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Transcript: All In with Chris Hayes, October 22, 2020

Guests: Symone Sanders, David Plouffe

Summary

President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden will face off in their second and final presidential debate.

Transcript

RACHEL MADDOW, MSNBC HOST: Good evening, and thanks for being with us tonight. I'm Rachel Maddow here at MSNBC headquarters precisely one fishing holes length away from my colleagues, Nicolle Wallace and Joy Reid. That's actually technical. Brian Williams will join us later tonight.

We are here, of course for the final debate of the 2020 presidential campaign, which started approximately 4,000 years ago. Although we have learned in this epoch in our nation's history to never predict anything too far in the future. As of this moment, as far as we know, we think this debate is going to be happening just under one hour from now.

Debate one of course was widely seen as a debacle, particularly for the President. His plummeting poll numbers immediately thereafter seemed to bear that out even before he tested positive for the coronavirus just days later. Debate to never happen because the president refused to do that one.

But tonight, ahead of what we expect to be debate three, the President and his campaign have spent the whole week complaining about and frankly telling lies about the agreed-upon rules for this debate. They have tried to bully the presidential debate commission into changing the topics for tonight's debate. The President himself has repeatedly attacked the moderator of tonight's debate, the one and only estimable NBC News White House Correspondent Kristen Welker.

Adding to the peculiar drama that attends that kind of performative petulance, the president arrives at tonight's debate having stormed out of another occasion on which he felt he was being questioned too strongly. The White House today releasing its own recording of a 60 Minutes interview that seemed to undo the president and which he angrily cut short. As of right now, though, tonight's debate is on and we expect it to go 90 minutes hopefully with both candidates staying for the whole thing. We'll see. Anything could happen.

Today, Republicans on the Judiciary Committee forwarded Amy Coney Barrett Supreme Court nomination to the floor of the Senate. There has never been a Supreme Court nomination advanced anywhere near this close to an election. Democrats refuse to take part in the committee vote on Barrett today, instead putting photos in their chairs of Americans who stand to lose health coverage if the Supreme Court strikes down ObamaCare.

Coronavirus cases continue to rise in nearly every state in the country. Midwestern and plains states now facing hospital bed shortages. On top of all that, we had last night's somewhat perplexing statement from the Trump-appointed Director of National Intelligence saying Iran was interfering in the election by sending threatening e-mails to Democratic voters, telling them to vote for President Trump or else.

The intelligence director characterize this as an effort to hurt President Trump, which seems backwards since those e-mails were threatening Democrats to vote for President Trump. Today, the FBI and the Homeland Security Department cybersecurity agency followed that up with a warning that high-level Russian hackers have successfully breached computer networks in state and local governments, and that "there may be some risk to elections information housed on local government networks.

All this happening with the election just 12 days away. As of today, over 42 million Americans have already cast their ballots in this election by NBC's count, which means every single day, the number of persuadable voters available to Trump or Biden is shrinking by millions, not just because voters are making up their minds, but because they've already voted.

If Americans vote in the same numbers as we did in 2016, already we've got somewhere between a quarter and a third of the vote already cast with 12 days still to go, including whatever is going to happen at this final debate tonight.

I have a sense of trepidation that I think is now endemic to everything I do in life. I particularly have a sense of trepidation about tonight because the first debate was a debacle. It was a disaster not just for one of the two -- one of the two candidates, but I think for our democratic process. Debate two getting called off, and now this. I just -- I feel like I'm halfway into the desk.

NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: Well, look, I think the information eases anxiety, right? And like here's the information that is available to us right now. As we sit here today, no Trump advisor that I was able to reach on the phone, the ones that have recovered from the COVID that they got at the White House super spreader event. And you have to look at that debate prep team. Most of them are taken out by COVID infections.

Bill Stepien, Donald Trump's campaign manager, Chris Christie, his debate coach, Hope Hicks, who was in anatomy debate prep was leveled with an infection herself. His entire Press Office staff was out. So, those are the kinds of people you want around when you're preparing for your final chance to make a case to the largest T.V. audience are going to garner before an election you were losing in every poll.

And when I asked these folks, when was the last day, the last news cycle lasted longer than six to 12 hours that Donald Trump sustained an argument against Joe Biden, no one can answer the question. Now, he sometimes makes attacks against someone with the last name Biden, but he's not running for president.

And he sustained a four-day campaign against Tony Fauci after 60 Minutes appearance. And he's now been at war with Lesley Stahl from 60 Minutes for I think, about 22 hours. So, that's all fine and good. It's his prerogative. But that is not how he closed 2016.

In 2016, he was running as an anti-war Republican, which appealed to Republicans. It appealed to a lot of people after the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. And he was running, and he was pointing, and he was looking -- he was connecting with the forgotten men and woman.

He hasn't said a word about any of those things. Neither as he promised or explained why he didn't bring back manufacturing jobs. This is not the candidate who ran four years ago, and this is not the Trump coalition. And now his job tonight isn't just to -- we should stop talking about the Trump butter. He's got them, you know. They're in. There in the bank. They may be some of that vote that started voting.

His coalition fell apart the day after election day in 16. They showed us that in '18. And he's done nothing to bring one single member of that coalition back. And this day's long jihad against Tony Fauci, and now I expect we'll have more days against 60 Minutes, will do nothing to repair his political damage.

JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Yes, I mean, it's sort of like, to the points you made, right, he's not running to try to talk to the forgotten voter. He's actually running to kind of derive them. I mean, he goes to Erie, Pennsylvania, he goes to Iowa and says, I don't even want to be here.

MADDOW: He does that all over the place. Why does he do that?

REID: Right. It's like, I don't -- he's angry that he can't reproduce the conditions that got him elected. And you've seen him try really hard to reproduce those same conditions that existed against Hillary Clinton.

Now, we have 13 days out from the election, that weird press conference by John Ratcliffe that tries to sort of reproduce the Comey moment. Where like, right before the election, there's an FBI bombshell that reshuffles the race again. But that's fizzled because no one's buying that and an order that unless you want to get hurt is designed to hurt Donald Trump. No one's buying what john Radcliffe is selling. He is no Comey, right? No one is believing it.

Then you have this attempt to sort of smear Joe Biden as the sort of lascivious figure, the thing that he faced in 2016, that people blew it off because they're like, but he speaks to me, he speaks to my soul somehow. But trying to sort of do like a weird QAnon on him, this sort of like enlist him in this QAnon conspiracy, that's not going to work because it just lots of tape of him being lascivious toward his own daughter. So, like, none of that is working.

So, I think that Trump seems to be just feeling frustration. I have a Republican friend that I've talked to about it, who knows the Trump world a bit, and it's like, basically saying that Donald Trump is extremely frustrated, because he only has that one playbook that he used against Hillary Clinton and he doesn't understand why it's not working against Joe Biden.

And for one thing, Joe Biden doesn't have the same sort of negative relationship with the media, let's just be blunt, that Hillary Clinton had for 40 years. And she doesn't have the same negative relationship built -- you know, she had this thing built up against her for more than 40 years by the right, like that made her into the supervillain. Joe Biden is just Joe. He's a sort of amicable, you know, center-left figure that isn't in any way objectionable to people. So, you just can't do the same thing.

He's not a woman also. I think that helps. And so this whole playbook isn't working. And I think he's just angry. I think he's just pissed off.

WALLACE: And Joe -- I mean, here's one thing. I don't think we can call it a playbook. I mean, he kind of like just ran an inside straight in '16. I don't think it was a plan. No one sat around and made a plan. There wasn't a playbook in '16.

REID: No, he's got lucky.

WALLACE: Those were his impulses and his instincts. Joe Biden is known too, I mean, the reason none of these attacks have landed.

REID: That's right.

WALLACE: And someone said to me, there is a place in Trump's reptilian brain that knew that Joe Biden represented a threat to the Trump coalition.

REID: Well, he got --

WALLACE: That's why he got impeached.

REID: You know what this reminds me of? This reminds me of like, the late seasons of The Apprentice, like when it wasn't working anymore, like when it wasn't entertaining anymore. And the thing that people who worked on the apprentice will tell you is that Donald Trump really wasn't in the apprentice that much.

I didn't watch the show, but for those who watched it, think about it. Most of the show was like Omarosa ended up doing a task, and they did a whole thing. And then they came in at the end, and he just came in and said, you're fired.

MADDOW: He was the Charlie's Angel figure, the guy on the speakerphone.

REID: He was the Charlie's Angels guy. But the more you actually experience him for the first time, I think, a lot of Americans who only knew him from the apprentice are experiencing full time 24 hours a day and they don't like it.

MADDOW: I will say counterpoint. In 2016, at this point in the race, everybody is talking right now about how much more money Joe Biden has than Donald Trump has. And Joe Biden is absolutely more than lapping Trump in terms of money. Trump had no money at this point in the race in 2016. He was below $20 million in terms of his campaign war chest at this point in the campaign in 2016, completely outgunned financially and still won.

I will also say every incumbent president blows their first debate and does terribly, which has the effect of boosting the other candidate, and lowering expectations for how the President is going to do in the subsequent debate.

Now, usually, there are two more debates. There's only one and so we don't know what that means. But I'm expecting a strong performance tonight from Donald Trump. I think that he's sometimes at his best when his back is against the wall because he doesn't take advice, but he does sometimes have good instincts about to take other people down. I think that Biden campaign is maybe more confident than they need to be at this point.

WALLACE: I don't -- I don't think that --

MADDOW: They're not confident.

(CROSSTALK)

REID: Democrats are never confident. It's not a thing Democrats know how to be.

MADDOW: All right, let's put some numbers on this. For more on where the race stands heading into tonight's final presidential debate, let's turn to somebody who actually knows these things, Steve Kornacki. Steve, what do you think? What should people understand about where the race is at right now?

STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, let's take two different views of this. First, the 30,000-foot view. This is the national polling picture. Here's your national polling average coming into tonight, Biden with a lead basically of eight points on average over Trump.

Now, how does that compare to where we were at this same point four years ago? This same point far out from the election. And you can see, it was October 27, same number of days to the election, Clinton's lead at that point 5.6, basically five and a half points.

Now, the key thing to remember, I think, when you see these numbers side by side, two things. Number one, Biden is over 50 percent, in the average, and he's been over 50 percent for a while. Number two, this 5.6 number was on its way down at this point. We were two days out in 2016 from the Comey letter, the late development in that race. And by the end of the campaign, Hillary Clinton's average polling lead was about two and a half to three points.

So, that's the question here. When you see about eight, is that going to stay at eight or is that going to start to move down? Because that was part of the ingredients for Trump in 2016, the polling average nationally move down at the end of that campaign, so let's see what happens there.

Then there's the question here, let's take a look at the battleground states in three categories. This first category, this is Biden's cleanest route to the White House. These are three states that Trump flipped in 2016. And you can see barely flipped. Then Trump's margin in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan, less than a point in each state. Every one of these states had been Democratic since the 1980s until that night in 2016 when Trump flipped it.

And look at the polling averages in these three states right now. It's Biden by seven, Biden by about 5.5, Biden by about 6.5. These are the strongest swing states for Joe Biden. And from an Electoral College perspective, if Joe Biden goes three for three in these states, he's president-elect Joe Biden. Donald Trump has to find a way to hang on to one of these three Midwest states that he won by a fraction of a point in 2016. Otherwise, that electoral vote count goes under 274.

And the next tier of battleground states, these were Trump wins by a small margin Florida, Arizona, North Carolina in 2016. And what do we see in the polling average now? We see Biden leads. They're smaller Biden leads, two, three, about two points in North Carolina. But again, these are Biden leads. And in the scenario we just talked about, where Trump polls out one of those Midwest states, he's now going to need all three of the states. So, you can see, he's running from behind in what amount to must win states for him.

And then these are the states where Trump had some solid wins in 2016, mid high single digits, Georgia, Ohio, Texas, Iowa. These are reached states or were supposed to be reached states for Joe Biden. And you actually see right now on average, very slightly Biden leads in Georgia on average. It's very slight, but that is a Democratic lead in the poll average.

Ohio razor-thin, two-tenths of a point for a Trump right now. Texas, Trump still with a lead of four there. And again, Iowa where Trump almost one by 10 in 2016, very, very slight Biden leading the poll right now. These are the states that when you look at the Electoral College map, are probably gravy for Joe Biden. He'd be getting a lot more probably if he picks off one of these.

MADDOW: Steve Kornacki, thank you very, very much. That is clarifying and also sort of like riveting in its clarity, actually. All right, I have a feeling we're going to be back with Steve a little bit later on before we get to the start of tonight's debate. But now, I want to bring into the conversation Symone Sanders, who's a senior adviser to the Biden campaign.

Miss Sanders, it's a real pleasure to have you with us tonight on such a busy night. Thanks for taking time to be here.

SYMONE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISER, BIDEN CAMPAIGN: Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: So, let me just ask you about some of the things that I've been discussing with Joy and Nicolle here already, and that is our expectations for tonight. I'm going to take the liberty of characterizing my colleagues as saying that they I think the President is all over the map right now and that Vice President Biden needs to basically stay the course and not change anything that he's doing.

Does that analysis from outsiders here looking in comport with how you guys are approaching from inside the campaign?

SANDERS: Well, we might say it a little differently. You know, tonight, Joe Biden, he's ready. He's prepared. And folks have heard me say this before, but tonight on the debate stage, he's going to speak directly to the American people about what's going on with their families, and we're going to put this focus squarely on them.

You know, President Trump, we expect is going to come to the debate tonight and talk about everything but his failure to mitigate this virus, and then the failures of this administration. But from our perspective, the reality is that every single day across this country, Americans are waking up and living through and seeing in real-time the President's failures. It is dictating their very lives. The fact that I'm wearing a mask while we're doing this interview.

So, yes, Joe Biden is going to -- you're going to see him turning the camera tonight, you're going to hear him talking about his plans to get this virus under control, what he would do as president as it relates to the economy, building back better than we were before, and health care. So, we're excited. We're looking forward to it. And regardless of what the President decides to do tonight, Joe Biden will be ready.

MADDOW: The first debate was a disaster from a watchers' point of view. To us just trying to cover it, people watching at home, it was literally incomprehensible for most of it almost entirely because of the president just steamrollering the rules, and talking over the vice president constantly and being unable to follow even basic direction in terms of how the debate was supposed to go.

For you and your campaign for Vice President Biden, what was the lesson learned there in terms of how to compete with that about the right way to comport oneself if the President does that same thing again? We know there will be different circumstances around the microphones and when they are on and off, for example, but aside from that, how do you intend to handle that sort of disruptive, sort of transgressive debate behavior from the president if he brings that again?

SANDERS: Well, you know, this is really about presidential temperament. And this isn't really about the mics whether they're muted or turned down. This is about if Donald Trump, the current President of the United States is going to come to the debate tonight and talk about plans for the future and the American people or if he's going to come with the intent to distract and lie.

Again, regardless of what he decides to do, though, Joe Biden will be there to speak directly to the American people, and he won't be distracted by the President's antics. And I mean, that's just really how we have to handle it. Folks who are tuning in tonight, who are sitting in their living rooms, who will be at their kitchen tables watching this debate, are really watching to figure out what these candidates have to say about this virus, this pandemic that they're living through, grave economic devastation.

I would also think folks, that, you know, people are watching to hear what the President really has to say about preexisting conditions. You know, I saw the news much like everyone else today when the President, in his 60 Minutes interview that he leaks said that he wants the Supreme Court to do away with preexisting conditions. He hopes they end it. They're in court right now trying to take it away.

Joe Biden, a staunch defender of not only preexisting conditions, but the Affordable Care Act. Health care is something that's on the top of mind for folks at home. So, again, we're squarely focused on the American people tonight, the folks in their living rooms, at their kitchen tables, people who are probably missing a loved one this evening because the virus has stolen their lives.

WALLACE: Symone, I wonder -- I assume that the Vice President is receiving intelligence briefings now as the nominee for his party and Senator Harris is still on the Intel Committee. I wonder if it is your campaign's understanding that what the DNI said last night is true that Iran is interfering in our election to hurt Donald Trump so said DNI Ratcliffe.

SANDERS: So, first of all, I want to be clear, I am not receiving any classified briefings. And obviously, the Vice President and our Senator Harris have been in receipt of classified information. That's not something I would repeat here. But let me tell you what we do know. We do -- we do know that more than 50 intelligence officials in the Obama -- from the Obama Biden administration, from the Trump administration, have noted that there is election interference happening in this election by Russia chief among them. OK.

We do know that there are efforts underway for many foreign actors trying to meddle in this election and undermine the will and the confidence of the voters. We also know that there is domestic interference happening in this election. Chief among them is the President of the United States, who in our opinion is trying to scare people from going to the polls.

But we believe that the American people are going to be heard in this election. And that is why with 12 days to go to Election Day, we've seen unprecedented voter turnout. You know, we are not overly confident about that turnout. What that says to me is that people are paying attention and tonight what it will incumbent upon Joe Biden to do is to speak to those folks who are tuning in who are listening and talk to them about the realities that we're facing here in this country.

Yes, that includes the meddling of our elections by foreign actors, but it also includes a message that says go to the polls and vote, make your voices heard. This is our country. And as Joe Biden always says, this is the United States of America. There's nothing we can't do if we come together.

REID: Hey, Symone, it's Joy. Let me ask you. You know, those who know Donald Trump, people who know him, including his niece, Mary Trump and others have essentially said, prepare for Donald Trump to go as low as possible. This may be his last opportunity to speak to a broad audience and try to make a case that I think his campaign would like him to make about the economy and taxes.

But there's a lot of expectations that he'll skip that, and he'll go as brutally low and ugly and personal about Joe Biden's family as he possibly can. What's been the preparation for former Vice President Biden about that, and what is he prepared to do in response?

SANDERS: So, Joy, unfortunately, if the president decides to attack, Joe Biden and his family tonight on the debate stage, it won't be the first time that that's happened. You know, in the last debate, Donald Trump tried this, and it didn't work. But we saw how Joe Biden responded in the last debate. He called it out for what it was, smears, ugly smears, designed to just attack his family for no reason except I guess the President thinks it's politically popular, or politically advantageous for him.

But then you saw in that debate that Joe Biden went to the camera and talk to the American people directly about, you know, about opioid abuse and about how there are many people across this country that have struggled like his family has struggled. And that is a president, he will be a president, not just for them, but for all folks.

And so if Donald Trump would like to attack Vice President Biden's family tonight, I don't know how well that's going to go over with the voters. But Joe Biden, he'll be ready. And let's just be clear, if the president decides to amplify these latest smears about the Vice President and his surviving son, that is Russian misinformation, OK. That is what he is doing, and we should call it as such.

MADDOW: Simone Sanders, Senior Advisor to the Joe Biden campaign. Miss Sanders, thank you so much for making time to talk with us in such a big night. We know you're -- you are hotly in demand right now. We appreciate you being here.

SANDERS: Thank you, guys. I'll see you soon.

MADDOW: All right, we are less than an hour away from the start of the next and final presidential debate. The news is still of course at a rolling boil that never stops. We got lots more to get to tonight. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: Here's a live shot of the auditorium tonight inside Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee all set up for tonight's presidential debate. Now, you will see there on the stage, if you look closely, the lights are dim, but you can still see the podiums are quite far apart from each other as they should be. No Plexiglas barriers between the podiums on the stage.

The Commission on Presidential Debates tells NBC News that they had initially planned for there to be Plexiglas between the two candidates, but the commission and their medical adviser decided that they would take down those barriers after both candidates tested negative for COVID today.

That decision apparently also involves some consultation with the nation's top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who of late has become one of the President's favorite punching bags, even though he's one of the most trusted people in the country.

One of the primary topics in tonight's debate will be fighting the Coronavirus. We are currently losing that battle by basically every imaginable metric. Our beloved colleague, Chris Hayes, the host of "ALL IN" has been looking at the latest on where we are on COVID heading into this final debate tonight. Hey, Chris.

CHRIS HAYES, MSNBC HOST: Hey, Rachel. You know, I wish that I was coming to you tonight with some good news, but there is very little to be found. The fact is that the Coronavirus is raging across the country utterly uncontrolled right now. We are now experiencing the much-feared and much-predicted fall outbreak and this is arguably as bad a spot as we have been in since March. Things could get much worse very quickly as many health experts have been warning.

According to COVID tracking project, there were over 76,000 new cases today, the second most recorded in a single day in this country. Seven states posted daily records on Thursday. The death toll just today was over 1,100 of our fellow Americans, the highest since the middle of September. That is going back up as you can see on the chart.

And what makes us even worse in April and mid-summer is those outbreaks were fairly localized. They were intense, brutal outbreaks, but they were largely concentrated in a few different metro areas. This outbreak we're in right now is broadly distributed throughout the country. It is in many rural areas with little hospital capacity, and it shows no sign of abating.

The worst hot spot in America right now is North Dakota, which earlier today confirmed over 1,000 new cases in the state. For context about how bad things are there, if no Dakota was a country, it would have the worst Coronavirus outbreak in the entire world on a per capita basis. I'll say it again. North Dakota has the worst COVID outbreak in the world right now.

But the outbreak is not just North Dakota, it's everywhere. New York State where the first outbreak was so terrible just reported the most new cases since May. That's not great. The governor of Indiana is deploying the National Guard to help nursing homes. The University of Michigan has ordered students to shelter in place on campus as cases skyrocket. Wisconsin just admitted its very first Coronavirus patient to a field hospital the state had to set up in a state fair park.

And a hospital official in Twin Falls Idaho said, "This is the worst spot we've ever been in. We're getting to this point where if we're needing to transfer patients out, it's not clear where we're going to be sending them." And despite all of that, there is still known National Strategy from President Trump about how we stopped this virus from raging out of control and killing thousands and thousands and thousands of Americans who do not need to die.

In the video you guys are talking about before that Trump released because he thought it would reflect well on him, the President told CBS's Lesley Stahl, he got stuck with COVID, and it was not his fault. The President got top line medical care paid for by American taxpayers. Most people are not that lucky. And until someone steps in to help them, they are stuck with it too. Back to you, Rachel.

MADDOW: Thank you, my friend. Chris Hayes, the host of "ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES." I will just say that questions about COVID seemed to be one of the things that really sets this president off in terms of being unable to handle answering questions. So, we're watching right now I believe -- I stand corrected if I'm not right, but I believe that is the Biden motorcade arriving at the site of tonight's presidential debate.

We're going to take another quick break here. We are steaming toward the top of the hour and we expect this debate to start. Kristen Welker will be out before then addressing the audience talking about tonight's ground rules. We'll be here for all of it. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: It's a live shot of the hall where tonight's third and final -- well, second and final presidential debate will be held. Earlier today, ahead of tonight's debate, the President tried to one-up the CBS news show 60 Minutes, maybe, by preemptively posting on Facebook a White House recording of his 40 minutes sit down interview with veteran reporter Lesley Stahl.

This is the interview that the President apparently ditched and ran out on before it was over because he didn't like Stahl's questions. Now, CBS isn't planning to run the interview until Sunday. The President says he published his own recording of the interview today to expose what he called the bias, hatred, and rudeness that CBS has toward him.

Actually, what the President made clear by posting this interview is that he doesn't like what he considers to be tough questions including tough -- seemingly simple questions like why don't you tell people to wear masks?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LESLEY STAHL, CBS NEWS ANCHOR: I can't believe after what happened in the Rose Garden here after the announcement, with all the people getting sick, that you are not being more strongly encouraging about wearing masks at your rallies.

TRUMP: I tell people to wear a mask.

STAHL: Well, you don't.

TRUMP: Lesley, we hand out thousands of masks --

STAHL: But you look out and they're not wearing them. And you don't say please put on your masks.

TRUMP: Well, have you been looking yesterday? Take a look at -- take a look yesterday in Arizona. Everybody behind me --

STAHL: But I'm looking at other places. I'm looking at Wisconsin, which is a hotspot right now.

TRUMP: Right, right. A lot of people a lot of people have masks and it was outside.

STAHL: A lot of people didn't have masks. Why aren't you getting up there and saying, I had it, I don't want you to get it, so let's put your mask on.

TRUMP: Lesley, we hand out masks to everybody that comes to the rally. We tell them to wear the masks.

STAHL: But you don't and they love you, and they --

TRUMP: Oh, I don't know, Lesley.

STAHL: If they heard you say it --

TRUMP: I have no problem.

STAHL: They love you. They would pay attention --

TRUMP: Next question. Go ahead.

STAHL: -- to anything you said. OK.

TRUMP: I hope you're right.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: Next question. He thinks there's another reporter he can go to there. Next question. No, it's just going to be her no matter what. Along with posting that video on Facebook today, the president promised that "Tonight's anchor -- I think he means tonight's debate moderator -- tonight's anchor Kristen Welker will ask far worse questions than the ones he got from 60 Minutes" that caused him to get up and walk out on that interview.

The President has spent the last few days publicly attacking Kristen Welker at his rallies and on Fox News and on Twitter and to other members of the press, trying to undermine her ahead of the debate, tonight trying to work the refs like he always does. He's accused Ms. Welker of being a dyed in the wool radical left Democrat, of being terrible and unfair, and he's called her just flat out "no good."

Actually, in reality, you should know that Kristen Welker is very good, among the best there is in this business. She is scrupulously fair. She works incredibly hard. She is always prepared. She always knows what she is talking about. You cannot push her around and you could not find an ounce of bias in her if you had a Geiger counter, a dowsing rod, and a million-dollar bounty to do it. But good luck trying to work that ref hard enough to get yourself an easy night.

I will say -- I'm sorry to like fuse there a little bit, but I feel defensive about our colleagues. Joy, does the working the ref thing help? I don't think it's going to work on Kristen Welker, but doesn't work in terms of creating perceptions of the audience and expectations in the audience that are beneficial to the President?

REID: I think -- yes, I think it works for his audience. I think that it sets him up that if he does a poor job, it gives him somewhere to go to blame. You can just blame it on Kristen Welker. But it only works with his audience. And I will say that among the people who agree with you, that Kristen Welker is literally one of the best in the business. Myself, I'm one of the people who agrees with you, Nicole, but also Donald Trump, because Donald Trump was praising her.

We played it early on my show. He was praising her to the high heavens when she first got onto to the "TODAY'S SHOW." He was like, congratulations. What a good hire. You're going to be great. He agrees that Kristen Welker is one of the best in the business. He's only doing this because he probably thinks he might not do well and might not get good reviews, and he's setting it up so he can try to blame Kristen with his own failures.

MADDOW: It should be noted that he in his campaign agreed with the Commission on Presidential Debate as to the moderator.

REID: Yes.

WALLACE: Nobody is moderating a debate that both campaigns didn't agree to. And I think, Rudy, I think represented him as a direct line from one man's brain to the other. I think something to keep in mind when you watch this is one, his audience is a lot that -- his audience has the country tonight, and his audience is not going to like it if he attacks and if he walks out. I think he's creating a permission structure from him -- for himself to do what you said at the beginning -- I wrote down your very good words -- performative petulance.

He is creating the conditions for his own performative petulance tonight. So, if he storms out, or if he gets muted and has a fit, he has to do -- and he has told us that these attacks are fake. He has told --

MADDOW: He told Lesley Stahl that these attacks are fake.

WALLACE: He told the editor of the New York Times, oh, I'm sorry that I endanger journalists in war zones and all over the world. I got to do what I got to do. I mean, he has told us that he gaslights for kicks. He has told us he starts fights with the media so that Twitter is titillated all day long. He has told us that this is what he does.

We know he doesn't mean these things about Kristen Welker. I have to just say, I was on a Zoom with Kristen Welker. She had papers, you know, all over the place. And the people who have done the most damage to Donald Trump, not just among the general public, but among his own coalition. Again, that 2016 coalition is what he hasn't been able to reassemble had been the most prepared journalist and that's Savannah Guthrie, Jonathan Swan, and it would appear from what we've seen at the 60 Minutes, Lesley Stahl. And Kristen Welker is very much journalists in that mold.

REID: And can I say that, you know -- so, Donald Trump tonight is supposed to try to change the position that he's in right now with 12 days to go he only has time. But the temptation that he has to be where he always wanted to be, he's always I'm sure wanted to be on 60 Minutes, because to him, that is success.

WALLACE: He live-tweets it every Sunday, no matter what they cover.

REID: And so he walks into really a disaster. But because his pride puts him on 60 Minutes, he must be there because that's a sign of success, right, just like having a Time cover and he has to fake one. And so I think the problem that he has is that Trumpism only works for people who already believe in it. It doesn't recruit new people.

This isn't a national T.V. show where you watch The Apprentice and everybody goes, OK, maybe I like Donald Trump. He's narrowcast it so much to the right wing media that when you see him in the open in the normal world, people are aghast and appalled.

MADDOW: And I will note that it is an undercurrent what we're talking about tonight that this prospect that the debate might not happen, even though it's 20 minutes away, or that the President might walk out in the middle of it. That is an -- it's bizarre in itself that is part of what we are thinking about. I want to bring into the conversation though now former 2008 Obama campaign manager and senior White House adviser David Plouffe.

Mr. Plouffe, thank you very much for joining us and helping us out here. I want to put to you the counter proposition, not that Donald Trump might storm out of the debate tonight or that he might not make it all the way to the podium when the clock strikes 9:00 Eastern.

I want to put to you the prospect that maybe Joe Biden shouldn't have agreed to this debate tonight after the president broke all the rules with the first one, including the rule about whether or not he should have been COVID tested. And then the president bailed on the second debate with Joe Biden ahead. Should he maybe not have said yes to this tonight?

DAVID PLOUFFE, FORMER CAMPAIGN MANAGER, OBAMA 2008 CAMPAIGN: It's an interesting question, Rachel, but I don't think so. First of all, the first debate was a disaster for Trump. So, if I was Biden, I'd rather have had three debates, not just two.

Secondly, I don't think you can take shortcuts to the Oval Office. I think you have to run through the process. And I think in politics, like in sports, it's really dangerous to play it overly safe. And I think the first segment tonight is on COVID. We just -- I just heard Chris Hayes' report about cases rising, hospitalizations rising. We know it sets Trump off. He wants to be done with COVID, but COVID is not over -- done with us.

And then obviously, you also in that 60 Minutes interview basically was cheering on the Supreme Court to get rid of the Affordable Care Act in the middle of the pandemic. So, the debate starts on really great terrain for Joe Biden. And I think that that's not just winning the debates on those issues. It could really set the tone for the debate. So, no, I think you have to run through the tape in a presidential race.

WALLACE: David Plouffe, I remember in the heat of the Mueller investigation, you would come on my show and say Democrats have got to get back to health care and the economy. And I was like, really, this is so riveting. This election seems to be closing on the question of Donald Trump's now stated. I mean, this isn't investigative reporting that reveal Donald Trump wants to take away people's health insurance. It's Donald Trump in his own words. It's his motive for his latest pick to the Supreme Court. And it's ending in the middle of a once in a century health crisis for the country.

I also noted with keen interest, and I've been waiting to talk to you about it, that Joe Biden has fought to a draw the public's approval all voters on the economy. Could the conditions be any more favorable in terms of the topics in the news right now for Joe Biden?

PLOUFFE: No, but you know, these are not just random topics. They're important topics because Donald Trump has failed as our president. You know, we have over 200,000 people dead. We could be facing a third wave which could be worse than the previous two. We've got an economy in tatters. We've got a country that's divided. We have -- I think what's going to tonight as we may see a blend, particularly in this first section on COVID, of an incompetent sociopath which is not a healthy combination.

And so, I do think this really suits Joe Biden well. And in many respects, there may be other presidential races where Joe Biden would not be the ideal candidate. His empathy, his experience, his calmness, his knowledge of how the government operates, I think does fit this moment.

And so, right, I think you're right, Nicolle, that these are good topics, but they're good topics for Joe Biden because Donald Trump has so blundered them and doesn't have an answer. I mean, he gets so uncomfortable talking about COVID. Can you imagine FDR getting comfortable -- uncomfortable talking about World War II?

WALLACE: Right.

PLOUFFE: It's unbelievable when you think about it.

WALLACE: He gets mad. How dare you?

REID: David --

PLOUFFE: It's like it's happening to him.

REID: Well, it already did happen to him. I mean, he didn't get COVID.

PLOUFFE: Yes, he did.

REID: So, we all experienced the catharsis of watching President Obama just go off, like for nearly an hour, probably even more than an hour on Donald Trump, you know, to the extent that, you know, the rap battle Ether music was being played under it on Twitter.

Advise Joe Biden a little bit. Is it time for Joe Biden, at this stage in the race, particularly if Donald Trump goes after his family and gets personal, to just say, you know what, I'm going off. I'm done with this. I'm done with you going after my kid and just pulling Obama,or do you think that he's better off sort of leaving things the way they are because he seems to be winning, with sort of mild-mannered Joe?

PLOUFFE: Well, Joy, it is clear that President Obama had some things to get off his chest.

REID: Four years he's been waiting.

PLOUFFE: You know, you can't go to Philly and not tell it like it is. So, he brought some truth bombs. You know, I would be careful. I think you want to be tough on Trump's mismanagement of COVID, you want to be Trump -- tough on Trump's coddling of billionaires, you want to be tough on Trump basically endangering the planet. There's going to be a climate change section, right?

I wouldn't necessarily get a tip for tat for the family. But to the extent that, you know, he's going to bring up Hunter Biden five times, you know, yes, of course, there's a lot of ammunition there. I mean, the Trump family is basically pulling off a grift and a con on the American people, all the self-dealing, all the money they're charging taxpayers for their properties.

Plus, we now find out he wants to talk about China, he's got a secret Chinese bank account, the United States President. So, I think you want to have the ammunition in your pocket, but I would try to -- you don't want to get in the mud with Trump necessarily on personal stuff.

MADDOW: Former Obama campaign manager, senior White House adviser David Plouffe. David, it's always good to have you with us. Thanks for your time tonight.

PLOUFFE: Thanks. All right, we are going to squeeze in one last break before the debate gets underway at the top of the hour. Lots more still to come. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MADDOW: A live look at the debate stage at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. In just a few minutes, we're expecting NBC's Kristen Welker to come out and greet the audience and lay down the ground rules for tonight's debate. I'm such a dork. It's one of my favorite things about debate nights when they come out and they say you're allowed to applaud precisely twice, once now, and once when we bring --

WALLACE: And when the mics aren't open, we all have to, you know, pick up pieces.

MADDOW: Exactly.

WALLACE: We expect you're going to hear that in just a moment. I will go to it even if there's no sound. But first, we're going to go back to Steve Kornacki as promised. Steve, on election night, again, 12 days from now, there's a question as to when we are going to know whether election night which is something we should think of as election week or election month. And the question of the state of Florida and whether or not their results are going to be determinative, both in terms of the election and in terms of how long we're all watching T.V. that night.

KORNACKI: Yes, I think Florida is a really interesting one to zoom in on. Here's some early poll closing times in election night. The vast majority of Florida closes 7:00 p.m. Eastern, and I'm circling it because it's important from the Electoral College standpoint, it's also a state that administratively was kind of doing COVID elections before there was a COVID, heavy mail-in voting, heavy early voting, processing the ballots early, figuring out how to get results reported out quickly.

So, the potential exists to get a lot of results pretty quickly from Florida in the Electoral College implications. This is 2016. This is where Trump landed, 306 in 2016. If Trump loses Florida, just put that blue just to show you what it would do, that wouldn't knock Trump under 270, but that would put him on the cusp of falling under 270.

And at that point, if Trump does not get Florida on North Carolina, for instance, would put Biden over the top. Or if Biden weren't to get North Carolina, Pennsylvania would put Biden over the top, or Michigan would put Biden over the top. You get the picture here? Anything in the Midwest, a Georgia, a North Carolina, he would effectively be one state away Biden would from the presidency if he could get Florida.

It's a huge if. This was a Trump win in 2016. Republicans were resilient there in 2018. But of course, we've seen in the polling in Florida, senior citizens, we've seen it in Florida nationally, it's a worrying sign for Trump. So, Florida could be an early readout for us.

MADDOW: OK, let's drill down on some of that a little bit. Steve Kornacki, thank you very much. Of course, one of the potentially determinative factors in Florida, in Arizona, potentially even in the state like North Carolina, is the Latino vote. And so as we head towards the start of the debate tonight, we want to bring in somebody who knows quite a lot about Latino outreach on a presidential campaign.

Paola Ramos was Deputy Director of Hispanic media for the Clinton campaign in 2016. She's now correspondent for Vice News and an MSNBC Contributor. She's also the author of Finding LatinX in Search of the Voices Redefining Latino identity. Paola, it's great to have you with us tonight. Thank you so much for joining us.

PAOLA RAMOS, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Thanks for having me.

MADDOW: So, we've -- whenever the cameras aren't on and we are talking amongst ourselves, what we're talking about is the Latino vote in Arizona and Florida in terms of trying to figure out what's about to happen. What do you think a national audience should understand about those dynamics right now?

RAMOS: First of all, that the Latino vote is not a monolith, right. And both Arizona and Florida tell you exactly why. Now, in Arizona, I was just there last week, you have the young Latino vote, right. A lot of young Latino voters will be voting because they saw their parents be criminalized by legislations like SB 1070, right, by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

So, there is a strong democratic leaning there. But in Arizona as well, you see that around 40 percent of young Latino men say that they might be voting for Donald Trump, right. In that same state, suddenly, you have Latina women that are inching towards Joe Biden in a way that they haven't before, right?

So, in just one state, in one county, in Maricopa County which is responsible for 60 percent of the entire state, now those votes are counted in that one county, you see three different dynamics within the Latino vote, right, which just explains to you how hard it is to sort of tell the story of the Latino vote.

Forget about Florida, right. In Florida, 17 percent of the electorate is Latino, 30 percent is the famous Cuban vote. And so the question is, will Cuban voters go again for Trump or will it be another 2012 dynamic where suddenly that younger Cuban Americans voted for someone like President Barack Obama?

MADDOW: And Paola, do you see the candidates appreciate and their campaigns appreciating that diversity and tailoring their campaigns and their outreach to different Latino communities in ways that show that they understand those differences?

RAMOS: Not yet, right? I think we're starting to see and I think all people need to understand -- all people need to see to understand how diverse we are is just look at the Latinos that are running for Congress, right. If some of these folks win, suddenly you're going to see the first gay Latina in Congress, you're going to see the first Queer Afro Latino, the first Afro-Latina in Congress, the first Latino-Arab. That is the future of the Latino vote, right. That is the Latino community.

So, I think they get it more, right. I think they're paying more attention, but I still think they're very scared to ask basic questions.

MADDOW: Paola Ramos, former Deputy Director of Hispanic Media for the Clinton campaign, Paola, thank you.

RAMOS: Thanks, Rachel.

MADDOW: Let's go right to Kristen Welker who's talking to the audience right now on the debate hall.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: We're so glad and thankful that you are feeling better. I want to welcome the Biden family, Dr. Jill Biden. Thank you all for being here tonight. We are so excited. We're looking forward to a really robust discussion. And the only thing I would reiterate are the CPD guidelines that when the candidates are talking, please hold any applause or any other reactions except, of course, when they walk out. Make sure you cheer and loud and applause so that everyone can hear you.

Thank you for having me. This is really the honor of a lifetime. I am going to sit down and just get organized and get settled and the show will start very soon. Thank you for being here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MADDOW: NBC News' Kristen Welker giving those ground rules to the audience. Again, the key moment there is that the audience is not supposed to react to anything that happens on stage, except for the moment when the candidates are invited onto the stage. Remarkably, even at the first debate, which was a proverbial car crash, the audience was actually not a factor at all, I think because people were so agog.

As we count down the remaining minutes until the start of the debate, let's squeeze in one more of our friends here, someone who is the leader of the National Republican Party until not that long ago. But boy, does the Republican Party feel different now? Just this week, former RNC Chairman Michael Steele made this announcement. He said, I am a Republican voting for Joe Biden over Trump, because I am an American first.

Joining us now, our friend Michael Steele, Senior Advisor to the Lincoln Project now. Michael, it's great to see you tonight. Thank you so much.

MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: It's good to be with you. Absolutely.

MADDOW: Do you feel transformed by your public endorsement by putting yourself out there the way that you have?

STEELE: I feel free.

WALLACE: We've been free for a long time.

STEELE: Although I think I have to comment on the performance petulance, Rachel. Awesome, I love it.

MADDOW: Thank you. Thank you. I'm working on my alliterations.

STEELE: You know, I think Trump may be looking for some, you know, viagara, you know, supplement on that. But the reality of it is he's got to come with the A-game tonight. And he's got to work hard to convince the American people to give him four more years, which is something he has not done yet.

So, this is his last opportunity, because after tonight with 40 million Americans already have voted, where do you go if you don't close that deal?

MADDOW: Michael, do you think that the Biden campaign should have learned anything from debate one in terms of dealing with the steamroller effect of Trump just going -- running through all the rules, all the talking over? I mean, maybe that'll be fixed tonight with this thing they're going to do with turning off one of the mic when the other one is talking. But do you think Biden should adjust to the way Trump behaved in debate one?

STEELE: Yes, absolutely. The one thing I would do if I were in the vice president's shoes is pace myself. Let Trump get it out of his system, because the more he shows his behind, the better it is for you to come in over the top as reasonable, solid, speaking to the American people.

Don't try to do the engage thing. Don't take the bait on Hunter. I know it's your son. Don't take the bait. Hit it one time and move on because everything after that is gratuitous.

So the reality for Trump is, he's going to try, instead of doing what I said before, convince Americans to reelect him, he's going to try to draw Biden into the murky quagmire of his soup.

The reality for Biden is, I'm not doing that. America, this is what I need you to know in the last two weeks of this campaign, and why you need to vote for me for president.

And I think if he does that, he'll get by all this crazy tonight on his way to an election on -- two weeks from last -- this past Tuesday, and then getting a transition to become president.

WALLACE: Michael Steele, I don't know if you heard the "oh, bleep" from Republicans in Congress that I heard when the World Series ad for Joe Biden debuted and it was clear that Joe Biden is running as an American president. He's just running as though he has the job --

STEELE: Yeah.

WALLACE: -- of healing the country, repairing our economy by healing sick Americans and sick towns and sick counties and bringing the country together even if they don't agree with him, by highlighting the endorsement of Cindy, in the name of her late husband, John McCain, by sort of running as the bigger man.

What do you think the forecasts are for the Senate majority and the numbers in the House?

STEELE: I think it's tough. I think no one understood what a lot of us were trying to say six, eight, nine, ten months ago about tethering themselves so closely to Donald Trump in what was obviously a toxic environment, made more so by his absolute abject failure to address COVID-19.

Their silence, their complicity, has now come back home to nestle right around their ankles. They can't get off of it, they can't move away from it. And the American voter is looking at them the same way they look at Trump, as a disappointment, and they're ready to make a change.

MADDOW: Michael Steele, former Republican Party chairman, senior adviser now to the Lincoln Project -- Michael, it's always great to see you. Thank you so much. It's going to be a big night.

STEELE: Good to see you, guys.

MADDOW: All right. It wouldn't be the same without you.

We have about one minute away.

You know, I realize we've been talking a lot about what we expect Trump to do, and what Biden ought to do.

REID: Right.

MADDOW: I'm really -- a lot of anticipation for me is whether or not Biden is going to go hard at Trump on the Chinese finances story that was in "The New York Times."

REID: Yeah.

MADDOW: I mean, the president has a secret, previously undisclosed Chinese bank account and in his first year in office managed to get, hmm, $25 million cash --

REID: Yeah.

MADDOW: -- out of China, including Chinese government-linked sources. I mean, if the Democrats, if the Democratic side wants to be on offense here, there's plenty to be on offense about that isn't even just about his record as president, that's about the corruption side.

WALLACE: First of all (ph), and Obama had the killer line. He said, if that happened to me, Fox News would be calling me Beijing Barry.

MADDOW: Yeah.

WALLACE: And there's a way to use that as a really effective --

(CROSSTALK)

REID: Well, and there's the fairness argument, that Donald Trump pays no taxes. He pays more taxes to China than he does in the United States.

WALLACE: Right.

REID: He still gets $100,000 worth of health care and he's still trying to take your health care.

I think there's fundamental fairness argument that Donald Trump is the elite who's getting all of these benefits and giving you nothing.

MADDOW: All right. Well, we are now just at the start of the third and final presidential debate of the 2020 election season. Here we go.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END

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