Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 10262020 20240712

Barrett to the Supreme Court, with National Turn it National Journal Senate Reporter. Maryellen klaas, and then Michael Binder. Journal is next. With eight days to go until election day 2020, congas begins with a stalemate over Economic Relief and a response to the coronavirus pandemic and the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the support. The senate has a rare weekend session to move forward on the nomination and democrats are holding the senate in session through tonight, into this morning. You can see live pictures of the senate floor right now. Heres how we are dividing the lines. Republicans, 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Ndependents, 202 7488002 you can join the conversation by texting with your first name, city and state, at 202 7488003, or go to twitter, or facebook. Com cspan. Has covid19 impacted your vote . If it hasnt, we want to hear from you as well. What is impacting your vote and if the pandemic impacts your vote, we want to know why. Why has it motivated you to vote in november and how do you plan to vote because of it . The president was campaigning yesterday New Hampshire and here is how he has said that his administration has responded to the outbreak. [video clip] talking about cases. You know why we have so many cases . All we do is test. If we cut the testing in half, they wouldnt say that, but cases would go down. Now we have the best tests and we are rounding the turn. We have the vaccines and everything. We are rounding the turn. Even without the vaccines, we are rounding the turn and it is going to be over. You know who got it . I did. Can you believe it . Every time i had these meetings a lot of people because i cant put myself in the basement for the next year and a half. No, i cant do it. I cant go to a beautiful bedroom in the white house and lock myself in for a year and a half. You have to do your job. I have meetings. I would leave a meeting and i would say that wasnt good, you know . A lot of people. A lot of love in the room. A lot of times theres no love at all. The opposite. That might not be good. But you got to do your job. Host the president in New Hampshire, yesterday. Joe Biden Campaigning in pennsylvania on saturday and here is he had to say about how the administration has responded. Donald trumps presidency, guess what . Than 220 thousand people are dead in america because of covid19. Yesterday was the highest number of new cases since it all began 85,000 new cases in one day. Dying. Ople per day when he told us a while ago, remember what he said when he looked at the camera . He said it is what it is. It is what it is because he was who he is. Thats why it is what it is. Yesterday was the worst day we have had. [cheers] yes. In the debate on thursday night trump was still saying that we are rounding the corner, its going away, we are learning to live with it. We are not learning to live with it, we are learning to die with it. Because hes doing nothing. Joe Biden Campaigning on saturday. Usa today, study protects 500,000 u. S. Deaths, thats the toll predicate for february 28. Are mask usage and reopenings. Pew research spoke to registered voters in last week about the issues they raised as important. Take a look at this. When it comes to the economy, 84 percent of the president s supporters say that issue is very important to them. As opposed to 66 say that they are supporting the Vice President. You can see that healthcare battles and Supreme Court appointments follow that. Take a look at the coronavirus outbreak. 82 of those supporting joe biden, pew said that is eight in 10, said coronavirus would be very important to their vote trumped to 20 of supporters. Thats our question this morning, has covid19 impacted your vote . Yes or no, we want to hear from you. Billy, brooklyn. Caller morning, greta. Im calling because donald trump has been a disaster. This election, no matter how much of the right wing tries to play up the hunter biden stuff, its going to be a referendum in failure starting with the pandemic and the economy. Whichvironment, republicans will just trash because they think that god is going to save us. Trump said that windmills cause cancer. I wouldnt even get into all the stuff he said about race. The coronavirus pandemic is going to be even more determinative to be donald trump. Host billy, are you motivated by this . Absolutely. The economy . The economy is in the tank. Be 500,000ing to people die in with no mitigation efforts and trump wont even pass a National Mass mandate. Dont let it dominate your life when 220 these 220 thousand people have died from it . Its a disaster. Host as many of our viewers probably know, dr. Fauci on friday sounded open to the idea of a National Mask mandate as well. The former fday, commissioner dr. Scott gottlieb, he is writing that winter is coming and it is time for a mask mandate. Richard, oklahoma. You are a republican. Good morning to you. What is motivating you to vote . Caller well, that we are getting the Supreme Court back where it belongs where people understand what was written, not what they feel. Also, joe biden and his cricket crooked family and a whole other whole lot of other things. Democrats are going to cry about it this year like they did in 2016. Host how concerned are you or are you not at all about coronavirus . Caller im not concerned at all. Im 70 years old. Ive lived a long life. If i died today, its not going to hurt me a bit. Up. Ybody needs to wake when this started they were predicting 2 million to 3 Million People dead. 500,000 . Sounds good to me. What do you think . Host have you always voted republican . Caller no. I was raised by democrats. I helped elect jimmy carter. Force base wasir taken away because he wasnt going to fight anymore wars. All right, richard. Larry, excuse me. Go ahead. Caller ok, thank you. I want to ask one question. You know, the sky is falling. Everybody is in a panic. , they juste respect keep telling people that they are going to die. That haver friends had the virus, ok . One, im 66 years old. Two of them are my age. One of them has a heart condition. They went to the hospital and were treated and are doing just fine. I have a younger one, shes, everybodys, i mean we have to treat this as though its going to be here. We have to learn to live with it. He sky isnt falling not every case is going to, you know, kill you. Its just ridiculous the way this thing is being promoted. And its all political. Larry, what are the top issues for you . Caller top issues . Number one, the lies. All the lies im hearing. Its like nobody even challenges them. Biden, for example. Why wasnt he challenged on this laptop . Why . Why wasnt the questions asked . Its just ridiculous. You know, im not a big trump fan. Im an independent. I believe the person who fits the position and can do the job should be elected and thats basically very simple. It if we keep it simple, were ok. But once we start throwing politics into it, its just ridiculous. Host larry, are you still there . You broke up a little bit. Caller yes, maam. Host did you vote for the president in 2016 . Caller yes. Host in 2012 ended 2008 . For, im ashamed to even say, i did vote for obama. Host in both of those elections. Caller i thought that he was going to really help but what he did was he divided everything up. You know . It was a disaster. I mean im 66 years old and i thought obamacare was the greatest thing that was going to happen. m paying more now its crazy. Im paying more now for medical than i was before. Host are you on medicare . Caller yeah, and i have a supplement plan. My deductibles are crazy. My copay. You know, my daughter had a policy that koster 65 a month. Her 65 a month medical. It didnt have all the whistles and bells. He said that if you like your policy you can keep it and if you like your doctor you can keep it. She calls me up one day and goes dad, they are canceling my insurance. I said are you sure . She goes they are. I went over and read the letter. Sure enough, they cancel the insurance and i thought this is nuts. She is paying i think what was it, 198 . This is nuts. How is your daughter going to vote . Caller my daughter . Host yeah, november. Caller oh, she will vote trump now. She will. Host larry in michigan. Athens, tennessee. Richard, this morning we are asking if this covid19 pandemic is impacting your vote. What do you have to say, richard . Caller no, its not going to impact my vote. Its really confusing. Like the last caller, we get a lot of disinformation out here. In the real world. Biden wants to do a National Mask mandate. I mean in all actuality, we all dont drive the speed limit, we all dont wear seat belts. I dont see how trying to force somebody to wear a mask, what are you going to do, have mask police out there . We are going to have to learn to live with it. Not everybody can seclude themselves in their house in the basement. Its just difficult. Host richard, whats a top issue for you . Caller as a christian, i look for people that uphold my values and my concerns. The Republican Party does that. Host ok. Richard, in tennessee. West virginia, democratic caller. Pronounce that town for me, the name . Caller its [indiscernible] host ok. Is covid19 impacting your vote . My mind made up before coronavirus. I have to say trump is a disgrace on the country. I will vote that way because i cant stand the man. Hes unfit as president. But thats not the only reason. You know, these people just calling in, you can see the perfect reason why people want to get trump out of office. They believe everything he says. Hes nothing but a liar. As far as the coronavirus, im going to be a poll worker on november 3. Im going to be a number three commissioner. That means i have to go to work work allnd i have to the way through until we get the ballots in the courthouse so that they can be counted. I had to take a class three weeks ago. All of the people, the number bus the number three threes, the number one commissioner is a republican. My brother died of covid19. So, you can see how i feel about this mask business. The guy that im going to work with did not wear a mask, even in the class with the people and we was getting discussion on what we supposed to do. But im supposed to work with him for 18 hours . How do you think im going to feel if that man does not wear a mask where i wore one for 18 hours. Are they saying it is mandatory if youre going to work at this bowl place . Caller yes. I can tell you that i worked a special election, too, greta. We had signs up on the desks. Its mandatory to wear a mask into a public building for voting. To we had a guy that worked the polls in another precinct. He never put a mask on not one bit, nobody ever said anything to him, they never kicked them out. This guy that im going to work gonna contact him, telling him what supposed to be the mask, but if he doesnt do it im going to have a predicament. There. Ll right, middleton, west virginia. Democratic caller. Has covid19 impacted your vote . If you have already voted or plan to vote, if it is or isnt we want to hear from you this morning. We want to get more of your calls after we listen to the former president , barack obama, campaigning for joe biden in miami on saturday. Here is what he had to say. [video clip] we literally left this white house a pandemic a book that show them how to respond before a virus reached our shores. With thee lost along Republican Health care plan. We cant find it. Months into this pandemic. Eight months into this pandemic, new cases are breaking records. Donald trump isnt going to suddenly protect all of us. He cant even take the basic steps to protect himself. [cheering and honking] theres no sense that hes coming up with an approach for a new plan. He doesnt even acknowledge that theres a problem. Just this week he complained that the pandemic was making him go back to work. If he had been working in the first place, we would never have seen the situation get this bad. [continued honking and sharing] cheering] i have said this before. Im going to say it again. Would have been tough for any president. We havent seen Something Like this in a hundred years. But the idea that somehow this white house has done anything but completely screw this thing up is nonsense. President inmer miami. Compare that to mike pence campaigning for the trumppence ticket in tallahassee on saturday. Heres what he had to say. [video clip] im here to tell you that before the first documented case, President Trump did what no american president ever did. He suspended all travel from china, the second largest economy in the world. Now, joe biden call that xenophobic. It is. Actually said it was hysterical. He actually wrote in usa today a couple of days before the president took action that closing off travel from any country in the world during a pandemic would make things worse. Im here to tell you, as head of the White House Coronavirus task force these last eight months, joe biden got it wrong. President trumps actions shutting down travel from china bought us invaluable time to stand up the greatest mobilization since world war ii and it saved countless american lives. In that time we reinvented testing. We saw the distribution and manufacture of billions of medical supplies. We went to work on therapeutics that as we speak are sending lives saving lives around america and under operation warp speed we will have literally tens of millions of doses of the first Coronavirus Vaccine in the world before the end of this year. President from over the weekend. As many of you may have heard from the washington post, and many newspapers this weekend, five in the Vice President s orbit have tested positive, but not the Vice President , and he will continue to campaign. Cbs has been doing a Battleground Tracker poll. Florida, georgia, north carolina. When they ask like we likely voters if they are worried about catching coronavirus, 50 of those supporting biden said they are, as opposed to 13 of the president s voters. Similar numbers in georgia and north carolina. That 91 ofund those supporting the Vice President say that coronavirus is a major factor in their vote for president. This is in the battleground state of florida. 45 of those supporting the president say it is a factor in their support. You can see personal character, the economy, and immigration where they rate higher for President Trump. 96 of those who say they are going to vote for the president say that the economy is a major factor in their vote for the president. Lets go to richard in louisville, kentucky. Richard, good morning to you. Has covid19 impacted your vote . No, it hasnt. I already voted for donald john trump. When the coronavirus hit, you know, everyone in america was in washington, d. C. , they wasnt sure what to do. He put all the right people together. He shut down travel. He was criticized for it. Impeached him,y they was trying to remove him from office. He kept his focus. He brought all the pharmaceutical people together and said you have got to attack this. President d me of a fdr and world war ii. He brought all of his top people together and said we have got to fight this. Thats all i have to say on that. I, i, i just want to say one more thing. , who is doing so much for africanamericans in this country, when he comes out and says they are killing black kids, black babies every day, we have got to stop the genocide, god bless that young man. Hes working hard to protect africanamericans and will go down in history as one of the greatest young black men in this country. Richard. Right, brian, independent line, good morning to you. Good morning, go ahead. Caller most of this stuff is missing some misinformation about the covid thing. The speech that pence just made about banning china . There wasnt really a ban. The trump ban against the let in all kinds of Business People and it didnt affect them. The only thing it affected was tourists. Thousands of people on business in the United States were still allowed to come in. He tried to take credit on the but trumping of ppe, had nothing to do with that. That was a lot of private industry. He had mismanaged it, him injured kushner monopolized at all. He stood at the beginning of that parade and took credit for it like he usually does. To address the caller about the , a lot of care act states were allowed not to participate into opt out. That did not opt out, that participated, the Affordable Care act was really very affordable. The resistance from the Corporate Community against the Affordable Care act made it more expensive in the states that opted out. Thatpposition to it use distance to say that all of the Affordable Care act, when the opposite is true. Brian, where does the response from this administration to the pandemic rate for you and how you are voting . Caller im sorry, can you repeat the question . Issueshat are your top and where does your response to the pandemic fall . Caller the response to pandemic is that the execution was total mismanagement. He never did, the Trump Administration never did the mandate for anything. We live in a state where its not mandated for everybody to have Car Insurance. If they have an accident without Car Insurance as motorists, guess what, the insurance hits yours and theirs, too. They dont even have to participate. Host i will leave it there. , democratic ursula caller. Voting the reason im for Vice President biden is trump, our president , want to cut taxes on the rich , bute and the poor people they dont cut no taxes on the poor people. Then he want to cut them again. To pay forle going that Social Security . He wanted to discontinue the payroll taxes. I have to pay my bill. Taxes for the rich people i thought, whats going to happen to our Social Security . Your topts one of issues. What about the coronavirus pandemic . Caller i wear my mask when i go out. Im an old woman and im afraid that if i catch it, i have asthma, to. It would take me out. They dont want to wear a mask, thats them. But i wear a mask. Host elizabeth, delaware, republican. Go ahead. Caller thanks to cspan for showing donald trump us Donald Trumps rallies. I absolutely love them. Thousands and thousands of people there. I dont like to listen to obama , but whenand pe those other guys come up to talk, trump makes the good point that biden and obama had eight years and what did they do . They tried to tank our country. Vote straight republican ticket. Im so tired of the media lying. A guy that i was married to said that you can prove anything you polls. Th socalled in other words, dont sell the American People short terms of most of us, not everybody, but the democrats are obviously stupid, but dont sell us short for not understanding whats going on. As far as masks go, if it doesnt stop after the election, i think it is more political than anything. Im probably going to be a peaceful protester and take the risk of getting either arrested or fined. Now, because our First Amendment is being threatened, i guess, already as i mentioned, i get furious about being fined if i dont wear a seatbelt. I get furious about the fact that these people think they have the right to tell us how to live our lives. We own them, as far as the taxes go. The tax money is hourly. We pay it in. The senators, the congress, the house, all those people are supposed to vote and take care of the way the American People want things. Host im going to leave it there. We will get in more phone calls and just a minute but first we want to talk a little bit more about whats happening in the senate this morning. There are a rare weekend sessions over the weekend and the democrats continue to keep the floor in session into this morning over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to serve on the Supreme Court. The Senate Reporter with the National Journal, zach, and, joins us zach cohen, to talk about this. This is basically a debate time allocated by senate rules for any pending nomination or bill before the nomination comes before a final vote. Voted to republicans advance the nomination to the floor of the United States Supreme Court and to move towards a final confirmation vote this evening. The senate has been in session all evening. The democrats have been carefully managing their time, dragging out the number of hours on the floor that they can spend talking about the combination, but it seems the final results are a fate a complete at this acomplis at this point. Host so we are looking at around 7 30 eastern time . Guest thats right, at the end of the cloture vote on sunday, the last in a series of procedural votes democrats forced republicans to take over the last couple of days shortly after her nomination came out of the Judiciary Committee on thursday. Host that vote to move forward was 51 to 48. Who voted which way . What are the notable votes . Largelyt was a partyline vote. Democrats mostly voted against moving towards final debate, hoping to delay this action as much as possible. Two notable republicans broke from their party, Susan Collins and lisa murkowski, they voted against the cloture motion, against the motion to break the filibuster. Collins said she would vote against the confirmation because she feels that this is too close to the president ial election and that election day is just eight days away at this point. Lisa murkowski, however, said that she was going to vote on the procedural votes and would eventually vote to confirm judge merrick based on the qualifications of the candidate to the objection of the actual procedures themselves. The only senator to miss the vote was kamala harris, the democratic nominee to be Vice President , though she is out campaigning, though i have seen reports that she will be in the senate today to offer more on those results. Host our viewers can continue thisne in to cspan2 morning as the democrats continue what is called a talkathon. What are you watching for throughout the day . I will be really interested to see how worked up folks get. Its a very highly charged nomination for someone who is going to sit on the court for the next three decades to four decades. Judge barrett is obviously relatively new to the judicial seat. Aret of republicans impressed with this nominee. Wellqualified rating from the bar association. Has a personal background, they have raised the fact that as a practicing catholic she believes in prolife values, including opposition to abortion rights, something that democrats made a case against in her nomination. The big picture here is the Affordable Care act, obamacare, as it is otherwise known. That will come before the Supreme Court on the 10th, oral arguments with a decision sometime next year on whether that law is still constitutional. Now democrats will make the argument that judge merrick, judge barrett, who has written her academic writings about the questionable reality of the Affordable Care act, its unlikely that the nine members of the Supreme Court would vote to strike down the affordable the individualnd mandate severable from the rest of the law. That has been the major point of contention. Host and for our coverage of that court case, you can head to our website, cspan. Org. To follow zach cohens reporting, had to nationaljournal. Com. Thank you for your time. Guest any time. Host lets get back to your calls this morning. Amelia, good morning to you. Caller high, good morning. How you doing . Host im doing fine, amelia. So, how concerned are you, if at all, about covid19 . Caller i am very concerned. Im independent, but i always vote democrat. Jobs, 14 hours a day working. Donald trump says lowest Unemployment Rate . Well, i had to work two jobs just to survive. I had already made up my mind just to admit, i dont how anyone could not be concerned. I live in massachusetts, hes a republican governor and hes a good governor, thankfully we have a mask mandate, but one of my jobs as a bartender, theres no one coming in. Its not because it shut down, its because people dont feel safe. Republicans, democrats, comingdents, they arent in. I dont understand how it doesnt concern them. To the other caller that was calling all democrats come, ask, why democrats dumb and x, y, country, we all have a right to vote whichever way we want. But i do find that in my circle of friends that those who are republican seem to be hypocritical. They said they are prolife, but look at all the lives being lost . Even if it isnt happening in your small circle, its happening. I find it so disheartening to hear that, you know . What were bartender, your tips like before the pandemic and what are they like now . Well, we had functions, big functions. The patriots used to come in and do all sorts of functions and stuff. The tips, i used to make pretty good money. Probably like 1000 a week. I was working a lot of doubles, but still, now you cant even make it, you can only work two shifts. Im working, you know, eight down to two shifts shifts. Its disheartening, you know . Theres no work out there. I dont know what im going to do. Its awful, you know what i mean . Theres not a shutdown here. Its because people do not feel safe and i dont blame them. I dont feel safe. I dont worry about i worry about my mom. Shes a republican and wears a mask faithfully. She wont even go to her casino. She had been going there every day. It doesnt matter who you are. Republican, democrat, independent. We are all United States and it should worry everybody. It should be a concern. Donald trump would get the respect of people if he would just do simple things, like wear our mask. Not hold super spreader rallies. He would gain my respect, which is hard for him to do, but i would respect the man and hes just not doing it. Ok, amelia in massachusetts. Jimmy, your turn. Caller good morning, good morning, good morning. Mr. Trump, the president , he has failed on the coronavirus. Host we are listening, jimmy. Caller ok. Good morning, good morning, good morning. On the coronavirus, mr. President , donald trump, donald j. Trump, he failed on the, on the coronavirus badly. It dont bother him. What can i say . I get along with everybody, you know . If i seen donald trump today, im still going to speak to him because god love all of us. If god love all us . Why cant we love everybody . Host all right, jimmy. On state of the union, jake withr, the host, talked chief of staff of the white house mark meadows about the pandemic. This response from the chief of staff is making news. [video clip] i spoke to the Vice President last night at midnight and i can tell you that hes wearing a mask, socially distancing, and when he goes to speak he will take it off and put it cant, but hes wearing a mask as it relates to this particular thing because the doctors have advised him to do that. To makehere we need sure, on your website, yesterday, jake, your website is talking about now we think the spread is coming from small social groups and family groups. First it was large groups. Now its small groups. Its out of control. Thats my point. We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the facts of getting vaccines, therapeutics. Gethy arent we going to control of the pandemic . Why not make efforts to contain it . We are. By running all over the country not wearing a mask . Let me just say this, what we need to do is make sure that we have the proper mitigation factors. Whether it is therapies, vaccines, or treatments, to make sure people dont die from this. But to suggest we are going to actually quarantine all of america no one is saying that. Well, they are. Morningur thoughts this. Has covid19 impacted your vote . John, pennsylvania, republican. Caller good morning, greta. Host morning. Caller Google Africa and the virus. Africa has 52 countries. 1. 3 billion people. Only had to, 40,000 deaths. This is a backward country compared to us. They used exclusively laura chloroquinede and hydroxychloroquine, things trump talked about early in the virus. That, the Detroit Henry Ford Health system did 2500 people and said that it significantly stopped the deaths on this virus. Why is there so much hate against trump that they wouldnt chloroquineoric and hydroxychloroquine . Host ok. Kevin, independent line. Morning. Caller how you doing . Hasar as, my motherinlaw the covid. My great motherinlaw got the covid just a week ago. They are both home from the hospital, doing well. It hasnt changed my vote any. How do you plan to vote . Caller i plan to vote for mr. Trump. I have been watching your show for the last few months. All your democrat callers call in and i havent seen one, not one Democrat Voter blame china for the virus. They all blaine trump. People workedt of up. Trump didnt start this virus. He does then more than biden probably would have ever done to try and fight it. To lock down the country again, you do it. That, the country is going to go bankrupt and thats what they want. They want to bankrupt the country so they can run the country the way they want to run it. The president was in New Hampshire, yesterday, and the union leader made the point that you made, the president didnt start the coronavirus. But in their editorial that was posted today they say that if they break with their 100 year tradition of endorsing conservative candidates, they have endorsed joe biden. Mr. Trump rightly points out that the covid19 crisis isnt his fault, but a true leader must own any situation on his watch. We may be turning the corner but the corner that we turn is down a dark alley of record infections and death. Mr. Trump is a self reclaimed expert on a wide variety of topics that when pushed on topics he doesnt want to discuss he very quickly claims ignorance host compare that editorial in the state of New Hampshire with this editorial in the state of washington by the spokesman review. Donald trump is a bigot and a bully and we recommend voting for him anyway, because the policies of joe biden and his progressive supporters would be worse dee, we are going to go to democrat in baltimore, maryland. Go ahead. Caller yes, good morning. Host go ahead. Say, for was going to people who keep calling it in saying china virus, they started it, i agree with the editorial you had from New Hampshire. The one that you just read, i was just listening to that one, that one was to me ridiculous. If you are saying that its ok for all of these things to take place by this president and you still want to vote for him . Hetells me that we, is really about loving the country or loving a man . He ignored this pandemic. He knew about how serious it was. He should be in his office day and night, if hes really about being a president , president sits in the Oval Office Day and night worrying about how you are going to get control of this. More people are dying. You havent seen him say a word about how many people died or im sorry to hear about that. No empathy at all. Its just like ok, im going to go ahead and do another super spreader and its ok because i didnt start it, it started in china. Host we will get back to your phone calls in a minute, but lets return to the debate in the senate over the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. Washington journal has spoken with republican and Democratic Senators about their thoughts on the nomination and today joining us from capitol hill, kevin cramer of north dakota. How do you plan to vote tonight on the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court . Thanks for having me. I feel a strong obligation to the people of north dakota and it would be my pleasure to confirm her to the Supreme Court. Your viewers may recall, if they were following the race two years ago, i ran against a democratic incumbent in the blue wave and i just happened to of course be on the ballot just weeks before the judge kavanaugh fiasco began. We were in the middle of a race against the democrats where the issues of the day were things like law and order as it relates to sanctuary cities and other immigration issues. We had a strong prolife message in the campaign resonating with voters. As soon as democrats started attacking Brett Kavanaugh and his family and his character, falsehoods rather than facts, everything shifted in north dakota. The supreme about court and thats not just me. My democratic opponent voted to oppose Brett Kavanaugh. She raised a bunch of money overnight doing it. So, this really is a moment for me from which i would not shrink because the people of north dakota would be outraged if i did that. Do you have any concerns host do you have any concerns at all about voting for a nominee eight days before an election . Guest imagine if i told my constituents that i know you sent me here and i know we have been given this opportunity shortly before the election but maybe i should just wait to see if joe biden can name the Supreme Court justice . I would be recalled and rightfully so. Im grateful for this moment and opportunity. Im not going to shrink from it that im going to step up to it. The do you agree with process in place for nominating justices to the Supreme Court . Would you like to see any reforms . Caller not at all. The role of the senate is in the constitution. How the role plays out, you know , the rules of the senate are the senates. The number of Supreme Court justices are a matter of law, not a matter of the constitution. But it is a law that has been around for 100 and 50 years and survived the test of time. It has been challenge from time to time, as you know, but tradition and practicality has led to a ninemember Supreme Court. Some of these reforms they are talking about are nothing. Consequences. You have to, you can exercise reforms by going to the ballot or the polls or by voting by mail or voting early or whatever works for you in your particular circumstance. But that is where we have the debates about policies. Not with the Supreme Court. Host what did you hear from judge barrett, what about your record did you like . Guest great question. I had said, this is my first one, the first time i get to vote for a nominee. I wasnt there when she became judge merrick. When she was nominated to the seventh circuit. I wasnt as familiar. Certainly she has been waiting for a long time, a highprofile circuit judge awaiting this moment and this opportunity. But it was not until the conversation with her that i was completely comfortable. I focused specifically on the role of states and federalism. I have seen in my six years in the house, two years in the senate, even prior to that as a state regulator i have seen the federal government get larger and larger and impose more and more of its overreach on oversight at the state levels. Theears as a regulator, people of north dakota have resented it. There are big issues like powers in the u. S. , power plants, but there are many, many other issues at the bureaucratic level where the federal government is always overstepping its bounds and the court has always defended states rights, state sovereignty. So, for me i really focused my discussion with her on what she sees as the role of states in cooperative federalism that we are experimenting with as the freest country in the world and i was very satisfied in her grasp of the issue and her commitment to federalism as a jurist. Host are you hearing that the vote will take place tonight at around 7 30 p. M. Eastern time . I am. We voted on and pass cloture at around 1 00, wrapping up at around 1 30 yesterday afternoon. Meaning that we fast 30 hours, the time under senate rules for democratssuming the take time to put speeches on the floor. With Brett Kavanaugh, they had 30 hours and they only used 25 of them. It appears we have at least 52 republicans that will vote to confirm judge Amy Coney Barrett. As you know, they are in the middle of session right now, the Supreme Court. Im sure they would like to have a fully seated Supreme Court and it would be a pleasure for them to have her be the ninth one. Host have you received the invitation to the swearingin at the white house . Guest i have. Host you are expecting it, today . Guest i am. Host senator cramer, appreciate your time. Talk with republicans ,nd democrats about their vote Republican Democratic senators about their vote on the nomination. If you want to see what others have said, you can go to our website, cspan. Org. Phoenix, missoula, montana. High, greta. I called in last january supporting the impeachment of President Trump. Ive been a lifelong democrat and i listened to all the hearings and everything and i was all gung ho for impeaching trump. However, i have totally flipped. I voted for trump last week and its all because of this covid scam going on. I have been following this research for quite a while. Test, the inventor of the test said that you couldnt use it as a diagnostic tool. He said you cant use it and thats what weve been using, so we dont have even one case using that method. What we do have, though, and Anthony Fauci knows this. He knows kary mullis, he went to faucher tosking prove that hiv caused aids and he could never prove that. But if your listeners go to the Beckers Hospital Review they can look at their state and find out how much their state is receiving an aid for each covid case. Here in montana beget 315,000 for each case that we have. This is why people are calling in and saying hey, my father had a heart attack but the cause is covid. Theres a lot of things going on. March 24, a Statistics Group sent out a memo to all the call astelling them to many cases with the flu like symptoms covid. A republican doctor who has been a doctor for 35 years that he didnt appreciate the call to call those symptoms covid. Theres a whole lot of strange things going on with this. As far as the person who called in saying his brother died of covid . Ofwas told he was died covid. There is an attorney out of toifornia who is planning file a crimes against humanity lawsuit against these people who are perpetrating this fake pandemic. Host all right, phoenix. We will leave it there. Tina . Caller high, good morning. I just want to say that i am fully voting for joe biden, first of all. I am an independent voter who votes on the issues. I, i vote according to who think is going to best represent the American People. Insuranceabout health and losing Health Insurance, i think thats my main thing. I think that President Trump, if he had put something in place to let us know we would be covered and have Health Insurance, that may have swayed my vote. My fear of losing my insurance is a big reason im going to vote for joe biden. Also, i would have liked for them to spend more time working on a stimulus package for the people who are suffering out here. Rather than, you know, forcing judge barrett to get on the Supreme Court. I think the stimulus package is much more important than that. Based on trump and his covid experience, well, he has good Health Insurance. He was able to get into the hospital and get what he needed. But those of us out here are afraid of dying from covid. For those that dont believe it is serious, they must not have had a friend or Family Member die from it. I have friends that have covid and i have had Family Members and friends of Family Members who have died from covid. This is very near and dear to my heart, getting this pandemic under control. And i think another thing, if you are in a red state, trump likes the red states. Seems toike when he represent those in the red states more than the blue states. You know . Even though we are in red states, there are democrats who live here, to. Too. Host we will return to this conversation in our last half of our last halfhour in the last halfhour of washington journal, 9 30 a. M. Eastern time. Next we will be turning our attention to battleground states and we will be talking about a focus on florida with its 29 electoral votes and we will be talking to mary ellen of the miami herald. And later we will be talking announcer with eight days life days left until election day, on november 3 when Voters Decide who will occupy the white house, stay with cspan. Watch campaign 2020 coverage every day on cspan. On demand at cspan. Org, or listen on the cspan radio app. Your place for an unfiltered view on politics. Announcer the president s, available in paperback, hardcover or ebook. We are to fees of every biographies of every president with a focus on leadership skills. As americans go to the polls to decide who should lead our country, this collection offers perspective into the lives and events that forged each president s leadership style. To learn more about the president s, visit cspan. Org the president s and order your copy today wherever books are sold. Announcer the competition is on. Of the video competition. Middle and High School Students make a five to six minute documentary exploring the issue you want the president and congress to address in 2021. Be bold. Show supporting and opposing points of view and include cspan video. Be a winner. In cash 100,000 dollars prizes including the grand prize of 5,000. The deadline to submit videos is january 20, 2021. You will find competition rules, tips and more information on how to get started on our website. Announcer washington journal. Continues. Bet washington journal will focused on key battleground states. First up today is florida. Mary ellen klas is the Tallahassee Bureau chief for the miami herald, joining us now to talk about what is always a battleground state. Why is that . Is a microcosm of the nation. As florida goes, the nation goes. Trump one ago, donald florida by barely 113,000 votes in a state of more than 10 million voters. He carried that narrow victory onto the white house. State. Is a very divided weve got diversity. In ethnic ways, but economically as well as demographically. Older voters, Younger Voters, people who are divided by both democratic and republican. As florida goes, the nation will go. We have seen voting problems host we have seen voting problems in florida. Is the state ready . Guest i think it is. Of 20ad this legacy years ago, recounts. Florida has so recrafted and updating its Voting System that the state is prepared for what we are seeing as a record surge in early voting turnout. It has been going smoothly. Host what changes were made . Have made ite, we a statewide standard for recounts so that each county does not independently decide when to start a recount for how to do a recount. Processes are uniform across the state. We moved, like many other states, to emphasize early voting and make it much more accessible. In florida is something that republicans have been pushing for two decades. Result, we have a foot by mail system that many people are comfortable with. Because of that, we have seen record numbers of vote by mail ballots cast already. Over 5. 7 Million People have already voted as of this morning. Host what percentage of that compares to 2016 . Exceeding,s already and we have a week left, how many early votes were cast in 2016. We had about 10 million votes cast in 2016. I think we are on course to match that, if not exceed it. Host over 10 million votes. Take a look at florida. 29 electoral votes are at stake. The population is 21. 5 million. The Unemployment Rate is 7. 6 . I want to invite our viewers to join. If youre supporting trumppens, dial in at 202 7488001. If youre supporting the bidenharris ticket, 202 7488000. If youre supporting another candidate, or are undecided, call 202 7488002. Florida residents, 202 7488003. Your opportunity to get the latest on the state of florida. Will then klas, how early votes be counted . When will they be counted . How will election devote to be counted . Election day votes be counted . Guest florida has the advantage of allowing supervisors of elections to start opening and processing vote by mail ballots already. Than 4 million votes already cats cast. Vote counters are starting to review them and make sure their signatures match. To repair their signature if it does not match command putting them into the counting machine. They will announce those votes as soon as polls close at in florida. Because we have two time zones, pulse close on the eastern times on here in florida at 7 00. Zone ant a central time hour later. It 00 p. M. Eastern is when we see the first results out of florida. Because we have so many early votes cast, we will know very quickly my think, how florida is going. Why do you say that . Host why do you say that . Guest because of the number of votes i will be counted and posted by the supervisors of elections. In most counties, the first such posted are the ones already cast either by mail or early voting. Those results will be the ones that show up first on the vote tallies. And then the in person votes that happen on tuesday will come in precinct by precinct. Supervisors will be updating those numbers. I spoke with secretary of state laura lee, she thinks florida will have a preliminary result before men died. With thery ellen klas my hair up with the miami heralds argus this morning, here to take your questions about florida. Winstonsalem, north carolina. Good morning. Youre supporting joe biden. Caller i am. I believe that florida is a great state. But, what happened four years president , hillary and trump, i believe in my heart that the same thing is going to happen. Either with a mailin ballot or an in person votes. Host thoughts . Guest what are you referring to . What happened four years ago . Caller everybody says there was a conspiracy in the voting with votes and deleted votes, that werent counted, votes that were destroyed. I do not want to see that happen again this year. Clarify, there has been no evidence that any votes were changed. There were two counties in florida where it is clear that they were able to get into the supervisors of elections electronic system, but the vote tabulation system is completely separated. That system there is no evidence that that was interfered with in any way. Since then, there has been a great deal of investment put into making sure that they are able to stop any potential hacks. They have cybersecurity. They have assured us they have added letters of protection. Wood is a bigger concern, and i do not know that they feel confident they have a handle on when i talk to the secretary of state, she is concerned that conspiracy theories, misinformation, social taking an unproven accusation and giving it legs, those are the things that are being used to suppress voters, discourage them from trusting the vote. That is what many election , and theyin the state are nonpartisan positions. I have talked to many of them. That theboth confident system here in florida is secure. They are more concerned about the outside forces that disinformation. We had an example last week where there were emails being sent to democratic voters that had the tone of intimidation. Seeing they were they said they were being sent by the proud boys. There was no evidence they were connected with the proud boys. The fbi and the Justice Department came to the conclusion that it was iran and russia behind these emails and they were trying to intimidate democratic voters. Announced that they discovered that, those emails stopped. That is the kind of thing i think there is more concerned about. Host james in winter haven, florida. Good morning. Caller how are you doing . Host go ahead. Caller i am definitely supporting trump. Goes, is the insurance would like to know if mr. Biden has obamacare. I am just curious. , the issueellen klas of health care. Where does that rate for florida voters . Guest it is very interesting. States is one of the that has not expanded medicaid, allowed it to take more money from the federal government in order to pay for the uninsured. Uninsured has grown significantly. In the past four years, there are more people in florida who ine signed up for obamacare some communities than in other places around the country that to covernded medicaid their Health Insurance. Is an uninsured issue that is of concern to a lot of people in florida. It is one of the top issues that voters indicate is important to them. In the midst of this pandemic, there are so many people who are consequencesalth of getting covid or knowing someone in their family who has. Health insurance remains a top priority. Reviewers question i dont really know what joe bidens Health Insurance situation is. Hes probably got a good medicare plan. I cant give you an answer on that. Host thats all right. To jeanpierre and washington, d. C. , supporting joe biden. Was trying to, i organize my thoughts about why i support biden and not trump, and it has been a of trying to figure this stuff out. I am going to keep it simple. First, my values. I have been taught to be polite in public. When doing my business. I have been taught to follow the law. Ive been taught that there are certain ways that our government works. These entire four years have run counter to that. At every single point. To Supreme Court nominations to health care, just doing things that just for the heck of doing them because cruelty is the point. That is why i am voting against donald trump. I have always liked joe biden, he will be a better president , but i have got to be honest, i am voting against trump. I want to know how many people in florida are actually as angry about trump as i am been . As i have been . Host Mary Ellen Klas . Guest all i can tell you is where the polls are going. As i mentioned, florida has a very diverse population. The last several months, biden has narrowly led donald trump. Most interesting thing is what this looks like. Trump won with a coalition in florida that looked like a lot of older voters enormousg him in numbers. He had an advantage in 2016 among voters it overage 65. And those were primarily white voters. That has changed in a significant way this cycle. While his lead in the most recent poll is closer to one point or three points, trumps lead, in that age group, he has lost. Advantage, the dominant advantage she has had advantage he has had. What posters are saying is they are unhappy with some of these points that your viewer has raised. They do not like how he handles things. His personality and style is something they cant support. The other thing significant among this age group is that they are very concerned about the way he has handled the covid pandemic. ,s the most Vulnerable Group many people are very unhappy and concerned that he is not doing what he should be doing. That is a reflection on one group. There is another coalition that Hillary Clinton actually did better in that donald trump is doing better in this time around, latino voters. Very interesting to watch the polls. Trump, with his antiimmigration position, antagonized many latino voters and many chose to either stay home or not vote for trump. Hillary clinton had a larger margin in that group than donald trump. Thattime, it is very clear the president has been able to consolidate those latino voters. That is a very interesting thing to watch. It definitely has been true among cubanamericans in florida who are traditionally republicans. What is interesting is that many younger cubans, and another , seem toerto rican men have been aligning with the president. How big host how big are those two groups . Guest the latino vote, im sorry i do not have the number on the top my head, but i think it is about 20 . Im not sure. Host ballpark . Guest yeah. Host what about the senior vote . I dont remember that when either. Sorry. Host will move on to jason. Sorry to put you on the spot. Groups, ihin the age think they are about 35 of the electorate. They are the most reliable voters. There are many voters and many a troops, but the ones that show up and can be counted on our senior voters. I think they are about 35 . Host jason in gilroy, california. Supporting the president. Good morning. Caller just want to say hello. Ive got a question. I was wondering if you guys thought that trump did enough for the people to get reelected . Guest guest that is a question for florida voters. Mary ellen klas, what are you hearing . One of the reasons donald trump continues to have as much support in florida is because of what people saw as an improvement in the economy. Great, we hading record unemployment numbers in terms of low unemployment. Economy was really picking up steam. It, that wentmic into the tank. While jobs have improved in florida, they still have a long way to go. We still have unemployment numbers almost in the double digits. Some parts of the state are far worse than others. This is the thing that worries people. Theoes not appear as if pandemic is under control in florida. It is certainly not true across the nation. While our numbers are not rising as fast as other places, we are are increasesere in covid cases. Is of the things that relatively concerning is that the number of people who are testing positive remains at about 10 . That is a pretty high percentage. That is not a sign that we have it contained in any way. Host jimmy, in kentucky. Caller how are you doing . Say of mr. E to aump, he is down in florida couple of days ago, asking for the seniors photo. Knowdnt let the seniors eight months ago how serious this virus was. Lateres back eight months [indiscernible] we are slow, but not that slow. Florida, icrats lose would not feel bad because democrats you know, god. Messght not want all this thats getting overlooked on joe biden. What is joe biden . God works in mysterious ways. Line en klas talk Mary Ellen Klas lets about different areas of florida and how they vote . Areas we have got urban that are traditionally blue and getting bluer. They are more inclined to virtual biden. And many senior retirement communities are red. They are set to vote for donald trump. It is like clockwork. Predict why certain candidates are going to certain places based on the propensity of where voters are going. Watch ise places to the i4 corridor. The stretch between orlando and tampa. That is an area of the state , mosts that region votes of the state will follow. It is a pretty good barometer. Right now, that looks as though that region is aligning with joe biden. Another thing we are keeping an eye on. Florida, as i mentioned, the cuban vote in miami and latino vote within that group, there is a lot of trump support there. Why we have seen the president and the Vice President a couple of times in the last two weeks. Ae president has also made point to arrive in the villages. This is a Massive Retirement community in central florida. It is a little outside of orlando. Three counties big. It has an normas number of republicans. Many of those are reliable voters. The president and Vice President have been there almost every week. The governor was there last friday. In then you move to the panhandle, another very reliable read part of the state. That is where the military bases are. See moreontinue to visitors from the Trump Campaign come to those areas. Meanwhile in south florida, joe biden has announced this morning he is going to be coming to broward and tampa on thursday. Again, the goal of these campaigns is to probably not persuade any of the undecided voters. ,here are very few of them left as i am sure your viewers have observed. Instead, their goal is to make sure people dont stay at home, that they get to the polls, fill out a ballot and show up. This is a state that is going to be determined i the margins. It is going to be very narrow. Be as close as 2016. Votes, people who stay home would make a big difference. There are other parts of the state that are considered blue or red. Areaortheast jacksonville is a pretty mixed area. They tend to be more red, but there is an urban core within the jacksonville reason jacksonville region that is democrat. , theuthwest florida stretch from sarasota to naples is also pretty reliably red. We go to miguel in albuquerque, new mexico. Supporting the president. Caller good morning. I am a new republican, i was previously democrat. One thing i have noticed in regards to the Democratic Party in florida, joe biden was in florida to pander to the latino community. He played desposito on his phone. In terms of policy, i have not heard much. Do they feel joe biden is going to handle the latino vote . Being latino in a prominently blue state, my vote doesnt really count. Being in florida, i know it is going to be major. Guest you are right. Your vote could be very important this cycle. It is an interesting divide. Ricans inmany Puerto Central florida who have come to florida and they dont have to become a citizen. They already are a citizen. Digits need to register. Appears to be many of them dont register with either party. Bey have come and decided to no party affiliates. There voters up for grabs. We are watching as it looks like more latino women, Puerto Ricans supporting joe biden. And men supporting donald trump. That all plays out. Very immigration was important platform for the president four years ago, we are not hearing him talk much about that. I think part of the reason is realizesze that she any latinos are supporting him. And what were hearing is they are very supportive of his economic policy. Thatfeel they have a sense they could prosper more under a Trump Administration. That the have a sense Democratic Party may be, what we hear is less patriotic. There are more critical of where we are as a nation, whereas many of these latino voters, many of them new immigrants were children of immigrants have embraced this idea that this is a proud country and they are proud to be americans and they see more of that with donald trump. Thingsre very intangible that are not policy related. I have had to admit i am surprised at how little discussion we have heard about the president S Immigration policies. We have not heard him talk a lot about building the wall. He mentions it in his stump speeches, but it is very diminished in terms of relevance, it seems. Host we go to trisha in hawthorne, new york. Caller i am undecided. Is what does down to people want . For joee going to vote biden, looking at joe biden as what they can get from him . How can they prosper from him . If they vote for trump, they are looking at the same thing. It is divide and conquer. Out there about joe biden and his son excepting millions of dollars in bribes, and what is out there about donald trump and what he has been doing in his life, this divide and conquer, the coronavirus, wear a mask, dont wear a mask, who is playing to how arewd, in actuality we going to survive . That is what we want to know. We are you leaning and why . Caller you said other . Of course i have a choice. Christ. Write in we have turned our backs on god and that is why the world is the way it is. As anyone taken a look at what is going on around the rest of the world . All of the rallies and protests . You talk about coronavirus, right . Biden is making such a big deal about making everyone wear masks. If you look at the truth about the studies of masks, they dont to anything. Host im going to leave it there. What we have not discussed is the youth vote in florida. Could it make a difference . A reallyhat is interesting dynamic as well. Florida young voters traditionally dont shut up dont show up at the polls that much. This election, i think there were 3. 5 million new voters that registered. Since 2016. 1. 1 million of them were between the ages of 18 and 35. Ist is especially remarkable that these Younger Voters are showing up in early voting and ine by mail ballots cast unprecedented numbers. With one week left in the overign, they are of 44 where they were at the end of 2016. These Younger Voters are much more energized. We are seeing there are a lot of which isexgen florida, the Progressive Group funded by former president ial candidate tom steyer, set up shop in 2016 and never left. It has been building that coalition among young voters and trying to get them energized and get out the vote. Very hardlso working to get black and latino young people. This kind of energy and effort i think there is always a get out the vote effort every cycle. It just seems as if it is more organized, deeper than i have seen in the past. This youngerat voter contingent could actually make a different. The polls to show that they lean toward biden in doubledigit percentage. Biden if this group does show up. Why the Biden Campaign had former president barack obama in florida . Caller guest barack obama came to south florida. I think part of the reason was for him to energize the base. Most populary the surrogate joe biden has. To appeal to not just young people, but the whole democratic coalition. Everybody in south florida. He made a Surprise Campaign stop , he gave a rally friday and made a Surprise Campaign stop in broward i am sorry, Miami Springs saturday. Unionpped at a Teachers Campaign headquarters. He was really trying to reach all of those groups within the Democratic Party. Host new jersey joe, supporting the president. Caller i just want to talk about the virus, they blame it on trump all of the time. He shut down the country. That, common sense will tell you. Common sense will tell you you wear a ok . And then he was going to talk about, trying to tell the states especially in and new york, cuomo saying you aint going to tell me what to do. They keep putting the blame on trump because of this virus. Nobody knew really whats what with it. Even the scientists to neva no. They are blaming him for this, ok . Host we go to bree in wilson, north carolina. You doing . Are good morning. I was calling because i was about voternd out fraud. Trump told his voters to get mailin ballots and also go to the polls. When i was looking at all of the news, i noticed they said that trump had received his absentee ballot and sent it in. Turned around not too long ago and said trump was going to be voting in florida. I was wondering, do we get special privileges . How does that work . Host Mary Ellen Klas . In thethe president has past voted by mail. He is a registered voter in florida. This year, he did not for by mail. Inset on saturday he went to Palm Beach County and voted at the local library and cast a vote for himself. There is no record that he has voted twice. Hashe past, although he disparaged vote by mail, he has done it himself. Host orlando, florida. Rose is undecided. Caller i am leaning more toward biden because i think the have all ofhen you this coronavirus and you have thinkonomy collapsing, i that falls at the president s feet. Iran, he didnt want to step in town. Biden, youve got to take responsibility. The buck stops here. That is my comment. Host how did you vote in 2016 . Are you there . Caller im here. Host how did you vote in 2016 . Caller i voted for obama. Host in 2016 . Echo 2016 . 16 i voted for trump. Host Mary Ellen Klas, what do you know, what have you heard . Guest i have talked to voters who have done both. I have talked to senior voters that have switched their votes and voted for trump. Now they are voting for biden. Wholked to Younger Voters voted for democrats, or gary johnson, and are now voting for trump. There are people who are not happy with either choice. We heard one of your viewers earlier saying his vote is more a vote against a candidate. I think there are people that are thinking that as well. They are all over. People have their own reasons. I have spoken to voters who have changed their position. It is interesting. Another thing, just to bring it back to florida, for many years in florida, we have watched as the number of voter grownrations has not evenly for republicans and democrats. One area where most people were registering was under no party affiliate. This year, that trend changed. Democrats and republicans continue to grow in number, but republicans are traditionally had trailed in florida and had fewer people registered as republicans, that number is almost 100,000 voter difference right now. Republicans were able to close the gap this cycle, which is a sign i think, the number of people who are registered as no party has declined. What this election cycle has ,hown is that the parties people are either seeing themselves as republican or democrat in increasing numbers. They do not think there is a middle anymore. Host what does that say about the president s ground game in florida, and compare that to joe bidens ground game . Caller guest the republican registration effort has been phenomenal. I think joe biden did not have a registration effort at all. Withind from many people the democratic ranks were very unhappy about that. Leftad, that effort on the has been filled by these organizing groups, many of them progressive. They have been the ones going out to register voters. The republican establishment has done, and i think with a lot of energy from the Trump Campaign, has done a very good job of registering republicans. That could make a significant difference if those people are energized enough to show up. Host david in lakewood, new york. You are supporting the president . Newt gingrich had his contract with america and they did the things they said they were going to do and trump kind of did that from his first turn and started checking off the list of what he was going to do. Too many times they just say what they need to send it does not happen. From that point, i am supporting him. I called because there is a concern i have got, not a you startncern, when talking about illegitimate elections and that, my impression, at least what i have found out or what i think i found out is that we do not have young candidates year. People are voting a month before election day. Toone of those two guys were pass away, my understanding is that the National Committees can choose who the replacement is if it is before election day. Let me leave it there. Mary ellen klas, any information . Guest that is my understanding as well, the National Committee can replace them on the ballot. On the other hand, i think that would be an extraordinary situation. It is a prospect you hope never happens. Happen. T is what can you put your votes not just in the candidate, but the institution that put them there. That is how our process works. There is a Party Apparatus for a reason. It is represented by a lot of people. That is what the candidate represents. Is ahing to note, if there close election like we had in that there is already talk state legislatures might be asked to go in and choose the ,lectors freud ever candidates which is to say that if the vote in a state like florida in 2000 is unclear, the legislature could go in and decide who those electors are and give those electors to the candidate. Even though the vote had not been decided yet. Thankfully in 2000, that did not have to happen. Met torida legislature do that, to determine who the electors would be. That Florida House of representatives, led by republicans, voted to give the electors to george w. Bush. The Florida Senate chose not to. They wanted to hold off and see where the votes were going. By the time it all got settled, the Supreme Court had made its decision and al gore had conceded. Just know, there are other mechanisms in place for an election to be decided. If unexplained contingencies happen. Aboutto learn more florida, you can go to miamiherald. Com. Mary ellen klas is the Tallahassee Bureau chief. Thank you. Time thank you for your time. Guest thank you. Host up next we talked to Michael Binder of the university of north florida. Announcer with eight days left until election day, when Voters Decide who will control hungers will control congress and the white house, stay with cspan. Watch Campaign Coverage every day cspan, stream or on at cspan. Org, or listen on the cspan radio app. Your place for an unfiltered view of politics. Announcer the president , available in paperback, hardcover and ebook. Biographies on every president inspired by conversations with noted historians about leadership scales skills that make an effective presidency. Offersllection perspective into the lives and events that forced each president s leadership style. To learn more about our president s in the books featured historians, visit cspan. Org the president s. Order your copy today wherever books are sold. Tonight on the communicators, ellen pratt of the National Rural Education Association talks about how the coronavirus has affected rural scores rural schools in 2020. I think the parking lot of the school or the library, or restaurant is one of the areas how schools are helping in communities are helping. Allowedlexibility that the , or the library that we couldnt allow access. There are Innovative Solutions that the community is coming up with. Wirelessrginia is the on wheels in louisa county. I think they created 22 solar wireless hotspots for students to connect, up to five devices. There has been innovation across the board on how they send out their feeding program, but how they are connecting students with usb, or hotspots. There find a way to make it work. Announcer tonight at 8 00 on cspan two. Announcer youre watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government. Ated by americas tape Cable Television companies and brought to today by your television provider. Journal. N host Michael Binder is the factory director of the public Union Research lab at the university of north florida. He is also an associate Political Science professor. Lets begin with the importance of winning florida and any president ial election. Where does it rank among the states . Caller florida is a guest florida is always extremely important because it is extremely close. This year it has been particularly important for donald trump. Obviously joe biden would love to have it. They are directing a lot of resources here, but without florida i find it extraordinarily difficult for trump to clear a path to 270 electoral votes. This is vital to the Trump Campaign. Host why is that. Guest if you look at the states out there that are traditionally , the narrow pass that trump took last time, he inld have won with states the upper midwest. Time around he is not going to capture all of those states. One, but theteal odds of him getting those with the polling numbers where they are in the things that have changed, i think florida is a linchpin for him. If the biden team can win florida, that puts the sting out of reach for trump. Wins twothe president of those three, does he still need florida . Guest depends which two he gets. Ande gets pennsylvania michigan, he can squeak out without it. Now youre looking at north carolina, arizona, maine, a Congressional District in nebraska could steal an electoral vote here or there and then we are probably looking at an election that could drag on until the middle of november. As much as i like elections and this is what i study, i am really hopeful we know relatively soon who the victor is in this race. Host Michael Binder is factory director of the Public Information research lab at the university of north florida, out with a new poll october 20. This poll finds the former Vice President is barely ahead of President Trump in florida. Break this down for us. Guest our poll came out about a week ago. We had biden out by a single point. It is florida. It is always going to be close. Two points is a landslide in florida. Always understand the margins you are working with here. We did a couple of things a little different this time around. We attempted to get voters that were hard to reach. Typically speaking for most political polls, if you call somebody up in the lun they dont want to take the poll, you just say thank you, have a nice day and you go on. Callers can hear things from the respondent that might give the make limbs as to what the respondent is actually thinking. Sometimes they will yell they are voting for democrats, or something of that nature. This time we created dispositions for our interviewers to record that type of information. And then based on the voting history, we were able to classify them as either likely trump voters are likely biden voters. Often times people are willing to take surveys, but because of the private and secret nature of the ballot, they are hesitant to indicate who they are actually voting for. They might refuse to answer the question. But, if you asked them about a job approval, do you strongly approve of the job donald trump is doing, you might get a response. The folks that indicated they were strongly approving of donald trump, and the folks up categorizeving, we those as well. We did that because 95 plus indicatef respondents Job Performance felt that direction. That actually give trump an extra 1. 5 of support. There could be a hint of hidden trump votes in these polls, but not a big number. Which voters are up for grabs . I4 so few guest so few. [laughter] who are note plugged in as much. On the flipside, those are the folks who are least likely to turn out. While they might be a for grabs, they are also less likely to show up and ultimately cast a ballot. 2016s,ction, unlike there was a greater proportion of indecision later leading into that last week or two. 8 or 9 . The bulk of those voters turned toward trump. There were lots of republicans that were wary and a lot of independent, or nonpartisan affiliates, that lean torn leaned toward trump as well. Showsdo have polling that these folks trending the same way . Have they changed their minds . People howid ask they voted in 2016. We have done this a couple times. 2016, voted for trump in you are 90 plus percent going to vote for him again. That is a wash. There is not a big difference there. The change, and the big change are folks that did not vote in 2016. That includes a lot of people that per maybe 17, not of age. It also includes a number of folks who are maybe just turned off by both candidates. They werent particularly engaged for a variety of reasons. Almost 2 1 four biden. Begins to expand, we have had 6 million votes already cast, as the selectric begins to expand, it is going to benefit the biden team. Host john in wisconsin, supporting biden. We feel the same way in wisconsin that he is talking about. People in florida. Wisconsin used to be very democratic as far as madison and milwaukee, but now it is sprinting to kenosha, racine, green day. Different areas. Host and what is that . Caller people are turning to the democrats and supporting biden more than they would donald trump. We see a lot of problems with donald trump. Host did these people vote in 2016 . Caller yes they did. Host who did they vote for . It, thethe thing about climate was for Hillary Clinton. Hillary screwed up wisconsin. And tooksed wisconsin it for granted. That foster the vote. Host thoughts . Guest i think with the caller was talking about exists in florida too. I think sometimes people get really concerned about bellwether counties, or areas that might flip. Where is the county to watch come over the city to watch good florida is not about margins. Florida is about margins. The trick is not that biden is going to win counties like sumter, it is can biden trim away the lead trump had there in 2016 . Not is he going to wincan he reduce the marginst biden gets . That is where the trick in florida is. Can you hold down the margins of victory for your opponent in areas where they are strong, and maybe in wisconsin and those rural excerpts, instead of it being 8020 trump, you can keep it to 7030 or 6040. That will help biden. The same in florida. Does biden extend the lead Hillary Clinton had . Can he rack up more votes in Orange County and Broward County and miami county, or does trump expand on some of the margins he had in some of those Rural Counties and keep it of keep it up above the margin . Host what tactics are the campaigns using to get the desired outcome for them . Guest a couple things. Obviously showing up and coming to these areas is great because it energizes the base and gets folks excited. It gives them that extra little juice to make that phone call or knock on that door to try and get a voter to show up. Your previous guest discussed it is not changing any buddies but, but anybodys mind, it is energizing the base, and that gets people to show up. The other thing happening in florida and across the country, it is just exacerbated in florida, is the microtargeting of different individual voters. You will see in the Jewish Community, the types of ads being shown, particularly on email and internet ads are down in south florida. The Jewish Community is targeting both the biden history on israel and what trump has done to support moving to jerusalem. Host the embassy. Guest yeah, thank you. It is early in the morning and my brain is not functioning. On the flipside, the Biden Campaign is highlighting a lot of the support that trump has given with a wink and a nod to rightwing White Nationalist groups. If there is any group in the United States that is sensitive to that issue, it is the Jewish Community because of their history. Those of the things that are happening at the micro level, as well as the in person appearances, to try and mobilize folks. Host lets hear from richard, undecided in philadelphia. Thinking dont have one way or another about this, whether i am going to get there or not is a question i am wrestling with. Lookingerested in this, at the black male vote, the black male in florida below the there anevel, is increase in turnout. Specifically adding to that, those who have been incarcerated. Theirre any signs of participation growing . That is a great question. Passed 2018, florida amendment four, which was designed to speed up and ease access to voting for former incarcerated felons. It appears at this point, mostly because of the effort of the desantis administration, it has been a largely unsuccessful implementation of a ballot measure. Less than 100,000 felons had been registered after that ballot measure. The impact will be limited from the felon perspective. What happened in the black community . Ande see a return to 2008 2012 turnout numbers . When Andrew Gillum was running for governor, or do we see a number that looks more reflective of 2016 amongst the black community . Florida was only about a percentage point as far as share of the electorate goes, but that percentage point is an enormous number in florida and last time, it could have swung the balance. Host our next caller in minneapolis, supporting the bidenharris ticket. Caller good morning. I have been on hold for so long, i almost forgot what i called for. The phone was constantly ringing. Then it accepted michael. Accepted my call. And supporting joe biden his running mate, kamala. I really dont see another choice. Everybody is talking about losing their health care. We haveus over 65, medicare, and other plans we can take along with medicare and they arent expensive. A lot of them are free. Know, would you please tell me why someone would call in with an outrageous lie, and you know it is not true . Why do you just go along with it . More people listen to you in the morning than any other station or channel on tv. This lady called in from theyornia and said anytime report a covid19 case, they get almost 400,000. Thats not true. Im retired from the medical field, and i have friends still in the medical field. That is an out and outline. Host there is no way i can be an instant fact checker. You are more than welcome, when you hear something to research it yourself. What we are doing is getting peoples opinions and perspectives, their perceptions of the debates happening in washington and around the country. Especially ahead of eight days before the president ial election. Michael binder, what will you be watching for, on Election Night . As we get there, what are your thoughts on early voting . Guest those are two very different questions. Early voting, as of this morning, which includes all of yesterdays early votes including in person and vote by mail that have been counted, over 6 million votes have been cast in the state of florida, a state that had 10 million cast in 2016. The early voting turnout is astronomical. The problem is, it is a skewed turnout, heavily democratic at this point as far as who has actually showed up. At this point, a little over 42 of the votes cast have been by democrats. Only 36. 5 have been cast by republicans. Both 2016state win in and 2018, republicans had a slight turnout advantage and they are down by six points right now. Because of efforts by the Trump Administration and trump himself to downplay and scare folks about vote by mail, these republicans are not showing up. They are much more inclined to show up on election day. What is going to happen on Election Night, at 7 00 in the east and 8 00 in the west, when we start looking at counting returns. Those initial numbers will include a ton of democrats. All of the early in mail and early in person. But those same day votes are going to be heavily republican. It may be the case that at joe biden that joe biden at 8 15 has a lead of 2 to 3 . In florida, that is enormous. It could also be fleeting, as sameday ballots start to creep in from Rural Counties and more republicans start showing up in larger numbers. 8 15,en is not ahead at trump is going to win florida hands down. If biden is only ahead by a point or two, he is in trouble. He needs to be up by at least a few points to overcome that same day turnout by republicans. Those are some of the big things i will be watching, along with specific counties. Host we talked about the latest showing the former Vice President barely ahead in florida. When you think about the 2016 or wereere they wrong, they was the outcome within the margin of error, and explain that. Guest the margin of error is a range of uncertainty around these polls. In the state of florida, 14 million registered voters. It is impossible to take a sample from that. Even with that sample, done in the best possible way, randomized and we get a pure reflection of the population, just by chance we might get a few people who are more supportive of trump or more supportive of biden. There is a range of uncertainty around those estimates. The problem in 2016 was twofold. One, there were core lets that we had previously there were correlates. Racially,o look at it as part as far as divisions around sex, geography across the state, all of this things are important to make sure you have a reflection of what your population is going to be. The one thing we didnt consider in 2016 because it had not mattered is the role education plays and whether or not some buddy has a College Degree or not. That correlates much higher with trump. Most pollsters have now incorporated that in their methodology. The other problem with 2016 is we didnt address or Pay Attention to those upper midwest states. Hillary didnt just ignore it, all the polling did, too. Reliable polls in wisconsin and michigan and pennsylvania toward the end of the race, you missed those late breakers going toward trump. The other part about 2016, which polls cannot control is those late breakers that went toward trump. Our last poll in 2016 was a week before the election. Those people decided in the final days. What can polls do if voters havent decided . A lot of work after the election has shown that. The other thing the polls didnt do in 2016 that they are doing now is calling all of those battleground states. We are partnered with the New York Times and upshot polling and we are doing a lot of work with them. We are calling all states across the country, with these data states, places you would never expect to be close like georgia and texas, but also places like arizona, north carolina, michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania and florida. States are paying more attention to statelevel and National Level polling. National level polling is instructive, but democrats are picking up a 5 million vote net out of california. That is hard to overcome for the rest of the country. Polls are never perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but i dont think we are ready to throw out the baby with the bathwater yet. Host our next caller in indiana, supporting the trumppentz ticket trumppence. Caller i have one opinion i am ,aying, i watched that debate President Trump and joe biden and i am a strong supporter of President Trump after that joe bidenen i saw it, denied everything he said. You have a tape on it. Everything he said is on the tape, and no tv shows that. He denied everything. He lied about the whole thing as a politician. The second thing is, the only solution he has for the coronavirus is to say just put the mask. And france, if you dont have a and, they will fine you, still they are having problems. You look at the tv and the news, the number of people with this disease is going up. That is not the solution. The solution is, in my opinion, and it is onene, of those things we have to live with. Host Michael Binder, how is the coronavirus pandemic impacting the vote in florida . Guest i think part of it is colored by your partisan lens. You can hear that with some of your callers. You can say a lot of the same things about one candidate you can about the other. All of that being said, the coronavirus is clearly the issue in this election. People talking about the importance of the economy, it is due to the fact that they are faced with struggles coming out of those shutdowns from spring and summer. This is the overwhelming issue. You cant go and talk to a friend for 20 minutes without something related to coronavirus coming up. How you view the handling of that by the Trump Administration and the various state governors is really going to impact your vote choice. We talk about seniors in florida and shrinking margins in support of trump when they were so supportive of him in 2016. This is definitely one of those issues. The other thing i think people arent thinking about is the senior population is changing. As people pass away and it gets repopulated with new 65 and plusers, those who turned 65 in the past four years are much more likely to have had a College Degree than those prior to them. You are seeing a greater level of education amongst those retirees, and that is contributing to some of this shift toward biden as well. There was a lot going on, but obviously the coronavirus is extraordinarily important as the overwhelming issue, shipping everything. Host ronald in philadelphia. You are supporting the former Vice President. How come . Caller in the first place, i would like to ask two questions. The thing he said about some people maybe the question should be, do you believe the unappointed record . They told so many lies about so many things. What is to believe and what is not . I go around here and ask people, did anybody get hired. Guys say no, nobody hired on my job. I ask people all over. I also want to know, have you hired a lot of minorities on either of the positions you have . Guest the role of unemployment, i think is something that gets a lot of attention depending on the numbers. The unemployment number as reported is relatively consistent, as far as methodology. Is it a perfect reflection of all those folks who are not working . Absolutely not. What it can be is a comparison number. The one thing we can see is since the shutdowns began, that number is much higher than it was prior to that. The thing about florida in particular, and this is reflected in other parts of the country as well, because some parts of our country are disproportionately impacted. Places around orlando and Orange County and suburban counties that are just flooded with disney workers and travel and tourism, they have been really hammered and those numbers are much higher as far as unemployment goes. Azure caller referred to, the racial and ethnic differences in unemployment are absolutely true. Folks that are in more Service Based economies are much less likely to have been hired back, much more likely to be unemployed, and you see that across a variety of differences, not just in florida but in other parts of the country as well. Host you are not seeing many competitive down ballot races in florida. Guest there are a few. We dont have any senate races or governor races, but there are a few congressional races that are competitive that maybe democrats have their eye on. Their are a few state legislative races that democrats have their eye on. There is a seat or two the republicans are keeping an island. Part of that is how the keeping and i on keeping an eye on. Is, weer part of this live in clusters of people that are like us for a host of reasons. Because of that, when you draw these lines that have to respect geographic boundaries or county or city lines, you tend to get districts that may be more homogenous than otherwise. This is reflective not only in florida but across the country, you will see a lot of races that are determined in primaries, where turnout is very low relative to what we are seeing in 2020 for this general election. Host tina is next in pennsylvania. Good morning to you. Caller hello, how are you . Host doing well. Your question or comment about the state of florida. Caller on the state of florida . I thought i was just calling to give a comment on why i was voting for President Trump. Host you can do that too. Caller i am voting for President Trump, because four years ago i did not vote, but shame on me, being 64. I never voted in my life, in that way if somebody was bad, i didnt have a problem with it. I am voting for President Trump this year, and im not going to cut down neither one, but the only thing i dont understand, and i dont think anyone will understand is if it wouldnt be for the coronavirus, i dont even think biden would be in the picture. That is the main thing going on is this coronavirus, and not liking how trump handled it. What i dont understand is, if biden gets in, to the think he has this magic wand . That he is going to wave and all this is going to disappear . If he gets in and it doesnt disappear, we are still stuck with the virus, and then we are stuck with all the things he wants to do, which is twofold worse. Running around with the virus, running around with everything failing. What do we do . I dont know. Seriously, he doesnt have a wand to come in and get rid of this. Host let me ask you. Youve never voted. You are 64 years old. When and what made you to decide you are going to vote this time . Caller i will be truthful with you. I am calling from pennsylvania. My husband had 45 years in the coal mines. Thousands of coal miners in pennsylvania. The first four years of obama, it was ok. Husband was working in every buddy was working. He got in the second four years. , myt two years after husband comes home, he says something is coming down. All of these regulations, are putting us down. He is like tina, i worked in the minds. We have to make sure that everything that comes out of here is perfect, clean, regulations, before obama even came in. After that, all of a sudden, they were down. That just goes to show you that why im voting for trump. People vote i will not vote for biden, because we know what he is after. People vote for what hits home to them. What hits home to them. If a Biden Fracking hits home to my sons who are coal miners, then im not going there. Hit something that has nothing to do with coal mines, they are not going with trump. People vote for what hits their pocketbooks and their life. Host all right, tina. Michael binder . Guest individual selfinterest is a powerful motivator. If you are somebody who is in the current fossil fuel industry, im not sure that joe biden is your choice. If you are somebody who is on the other cited that and isnt necessarily working in the industry or whose family isnt in the industry, and you are looking at the other environmental impacts of the current fossil fuel industry, maybe you have a different perspective. Certainly, individual selfinterest matters a great deal, and it can be enough to motivate someone who has never participated before. I am a Firm Believer in the more people who get to the polls, the better. Hopefully this turnout will continue to trend, and we can get more people like that off of thereabouts off of their butts into the voting booth. Caller a question about florida, and i know you touched on covid as a factor. I want to get specific. The fact that the president , in my opinion, betrayed the American People on the seriousness of the pandemic, and in fact if you look at what the governor is doing, it looks like a version of herd immunity, which in my area, seniors, it kind of scares them. The fact that the president wasnt honest, it was one of the biggest betrayals ever by a commanderinchief. He said he didnt want a panic. He wanted to panic people about caravans. How do you think the seniors will take that betrayal in florida . Guest if it is viewed as a betrayal, people are viewing it like you and there is certainly a lot of that there is a great number of seniors in diehardthat are republicans and Trump Supporters in nothing will change their minds. But there are some folks who have turned a little bit. All polling suggests that is the case. Ultimately we will find out in a week or so once we get some of these turnout numbers and show how counties are voting. I certainly think that has impacted the senior vote, and i think very well could be a key decider in the state of florida. Host what is it like to live in the state of florida right now, with campaign ads, and talk about the spending. Guest hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on campaign ads. If you live on florida if you live in florida and have not seen a campaign at, you are not watching tv or any streaming service. It is literally everywhere. As somebody who does this for a living, it is somewhat amusing. I get a kick out of some of the ads, not the ones on tv as much as the ones on the web. I have a real appreciation for them, but it is constant and overwhelming. Host patty is in north dakota. Caller good morning. I just had some comments. Of course we are on the pandemic, and i just want to say there is no other president that did more. He stopped the access into the United States. Made alle equipment, here. They worked diligently, day and night, when this came in, and people are saying that the president lied to them. He didnt lie to them. Could you imagine, if he went on pandemic . D people the there wouldnt be chaos . Everybody would be calm . Even if he said stay calm, they would be chaos there would be chaos. This is absolutely ridiculous. Host pattys thoughts in north dakota. Our next caller, who supports the president is calling from palm beach, florida. Caller a long time listener, first time getting through after five years. Im going to use this opportunity to speak of the enthusiasm backing donald trump, and what is going on with the Fake News Media, nobody covering all of this information coming out about Hunter Bidens laptop and why they kept it secret since december 2019. The first thing President Trump do when he gets reelected, and he will be reelected, and i hope Christopher Wray is listening to us. Hes gone. Of the concern is this, mainstream media, cnn, msnbc and all these other fake news stations, why they are not reporting on this i do not understand, but the most important thing of my comments is all of a sudden, obama coming out on behalf of joe biden, because he is scared. He knows that if trump gets tolected, the crop is going hit the fan the crap is going to hit the fan because he was involved in all of this. Im talking about when the president first said he would run for president. Immediately, he was being attacked. Andasnt even president yet they were already doing investigations on him. Host Michael Binder, when you do polling, do you ask about the hunter biden stories, and is that a vulnerability for the former Vice President . Guest we havent asked about it. A couple folks have. It really just mirrors peoples already predisposed positions. If youre a trump supporter, you think it is the worst thing on the planet. If youre a biden supporter, you think it is a russian story. It hasnt moved the needle. I want to add one more thing about early voting in general. There is a lot of vote by mail ballots happening, and there is a real chance that a lot of these ballots are not going to get counted because voters dont know how to sign it or they mail it in after the deadline and it is not going to count in florida, even if it is postmarked prior to november 3. There is a good chance it could be 100,000 or more votes that dont get counted this time around in florida. If they all go one way or the other, thats enough to potentially swing election in florida. I hope the margins are wide enough and there is enough enthusiasm on both sides, and enough from one side that this is a clear decisive win because i dont think anybody wants a repeat of 2000. Host Michael Binder, eight days out, care to make a production . Guest i think it is going to be make a prediction . Guest i think it is going to be really close. I think biden has it at plus one. Im going to be judged for that for the next four years. Host Michael Binder, university of north florida, director of their Public Opinion research lab. We thank you. Guest thank you, greta. Host we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we will return to the question we asked you at the beginning of todays program, which is has the covid19 pandemic impacted your vote . Byhave divided the lines democrat, republican and independent. Start dialing in. Washington journal with eight days left until election day, on november 3 when voters will decide who controls congress and who will occupy the white house next year, sick with cspan. Watch campaign 2020 coverage every day on cspan. Stream or on demand at cspan. Org , or listen on the cspan radio app. Your place for an unfiltered view of politics. The president s, available in paperback, hardcover and ebook. From public affairs, it presents biographies of every president , inspired by conversations with noted historians about leadership skills that make for a successful presidency. As americans go to the polls next month to decide who should lead our country, this election offers perspective into the lines and events that forged each president s leadership styles. To learn more about our president s, visit cspan. Org thepresident s, and order your copy today, wherever your books are sold. The competition is on. Be a part of this years cspan studentcam video competition. Middleton High School Students be the star of a National Conversation by making a documentary exploring the issues you want the president and congress to address in 2021. Videos. Cspan be a winner, 100,000 in total cash prizes, putting a grand prize of 5,000. The deadline to submit videos is january 20, 2021. You will find, tish and rules, tips and information on how to get started at our website, studentcam. Org. Washington journal continues. Host we are back. Our conversation with all of you for the remainder of todays washington journal. Has covid19 impacted your vote . If you are republican, dial in at 202 7488001. Democrats, 202 7488000. Independents, 202 7488002. We will get to those calls in a minute. I want to show you what white house chief of staff mark meadows said this morning, after he was on the state of the union yesterday, and got any back and forth with the host about whether or not the white house was trying to control the virus, the pandemic. Here is what he had to say this morning. [video clip] the only person waving a white flag along with a white mask is joe biden. We look at this, we are going to defeat the virus. We are not going to control it. We will try to contain it as best as we can. If you look at the full context of what i was talking about, we need to make sure that we have therapeutics in vaccines. We need to make sure therapeutics and vaccines. We need to make sure that when people get sick, that they had the kind of therapeutics that the president had. Hopefully it will becoming in short order. Based on a hopeful, number of conversations that vaccines are just a few weeks away, and we are in preparation for that. At the same time, a National Lockdown strategy or National Quarantine strategy that is proposed by the left is not effective, is not what ultimately will contain or control this virus. Any suggestion that we are waving the white flag is certainly not in keeping with this president. You know him, he doesnt given that she doesnt give up. Host mr. Meadows at the white house this morning. Has covid19 impacted your vote . The candidates on the trail over the weekend, along with their surrogates. They were talking about the coronavirus pandemic as well. Here is the former Vice President on saturday, and pennsylvania. In pennsylvania. [video clip] Donald Trumps presidency. Guess what . You know over 200,000 people are dead in america because of covid19. Yesterday was the highest number of new cases since it all began. 85,000 new cases in one day. Thousands of people a day dying, when he was told i while ago, thousands of people a day. He looked at a camera and said it is what it is. Because he isis who he is. That is why it is what it is. Yesterday was the worst day we had. Our debate on thursday night, trump was still saying we are rounding the corner. Its going away. We are learning to live with it. I told him we are not learning to live with it. We are learning to die with it, because he is doing nothing. Host see how the pandemic rates with likely voters. This was a poll recently done by pew research. They found that voters who support the president , 84 are more likely than biden supporters to rate the economy as very important. Far more biden supporters say health care is very important. Comehe widest differences on the importance of the coronavirus outbreak. About eight in 10 biden supporters say the coronavirus will be very important to their vote, compared to just 24 of Trump Supporters. On that, we want to hear from you. How has this pandemic impacted your vote question mark diane in florida impacted your vote . Diane in florida, democrat. How concerned are you, and is it motivating you to vote . Caller ive always been a voter , and i wouldnt miss this election. I am very disappointed in the way the president and his and administration handled this administrations handled this virus. I think transparency is important. I think lying and keeping pete and keeping information from the American People and avoid chaos. It created from the American People avoided chaos. It created chaos. To add to that, i would like to to that during a pandemic, take away Peoples Health care by trying to overturn the Affordable Care act is ridiculous. Hes had for years to come up with a better plan, to help American People. But it is not about helping American People. Its about doing away with anything that president obamas name was on. Host have you already voted . Caller yes. Host you did mailin ballot . Caller i did do a mailin ballot, and they have a very good tracking website. I tracked it all the way to the voting place. Host david in ohio, republican. Caller how are we doing maam . Host doing well. Caller thank you for taking my call. It is very hard to get in here. Is the coronavirus dictate your vote . A truckerck driver, for trump. I believe that like the previous caller, 65yearold from pennsylvania who never voted. I am 31 and i never voted. This is my first year i will actually vote. I believe trump is handling this to the best of his abilities, with the information and knowledge she has. He took care of the economy. From the very beginning of this coronavirus, Truck Drivers did not get the option to stay home. I never got a call from my employer saying you need to stay home. I have been out here since day one. I have continued to move freight. We have had to deal with being denied food. Weve been required to do a lot of things that we cant even do on the road. A lot of Truck Drivers were starving because we couldnt get into walmart because they closed them early. Is trump where i stand has done everything he can. Wave a magic wand at this. Everything biden says in every debate is everything trump has done. Yes trump said maybe the mask works, maybe it doesnt. The scientists are saying it does but there are cases still rising. At think biden, if he had more of i think biden, if he had more of a plan, maybe it would sway me more his way. I never had a chance to sit at home. To stayathome, my employer told us we could stayathome with no pay. I believe trump, and that every other trucker out here is as well, and the economy is great. The coronavirus time crumpled that a little bit. He will bring it back. Host catherine in New Hampshire, independent. Caller hi. I am calling because i think the coronavirus should not be a political issue. It is a science issue, and i example,mment, and an and my comment is, when you study bacteria and viruses, and you are studying both and you are looking for a cure, you are using similar methods. Being totally different from bacteria, why arent scientists looking for a coronavirus cure, by studying and using totally different diseases caused by bacteria . For example, maybe you could use a different range of sound or light to destroy the coronavirus or any viruses. Maybe you could step into a with and zap arrangement of sound and light in the virus could be dead and we could leave antibiotics and vaccines to bacterial diseases. Widenk we are not thinking enough. Host how are you voting . Caller i voted by absentee. Host care to share who you are voting for . Caller pardon me . Host who did you vote for . Caller that is private. Host ok. The New Hampshire newspaper, the union leader, a conservative newspaper broke with its 100 year tradition of endorsing conservative candidates in their paper. They wrote that they are endorsing joe biden, writing mr. Trump rightly points out that the covid19 crisis isnt his fault, but a true leader must own any situation that happens on their watch. We may be turning a corner with this virus, but the corner we turned is down a dark alley of record infections and deaths. Mr. Trump is a selfproclaimed expert on a wide variety of topics, but when pushed on basic topics, he does not want to discuss. Islding up this country squarely in the skill set of joe biden. He has repeatedly expressed desire to be a president for all americans, we take him at his word. Biden may not be the president we want but in 2020, he is the president we need. He will be a president to bring people together and write the ship. Rightesident was and the ship. The president was in New Hampshire, campaigning. Our next caller, linda, democratic caller. Caller good morning. Host is the virus impacting your vote . Trump has lied about everything, from day one. Saying i closed down china, but then what . He didnt do anything for months later. It was up to the individual states, fighting each other for the products they needed. The only place he actually helped out was new york city, with the hospital he put up, and that is because he was scared to death of wall street closing down. Trump and his wannabe associates to santos associates, desantis and the governor, the individual mayors in certain towns. I live the mayors in that county have gone with a mask mandate, and we had the lowest level of covid of any of the other counties. When you go out, almost everyone is wearing a mask, and i think it has been helpful. He lies about everything. He talks about making America Great again. He doesnt even make his own clothing line in america. Is made in pakistan and mexico it is made in pakistan and mexico. He is talking about all of these migrants taking your jobs. All of his resorts have brown skinned hispanics doing the maintenance outside, the housekeeping. Ones inndocumented bedminster. Host our next caller, cindy, a republican. Is covid impacting your next vote impacting your vote . Caller not really. I wanted to complement compliment cspan. You are putting on the trump rallies when other stations arent anymore. That is very nice. When people call in to criticize, they say that cspan is for the democrats or for the republicans or the independents, but they really arent. If people watched as much as i have, they will realize that cspan shows both sides and all sides. It is so nice. I listen to the people call in with different opinions. It is too bad that we cant be able to talk about that with each other, on politics and things. I do want to thank cspan for showing his rallies, and being very fair and balanced. Host thank you for listening and thank you for watching and calling in. May in ohio, independent. Caller good morning. Thank you for taking my call. Bush, i votedorge for barack obama, and then i voted for john casey john kasich. But somethe fence, things are swaying me, one is covid. Imf can american, a suburbanite and middleclass i am africanamerican, a suburbanite and middleclass. There are a lot of us out here, and we are affected by it. Im the president says coming to get you, they are coming to get me. Uptodate. Not asked forthe doctor, a covid test because i am highrisk. I am a senior. They are still doing it wrong. They said you cant get a test because you dont have symptoms or have been exposed. I said havent we learned anything by now . They said i could go to cvs, where it would cost 139. Is not true you can get a test. I live by major metropolitan things like the cleveland clinic. My last point was that President Trump always says that people talk about our economics, 401 k and roth iras, but it will not help me if i am dead. I am a senior and africanamerican. Those are the things im considering. Those are very important to me, so covid is affecting me in that sense. Full disclosure, i am a registered nurse, and i feel for a lot of the people that say wear masks. Sick and cant breathe, you will not stay at home and just stay just say stay at home and die, you will go to the hospital and overwhelm our Health Care Workers because like President Trump, you get sick, that is where you are going. Those are all of my comments. Voted forsays she bush and president obama. President obama on the trail for joe biden, on saturday in miami. Here is what he had to say about the white house response to the coronavirus pandemic. [video clip] we literally left this white house a pandemic playbook that showed them how to respond before a virus reached our shores. Be with the Republican Health care plan. We cant find it. Eight months into this pandemic, eight months into this pandemic, new cases are breaking records. Donald trump isnt going to suddenly protect all of us. He cant even take the basic steps to protect himself. Sense that he is coming up with a new approach, a new plan. He doesnt even acknowledge there was a problem. Just this week, he complained that the pandemic was making him go back to work. If he had been working in the first place, we would never have seen the situation get this bad. Lesson listen, i have said this before. Im going to say it again. Pandemic would have been tough for any president , because we havent seen Something Like this for 100 years. The idea that somehow, this white house has done anything but completely screw this thing up is nonsense. Host the former president in miami, now in tallahassee. Vice president mike was talking to supporters. [video clip] before here to tell you, the first document at case of committee transmission, President Trump did what no other president had done, he suspended traveled from china, the second largest economy in the world. Joe biden called that xenophobic. He did. He actually said it was hysterical. He wrote in usa today a couple days before the president took action that closing off travel from any country in the world in a pandemic would quote, make things worse. As head of tell you, the White House Coronavirus task force these last eight months, joe biden got it wrong. Actionnt trumps shutting down all travel from china brought us in bought us invaluable time to stand up the greatest ablaze effort since world war ii and saved countless american lives. In that time, we reinvented testing, we sought to the distribution and manufacture of billions of medical supplies. We went to work on therapeutics that as we speak are saving and undernd america, operation warp speed, we literally will have tens of millions of doses of the first Coronavirus Vaccine in the world, before the end of this year. Host that was the Vice President from saturday. If you missed any of our campaign 2020 coverage from this past weekend, you can go to our website and find it there, at cspan. Org. A programming note on cspan2. The senate has been in session this weekend, and continues to discuss on the senate floor, the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett. Democrats have been holding a talkathon through the night, after it was voted to continue on to start debate, i should say, a very procedural inside the beltway term to begin debate. That is what was held yesterday afternoon. They are continuing to debate her nomination, and are expected around 7 30 p. M. Eastern time to take a final vote on her nomination. Republicans appear to have the votes, and we learned from senator cramer that the white be having her oath of office at the white house this evening. Im sorry, i am blanking on words. You can expect that happening today in washington as well. Some of you have maybe seen the headlines on early voting. 60 Million People have already voted as of sunday, october 25. That is more than 47. 2 million 2016 general election preelection votes. It is more than 58 million in person and mailin ballots in 2016. Take a look at some of these numbers. 80 of the 2016 vote in texas, 80 of voters have already voted in the state of texas. The is the case look at numbers from montana, north carolina, tennessee and georgia. You can find this information at the u. S. Election project online. Lets go to mary in jacksonville, florida. Republican. Good morning to you. Caller good morning. Host has covid19 impacted your vote . Caller actually it solidified my vote, because first of all, thank you for cspan. Really introduced me to cspan since we are at home more. It definitely did solidify my vote, because it did expose the outrageous bias of the media, and how the narrative in one channel does repeat in every frankly and it is almost like propaganda. It is not almost, it is a Propaganda Machine and it frightens me. Me, a vote for this election between biden and trump is an election between cuomo and desantis. If we see how the trico in measures that cuomo has been taking the draconian measures that cuomo has been taking, lockdowns and the mask mandates, and we have seen across the country how people are being tased for not wearing a mask in the middle of a football game, that is not a measure florida has gone for. We believe in individual freedom, and i am very proud of floridians. In spite of florida being open, and i see the happiness in the state of florida versus other states. I have not traveled. The complaints and the unhappiness in different states. When i come back to florida, i feel the freedom and i feel the happiness, and i see how other people from different states flood getting florida, seeking for that freedom and happiness. Host lets hear from john in iowa, independent caller. Good morning to you. Caller hello, how are you . Host im doing well. How are you going to vote in the president ial race and the senate race . Caller i am voting republican, voting for trump. Host do you know how you are going to vote in the senate race . Caller joni ernst. Host has the pandemic impacted your vote in any way . Caller not really. Havenk a lot of people watched this virus enter politics and i think it creates a lot of garbage, and i think managementhad risk standards for pandemics, and other things for a long time, and i dont think that china did its Due Diligence in controlling this. I think if china had done a better job understanding the risk of the coronavirus, that this would never have gotten out. I think no president can control it entirely. They came out with the numbers early on, and we are at the level it said, 200,000 deaths. I dont think the American People took the science pretty serious. The president tweeting this morning about the coronavirus. He starts with, we have made tremendous progress with the china virus, but the fake news refuses to talk about it, this close to the election. Covid, covid, covid. It should be an election law violation. He goes on to say cases up because we test, test, test. A Fake News Media conspiracy. Many young people who heal very fast. Corrupt media conspiracy at alltime high. On november 4, the topic will totally change. He says the Fake News Media is riding covid, covid, covid. Greg in georgia, republican. Caller thank you for taking my call. Good morning. I was actually diagnosed with covid about a week ago, and i am just recovering at home. I just wanted to make a comment about the president and the coronavirus. There is only so much that a president can do with this kind of thing. I believe he did everything he could, he possibly could. The reason im voting for him is because number one, i support this country. Number two, im just upset at the way the media has treated him, and it is disgraceful, it is shameful. These people in the media are some of the most hateful dishonest people anywhere. That is the number one reason that im supporting President Trump. Host do you know how you contracted the coronavirus . Guest i am a health care caller i am a Health Care Worker and i somehow caught it, possibly working, but i wore my mask the whole time. I believe that masks are good, but at the same time they are not perfect. I think he is right on the money with that. The mask but he understands they are not perfect. It is one of those things that people need to do what they can to prevent it. This is not his fault. It is not our fault. This came from china. Who do you want to vote for . Trump who has tried to do what who isd, or biden potentially compromised by china with his sons dealing over there. Host we hope you feel better. That does it for todays program. We will be back tomorrow morning with more of your calls. Thanks for watching. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2020] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] you are watching cspan, your unfiltered view of government, created by americas Cable Television companies as a Public Service and brought to you today by your television provider