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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good Monday morning, everyone. It's eight days before Election Day and an incredible 60 million people have already voted. For context, that's 13 million more people than early voted in all of 2016. For additional context, think of this, 130 million total votes were cast in 2016. If it's the same this year, it means almost half of all votes have already been cast with eight days to go.

If you're a Democrat, there are also tantalizing signs of a really big turnout of young voters in swing states, something that's often predicted, but rarely actually happens. According to stats compiled by Tufts University, Michigan, for example, had about 7,000 early votes from people under 30 at this point in 2016. It's already up to 145,000. 7,000 last time, 145,000 this time. You can see similar trends in Florida and North Carolina and other swing states. What that means is, the difference in early turnout this year is big for all age groups, but it's bigger among voters under 30 than for others.

Now this could all be outweighed eventually because Republicans are tending to vote later than Democrats, but these youth turnout numbers are encouraging for the Dems and historically different than what we tend to see. Locally, New Jersey's, all-mail-in ballot system is generating record turnout among people voting at home. We'll do a New Jersey voting segment specifically later this hour. Early voting began in person in New York on Saturday, and the lines were crazy long.

We will open up the phones now for anyone who early voted in New York in person. in New York State over the weekend or this morning. How has that experience and how did it feel to cast your ballot this year? New Yorkers, (646) 435-7280, (646) 435-7280. Again, our first caller invitation today is for anyone who early voted in New York in person over the weekend, or this morning, anywhere in New York state, because, of course, these polling places open statewide.

How was that experience and how did it feel to cast your ballot this year? What was the scene like at your polling place too? (646) 435-7280, (646) 435-7280. As voting season is in full swing, the White House has another coronavirus outbreak. Since we last spoke on Friday, they revealed that five people close to Mike Pence have tested positive for the virus, including his chief of staff who Pence was in close contact with.

So far Pence himself is negative, but is Pence going to quarantine for a few days as CDC guidelines say that Americans should do and not campaign in person? Take a guess. On ABC this week yesterday, co-host Martha Raddatz brought that up with former New Jersey, governor Chris Christie, who of course got the virus himself from hanging around with Trump and Pence and without a mask or social distancing last month. This starts with Martha Raddatz's question.

Martha Raddatz: Joint Chiefs of Staff quarantined when they were exposed to coronavirus. Does the White House still just not get it?

Chris Christie: Well, I think that the whole getting of the COVID to begin with and the not wearing of masks has been a problem. I've talked about that over the last couple of weeks. I think everybody's got to put the health of the people they're going to be in touch with first. When I found out that I got COVID that Friday morning, I immediately quarantined myself and ultimately wind up in the hospital, but you got to keep yourself away from everybody and I'm a little bit surprised.

Brian: Chris Christie now out of the hospital with personal regrets and new judgment of his Trump world peers. This is also the day that Amy Coney Barrett will probably be confirmed by the Senate and actually sworn in as early as tonight to the United States Supreme Court. With me now Amber Phillips, reporter for The Washington Post politics blog called The Fix. She also writes the daily email newsletter, The 5-Minute Fix. Amber, I'm sure this is going to be a, "What do I write about first" kind of busy day for you? We really appreciate some time. Welcome back to WNYC.

Amber Phillips: It's exactly that day, Brian. I'm so happy to be on.

Brian: I don't know if this latest White House outbreak and Pence ignoring the quarantine guidelines changes anyone's vote, but how do you see it in political terms?

Amber: Well, I'm going to thewashingtonpost.com and looking at the main headline we have here. It's just, I think it couldn't be more politically devastating, Brian, eight days before the election. It is "White House gives up on trying to slow virus spread." That is not a headline in combination with this news that the coronavirus is still spreading in the White House, including to Pence, who have been very skeptical of social distancing and mask wearing and shutting down the economy earlier this spring.

Then you add on that the President got it three weeks ago and then you add on this weekend and Friday that, estimates are, we hit 80,000 infections in America, the highest yet. The death toll is up. This is exactly where the Trump campaign did not want to be I would imagine.

Brian: I was just going to bring up that Washington Post lead story with you. It's funny, I guess maybe a little behind the scenes here of how media organizations work is, they'll put out different headlines for the same story and see which catches on. The one on my app is just a little bit different from what you said "White House gives up". Mine is "White House signals defeat in pandemic." Same thing, slightly different words as coronavirus outbreak royals Pence's office. It centers your article or your colleagues article centers this clip that I will play from CNN state of the union yesterday with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows telling CNN's Jake Tapper, "We're not going to control the pandemic." Listen.

Mark Meadows: On your website yesterday, Jake, your website is talking about, well now we think the spread is coming from small social groups and family groups. First it was large groups. Now it's small groups. [crosstalk]

Jake Tapper: It's coming from all sorts of places. It's coming from all sorts of places-

Mark: Well, that's exactly the point.

Jake: -because the pandemic is out of control.

Mark: Here's what we have to do. We're not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas--

Jake: Why aren't we going to control pandemic?

Mark: Because it is a contagious virus, just like the flu. It can take--

Jake: Why not make efforts to contain it?

Mark: Well, we are making efforts to contain it--

Jake: By running all over the country and not wearing a mask? That's what the vice president's doing.

Mark: We can get into the back and forth. Let me just say this, what we need to do is make sure that we have the proper mitigation factors, whether it's therapies or vaccines or treatments, to make sure that people don't die from this.

Brian: Mark Meadows, White House chief of staff with CNN's Jake Tapper. Amber Phillips from The Washington Post is with us. Amber, yes, I was flabbergasted as I was up early watching that on TV yesterday. Did Mark Meadows misspeak there in a fast paced exchange with Jake Tapper? Did they try to walk that back later or was he really signaling defeat in trying to control the number of cases?

Amber: Based on everything I've seen since, I have not seen an attempt for the White House to walk it back, maybe that comes later today. He was signaling defeat. Those words are echoing today across every news organization and certainly it's what we're talking about, Brian. "We're not going to control the pandemic." That's his exact quote from that clip you just played from the White House chief of staff no less.

I also pulled up to read what Joe Biden said because immediately it was just like manna from heaven for him politically. He called this to wave the white flag of defeat and help that by ignoring it, the virus would simply go away, has been the present strategy. It hasn't, and it won't. Is this just another opportunity for Biden to try to pitch himself as the much more careful one.

There's a little bit of that jockeying going on between the vice president and then the vice presidential candidate on the democratic side, Harris, who said, "Hey, when a top aid that I was around tested positive, I quarantined for a little bit. I think we've modeled the right and good behavior," she said. Meanwhile, Pence was in North Carolina Sunday. He's planning to go to Minnesota today. He might even be at the Senate to helped confirm Amy Coney Barrett.

Both stories are going to potentially weave together this evening. It's just a very different approach and I think it's underscored by Mark Meadows saying flat-out, "We're not going to control the pandemic."

Brian: He talks about therapeutics. The President says the same thing all the time, like, "Hey, I got it. I'm fine. You'll probably be okay too, if, and when you get it," but I prefer to talk about deaths rather than cases when we try to put stats on this, because the record cases this weekend, which have been so much in the news, can be an artifact of more testing, like the President says, but in the last week, an average of 800 people each day, have died from the virus in this country.

Two weeks ago, that was 700 people a day, which was bad enough, but it's up by 100 deaths a day, just in the last two weeks. We've got a real policy debate on our hands. I guess, if you want to call it that, Amber, Trump and an exposed Pence are still convening big, maskless, not socially-distanced crowds, and Biden is not. We'll see how it affects the election and people's health.

Amber: Well, yes. I want to add one stat to the desk, so I think you're right, Brian, to look at that. Public health experts warn that these cases of 80,000 are going to, in a couple of weeks, lead to even more deaths. New daily reported deaths in the US, according The Washington Post tracker, rose 11.4% in the past week, so up, up, up, everything's up. You asked, "We'll see how this is going to affect the election." We're seeing it in polls nationally, and in swing states and in red states especially, President Trump is down.

An example that I love to cite is, he won Montana by 20 points or a little bit more in 2016. A high quality New York Times Siena College poll last week, had him leading at about 7 points. Largely because of that, a Senate race tie that could help Democrats in their step to getting a Senate majority and this control of governing in Washington entirely next year. What he's doing, and their strategy you just outlined, is politically not resonating with America, including in red states. I'll add one more thing, what we're seeing is cases in red states, in rural areas are what's driving this increase in infections days before the election.

Brian: We want to hear from some New York early voters, and then we'll keep going. Amber Phillips, Washington Post political reporter. She writes The 5-Minute Fix, that email newsletter that you can sign up for from The Washington Post politics desk, The Fix, as well as articles there. How about Beth on the Lower East Side. Beth, you’re WNYC. Hello.

Beth: Hi, Brian, thank you so much for taking my call. I live on the Lower East Side. Our early voting place is on Henry Street. My husband and I went on Saturday. We got there around 10:30. The line was just forever. It would have taken us maybe three or four hours. We live right around the corner, so we decide to come back. We went back yesterday and it took us, from start to finish, maybe 30 minutes, but the atmosphere was so joyous, people were taking pictures of each other.

There were tons of poll workers and they were just so helpful and "Thank you for coming". When we left, both my husband and I, we really got choked up, it was really emotional. I just felt so proud of just-- It's one of those moments I just think, "Oh my God, I love this town." It was very emotional.

Brian: Have you ever had that feeling before, like 2008 voting for Obama? I'm guessing you're Democrat or anything else?

Beth: Yes. As matter of fact, I've called into your show before on Election Day. I always say I'm my most self-righteous on Election Day. I usually do get out to vote. I typically go to Pennsylvania, but unfortunately, I won't this year because I'm in my late 60s. I'll do some phone banking. Yes, I do, I get-- I’m kind of a voting nerd, so I do get emotional but yesterday, it seemed particularly poignant.

Brian: What a scene with exuberance outside. Thank you, Beth. Arul, in Queens, you're on WNYC. Hi, there. Thanks for calling in.

Arul: My pleasure. I'm listening to WNYC for the longest time. Myself and my husband, we were lucky to be at Creedmoor early voting center. We were there around quarter after seven and everything was so orderly. It was really, really enjoyable and we finished all our voting process in 45 minutes.

Brian: 45 minutes. That was this morning, right?

Arul: This morning, yes, sir.

Brian: You probably were smart to wait till early voting Day 3 [chuckles] instead of trying-

Arul: Actually, we were contemplating voting on Saturday, but we figured that Saturday would be weekend. Many people who are working, students and everybody, they would be free and be on line, so we changed our mind and opted for this morning.

Brian: Did you experience that same exuberance among people around you that our first caller did?

Arul: Exuberance, I would not say, but everybody was very orderly, very friendly. It was very smooth process.

Brian: Arul, thank you so much for calling, we appreciate it. Please call us again. All right. Arul had 45 minutes this morning in Queens. Looks like Steve on the Upper West Side had over four hours, this weekend. Steve, you're on WNYC. Hi, there.

Steve: Hey, Brian. Yes, I waited on line to vote yesterday for 4 hours and 15 minutes up at 100 First Street.

Brian: Wow. Why?

Steve: Yes [chuckles]. Why? Because it's tremendously important, and while there were moments of levity, and while people were friendly and socialized among each other on the line, there was also in my opinion, it also could have been because I was underdressed and freezing. I sensed that what we were doing required a lot of effort and it required a lot of effort because of the situation being so serious, the situation is dire.

Even though there were moments of levity, I think overall, there was a sense almost like a going-off-to-war sense, that this was an incredibly important time and that we were beholden to be out there and do it.

Brian: Did you consider for yourself waiting until the weekdays so you wouldn't wait 4 hours and 15 minutes or did people talk about that, choosing to buck that line, because they could have waited like Arul did until today or tomorrow, the next day?

Steve: I did think about that, I live not so far away from the voting place, but A, I wasn't sure the lines are going to be any shorter any of these days and it's going to be rainy today. It is rainy today, as I look out my window, I do not see the line, actually today at all. Maybe that would have been the wiser decision. I felt it was important to vote as soon as possible as well. I felt there was an urgency simply to be counted as soon as possible to be part of that momentum, part of that hopefully, bigger wave in terms of number of voters than ever before.

Brian: Steve, thank you so much for your call. One more for the moment, then we'll get back to Amber Phillips from The Washington Post and hear how she's hearing all of you. Gail in Oceanside, you're on WNYC. Hi, Gail.

Gail: Hi. I went with my 93-year old mother, who refused to use mail-in ballot. It was important for her, as she did most of her life, go directly to the polls. We had to go to the town of Lawrence at a country club, which in itself sounded like a thrill for my mom, but I could not get information ahead of time for accommodations for somebody that aged, a super senior. There was a line all around a parking lot but I saw a sign near the front entrance. There was a poll worker who immediately came over and scooted her to the front of the line-

Brian: Oh, good.

Gail: -along with me and my husband. It was the most joyous thing I remember doing all year, which for this year doesn't sound like a big deal but it was.

Brian: What was the scene? I could imagine Oceanside and for people that don't know Oceanside, south shore of Long Island, could be politically mixed, right?

Gail: It could have been but we went to an area that is orthodox, and it was Saturday. We thought maybe there were fewer people in line but still my son and his wife went an hour before we did, and when we were exiting, we saw them first get to the front of the line. They had been on line for two hours.

Brian: Right, but you didn't experience any tension, like, if there were a lot of Trump voters and a lot of Biden voters glowering at each other or anything like that?

Gail: You just had a lot of happy voters, happy-to-be-there voters, very excited, effervescent feeling.

Brian: Gail, thank you so much. By the way, how's it there in Oceanside this morning? Is it all misty and foggy over the water? Can you see the water?

Gail: Oh, yes. I don't see the water, it's just murky, murky stuff.

Brian: Thank you very much. Thanks so much. Amber Phillips from The Washington Post, you're hearing stories like this all over the country?

Amber: Oh, yes, absolutely. Those are such lovely stories too, people excited to go vote. You started your show, Brian, with the numbers which are pretty astounding, at least by American political election barometers, that how many people are excited to vote and then, of course, we're talking to in New York, which tends to be Democratic region, but we are seeing nationwide that those voters going to early vote with all that excitement are Democratic, which only makes Democrats feel still like their blue wave is building. One thing I'll say as I talked to strategists in South Carolina, where there's a competitive Senate race going on and long time political affair--

Brian: Lindsey Graham, we should say in a competitive race with his own seat, right?

Amber: Yes, a bold name in the Senate, a bold national name, Lindsey Graham. I'm just writing a story. We talked to the surprises potentially of 2020, and seeding Lindsey Graham would be number one there. Anyways, politicals there in South Carolina said they've never seen early voting lines like that. I think what's happening in New York seems to be happening throughout the nation and it's a sign of Democratic enthusiasm in particular, which makes Republicans worried.

Brian: Gloria Pazmino, political reporter for a local station, NY1, just retweeted someone who sent a photo of a huge line this morning at the Brooklyn Museum in the rain. Looks like thousands of people to this tweeter. Even today in the rain, not the weekend, if that photo is what it looks like to be. What do you make of those young voter turnout numbers? For people who didn't hear them at the start, I was citing things from Tufts University's statistics that like in Michigan, big swing state, for example, about 7,000 early votes came by this state from people under 30, in 2016, about 7,000. It's already up to 145,000.

That's just early votes in Michigan among people under 30. The point being, yeah, there's a lot of early voting in general, but proportionately it's even more among young voters than among other people and, of course, that would be good for Democrats if it's statistically meaningful, but I don't know how to tell if it is.

Amber: That's right. I don't think we will know until after the election. We see it by what percentage younger voters came out and according to exit polls, which we can track this stuff with, who they voted for, but you're right, Brian, young voters tend to benefit Democrats in particular. That's one of the missing pieces of their puzzle to electoral victory nationally and in congressional and Senate races and state house races and governor's races is young people say they're really interested, we're starting to see, but then just don't follow through to vote in any high numbers.

I tracked that particularly with Bernie Sanders primary, which we know drove a lot excitement among young voters. In 2020, every state, he would say young people, I really need you to vote so I can win this state and they just wouldn't. That's starting to change in the general election on a much more national scale.

Brian: Sam, who voted yesterday in Boerum Hill in Brooklyn, says he took a video of the line that went viral on TikTok. Hi, Sam. You're on WNYC.

Sam: Hey, Brian, thanks for taking my call. I went on Saturday, which as everyone knows, the first day of early voting, and the line at the Barclays Center was like five blocks long. I took a video of it, uploaded it's a TikTok and it went super viral.

What I noticed was in the comments, most people were like just super fired up and happy about it, but I got a lot of comments about people saying that this was a sign of voter suppression, which I really don't think is true. I think it was a sign of voter enthusiasm that everyone was coming out on day one to vote early but I think people didn't understand that this was the first day of early voting in New York City.

Obviously you had this huge influx of people that were excited to vote. My own experience shows that it wasn't really voter suppression because I went back yesterday to vote on Sunday and I didn't have to wait at all at the Barclays Center. I walked right in, there was no line. It was really just a symptom of this pent up demand to vote but I just thought it was really interesting how the conversation online was all about voter suppression here in New York, which I just don't think is accurate.

Brian: I guess, if you wait a day or two and you can just walk in, then it's not voter suppression. Some other states, it may well be. We had a segment about Georgia last week that was indicating more of long lines by intent, but I take your report for what it is from Boerum Hill. Actually, Sam, let me throw a question at you from another listener on Twitter. This tweet says, can you please explain why these New Yorkers calling in today didn't just vote by mail? Are they that paranoid about the USPS not handling ballots properly? What's the answer to that question for yourself?

Sam: I don't think that the current administration has done a lot to instill our faith in the postal service's ability to deliver these ballots on time. I think that for those of us who are able-bodied and can go and wait on line and vote in-person, it's worth it, as long as we're social distancing and wearing masks and everyone was doing that. At the same time, if you can't go in-person I think mail-in voting is definitely a viable option and people should do it, but if given the choice, I'd rather do it in person, personally.

Brian: Thank you very much. Oh, there were even lines up in Rhinebeck. Let's go to Marshall in Rhinebeck. Marshall, you're on WNYC. Hi from the city.

Marshall: Hi. How are you? Long time listener, only time caller.

Brian: Glad you're in. How are things up the Taconic today?

Marshall: I'm fine. My voting story is, I voted on Saturday, as soon as they opened the doors. My wife and I, we were in line for about two hours altogether. Our Congressman Antonio Delgado was a little ways ahead of us in line, which was exciting and then when he came out after voting, he got a round of applause from the crowd. It was nice. It was a beautiful day.

One somber note though. All the time we were standing in line, we kept hearing a massive car horns and it was this parade of pickup trucks and SUV's up and down the main drag of our town with Trump signs and maybe would be intimidation thing going on. Then yesterday that got even a little more dramatic. I went into town to go to the drugstore. There were demonstrators on the corner where there's one traffic light in town and lot of Black Lives Matter signs and so forth. Again, the pickup trucks and I saw this one guy stopped his truck by the crowd and he gunned his engine and blue, black smoke all over the demonstrators. It was a ugly scene with the trucks and stuff, but the voting part of it was really nice.

Brian: Marshall, thank you so much for checking in. People writing in, say in response to the question from a listener that I just read, "Why these New Yorkers calling in today, didn't just vote by mail?" Somebody writes it's more exciting to vote in-person and I feel safe with masks and social distancing plus no chance of it getting lost in the mail or having it set on fire. Amber, to that last caller, we've gone from the exuberance of the first caller to the tense scene in Rhinebeck reported by that last caller. I wonder if that's an omen of things to come on Election Day?

Amber: Election officials that I talked to, let me say this, say what keeps them up at night is misinformation about how to vote, who can vote, particularly in Michigan, in a Black area of Detroit, voters were receiving robot calls a couple of weeks ago, threatening them with arrest if they voted by mail. Then, of course, the US has said Iran was sending threatening emails to some Democrat states like Arizona. There's I think, there is this voter excitement and intention is wrapped up into it and election officials are really worried about misinformation playing into that. You said the word, and it is perfect, Brian, is tense political environment we're in in this last couple of days.

Brian: We just have a few minutes left, but I want to get to a little bit of more of your reporting. On any other day, when a Supreme Court Justice was about to be confirmed probably that day, that would be the lead story. Here we are half-hour into the show and we haven't even gotten to it yet, but Amy Coney Barrett will most likely be confirmed tonight just in time for Election Day lawsuits. Even without her, you have an article called The Supreme Court is giving advocates for voting rights heartburn. How are they doing that?

Amber: Sure. The court is split right now, but Amy Coney Barrett will be on it later, as you said, almost certainly this week. What voting advocates tell me is that even a split court has conservative signaling that they're willing to reconsider voting laws from what they think is a very drastic perspective. For example, one thing that kept popping up is this concept that a deadline means a deadline. November 3rd, if your ballot's not in by November 3rd, that's it. There's no exceptions for forgot postmark.

There were four justices in the Pennsylvania case that signal that, and North Carolina Republicans saw that and immediately appealed their loss on stopping at the deadline to the Supreme Court. We could hear the court rule on a similar issue in Wisconsin any minute now. The reason voting rights experts in particular were concerned about that is, they argued to me, "Hey, in law, let's say you're trying to mail out your mortgage payment or something like that, you would be upheld in court if you've got it out on the deadline and the post office is what delays you." They were surprised that there were so many justices willing to rethink according to voting rights advocates, how voting gets done in America.

Brian: It's amazing that the voting is so in full swing as we've been discussing and they're still arguing about the rules in court in so many places. Last thing, and then I'll let you go to the 14 other jobs you have to do before lunch, you also have an article called The secretaries of state and election officials you may be hearing about after Election Day, including Michigan's Jocelyn Benson, Pennsylvania's Kathy Boockvar, Florida's Laurel Lee, Arizona's Katie Hobbs. You say their parties, all Democrats, except for Laurel Lee in Florida. What do these secretaries of state do and does party matter to the vote counting ahead that they oversee?

Amber: Yes, well, the goal for them, they tell me if they've had a successful job running selection is to not have parties matter, but we're in a partisan environment so I would argue parties always matter. With these secretaries that they do is exactly what I said, their job is to run an election. There's a national association of secretaries of state and those people there like to say, there's no national election or 50 plus territory election, it's up to each state with their own rules on how to do this.

That's particularly difficult for secretaries of state in these times. With the pandemic and the hyper-partisanship and the concerns of misinformation they've all talked to me about. What I tried to do was look at secretaries of state that could be in the news after November 3rd. What if we're waiting on vote counts in Michigan? What if we're waiting on vote counts in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, or any number of these other states, Arizona, Florida.

Who is out there telling us what the latest count is, whether they'll accept X number of ballots after the deadline, defending how they counted their state's results in court if that's the case, and we fully expect both sides to be ready to litigate those results if things are close. These anonymous mostly election officials who, yes, are partisan, but when they run an election, try not to be partisan, could suddenly become like major figures on the national stage.

Brian: Listeners, be ready to hear those names again and be ready to read the name, Amber Phillips. If you follow her on Twitter, her Twitter handle, a reporter to the end is @byamberphillips. It's a byline, @byamberphillips and for The Washington Post's site, The Fix and The 5-Minute Fix, daily Washington Post politics email newsletter. Amber, thanks for so much time today. We really appreciate it. Keep it up.

Amber: Thanks for having me on, Brian. I'll go tweet those stories out so people can read them.

 

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