NICOLLE WALLACE, MSNBC HOST: THE BEAT my friend Ari Melber, who is never bleary-eyed, starts right now.
Hi, Ari.
ARI MELBER, MSNBC HOST: Hi.
I`m a little bleary-eyed for being up late, just like you were last night, Nicolle. I hope you have a great weekend.
WALLACE: You too.
MELBER: Thank you.
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And when Trump was asked this week what he would do differently to get the pandemic response right from the start, his answer is — and I quote — “Not much.” JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And when Trump was asked this week what he would do differently to get the pandemic response right from the start, his answer is — and I quote — “Not much.”
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And when Trump was asked this week what he would do differently to get the pandemic response right from the start, his answer is — and I quote — “Not much.”
And thanks to all of you for joining us on THE BEAT here with Ari Melber in this homestretch.
We`re 11 days out, as Joe Biden reinforces his debate night attacks on Donald Trump`s COVID record.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: And when Trump was asked this week what he would do differently to get the pandemic response right from the start, his answer is — and I quote — “Not much.”
If this is a success, what`s a failure look like?
As president, I`ll mandate mask-wearing in all federal buildings and all interstate transportation, because masks save lives, period.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Biden especially animated hitting Trump on COVID and immigration last night.
And while many people found the first train wreck debate basically unwatchable, it`s actually this final debate that shed some viewers, down about nine million compared to the first outing, but still a whopping 63 million people watched last night.
Team Biden says that`s good news for them, as early voting and other indicators showed Trump trailing. Any time people are paying attention, and the fundamentals of race don`t change, they believe, is a bad time for Donald Trump.
And he was back breaking CDC rules today with this packed gathering inside the snug Oval Office, where, even in his spin, the president did allude to the reality that he had to change gears after his first debate performance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The first one, I thought I did great. There are certain groups of very aggressive people that loved the first debate.
But I think this was better. This is obviously a more popular way of doing it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Across the nation, COVID, meanwhile, surging.
The U.S. is hitting its highest daily code infection rate ever, something you obviously need to know. And that`s on many minds around the country, including at the Florida retirement community that Trump visited today, where the average voter is in their 70s.
Trump met with local coverage reporting these kinds of grim updates on the death toll. These are headlines from just the last few days there.
Biden emphasizing, meanwhile, that time has run out for too many Americans mourning those lost in the pandemic. He put that starkly last night, while many Republicans are concerned that time may be running out for Donald Trump as he fights for his political life in this homestretch.
Let`s get right to it.
Eugene Robinson, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist from “The Washington Post,” and Michelle Goldberg with “The New York Times.”
Michelle, 60 million-some viewers is still a lot. Do you think what they saw last night changes the race fundamentally?
MICHELLE GOLDBERG, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: I don`t think so.
And I think, even more than that, all of the polling, the snap polling that came out after the debate, suggested that it trapped almost exactly with approval of the two candidates, right? So you don`t see anybody changing their minds.
In the first debate, you had even people who supported Donald Trump saying that he had lost the debate. Here it was — it was basically a wash.
So, it wasn`t another debacle for Donald Trump, but Donald Trump is already far behind, and he remains far behind.
MELBER: Yes. Let`s take a look at one of those key moments, this exchange from the debate.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We`re learning to live with it. We have no choice. We can`t lock ourselves up in a basement, like Joe does.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: He has the ability to lock himself up. I don`t know. He`s obviously made a lot of money someplace, but he has this thing about living in a basement.
People can`t do that.
BIDEN: He says that we`re learning to live with it. People are learning to die with it.
You folks home will have an empty chair at the kitchen table this morning. That man or wife going to bed tonight and reaching over to try to touch their — out of habit where their wife or husband was, is gone.
Learning to live with it? Come on. We`re dying with it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Gene, the Biden campaign arguing, this is the issue.
EUGENE ROBINSON, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, it is the issue.
The debate happened to take place on a night where we had, by some counts, the largest one-day total of new COVID cases that we have had during the entire pandemic.
Cases are on the rise. Hospitalizations are on the rise. Those two indicators rising means that, eventually, deaths will begin to rise. They were over 1,000 yesterday. So, it is getting bad.
And I think Joe Biden narrated the situation quite well, saying this could be a long, dark winner. This is what we`re going into.
And Donald Trump`s — his version, which is that we`re rounding the turn, he keeps saying, there`s a great big bear around that turn. There`s nasty stuff around that turn. This is not a turn that we should want to be rounding.
And he won`t take the basic steps that we need to take in order to bring the pandemic under more control. And that`s just stunning and shocking and tragic.
MELBER: Yes.
Well, Michelle, I`m sure you remember the Bush era joke that reality has a well-known liberal bias. And that was an issue — that was an issue for President Bush, because there were facts and realities about the Iraq War, about Katrina that were a problem for him.
In all seriousness, Michelle, a lot of the facts about the COVID failures in the U.S., they`re just truths that people have to live with and manage the risk for. They also, at least according to Biden campaign, but also a lot of nonpartisan experts we have quoted and cited, are a function of Donald Trump`s failures, Michelle.
And so it was almost like Joe Biden last night saying, yes, this isn`t fun. Nobody likes this. But dealing with the negative truth is the safest thing you can do, far safer than lying to ourselves.
GOLDBERG: Well, and it`s also in escapable, right? It`s in your life.
I think, for most people in this country, particularly most parents, right, your life has been destroyed. Our children are alert are losing a year of their education. We`re about to lose Thanksgiving, right? People have — thousands and thousands of people have lost their lives. More people have lost their jobs than any president since World War II.
So, the losses are really tangible in a way that, say, when George W. Bush was running for reelection, people who paid a lot of attention to foreign policy, foreign correspondents, people who visited Iraq could tell that it was a debacle, that what they had said about this war was not true.
But it really took a while for that to come home to people. And in the same way, it took a while for kind of Donald Trump`s corrosive mismanagement of the federal government to come home to people.
His extorting the government of Ukraine was not something that people felt in their daily lives. But every single person in this country, one way or the other, is being touched by this emergency.
MELBER: Yes, I think you make such an important point, Michelle, and it goes to why some things that may be less tangible and matter, but you think about the years of the Trump era, and how much time was consumed by the Russia probe interference, the Mueller investigation, impeachment, which was a form of accountability.
But separate from whether or not it was worth the House saying, this is unacceptable, that was not, as you say, in people`s daily lives, for the most part. This certainly is.
And that`s relevant to what I want to talk to both of you about.
Our panel stays, but I want to walk through some of these new numbers we have, including a milestone in a high-turnout election. More people, as of today, have now voted early than in all of the 2016 race. Wow.
Democrats see this as good news, with a blue edge of over a million votes in these key battleground states. Total vote, though, is never the only issue. And Trump allies point to his ability last cycle to try to find some new and sporadic voters, which they say could shift the electorate.
Well, bad news here for them as well, though, because, on that measure, Democrats also now leading in these brand-new numbers, half-a-million more new voters going to Democrats. Those are people who did not turn out, for whatever reason, in 2016.
Republicans do have a measurable edge over here, though, about half-a- million votes more in the very reliable voting group of seniors in those battleground states.
Gene, when you look across all of that, it is mostly bad news for Trump, which means he has to change some sort of fundamentals over these next 11 days.
ROBINSON: He does. And it`s — 11 days it`s not — I mean, look, the saying is, a week is an eternity in politics. And I guess that`s still true.
The news cycle in the Trump era lasts approximately 17 minutes. So, many, many things will happen.
But nearly 50 million people have already voted. And the fact that Democrats have an edge in that early vote, and we`re not taking into account all the early votes by independents, and we know that, at least according to polls, independents breaking toward Joe Biden, you have to — if you`re a Democrat, you have to like the fact that you have these votes in the bank.
You have got — you have got an advantage built in. And Republicans and President Trump has to hope that these first-time voters, these irregular voters, these new voters that they have signed up, that a whole lot of them actually do vote on Election Day.
And maybe they will. But stuff happens in people`s lives.
MELBER: Yes.
ROBINSON: And so you would rather have the votes already in the bank than be wishing and hoping that they come through.
MELBER: Well, Michelle, this is not automatic. We didn`t know 11 days out there`d be more votes than all of `16. So, if this clip continues, that means much, much higher voter turnout early.
And it reflects — as we have said carefully in the numbers, it reflects indicators — we won`t know until it`s over — I always stress that — but indicators that this could be a record-breaking high turnout across the board. And we`re seeing that in different categories, including the minority and women`s vote.
And so, Michelle, you were just talking about this affecting people`s lives. Part of a function of this is so-called pandemic voting. It appears people are not dissuaded.
GOLDBERG: Well, no, I mean, I think that was the fear early on, right, that the pandemic would just keep a lot of people home.
And that`s why you saw such a push among Democrats to get people to early vote, to get people to vote by mail. But, look, the stakes of this election are extraordinarily clear for everyone.
I think one of the things that Democrats really suffered for in 2016 was people who thought that Democrats had it in the bag, thought that it was inconceivable that Donald Trump could ever become president. And so they either didn`t vote or they voted third party. There was just not the same sense of urgency on the Democratic side.
Nobody thinks that anymore, right? And no matter how many days we see Biden with a 10-point national lead, Democrats are not going to believe it`s real, until it`s called, whether that`s the day after the election or several weeks after the election.
So, nobody in this election, I think, thinks their vote doesn`t count.
MELBER: Yes, I mean, Michelle, it was weird that Trump became president, but it was not inconceivable.
GOLDBERG: But I think it`s felt inconceivable to a lot of people, right?
And so — and I think a lot of people misread the polling. They thought that since the polls showed that he had a small chance of becoming president, that meant that it was somehow in the bag, and, again, in part because it just seemed too surreal, too shocking.
Now you see Donald — you see, according to at least some of the polling averages, Donald Trump`s chance of winning the election, at least right now, is lower than Hillary Clinton`s was, I believe, 11 days out. I`d have to check.
But it was certainly lower than it is when Donald — on Election Day. But, again, the sense of anxiety among Democrats is so profound and so — before, they could barely believe that Donald Trump could become president. I think now it`s hard for a lot of people to believe that he will ever be gone.
MELBER: Yes, all fair points.
Michelle Goldberg and Gene Robinson, I thank both of you. Wish you a very good weekend.
We have a lot more on the program. We`re going to fit in our shortest break of 30 seconds, but there`s news tonight on Obama`s next rally taking on Trump.
We have an exclusive guest on the Trump-Biden divide on COVID.
But, first, we turn to one of the special reports we have been working on. We think this is important. It`s about voter suppression, your right to vote, and what you can do — when we`re back in just 30 seconds.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: We`re living through extraordinary times, a pandemic, a recession, this unusual election.
And, tonight, we do know that more people are voting early than any time in history. This current rate is over six times last cycle, topping 47 million ballots in. If this continues, we could see some of the highest turnout ever.
And no matter which candidate you like, that`s objectively a great thing for democracy. In fact, in democracies around the world, experts view high participation as positive. And if voter turnout falls too low, it`s viewed as a potential warning for civic decay.
Now, this shouldn`t be a partisan issue. I could point you to high-turnout elections where Democrats win the White House, like `08, or where the GOP won, like Ronald Reagan.
But there is a sad fact today. The evidence shows that the current Republican Party under Trump does not support high civic or voter participation. It does not welcome high levels of voting.
Now, that may sound like criticism. That may sound incriminating. But I`m just here to give you facts. And it is literally what Trump admits he thinks. He thinks, if you have high levels of voting, then Republicans don`t get elected.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
TRUMP: They had things, levels of voting that, if we ever agreed to it, you would never have a Republican elected in this country again.
(END AUDIO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s wrong. Government should never restrict voting to distort elections, of course, because, one, it violates citizen rights, regardless of any outcome effect.
And, two, it can distort the outcome, which ruins the point of having a democracy. And yet efforts to limit the vote in the U.S. are rampant, which brings us to tonight`s special report.
And we think it may be crucial to your right to vote right now.
Big picture, you know, the coverage of elections often sort of assumes a level playing field. We hear about polls and turnout models and voting mechanics that are inside this current universe. But it doesn`t always reflect how voter suppression looms over all of this.
And there`s a paradox here in American history. This is a nation that did lead the world towards a more democratic model of government, which is a plus. But this is not a nation that`s honored everyone`s equal right to vote.
The founders were ahead of their time in some ways. They presented ideals that would be quoted for hundreds of years. And they were behind the demands of moral obligations of equality in many other important ways.
So, when people say things like, America is the world`s oldest democracy, it`s partly true that America has a pioneering experiment in voting. And it is also false, if you just use the definition of democracy as a system where everyone votes, because this nation began by barring most people from voting. It was only for wealthy white men who had land or paid taxes.
We know that changed slowly over time. In fact, if you just read the Constitution, you will see they`re more amendments for expanding voting than any other single topic, one in 1870 that said all men could vote, purportedly including black men. Fifty years later, you have one that says all women could vote, and other groups have fought to extend and democratize the vote.
And people began to choose U.S. senators directly, instead of state politicians, in another constitutional reform. And so, while some of those expansions were consistent — for example, once women got that right to vote legally, there were not new state laws cracking down on voting by gender.
But it`s always been different with race in America. Broad reforms that extended voting rights were then met with backlashes to limit them. New constitutional amendments that push forward voting rights are then pulled back through things that you have heard about, the poll taxes, the literacy tests, the voter purges, intimidation, and, yes, even violence and anti- black terrorism.
New protections then later push forward federal laws to protect the right to vote, including MLK`s Voting Rights Act. Then that gets pulled back in the courts and attacked by other means, like recent restrictive voter I.D. laws. This is an important layer we all need to keep in mind, because it`s relevant, this long history of racism regardless of political party.
But, today, as an additional political matter, something runs alongside this. And it`s an electoral reality that some people aren`t comfortable just bluntly discussing.
But when more people vote in U.S. national elections, Republicans do very poorly. There are some places, of course, where Republicans do well with high turnout, like say, Kentucky or Georgia, but not in national elections.
When more people vote, when there`s high turnout, Republicans just tend to lose. You can see that in the total votes. More people voted to put a Democrat in the White House in `16. You can see it in the fact that Democrats win the White House typically by far more than Republicans, we checked, by about seven million, whereas, when Republicans do it, it`s more like 84,000.
Then there`s a starker way to see this. No matter what the choices have been in the modern era, from the Republican Party`s new lurch to Trump, to more traditional options like John McCain, to several of those races with Bushes, Americans actually tend to just choose the Democrat for president.
Did you know that`s the case in six of the last seven presidential elections? Six out of seven. Sounds wild. But here`s that history. It may not always feel this way, because, in two of these raises, the less popular Republican candidate with fewer votes ended up in the White House, in `16 and 2000. But that`s the blue tendency.
That`s why the modern Republican Party has a problem.
Now, there`s more than one way to deal with it. But instead of trying to appeal to more of those blue majorities, the GOP has often focused on finding narrow paths in the Electoral College, which is legal, by the way, but, also, it`s experimented with trying to continue these efforts to suppress the right to vote, sometimes illegally.
But this is the reality today. Republicans don`t simply need to motivate their base. In national races, they try to deflate Democratic turnout.
Now, some of that is legal, I want to be very clear. Candidates, for example, can use their words to discourage the other side from turning out. The government can even regulate voting in ways that impact turnout legally, up to a point.
Then there are the other ways that this can be criminal, like formal voter suppression.
Now, state officials are clashing right now about how to count mail ballots. If it`s a close result, you may hear a lot more about this. Republicans have been arguing for stricter approaches, which can be legal, Pennsylvania GOP trying to limit the counting of mail votes, for example, and a deadlocked Supreme Court just rejected that.
Then you have the rollback of MLK`s Voting Rights Act, which has enabled many Southern states to legally close over 1,000 polling places.
But that`s not all. Republicans have been pushing new voter restrictions across 41 different states in the past decade, including something that was never demanded in hundreds of years of our American experiment of voting, trying to create this new legal requirement that citizens must bring a photo I.D. just to vote.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FMR. GOV. SCOTT WALKER (R-WI): We`re protecting the integrity of each and every vote here in the state of Wisconsin.
HANS VON SPAKOVSKY, FORMER FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSIONER: The photo I.D. laws are intended to stop impersonation fraud, double voting.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Your vote can be stolen. The very freedom of our nation is based on the integrity of our ballot box.
NIKKI HALEY, FORMER U.S. AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED NATIONS: If you have to show a picture I.D. to buy Sudafed, you should have to show picture I.D. to protect the one of the most valuable, most central sacred rights and blessed in America, the right to vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: No.
The Constitution holds the opposite. If you have an important right, like free speech, the government can`t just add random burdens and restrictions to it. You have the right to march or criticize the government right now, even if you don`t bring I.D. to the march.
But these Republican efforts, it`s important understand, they were not genuinely about confirming the identity of who`s voting. They were about something else that many…
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to do everything we can to help our side. And, sometimes, we think that`s voter I.D. Sometimes, we think that`s longer lines, whatever it may be.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don`t want everybody to vote. Our leverage in the elections, quite candidly, goes up as the voting populace goes down.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Voter I.D., which is going to allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Then I found out the real reason for the law.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The law is going to kick the Democrats in the butt.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hillary Clinton is about the weakest candidate the Democrats have ever put up. And now we have photo I.D. And I think photo I.D. is going to make a little bit of a difference as well.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This will certainly drive up turnout. This will be extremely devastating to Republicans and conservatives in Georgia.
TRUMP: They had things, levels of voting that, if we ever agreed to it, you would never have a Republican elected in this country again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: There you have it. The photo I.D. wasn`t about election integrity. It was about helping a party. Trump just plagiarized this playbook, like he plagiarized his campaign slogan.
Now, this operates in addition to the racial issues I mentioned to reduce the vote, sometimes legally. Thirty-five states right now still use these voter I.D. laws.
And the facts matter. This may overlap with the historically racist playbook, but it`s also wielded against a wider group of voters who are targeted as potential Democrats.
Now, I want to be clear, there`s other efforts that can be flatly illegal. It`s a crime for campaigns to try to stop someone from voting. So, formal voter suppression is different than these state laws.
And this is wrong, no matter the goal of the party or person doing it. But Republicans are facing the evidence of doing it more lately. Now, Trump took it in a very different…
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: They even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: “I won the popular vote if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He is going to lose the popular vote by about 2.5 million votes.
KATY TUR, MSNBC HOST: That voter fraud investigation and claims that massive voter fraud impacted the 2016 elections, it`s why Donald Trump, he says, did not win the popular vote.
STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Clearly, this has gotten under his skin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Got under his skin. And that`s an important context, because that was what Trump was doing, whether you remember it or not.
Now, it fizzled. It did not turn up the promised voter fraud evidence, that commission disbanded.
But Trump plowed on with this talk of things that would be illegal if practiced, from telling his side this year to vote twice, to talking up intimidation at the polls, from law enforcement to militias.
Now, this is important, as people vote right now. The law forbids that. No person can intimidate, threaten or coerce anyone trying to vote.
This year`s election is well under way. And let`s be clear, there are signs people are voting regardless of all of these shenanigans, record-breaking early turnout, plenty of mail and in person voting, data showing Democrats leading, as there are long lines showing voter interest, a good sign for enthusiasm.
Now, in terms of counting, the lines do show interest this year, but it shouldn`t take hours to cast a ballot. It shouldn`t take longer in one area than another, especially if partisan officials are making it harder for these reasons.
Here`s how one former Obama official put it. In Ohio this year, “The long lines are happening not by accident, but design.” Quarter-mile early voting lines in Democratic and minority areas in a state run by Republicans, the writer puts it bluntly: “One of our two political parties sees representative democracy as a hassle or a threat.”
That is the context for the shuttering of these polling stations this year, just like it`s the backdrop for Trump`s attacks on types of voting that he thinks may run against him, like voting by mail or Trump`s botched effort just these past few months to kneecap the Postal Service.
Now, on the one hand, it shouldn`t take this much effort just to guard your right to vote. On the other hand, we`re putting a light on this and scrutiny on it precisely because it was independent reporting and fierce pushback that exposed the plot to suppress the vote, including pressure from Speaker Pelosi and the public, which ultimately got Donald Trump`s appointee to cave in a matter of days.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Post offices around the country are removing mail sorting machines.
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): The president is afraid of the American people. He wants to put obstacles on participation.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Protesters outside USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy`s home.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The House Oversight Committee today calling on the postmaster general to testify.
TRUMP: You can`t take millions of ballots, send them haphazardly all over the country. It`ll end up being a rigged election.
WALLACE: A major public revolt.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Twenty states plan to file lawsuits in federal court.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There will be no post office closures or suspensions.
LOUIS DEJOY, U.S. POSTMASTER GENERAL: I have suspended that until after the election.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST: Promising to deliver all election mail, while taking zero responsibility for the measures implemented on his watch.
REP. CAROLYN MALONEY (D-NY): Doing exactly what President Trump said he wanted.
REP. JIM COOPER (D-TN): That`s not efficiency. That`s insanity.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: This all just happened. That attempt to halt the vote was busted and blocked.
Some other efforts to limit counting mail ballots floundering in the courts, states like Michigan now banning open carry near polling stations to stop anyone who might be inspired by Trump`s talk to actually show up and join an army of poll watchers.
So, some of these crackdowns are being halted, while, again, you have to understand the facts. Others continue in places where Republican politicians are still trying to intentionally make it harder for you to vote.
Now, we`re seeing voters respond by working harder than ever to vote. That`s a short-term approach, while they also hope to wrest back control of government to thwart these efforts in the long term.
Now, if this all sounds a little bit exhausting, it`s supposed to. They don`t want you to stay energized. This is a long-running tension in our American experiment.
Here at THE BEAT, we sometimes reached to songs for meaning. Consider the ultimate American song, “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Conquer we must when our cause just. This be our motto, and God is our trust. The Star-Spangled Banner and triumph show wave over the land of the free and the home of the brave.
OK, let`s listen to that. It sounds nice, but is it true?
You know, Jay-Z recently hoisted those iconic lines on their own illogical petard, noting, in the land of the free, where the blacks enslaved, three- fifths of a man, I believe is the phrase, asking us to question what`s free in a nation built on slavery.
What`s democratic in a land where, as you just saw, these votes are so routinely suppressed. Now, this isn`t new. This isn`t easy.
But I`m asking you, as you vote early, or get ready to vote or talk to other people about voting, never let us forget the reason that people try to suppress your vote. It`s because your vote is powerful. It`s because your vote can change, basically, what America becomes next.
And, apparently, that reality about your vote scares some people. When it comes to these groups most targeted in the recent efforts I showed you, it`s Democratic-leaning voters, for partisan reasons, as well as black voters for partisan and racist reasons.
Well, it doesn`t have to be this way.
So, we give the last word on this issue to the first black president, who just spoke out this week about the potential power of getting black turnout even higher than it was in the recent surge when he was on the ballot.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We had the highest African-American turnout in history, but it was still only about 60 percent.
When people say voting doesn`t make a difference, we`ve never tried what it would look like if it was 80 percent voting.
Voting`s about using the power we have. We can`t just imagine a better future. We have got to fight for it. We have got to vote like never before. We have got to vote, and then get some change, and then vote some more, and then get some more change, and then keep on voting, until we get it right.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RACHEL MADDOW, HOST, “THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW”: This election like no other.
SEN. KAMALA HARRIS (D-CA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The most important election of our lifetime.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: An unprecedented election.
MIKE PENCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The stakes have never been higher.
BIDEN: This is the most important election of our lifetimes.
TRUMP: This is the most important election in the history of our country.
OBAMA: The most important election of our lifetimes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: It`s one thing a lot of people appear to agree on.
And for context on this long week`s Friday, we turn to our friend presidential historian Michael Beschloss.
Good to see you, sir.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS, NBC NEWS PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Same here, Ari.
MELBER: As you have taught us so many times, there`s much we can learn from history, because it`s with us.
Thinking about the battles over the rights to vote, which you have documented in great depth and which so many presidents have intersected with, as well as what we just saw there, all this talk of, wait, this year really is different, your thoughts, sir?
BESCHLOSS: By the way, I love what you just said about the danger of voter suppression.
I think, Ari, it really comes down to this. 2020 is an election like 1860, when our country was in jeopardy, the union was about to split apart. There might have not been a democracy at the end of it. Eighty years after that was 1940. Franklin Roosevelt was running for reelection in a country where a lot of people were saying we shouldn`t risk a war against the Nazis and the imperial Japanese.
Had he not prevailed, we might be living today in a world of Nazi cruelty. Here we are, eight years after that. It`s 2020. We have got a president, Donald Trump, who has amply demonstrated his contempt for democracy, his willingness to abuse power.
Just think what this is going to be like if he is reelected, without the constraint of having to run for reelection. A year from now, we might have lost our democracy. And we would be living in a country that is so far from the ideals of Washington and Jefferson that you can`t believe it.
MELBER: There`s value in you putting it that starkly.
When you see many politicians hide or spin their goals, and then you see Donald Trump, as we just documented, go and say louder what many Republicans had effectively tried to mislead about, yes, some of these rules are just to try to win, which tells you they`re undemocratic, what do you think voters should take from that?
And is there some — it`s bizarre to say, but some value in Trump at least, weirdly, being honest about something that`s deceitful?
BESCHLOSS: Absolutely. He would be more dangerous, actually, if he were not so candid about this.
But when Donald Trump talks about serving for 12 or 16 years, just like Putin or other dictators, take this seriously. It doesn`t mean it`s going to happen. But did you ever hear Dwight Eisenhower talk like that?
This is something that is in a category of its own. And also look at the mean-spiritedness. We saw that so much on display last night, especially when he was talking about those poor children being torn from their parents` arms and separated, in some cases probably never to reach to return.
It`s so against the spirit of Abraham Lincoln, who, as you know, second inaugural, said, with malice toward none and charity for all. I might paraphrase a speech that Kennedy once gave about Nixon. With Donald Trump, it`s malice for all, charity for none.
That`s totally against the founders` idea of the presidency.
MELBER: I love a good quote reversal, Michael. It`s like JFK saying, Washington, D.C., has a Southern efficiency…
(CROSSTALK)
BESCHLOSS: Northern efficiency — Southern efficiency and Northern charm.
MELBER: Exactly.
BESCHLOSS: Great minds think alike.
MELBER: Great minds. Sure.
And, finally, recent history, because we are trying to document things, and people make up their own minds, and learn from the history, but, in `16, although many things were different, in key states, like Wisconsin, Clinton`s lead was still slightly larger than Biden`s today, Pennsylvania, similar, Ohio, Trump basically slightly off both times, and went on to win.
There are other measures. And I hit some tonight about why Democrats are doing better. But when you look at that in some of those states, what do you think?
BESCHLOSS: I think this margin is way too close in battleground states.
We have got 11 days. We have seen too painfully in recent history, that one event can change everything. 2004, there was an Osama bin Laden video that you remember, because you were involved in that campaign, I think.
MELBER: Yes, I do.
BESCHLOSS: You remember the effect of that video three or four days ahead?
Without that video, it`s entirely possible that John Kerry might have been elected president, instead of George W. Bush. Four years ago, the Comey letter just before the election.
So, all I`m saying is, let`s hold our breath the next 11 days, be very suspicious if Donald Trump suddenly says, there has been an offense that requires us to go to war, or there`s violence in the city, and I have to abuse the military, the same way he did last summer.
MELBER: Yes.
BESCHLOSS: Eternal vigilance is always the price of liberty, never more so than now.
MELBER: Yes.
And you`re taking me down memory lane. October surprises can come externally or internally.
As you mentioned, as you know, I was in a boiler room in the campaign in 2004 in Columbus, Ohio, and looked up and saw on the TV screens just then, as we do now, look up and go, oh, my God, and it was a brand-new bin Laden video.
BESCHLOSS: Yes.
MELBER: And you thought — just days out, you thought, that affects America`s sense of fear. It was really something.
Michael Beschloss…
BESCHLOSS: Absolutely.
And what did Ohio go by, 30,000 votes? If they had been changed, Ohio would have gone to Kerry, and you would have been working for the president- elect.
(LAUGHTER)
MELBER: And yet life goes in many different directions.
Michael, I appreciate…
BESCHLOSS: We might have been deprived of your doing what you do now, which we all love.
So, everything has its…
(CROSSTALK)
MELBER: Well, that`s sweet of you to say.
Michael Beschloss, taking us through recent and ancient history, thank you, sir. I hope you have a good weekend.
BESCHLOSS: Thanks. You too. Thanks, Ari.
MELBER: Absolutely.
Up ahead, news on Barack Obama`s next campaign stop for Biden, and why it could be bad news for Trump. We`re going to show you that coming up.
But, before we go to break, we did want to share something else.
You may have heard or seen something today, some talk about our friend Michael Steele and how he gets even punchier in late night. The former RNC chair has been helping us out on these big debate nights.
Now, last night really was early morning. He was back, you see there.
And we introduced what we thought would be a fun special segment right here. We called it, unofficially, “Late Night With Michael Steele.”
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Well, that`s how we have come to view these increasingly punchy sessions, as Steele, our beloved analyst, mixes with Steele`s beloved inner Muppet, famously popularized, of course, on Jon Stewart`s “Daily Show.”
Michael, you didn`t know you`re doing this, but here we are. Welcome to late night, baby.
MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Dude, I have had my — I have had my…
(LAUGHTER)
STEELE: You got me on that one.
But, look, I have had my Jell-O and my lemonade. I`m ready. Let`s do this.
(LAUGHTER)
MELBER: Do you…
STEELE: Yes.
MELBER: Do you approve of the graphic?
STEELE: I absolutely approve of the graphic. That`s what I`m talking about.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: That`s what I`m talking about.
Now, we got his blessing. That was great. We thought this was clever. But it was all spontaneous, because Michael got ideas of his own, and he ended it.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STEELE: Give me 30 seconds.
MELBER: OK. Take your time.
(LAUGHTER)
MELBER: Michael Steele gets up from the interview. You don`t see that in late-night television all the time.
I was just going to say, there are aspects of campaign coverage — I`m talking to an empty chair.
There`s aspects of the campaign coverage…
STEELE: Someone wanted to say hello.
MELBER: … that I sometimes think I`m not going to miss in 2020. I will miss our late-night sessions. That`s all I wanted to tell you.
STEELE: I will too. And so will he.
(LAUGHTER)
STEELE: He will as well.
So, here`s my boy. He keeps me going.
MELBER: I love it.
STEELE: Say hello. Hi, Ari.
(LAUGHTER)
STEELE: Yes, there you go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Add that to things I never thought would happen in 2020. Michael Steele brings out his own iconic Muppet from “The Daily Show.”
Our thanks to him for playing with us and giving us a much-needed late- night laugh. I wanted to share that with you, because it was in the early morning.
As for the program, we have a lot more, including Barack Obama on the stump, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: This may be Trump`s nightmare, Obama back out on the campaign trail for Biden tomorrow.
There was that blistering rebuke in Philly, Obama going to another Trump must-win state, Miami, Florida, another drive-in car rally.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Donald Trump isn`t suddenly going to protect all of us. He can`t even take the basic steps to protect himself.
Treating the presidency like a reality show.
Tweeting at the television doesn`t fix things. That`s not normal presidential behavior. We wouldn`t tolerate it in our own family, except for maybe a crazy uncle somewhere.
He`s got a secret Chinese bank account. Can you imagine if I had a secret Chinese bank account? They would have called me Beijing Barry.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MELBER: Trump facing an effective messenger in states he cannot afford to lose.
It`s an important political development.
Now, when we come back, we have a very special guest making their BEAT debut on these key campaign issues, including what some call the Trump recession.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MELBER: This COVID recession has everyone still figuring out ways to adapt.
And we turn now to an icon who`s proven he can walk and chew gum at the same time. In fact, you can bet he`s walking in some stylish kicks.
We`re talking about the world-famous designer Kenneth Cole, whose business started small, but he now manages over 350 employees. Cole is also outspoken on social issues.
We should mention you have been pushing voting with fashionable masks this year. And, long before Trump, you were pushing election reform with billboards like this comedic take seen in Manhattan.
How you doing?
KENNETH COLE, CLOTHING DESIGNER: I`m good, Ari.
This is quite a time we`re living through, I guess not what we…
(CROSSTALK)
MELBER: It`s a wild time.
COLE: It`s a wild time.
MELBER: Yes, I`m eager to have you here. You have been involved in so many things.
I want to remind viewers something that not everyone may know about you, which is your earlier work on HIV and AIDS brought you with — into contact with Dr. Fauci in earlier times.
What did you learn from that? How do you feel about that and the work he`s doing now?
COLE: So, I was chairman of amfAR for 14 years. And I am still a U.N. AIDS goodwill ambassador.
I worked with Dr. Fauci for extensive — in extensive periods of time, ultimately, and on basically scientific-based initiatives. And it`s extraordinary today where we have come with HIV; 75 million people died. And half of them are alive today, living — 75 million contracted the virus, half of whom are living today relatively healthy lives because of the evidence-based science.
And Dr. Fauci was kind of at the helm for all of that. I mean, he wasn`t — he didn`t do it all, but he was — kind of helped guide it all.
So — and we learned early on that — certain behaviors that were appropriate. We didn`t know them at the beginning, just like we didn`t know about masks at the beginning, but we knew we needed — ultimately, it was clean needles. It was safe sex.
And Americans learned and people around the world learned to — to adopt that behavior. And they started. And, today, now there are drugs that allow people to live relatively healthy lives.
And it`s amazing to me, because the — a clean needle and/or a condom is a whole lot harder to introduce to the general public than a mask is, but, somehow, a mask seems to have been politicized, which is just beyond anything that…
(CROSSTALK)
MELBER: Well, you`re — it`s so interesting, because you are in that space, right? I mean, this is about fashion and what makes some things more cool than others.
And those of us who don`t know about that kind of thing, we don`t even hardly understand how you plan that out from a fabric, to a look, to it catching on.
But if masks save lives, do you think there`s more that can be done with governments and the fashion industry to make this as cool as possible, not just eat your vegetables, but cool?
And I know you put out — we can sort of show them — billboards about this, saying, this is more comfortable than wearing a ventilator, encouraging voting, all of that.
COLE: So, look, masks today — our business is very difficult. We sell fashion. There isn`t a big global appetite for fashion today.
So, we pivoted. And we are putting PPE products, masks, first and foremost. And I spent a lot of time making the perfect mask, six, that — has six layers of protection and it keeps — temperature control, and it`s waterproof.
And that`s what the fashion industry does. It reinvents itself. It adapts to ever — change that ever — that`s virtually assured in our industry.
So, we have made that a part of our platform today. It`s a big part of our business today. And — but we will learn to adapt and to reinvent ourselves and to reengage, as the climate dictates.
MELBER: Yes.
COLE: But I don`t see this going — changing for a long time, unfortunately.
MELBER: Sure.
But, yes, it`s interesting to see people who know about it getting involved.
Before I let you go, I got to ask you, how did you feel when the rapper The Game shouted you out, when he said, Keyshia Cole — he`s the black Kenneth Cole, black Air Force Ones, all black soul?
COLE: You know what? I didn`t know he called me out. But I`m flattered.
And we take all of the — whatever we — acknowledgement we can get for the efforts that we put forth on a daily basis.
These are certainly trying times. And I have been spending a lot of my time networking on mental health, which is — which, today, I do believe, will end up being the — a far bigger pandemic than even COVID, affecting…
MELBER: Yes.
COLE: Affected one in four Americans — one in four people globally before the pandemic.
MELBER: Yes.
COLE: Now it`s going to be five in four. So…
MELBER: I got to fit in a break for Joy Reid.
Kenneth Cole, your first time on THE BEAT. I hope will you come back, sir.
COLE: Thank you, Ari. It`s good to see you. Thanks for having me.
MELBER: Thank you.
And keep it locked right here for “THE REIDOUT WITH JOY REID” right now.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END
