>> reporter: fauci has become a target for trump as he attempts to tap into the fatigue of many americans struggling to dealing with coronavirus restrictions. the doctor responded to trump's attacks with the reference to "the godfather." sources tell cnn that trump has not met with fauci in person since the middle of august and has little, to no, contact with the coronavirus task force at all and instead putting his faith in the hands of controversial dr. scott atlas who the president praised this morning. campaign advisers worry attacking fauci only serves to remind voters of the pandemic which is seeing spikes in almost every state. tonight, trump travels to erie, pennsylvania, home to one of three swing counties in the crucial state that voted for obama in 2012 and went for trump in 2016. >> we are going to win four more years in that beautiful white house. >> these big rallies may be the only card the campaign has left to play. his team hopes these events will reignite the magic from four years ago. committing with candidate trump a candidate course direction is unlikely. it's the last two weeks. "if "f it" the adviser tells cnn. president is leaving for the ballots ground of pennsylvania and the first lady not alongside him. her staff telling us she is still dealing with lingering complications from the coronavirus pandemic. she really hasn't been involved that much in the campaign and her adviser telling our kate bennett we shouldn't expect to see her on the campaign trail at all before election day. >> we hope she feels better. ryan, thank you. the former command of the u.s. special operations command says biden will make america lead again and craven is most famous for overseeing some of the most important operations in u.s. history such as the raid that killed obl and rescue. captain philips from pirates. thank you, admiral, for joining us and thank you to your nearly 40 years of service for this nation. you wrote, and i quote. unquote. was it a difficult decision to announce that you're voting for biden? this is the first time you've ever publicly weighed in on a presidential race. >> well, it was a difficult decision, jake, to announce that i was voting. obviously, you know, as a senior retired military officer, these are challenging times and there a little bit of an unwritten rule that senior officers don't come out and endorse a candidate. however, i felt that the direction of the country was heading in such a bad direction that we needed new leadership and joe biden will be a much, much better leader than donald trump. the one thing i know about leadership, jake, is that if you were going to lead in challenging times, you have to build alliances, you have to build coalitions and you have to have friends and allies. we have a lot of challenges ahead of us and we have a rising china, an aggressive russia, we have got a north korea that may have nuclear tips soon and the second wave of the pandemic. you cannot confront those challenges unless you have alliances. this president has proven he doesn't want alliances domestically and he didn't want alliances international. he has pulled out of the tpp and pulled out of the jcpo, the iranian nuclear agreement and pulled out of everything from the open skies to the world health organization. now, not all of those organizations and aus ll of tho treaties are great but they allow us to maintain and strengthen alignances so when you have these challenges you have folks around you that can help you solve them. >> admiral, you say the world no longer looks up to america because they have seen, quote our dismissiveness, our lack of respect and do you think the world doesn't look up to us at all? if that is true, the election of joe biden will change that? >> i do think the election of joe biden will change that. in fact, i think it can almost change within five minutes. the fact of the matter is, donald trump has been dismissive. you saw very early on in his presidency how he treated the nato members. now, i got it. has nato been living up to 2% of gdp to support the nato alliance, no. but better ways to handle it. you don't disrespect some of our colleagues and allies around for us for 75 years. that is not the way to strengthen the alliance and not the way to push back against russia. up look at the transpacific partnership. here was an opportunity to bring in 40% of the gdp in terms of our allies to be able to leverage that against china and trump elected not to do that. so, yes, what i know will happen under biden is that he will be respectful of our allies, he will build those alliances and strengthen those coalitions and that is exactly what we are going to need going forward. >> last week, i have to ask you this. i'm sorry. last week, president trump twice retweeted this deranged conspiracy theory about s.e.a.l. team 6, the osama bin laden threat and that osama bin laden was still alive and the man killed in the raid was body double. it's insane. i'm sorry i even mentioned what the conspiracy theory is because it's so nuts and ludicrous. trump was asked about this at the town hall with savannah guthrie. he said it's just a retweet and people can decide for himself, he doesn't take a position. you oversaw the operation. what was your reaction to all of this? >> well, to your point, jake, i didn't even think it was worth addressing because it was so crazy. it was a little bit like denying the moon landing. and when things are that, you know, off in left field, it doesn't gain anything by giving it legs and keeping the story going. i was glad to see that rob o'neill, the s.e.a.l. that, in fact, shot osama bin laden who is a trump supporter said, no, we did get osama bin laden and oh, by the way, not only did we get it but the men that went on the mission risked their lives and the future of their family to go get bin laden. and by promoting this crazy conspiracy theory you really disrespected the guys on the mission and i think the people who have fighting this war a long time. >> throughout your career, even after returning to civilian life, you seemed resolutely apolitical. something changed for you in 2018 it seems. you've been a critic of president trump. in 2018 you wrote of trump, quote. trump dismissed your comments and claimed you're a hillary clinton fan. i'm pretty sure that is no the case and i suspect he'll paint you again as a partisan democrat even though you acknowledged all the consecutive views you hold. let me give you an opportunity to give a preemptive defense of yourself from whatever he says. >> yeah. you know, this actually started, jake, when the president came out and said that the media was the enemy of the american people. the fact of the matter is i've fought the enemy of the american people and it is not the media. and in that comment, i said that this attack on the media was, you know, the worst attack on democracy in my lifetime. people said, how could that be the case? well, when you go after the first amendment of which you are sworn to uphold and you begin to attack the media and then as you've seen his administration go on, he goes after, you know, peaceful rallies and those sorts of things. this is not the way to be a president. so it started with me addressing the school of journalism at the university of texas about the role of the media. and so i have taken the opportunity when i think trump has stepped out of line, i have not been, to your point, kind of consistently attacking him. there have been opportunities where i think he has pretty brazen and off the mark. the one with the media being the enemy of the american people was the first one. the other one when he went after john brennan and that is the quote that you're referring to. i've also gone after him when we pulled out of syria or when he announced we were pulling out of syria without ever coordinating or talking to the leadership in the military. then when he fired joe mcguire, the admiral as the director of national intelligence. all of these i thought were egregious acts that warranted a response on my part. >> do you worry about what a second trump term would look like? >> i do. and, again, let me be clear here. i have a lot of friends and family members that are trump supporters. they are great and wonderful people that i have known most of my life. i don't agree with their positions but i certainly don't want to paint the trump supporters in a bad light. >> sure. >> because, like i said i've got friends and family members are trump supporters. my issue with this particular "the wall street journal" article was about the future. this is about the future. it is the challenges that we are going to face in the future. what if china invades taiwan? what if russia moves into his stone ya? what if north korea launches an missile and what do we do when a second wave of coronavirus comes? do we have a leads that knows how to build alliances and coalitions and bring the tcounty together to tackle these challenges? president trump cannot do that. he hasn't worked with the covid-19 task force or the wildfires. we have seen that on most national major security issues so this is my concern moving forward. if trump is re-elected, i don't know how we are going to tackle these very difficult challenges in light of the fact that he doesn't want to have relationships with our allies and frankly with his partners domestically. >> former command of special ops and authors of sea stories, a great book and people should check it out. thank you for your time, and for your four decades of service. we appreciate it. >> my pleasure. thanks, jake. endorsements help but it is the votes that matter. coming up the key battleground states that will likely decide who wins the election in two weeks. first a former fda chief says the u.s. is just one week away from, quote, rapid acceleration in coronavirus cases. can hospitals handle that surge that seems to be coming? a reality check with cnn's dr. sanjay gupta is next. 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(♪ ) you need to hire i need indeed indeed you do. the moment you sponsor a job on indeed you get a shortlist of quality candidates from a resume data base so you can start hiring right away. claim your seventy-five-dollar credit when you post your first job at indeed.com/promo with new rewards from chase freedom unlimited, i now earn even more cash back? oh i got to tell everyone. hey, rita! you now earn 3% on dining, including takeout! bon appetit. hey kim, you now earn 5% on travel purchased through chase! way ahead of you! hey, neal! you can earn 3% at drugstores. buddy, i'm right here. why are you yelling? because that's what i do! you're always earning with 5% cash back on travel purchased through chase, 3% at drugstores, 3% on dining including takeout, and 1.5% on everything else you buy. chase. make more of what's yours. president trump complains that cnn talks too much about coronavirus. guess what. that is because 220,000 americans are dead from it. the former fda commissioner is warning the u.s. is one week away from rapid acceleration in coronavirus cases. this is nearly 60,000 new cases were reported just yesterday. that is the highest number of new cases for a monday since july. it's a harrowing reminder we are still very much in the thick of this pandemic regardless of the president's behavior. cnn's chief medical correspondent dr. sanjay gupta is joining me now. dr. scott gottlieb, the former fda commissioner under president trump, is warning of a rapid acceleration, yet we still don't hear any evidence of any new plan from the white house for more widespread testing, for some sort of contact tracing plan so the virus can be identified and isolated and contained. do you see any evidence of the leadership on this from the white house that the nation needs in order to get these numbers down? >> no. i mean, there is no plan, jake, right now. in fact, the most that you hear about things that they are not going to do, right? absolutely not going to mandate masks. we are not going to back into any circuit breaker lockdown mode. so it's not a plan of was we are going to do. it's what we are not. you know, you talk about the case numbers. i know why scott gottlieb is saying this. if you look what is happening in the european union versus the united states, remember, we were one to two weeks behind italy and i'm going back to april time frame now. the european union was able to br bring their numbers down a period of time and shot back up and we are one to two weeks behind them and scott think there is a rapid acceleration the next week. the point i want to make, this comes up a lot. we are doing more testing. that is why there is more cases. you've heard that over and over again. that is not the case. what you find, what is a truer sort of more consistent measure is hospitalizations and hospitalizations are going up, jake, across the country. this is probably what concerns me the most. i don't know if we have this map. you can see we are starting to go above capacity or at capacity or even above what we normally are already this time of year and we are not really into flu season yet. so as you've been some of the other reporters have been talking about today, you're already getting situations now in many of these cities they are starting to look around and say what are we going to do if we run out of hospital beds? this is not a theoretical concern and i think this hospitalization issue is what concerns people the most in the medical world overall the next several weeks. >> as we adapt to this new normal, which is just horrible thing to have to say, there are concerns, obviously, about what we do with our kids because our kids cannot learn from home for the next five years. it just can't be done. a classroom simulation found that open windows and glass desk shields reduced the spread of coronavirus theoretically. if classrooms implement these precautions including masks and shields, do you think it would be safe to turn to all in-person learning? >> i think you'd have to add in a couple of more things there, you know, in the simulations that they look at. they were pretty lenient in terms of the squarely footage that they were making available for these classrooms. you got a lot of space in between these kids, so when i go to schools and we are doing stories on how schools are starting to reopen, it was the square footage that ended up being one of the limiting steps. square footage and testing. some sort of regular testing, i think, would be important as well. then i think you could start thinking about a plan to get kids back to school. i thought was very interesting when you looked at these simulations and some of the applied not to schools but large office buildings as well and a lot of it had to do with the vented lags. the simple idea of being able to open windows and make it less likely to breathe someone's air essentially. the more that you can do that, the less likely people are to get infected. so someone who is sitting in the middle, for example, of a law students had greater risk. someone off to the side, two to three times less risk of contracting the virus. these were computer models but this seems to hold up in real life scenarios as well. i don't know if we have a picture of a call center. a call center you. a lot of within a room and you can sort of see in blue where people are most likely to get infected. this is one room. the blue is people who got infected. therapy pretty much clustered on one side. if you think about this virus like an aerosol, like camp fire smoke, it may drift into a particular area based on, you know, currents in the room or something like that. you can see it's not spread out equally. it's spread in that one area. if you can address that issue, i think it could be much safer. to say it's safe totally? i think hard to do. the cage virus is still out but you can make it a lot safer. >> the national director for the institutes of health says the white house coronavirus task force still meets regularly but not with president trump. should the president be in those meetings? >> he should absolutely be in these meetings. this is the worst public health crisis in a hundred years. we are a country that represents 20% of infections in deaths. it's awful, obviously. so this is a huge issue. he is spending most of the time, according to task force members i've spoken with, with dr. scott atlas who is basically mirroring it sounds like the president's own beliefs. dr. atlas doesn't seem to be giving the president any guidance as much as reinforcing what the president already believes. used to be dr. deborah birx who used to be mostly in the oval office largely with the president and that is not happening any more according to people i'm talking to and it's mostly dr. scott atlas. they call it the doctor's meeting. it's on their own. they are still doing it but who knows if they are actually being heard. >> dr. scott atlas is a neuroradiologist. he is not an expert on infectious diseases and what president trump likes to do. he likes to get like oral surgeons who are not experts on infectious disease attest to either how great he is or how the pandemic should be treated, how the federal response should be. these are not experts in infectious disease. you wouldn't go see a podiatrist for a toothache! >> no. what is amazing to me he is just reinforcing what the president already believes. that is the striking thing and that has become a pattern, that has become really clear, not only with dr. scott atlas but with some of the president's personal own doctors. dr. scott al lass might be a very smart guy but what he is doing right now is reinforcing these beliefs. he tweets out masks no. that tweet has to be taken down. he advocates for herd communities everybody in the health community thinks is a terrible and disastrous and deadly idea. it's not guidance. it's just reinforcement. >> dr. sanjay gupta, thanks. dozens of people in the uk will be affected with kaylee hartung kaylee hartung and why? they are volunteers and part of the world's first human challenge try for covid. researchers hope the trial will accelerate the development of vaccines that could end the pandemic. phil is in london with the details. how does this trial work and who are these volunteers? >> reporter: jake, here at london's world free hospital is the uk's only free bioobtainment facility the only site in the country deemed suitable for hosting these human trials. it is theory that young, healthy volunteers age 18 to 30, some just came to help, others very likely came for some extra money will receive candidate vaccines and then later be locked in and deliberately dosed with the coronavirus. efficacy of the vaccines can be tested then. the idea is this will be an efficient tool for helping to quickly identify the most promising vaccine that are being developed around the world. there are critics who say because these challenge trials must rely on young healthy volunteers, the data does not represent those who are most at risk from the serious consequences of covid-19. those who most desperately need protection from an effecti-- th no proven guaranteed cure for covid-19. >> what an incredibly al truistic thing to volunteer for. democrats say they want a stimulus deal the sticking points of holding up an agreement is next. now is the time for a new bath from bath fitter. every bath fitter bath is installed quickly, safely, and beautifully, with a lifetime warranty. go from old to new. from worn to wow. the beautiful bath you've always wanted, done right, installed by one expert technician, all in one day. we've been creating moments like these for 35 years, and we're here to help you get started. book your free virtual or in-home design consultation today. at visionworks, and we want you to see yourself in your new glasses and think, "ooh!" but if you get home and your "ooh" is more of a "hmm..." you have 100 days to change your mind. that's the visionworks difference. visionworks. see the difference. such as high blood pressure,ve pdiabetes, and asthma.s this administration and senate republicans want to overturn laws requiring insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. they're rushing a lifetime appointment to the supreme court to change the law through the courts. 70% of americans want to keep protections for pre-existing conditions in place. tell our leaders in washingtn to stop playing games with our healthcare. when why are we alwaysiful hair, shown the same thing? where's my bounce? my glamour? my fire? all hair is beautiful. these dove shampoo and conditioners are custom formulated for different hair types. find the right dove care for your hair. when disaster strikes to one, we all get together and support each other. that's the nature of humanity. ♪ it has encouraged other people to take the time for each other. ♪ ♪ house speaker nancy pelosi is projecting optimism saying that by the end of today, quote, hopefully, democrats and the trump administration will have an agreement for another coronavirus relief package. the clock started on sunday when she had they had just 48 hours to reach an agreement if they wanted a bill passed by election day. now she is downplaying, however, her own deadline. >> let me just say it isn't that this day was a day that we would have a deal. it was a day where we would have our terms on the table to be able to go the next step. and, again, but legislation takes a long time. >> here to discuss the senate minority whip dick durbin. thank you for joining us. you're on the senate appropriations committee. do you know what pelosi and mnuchin have agreed to so far? do you think a deal is going to happen? >> no. no update has been given to us. but it was encouraging for the speaker to say that finally the actual terms are on the table. jake, we face a serious epidemic and it may get worse. we face a serious state of our economy and many people are suffering. we need a serious bipartisan bill and at some point senator mcconnell, the republican leader in the senate, has to get off the sidelines and actually sit down at the table with democrats. it's not just a radical idea. >> mcconnell said he would put any deal reached by pelosi and mnuchin, he would put it on the senate floor, though he would not say that whether or not he is comfortable with price tag of around $2 trillion. we know he isn't. do you think if mnuchin and pelosi arrived at a compromise and the democrats in the house passed it and then it was on the senate floor, do you think it would pass? would there be enough votes for it? >> well, we have 47 democrats. it usually takes 60 votes to do something significant. so we need 13 republicans for that to happen. 20 of the 53 republicans have said they are not going vote for a penny and they don't want to do anything to stimulate the economy or deal with the coronavirus we are facing. so it remains to be seen whether enough votes even if all of the democrats support it. >> president trump continues to claim that he wants a bigger stimulus package than even pelosi is proposing. if republicans won't agree to $2 thi trillion how would more get passed? i don't understand when he says he wants a bigger package and mcconnell doesn't want more than 500 billion. >> you have mcconnell saying he is a budget hawk and doesn't have the votes. you have the president saying the democrats are low balling it, we need a much bigger number. i don't know who is in charge over there. it seems like this is real confusion. >> you're also on the senate judiciary committee poised to vote on the nomination of judge amy coney barrett to the supreme court. dianne feinstein the ranking democrat on the committee, they didn't think she was strong enough against barrett's nomination and she praised senator lindsey graham, the chairman of the committee, how he handle the hearings. chuck schumer, senate minority leader said he had a long talk with feinstein. what was that talk about and what do you think? should feinstein be replaced? >> let me get down to the bottom line here. we have a job to do. the republicans are rushing through the supreme court nomination of amy coney barrett and want to get it done before november 3rd because on november 10th, the future affordable care act will be decided. they want their judge on the court to eliminate the affordable care act. i'm not privy to the conversation between senator schumer and senator feinstein. all i can tell you we have work to do this week to let the american people know what is at stake with this nomination. >> do you think she didn't do a good enough job? >> well, i think the ending was not clear. we had made it clear throughout the entire hearing that this was the wrong thing to do, the wrong time to do it and the wrong person with this moment in history. we are in the midst of a pandemic. idea of putting someone on the court who will eliminate health insurance for 23 million americans and really lessen the coverage that the rest of us enjoy in our health insurance, it's exactly the wrong time. that point was made clearly despite the last few minutes of videotaped of that video hearing. >> sounds like you took issue of her praising of graham and giving him a hug. but beyond that, do you think that she did not lead an effective enough charge against barrett as the presiding democrat in the hearing? >> i thought her opening statement questions were good throughout. i sat next to her throughout the hearing. i stayed in the hearing during the entire four days. i think the democrats really presented a powerful case. the shout at the end may have been misleading as to what the rest of the committee felt about this. but we are determined to handle this responsibly. it's a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land. health insurance for millions of americans are at stake. the stakes just couldn't be higher. >> if barrett is confirmed as it looks like will happen and democrats win back the senate, we don't know if that is going to happen or not, but hypothetically, if that were to happen, would you vote to add to the number of justices on the supreme court? >> i haven't made up my mind on that issue. it's a serious one. very serious. i think the american people want balance on our federal courts and for the last three and a half years, they have watched senator mcconnell load these courts up with right wing ideologues. we need real balance if we want real justice. >> senator dick durbin, become of illinois, thank you for your time. >> thank you. more than 32 million ballots in before election day in two weeks. expect election results in 14 days. how long will america need to wait? that is next. who's supporting prop 15? joe biden. biden says, "every kid deserves a quality education and every family deserves to live in a safe, healthy community. that's why i support prop. 15." vote yes. schools and communities first is responsible for the contents of this ad. who'sgovernor gavin newsom. the governor says prop 15 is, "fair, phased-in, and long overdue reform", that "will exempt small businesses and residential property owners." join governor newsom. vote yes on 15. certainly president trump has made four visits the last two weeks. who hat advantage? any advantage to pull out a win? cnn resident forecaster joins me live. harry, take a closer look at florida in a minute. give us a reality check right now. what does the road to 270 electoral votes look like? >> if you look at the cnn ratings what you see is former vice president joe biden holds an advantage. 290 to trump's 163 with a bunch of battleground states we haven't allocated such as florida. at this point what i would say biden hat advantage let's see where we are in two weeks. >> let's dive into florida now. who has the advantage there? that is trump's new home state. he changed his residence from new york to florida. how are the crucial voting blocks in that state leaning? >> if you look at the polls it's a pretty tight race at this particular point. you look at the crucial groups, right? if think about florida you think about two groups. senior citizens and hispanic voters. what you see right now among those groups compared to 2016 is that joe biden is doing better among those voters senior citizens. he is tied in the polls right now. trump was leading among that group by nine points in the final 2016 polls but joe biden is doing worse among hispanic voter and his lead is 14 points to hillary clinton lead in the 2016 points when it was 21 points so sort of, say, offsetting each other. key thing about florida and why it's so important. the election results since 1928, the state of florida has voted with the winner all but twice. in 1960 and 1992 so if you win florida you probably win the white house. >> can ireither candidate win practically speaking without florida? >> i think it's more for joe biden to win without florida. if he wins the upper midwest states michigan, wisconsin, and pennsylvania and add those to the clinton states he gets 278 electoral votes. i can paint many other maps. for president trump it's more difficult but possible. even if he were to lose florida but then say win all of the other states he won -- >> a clear lead in pennsylvania at this point if you look at the average of polls, right? he is over 50%. if you dig deep and look at the difference between those who say they are voting absentee ballot they overwhelming joe biden by those on election day favor trump more than 20 points. the more absentee are counted the better for biden. >> a good heads-up for people. if president trump comes out on election night and says, look. we won pennsylvania based on election day voting alone, that is not the whole picture and that misleading and no network should announce that that is based in reality at all. those absentee ballots, vote by mail very significant. harry, thank you so much. appreciate it. in our making it count series, long lines starting early this morning in wisconsin as that critical swing state kicks offity first day of in-person voting. election is two weeks from today. early voter turnout is smashing records. more than 32 million ballots have been cast nationwide. abby phillip reports for us legal battles in some battleground states are far from over. >> vote in wisconsin. >> if you don't come and do it, you don't have a right to complain. come and voice your opinion. that's what america is about. >> reporter: huge lines, snaking around entire buildings or down city blocks becoming a familiar sight all over the country. many voters even lining up before sunrise, rain or shine. pending legal challenges in several states including some battleground states are far from over. >> it's one of the most important elections obviously. there is so much writing on the line. >> reporter: in pennsylvania the supreme court ruling on monday the state can count mail-in ballots if therm sent in by election day and received crazy. >> reporter: cannot begin until election day. which combined with the court ruling allowing ballots to be received three days after election day means we may not know the results of the presidential race for several days after november 3rd. >> you won't have the precise number certainly for a few days. but i think you're going to have a real good sense of where things are going. >> reporter: in north carolina the state elections board extending the deadline to accept mail-in ballots postmarked by election day through november 12th. more than a week after the election. but the legal battle is still ongoing. as of this morning, in north carolina, 1.9 million ballots have been cast. that represents 25% of the state's registered voters and in florida voters are turning out on drove on the first day of early in-person voting. 336,000 floridians cast votes on monday and this morning florida shy of 3 million ballots cast. four years ago, they had 1.6 million cast a lot of voters are telling us they are concerned about the mail system. check out michigan. today we learned michigan has already received 3 million requests for mail-in ballots. half of those have already been received two weeks before election day. by comparison, in all of 2016, the presidential lex 4.8 million in that state voted. the governor saying they are on track to have more people vote than any other time in history. >> that is great. the attack lines president trump seems to be warming up for thursday's debate is next. stay with us. to severe psoriasis, little things can become your big moment. that's why there's otezla. otezla is not a cream. it's a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable. don't use if you're allergic to otezla. it may cause severe diarrhea, nausea or vomiting. otezla is associated with an increased risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have a history of depression or suicidal thoughts or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. upper respiratory tract infection and headache may occur. tell your doctor about your medicines, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. otezla. show more of you. inflammation in your eye might be to blame.ck, and if you're pregnant or planning to be. looks like a great day for achy, burning eyes over-the-counter eye drops typically work by lubricating your eyes and may provide temporary relief. ha! these drops probably won't touch me. xiidra works differently, targeting inflammation that can cause dry eye disease. what is that? 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[all] yes on measure rr. we are back with some breaking news in our 2020 lead. multiple sources telling cnn now that president trump abruptly ended a solo interview with cbs "60 minutes" today and the president did not return to the room for a joint interview with vice president mike pence. president trump sat down with leslie stahl before getting up and saying they had enough material. let's start with our team. we don't know what prompted the president's exit but he is now on twitter seemly attacking leslie stahl for not wearing a mask or something. obviously this is the same president who reluctant to wear a mask and undermining the cause of wearing a mask. i don't know that there is any strategy to this. it just seems kind of like unhinged behavior but what is your take? >> we know president trump when he feels under attack tends to lash out to the person nearest to him. we are less than two weeks out from the election, the administration is feeling pressure given that according to all polls, he is trailing biden right now. so as those around him and as his advisers try to get him to focus on issues that they think would help him with voters we have seen a president over the last few days attack infectious disease expert fauci repeatedly and also now attacking leslie stahl for reasons that we aren't quite sure about just yet. >> i'm trying to figure out, sabrina, what the message is, president's closing argument. it seems to be from him and his campaign something along the lines we should make fun of people who have stutters and we should slime democrats with unfounded allegations, leslie stahl is bad and dr. fauci is bad. i'm not sure this is a winning argument. >> i'm not even sure it's an argument. there doesn't appear to be a clear and coherent strategy and that is something that redefined president trump's re-election campaign ever since the coronavirus pandemic took hold and has really defined the contours of the race. he is lashing out, as laura said, and i think you have seen the president increasingly frustrated as polls show is an uphill climb for him to earn a second term in the white house. so certainly going into this second and final presidential debate, it's not clear what kind of message he will bring and what is the last high profile opportunity to make the case to the american public. so instead what he is doing once again as we have seen him do time and again is cast out on the integrity of the election so more confusion around public health guidelines, all of which is to try to shirk responsibility for his handling of the coronavirus pandemic but none of that really comports with the reality of most americans at home. you have those numbers up every day, more than 8 million cases across the united states, death toll that has now surpassed 220,000. so in the final stretch, i think more americans want to hear what perhaps he would do differently or why they should give him a second chance. >> tens of millions of americans have already voted. laura, we are two days away from the final debate. after the last debate governor chris christie who helped trump prepare, admitted that trump was too hot. he, today, said that president trump might change his strategy this time around. what would you advise president trump to do at this debate and do you think it could have any -- could make a difference? >> i think it's really difficult to imagine what president trump would do at this debate, but based on my conversations with voters, whether it's undecided voters and we know there are very few of those undecided voters still left, but they are looking for some kind of clear message from him, whether it's about the economy, whether it's about health care, some undecided female voters that i've spoken to recently said they have no clue what the president's health care plan is and again that is a theme across his four years, which is just talking about repealing the affordable care act but not providing a replacement for it. you know? in order to reach and even win back some of the potential voters moving away from him and college educated white men and women who were more for him in 2016 and now have moved away from him, i'm not sure that he can win them back but you would assume that he would need to focus more on issues that they care about and, right now that is coronavirus and right now, that is the economy and that is jobs based on all of the polling. but, again, we are hearing that at this debate, trump may very well focus on hunter boyden, joe biden's son and the potential disinformation that is fill at any rating about hunter biden, as well as attacking fauci. that could be something he repeats in the debate. >> thank you both. i appreciate it. the united states has lost more than 220,000 lives to the coronavirus. the highest number according to official numbers in the world. we would like to take this moment to remember just one of those lives lost. david benfield was 60. he died of respiratory and heart failure after a month-long battle with covid. his family remembers him as a caring man with values that reflected his small town of clarkesville, georgia. he was an active grandfather to his two grandsons. whenever they visited, he would cook breakfast with them and teaching them to make bonfires in the evening. he was a loyal worker willing to help anyone in his small community. his only daughter says she misses the times in their lives. our coverage on cnn continues right now. i will see you tomorrow. ♪ >> announcer: this is cnn breaking news. welcome to our viewers here in the united states and around the world. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." we are following breaking news. coronavirus death toll in the united states nearing 221,000 people with more than 2.8 million confirmed cases as the second wave of the pandemic washes across the united states. also breaking. president trump heading to the key battleground state of pennsylvania as he and joe biden battle to secure a path to 270 electoral votes that is needed

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