week for them. And that's a glimmer of hope. And they think this debate is their final chance for a reset. So they think that, you know, a lot -- I hear a lot of people saying that conceding that the President had a bad debate, and his bad debate overshadowed Biden's debate, which they all didn't think was particularly strong. So the hope is that if the President can step back, it could, you know, reset the dynamics a little bit.
That being said, you know, early voting is going gangbusters and states like North Carolina, and other critical states, so time is of the essence. But they think they -- I mean, it's a tight race, they're hoping for tight. That's -- and for a reset, possibly on Election Day when a lot of Republican voters vote.
WILLIAMS: Indeed, Jason, let's talk about the chance of that reset. And a question that I hear asked at least once a day now, how much of that Obama Biden coalition can Biden Harris, count on turning out?
JOHNSON: Well, Brian, all the numbers say that it's not even going to necessarily look like the Obama coalition there is -- there are two particular groups that Biden seems to be doing particularly well with it we haven't seen in a long time. He's doing very well with seniors, including white seniors. I mean, he's competitive with working class whites, non-educated whites and white seniors in a way that President Barack Obama always struggle with. Obama made up those numbers, by large support from African Americans, large support for Latinos, large support for young people.
So I think the Biden coalition might be a bit wider, it might be a bit older, it might be a bit more spread out that we saw from the previous coalition. But a lot of that is a sort of level of frustration with Donald Trump and his inability to be competitive with independent voters.
I think right now, if you look at the places that Donald Trump's campaign is excited about, or paying attention to their side of it, they're only 1% ahead or they're doing better in North Carolina. They're doing better in Arizona. These are places that the Biden campaign would consider the cherry on top. Biden doesn't have to win Arizona. Biden doesn't have to win North Carolina. So, I think the coalition of Biden putting together is making it much more difficult for Republicans to strategize these last two weeks in the past, because he seems to have a wider swath of American support than we've seen for a Democrat in a long time.
WILLIAMS: Hey, Jonathan Lemire, in our closing seconds, anytime the FBI has a press conference within two weeks of an election, it gets your attention, Jim Comey or not, as it did tonight. And we should be skeptical because of our times because of this administration, because nothing greater than the fact that Barack Obama had a good day. Donald Trump was on the stage in North Carolina. I'm going to quote from Garrett Graff. One reason you're in a job like DHS secretary or DNI that you don't compromise your integrity and live badly, is because there are moments like right now when the public needs to trust you. So there was the DNI approaching the microphones, followed by the head of the FBI. What do you think that was all about tonight?
LEMIRE: You're right, Brian, certainly, it was a hastily called news conference. Reporters were only given about a half hours notice before this and was told it was going to be a significant announcement on election security, which raised all sorts of eyebrows and antenna across Washington certainly remember, the late developments in the 2016 race caused by James Comey's letter about the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
It's hard to know this is the president -- everything the president in this for years, politics is everywhere. We know that he has touched institutions. He has touched branches of government. There's never been political before, which now seemed to be CDC among them. And this is one where I think there is he was, this announcement has been greeted with some skepticism.
The allegations about Iran and Russia having voter information that largely at least at first glance appears to be publicly available. So, there's a sense at least among some that this is perhaps an over hyped event to try to change their narrative, to try to change the conversation.
And to -- yes, cast doubt about the integrity of the election, as much as there was reassurances tonight, that Americans should have faith in their voting. Of course, here we are allegations of foreign interference at the end, allegedly to hurt President Trump, although it's not quite clear why that would be. It wasn't spelled out. But it just adds to the mix here of as Americans fear two weeks out. The results on Election Day and the days that follow are going to be unclear and murky and perhaps undermine the confidence in their results.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, people need to be very sharp consumers. Here's a credibility challenged DNI choosing to toss Donald Trump's name into that press conference tonight. Great, thanks to our big three on a Wednesday, Jonathan Lemire Annie Karni, Jason Johnson greatly appreciated.
A break for us and then coming up more on the many questions raised by tonight's allegations of these foreign efforts to interfere with the election that most of us have known have been going on for quite a while. We'll be joined by a former FBI senior official.
And later, the name Hunter Biden just might come up a lot tomorrow night. Will names like Ivanka, Eric, DJ, TJ come up just as often, should they? THE 11TH HOUR just getting underway on this Wednesday evening.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have already seen Iran sending spoofed emails designed to intimidate voters, incite social unrest and damage President Trump although we have not seen the same actions from Russia, we are aware that they have obtained some voter information just as they did in 2016.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You should be confident that your vote counts. Early unverified claims to the contrary should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: More of tonight's event that we're still trying to figure out basically accusing Iran and to a lesser extent, Russia of being behind threatening campaign emails. There's nothing spooky about them sent to some Democratic voters in Florida and other states the emails say some version of vote for Trump or will come after you.
According to The Washington Post, the emails appear to come from the fringe group, the Proud Boys, the same group the president told to stand by at the last debate.
NBC News correspondent, Jo Ling Kent is following voter stories like these for us in these final days of the campaign and is with us tonight from Los Angeles.
So, Jo, what did we learn tonight? And how are our elections any safer by dint of this news conference while the President was on stage in North Carolina line that may be unanswerable?
JO LING KENT, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's a tough question. But there's certainly a lot of context behind this. The director of national intelligence saying that, as you said Iran is behind these threatening spoofed emails to Florida voters. The whole idea is to intimidate them. And there's some personal identifying information like their home address included in some of these emails.
Now, Director Ratcliffe did say they were meant to incite social unrest and damage to President Trump. But he didn't provide any further details or evidence of exactly what he meant by that. So in Florida, of course, you take a look at the broader context here, voter information, like your name, or your party affiliation is actually accessible if you request it through public records. So, they also said that Russia obtained some voter registration info as well. And at the same time, the cybersecurity firm Mandiant is telling our Kevin Collier on our bus./tech team, that this is a fundamental shift in Iran's willingness to interfere in the voting process. And it's clearly aimed at undermining voter confidence.
So, the good news is there's no indication that votes or tallies have been really altered or touched or that election infrastructure has been hit in this case. But the bigger backdrop here, Brian, is that Russia has been seen as the bigger threat to the election, especially after you remember 2016. So perhaps this is evidence that Iran is ramping up and working on similar tactics, but it also syncs up with our reporting about how Iran is attempting to sow discord, like on Facebook and Twitter over the past few months.
So the bottom line here, Brian, is the idea to undermine is to undermine confidence in the vote. So that confusion, it's something that Russia, of course, was infamous for in 2016, as well as 2018. Now, the timing on all of this course is very notable the emails that NBC News has seen. You can see there on the screen, there dated yesterday afternoon. So this is a pretty fast turnaround for the intelligence community, not to mention the timing of this presser less than two weeks before Election Day. So there's a lot to parse and look at here, a lot of unanswered questions, Brian.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, you can see that threat buried in those emails that says, "We will come after you." Jo thanks. Our own Joe Ling Kent in Los Angeles for us tonight.
For more we are joined by Frank Figliuzzi, former FBI Assistant Director for counterintelligence. And importantly, the author of the upcoming book, the FBI Way: Inside the Bureau's Code of Excellence.
So Frank, there's so many questions. Did Director Wray look coerced or willing to you when he appeared after Ratcliffe? Why did Radcliffe front the event? And isn't this information both of these gentlemen have known in some form or fashion for months, if not years?
FRANK FIGLIUZZI, FORMER FBI ASSISTANT DIRECTOR FOR COUNTERINTELLIGENCE: Your right to ask the questions, it's an aberration when the DNI leads off what is really an operational investigative press conference. In fact, I would say, Brian, this really wasn't a press conference that you would see to announce that our election is under attack, what that kind of press conference would look like, if we were under normal circumstances would be you see a united front, you'd see all the heads of our intelligence agencies, CIA, NSA, DHS, and FBI.
The front man would likely be the Attorney General, who was completely absent this evening. And you would also see the Senate and House leadership there. Why? Because you'd hear announcements like this, our election is under attack by two foreign adversaries. Here's what we can tell you right now. Here's what we're doing about it. And the President of the United States has already ordered retaliatory actions against those two nations that are underway, right now.
In addition, we have here the Senate and House leadership, because the President has ordered executive emergency funding to shore up security in those states and counties, election systems that need it, because we've been saying that we need it for many, many months. And now we're going to make those patches in those systems happen. None of that happened tonight, Brian, instead, we have more questions than answers. And instead, the public is not reassured by what they heard tonight.
In fact, what I heard tonight was that Iran and Russia have gotten into voter registration data. If they can get into voter registration data, they can delete voter registration data. They can move your voting place and polling place. You and I, on this show have previously talked about that very scenario. And here we are talking about it in reality.
WILLIAMS: Frank, I just want to play for you what the President was telling the ardent tonight at his rally while that event was going on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Russia, oh Russia, they probably think we are the wackiest people. They said, what do we do now? He created a laptop for 100 bucks. Iran doesn't want to let me win. China doesn't want to let me win. They want me to be defeated so badly.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: So Frank, this is like these journalists, who are with a straight face reporting, he's coming to the debate tomorrow night to exhibit a new tone, I guess that staying on brand for Donald Trump.
FIGLIUZZI: Yes, I would expect any kind of a new tone. And of course, since of the comments tonight that he's made, I think it won't ring true if he changed his tone tomorrow.
But here's a tone that we're going to keep hearing now because his DNI has laid the groundwork for it. And he's repeated it again tonight. He's going to say this is about him, that it's -- these attacks on our election system or about attempts to damage him, or there are other countries trying to get Biden to win.
This is the theme and that's why it's so disturbing that his DNI who was supposed to be a neutral intelligence professional, but is not, should not even mentioned who's trying to damage who here tonight, get us the facts. Tell us what you're doing about it. And let's move on. That's not going to happen. And now Trump has something to grab on to proven or unproven, to take us through the election and make various kinds of claims.
WILLIAMS: Frank, thanks as always for answering the call Frank Figliuzzi our guest tonight. Coming up for us. Joe Biden calls it a smear campaign, Trump calls it fair game, a viewers guide of sorts to tomorrow night's debate when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK MEADOWS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: Were prepping for the debate tomorrow night. I can't imagine a debate going off with Hunter Biden at least not getting a tough question from the moderator on this subject, and if not, certainly from the President of the United States.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: So here's the deal. It may seem during tomorrow night's debate as if the President is running against Hunter Biden and not Joe Biden, like so much else in the Trump era going after your opponents kids is all new territory then again, unlike past races, all the children of these two guys in their 70s are all fully formed adults.
Nonetheless, Biden's advisors say time spent on issues other than coronavirus of the economy his time last. Politico goes on to report it this way. Some allies have been pressing the Biden camp to go harder against Trump's children considering how aggressively the president is attacking his when it comes to kids and alleged conflicts of interest they say look no further than Ivanka Trump. While serving as a White House official, she won three new trademarks in China on the same day she met with China's President, Xi Jingping.
Back with us to talk about all of that is Emily Jane Fox, national correspondent for Vanity Fair, who has extensively covered the Trump family happens to be the author of "Born Trump: Inside America's First Family."
So Emily, would it be fair game, if a bit off brand if Biden decided to go after say Ivanka Trump they wouldn't, I presume be for lack of material?
EMILY JANE FOX, VANITY FAIR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Sure, there is a stunning amount of material that the President and his children have presented people to chew over the last five years.
In fact, just I guess exactly four years ago this week, I was reporting on a story about how Ivanka Trump plan to get her eponymous lifestyle brand back on track when her father inevitably lost and the election in 2016. That plan was of course scrapped because her father one and her brand is now defunct, though as Politico noted not before her brand was issued trademarks from China.
But her brand has been ongoing over the last four years as she served as an advisor in the White House and she has continued to break the norms, break the rules and break the law. Just this week, Ivanka Trump was campaigning and the last two days she makes stops in four different states, which violates the Hatch Act. There have been a number of times of the last four years in which she used a private e-mail server in the white house in which she actually and her husband just being in the White House, in and of itself violated a 50-year statute that eliminated anti nepotism in the White House.
So there is not a lack of material. The fact of the matter is that the American people don't need Joe Biden to bring that up tomorrow in the debate. They need to just look at the last four years the Trump family has done a pretty good job themselves of bringing that to the attention of the American people.
WILLIAMS: Emily, it could not be more on brand for 2020 that the man formerly known as America's Mayor spent a good bit of today, defending a freeze frame from the new bore at movie where he's lying on a bed he says tucking in his shirt. What kind of character in your line of work has Rudy Giuliani become?
FOX: It is such a departure from his time as America's mayor, the man that for the last several decades, the American public has gotten to know. I think that one of the great questions of the era Trump has been what happened to Rudy Giuliani and I know people on this network have asked him to his face and they have not been satisfied by the answer.
I think it is the most fitting fourth act and for the character of Rudy Giuliani in this era. Over the last few weeks, he has been the main perpetrator of this Biden story. He has been the one out front, the Hunter Biden story that is he has been the one out front putting that story forward and making sure that or at least trying to get the mainstream media to cover it. It is fitting that he has become the own story getting in the way of the Hunter Biden's story maybe taking on more oxygen this week.
WILLIAMS: With our compliments on a beautiful Viking stove hood and a lovely backsplash. Always good to see Emily Jane Fox from Vanity Fair. Thanks very much for coming on tonight. Great to see you.
Coming up for us as we approach our next break, we're now on the verge of a third surge of coronavirus. We'll ask our next guest just how long life is going to feel this way across our country. When we continue.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. PAUL CASEY, BELLIN HEALTH, GREEN BAY, WI: In my 34 years as a physician I have never seen so much suffering from a single disease over such a short period of time.
STACEY JUTILA, CHAPLIN, ESSENTIA HEALTH, DULUTH, MN: I've been thinking back to eight months ago when we first started to face this pandemic. And it was a sprint at that time. And now eight months in with the pandemic and realizing that I'm tired. I know others are tired not just our bodies and our minds but our spirits are fatigued as well.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: Those are the folks we need to listen to fresh warnings from our health care workers on the front lines of this coronavirus sounding the all too familiar alarm by now as a third surge now grips our country.
Positivity rates are up in nearly three quarters of our country. We're now averaging about 60,000 new cases a day. Those are the highest numbers we've seen since August, not one state in our country is headed in the right direction.
With us again tonight is Dr. Irwin Redlener, Pediatrics Physician by Trade, Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University's Earth Institute, also happens to be founding director of Columbia's National Center for Disaster Preparedness.
Irwin, I want to take you back to this afternoon just before Barack Obama emerged to give his speech, you gave an answer to a question asked by Nicolle Wallace that kind of took my breath away. It was about what life is going to be like for the foreseeable future in our country. And I'm wondering if you could share it with the good folks watching tonight.
DR. IRWIN REDLENER, EXPERT ON PANDEMIC INFLUENZA: Sure, Brian. So look, the problem is there's no end in sight. And I'm going to speak directly and clearly about this. I would like to have better news to bring they you know, they call me you know pessimists and whatever, but the fact of the matter is, I think we're going to have to buckle down and understand that we are going to be facing some part of a coronavirus pandemic for the next one to two, maybe three years. That's just the way it is. And this virus has a lot of mysterious things going on in terms of its behavior and what it's very difficult to predict where we're going to be.
But as you just pointed out, Brian, that trajectory is upwards all over the country, and in fact, many, many parts of the world. And I think we're going to have to get into the fact that we have to think about how our lives are going to be altered, it doesn't need to be all bad. By the way, this is really an adaptation process. We want people to get used to living a different type of normal for a while, we need to be able to support our children, help them become adaptive and resilient. And that's the way it is. We're going to have to have different kinds of thanksgiving dinners, the Redlener family certainly is and we just have to get used to it and find the pleasures of life that will come even if we're comporting our lives differently than we might have preferred.
But there's no sense kidding ourselves. We don't want to be little Trumpians here just mimicking, you know, good news with no rationalization. So that's what it's going to be Brian. I'm pretty convinced that it's going to be a long time before this really leaves us totally.
WILLIAMS: Thank you for that answer. And for your candor. And I got to say I was stunned to see a press conference at the CDC today, we shouldn't be stunned to see that it should be nearly daily basis that we get updated on this virus, but they did put out new guidelines. Is that because the virus is changing at all, or just our knowledge of it?
REDLENER: Well, our knowledge is pretty fluid right now in terms of what is the reality? You know, for example, people who have gotten COVID and maybe had lung symptoms, they were they were short of breath and had to be admitted to a hospital.
We don't know what the long term is going to be. A lot of these people may end up with other systems other than their lungs involved, including heart involvement and gastrointestinal involvement, neurological problems, we don't know. We're tracking all this. People that have the virus presumably are immune, at least for a little while. We have no idea how long that's going to be will it be a month, six months, a year. We're already seeing cases reported, Brian, as you know, of people who are getting a second infection, a true second infection.
Now the numbers are very small and those people but we just start too early in the process and too limited in our knowledge of this virus to really understand where this is -- where this is taking us, which is why I'm saying we got to, you know, strap yourselves in wait for real scientists to make the announcements like you heard from the CDC today. But at the end of the day, it's going to be a waiting game, and we have to know how to take care of ourselves while we're waiting for the return of normalcy.
WILLIAMS: So you don't have to let me alert our viewers that Irwin's group is coming out tomorrow with a new report on the death rate, we're going to need to listen up when it comes out.
To Irwin Redlener, doc, thank you very much again for always coming on and taking our questions as unpleasant as the answers sometimes are.
Coming up for us, for every virtual class your kids may be taking. There's a teacher who would much rather be in front of the classroom and they are under strain their story when we come back.
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WILLIAMS: So kids in Boston are being pulled out of their classrooms again. Boston Public Schools are reverting to virtual learning because they're in the midst of another coronavirus surge in that city.
Virtual Learning is far from ideal and has very few big fans. It's tough on students. It's tough on parents. And let's focus for a moment on the teachers whose life's work let's not forget is in that classroom. Our report tonight on the strain they are feeling from NBC News correspondent Vicky Nguyen.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
NICK FERRONI, TEACHER: Over 1000 e-mails--
VICKY NGUYEN, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nick Ferroni struck a nerve when he posted a simple tweet, how many teachers are close to breaking down? Launching a conversation about how teachers are really doing.
SCOTT ST. DENIS, SPANISH TEACHER: Exhausted and burnt out. Need to keep providing the best education I can.
KATE STREIN, ENGLISH TEACHER: It feels like we're building an airplane. While we're already in the air flying.
DAVID NASH, PHYSICAL EDUCATION TEACHER: It's my 15th year teaching is I feel like a first year teacher all over again.
NGUYEN: We sat down with three educators for a candid conversation.
(on camera): Do you feel like in some ways the kids stress and anxiety is also something that the teachers take on?
KELLY GALLAGHER, HIGH SCHOOL SCIENCE TEACHER: Absolutely. Those are my babies. My babies.
NGUYEN (voice-over): Nick is teaching history remotely. Kelly Gallagher is a high school science teacher and Nicole Manzini teaches fifth grade.
(on camera): What is the toughest part about teaching during a pandemic?
NICOLE MANZINI, 5TH GRADE TEACHER: When we think of our kids, some of them are taking care of their siblings, some of them may have lost a family member due to this horrible virus.
NGUYEN (voice-over): Trauma that's even harder to heal remotely.
FERRONI: Some students feel safer walking on a classroom as they do at home. That's an aspect of education that we don't have right now.
NGUYEN: On top of worrying about their students. A recent survey show nearly half of teachers say their own families are struggling with one in three saying the pandemic has made them more likely to leave teaching earlier than planned.
KELLY VAVELLE, HEALTH TEACHER: It's OK to ask for help. It's OK to cry. Because we have all done it so far this year.
NGUYEN: Teachers are now connecting from around the world.
LISA HOCKENBERRY, DIGITAL LEARNING COACH: We've definitely gotten a little bit of that mentality of stronger together.
NGUYEN (on camera): What is that silver lining that you're hoping for?
FERRONI: We now realize that schools are so much more than just schools to students.
GALLAGHER: In the springtime when the kind of world of education was getting shook from it's foundation, there wasn't sort of glimmer of hope, like maybe we could rebuild this.
NGUYEN (voice-over): Adapting and reimagining the classroom as teachers manage one of the toughest jobs of the COVID crisis.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm not giving up because we want the best for our students.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WILLIAMS: Our thanks to Vicky Nguyen for that report. Coming up for us, a moment from the past that seemed newly current, newly urgent when it made the rounds today.
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WILLIAMS: Last thing before we go tonight, a clip from a couple of years back that just today rocketed its way around social media. It's nothing explosive. It's not part of any conspiracy theory. There's no involvement by QAnon but it does show an actual human moment as raw and as human as they get.
Here's the backstory before we show you. This is from 2018, it was at a memorial service for Chris Hixon. He was the athletic director at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Hixon tried to disarm the disturbed gunman, he was among the 17 killed that day.
Joe Biden was in attendance at the service and the clip begins when he asks to be directed to meet Hixon's parents. The rest of the scene and what happens next explains itself.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, U.S. DEMOCRATIC PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: To the parents.
DEBBI HIXON, CHRIS HIXON'S WIFE: I'm Chris Hixon's wife.
BIDEN: God bless you.
HIXON: Thank you.
This is Chri's son.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm his son.
BIDEN: Well, how are you? Thank you for hugging. You OK? You OK? You'd be OK. We're going to be OK. We're going to be OK. I'm promise you. OK, I'm promise you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WILLIAMS: So that's it, a 24 second lesson in empathy in the face of loss right there and in the moment to take us off the air on this the eve of the final presidential debate.
Tomorrow night our coverage begins with a special edition of our broadcast the moment the debate comes to an end. And for us for now, that's our broadcast on this Wednesday night comes with our thanks for spending this time with us.
On behalf of all my colleagues at the networks of NBC News, good night.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END
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