Survive these historic setbacks and does joe biden have what it takes to beat. Special coverage on aljazeera. I have any i can lump into the stream the home edition it is a show that is produced on the lockdown conditions and we focus on the opt out life around the well this is an Election Year in the United States this is also the coronavirus pandemic how republicans and democrats adapting for an election that will probably have to be socially distance that is a question that were going to be unpacking today if you have questions and thoughts and experiences and ideas would love you to share them with us the you chicha is open jump in 8 and you may well be in the stream that means the expert panel hello there daniel tell everybody you are. Hi im daniel marrons im a reporter for off post i cover the Democratic Party and progressive movements and i recently did work as a correspondent for the aljazeera series fall and swear i looked at the divide in the Democratic Party. Good to have you done you know and i know a welcome to the strain tell everybody. Right there im now on the corner migiro he strategy use a National Fundraiser in the author of branding america. And i o. Day nice to have you in the stream explain what you do day. Expense or expect me to. Really matter to my customer shes going to congress introduce her sister as previously these directors for mayor pete bridget as well as i should. Know all right thanks so much for being with us everybody i want to start with a little bit of video daniel from the recent 4 lines with police saying that you did it and its video of campuses canvassing for. Biden and also counts that any sound as joe biden at takes us back a couple weeks but when we look at the way people tend to sing and now we look at the way that we dont even stand that close to each other the. What difference do you think this is going to make for the rest of the campaign as it goes forward to november. Well as always its a little bit hard to predict but i think i think in the in the near term it hurts people who are not incumbents whether youre an incumbent president and when i say incumbent i mean somebody whos already in office like president. President has an enormous platform as as the sitting president of United States he has Daily Press Briefings if you are a sitting member of congress you have all sorts of ways of communicating with the public currently that if youre beat if youre challenging a sitting member if youre a newcomer or if youre joe biden the democratic nominee to take on President Trump you may not necessarily have and so those smaller ways of connecting that lower level going to a meeting going to a rally those are often ways in which newcomers break through and develop relationships achieve name recognition and i think theyre struggling to find new ways to adapt to that reality and we could see a much bigger emphasis on media and on on sort of the digital space. You know what point is republican strategist you know kind of i was kind of realized this is this is going to change the election. Wow you know what great question now only is is for you to change the election but it is changing how you can penny its virtually nonexistent it is changing how you raise money which is virtually nonexistent which puts a lot of pressure on our major donors here in america we have the bundle hours which. Billionaires and millionaires that are responsible or gather large sums of money for candidates in super. And right now. This is an environment that is a cool insult that interNational Fundraiser this is an environment that nobody is an expert of navigating around a lot of people are trying to heavily advertise digitally but the you know the results from that or everybody gets run. At bennett i mean could this be a great thing is so much money in politics as simply people involved in the idea that you actually have to kind of bring it to how not you cant be strangle the money be going when everybody still say is there a plus to this a tool. I think i think there is if you look at. One you know aspect of this pandemic its taking away the opportunity for candidates to meet face to face with voters with donors with state with the usual stakeholders in the elections but that has increased the campaigns are up and down the ballot so increase their opportunities to connect with voters and with smaller donors and so if you look at the Joe Biden Campaign for example the president ial campaign along with the Democratic National committee they brought in 60 and a half 1000000. 00 in the month of april it was a rough month for you know everyone across the globe and in the United States and they were still able to bring a large sum of lending through small dollar online donations because. Folks you know are are respecting stay at home orders theyre not traveling outside of their homes theyre not going to work for the most part theres more time to take in more information to connect with these campaigns and its a really important election season and so folks are still pulling their wild side during a tough economic time and contributing to campaigns im so there is an opportunity and i think you know to your point i can listen the right direction when it comes to taking you know big money out of politics and making sure that small donors are the folks back in campaigns. Daniel and daniel you confess no you dont said im just wondering how acquit the democrats and the republicans to go digital on the ready i mean raring to go give me an example of how you. Well i think that obviously on the republican side donald trump is extremely savvy on twitter sometimes he is very angering to democrats and to liberals but theres no question that hes extremely president and there was recently a solid report in the Washington Post that his app has hit the sort of thing you can download on your phone associated with his campaign is a lot more engaging than the Joe Biden Biden did not have a lot of sort of the the Digital Talent in the democratic president ial primary and so actually that seems to be something where in the in the near term donald trump has something of an advantage but joe biden is sort of gearing up in that respect the other thing i would say about biden is heres a guy who really didnt have much of what we call a field presence in a lot of these states that he ended up winning by huge margins he. He he won in South Carolina he won in texas and a number of major states in what they call super tuesday in the United States where there were a number of elections and that was really how he locked up the nomination and the chance to take on donald trump and so he didnt have a lot of the people doing that kind of person to person work on the ground and he won anyway because his presence is so large and people remember him from the presidency of barack obama and i think thats a real event that she has Going Forward you know u. S. Mining when i mentioned hes got that many digital game im thinking that if you think the republicans are way out there. Yes absolutely i mean there to you theres no question that dont trot what really has been on his ag with that with digital and social media and everything that he is doing hes really a master at it and i think that thats basically how he kind of won the won the election the last time around and joe biden has been really lacking on his digital game and Everybody Knows that you know. Had a fantastic he was a maverick at the at the digital he really engaged facebook and twitter and everything he was really dynamic and donald trump took it to a whole new nother level by constantly in gauging followers and constantly you know present at the media calling out forwarders and you know why donald trump hate normal the one thing that you can say is donald trump will not be ignored. No i let me put this to you because we have a huge of conversation going on as were having our conversation and that im going to come must have beautiful handle that do you believe that this is good for trump all right so the whole coronavirus pandemic the idea of maybe using it politically. What does this do for the republican chances for a 2nd term. Well if he is successful if the kani does not flatlined then he will be seen as a hero but no may be seen as a hero or heroine cant because were in a political well lambaste right now with the democrats in the war against so to being on to new turf if you talk to a democrat president truman is a fairly about how hes handled everything if you talk to republican theyre going to say hes aware now lets try this out d. N. A. Has struck during right now. Well i might add that its a has been a failure. I think you know when you take partisanship out of the equation when you look at where we are right now weve lost 30000000 jobs over the past i want to say 2 months you know the main street economy has flatlined were in a deep recession you know folks are unemployed at a rate that we havent seen since the Great Depression and you know the growth of our spend them it is a Global Pandemic you know how does that countries have been affected so you cant blame you know present for the current of ours but you can hold them accountable for the american United States response to the crowbars and the activity through the month of february and the delays stead home orders things like that which you know did eventually bring our economy to a halt to a halt but did not address the Public Health issue have caused this you know huge this deep recession and so you know theres a whole american plate glad its about the economy stupid and i know that that place true for every you know president ial election and if were in a position that we are now in november i believe that americans are hope the incumbent accountable. Also you know ive got a comment on that ill settle in more neary. This is very political within state to state like you have a state like california which they are given or governor new sim has jest and now they are looking to extend the lockdown in california and whole mid august compare to other states like arkansas where im from the home of bill clinton home of governor huckabee and their governor governor eisa hedge inten has already our lack some of the laws and he is the cases are growing and he has been a success so i am seeing a lot. Lead states going to battle with democrat led states so it is more already the virus which is a health issue is already getting majorly. Let me let me bring in another voice into our conversation this is Monica Mcdermott shes a professor of Political Science of food in university and she picks up on the way that the cone of eyes is just in hans in the divisions we really see in u. S. Politics in the. Reactions were seeing right now among public can among congress when it comes to dealing with the coronavirus are really quite polarized and its no surprise given the polarization of the American Public plan is surprising is that usually in times of crisis what we see are americans pulling together drew this rally around the flag effect that political scientists are always talking about and thats what were now seeing here were seeing something thats very emblematic of the timer in which is this terrible polarization american bummer where democrats are not going to believe anything republicans say or who part of the answer not going to believe anything democrats say. Daniel i wanted to look a little bit further ahead i mean thats telling us all you know we all know right now if you live in the United States you understand that this is the division see what republicans say and then what democrats say and were still trying to fight a krone virus pandemic but if we push ahead to what would have been an incredible Convention Season so much to talk about so much to do and now what are you hearing about the conventions will they happen and how they happen. I think its very likely that joe biden the u. S. Democratic president ial nominee will speak in some capacity but he may speak to a all but empty room and i dont know exactly how that will work but i think thats increasingly likely it was due to take place in milwaukee wisconsin. State wisconsin that democrats are desperate to take back from donald trump it was one of 3 states that barack obama won and then that cost Hillary Clinton the previous democratic nominee the elections a donald trump i dont know if we could be looking at something where theyre sort of piping in the applause digitally and im not exactly sure d if that generates the same effect as now of course dollar trump has said that he is still interested in traveling hes obviously skeptical of the idea of lockdowns and regardless of sort of the Health Consequences of that that seems to put him at an advantage in terms of visibility for these types of large public events. So we at the see me sort of reimagines what it might look like at maybe the Republican National convention so this is typically a mission an animation of what we would expect is a set a floor day policy stadiums out a full one elina is full of people theyre placing a festal good politics but what if you had to scale it down and people will be watching fire that was frozen by that i pods anath stones and then basically some dead end zone that way now wow what are you hearing about how the republicans again to come together will they will they physically be in charlotte. You know i really do if this is a very difficult question because i know that they want to ive talked to some Leaders Within various far east Republican PartyUnited States and i know that they really really want to. But how safe is it. Even to have a convention or even a socially instance the Convention Convention or orderly optics of that what does that look like are we going to go ahead and do Something Like a Virtual Convention and how effective is a Virtual Convention i mean lets face it. Not a lot of people if you if youre not really involved want to sit hours and watch this so. Its really going to be difficult and like you were describing you know are they going to have the convention are they going to pick up the phone and vote that sounds like a Reality Television show like americas got talent. I dont know enough to. Know you are the republican strategist so what would you tell brizard trump about to have a conventional to not have a convention what would you tell him who designs and taro ok to have are not have the convention. If i am or inviting him i would actually tell him to not physically have the convention but have let go a week or 2 weeks fan or hour we can go from state to state and trying to have meetings with in all of the States Social distancing meetings with their with their delegates with their National Committee meeting and the National Committee warman you know these are Office Holders with in the way already that thats what i would do i think its too down i see but thats just me. In this new way to separate politics from this pandemic doesnt matter whether in the u. S. So whether countries to to take the political out of it so i wanted to introduce into a conversation. He said g. O. P. Political strategist and then im going to get you to respond to him but 1st as he sent out the American People do not require perfection when it comes to government responses to the pandemic but they do require accountability affective ness and after republican seed to focus less on getting in fights with journalists on twitter and more on the fact that america has cast in more people per capita than any other place in the world and has exceeded many places in can east asia and europe in our responses to the pandemic without that no matter how radical the democrats are and no matter how mentally compromise their nominee republicans will get swamp in 2020. 7 i dont want to get into a fight with al that i cant really cause hes a video but i do cling to question some of the figures that he was using so President Trump has said that the us leaves the world into in a Virus Testing but i want to show you a chart which suggests that maybe the president got a little bit mixed up because United States for testing but capita is down here in italy is on top but the actual numbers of tests that we know the 10000000 about. Excuse me right about now yes exceeds the well but not per capita does arguments like this does it matter these the things that were going to be talking about come election time in november oasis trivial. I believe it deftly i trivial i think its important not just to have this conversation now because you know its material to this pandemic but. You know mass scale testing is our path out of this not just Public Health crisis but the economic crisis short of you know an actual vaccine being deployed and were not expecting to see Something Like that until new reports say beginning of next year and so if were going to be in a position where we can safely reopen in the extras are telling us that if we want to see a very