Summary
Final presidential debate tonight. Trump and Biden to debate 12 days from election. Debate topics include pandemic, race in America, climate change, families, national security.
Transcript
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Donald Trump spent the entirety of his first debate with Joe Biden interrupting, deflecting and clowning around. Then he bailed on the second one after the Debate Commission insisted on a virtual format since Trump had announced that he contracted COVID-19.
We are now two hours from the final presidential debate of the 2020 campaign. 42 million Americans have already voted. And Donald Trump, frankly, is desperate. Behind in the polls and strapped for cash, you would take that he take this last opportunity to try and save his presidency. And yet, Trump is reportedly approaching this debate like he's approached most things in life, unfocussed and ill prepared.
Having infected most of the people who helped him prepare for the last debate with the coronavirus, Trump has done even less work for tonight's debate. He spent the past week complaining about the Commission on Presidential Debates. Debate moderators and in Lesley Stahl, in an act that was both childish and self-defeating, he released his entire 60 minutes interview with Stahl, ahead of its broadcast hoping to, in his word, show her bias hatred and rudeness.
You probably won't be surprise to learn that, in fact, it showed none of these things. Instead, it showed Trump refusing to answer basic fact questions, throwing out wild conspiracy theories and rudely attacking Stahl for most of the 40 minutes sit-down.
Meanwhile, Trump's Republican allies have taken steps to try to ensure that maintain their power even if Trump loses. Earlier today, the 12 Republican members of the of the Judiciary Committee in the Senate circumvented committee rules and voted to send Judge Amy Coney Barrett's nomination to the full Senate floor. Democrats boycotted the hearing, instead putting photos of people who risk losing health care in their sits.
Because of this sorted episode and legislative history, we are now just four days away from Associate Justice Amy Coney Barrett and less than two weeks away from a conservative majority that Trump hopes will install him as president even if he loses a race that's close enough to steal.
Having secured the courts partisan hack-turned Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe held a bizarre primetime press conference during this very broadcast hour last night, to announce that Iran and Russia obtained publicly accessible voter registration information and used it to send spoofed threatening emails to thousands of voters.
What Ratcliffe didn't tell us, in addition to the fact that the Iran based emails pretended to be from the Proud Boys, and what the FBI clarified today, was that Russia has successfully hacked into state and local computers, which could give the Kremlin broad access into America's voting infrastructure.
According to New York Times, American intelligence agencies believe that Russia plans to interfere in the presidential race in its final days or immediately after the election. Officials did not make clear what Russia planned to do, but they said its operations would be intended to help Donald Trump potentially by exacerbating disputes around the results, especially if the race it's too close to call.
And joining me now is former Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Neera Tanden, President and CEO of the Center for American Progress and a former Senior Adviser to President Obama, and Rick Wilson, co-Founder of the Lincoln Project, and the Author of Runing Against the Devil. The subtle titles of Rick Wilson's book is something else.
Claire I'm going to go to you first because you sat in the United State Senate. I want to talk about this John Ratcliffe thing that happened last night. It was weird. It happened during our hour. So we experienced it in real-time. And the thing that I did noticed is that he really particularly, pointed and put it in there that, oh, were they, we're doing this to try to help Donald Trump -- I mean, to hurt Donald Trump. It's something he seemed to want to do.
Today, the national security adviser, Robert O'Brien, defended the weird way that he presented -- that Ratcliffe presented himself last night. I want you to listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ROBERT O'BRIEN, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: If they have an email campaign that's targeted at Democrats and supposedly from the Proud Boys or from some group and then the media comes out and says, oh, look at President Trump supporters are doing this, that's something that definitely damages President Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And I don't know, A, do you buy that, Senator McCaskill, former Senator McCaskill? But also just putting -- keeping in mind that most intel officials have already said they really much more fear Russia. And so what do you make of the fact that Ratcliffe really determined to downplay Russia and portray this fake Proud Boys email thing as something designed to hurt Trump?
CLAIRE MCCASKILL, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Joy, you talk to any national security professional in this country, and there are legions of them, and they will tell you that Ratcliffe is the most partisan hack to ever occupy the office. This should not be a political office. There are so many offices that should not be political. I mean, count them down, everything from secretary of state, to attorney general, to the head of DNI, but not under this president. He insists that everyone be political.
It is very clear and was made clear today with a late breaking article in The New York Times that Russia is the big problem. And, by the way, any Democrat knows Donald Trump did this. He said to his Proud Boys standby. So it's not like he can run away from him, you know, having the Proud Boys on his side. This email, absolutely, would do nothing to help Joe Biden.
REID: Yes, it is weird. The fact John Ratcliffe, he wouldn't say their name. Like he won't even -- he's like, emails from somebody, but it's all about hurting Trump. So just know that. And Chris Wray was like, I'm not a part of this. I'm going to make a brief statement and walk away.
Neera Tanden, it could come up tonight. We don't know, here are the debate topics tonight. Maybe that will come up in the national security portion but fighting COVID-19 right there at the top, American families, race in America, climate change, national security, leadership.
On the subject of healthcare, even though that's not listed there, that's going to be a huge issue. And Donald Trump helped make it an issue. He was real, like eager to get out, like leak out their own version of this Lesley Stahl interview, when it's like all bad for him. Here he is basically doing an advertisement for Joe Biden. Here he is saying he hopes that the Supreme Court gets rid of Obamacare.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We'll have going to see what happens. It's got ways to go. I mean, we'll see what happens. I think it will end. I think -- I hope that they end it. It will be so good if they end it.
LESLEY STAHL, CBS NEWS HOST: If they end it --
TRUMP: Because we will come up with a plan. This will be --
STAHL: Will?
TRUMP: Yes, we will.
STAHL: But you said it would already.
TRUMP: We have large sections of it already done. And we have already come up with plans.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: I mean, Neera, you almost think he wants -- and not only to himself to lose but like every single senator that votes for Amy Coney Barrett to lose.
NEERA TANDEN, PRESIDENT & CEO, CENTER FOR AMERICA PROGRESS: I think the president is now wrapped in a bubble of delusion. I mean, honestly, he's going into this debate a cornered animal, attacking everybody, Lesley Stahl, this interview is like basically a walking debacle. All the news he made was negative for him. And the news he made today about health care was a proof giant point for Democratic challengers up against Senate Republicans.
And state after state after state, they basically have been arguing around the country that a vote for Senate Republicans is a vote to get rid of the ACA in a pandemic. 20 million people will lose health care. 135 million people with pre-existing conditions lose protections. And what does Trump do? He says, absolutely.
So, the great -- you know, I basically think that he is so untethered to reality, that that he thinks arguing against the ACA, which, by the way, is least 20 percent more popular than he is, is a winning strategy. And I think what's good about this debate is that Joe Biden will be able to keep him accountable on healthcare, climate change, a whole range of issues, and I hope as many voters as possible tune in.
REID: You know, Rick, you know, there was a time when Ronald Reagan did ads saying that Medicare was a socialist plot that would ruin America. And now, every senior citizen would wrestle you to the ground if you try to take their Medicare from them. Like if the things that once a thing is in place and people have it and they have the benefit already, I mean, we just saw the governorship of the Kentucky probably change hands literally because of that, because they're like you can't take away our Medicaid and our medic -- you can't do that, and that is Obamacare.
I mean, from the standpoint of what Republicans have to be thinking and having nightmares about, Donald Trump basically is saying, yes, Amy Coney Barrett is going to make me president and get rid with your healthcare. It feels like the dumbest political move that I can even think of.
RICK WILSON, CO-FOUNDER, THE LICOLN PROJECT: Unless somebody has a time machine back to 2010 when there was a great Republican panic about Obamacare, this isn't going to work. We have polled this dozens of times since it passed. And pre-existing condition coverage is something that transcends party and politics, Republicans, Democrats and independent. You know why, because everybody got screwed by the insurance industry at some after that protection came.
Every family had a story, your cousins, your father, your mother, your brother, your sister, your daughter, your son, everybody had a story. And it was because the industry was protected completely. They didn't have any accountability or responsibility. It is the most popular part of the ACA. It is the part that is -- that they not haven't been able to kill legislatively. And this is something that is going to cost them enormous political damage. It is not stopping. It is not going away.
And Donald Trump's ridiculous insistence that he'll going to roll out a healthcare plan right after infrastructure week, that is beautiful and (INAUDIBLE), it's just -- it's become like a punch line for this guy. It's absurd.
And he looked -- handing Lesley Stahl a blank notebook was not exactly an aid to your play to probably pull (INAUDIBLE). It just -- it was so absurd.
REID: I predict The Lincoln Project will be running ads with the Lesley Stahl interview clips in it, because he's making ads for the other side.
Speaking of that, I mean, when you're going after the interviewer where you're losing, Claire, when that's your play, is that this interview is terrible, that's usually not a winning hand. Here is Donald Trump's change of heart about Kristen Welker, who is one of the most admired and esteemed, be people of any gender or any race, in this industry.
Here he is back in January congratulating Kristen Welker after her promotion to anchor WEEKEND TODAY.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: By the way, congratulations on your show.
KRISTEN WELKER, NBC NEWS HOST: Thank you very much.
TRUMP: They made a very wise decision.
WELKER: Thank you very much. We will invite you for an interview. Whenever you're available.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Now she's actually the radical Democrat. She's a socialist. She's going to come -- he's arguing against himself.
MCCASKILL: Yes. This is somebody whose closing message in the campaign is pretty simple. I'm perfect. Everyone else is terrible. And, by the way, I'm the victim and everybody is against me. This is his closing message to America. I mean, we're in the middle of pandemic. People are dying. People are afraid. We have all kinds of issues around our economy. And all he wants to talk about is that somehow everyone has it out to get him. It is so childish.
And that's what we're going to watch tonight. Can he have any discipline tonight? You know his inner circle has been telling him, your polling was terrible after the last debate. So can he have discipline, can he behave and not be such a jerk tonight? That's the big question.
REID: And can he stop interrupting. I mean, last time, it was 71 to 22 in terms of interruption, you know, and I don't know how that plays out. I doubt that having him muted stops him. But what do you think, Neera?
TANDEN: I think he'll be disruptive one way or the other. I mean, the challenge is that Joe Biden can still hear him interrupt even if he is muted. So he can be pretty disruptive.
But I think the truth of this is that he has exhibited zero self-control. And what I hope will happen in this debate tonight is that the issues that matter to people's lives will actually get discussed, his failure on the coronavirus, his failure to address the virus, which has led to the economic challenges that we continue to have, the fact we're in the third surge that we're in 50,000, 60,000 positive cases a day, eight or nine months into this is a stunning failure.
And I think part of what's going on with the president and his basic melt down in the Lesley Stahl interview is he just can't handle the truth. He just cannot handle when people say to him these things have happened and they're your fault. He just literally loses his mind.
So I expect that that will happen again because it happens every single time. And so it will be hard to control himself. But who knows. You know, maybe he'll be medicated or something or, you know, like calm him down with valium. I have no idea. Because it's genuinely shocking how since his first debate where he melted down, he's been melting down every week, every week, he's melting down. I mean, just like they're giving him the advice already to calm down and he's not taking advice. So --
REID: He can't help it.
I'm going to go to the man who wrote two books. One titled Everything Trump Touches Dies, and another one called Running Against the Devil. So I'm going to say, you're my Trump expert now. They tried to recreate the Comey situation. Ratcliffe did his best because, you know, 11 days out, you had Comey come out and say, surprise, more emails. They tried to reproduce that with -- at Ratcliffe. No one is buying it.
So where -- Rick, just predict for me what we're going to see tonight and what of the next 12 days are going to look like. What fresh hell is really what I'm asking you, Rick Wilson, are we in for, for the next dozen days?
WILSON: Donald Trump is going to go on stage and it's going to be like monkeys throwing poop. He's going to say, Hunter Biden he's an international overlord (ph) and a criminal. He's going to say that Joe Biden has done billions of dollars deals with China. It's going to be a lurid fantasy that only plays out to the Breitbart crowd. It only plays out to these folks that believe that Hilary Clinton was a child predator, cannibal who ran an international sex ring. These idiots are going to believe, they're going to keep yelling at each other.
And you can see it right now on right-wing tweeter. They have become very much -- the right-wing social media, they have become very insular, it's a little bubble now, and they can't understand why an obviously ludicrous set of accusations brought to you by a man, the president's free lawyer, he was just caught touching his junk in a hotel room by Borat. He's not seen as a credible source for the American people right now.
They just can't sort it out, Joy. It's just a -- it's an esoteric mystery that is so difficult to solve. And this is going to be a guy on stage who has thrown haymakers. This is his last big shot. So he's going to be wild.
REID: This is why you watch. This is why you watch. Claire McCaskill, Neera Tanden, Rick Wilson, this is why you watch. You know it is.
Up next on the THE REIDOUT, Trump relentless whining and pouting about the coronavirus, woe is me.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: All you hear is COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Because COVID, COVID, COVID has killed 224,000 people dead. And there's a surge in cases. And yet Trump thinks that he is the victim. He is the victim of coronavirus. That's what he caught.
Anyway, fresh Democrats have their best shot in decades turning Georgia and Texas blue, but Republicans are doing everything in their power to stop it, making voting as difficult as possible.
Stacey Abrams, and Senate Candidate M.J. Hagar will join me.
THE REIDOUT continues after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: In the lead up to tonight's debate, Donald Trump has been spreading coronavirus misinformation even faster than he spread the actual virus to those around him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: 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. That's all they put on because they want to scare the hell out of everyone.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Nope, not at all Donald. Actually according to officials at the Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. is experiencing a distressing trend heading into the fall with cases increasing in 75 percent of the country. With more than 224,000 dead, that's a quarter of a million, and upward of 8.4 million sickened, cases continue to surge especially in the Midwest. Wisconsin set a single day record in new deaths yesterday.
And, in the West, hospitalizations are surging in Utah. And the virus is spreading at rates in Arizona that have not been seen since June. In fact, the U.S. has averaged 60,000 new cases a day in recent days, levels not seen since July.
And yesterday brought more than 1,200 new deaths, the highest daily number since mid-August.
I'm joined now by Olivia Troye, former top aide to Vice President Mike Pence.
And, Olivia, the numbers are staggering. It's difficult to read them and to process them. I guess Donald Trump doesn't care. He's COVID, COVID COVID, it's no big deal.
But Columbia University has done a study that estimated -- estimates that between 130,000 and 210,000 deaths could have been avoided -- and that's is going up, up, up, up -- if the U.S. had followed Canadian policies and protocols. There might have been only 85,192 U.S. deaths, which is still a huge number. It's many times the number who died on 9/11.
What do you make of the fact that Donald Trump is complaining that we talk about these deaths too much, we talk about this virus too much, when that many people have died and that many could have been saved?
OLIVIA TROYE, FORMER U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY OFFICIAL: Well, the president continues to be completely disrespectful to all of us who are continuing to face this pandemic domestically.
And I think it's ridiculous for him to sit there consistently and try to continuously play down this pandemic. The numbers show it. The science shows it. The data shows it. He continues to ignore it.
And I think it's absolutely absurd for him to sit there in front of American citizens packed in a room like that, putting their own lives at risk, and pretend that this pandemic is non existent, and that it's going away, and then be annoyed by it. It's just -- it's dangerous.
It's the behavior that I have seen consistently since January, since this pandemic started. And that is why we are no better off today than we were back then.
REID: Have you ever, in just your public life and in watching politics and in your service, ever seen a public official, let alone a president of the United States, this indifferent to death, to the deaths of his own fellow citizens?
TROYE: Never. Never in my entire career. And I have never seen anyone spread misinformation the way this president does. It's unbelievable.
REID: And we will remind our audience for the probably 100th time that Donald Trump told Bob Woodward that he understood in January, told Bob Woodward in February that he understood it was airborne and that COVID is deadly.
He couldn't even protect himself, as President Obama said, from coronavirus.
We now hear that one of Donald Trump's minions, Alex Azar, the health and human services secretary, would like to fire the head of the FDA, because Dr. Stephen Hahn wants to have high standards, higher-than-normal safety standards for a vaccine. They essentially want to go cheap on a vaccine.
What, from your experience, having done the job you did, would be the consequences of going quick and cheap on a vaccine?
TROYE: The vaccine is the number one priority right now to kind of protect us from this virus moving forward.
And the safety of the -- and the development of the vaccine is -- and the integrity of the process is critical to this entire pandemic response. And I think what you're seeing is the trying to bully of doctors left and right continuing to play out.
And I can tell you firsthand I have -- I have worked very closely with Dr. Hahn. I have watched him in these situations. And I am grateful that it is him in that role, because I know that he has integrity, and he will continue to stand up and try to do the right thing.
But every time anyone tries to do that for the safety of Americans, right, and especially in this situation, you end up with dynamics like this, where they threaten to fire you or they bully you.
REID: The biggest worry here is that people won't learn, right?
You obviously came to a realization that you couldn't continue to serve this administration, and you walked away. But there are a lot of people who, even having suffered, are still on board with Donald Trump getting four more years to do this to us.
Chris Christie comes to mind, former governor of New Jersey, who put out this op-ed saying: I made a mistake. I blew it. I took it -- I didn't take it serious enough. I just assumed the zone around the president was safe. People in positions of authority have got to get the message out. I'm lucky to be alive.
He says all the right things. But, in that op-ed, he doesn't say the other thing that you might need, is that: I now understand that we can't do this for four more years.
It was sort of a soft endorsement for four more years. Like, he didn't say that he -- that we shouldn't keep going with Trump's leadership.
What do we do, just as yourself, as somebody who's served in Republican administrations, do you do with people who won't learn a lesson from this?
TROYE: I think it's of great importance to really understand what you're doing when you're voting for these individuals.
And I think that it's important to understand who is leading our country at this critical moment. And we need to vote these people out.
Look, science and data don't lie. And that is -- that is just facts. And a lot of these people are not willing to stand up to this administration, to stand up to the president.
REID: Yes.
TROYE: We have a bunch of GOP leadership who will not do the right thing.
And I hope that, come Election Day, people remember that, and people remember that in the back of their heads, regardless of whether you're a die-hard Republican, this is people's lives.
REID: Yes.
TROYE: This is human life and safety.
REID: And let's not forget that they can act when they want to.
Don't think that these people don't have the power to act, because they are express-mailing a new Supreme Court justice on to the court, because they want to make sure Donald Trump stays in office if he loses, and that you lose your health care, America.
They're doing that fast, so they know how to act when they want to.
Olivia Troye, thank you very much. We really appreciate you being here tonight. And we really appreciate you stepping forward.
And still ahead: Should voting in America involve risking your life? Alabama Republicans apparently think so.
Shining a big, bright light on Republican efforts to make voting as difficult as possible -- next on THE REIDOUT.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: With 12 days left of campaigning -- wow -- and the final debate taking place tonight, a brand-new Quinnipiac poll shows Joe Biden with a 10-point national lead over Donald Trump.
More than 42 million people have already voted, an astonishing number. That's on full display in these long lines that we're seeing every day. These are powerful images of democracy and American civic duty in action.
But long lines don't just indicate voter enthusiasm. They're also a sign of voter suppression. Voting isn't supposed to be a long, difficult, chaotic process. But this is something that we're seeing all over the country.
First, we have these spoofed Proud Boys e-mails being sent to thousands of voters in Florida, Arizona, and Alaska threatening them if they don't vote for Trump, something the feds say Iran is responsible for.
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has sided with a ban on curbside voting in Alabama, even for voters with disabilities and for those who have a higher fatality risk for COVID-19.
The secretary of state of Alabama, whose decision it was to ban the method, writing in a brief: "Some level of risk is inherent in life and in voting, pandemic or no."
Uh-huh. Well, OK, you first, Mr. Secretary.
Then, over in Texas, a judge has asked the governor to confirm that drive-through voting is legal, amid worries that the Texas Supreme Court will block the voting method, preventing tens of thousands of people from voting.
And on top of it all, in Colorado, tenant intimidation, a trailer park owner threatening to double the rent if Biden wins.
Stacey Abrams and M.J. Hegar will be here to discuss exactly what we can do about these suppression tactics and what a blue wave might look like in -- wait for it -- Georgia and Texas.
That is next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
REID: A new Quinnipiac poll Joe Biden and Donald Trump in a dead heat in Georgia, a state that hasn't been won by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992.
Joining me now is Stacey Abrams, founder of Fair Fight Action.
And, Stacey, we're -- this -- all of this takes place amid a backdrop of real voter suppression. Those long lines don't make me happy. They make me mad, you know, when I see them, because people shouldn't have to stand in line for seven hours to vote.
We know that, in some states, the Trump campaign back in 2016, including in Florida, in Miami-Dade County, they said, look, we can't get black Floridians to vote for us. We're just going to suppress their votes. And they launched this really sophisticated plan to deter. They called it deterrence. That's how they can talk about black communities.
We know that, in your state of Georgia, deterrence is the official policy, essentially, voter deterrence, of your -- of the governor and of the secretary of state.
Do those long lines indicate that people are beating that deterrence?
STACEY ABRAMS, FOUNDER, FAIR FIGHT: They do.
I mean, we have to remember, as you said, voter suppression exists when people are prevented from voting or discouraged from voting. And risking losing your job because you have to stand in line for seven hours, missing time with your kids who are in virtual schooling because you don't know when you're going to get through that line, this is not a sign of excitement.
It's a sign of incompetence and a sign of underinvestment in communities that deserve to have the same speed and efficiency in their elections.
That said, we know that 2.3 million Georgians have already cast their ballots. We are on track to have a record turnout. And we know the composition of this turnout is unlike anything Georgia has seen. We have strong performance from communities of color, from young people and from around the state.
And I believe we are on track to win this election from the top of the ticket all the way through to the very bottom.
REID: You know, Georgia is special, because it's got two Senate on the plates of these voters.
I'm just going to throw up some polls here. Biden and Trump are tied, at least in the latest polling, out of Georgia. Jon Ossoff and David Perdue seem to be tied. There's been a lot of fluctuations in that race as well.
And then you have got the Doug Collins, Kelly Loeffler, and Reverend Raphael Warnock race, where Warnock is ahead. But these look like run-off numbers, if they stay the way that they are now.
Do you feel confident that Democrats could organize themselves again with this much passion and keep the same energy if we wind up with two run-off elections in January?
ABRAMS: Absolutely.
What we have to remember is that, in years past, Republicans had a numerical majority. That's not true any longer. And we have the enthusiasm. We know that it's not enough to simply win the majority in the Senate. We need to win a strong enough majority that we empower Joe Biden to do what he needs to do to help us recover from COVID, to help us build a stronger America, to build back better.
And so every Democrat in Georgia is going to understand that, if we go to a run-off, we will be able to not only meet the challenge of that moment, but we're going to send a very strong signal that Georgia's blue is only getting deeper and more vibrant.
REID: And how legally set are Democrats to fight an election, if it gets down to the margins?
I mean, I guess that will be one piece of my question. The other half of my question would be, what kind of margin, in your view, would Biden need in order to avoid having to go to court over the Georgia election result?
ABRAMS: Well, I will say, I have had some time on my hands since the 2018 election, so we have built a very robust system in the state of Georgia to push back against voter suppression.
And while, unfortunately, the secretary of state has found new ways to undermine elections, we have been able to address many of the challenges we saw in 2018, including making certain that absentee ballots that get rejected have the opportunity to be cured, that provisional ballots, that people get notified, and they have the opportunity to fix them.
That said, we know that, the larger the margin, the stronger the argument. But, ultimately, the counties are going to certify these ballots. And we're going to do everything in our power to understand that, while November 3 is last call for casting your ballots, post-election is going to also be important, while we make certain that every vote cast gets counted.
And that's our commitment, not only in Georgia, but the work we have done across the country to make sure, no matter where you live in America, you have a free and fair election and the right to cast your vote.
REID: Ms. Stacey, when we met, when you and I met back in 2014, we were both guests on the Melissa Harris-Perry show.
And we were talking off-camera about something you were doing at the time, not publicizing it too much, because you didn't want them to try to stop it, of registering, the goal of registering tens of thousands, really hundreds of thousands, of Georgia black and brown folk and rural folk who hadn't been registered before and hadn't voted.
Now that we're in the election, we can reveal. I would love to know, how many voters got registered through the process that you started way back then?
ABRAMS: Well, I know that, as of 2018, at least 400,000 registered voters had been processed through the New Georgia Project.
But I want to point out that we have 800,000 new people on the rolls in Georgia since October 2018. Forty-nine percent of them are people of color.
REID: Wow.
ABRAMS: That's an extraordinary testament to the hard work of the New Georgia Project, which is currently being run by Nse Ufot. She took over when it became independent and has been doing an amazing job.
But organizations understand it's not destiny it's opportunity, and they have taken advantage of it. And that's why Georgia is only going to be a blue state, but we're going to be a blue that says 16 Electoral College votes to help make Joe Biden the next president of the United States and we're going to flip the state house just for a little extra.
REID: I can reveal that the number you told me was 700,000 people estimated. You over-delivered, ma'am. I'm going to add you to our voting MVPs. We have thing we do called voting MVPs. You, my friend, are our voting MVP.
Stacey Abrams, always great to talk to you. Thank you so much.
ABRAMS: Thank you so much, Joy.
REID: All right. So, joining me now -- we're going to keep it going. We're going to talk with MJ Hager, who's a Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Texas.
Let me show you some polls now. We are looking at a race in Texas, where Biden and Trump appeared to be tied, where you are 43 to 49 against Cornyn. And so, you're right there in striking distance of Mr. Cornyn.
Now, let me play two sound bites of John Cornyn, for those who are not familiar with him. Here he is back in 2016, March of 2016, talking about President Obama trying to nominate a Supreme Court justice.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): It can't be that one set of rules apply to a Democratic president, and a second set of rules apply when there's a Republican president. The American people deserve a chance to have a say in the selection of the next lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. And the only way to empower the American people and ensure they have that voice for the next president to fill the nomination created by this vacancy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: And so that folks don't think that Lindsey Graham isn't the only switcherooo that's out there in the Republican Party, here he is talking about the Supreme Court last month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CORNYN: President Obama was not on the ballot in 2016, so it made sense for the American people to weigh in. Do you think we'd still be hearing the same arguments from our friends across the aisle if Hillary Clinton have become president and been able to nominate a successor to Justice Scalia? I think not.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: Given the fact that the Senate Judiciary Committee has now begun the process of jamming Amy Coney Barrett onto the court, is this an issue that's coming up in this race.
MJ HEGAR (D-TX), U.S. SENATE CANDIDATE: It is. But I think it's deeper than that. I think integrity and I think misleading the public especially when it comes to COVID-19.
I think what bothers Texas is that not just this incident but part of a larger pattern of Republicans doing what is politically convenient and being that D.C. smoke and mirrors, snake oil salesman that really just turns people's stomach here in Texas.
REID: Yeah, and what about the Affordable Care Act, because we know Texas is one of those states that did not expand Medicaid and has a huge uninsured population.
Does the issue of losing health care -- because even if you didn't expand Medicaid in your state, people still got in under preexisting condition. People forget that preexisting condition spans every state. So, are people concerned about the potential to lose Obamacare?
HEGAR: Joy, it's such a huge issue here in Texas before the Affordable Care Act, one out of four of us didn't have access to care. We've been dead last in the country the entire time John Cornyn has been in office, for 18 years.
And when the Affordable Care Act came, I was working in health care, and we got to see a little bit of an improvement because our statehouse didn't expand Medicaid, but we did still see a little bit of improvement, we went to one in five, which was still worst in the country by a magnitude of two I believe. And now with the record unemployment, we're one out of three working Texans don't have access to care and can't go get a COVID testthat's covered, for example. It's part of why we can't get this pandemic under control in Texas.
And John Cornyn and his allies -- I mean, he has been the Affordable Care repeal's top sales man, has voted 20 times to try to gut it. His ads saying he wants to protect preexisting conditions got fact-checked by "The Washington Post" with four Pinocchios.
I mean, Texans are really hard to pull the wool over our eyes for too long, and we're really paying attention right now and our B.S. meter is pinging. This guy is trying to rip healthcare away from us in the middle of the pandemic when we are already the worse in the country.
REID: And are you going to overcome for your campaign, the voter suppression is going to hurt your voters, Latino voters, women voters? Are you going to be able to overcome that?
HEGAR: We are overcoming that. And, frankly, we have been seeing polling anywhere from nine points to one point down, and it's very difficult to poll a place like Texas. What is a reliable voter in Texas? When we've been 49 to 50 in voter turnout for so long.
So, I don't want to see the long lines either, but I'm definitely excited to see the enthusiasm. We've already had with just over half of early vote behind us, over two-thirds of the voting turnout we had in 2016. So, things are looking really good.
REID: Yeah, actually huge amounts of voters out there.
MJ Hegar, I think a lot of people are rooting for you out there. So, thank you very much. We really appreciate you being on tonight.
HEGAR: Thanks, Joy. Stay safe.
REID: Cheers.
And up next, Mary Trump on what we can expect from her actual crazy uncle tonight. But, first, take a look at one of the hashtag voting MVPs who warmed my very soul today, 90 years old. One of 22 children a former enslaved American.
And she is out there getting the thing done. She has had done enough -- she has had enough and I know she's not alone.
Keep them coming, folks. Tweet me or at the Reid -- tweet me or tweet @TheReidout using the hashtag voting MVPs, and maybe you'll get your picture on along with this fabulous, gorgeous woman.
We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT: We're not going to have a president that goes out of his way to insult anybody who doesn't support him, or threaten them with jail. That's not normal presidential behavior.
We wouldn't tolerate it from a high school principal. We wouldn't tolerate it from a coach. We wouldn't tolerate it from a coworker. We wouldn't tolerate it in our family, except crazy uncle somewhere, you know --
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: In his ether speech, President Obama said Trump is running in America like a, quote, crazy uncle. And if tonight's debate is anything like the first one, the conspiracies and baseless accusations will be flying.
I'm joined now by somebody who literally has Trump as a -- please pardon my language -- crazy uncle. Mary Trump is Donald Trump's niece and the author of "Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World's Most Dangerous Man."
Great to have you. This was the perfect night to have you on, Mary. So, thank you so much for being here.
So, this is -- I want to give you a little of the atmospherics going into what we're facing tonight. Trump world has been attacking Joe Biden for hugging and kissing his own child, his son, right?
This is a really sweet picture that's going around. You commented on it on Twitter. I commented on it. It shows him embracing his one remaining son. He already lost his one son and he lost his daughter when they were children.
So, here's the picture. I don't know -- well, John Cardillo (ph) is the guy who tweeted about it. You know, he went after it.
So I want to play for you Donald Trump with his child, one of his kids, Ivanka. And the way he's talked about her. Can we -- can we show the tweet, though? Can we show the tweet so everybody can see it? There's the tweet.
All right. So people are freaking out about that. Now here's Donald Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What's the favorite thing you have in common with your father?
IVANKA TRUMP, FIRST DAUGHTER: Either real estate or golf.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald? With your daughter?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNTIED STATES: Well, I was going to say sex, but I can't relate --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Donald, what does Tiffany have of yours, what does Tiffany have of Marla's?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think she's got a lot of Marla's. She's a really beautiful baby. And she's -- she's got -- she's got Marla's legs. We don't know whether or not she's got this part yet, but time will tell.
HOWARD STERN, RADIO HOST: By the way, your daughter --
DONALD TRUMP: She's beautiful.
STERN: Can I say this? A piece of (EXPLETIVE DELETED)
DONALD TRUMP: If Ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps I'd be dating her.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
REID: So, you know, it is a weird thing that every time there's an attack on Biden, it's a thing about Trump, you know? What do you make of this -- these atmospherics going into tonight?
MARY TRUMP, AUTHOR, "TOO MUCH AND NEVER ENOUGH": First of all, it -- I guess a feeling that Donald is desperate to let people know the truth about him, but he's also terrified. So he projects everything. It's really interesting but disturbing, of course.
And as for this other thing, it's -- it's grotesque. Let's just be clear about that. The idea that showing affection for your child somehow makes you a wimp or something, appropriate affection, because that's the picture we're talking about and that tweet was ratioed as it should have been, but it's okay to objectify your daughter in a way that is bordering on -- I mean, it's offensive, but it's bordering on the absolutely illicit.
So, I don't know quite what's going on, except we're in a period right now with the person in the Oval Office engages in toxic masculinity to such a degree that it emboldens other men to do the same. And it's really bad.
REID: Yeah.
MARY TRUMP: So I really hope that during the debate tonight Donald is not allowed to engage in these disgraceful lies about Joe Biden and Hunter Biden because it's -- it's a disservice to them, certainly, but it's also a disservice to the American people.
REID: Yeah, and it's like a signal to QAnon. I mean, this is a guy who once, you know, saw a kid on an escalator and said, I'm going to with dating her in ten years. He's somebody who boasted about meeting semi-naked teenagers in his beauty pageants.
I mean, the way he treats other kids, let alone his own children. "BuzzFeed News" reports teen beauty queens, he walked in on then while they were naked, changing. So, I'm not sure he's the right guy to launch these attacks.
You've written in your own book about even the relationship that Donald Trump has with his own children, you know, the stories of, you know, him slapping Donald Jr. because he didn't have a tie on when he visited him in college, or telling him, you wrote about him saying he's disown him if he tried to join the military.
MARY TRUMP: Yeah.
REID: Trump's children are a weird sort part of this drama and it's weird the part they play. Do you find it weird that -- do you find their role in this drama to be odd?
MARY TRUMP: You know, it's odd from the outside, but in the context of what's expected of them, it makes perfect sense. From what I can tell, Donald has a same kind of relationship with his children that he had with his father, or I should say that his father had with his children, which is to say that it is both conditional and transactional.
So, both parties are always jockeying to try to get the most out of it. And at least as far as the children are concerned, they know that they need to toe a particular line in order to stay on Donald's good side.
REID: Yeah.
MARY TRUMP: Because as you said with the case about Donny's wanting to enlist, Donald would have disinherited him.
REID: Yeah.
MARY TRUMP: So, they know they have to play by Donald's rules. The fact that they're willing to at this point is pathetic.
REID: Let's talk about tonight. What, in your view, would be -- what would get under Trump's skin other than everything? You know, specifically. If you were talking to the Biden team, you really wanted to get him, throw him off his game, what would Biden do?
MARY TRUMP: I would always refer to him as Donald because he does not deserve the respect afforded to the office because nobody in the history of our country has been more disrespectful to the office of the presidency than Donald has been.
And every time I talked about his failed policies, I would use words like weak, pathetic, incompetent, illegitimate, and failed over and over and over again.
And just be above the fray. Never stoop to his level. Never try to play his game and just, you know, come out of it looking like the only adult in the room.
REID: Yeah. And do you expect him to behave digit differently than he did in the first debate, with the mute button? Will that change anything?
MARY TRUMP: No, it will make him crazy I think. Crazier. Crazier.
(LAUGHTER)
REID: Mary Trump, yeah, it's going to be interesting tonight. I'm sure you -- I don't know if you're going to be watching tonight. But we'll be watching your Twitter account to see if you're watching.
MARY TRUMP: I have to watch. Wish me luck. I wish you luck --
REID: We'll be there with you. We'll be there with you emotionally.
But thank you very much.
That is tonight's REIDOUT.
But after a quick break, I will join Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace for special coverage of tonight's final presidential debate. Do not go anywhere.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.END
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