The president the 1st lady says. Scary. Trying to score political points. I think would be a huge mistake. In severely. Impact his ability to be desired. Welcome to the day to day it has begun with just 4 weeks until the u. S. Election the white house says President Trump is experiencing mild symptoms now that followed the announcement that he and 1st lady. Had tested positive for corona virus democratic rival joe bidens tested negative despite sharing a platform with mr trump in tuesdays president ial debate when the president s diagnosis was revealed hours after it became known that senior aides who had contracted the virus she. Been traveling all week with the president and seen here on that wednesday throwing crap caps into a crowd of supporters at a Campaign Event mr trump tweeted that he had madonna quarantining at the white house where he said to be continuing hes duties so what happens now well lets run through some of the potential synonymous with john hes a senior fellow at the Brookings Institutions 10 to 4 effective Public Management joins us from washington welcome to d w i see that youve written that a positive coverage test for the president is not in itself a cause for Emergency Action so when showed people start worrying well as you said its not necessarily a cause for Emergency Action for millions of people who had old it and theyve. Either no symptoms or in the president s case so far mild symptoms and president s get sick from time to time and thats not as much of a problem but if the president s condition deteriorates and he is older he is obese and those are all. Conditions or situations which can make symptoms worse it would be something that could become a real crisis in the United States if the president were to need a ventilator or to be sedated or to be hospitalized in a serious way ok so lets lets talk through some of those scenarios if for instance if the president if his condition takes a turn for the worst and he does become incapacitated and unable to govern the presumption is there is a system so talk us through what that system is. Theres really 2 parallel tracks that are laid out on the 25th amendment to the United States constitution the 1st would be the president for seeing that he is going to be hospitalized for sedated or made in some way incapacitated and he can voluntarily transfer the powers of the office to the Vice President temporarily and the Vice President would then exercise the powers of the presidency until the president recover the alternative system is one in which the president is incapacitated in a very sudden way or in a way that he has not voluntarily turned over the powers of the office and in that case the Vice President along with the majority of the cabinet can notify the congress that the president is incapacitated at which point those powers automatically transferred to the Vice President and this is a well trodden path that they have been examples in the past of the 25th amendment being deployed. So there have been charts of the 25th amendment that have been deployed over the course of the past 30 to 35 years of president s have needed to undergo medical procedures president reagan needed some polyps removed president bush had a colon ostap during which time they were under either anesthesia or sedation and when that happened each of those president s bollen terribly transferred power to the Vice President who served as acting president temporarily until the president came out from the drugs that you was under in could take the powers back over which is typically only a few hours this situation in which the Vice President and a majority of the cabinet forced that transfer has never happened in American History ok so when we are a long way from that at the moment so how important is that the president is now so i think he has been tweeting for about 13 hours which is a long as anyone can can remember how important is it for the president to remain visible during an airless like this and to keep the public a dated. Well i think visible is sort of in the eye of the boulder the president doesnt necessarily have to appear physically but he could give interviews over the phone he can tweet he can do a variety of tasks that can communicate with the American Public that he is there that use doing well i do think if the president is well enough to make a Television Appearance or to speak directly to the people that would be important to settle some jitters and there are genders among a lot of americans right now about what the president s health actually is and certainly there are concerns im sure weve been his family and others as well as an American Market about what the future is going to hold and so i think is much is the president can he should communicate about his health and wellness to the American Public ok this is a fag and that its speculating but its fascinating. Lets look at the president sits situation deteriorating what happens if he is incapacitated come election day. If you say incapacitated on election day it would be the same as if you were incapacitated any other day. Would the powers of the office would transfer to the Vice President he would be not in holding the powers of the presidency the Vice President would it could have political effects shortly but i think is long as the president s condition is seen as temporary that will instill enough faith in the individuals going to the polls that they can continue to vote for him if they so choose if the president s condition is quite serious or quite grave i do think it raises some questions among voters about what theyre going to do now that said in the United States we vote for president and Vice President on the same ticket and so if youre supporting President Trump youre also supporting Vice President tents were of course will take over in the event of a president ial incapacitation or president ial death and so i think going into election day voters will have those types of thoughts on their mind particularly if the president is incapacitated. So the center of this story has a 74 year old man with a potential made life threatening condition the concerns of a big of the health of the man on they were talking about the office of the president. Thats right and i think its important for our your viewers and you know today ive been reminding american viewers as well the presidency is about more than one person the presidency is a system of offices that help support the person who happens to be in power at that moment but of course there are contingencies in place to ensure not only that there is a line of succession but there is continuity in that succession and so while this sort of situation as you said and elderly president with a disease that has now killed more than 210000 americans is a very serious situation but we do have a process in place for when these occurrences do happen want to an acting president to penn. Gets to do his own thing in this in this next month and presumably if he got that elected all what hes dhobi to just keep the show on the road and not invade anyone. Well this their head this is uncharted territory the Vice President s who have served as acting president s in the past have done so only for a couple of hours and because they knew that the president was under some sedation or some anesthesia that said if Vice President pence were to become acting president he would wield all of the powers of the presidency and could do if he wished and now i think that for Vice President pence particularly given that he has a close relationship with the president he would see that role as a caretaker role with the hope of course that the president would recover and he would just essentially carry out the president s wishes during that time and not make many Major Political or policy moves that said if the president were to resign from office or god forbid if he were to die in office the Vice President would elevate permanently to president and then would likely do what predecessors who have succeeded a president to do and that is take the helm of the office and do as they wish fos and i think thank you for your analysis and john who that from the Brookings Institution thank you. So how will the president s illness affect the campaign with just over 4 weeks to go blue cross joins us from us election to welcome with him to the 2nd president ial debate issues will take place in just under 2 weeks the president is self isolating though i suppose this doesnt rule him out completely no i mean and we dont really know whats going to happen next but we keep hearing we we theres a reason we say this is an unprecedented moment in an unprecedented election these are thats not just a word we use although it does get thrown around unfortunately a lot it does mean something here the next debate is within this quarantine time so donald trump depending on his recovery on how he feels if hes able to be tested negative may not actually bill to be there in person we could be looking at a zoom debate which of course might fill a lot of peoples wishes and theyll be that mute button that i know of the last debate a lot of people on both sides particularly donald trump who interrupted the most would have liked to have seen Chris Wallace employ remember theres no legal basis for debates this is an informal tradition thats developed over over decades in the United States even the debates themselves are run by a private organization a privately funded organization its just tradition that the candidates meet the specific republican and Democratic Candidates 3rd Party Candidates tend to be excluded from this. Show up to have an a platform to present their ideas and go face to face with their candidate so that these debates can be postponed they could be canceled theres nothing that would throw the election off because of whatever happens to these debates ok so thats not such a big not such a big deal but suddenly the Vice President ial debate is how does that takes on a whole new significance and weve seen this the last many months months ago knowing that we were going to election with 2 men of advanced age both joe biden and donald trump we knew that the Vice President might take on a particularly Important Role and that voters might. Looking at who is in that 2nd seat which generally Vice President ial candidates for all the talk in our circles we might have about the role the Vice President ial candidate plays in balancing the ticket alternately doesnt play a huge role in voters decisions but in this case they might because youre looking at kaamelott harris a far younger woman and youre looking at mike pence a far younger man than donald trump who could seriously more seriously than in past president sees be looking to possibly fit to step into the role of the president as we heard in the previous talk possibly immediately depending on how the coronavirus develops with donald trump but even over the course of the next term regardless of who wins both present both president s both candidates getting on in age we could be seeing the need for a Vice President ial candidate to step in as president. So heres the tricky thing i think joe biden do you would think that on paper the president being. Is a win for the democrats but i suppose biden has to be careful not to look like hes kicking a man when hes down Democratic Leaders have been very careful to not be gloating today to be extending their thoughts and prayers to saying all the boilerplate expressions of sympathy when anyone is sick regardless if they are ally or your opponent because of course you know we saw this in the kingdom when Boris Johnson was fell ill of coronavirus he actually got a lot of sympathy even from from people who tended to not like him or were as a political politically opposite in ideology to him so the democrats have to be careful how theyre going to use this opportunity for them politically and we see that already where theyre trying to shift focus from donald trump to the American People to broaden this to their number one issue this election which is health care and Health Insurance because donald trump as the president is going to get the absolute best care possible to fight and battle and defeat this virus which which Many Americans including many of the 200000. 00 plus americans who have died from this virus did not have the luxury couldnt afford Health Insurance that donald trump was going to be able to get ok so that elevates Health Insurance the political agenda but. This its important to somebody wins of course. When if. Joe biden doesnt ask what he has to sort of change his tone and how he goes about winning doesnt that its a make or break moment or could be a make or break moment for both candidates really i have been thinking all about 2007 also about this time in october just before the election and the financial crisis hit and the 1st Banks Insurance Companies started to go down the ones that were too big to fail and i remember back then we look back at it now and it seems like peanuts compared to what were dealing with now all the things coronavirus social unrest the economic problems that have come from that but at that time it felt like the world was ending but the United States very system was over and john mccain and barack obama both gave press conferences john mccain looked uncertain he looked out of place he looked like he could handle the situation can handle this crisis and he was suspending his Campaign Going back to washington to fix this problem barack obama came out cool confident ready to take on the crisis and Continuous Campaign and while obama was already leading in the polls and probably would have still won it was a very decisive moment a very interesting moment where a lot of americans said this guy this guy knows how to do both how to be a politician to run for presidency and handle a major crisis and thats what we could see joe biden trying to come out to do in this case can you see any upside for the president getting ill like this. There is the the whole idea that maybe he turns around and comes back stronger than ever and says i beat this virus this virus is no big deal like ive always been telling you as well as the sympathy aspect like i mentioned earlier that people might swing towards him and just by having sympathy for for a sick man but i dont see a lot of upside for him i dont see a lot upside for anyone and no one should be gloat. And no one regardless for you come down should be should be happy about this turn of events if you are conservative if youre a republican a trumpet supporter of course you are looking at a big hit to your leader and if you are a democrat if you are someone who does not like trump you are looking at all d kinds of potential conspiracy theories that have just made this election a total mess and have made it really hard to separate fact from fiction to know what to truly believe in it makes the whole system that much more difficult to deal with and you have that will include from day 2 of the us elections. Well lets have a look at how President Trump has handled the greatest Public Health challenge for decades hes long been dismissive of coronavirus the precautions recommended by his own experience from initial optimism in february looks like by april you know in theory when it gets a little warmer it miraculously goes away i hope thats true to a number up to about face in march that specific case today i am officially declaring a National Emergency us President Donald Trump has gone to extremes in his Public Attitude toward the coronavirus hes always saw a Silver Lining even as the death toll skyrocketed america will again and soon be open for business. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself were not going to let the cure be worse than the problem is going to start seeing some related the end of the tunnel but this is going to be a very painful. Very very painful 2 weeks that trump soon turned a medical problem into a political issue forcing the public to choose between him and the experts when government scientists recommended Wearing Masks he scoffed at the idea is no one myself its a recommendation they recommended. I dont see it for myself i just i just maybe ill change. He didnt change his mind but as the pandemic refused to go away miraculously he mused in public about rather unorthodox treatments suppos