after the pandemic. that's why we support measure rr to keep caltrain running. which is at risk of shutdown because of the crisis. to keep millions of cars off our roads, to reduce air pollution and fight climate change. and measure rr helps essential workers like me get to work and keep our communities healthy. relieve traffic. reduce pollution. rescue caltrain. [all] yes on measure rr. that's going to do it for us tonight and but i'll see you in a weird time at a weird place, sunday night 8:00 eastern, sunday night, me, brian williams, nicolle wallace, joy reid, a special election preview in our new super-sized studios. i'll see you then sunday night 8:00. now it's time for "the last word" with lawrence o'donnell. good evening, lawrence.

>> i'll see you in that 8:00 to 10:00 hour from whatever camera position they find for me. sort of a tech rehearsal for election night. rachel, your weekend between now and sunday night, just fully relaxing, get your mind -- right? just get your mind off this stuff, right? >> can i tell you what i'm actually doing? >> please. >> first of all, i'm, you know, i'm building my research binder and stressing out and printing out 7,000 pages of paper, like i always do, but i've also committed to susan that i'm going to decorate my pickup truck for a halloween car parade. we bought a 6 1/2-foot wide furry spider that i have to figure out to put on the vehicle with spooky lighting, and i'm not very handy, and so i have a feeling that's going to take a significant number of the hours between now and midnight on halloween, which i figure has to

be the deadline for that sort of thing. >> instagram cannot wait for the pictures, rachel. >> instagram will not get them. >> i know. i know. thank you, rachel. have a great weekend. >> thanks. see you sunday. >> thank you. there was supposed to be one more debate in one of the campaigns for senate in georgia sunday night, and now that's not going to happen because of this. >> it's not just that you're a crook, senator. it's that you're attacking the health of the people that you represent. >> that's jon ossoff in the last debate that he had against republican senator david perdue who has now decided to drop out of the debate scheduled for sunday night because david perdue seems to have decided that he cannot survive another minute on the debate stage with jon ossoff. and he may be right about that. jon ossoff has a tiny lead in the polls in georgia, which is

amazing for a democrat. jon ossoff will continue to press his case against david perdue right here on this program at the end of this hour. jon ossoff, candidate for senate in georgia will get tonight's last word. tonight's first word goes to joe biden on the day when the four years of waiting has come down to four days of waiting. >> only four days left. many of americans are already voting. millions more are going to vote. by late tuesday night. and i believe when you use your power, the power of a vote, we're going to change the course of the country and, quite frankly, the world, right here in iowa with all of you. in the final days, please keep your sense of empowerment. keep your sense of optimism of

what we can do together because you know we can do anything. >> keep your sense of optimism. that was joe biden campaigning in iowa today where donald trump won by ten points four years ago and where one poll shows joe biden ahead by three. so there's plenty to be optimistic about if you want joe biden to be the next president of the united states and kamala harris to be the next vice president of the united states. joe biden is actually giving you a piece of personal life advice for this weekend, and these four days when he says keep your sense of optimism, because that's how the professionals do it. that's how they get through it. i've been asking some successful presidential campaign managers on this program how they deal with the emotions the anxieties of the final week and you would get talking about concentrate

on the data, doing their jobs. but i know how the candidates get through it. i've seen enough of that. when i was working in the united states senate and i watched new candidates for senate working their way to the finish line of a campaign, or veteran the incumbent senators running for re-election, i saw how they handled the final days of the campaign, the way joe biden is doing it now. they choose optimism. candidates running in a campaign where they have a good chance of winning and an equally good chance of losing simply choose optimism because it is a choice. you can spend this weekend and the next few days wracked with anxiety and fear and maybe even pessimism, or you can choose optimism. if your optimism turns out to be wrong, you have plenty of time for fear and anxiety starting on wednesday, but why ruin this weekend? do what joe biden's doing. choose optimism.

do what i learned to do in political campaigns. choose optimism. work hard if you're one of the thousands and thousands of people who are working for a candidate, calling people, texting people, trying to get people to vote, and do it with optimism. and pride. that you're doing everything you possibly can to try to move this country closer to its ideals, and you have a lot to be optimistic about, starting with the miracle in the state of texas. today early voting in texas surpassed the total voter turnout in the last presidential election in texas. today is the last day of early voting in texas, and so the next surge will come on election day, and texas could go either way. nonpartisan professional political analyses in texas are saying texas is in play for the democrats. a democratic candidate for president has not won texas in 44 years.

democratic candidates for president and vice president don't usually bother to go to texas, but that's where kamala harris was today, trying to win texas because kamala harris is choosing optimism and working hard to win. that's what the best athletes do. they choose optimism and then they work hard to win. a new fox national poll of likely voters shows joe biden ahead of donald trump by eight points, 52-44. that is outside the 2.5% margin of error. so that's a real lead. think about that. think about how much rupert murdoch, the billionaire owner of fox, hates paying for a poll that says joe biden has an eight-point lead over his friend, donald trump. joe biden's polling leads are significantly higher than hillary clinton's polling leads

were going into the final weekend of the presidential campaign four years ago. the more people named donald trump who speak on any given campaign day, the more damage is done to the trump campaign. donald trump jr. went on rupert's propaganda network to say, these are his boards, i kept hearing about new infections, but i was, like, why aren't they talking about deaths? oh, because the number is almost nothing. because we've gotten control of this thing. that's what donald trump jr. said. the deaths are almost nothing. what he means is no trump family members have died yet from covid-19. americans, 969 died today on a day that set a record for the new number of infections in a

single day. 982 died yesterday, and that is more than triple the number of people who were killed in those hijacked airplanes on 9/11, 246 americans were killed that day in those airplanes, and every single day in this country now a number more than triple the number who were killed in those planes on 9/11 are killed by the coronavirus in this country. and donald trump jr. says that that number is nothing. 969 deaths today is nothing to a trump. today the other person named donald trump campaigned for re-election in michigan, lied about doctors who treat covid patients. donald trump said, i mean, our doctors are very smart, very smart people. so what they do is say, i'm

sorry, but everybody dies of covid. that's what he said. donald trump attacked the profession that saved his life when he got covid-19. he says doctors are lying about what this pandemic is doing to us. joe biden responded to that in minnesota today. >> doctors and nurses go to work every day to save lives. they do their jobs. donald trump should stop attacking them and do his job. [ horns honking ] folks, this is the same man who weeks ago when he was told we're losing 1,000 lives a day, you remember what he said? he said it is what it is. that's thoughtful. well, it is what it is because he is who he is. donald trump has waved the white flag and surrendered to this virus. but the american people don't

give up. they don't cower. neither will i. >> kamala harris' optimism brought her to texas today where she offered this closing argument in what she is working very hard to write into the history books as the first democratic presidential campaign victory in texas in 44 years. >> my final point is this. this moment will pass. it will pass. and years from now our children and our grandchildren and others, they will look at us, each one of us, they're going to look in our eyes and they will ask us, where were you at that moment? and, you see, we're going to be able to tell them so much more than just how we felt, fort

worth. we will tell them what we did. [ cheers ] we will tell them what we did. we will tell them on this particular friday afternoon on the last day of early voting in texas, we were sitting in a field hanging out with kamala. we will tell them we texted everybody, called everybody, emailed everybody we knew that, yes, we knew we were kind of getting on their nerves, but we also knew that'd get over it, that we reminded people of the path that we are on, that the shoulders upon which we stand that we reminded people about what is at stake, and that we reminded people about their power. and in this moment where we are dealing with crises, we reminded our friends and our neighbors and our family that you are not alone, don't let anyone make you feel small, that you are big,

you are strong, you have power, and at election time, that power will be through your vote. and you will tell them when they ask that you elected joe biden, the president of the united states. [ cheers ] thank you, fort worth, and god bless texas. [ cheers ] >> on this final friday night of the presidential campaign leading off our discussion, renee graham, editor for "the boston globe." also with us, steve hildebrandt who served as deputy national campaign manager for barack obama's 2008 presidential campaign. renee, i'd like you to reflect on where we are after four years of waiting for this day to vote in the next presidential election, which we start counting the votes in four days from now. >> what's remarkable is the

tremendous sense of urgency people feel about voting this year in a way i don't know they felt in 2016. that's because they know what's at stake. they know what this country cannot endure any longer. and i think that's really important in the way people are going out. if you think about the way that the gop had this bottomless bag of tricks to suppress the vote, i think there's been a backlash to that. people understand that to allow that to happen is to allow further erosion of democracy, and what the gop has been doing is bleeding out this democracy by making it more and more difficult for people to vote. and they're not having it. they want a future in this country. they want a democracy that is sound and that is strong. as flawed as it is, people are willing to fight for it, and that's exactly what we're seeing with these incredible numbers in states like texas. >> steve, i normally think about my questions to guests and try to pose them careful but i'm

just going to throw it at you the way campaign professionals throw it at each other in the final days of a campaign, pretty much any day of a campaign, they say, steve, what do you know? >> i know we're going to win, lawrence. >> okay. >> you know, i think -- i think we've been seeing this coming for several months. i try to look at donald trump's numbers and polling, and for months and months and months what we've seen is 41%, 42%, he doesn't get over there in the national polling. he rarely gets to 44%. he just isn't climbing, he's never climbed above that number, and i think that's very telling as to where we're at. and for the last year he's done nothing to try to reach out to independents, to undecided voters to really try to grow his

number. from that perspective, i mean, from what i've seen over the years in campaigns is, if you're not there and you've done nothing to try to change that number, the last four days isn't going to change it for you. i am very optimistic and feel very good about where we're at. you never trust donald trump to not pull something in the last few hours of this campaign, but i think the one thing that needs to be said is america is exhausted. they're just exhausted. we have had political peril in this country for nearly five years if you count the year of his campaigning, and i think people are just ready to move forward and try and see a better country than we've seen in the last five years. >> renee, speaking of that better country, joe biden seems to be trying to model that every

day on the campaign trail. we're going to look in a moment at video of joe biden dealing with hecklers today, people, trump voters who wanted to make some noise at his event. this happens on a day when the people named donald trump alternately say that more than 900 people dying in america is literally nothing and that doctors are lying about how many people actually are dying from covid-19 and how many people have covid-19. let's look at that new world of decency that joe biden modelled today. >> these guys are not very polite, but they're like trump. [ cheers ] look, they're going to be okay. we're going to take care of them as well. we need to come together to fight for all these folks. we have four days left to get it done, four days. >> so renee, if there's a biden

presidency, there won't be a president threatening anybody who says something, you know, some kind of heckling or anything like that at a biden event as we've seen donald trump do. >> imagine how donald trump would have handled that moment. you know, he would have yelled at the person and encouraged violence against that person. that's not who joe biden is. and so you have this contrast between decency and this sort of ruthless, unvarnished inhumanity. we're in the middle of a pandemic and the president continually says we're rounding the corner. well, we're rounding the corner if there's an even worse hell awaiting us. you have his son talking about, well, it's nothing. you don't call 900 people dying a day nothing. so the contrast between these two men is extraordinary because you have him embracing -- you

have barbecued embracing these people who are heckling him and he's like, i'm going to work for you too. he's repenting the difference, he's not denigrating them. these last five years have been horrible. it's really been a test of the american will to withstand what donald trump has been dishing out, and we know he's not done yet. so the idea that joe biden could stand there with so few left before election day and embrace the people who were heckling him, embrace the people who are trying to put him down and sort of ruin his moment i think really speaks to where this country needs to go and that sense of optimism. >> steve, what are the differences you're seeing in joe biden's polling tonight versus hillary clinton's polling on the friday night before election day four years ago? >> obviously a slightly larger lead, not just in the national polling, but in each of these states.

you know, he's in the game in more places than she is. i think you look at the map where we definitely would have, you know, traditional blue states, and then if you add pennsylvania, michigan, wisconsin, even minnesota, you know, he has substantial leads in those states. i think it's going to be pretty solid that he will win those states. if he does, he gets beyond 270 and wins the presidency. but lawrence, this is pretty amazing. georgia's a new battleground state. texas is a new battleground state. arizona is a new battleground state. north carolina, iowa, you know, you got all of these extra states, so to speak, that give joe biden numerous paths to the presidency, and he's in the game and ahead in some of those states.

so this is very real. i think the difference between what happened with hillary, say, in texas where she wanted to play and in georgia where she wanted to play, we have hundreds of thousands of new voters that are coming out for democrats in those two states that she didn't have back then. it's taken another presidential cycle to get there. you know, we have different elected officials, say, in houston with the mayor who made a big difference in how we get people registered and turned out and how we're doing the vote. georgia, 750,000 new voters. i mean, these are game-changing numbers that are going to allow two states that haven't been in play for a very long time that are absolutely in play just as much as florida or north carolina or these others are. >> steve hilled brand, renee graham, thank you very much for joining us on this friday night. really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. >> thank you.

up next, we have new video emerged today showing bins of mail at a post office in florida's miami-dade county that raised concerns. and those concerns were brought into a federal court in washington, d.c., today. we'll talk to the democratic leader of the florida house who made sure this country saw that video today. he sounded the alarm. he joins us next. ♪ ♪ ♪ this is the feeling of total protection now that we protect your identity, and mobile phone, as well as auto home and life you've never been in better hands allstate click or call for a quote today

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right here in florida, it's up to you. you hold the key. if florida goes blue, it's over. it's over. [ cheers ] >> that was joe biden in florida yesterday, and he's right. and this video from florida caught my eye today on twitter where it was posted by our next guest, kionne mcghee, democratic leader of the florida house of representatives. this tweet says raw footage of mail room in post office here in miami-dade, source revealed mail-in ballots are within these piled up in bins on the floor. mail has been sitting for over a week. they say video was taken today at a u.s. postal service location in princeton, florida. the assistant deputy supervisor of elections at miami-dade released a statement saying that the postal service, quote, assured us that the ballots in

this post office will be delivered in time. that video also made its way into federal court in washington, d.c., today in a hearing conducted by judge emmitt sullivan supervising the extraordinary measures he has ordered the postal service to implement which now include an emergency plan to deliver ballots on election day, which is the deadline for receiving mail-in ballots in several states. that new emergency procedure ordered by the judge says on election day, november 3rd, carriers will pull ballots from their collection mail and hand them over to their supervisor. supervisors will exchange ballots around the city and after the exchange, a designated supervisor makes delivery to the board of elections. tomorrow vice presidential candidate kamala harris will campaign in florida with stops in miami-dade, broward, and palm beach counties. in a new nbc news/marist poll released yesterday, the biden/harris campaign is in a statistical tie with donald trump in florida.

four-point lead, 51-47. joining our discussion, the democratic leader of the florida house of representatives and he represents miami-dade county. thank you very much for joining us tonight. what is the latest status of what you showed in that video, those ballots in those bins in that post office? >> thank you, lawrence. good evening to all of your viewers. let me just say this. the miami-dade state's attorney katherine fernandez rundle was issued order to the supervisor of elections in miami-dade county to turn over all the ballots within their possession. i can tell you, as a former prosecutor here in miami-dade county, that is a huge measure that she was able to take today due to what we were able to find out by viewing this video. this video was actually taken based upon the source who is actually an employee of the postal service. it was taken on saturday. however, she reminded us this evening that what you are witnessing in that video, the

majority of the bins are still in the same position. so we do know also, lawrence, that looking at this video, it is very disheartening and very upsetting to the thousands of people within that two to three-mile radius of that community because there are over 7,000 registered voters within two miles of that particular post office. >> as you know, this video was mentioned in enthrall court today in washington, d.c., where the judges overseeing the operations of the post office nationally and ordering them to implement emergency measures specifically to avoid things like this, so the judge has taken an interest in what you exposed today. >> yes, lawrence. in the state of florida, every ballot with the exception of overseas ballots, every ballot has to be in the possession of the supervisor of elections by 7:00 p.m.

lawrence, what we are seeing is, based upon what my source told me is this. those bins are not going to be emptied out before tuesday at 7:00 p.m. we have called, we have requested that the postal service and the postmaster general break in hundreds of individuals to come to reduce the backlog of mail that's currently signatures inside of the postal service center. now, we haven't heard back from them, but what i can assure you is this. lawrence, due to your pressure and your commentating on this issue, we've been able to actually ask individuals publicly to come possibly to help the postal service as it relates to volunteering their time to actually empty those bins. >> i want to ask you about a report in politico about voting patterns in florida in your district. they're saying that democrats

are sounding the alarm about weak voter turnout rates in florida's biggest county, miami-dade. one particular area of concern is the relative share of ballots cast by young voters of color and less reliable democratic voters. what's your sense of what's happening? >> we should sound the alarm. the alarm should be sound. let's be absolutely clear. within our jurisdiction here in the south dade community, many of us know we cannot trust the service at this moment. it's something benjamin franklin is rolling over in his grave due to what we're seeing and watching this quagmire play out in front of us as it relates to the voters in this district. florida was decided in the last gubernatorial race. 30,000 votes. senator rick scott defeated bill nelson by 10,000 votes. so lawrence, if you figure that calculation, you realize that the state of florida is only a 1% state when it comes to elections. this is why we believe sounding the alarm to the younger voters, to those voters who normally do

not participate in the process, that their vote must matter because this is not going to be a five-point race or four-point race or ten-point spread. this thing is going to be decided between 30,000 and 60,000 votes, and that's why it's so important that every vote matters, especially those that are trapped at the postal service as we speak. >> thank you very much for bringing our attention to this situation in that post office today and the country's attention to it, florida's attention. really appreciate you joining us tonight. thank you very much. >> thank you so much, lawrence, for being a voice for us. >> thank you. >> thank you. when we come back, donald trump wants vote-counting to stop on election night. that's what he says, and he said it in pennsylvania. he's going to regret saying that about pennsylvania when he hears what's happening there. next, pennsylvania's secretary of state will join us. (burke) deep-sea driving, i see... (customer) something like that... (burke) well, here's something else: with your farmer's policy perk, new car replacement, you can get a new one.

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will not be saying next week. >> they want to be able to drag out the election long beyond the 3rd. well, in all fairness, this is a very important place, right? and we can't drag it out. we don't want to drag out any longer. >> donald trump has been saying that he wants the election results reported on election night. doesn't want any counting of votes after election night, but he's got a big problem in pennsylvania where at least seven pennsylvania counties have said they will not even attempt to begin to count ballots until the morning after the election. those counties say they do not have the resources to start counting on election day, and all seven of those counties voted for donald trump in 2016. so donald trump is actually going to be a big supporter of counting ballots the day after election day and as long as it takes in pennsylvania. today a federal judge in

washington, d.c., emmet sullivan, order the united states postal service to continue to take extraordinary measures to deliver ballots to boards of election on time. the judge's order for extraordinary measures covers 22 postal districts with unusually delayed delivery times including atlanta, detroit, fort worth, texas, greensboro north carolina and central pennsylvania. the extraordinary measures include ballot-only drop-off lines at post offices, extending post office hours, sunday mail pickup, and early mail pickup on monday and tuesday. the order also creates a process to deliver ballots on election day from mailboxes directly to the board of election without that mail through a postal processing center. joining us now is kathy boockvar, pennsylvania's secretary of state. can you tell us what the situation is with those seven counties and why they don't

believe they can even begin to start counting until the day after? >> thank you so much for having me, lawrence. appreciate it. let me start with this because i think this is even more important, which is to say overseas military voters, their ballots are not actually due until one week after election day. so does the president mean he wants to disenfranchise all the men and women serving our country who are overseas? i don't think so. elections have never been called or fully counted on election day ever in the history of the country in any state across the nation. in pennsylvania, some of the counties, as you know, as you may know, we have almost 2.3 million mail-in ballots that have been received already. this is about 75% of the ballots that were applied for so far. the last presidential election we had 260,000 voting absentee

across the commonwealth. so we've got unprecedented volume of mail voting, which is fantastic, but it means some of the counties are going to take a little longer. so those seven counties are talking about mail ballots on top of the in-person voting ballots. but lawrence, i'm still working on getting every one of them to start on election day, and i'm confident that we're going to have the overwhelming number of ballots counted within a couple of days. >> secretary, i want to go over the point you made about we've never had an official election result on election night, and i think that might confuse some viewers because they watch us on the television networks declare that x candidate won. in pennsylvania. but reality is, not all the votes are counted. we're doing that on mathematical

suppositions that will look like when you finish counting the votes. as you say, in every state it usually takes weeks, including ballots from military personnel overseas. >> exactly. you know, i mean, this is the thing about elections, right? like you were saying, there are projections made and there are models that help us see the direction that we're going. and that's great. but none of that is actually reality. for example, pretty much i think every state in the country the official results are not due until weeks after election day. in pennsylvania, it's 20 days after election day. now, unofficial results are due a week after election day. that will include the military voters which of course we don't want to disenfranchise. but there's a lot that goes into the counting. we have provisional ballots which take longer as well, so it's important for voters to understand that i think we all agree what's most important is that every ballot is counted securely and accurately, and that, of course, accurately as quickly as humanly possible. >> what are you saying to voters

in pennsylvania as of now about mail-in ballots? >> yeah. so drop them off today, today, tomorrow, tomorrow. don't wait. so, you know, i saw your report there. we all know there's mail delays happening. it's why we had sought, you know, an extension for delivery time through courts. there's no question there's a serious problem with delivery times as was shown in florida, in pennsylvania, all over the place. so i don't want anybody using the united states postal service at this point. drop it off. we have many counties with dropoff locations, election offices, use any one of them. there's socialism choices for pennsylvanians that we've never had before. drop off your ballot tomorrow. >> kathy boockvar, secretary of state of pennsylvania. thank you so much for joining us tonight. >> thanks for having me on, lawrence. >> thank you. coming up, another

republican runs away from another debate. georgia's republican senator david perdue is afraid of facing jon ossoff in the final debate that was scheduled for sunday night, so he has dropped out. we'll hear what jon ossoff would have said on sunday night when he joins us for tonight's last word. i wanted my hepatitis c gone. i put off treating mine. epclusa treats all main types of chronic hep c. whatever your type, epclusa could be your kind of cure. i just found out about mine. i knew for years. epclusa has a 98% overall cure rate. i had no symptoms of hepatitis c mine caused liver damage. epclusa is only one pill, once a day, taken with or without food for 12 weeks. before starting epclusa, your doctor will test if you have had hepatitis b, which may flare up, and could cause serious liver problems during and after treatment. tell your doctor if you have had hepatitis b, other liver or kidney problems, hiv, or other medical conditions... ...and all medicines you take, including herbal supplements.

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vicks vapopatch. easy to wear with soothing vicks vapors for her, for you, for the whole family. trusted soothing vapors, from vicks i started this campaign saying we were in the battle for the soul of the nation. i believe that even more deeply today. who we are, what we stand for, and maybe most importantly, who we are going to be, it's all at stake. character is on the ballot, the character of the country, and this is our opportunity to leave the dark, angry politics of the past four years behind us, to choose hope over fear, unity over division, science over fiction. i believe it's time to unite the country, to come together as a nation, but i can't do it without you.

so i'm asking for your vote. we need to remember this is the united states of america, and there's never been anything we've been unable to do when we've done it together. i'm joe biden, and i approve this message.

usually the front-runner in a campaign doesn't really want to debate and the candidate running in second place is desperate to have a debate to try to gain ground on the front-runner. but not in georgia. not this time. because of this. >> well, perhaps senator purdue would have been able to respond properly to the covid-19 pandemic if you hadn't been fending off multiple federal investigations for insider trading. it's not just that you're a crook, senator, it's that you're attacking the health of the people that you represent. you did say covid-19 was no

deadlier than the flu. you are -- did say there would be no significant uptick in cases. all the while you were looking after your own assets and your own portfolio, and you did vote four times to end protections for pre-existing conditions. four times. and the legislation that you tout, the protect act, it includes loopholes that specifically allow insurance companies to deny policies to georgians with pre-existing conditions. can you look down the camera and tell the people of this state why you voted four times to allow insurance companies to deny us health coverage because we may suffer from diabetes or heart disease or asthma or have cancer in remission. why, senator? >> and the most recent poll of georgia voters, jon ossoff is at 47%. the incumbent republican senator david perdue is at 44%.

in a monmouth poll two days before that, both of those leads are within the margin of error. so it's actually a statistical tie. this is the kind of race where a debate could decide the outcome, especially with moments like this. >> this is so beneath the office of the u.s. senator. you've continued to demean yourself throughout this campaign with your conduct. first, you were lengthening my nose in attack ads to remind everybody that i'm jewish. and then when that didn't work, you started calling me some kind of islamic terrorist. and then when that didn't work, you started calling me a chinese communist. it's ridiculous. and you shouldn't do everything your handlers in washington tell you to, because you'll lose your soul along the way, senator. >> last night when david perdue dropped out of the next debate, jon ossoff tweeted, millions saw that perdue had no answers when

i called him out on his record of blatant corruption, widespread disease, and economic devastation. shame on you, senator. after this break, jon ossoff will join us and tell you what he would have said to david perdue at the next debate if david perdue had somehow summoned the courage to show up. jon ossoff gets tonight's last word next. still fresh unstopables in-wash scent booster downy unstopables ...who takes care of yourself. so when it comes to screening for colon cancer, don't wait.

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so you know what i just learned about ten minutes ago, y'all? see, we had another debate scheduled for sunday. we had another debate scheduled for sunday. [ honking ] turns out senator perdue is not coming anymore. senator perdue doesn't want to answer any more questions.

because, see, senator perdue feels entitled to the senate seat. but this is not david perdue's seat. this is the people's senate seat. >> joining us now jon ossoff, candidate for united states senate in the state of georgia. how surprised were you that david perdue had decided he had enough? >> well, he didn't have a good outing at our most recent debate, lawrence. but imagine being a sitting united states senator in the midst of the most significant national crisis in decades so afraid of answering for your record during that crisis that you cancel a long scheduled debate on the eve of the election with just hours until that debate is scheduled to begin. it is the height of cowardice. don't we deserve better than this? nearly a quarter of a million americans have been killed by this virus which my opponent

said was no deadlier than the ordinary flu, and the man won't even show up to answer for his arrogance. it's the height of cowardice and why he's going to lose on tuesday. >> did you have something planned or something expected to say on sunday night you've not yet said in these debates? >> i just expected to tell the truth and ask him the questions that georgians want answers to. why did he vote four times to repeal protections for pre-existing conditions? why did he tell us covid-19 was no deadlier than the flu when he was getting briefings in washington? why was he buying stock in manufacture of medical equipment the same day the senate got a classified briefing on this disease in january? these are the questions he's refusing to answer, questions about his personal corruption, question about his record on policy and questions about how he's conducted himself and left his own constituents hanging out

to dry, losing jobs, losing lives, losing loved ones in this unprecedented public health emergency. and he's refusing even to come out and answer questions about it. >> the latest poll we have on the presidential race in georgia shows joe biden at 48, donald trump at 46. that's a tie within the margin of error. kamala harris is headed to georgia. the campaign announced she's going to go there on sunday. so the biden-harris campaign believes they can win in georgia, and i have to wonder how much your campaign and the success of your campaign so far has convinced them that they can win in georgia. >> well, i think what's convincing the biden campaign and senator harris they can win in georgia is the unprecedented enthusiasm, the courage, the will to vote by the people of this state in the face of continued voter suppression. it has been such a sight to see

georgians willing to brave those lines, to overcome any obstacles put in our path to exercise our sacred voting rights. david perdue thinks that he can just avoid scrutiny, avoid the public, dodge the press, cancel our debates and trust that voter suppression will see him to victory on tuesday. and if everybody across the country goes to electjon.com right now and chips in $1 to help us protect ballot access and help drive unprecedented turnout we will usher david perdue into retirement on the private island where he lives and open a new american era with new u.s. senate victories in georgia this year. >> i'm glad you mentioned the other one because reverend raphael warnock is also running at the same time for the other georgia senate seat. he is the front-runner in his race by far. there's no one close to him right now, but you might both

end up in runoffs because you have to win at least 50% in georgia to win the seat on election night. you could be in a runoff campaign going all the way to january. what is your plan for that if that's where you are next week? >> well, if we wind up in a runoff then we'll win the runoff. right now we also have a clear path to 50% on tuesday, and it's going to take an unprecedented level of work and diligence and attention by my team and our thousands of volunteers over these next 70 hours. so, again, if folks want to see us to victory it's electjon.com. let's leave it all on the field, y'all. america, let's not wake up on wednesday and wonder what else we might have done to save this country. >> jon ossoff, democratic senate candidate in georgia and now the front-runner in that race. thank you very much for joining us once again tonight. we really appreciate it. >> thank you, lawrence. great to see you. >> jon ossoff gets tonight's

"last word." "the 11th hour" with brian williams starts now. ♪ well, good evening. once again day 1,380 of the trump administration. four days until election day. it will be three days here in the east by the end of this hour. the presidential campaign is at its height. so sadly is the uncontrolled pandemic in our country. we set another grim record today. over 98,000 new cases of coronavirus just today breaking yesterday's record of over 90,000. a new model from the institute of health metrics out of the university of washington says just under 400,000 of us could die of this virus by february 1. and worse without any new mandates that number could reach