Washington is longtime political reporter and columnist of the washington post. Good sunday morning. Thank you for being with us. Host thank you for being with us. What a year it has been. It is only october 4. It has been an unbelievable year. As i wrote this morning, no one could have written a script for this year. It seems as though not just every week but every day, something dramatic happens. Shakes the country. Weve had unrelenting bad news for most of the year. Pandemic, terrible economic collapse, a recovery that is uneven where the people were stuff are having it the worst at this point. Ande had racial protests violence in the streets. Violence from both sides in the street. We had the death of john lewis, ruth bader ginsburg, now we learned just a couple of days ago that the president of the United States has tested positive for the coronavirus. Get aoes the country ever break from any of this . We are 29 days from the election. Its an unbelievably important election. They see it and almost apocalyptic terms. Weve never gone through in my memory many of us live through 1968. This year is difficult for everybody. Host here is how you frame it this morning on the front page. As you look ahead based on all that has happened so far, has this changed the dynamic in the election . Guest nothing so far has changed it. Perhaps the president s illness will have some effect. I dont know which way that will go. He might get a sympathy vote or there would be a backlash against him because of the way he has downplayed the virus. None of the big events have had any effect. Vice president died has led the National Polls for months with a decent leader. The key battleground states, many of them tilt toward biden. Tossups, states the trump won the last time around. We get these events and we think that something will change things. They havent so far. The president s illness came so quickly on the heels of the debate the other night. We are dealing with both of those and trying to understand politically what impact they might have. I think its too soon to know what kind of impact the president s illness will have. The debate was not a good site for him. I dont think its going to change any minds. Touchhave you been in with either of the campaigns and how they are adjusting to this . Guest i have not been directly in touch. Our team has been doing that. I have had some contact with the Biden Campaign over the last few days. The president hat is going through is difficult. The Biden Campaign took down negative ads. The campaignpaign,anager has contracted positive these campaigns are navigating through what everyone else is navigating through. They have very large staffs. People know what they need to do. Think what happened to the president is a reminder that its almost impossible to do politics in the normal way. Has been campaign trying to be on the ground. Campaign went all virtual for months and months. They are beginning to start to do some traditional doorknocking. The kinds off serious campaigning we see, the Trump Campaign has done some of that. I wonder what that will be like. Which ther in campaigns of set their course and are now executing. Certainly, the president s Campaign Needs to find a way to change the dynamic or change the directory. Trajectory. Campaign moved late in his direction. 2016body who went through is mindful of that. Point, the Biden Campaign feels as though they are in a pretty good place. They are not slowing down. Host the october surprise came on october 1 when the president was transported to the hospital for treatment. Extensively,tten its a fight for the house and senate. I want to share you some overnight developments. Senator graham and Jamie Harrison meet for the first senate debate. These are some of the details. They have destroyed fundraising records in South Carolina, accusing each other of being in the pocket of powerful special interests. They remind voters of their meager upgradings upbringings. This exchange in a debate the we carried live. Sometimes listing to senator graham reminds me of playing monopoly with my son. He changes the rules every time he gets. You said you my words against me. You set it after the kavanaugh hearings. That nomise was judicial nominee should be considered or proved in the last year of an election. You even made president named president trump. Manrandfather taught me a is only as good as his word. How good is your word when you made a promise to the american people. You made a promise to the folks in South Carolina that you wouldnt be doing what youre doing right now. Thats the problem. You can dot heresy is a Public Servant is to betray her at the trust of the people. Be a man instead of and say i changed my mind. Dont go back and blame it on somebody else. If an opening comes about, we will see with the market will bear. Shes going to get confirmed because the president has the authority to do it. When president obama was president i honor the fact that he won the election and i voted for two people i wouldnt have chosen. Ive watched the party try to constrict destroy one conservative judge. He chaired on the destruction of brett kavanaugh. Amy barrett is highly qualified. Im the committee of the committee. The president has every right to do this. You can count on me. From last night. The senate races surprisingly close. Guest it is surprisingly close. I dont think anybody anticipated Lindsey Graham would be in the fight of his life in this campaign. Raisedarrison has amazing amounts of money for a challenger. South carolina is not a state we look to to be a battleground. The fact that senator graham is in such a tight race and he is literally pleading for contributions to keep up with his challenger. That is one of the surprises of the year. There are a slew of Competitive Senate races. Host what is the strategy of Senate Democrats . Three have coronavirus. The senate doesnt meet until october 19. A week from tomorrow, the confirmation hearing will begin. Guest the democrats are going to do whatever they can procedurally to try to slow the train down. Its not clear that they have the wherewithal to do it. If the republicans can get everybody in the chamber to vote , thats the key issue at this point. We will have to wait and see what the medical condition is of people to decide whether thats possible. Thats the only hope that democrats seem to have right now, that the republicans will not be able to get everyone in the room to have the vote. Thoughainly appears as this confirmation is going forward. Host a native of free point, illinois. The is one of the sites of lincoln doublets bates. 202 7488000 if you are a supporter of the president. 202 7488001 if you are a supporter of Vice President biter. We will go to howard in florida. Caller i didnt see the phone lines. The 01 number. I have two points. Positivityne, i see out of the president getting this. There is so much confusion in the media. Lets step back when this first happened. Trump spoke about it and closed down the country. That, youas saying had all of the left saying how he was wrong. Even de blasio said this is no worse than the flu. Thats true. 98 of the people that catch covid recover with no problem. That 2 are the Vulnerable People with low immune systems that are already sick anyway or have problems. Made a statement about this being no worse than the flu. How me decades have we gone through with the flu, we all get it. We all get over it. This is the same thing. Sense,look at it in that go get well. You cannot sit back in a corner in your house and be afraid to walk out the door if you catch it. Host thank you for the call. Guest i think we do know that deadlyonavirus is more than the normal flu. I think thats one point that his been proven by the experience the country has gone through. This virus is killed many more people then died during a normal flu season. The second point is there are flu vaccines. Falle get flu shots every in order to protect themselves as much as possible against the latest reign of the flu. There is no vaccine for covid19. Those are two important points that people need to keep in mind as they think about the risk factor. Host i want to go back to your column. We talked about this earlier. My question is as we hear that from you, why has this remained status quo . Guest i think weve known for several years that this election would be a referendum on president trump. Is toreelection campaign some degree or another a referendum on the incumbent. Every income it seeks to make a choice between himself and his challenger. In this case, the president has not been able to do that. Most people in this country have made up their minds about what they think about president trump. Very loyal supporters who are enthusiastic about supporting him for reelection. They will do Everything Possible they can. He has as many or more motivated too are do everything they possibly can to deny him a second term. If you talk to the people in the if you talk to friends , whatuaintances or voters you find is people have very firm opinions. There are very few people who have not made up their mind about what they want to do. The percentage of undecided seens is as small as weve in any recent campaign. Thats the reason it is so difficult for any event to move the polls one direction or the other. The lead has been fairly steady. The problems for the president have been out there for some time. Repeatedly and with different strategies to go after Vice President biden. Hes used different lines of attack. None of them seem to stick in the way that Trump Campaign hoped. Settled country with people already voting. See if there is anything in the last 30 days that can move the Campaign Washington journal. Every day, we are taking your calls live on the air and we will discuss policy issues that impact you. Theay morning, we Preview Supreme Court term and the upcoming confirmation hearings for judge amy coney barrett. And, a discussion about the 25th amendment and continuity of government with a Michigan StateUniversity Law professor. Watch washington journal, live at 7 00 eastern monday morning. Join the discussion with phone calls, facebook comments, text weeks atd tweets. Court beginsupreme its new term monday. Listen to oral arguments live or ondemand at cspan. Org supremecord. President trump appeared in a short video from walter reed medical center. After the video was posted, the president waved to supporters from his motorcade. After a brief ride, he returned to walter reed. I think we are going to be a surprise to some of the great patriots on the street. I am not telling anybody but you but i am about to make li