conquered. we stand strong for my son. we demand justice. we demand that that police officer is arrested. >> jacob blake sr. gets tonight's last word. jacob blake, thank you very, very much for joining us tonight and sharing what you and your family are going through. and attorney benjamin crump, thank you for joining us. we always appreciate your input here. that is tonight's last word. "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. good evening once again. i'm steve kornacki in for brian williams, who has the night off. day 1,321 of the trump administration and 63 days to go now until the presidential election.fáqt+rñiqxd

>> you have people that choke. they're under tremendous -- i çó said it yesterday. i said it last night. they're under tremendous pressure, and they may be there for 15 years.ñr and if they make a wrong decision, one way or the other, they're eithe: -ead, or they're in big trouble. and people have to understand xd that. they choke sometimes, and it's a very tough situation. the police do an incredible job, and i think you do have some bad apples. and you do have the other situation too where they're under this tremendous pressure, and they -- they don't handle it well. they call it choking, and io happens. >> do you believe systemic racism is a problem in this

country? >> well, you know, you just keep getting back to the opposite subject. we should talk about the kind oñ violence that we've seen in portland and here. you could take the people of kenosha that aren't here and that you won't see and that ant they want to see law and order. >> the president also claimed credit for the deployment of the national guard in kenosha. he's been publicly goading leaders in various cities and states to call up the guard. and that was a step that wisconsin's governor, tony evers, took as the unrest broke out early last week, later calling in additional support. the president did not mention jacob blake during his visit. he is still hospitalized and said to be unable to walk. today blake's family joined community leaders in a series of events near the scene of the shooting. >> i'm sucking up all the pain we have just to stand on our square until we get justice for little jake, which means we get indictment and a conviction of the man who shot him seven times in the back. >> what would you have wanted to tell the president today?

>> we don't have any words for the orange man. all i ask is that he keep his disrespect, his foul language far away from our family. >> and this afternoon trump was asked if he had anything to say to blake's family. >> i feel terribly for anybody that goes through that. i didn't get to speak to the mother. i hear she's a fine woman. if we can help, we're going to help. but it is a question -- it's under investigation. a lot of things happened with that, and other things frankly that we're looking at very, very closely. >> protests continued in portland last night. there was some property destruction, and at one point police declared it a riot. and there were demonstrations in los angeles after police shot and killed a black man in that city. authorities there are saying the shooting occurred after the man punched an officer and dropped a bundle that included a gun. the president is now insisting these types of protests were never meant to be peaceful. last night on fox news, trump

said he'd been told about people who he called, quote, thugs on a plane dressed in black, flying to places to disrupt events like last week's republican convention. before leaving the white house for wisconsin today, trump was asked about that story. >> could you tell us more about this plot that you were referring to on fox news last night? >> the which? i could probably refer you to the person, and they could do it. i'd like to ask that person if it was okay. but a person was on a plane, said that there were about six people like that person, more or less. and what happened is the entire plane filled up with the looters, the anarchists, the rioters, people that obviously were looking for trouble. and the person felt very uncomfortable in the plane. this was a firsthand account of a plane going from washington to wherever, and i'll see if i can get that information for you. maybe they'll speak to you. maybe they won't. >> tonight a trump campaign official was pressed about the

supposed plot, but was unable to shed much light. >> i don't have all the information that the president has. someone is organizing these trips. someone is transporting these people from other states into these other cities. >> nbc news reports that this new trump claim is nearly identical to a rumor that went viral on facebook three months ago and that there is no evidence of any such flight. today we also learned facebook has removed several fake accounts and pages said to be created by russian operatives. facebook says they recruited american journalists to write articles critical of joe biden and kamala harris in an effort to undermine support among liberal voters. and there is yet another controversy fueled today by the president that's bringing renewed scrutiny to his health. this morning trump posted this message. quote, now they are trying to say that your favorite president, me, went to walter reed medical center, having suffered a series of mini strokes. never happened to this candidate. fake news.

white house physician sean conley then issued a statement saying the president has not had any strokes. the administration later told nbc news that trump had been referring to a tweet from former president bill clinton's press secretary, then press secretary during his administration, joe lockhart, who had raised the possibility of strokes. that was in response to a new account of trump's mysterious 2019 visit to walter reed medical center. a new book by "new york times" reporter michael schmidt does not mention strokes but does say in the hours leading up to that unscheduled medical center visit that vice president mike pence was put on standby in case trump was put under anesthesia. this evening pence was asked about that day. >> president donald trump is in excellent health. there was nothing out of the ordinary about that moment or that day, and i'd just refer any other questions to the white house physician. >> but as far as being on standby?

>> i don't -- i don't recall being told to be on standby. >> and another item as well. earlier tonight the author of a new book about the first lady confirmed to rachel maddow that there are recordings of conversations she had with her former close friend melania trump. stephanie winston wolkoff said she began recording after she was accused of mismanaging inauguration funds. >> melania and the white house had accused me of criminal activity, had publicly shamed and fired me and made me their scapegoat. at that moment in time, that's when i pressed record. she was no longer my friend, and she was willing to let them take me down, and she told me herself, that is what -- this is the way it has to be. she was advised by the attorneys at the white house that there was no other choice because there was a possible investigation into the presidential inauguration committee.

and that's not how you treat a friend. >> are you saying, ms. wolkoff, that at that point in order to protect yourself, that you would make recordings of some of your conversations with the first lady, or that you did? >> i did, rachel. i did. >> and she went on to say that the recordings would likely be released in an upcoming report. and tonight "the washington post" is reporting that melania trump has used private email accounts while in the white house according to the first lady's former colleague and friend. here for our leadoff discussion on a tuesday night, ashley parker, pulitzer prize-winning white house reporter for "the washington post." jeremy bash, former chief of staff at the cia and the pentagon and former chief counsel to the house intelligence committee. and donna edwards, former democratic member of congress and now a "washington post" columnist. thanks to all of you for being with us. appreciate it. ashley, let me start with you on the run-up to trump's visit to kenosha today. we just went through what his day looked like. there was a lot of discussion, a

lot of speculation, and i think some conflicting reports that emerged at various times about whether he would meet with jacob blake's family, whether there had been outreach on that front, whether the family might be open to it. was that ever something that was a possibility here, and how did it evolve to what we saw today? >> well, the president's focus was never on jacob blake or his family. he was not going here in the traditional role of presidents as a sort of healer in chief that you might expect in these moments. he was going here to press a political advantage he believes he holds over joe biden when it comes to the civil unrest roiling these cities, where time after time often an unarmed black man is shot, sometimes in the back as was the case with jacob blake, by a white police officer. and the president does believe that when you see these

protests, these riots, the looting, there were fires in kenosha, that he can go there and use that to establish himself as a strong leader and press a law and order message. so, yes, you are right there. there were some conflicting accounts about who in the white house was trying to reach out to who in jacob blake's family, if they reached out to his family pastor, then it came out he didn't have a family pastor. perhaps his mother had a pastor. but again i think the important context is that was never the goal of the trip. the goal of the trip is what we saw from the president, which was to stand there with law enforcement, offer solidarity and support to law enforcement, support to local businesses, and establish himself as tough on law and order in, he hopes, contrast to joe biden. >> so on that front, the political imperative for the president in his re-election, specifically in wisconsin, always talking about this as a must-win state for trump. there's this from politico. they say in wisconsin, they're reporting here the prediction that those put off by the protests will embrace trump

hasn't yet been supported by the polling or in conversations with pollsters and operatives here. to wisconsinites, after such a tense, violent summer, the protesters might look bad, but trump and his law and order supporters don't look much better. donna edwards, that's from politico. there is a poll from morning consult today that puts the wisconsin race at nine. there's a poll from before kenosha that put it at four from marquette law, which is sort of the gold standard pollster in that state. here's my question to you. how confident are you that democrats, the biden campaign, that republicans, the trump campaign, that anyone has a firm handle on the politics of how something like this is shaking out in wisconsin and other places like it? >> i'm not confident in any of that, especially in the polling. i mean we've seen that it's been problematic in the past. look, i think the important thing is that over the course of this last week, what we saw and

we saw yesterday was joe biden, the former vice president, getting out there and being out front, calling on the president to do something that he has done, which is to try to calm the waters, to try to make sure that -- to ensure peace and that we validate peaceful protests and that we hold accountable those who are acting in violence. and i think even today, we saw that the president of the united states, even as he was in kenosha, wisconsin, could not even acknowledge jacob blake and the tragedy that happened to him. and even to acknowledge the concept of systemic racism, which virtually everyone is seeing now and especially with the systematic shooting of unarmed black men and women. jacob blake seven times in the back. i mean even the president has to

understand that there's something awry there, and he wasn't even able to acknowledge that. so when i look at polling in wisconsin, i say to democrats, hold your fire and keep up the work because we know that there's a long road ahead and the president is no stranger to stoking chaos and confusion. >> jeremy bash, we mentioned overnight in portland last night, a riot was declared. there's been sort of an ongoing situation there for a few months now. we talk so much about protests, peaceful protests that often play out during the day. but portland's one of those places where it's been a very different story at night. that seems to be sort of the type of thing that trump is trying to play up here politically, set himself in opposition to, say the democrats are being weak on. meantime, the president, as we've seen this week, when he's got his supporters driving through, firing off paint ball guns as the reporting has it, you've got him encouraging them on twitter. this situation -- we were

talking about it on the show last night. the situation we're seeing in portland and many other cities, really a sensitive one. what would it take to turn the volume down on that right now, and do you think that can happen before the election? >> well, i think the right approach is the approach that the biden team has come out with, which if you look at the biden team's new ad tonight called "be not afraid," you have quotes from biden's speech in pittsburgh in which he quotes scripture. he quotes the pope. he's clearly appealing to moderates. he's clearly appealing to a centrist notion, a notion steeped in faith that we can come together and that this stoking of violence on all sides, including the looters', including the property destroyers', including those who are engaging in violence in the streets should be repudiated, and so too should the president come forward and repudiate those who are firing on protesters and those who are stoking this violence tonight. i think we just have to pause here, steve, and note that the president in the run-up to

kenosha said one of the most racially divisive thing a president has ever said. he said that shooting an unarmed black man getting into a car with his children seven times in the back was akin to missing a putt in golf. dopey me, rats, i had a bad day. i missed a golf putt. dopey me, rats, i had a bad day. i shot a black man in the back seven times as he got into the car with his children. how racially insensitive can the president of the united states get? this is his playbook. he wants to divide people, and i think, you know, it's up to voters not to let him get away with that. >> ashley, i'd be remiss if i didn't ask you about some of what we were mentioning there in the opening with the president's tweets today regarding his health. again, he says this was driven by joe lockhart, bill clinton's old press secretary, speculating about strokes and the president saying, no, no, no series of mini strokes. apparently in the last 30 minutes or so, he's tweeted again on this subject. so he's really, through his tweets, amplified whatever lockhart was saying there. you've had statements from the

white house on this today. can you shed any light about what's going on there? there's the matter of health on the one hand, but there's also the matter of what is going on in the white house right now when it comes to this subject? >> this is purely driven by the president. the president, as we discussed earlier, had a trip to kenosha that his team believed was a good trip and a good message for him, and he overshadowed, as he often does, that trip, that message, by becoming obsessed with something that was not even on cable news, that was basically that was not reported. it was not in michael schmidt's very good book. but the idea of mini strokes was not in the book. it was a single tweet by a former press secretary under bill clinton. the president saw it. he got obsessed with it. he had his white house put out a statement from his physician. he tweeted about it again, and he is the one who purely

injected it into the media today. and it's also worth noting there's more than a little hypocrisy complaining about speculation of his health. speculation about someone's health when you're not a medical doctor is of course irresponsible, but that is exactly what president trump did in 2016 about hillary clinton, and it's exactly what he's doing this time about vice president joe biden. so you're seeing here a president who doesn't seem to be handle a dose of his own medicine. >> and jeremy bash, we also mentioned there in that lead the news about facebook today, about russia as well apparently trying to recruit journalists, recruit folks with some sort of platform here to try to sow discord on the left. again, echos direct sort of parallels to what we were talking about in the 2016 campaign. >> we're going to see this over and over again, steve. the russians are coming in favor of donald trump. the intelligence community assessed that the russian federation is going to engage once again in a campaign to

benefit donald trump in this election. and, again, i think we've got to have our department of homeland security, our intelligence community, and all of the state election officials on high alert for this russian interference once again in 2020. >> and, donna edwards, again the backdrop here for trump's visit to kenosha, we're talking about it. democrats, joe biden with that speech yesterday, trying to shore up his credentials on the subjects that donald trump's now attacking on. has biden sufficiently fortified himself there? >> well, i mean i do think that his speech yesterday in pittsburgh really grounded his campaign. i mean it's very clear that joe biden came out of the democratic convention with people feeling very favorably about him. no one believes that he's out there stoking violence. they do believe that about the president, and i think the important thing for joe biden is

to continue when he needs to, to meet trump head to head when it comes to this contest over who is going to preserve peace, who's going to make sure that all of our citizens' voices are heard, and who's going to do that in a way that doesn't inflame and doesn't antagonize. and i think no one would conclude that donald trump would be that kind of president, and i think joe biden demonstrated by his -- in his speech but continues to demonstrate in his manner that he'll be a president who really leads on these issues and can be counted on. and so i think that the biden campaign is right on target here, but they can't take their eye off of the prize. >> all right. donna edwards, jeremy bash, ashley parker, thank you all for being with us. appreciate that. and coming up, another indication the u.s. may be going it alone in the rush for a workable vaccine for the coronavirus. and later, going over to the big board, history was made in

massachusetts tonight in a democratic primary. we're going to take a look at that and the presidential election just nine weeks away. "the 11th hour" just getting started on a tuesday night.

it's great to talk about this utopian kind of idea where everybody has a test every day and we can do that. i don't live in a utopian world. i live in the real world. we can return to society without having everyone have a test every single day. you know, we can do that, and we're showing you can do that. >> that was president trump's coronavirus testing czar responding to a question about when rapid tests will become widely available. meantime, the cdc continues to face backlash for changing its guidance and downplaying the need to test asymptomatic patients. the headline of a "new york times" op-ed says this. quote, it has come to this: ignore the cdc.

that was co-authored by a former nih director, and the article reads this as well. the cdc, the federal agency that should be crushing the pandemic, is promoting policies that prolong it. that means that local state and organizational leaders will have to do what the federal government won't. michael osterholm is a professor and the director of the center for infectious disease and research and policy at the university of minnesota. he is also the co-author of the recent book "deadliest enemy: our war against killer germs." thank you, sir, for joining us. appreciate it. let me just ask you about this question of testing guidelines, the idea of trying to return to some form of normal life here before there's a vaccine. what's a reasonable threshold, do you think, for our country right now when it comes to this question of who should be getting tests and how often and in what circumstances? >> well, you know, steve, this is obviously a very critical question. but i think there's even a more fundamental question that we

have to ask first. how many americans even believe that this pandemic is happening? we're seeing a growing number of individuals who just flaunt the fact that they're in large crowds, they're without mask. they believe in fact that what we're seeing right now is a hoax, and you can do all the testing you want, and if you have a certain segment of your population, and particularly a large segment that don't believe it's even a real problem, testing is not going to get you out of it. we need someone at the top to tell us why we need to respond to this pandemic and how to do it with authority and public health principles in the background. that's the only way we're going to get through this with or without testing. >> given what you just said, what do you see on the horizon? there's been so much talk that probably a few months from now, as the weather really starts to turn, there's been all this talk about a second wave. what do you see on the short-term horizon? >> well, i think we've got some really tough days ahead of us. first of all, i'm sitting here in the midwest right now where

the states of minnesota, iowa, north and south dakota, nebraska, kansas are all basically in a stage that was not that dissimilar from what we saw in florida, georgia, and texas several weeks before it blew in those states. and we're very concerned that we may be the next hot spot. number two is the fact that with schools, colleges, universities all opening right now, we're going to see a major number of cases occur in all of our states as a result of that with spillover then occurring into those other individuals in the community who work with or live near these individuals. then combine that with the cold weather season coming to us, and we're going to be breathing more indoor air where we know this virus is much more efficiently transmitted, and it doesn't look good. and that's why we have to understand why we have to take the precautions we do. while testing is part of that, it's about distancing. it's about not having these big parties.

here in our state alone, we've investigated more than 50-some bar outbreaks largely associated with young adults, some of them with very large numbers of cases. that's the kind of thing that i talked about a moment ago, is until the public believes this is a problem, there's only a limited amount that we can do in public health. >> we talk so much about the race for a vaccine. "the washington post" reporting about one particular global effort here, international effort involving the world health organization. the united states, they report, will not participate, in part because the white house does not want to work with the w.h.o., which president trump has criticized over what he has characterized as its china-centric response to the pandemic. talk, if you will, a little bit about what this effort is and what it means for the united states not to be a part of it, both to the folks engaged in it and to us. >> well, first of all, remember there are over 8.4 billion people on the face of the earth right now, all of them vulnerable in one way or another

to this virus. the united states is 330 million of that. that's all. how the rest of the world goes will determine in part how the pandemic ultimately still affects the united states. and if we're only going to take care of our own, countries like china and russia will take care of the rest of the world and help them with their vaccine issues. health diplomacy, the ability to outreach to countries based on health and helping them with the most fundamental aspects of public health has been by far the most effective diplomacy we've ever had. that's how you win friends. that's how you are able to show the world the leader that you are. and if we're going to shut off the rest of the world from responding to this pandemic and helping them with vaccine, when we surely could possibly do that, that is the biggest mistake i can imagine. so from a health diplomacy standpoint, if we're not helping these other countries of the world who don't have the manufacturing capacity, who don't have access to vaccines like this, then we really are cutting off our nose to spite

ourselves. we'll pay a price for that down the road. >> all right. michael osterholm, thank you for joining us. really appreciate that. >> thank you, steve. all right. and coming up, the decades-old streak. this one goes all the way back basically to world war ii, and it just came to a crashing end. going to the big board to break down what happened in massachusetts when "the 11th hour" continues. robinhood believes now is the time to do money. without the commission fees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood.

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we asked what we can do for our country. we went out. we did it. with all due respect, it's time to start asking what your country can do for you. >> if i had told you that that ad ran in a massachusetts democratic primary, a candidate taking the words of john f. kennedy and completely inverting them to try to defeat a candidate, for generations now that would have been an absolutely political suicidal move, and yet tonight look at this. ed markey, who ran that ad, who took jfk's words, who said, no, it's the opposite, he has defeated a kennedy in massachusetts. this is official. the a.p. has called this. joe kennedy has called ed markey to concede. ed markey, incumbent senator who was challenged by joe kennedy, ed markey has held off that challenge. he's won. he's won comfortably tonight. what happened here in massachusetts? at the start of this campaign, about a year ago here, joe

kennedy said he was running. he was going to try to defeat ed markey. kennedy went into this the big favorite. a kennedy in massachusetts basically before now entered every race as a favorite. well, ed markey did a couple of things that resulted in this tonight. as we look at the results across massachusetts, we see it. number one, ed markey aligned himself very strongly, very forcefully with the green new deal, with climate change efforts. he got an endorsement from alexandria ocasio-cortez, and the result from that and from moves like that, ed markey, one thing you see when you look at the map in massachusetts tonight, he is cleaning up in college towns. he is cleaning up in places where there are young voters. if you think back to the presidential primaries and you think of the types of voters and the types of places where bernie sanders did best, that's exactly what ed markey is doing there in massachusetts tonight. he's performing very well in those places. but he also did something else, something that if you think back to the presidential primaries,

maybe bernie sanders wasn't able to do, something that held sanders back in the primaries but that markey in massachusetts was able to do. and if you look, it's one bedroom community after another, one suburb after another where you've got that sort of professional class, white collar suburbanite. those places overwhelmingly going for ed markey tonight over joe kennedy. the types of voters, the types of places i'm describing in the presidential primary, they're the types of places where elizabeth warren did the best. and so what you're seeing here in this ed markey coalition is he put together sanders and warren in massachusetts. he kind of fused those two coalitions together, and it resulted in this primary in a strong majority. joe kennedy was left with -- he had strength fall river. he had strength in springfield. he had strength in some of the older cities of massachusetts but not enough, nearly enough to win this thing. in fact, i was just looking. the results have come in from the city of boston. ed markey won boston. he won it overwhelmingly tonight.

so a kennedy loses in massachusetts. the backdrop for this, of course, we were showing you this all day today. since jfk launched his political career, the pt-109 boat hero after world war ii, jfk was undefeated in massachusetts democratic primaries. so was ted. so was joe kennedy ii coming into tonight. so was joe kennedy iii. i mean this is a dynasty. 26 wins spanning generations of massachusetts democratic politics. not a single loss in one of those massachusetts democratic primaries until tonight. joe kennedy iii, you can update it. you can see it. that's the first loss. it's the first ever loss in a democratic primary for a kennedy in massachusetts. didn't matter in terms of control of the senate. the democrats going to be heavily favored in this race in the fall no matter who won tonight. but from an historic standpoint, it's a big deal. a kennedy just lost in massachusetts. some people thought they'd never seen that. coming up, nine weeks from

tonight we're right back here with election night results. some of the signals we're seeing tonight about november 3rd when "the 11th hour" continues. these folks, they don't have time to go to the post office they have businesses to grow customers to care for lives to get home to they use stamps.com print discounted postage for any letter any package any time right from your computer all the services of the post office plus ups only cheaper get our special tv offer a 4-week trial plus postage and a digital scale go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again.

a 4-week trial probinwithout the commission a digfees. so, you can start investing today wherever you are - even hanging with your dog. so, what are you waiting for? download now and get your first stock on us. robinhood. the fact is that we've seen tremendous violence, and we will put it out very, very quickly if given the chance. and that's what this is all about. yeah, i keep hearing about peaceful protests. i hear it about everything, and then i come into an area like this, and i see the town is burned down. >> as the president ramps up his message of law and order, david wasserman of the nonpartisan cook political reporter writes that trump is going after some of biden's supporters. quote, trump and republicans have settled on recasting biden as a trojan horse for the radical left, who would promote lawlessness and disorder, abolish the suburbs, and crash stock markets.

it's an admission that trump needs to distract attention away from voters' top concern, covid-19. and trump's rhetorical fusillades against democrat-run cities are a tell of a fall strategy heavy from pumping up his base from 2016, small town, working-class whites. here with us, beth fouhy, senior politics editor for msnbc and nbc news. and philip rucker, pulitzer prize-winning white house bureau chief for "the washington post," also the co-author along with his colleague carol leonnig of the best-selling book "a very stable genius." thanks to both of you for being here. phil, let me start with you. wasserman in that piece we just read describing the political strategy that's at work here. what is your sense of the world around trump right now, their confidence level? polls, we show them all the time. he's trailing in the polls. you can question the exact amount there. but he's trailing in the polls. are they confident that they're on the right track here, that this is going to work, or is doubt seeping in at all?

>> you know, they are, steve. there's been a notable difference in the last ten days or so in the way trump's advisers and outside allies have talked about this race. they of course acknowledge that he has been behind biden in the polls for many months now, but they feel like they've hit on a message that's going to end up working for the president. you just talked about it there, trying to focus on disorder and upheaval and unrest in some of these major cities that are run by democrats and portray that somehow as the responsibility of joe biden even though, of course, donald trump is the sitting president and this is the country that he is leading right now. but nonetheless, trump's advisers know if this election is a referendum on the president's management of the coronavirus pandemic and a referendum on the president more generally, that is not a good election for donald trump. so they're trying to come up with ways to frame this race in

voters' minds more on joe biden and the policies that he represents and the other leaders in the democratic party. >> yeah. every election has its own surprises and often they pop up on election night, and then suddenly we realize there was something there the whole time that we didn't know. i'm thinking in 2016, one of those things, beth, was it was the support trump had from rural white voters. when you look in the polling, it's white voters without a college degree. it wasn't just how big his lead was with that group of voters. it was what the turnout levels were in some places, just massive, off the charts turnout from working class white voters in a lot of places. it's something democrats -- you saw the speech from biden this week. democrats think they can eat into a little bit here. i guess my question to you is how confident should the biden campaign be that giving speeches like he gave this week will be able to address the imperative there, or are there uncertainties around this frankly we might not know until election day?

>> well, from what we've seen so far, joe biden and his team really want to refocus this election back onto the president's management or mismanagement, if you will, of the covid crisis. joe biden's speech yesterday did a pretty good job of that, saying that, in fact, not only is it president trump who has been fanning the flames of division around the urban unrest that we've been seeing, flipping it back to him rather than saying somehow biden is responsible, he also said the president has made us look weak, has made the country look weak in large part because of his mismanagement of covid. that's probably an effective message, steve, because let's face it. suburban voters, those ones that trump's team is trying to peel away at, they're scared of things, sure. but they're probably way more scared of what's going to happen if they or their family members get sick with covid than they are of something that may be going on in a city many thousands of miles away. like let's think about wisconsin where he was today.

wisconsin has seen 82,000 cases of covid so far. they've had 1,100 deaths. we didn't hear any mention of that from president trump. he just kind of wants to push the whole thing away. president trump's going to north carolina tomorrow. they've had 170,000 cases there. so if vice president biden can continually remind voters that that's the true danger facing this country and not these isolated incidences of protesting and rioting that have gotten out of hand, it's very hard for me to see how president trump combats that. >> well, phil, what do you hear from the white house and just folks, again, around the president who are looking at the same things we're talking about? what do you hear from them on that in terms of, you know, look, if there's a flare-up, a further flare-up, i should say, of covid in the fall, if we get one of those situations where it's spiking in some pretty significant places, i mean is it something they're expecting? is it something -- what do they say about that? >> well, they definitely realize that a flare-up this fall and

into the winter, which is something, by the way, that the cdc director, robert redfield, has predicted and a number of other public health officials have talked about as a very real possibility. that if that were to occur, that could hurt the president politically. but his advisers are looking for ways to change the psychology around the coronavirus pandemic. so understanding that covid is probably going to be with us for many more months to come, are there things that the white house and the federal government can do to make americans feel more secure about the virus being out there, to give people hope that a vaccine is coming very soon even if it may not be coming as soon as the president is proclaiming? are there other ways to make people feel safer going about their daily routines and therefore less concerned about the pandemic and maybe perhaps more likely to elect trump to a second term. that's what they're banking on, but the polling we have seen shows the majority of american

people are concerned about covid and are not necessarily buying all of the happy talk, at least right now. >> you know, beth, too, when we look at this messaging from the trump campaign, we think so much about wisconsin obviously is the one we're talking about, about it's those three midwest states. it's pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin. maybe even the trump campaign talks about making a move in minnesota. very similar demographics, maybe thinking a similar message could make up some ground in all of those states. but, again, i look at some of the -- and i have some polling up on the screen from morning consult. look at the one on the top of that list there. arizona. there's a state that donald trump won in 2016, a traditionally republican state. and the swing voters you're talking about in arizona, demographically are different than the swing voters you're talking about in a michigan or a wisconsin or a minnesota. it raises the question of the efforts that trump is making in those midwest states, if they help in those states, does that progress potentially come at the

expense of a state like arizona for him? >> it does sort of feel that way, doesn't it, steve? i mean obviously he's trying to thread the same exact needle that he threaded in 2016, that very tiny, narrow win that he got in those three states that he flipped, that had been under democratic -- had gone for democrats for two decades, michigan, pennsylvania, and wisconsin. but you're right. the sun belt is changing. arizona's changing. georgia's changing. these are states where the suburbs are growing, where educated people are living in those suburbs. they're responding to different kinds of messages. let's also remember that arizona has had perhaps one of the worst experiences with covid of any state. their governor is a very pro-trump guy who sort of followed the president's admonition to not take the virus so seriously. they went through a terrible time of this in the summer. there's a lot of elderly people who live in arizona as well who are very frightened of covid. so there's a lot of things going on in arizona demographically that, number one, show the shift

from 2016 but also show why trump's vulnerabilities have grown in a place like that. and it really comes down to his response to covid. >> all right. beth fouhy and philip rucker, thank you both for being with us. appreciate that. >> thank you. coming up, what the first day of school looks like on the other side of the world and in the city that was once the epidemic of the pandemic. richard engel brings us that report when "the 11th hour" continues. audible is my road-trip companion. it's kind of my quiet, alone time.

audible is a routine for me. it's like a fun night school for adults. i could easily be seduced into locking myself into a place where i do nothing but listen to books. i never was interested in historical fiction before, but i'm obsessed with it now. there are a lot of like, classic and big titles that i feel like i missed out since i don't have time to read, mean i might as well listen. if i want to catch up on the news or history or learn what's going on in the world, i can download a book and listen to it. because i listened to her story over and over again, i made the decision to go ahead and follow my own dream, which was to help other veterans. i think there's like 180 books in my, in my library now. it changes your perspective; it makes you a different person. it's true, it's so true. to start your free 30-day trial, just text listen17 to 500500.

here in the united states, new york city officials are delaying the start of school for a few more weeks. and some other schools have been sending students back home almost immediately after letting them in. but in the original epicenter of the pandemic, kids today returned to the classroom. nbc's foreign correspondent richard engel reports on what wuhan, china, and other countries are doing differently. >> reporter: in wuhan, in china,

the original epicenter of the coronavirus, 1.4 million children went back to school today in masks, passing through infrared scanners to check their body temperature. the city ramping up testing capacity in case of a spike. in may, officials tested this entire city of 11 million in just three weeks. in france, president emmanuel macron took to instagram to warn children the virus is still out there and to take precautions. children 11 and up and teachers and staff also required to wear masks in the classrooms. in the united kingdom, no masks in the classroom. the education system deeming them to have a negative impact on teaching. >> in between all your fingers. >> there's always going to be that worry, but then life has to go on. so we're back here together. >> reporter: masks are recommended in hallways and communal areas, and british children are divided into what are called bubbles, where they can interact freely.

if a student tests positive, the whole bubble goes into quarantine. prime minister boris johnson, who had covid, has been saying missing school outweighs the covid risk. >> do you think that school is safe? >> yes. >> definitely is. definitely is. >> reporter: many different approaches. no perfect answers. in africa, most schools remain closed. in germany, schools reopened last month, but several had to shut because of outbreaks. richard engel, nbc news, london. >> and there's more "the 11th hour" just ahead. robinhood believes now is the time to do money.

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and as we close tonight, we repeat the top story in politics tonight. an election surprise in massachusetts although by the end it wasn't a surprise. ed markey, united states senator ed markey defeats handily congressman joe kennedy iii in a primary for united states senate. kennedy had been challenging markey. he went into the race as the heavy favorite. markey comes out, though, a ten-point victor, the first ever loss for a kennedy in a massachusetts democratic primary. they say if you live long enough, you'll see everything. we saw that tonight. that's our broadcast. on behalf of all my colleagues at the networks of nbc news, good night. tonight on all in.

herd immunity the really bad idea the white house swears is not the plan. seems to be the president's plan. >> once you get to a certain number. herd. once you get >> tonight, as the administration bullies everyone back to school, new concern that outbreaks on college campuses could bring a covid third wave. plus, why is the president repeating conspiracy theories about plane loads of antifa thugs? ben collins on president trump's pipeline of information. and the president wants everyone to know that he did not have a "series of mini strokes." when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. when you spell it out to people, that millions and millions more americans are going to get sick or tens of millions and something like 2 million