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With Nine Days Left, Three Pence Aides Test Positive For COVID- 19; Trump, Biden Campaign In Key States Over The Weekend; COVID-19 Cases Soaring In U.S. With No End In Sight; Trump, Biden Begin Making Their Final Pitch To Voters; COVID-19 Cases Rising Again In The Northeast; Interview With Filmmaker Ken Burns. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired October 25, 2020 - 08:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[08:00:59]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST (voice-over): The fall coronavirus surge shatters records.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have grossly mishandled the pandemic. We could have avoided this by doing the right thing.

KING: Plus, the final campaign sprint, advantage Biden.

JOE BIDEN (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The president still doesn't have a plan. He's quit on you. He's quit on America.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: This election is a choice between a Trump super boom and a Biden lockdown.

KING: And the pandemic election X-factor: early voting is off the charts.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: If you're not going to vote, don't complain for the next four years.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We wanted to make sure we did this in person. We didn't trust the postal system with this.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: And welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King in Washington.

To our viewers in the United States and around the world, thank you for sharing your Sunday.

Election Day is a week from Tuesday. And two new records remind us this is a campaign like no other. The daily high for new coronavirus infections was shattered Friday and yesterday came in a close second -- 80,000 plus new infections a day is suddenly our new normal.

And then at least three of the new cases close advisers to Mike Pence is another stunning reminder this is the pandemic election. The second record is a COVID spinoff. Early in mail-in voting numbers

are simply eye-popping. More than 57 million ballots already cast. That's a reflection of both high voter intensity about the stakes and high voter anxiety about safety.

Nine days out, that safety question now front and center, extending to the candidates. The vice president plans to keep a busy travel schedule despite close contact with several aides who tested COVID positive in recent days. The White House says Pence is an essential work and because of that, the White House says it is excusing him from CDC guidelines recommending he quarantine for 14 days.

"The Washington Post" reports today the White House chief of staff wanted to keep all of this secret. The Trump/Pence ticket is trailing, the soaring COVID case count is a most inconvenient truth. The president's early promise the virus will disappear in April ignored the science and ignored the experts, as do both the vice president's plans to keep campaigning and the boss's effort to brush off this third and steepest coronavirus surge.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Do you know why we have cases? Because we test to much, and in many ways it's good, and in many ways it's foolish. In many ways, it's very foolish.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin were the president's stops yesterday, Saturday. All three set new COVID case records this past week, all three were Trump red in 2016 but all three are in play for Joe Biden in 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: They're saying what's going on in Florida? They're saying what's going on in North Carolina? It's looking great. Looking fantastic, right?

And a place called Wisconsin. You ever hear of Wisconsin? Up. Way up.

BIDEN: We have ten days left. And it may come down to Pennsylvania. And I believe in you. I believe in my state. The choice has never been clear and the stakes have never been higher.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Democrat Biden has better polls, more campaign cash and more paths to victory. His two stops in Pennsylvania yesterday were proof of the crucial importance and proof Biden feels the need to clean up a final debate answer that left the clear impression fracking and fossil fuels would lose if he wins.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: By the way, let me get something straight here in coal country. I will not ban fracking, period. I'll protect Pennsylvania jobs, period. No matter how many times Donald Trump says it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Biden's events are socially distanced. A deliberate pandemic contrast to the president's crowded rallies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I wish I could go car to car and meet you all. I don't like the idea of all this distance, but it's necessary. I appreciate you being safe. What we don't want to do is become super spreaders, but thank you so much.

[08:05:05]

I wish I could see all of you back there, but thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: With us this Sunday to share the reporting and insights, "TIME's" Molly Ball, Toluse Olorunnipa of "The Washington Post", and CNN's Jeff Zeleny.

Toluse, I want to start with you. This is a breaking story at the White House now. A new cluster of cases, an outbreak of cases, this one around at the vice president of the United States. Your newspaper is reporting the White House chief of staff wanted to keep this secret.

Number two, the vice president plans to go on the road to keep campaigning even though if it were anybody on the screen and anybody watching at home the CDC would say quarantine for 14 days. They're saying he's an essential worker, therefore, this is okay.

TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah, this is an absolutely stunning development, another October surprise. At the beginning of October we had the outbreak surrounding President Trump and the fact that he contracted the virus and several other people within the White House and within his orbit got sick and now the vice president's closest aides have contracted the virus.

People who have spent a lot of time in close contact with the vice president, and he's continuing to campaign. This is the head of the White House coronavirus task force, openly flouting some of the guidelines and recommendations from the CDC which essentially say that if you are in close contact with someone, at least out of abundance of caution, even if you test negative, you should not be traveling or spending a lot of time around other people.

Obviously we're in the final days of a presidential campaign, so you might expect the vice president to try to figure out how he can continue to campaign. In terms of sending the best message during record cases and we have so many Americans who are not following the guidelines the CDC is putting out. The fact is vice president is openly flouting some of the

recommendations is not a good message to send to people trying to get this virus under control. So I do think this is going to be a very problematic set of days for the vice president in which he's openly campaigning, traveling around the country, meeting with other people when he may be at risk of spreading the virus.

So, this is something we'll be watching very closely, but not a sign, not a positive October surprise for the Trump campaign. Another negative one.

KING: And, Molly Ball, do you, as I do, I want to apologize, it's "the New York Times" reporting that Mark Meadows apparently tried to keep this a secret. One the Pence aides tested positive several days ago, at least two others over the weekend. Mr. Meadows will be here later with Jake Tapper on "STATE OF THE UNION": So, he has some questions to answer her about.

But, Molly, I want you to listen to the president on the campaign trail because he presumably is briefed on all this, he knows the case count is going up, he knows the country, especially a lot of Trump states, the Midwest and Mountain Plains especially being hit hard right now.

But, listen to how dismissive he is of the virus that defines the country's crisis right now and this election.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We're rounding the turn. We're doing great. Our numbers are incredible. That's all I hear about now.

You turn on the television COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. A plane goes down, 500 people dead, they don't talk about it.

COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID. By the way, on November 4th, you won't hear about it anymore. It's true.

COVID! COVID!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: He's wrong. We'll be talking about this quite some time because the numbers are going up, and this is with us for quite for quite sometime. But in terms of this campaign moment, Molly Ball, does he think the American people don't know what's happening in their own communities and their own lives?

MOLLY BALL, NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, TIME MAGAZINE: Well, look, for the entire time he's within president, Donald Trump has been selling an alternate version of reality that only works if you sort of suspend disbelief, right?

So I've been to some of these Trump events in the last several weeks. It's really fun to be in a situation where people can be together and pretend nothing is wrong. It just isn't true. And when you have news like what's happened in the vice president's

office, it's yet another reminder that the virus does not care how you feel about it or let you take it seriously. It's there no matter what and it's a reality for so many Americans whether it's the way we've changed our live and the way we go about our functioning, or having actually been sick and having had having.

And with this latest surge in cases, more and more people are going to be feeling that reality and it becomes harder and harder for the president to make claims where he's saying what he said at the beginning, that this has just been ginned up by us as an attack on him personally. I think most people understand that's not actually how these things work.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Right. Most people are living it, either a spike in their community, their kids remote learning, they haven't been able to go back to work yet, masks everywhere you go, if you're being smart.

Jeff Zeleny, you're on the ground on the states that will decide this debate, the president was just in North Carolina yesterday. They voted for Obama in '08. The president is trying to change the subject. Newspapers around the country, he's trying to seize on the remark by Joe Biden which Joe Biden tried to clean up, taking issue with the fossil fuel industry. This is what the president wants to talk about in the final days.

Listen to him in North Carolina trying to get back away from COVID and back to an economic message.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:08]

TRUMP: For the last half a century, Joe Biden has been outsourcing your jobs, opening your borders, and sacrificing American blood and treasure in endless and ridiculous foreign wars. I fight for the middle class and Biden and his cronies serve only one class. They serve the donor class, believe it or not.

Joe is not what you need. I know -- I know what you need. I know what you need. You need Trump. You need Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The defining question, Jeff Zeleny, is the Trump campaign says we're doing all these rallies. We're on the road. The president feels momentum like he did in 2016. Sure, we're behind, but we're behind last time and we came back.

The defining question, he is the incumbent. Is anybody outside the Trump base, anybody not at a Trump rally going to listen and be persuaded in these final days or are they going to look around and say pandemic, pandemic, pandemic, what did you do about it? JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT: John, that is the

key question and the key challenge for the president. And the reality is he's not going outside the Trump base. Look at the travel schedule. In fact, the vice president as he plans to fly to North Carolina again today going to a county they won four years ago. Not surprising they are trying to, of course, ring some more votes out of every county in this state and other battle ground states.

But John, the president's right about one thing, COVID, COVID, COVID. That is on the news here in North Carolina. There's political adds and there's COVID news about deaths, about hospitalizations, about school closings, about business closings.

So, there's nothing that the president has been able to do to get beyond this, and as vice president, not helping matters because again, flying here to North Carolina with four of his aides testing positive. The reality going into the final stretch of this campaign, it is a base strategy for this president, no question about it. But North Carolina, Republicans here are anxious to say the least, John.

I've been here for about 24 hours or so. We'll be here a few more days talking to voters. They're anxious. This should not be a state where the president is fighting hard to win at the very end.

You said at the beginning president Obama won it in 2008, but it's largely a Republican state. There are all kinds of races here. A governor's race and a key Senate race, the presidential rate, local races.

And Republicans are anxious because of what the president is doing and talking about. So, the suburbs of Charlotte, of other bigger cities have left the president to a large degree because of coronavirus. So that's why they're trying to ring out these votes in the rural areas. But rural areas also being hit so hard by this virus. So we do know in the closing week of this campaign, there is no escaping covid-19.

KING: No escaping, Molly Ball, but this is also a contrast now that Biden has played up for some time and been mocked by the Trump people. They mocked the circles at socially distanced events. They say he should be campaigning more.

Senator Harris, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, came off the road for four days when two people close to her, an aide and person on the flight crew tested positive as a precaution. The Democrats say we're being responsible. And now you have this outbreak in the vice president's staff, their argument just watch the president, he got coronavirus. Look at that Coney Barrett event, that the president and his team are being reckless. It's reckless versus responsible in the coming days.

BALL: That's right. And I've seen some polling that when people are asked do you think that the president brought this on himself essentially with reckless behavior or is this just something that can happen to anybody, bad luck, a majority of the public believes the president was engaged in reckless behavior and that's at least part of the reason he caught the virus. It has been really interesting to see over the last several months the way the handling of the virus itself not just the policies, but the administration put in to place but the symbolism of virus precautions have become this political football. You see it all the way down the ballot.

You see local candidates, Senate candidates in different states attacking each other for going to events and not wearing masks, having political conventions. You see this dramatic divergence in the way two parties are handling it. It flows from the top of the ballot. But all the way down local Democrats being more cautious in a lot of cases not even deploying traditional field organizing operations, where Republican candidates have been much more aggressive about being in person, not wearing masks, again, taking their cues from the president.

So, to the extent that, you know, there is overwhelming public support for virus safety measures. The public by and large across partisan lines takes this virus seriously, so that's clearly the reason the candidates are sending the different messages with the Democrats trying to communicate to the public. Not only to remind them about the message of taking it seriously.

KING: Our reporters are going to stay with us. In a few moments, we'll take a look at the final week 2020 map.

Up next for us though, inside the coronavirus surge, cases up almost everywhere and the death trends beginning to turn higher too.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:19:29]

KING: Moments ago, you heard the president say the coronavirus numbers are incredible. They're beyond troubling this Sunday.

Let's take a look at the trend map, 50 states and 35 of them, 35 of the 50 states, that's the orange and the red, trending in the wrong direction. If they are red like you see Wisconsin, like you see Vermont, like you see Rhode Island, 50 percent more COVID infections now compared to last week, at least 50 percent more in the states red.

But look at the orange, that means more infections now, maybe 10 percent more. Maybe 20 percent more. More infections everywhere. It's everywhere.

Fifteen states holding steady, none of the states, zero states right now reporting fewer infections right now than a week ago.

[08:20:06]

If we turned a corner, as the president says, it's a turn for the worst. You see it here in the case curve.

Remember the peak of the summer surge, as horrific as that was, 80,000 cases a day, July 16th, 77,000, that was the peak of the surge. We passed it Friday and Saturday. And the experts say this line is going to keep going up because of the rate of infection across the country. There's where we're going right now, straight up into the fall surge.

And this tells you what you need to no know. Nearly half the states set records this week in the average for new COVID infections. Twenty- four states setting records in all the public health experts see in the weeks ahead it will get even worse.

Here, as you look at this map, this explains it to you. If you have a positivity rate, people getting coronavirus tests coming back positive, high positivity rate means you have more infected, which traces the likelihood of more cases tomorrow, 24 percent in Iowa, 20 percent in Kansas, 38 percent in South Dakota, 29 percent, 34 percent, just look across here, 18 percent in Nevada, 17 percent Utah, 25 percent here, 10 percent, 11 percent Pennsylvania, all across the country high positivity, which means more cases today, more challenges tomorrow.

Let's bring in our doctors to get their expertise. Dr. Ashish Jha is the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown University.

Dr. Jha, I want to go back to the case curve. When 35 states are trending in the wrong direction, two days in a row we've reported more than 80,000 new infections, where are we heading and let me begin with this part of it, in the middle of this, given the CDC guidelines with at least three cases around the vice president of the United States, should he be on the road or should he be in quarantine?

DR. ASHISH JHA, DEAN, BROWN UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: Yeah, good morning, John. Thank you for having me on.

Let's start with the vice president. He should be in quarantine, period. A negative test doesn't get you out of quarantine. And the quarantine is not a nice thing to do if you have the luxury to do it. It is essential to protect other people around him, so he doesn't become a vector for more cases.

So I think that is really not an area of debate, and no public health expert would say he should be on the road right now.

In terms of where we are as a country, we should dispel with one other myth about somehow this is about testing, for two reasons. Test positivity is going up. If it was just testing, we'd see test positivity going down.

But even more concerning, hospitalizations are up. And, finally, in the last week or so we're starting to see deaths really climb, always a late indicator. It means we have many weeks of infections built into the system. No way around it. We're going to have a hard few weeks if not a few months ahead.

KING: And so, Dr. Ranney, as we have this hard few weeks and months ahead, there's another debate about what to do. We can show you a study that shows the highest mass usage and the states with the lowest. This is not just a public health conversation. Those are the highest ones. Washington, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, New York, the highest rate of people wearing masks right now, and then you see the states, most of them out of the Midwest, and the Plains, a couple of Southern states, this has become somehow a political debate and not a public safety debate.

Listen to Dr. Fauci. Dr. Fauci says months into this he's reluctant to say so, but he thinks maybe we should consider a national mandate.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. ANTHONY FAUCI, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ALLERGY AND INFECTIOUS DISEASES: If everyone agrees this is something that's important, and they mandated it and everybody pulls together and say, you know, we're going to mandate it, but let's just do it, I think that would be a great idea to have everybody do it uniformly. If people are not wearing masks, then maybe we should be mandating it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Should we be?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, LIFESPAN/BROWN UNIVERSITY: Well, I wrote a piece going back two months saying we should have a national mask mandate. We know in public health that you need to combine policy with education.

The fact is a mandate serves as step one to tell people that wearing masks out in public is absolutely essential. You, of course, have to combine the mandate with education, with access to masks which as we've talked about is not always easy, but for the public you can buy the masks on Etsy or Amazon, and then with continued reinforcement of the importance of it.

Now, masks alone are not going to be enough to get us out of this, but predictions show that if we all wore masks, we could decrease the number of predicted deaths between now and the end of February by 120,000. We could save as many as 120,000 lives if we did have a mask mandate and we all wore masks when we were out in public.

KING: That number is critical. I hope listen to it at home, whatever their politics, because Dr. Jha, you mentioned this. Dr. Ranney, you say how we could prevent 100,000 deaths.

I just want to show where we are right now. Again, we had the peak -- the early peak when the novel coronavirus was new and doctors didn't know what they were dealing with. Back up in the summer surge.

[08:25:00]

The case count got higher but the deaths lower than the first peak. Now, the question is, where are we going, right? Nine hundred forty- three on Friday, starting to trend back up a little bit, with all those cases what we've been through the pain over the last few months has weighed a couple of weeks and a couple of weeks and this tends to go up.

The question is when you look at the IMHE, it says 1,700 deaths per day now to reach this number. They project 385,000 by February 1st. A mask wearing would stop this.

I guess my question, Dr. Jha, is number one, how can you prevent this from happening? And number two, are we learning if you look at this, is the treatment better so the deaths even if hospitalizations go up, even if cases go up, maybe the death rate will not climb as much as those projections suggest.

JHA: Yes. So I think treatments are better. My best estimate is that the average person getting infected today, may be 30 percent to 50 percent less likely to die than they were six months, where we were six months ago. That's progress.

And -- but that said, there are two other issues. Treatments are not perfect and we know that. 1,000 Americans are still dying every day. And second, if you get really sick, spend three weeks in the ICU and don't die, thank goodness, but that's a lot of sort of illness and severity and long-term complications people are going to be suffering through. The key policy here is we've got to prevent infections, not just look at the death rate as important as it is.

KING: Dr. Jha, thank so much. Dr. Ranney as well, Dr. Ranney will come back to us in a few months for another follow-up on some of the states who all went through this once, now going through the second time.

Up next for us, we map out the math to victory, meaning 270 electoral votes. This year, the path being shaped by record shattering early voting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Eighty percent against Trump, 20 percent for Joe Biden.

As a voter and as a black woman that there's a job I have to do in order to get a representative to will come close to protecting my people in office --

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The reason we're here supporting Trump is we believe that Trump will help us keep the money we make and let us be able to work as hard as we want and not give our money away.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:30:33]

KING: Here is where we stand heading into the final full week of campaigning. Joe Biden has a lopsided advantage. We have him at 290 electoral votes. Deep blue, solid Biden. Light blue, lean Biden. Deep red solid Trump. Light red lean Trump.

Joe Biden right now, if nothing changed in this map, is the next president of the United States. We will see what happens in the final week, follow the candidates and also follow the money. When you talk about the candidates, let's just look at some of the travel. The vice president is still adding some stuff (ph) but there's no question, the president is more active. Some people question whether he should be with all these rallies but you see the president retracing his 2016 map because at the moment he's losing in many of the states that propelled him to victory four years ago.

Joe Biden in Pennsylvania two stops yesterday. One thing to note, we also know since yesterday the former vice president will campaign in Georgia. That's a tossup state right now. It hasn't gone Democratic since way back in the Bill Clinton days. That would be a game over win if the Democrats could get Georgia. That's one thing the former vice president is trying to do with his travels.

The other thing is follow the money. If you look at battleground states spending right now, they're competing in largely the same states. The president spending money in Florida, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Arizona and George -- those are his top five. Again, on defense, those are all states he carried last time.

Joe Biden is trying to change the map. And in this final week, one advantage for the Democrats, it's not just the polls. It's money in the bank. Money in the bank.

Biden entered this final stretch with a lot more money in his campaign account than the president, $162 million to $44 million. And Democratic Committee's helping the Biden campaign, $331 million; $223 million for the Republican.

That money advantage allows Biden not only to advertise in all the states he's targeting to try to stretch the map. If you watch the World Series, you see this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BRAD PITT, ACTOR: America is a place for everyone. Those who chose this country. Those who fought for it. Some Republicans. Some Democrats. And most just somewhere between.

All looking for the same thing -- someone who understands their hopes, their dreams, they pain, to listen.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: Jeff Zeleny, that financial advantage is a big asset for the Democratic campaign in the sense that we all lived through 2016. Everybody is reluctant to say wow, look at those numbers. Wow, look at that advantage. But it is a huge advantage and if Joe Biden can try to stretch the map at a time when Donald Trump's menu, if you will, to get to 270 has a lot fewer options.

JEFF ZELENY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: John, there's no question about and through those the World Series ads, Joe Biden and the Biden campaign are trying to really reach over to some of those voters in the middle who may be a little bit anxious about the Democratic Party but know they do not like the president and his conduct necessarily.

But in terms of the path, it is still Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are places that if Joe Biden wins those, it could be game over. Of course, they're also adding Arizona. They feel very good, I'm told, about Arizona.

And like you said going to Georgia at the final week of this campaign. That tells you really everything you need to know. But here in North Carolina, these 15 electoral votes, if Joe Biden would win here, that also blocks Donald Trump's path to reelection.

So, so many places. Florida also, of course, very important. So Joe Biden has a variety of routes to getting to 270. Donald Trump has a very narrow route -- that's the 2016 route. It is still open to him, but everything has to go perfectly.

And in this year, John, that's something that is a big, big question.

KING: And Molly, you're right about this. You know, we're all a little bit haunted by 2016. And you write about this in a fantastic piece in Time. "Donald Trump's Last Stand".

"Everything has gone screwy and anything could happen. This is the biggest difference from 2016. Though all the data seem to point to a Trump loss, the pundits who were so certain four years ago now have a haunted air. To count Trump out is to tempt fate."

That's true. We need to be careful because we lived last year. But Democrats look at the map differently.

This is Sherrod Brown, the Democratic senator from Ohio in Politico yesterday. "This culture of corruption coupled with Trump's betrayal of workers says we win Ohio. Win Ohio, we certainly win Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, right? Ohio with those three is close to electoral college landslide, and it will feel that way."

KING: Democrats -- some Democrats are starting to say it openly, even though they have -- they're haunted by 2016 as well.

BALL: That's right. You are starting to hear a little bit of confidence, although it's funny how superstitious the Democrats seem to be about this election.

[08:34:55]

BALL: You know, you have even people who are close to the Biden team saying they should be happier right now. Why aren't they happier with all the advantages that they have? But you know.

And there's a conflicting strategic imperative, too. Because after 2016 there was, of course, a lot of criticism of the Clinton campaign and how it had been handled. And one of the criticisms was don't get too ambitious. Don't waste time, you know, going to Arizona and Georgia and these weak (ph) states when you need to be concentrating on those core states -- the Michigans, Wisconsins and Pennsylvanias. The feeling among some Democrats was that the Clinton campaign had

taken those for granted too much and should have been more focused on the core states needed to win, not trying to step -- to stretch the map and spread yourself too thin.

But with the financial advantages that the Biden campaign has, they really can do everything they want. They're not going to (AUDIO GAP) everywhere at once. But they can advertise in all of those states and still have some left over.

And it's a good problem to have. But in some ways it's hard just to spend that much money.

KING: It is hard to spend that much money in the last week. But one of the questions, Toluse, is can they execute? You can have all the money in the world if you don't spend it wisely. And I say that in the context of early voting.

If you look at the early voting numbers, they are mind blowing. The question is, are Democrat using their resources, their data operation, their outreach. You see 57 million plus ballots already cast.

If you look at Florida, lopsided returns by people who identify themselves as Democrats, although Republicans have narrowed those numbers a bit in recent days.

If you look at North Carolina, again, lopsided returns. Ballots returned by Democrats. That doesn't guarantee that all those Democrats voted for Biden or that all those Republicans voted for Trump.

But if you look at the polls, you know, they're included to do so. One of the questions is are you getting the right people to turn out. People who might have two jobs, people who have unpredictable hours, senior citizens whose polling place might not be in their nursing home anymore because of the pandemic. People who might have a problem if they have to turn out on election day, which is one of the reasons the Democrats have not only Biden on the trail but Barack Obama. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: You'll be able to go back to life knowing that the president is not going to suggest injecting bleach or retweet conspiracy theories about secret cabals running the world.

We want to have a president who threatens people with jail for just criticizing him? That's not normal behavior, Florida. You wouldn't tolerate it into from a co-worker. You wouldn't tolerate it from a high school principal. You wouldn't tolerate it from a coach. You wouldn't tolerate it from a family member.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We'll count them in 10 days. My question is do we see the evidence the Democrats not only have this advantage but they're using the surrogates, the money, the data operation to execute given the golden opportunity they have before them?

OLORUNNIPA: Yes. It is definitely a golden opportunity in part because they have been able to bank a large number of votes and by, you know, what we expect from the polls. They have been able to bank a lead at this point.

Now the question is whether or not they can target the people who have not voted yet. Some of them lower propensity voters and get them to the polls between now and election day.

They're trying a lot of different strategies. They're trying to get surrogates out there like former president Barack Obama. Trying to target specific places, parts of Florida and central Florida.

I understand Obama will be going back to Florida there week. They are trying to target some of the people who they believe have not voted yet because they know that President Trump is telling his voters to vote on election day.

And they do expect a large surge of Republican voters and Trump base voters to turn out on November 3rd. And they're going to be able -- they're going to need to be able to withstand that by building up a big lead and also competing on election day and they're trying to do that with a number of different targeting and data plans, but it's not clear yet whether or not that will be successful.

KING: Fascinating final week ahead. And then we'll count. but we'll watch this week play out.

Grateful to all three of you -- Toluse, Molly, Jeff Zeleny -- for coming in on this very important Sunday morning.

Up next to us. Back to the coronavirus, the fall surge is everywhere. Testing the patients and the plans of states that had flattened the curves after that first painful wave.

[08:38:57]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: For states that were punished in the first coronavirus surge back in the spring, this fall spike is a most unwelcome sequel.

Let's take a peek. Remember, we saw the northeast, New York and up to New England hit early. The case count going back up again. Nowhere near where we were in March and April but starting to trend back up again.

Let's use Rhode Island as an example. You see here way back in April they were up here at the line here -- more than 400 cases a day. Some days about 600 cases. 524 cases on Friday. So that's the challenge. How do you keep this from becoming that again?

One more point as I want to bring back Dr. Ranney. First I just want to look at hospitalizations. Back in May, you had 1,300. More than 1 300 Rhode Islanders in the hospital at some time. Now 140 as Friday. Dr. Megan Ranney is still with us. She's an emergency room physician and researcher at Brown University.

Dr. Ranney, you were in the emergency room yesterday. What do you need to do or do you see signs that what you have now, how do you keep it just a problem and not go back to the crisis?

DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY ROOM PHYSICIAN: Yes. In ERs and hospitals across the northeast right now, John, it feels like we're back in mid April. We feel the numbers going up. We're seeing more sick patients.

What we are imploring people is to stay home, to follow those basic public health measures, to wear a mask, to not go out in public.

We are worried about what is coming in two weeks and four weeks because we know that right now we're at the tip of the iceberg.

KING: Tip of the iceberg. And what is it like in the emergency room right now?

DR. RANNEY: You know, it feels a little bit like it was back in mid- April. We're seeing increasing numbers of really sick patients coming in.

It feels kind of like deja vu. We've been through this movie before. We thought it was done. We anticipated it was probably going to be a bad second surge, but man, we didn't want it here this quickly. And we are so worried for our communities and for our colleagues for how we're going to make it through the fall if it's this bad already.

KING: Dr. Ranney, grateful for your time this Sunday. Best of luck in the days ahead, of course.

Up next for us, the acclaimed film maker Ken Burns joins us.

Landslides are hard to come by in this day of polarized politics but Burns sees the possibility in the 2020 poll numbers and in our history.

[08:44:09]

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KING: Most of you know I love maps, especially at election time. This is where a week from Tuesday we will count the 2020 votes and we will watch whether states turn, as they did in 2016, red or blue.

This technology is relatively new. What it helps us keep track of? Anything but.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KEN BURNS, FILMMAKER: Today it can seem as though we're locked into a binary grid. Red states will always be red. Blue states will always be blue. And there are just a few swing states that make a difference.

It can make people feel like their vote doesn't matter. That nothing will ever change.

But history tells us these things do change. These maps represent a story about an American people who cannot be defined by something as simple as a color or a label. We are continually evolving.

And often moments of crisis create opportunity, not just for leaders to transcend party lines, but also for the American people to reevaluate what they really want and who they want to serve them.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:50:03]

KING: UNUM is a digital platform of the acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns. We are grateful. Ken Burns joins us now.

Ken, grateful for your time, as we get so close to this election.

The point you're making at the end there that big changes, tectonic changes in American politics often happen at a time of crisis. I want to go back to a little more before we talk. A little bit more from this remarkable short film you put together.

Let's go back Herbert Hoover versus FDR.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BURNS: The Grand Old Party had dominated the American political landscape throughout the 1920s. In 1928, Republican Herbert Hoover won the general election -- 444 electoral votes to Democrat Al Smith's 87. In 1932 Americans voted overwhelmingly to oust Hoover and elect New York state governor, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For many, the election was a referendum on the misery they experienced in The Depression. The shift in the electoral map represented an American people who were reevaluating the role of government in their lives.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: The end there. Re-evaluating the role of government in their lives. Ken Burns, do you see a similar moment here? We are in this polarized age. People think big landslides, big win, big statements from the American people can't happen anymore when we are locked into a map that looks more like this.

Do you see in this pandemic and the economic fallout a moment like that?

BURNS: Of course. Because I think Americans are always willing to shed those labels, those party descriptions in favor of what seems like better leadership and because we have a pandemic that is out of control, it suggests that you have the possibility maybe not for some seismic or tectonic shifts but certainly enough to move the needle one way or the other. This is a conversation about those maps that you love and how they have changed. The -- Herbert Hoover in '28 won with African-American support. That is who supported the Republican Party, African- Americans. The party of Lincoln.

And the same was in '32. But by '36 those same African-Americans had begun to understand that the Republican Party seemed more interested in business and less interested in their daily lives than this Democratic Party which was, itself, a strange amalgam of the solid south and labor in the big cities and some farmers.

And so what Roosevelt put together is a brand-new coalition that dominated for decades and decades but it itself gets flipped and rearranged as crises appear before ourselves.

And we have seen in '64, we have seen in 1980 huge seismic shifts in the American tendency, looking for leadership that transcends any kind of party label.

KING: So let's look at some of this a little bit. And I want to pull some things out on my map. I like your maps in the piece by the way. I just want to point that out. Maps are great and I think we can learn from them.

So this is -- this is what you were just talking about. This is what you were just talking about.

African-Americans voters. The party of Lincoln, the president brought it up in the debate the other night, I don't want to go there. He thinks he's been the best for black America since Lincoln.

We can go back in time here and you're right. African-Americans were with the GOP and then you see. Franklin Roosevelt didn't get them in 1932 but he did in 1936 and blacks have stayed as part of the American Democratic Party and you see, wow, it's a huge giant split now which is a great asset for the Democratic Party, a piece of the foundation.

When we look for demographic shifts now, they tend to be smaller and within the margin. Here's one I'm putting up on the screen - voters who have a college degree.

If you go back to 1992 a generation ago, this was a Republican constituency, but not by a lot. By a majority but not by a lot. And then you see the trend, this is now a Democratic constituency.

Now is it more complicated now? You have to do the pieces. The Democrats have an advantage now in the suburbs. College educated voters. They have the African-Americans and Latinos, younger voters moving that way. Is it more smaller pieces of the puzzle now to put together a big win?

BURNS: I think it is to put together a big win. But you are describing all of the forces that will contribute to it. I think particularly the demographic changes skewing younger, skewing immigrant that are beginning to threaten things. But it's interesting that the blue-collar workers that used to be a

part of the Democratic Party have shifted over, not always college educated. And the Republican Party seemed to be the party of mostly, as you suggest, college educated. That has moved to the Democratic Party.

And so you're getting constant rearrangements of the constellations, if you will, than make up the bloc that's going to vote for the party.

And then there are the intangibles of what is happening on the ground now. What I need? Is it health care? Is it a pandemic? Is it this, is it jobs? is it economy? And when you got a perfect storm right now, those questions you're answering resoundingly.

KING: And we will try to answer them. We'll get the answers from the American people in ten days to go. It may take a little bit to count them.

[08:54:54]

KING: I just want to go back to another point you make. If you look at this as we play it out, it's been a long time since we have had big landslides in American presidential politics.

This is 1964. This was Lyndon Johnson. There's a whole lot of blue there.

This is Ronald Reagan in 1980 and he did it again in 1984, even more so in 1984. But 1980 when Ronald Reagan he swept into power, wow.

If you look at our maps more recently though, we can go back to Barack Obama -- we're going to roll it back here a little bit -- you go back to Barack Obama in 2008, in our day and age this was a huge win, right. This is a huge win.

BURNS: Huge.

KING: Obama wins 28 states. Flips Colorado. Flips Indiana. Flips North Carolina -- traditionally long Republican states. We thought this was enormous but it's 53 to 46.

Donald Trump eight years later wins 30 states but loses the popular vote. Where are we in America. Can you have a big win? Do you need a big win to break us out of this polarization?

BURNS: I think you do. We are in a particularly, as you know, as everyone knows, a divided period. It's not always been that way and it will not always be that way. Sometimes we need these benchmark elections to sort of shift the tide.

When you see what happens, it's extraordinarily important. Remember, we also have lots of other factors that bear on this map like what the voting laws are, the limited registrations, throwing out of ballots and voter suppression. All of these things keep in check what could be a significant majority on one party or the other. And then you've got these historical ties that I'm most interested in. The party of Lincoln loses the African-American vote and it basically swaps it out for the southern vote that was opposed to what the Republican Party was going to do.

So by beginning in '64 but, obviously, in the quote "southern strategy" put into effect in '68 and carried through, it's a complete reversal of what the map looked like at one time or another. And you begin to see that voters are restless, voters are looking for someplace where someone hears their voice.

And whether it's feeling that you're not going to put up with being a flyover state any more or you really need somebody to address this specific problem. Whatever it is, voters are responding to that need and particularly in a crisis I think we are seeing that kind of shift taking place.

KING: In about ten days we will know. Big change, small change, no change at all -- we will count the votes on this map.

Ken Burns, grateful for your work and your maps and for your time today. Thank you very much.

BURNS: Thank you, John.

KING: That's it for us on INSIDE POLITICS. Hope you can catch us week days as well. We are here at 11:00 a.m. and noon eastern, a very busy week ahead. Please join us.

Up next, a very busy "STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER". Don't go anywhere. Jake's guests include the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the White House chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and Democratic Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday.

Have a great. Stay safe and vote.

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