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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Five days before the end of voting season, close to 80 million people have already voted. That's likely to be around half of all the votes already cast early, or in-person. I should say early, in-person, or by mail. We don't know yet how long vote-counting season, or vote-counting lawsuit season, or vote-counting protest season will be. The Supreme Court yesterday allowed the key swing state of North Carolina to count absentee ballots received up to nine days after election day, as long as they're postmarked on time.

The court has already allowed the key swing state of Pennsylvania to count mail-in ballots received by three days after the polls close. Now, that doesn't mean those very last ballots will be needed to determine a winner, but they might. We're seeing record coronavirus cases nationwide as election season comes down to the wire. The key swing state of Wisconsin is being especially hard hit right now, so is the key swing congressional district in Omaha. They divide electoral votes by congressional districts in Nebraska.

The Dow yesterday, dropped more than 900 points because of anticipated economic impact from the virus. The new viral surge, the economy grew by a large amount last quarter, seven percentage points, according to a new figure out this morning, but Wall Street sees the handwriting on the wall. Failure to have prevented the current record spike and virus transmission, will mean closings and more losses ahead. Around 800 Americans every day continue to die from the virus. That's 5,000 more American deaths every week. With cases rising at a record pace, the daily death count is expected to rise even further as well, but on the campaign trail, the president continues to dismiss it all.

President Trump: It's COVID, COVID, COVID, COVID, by the way, on November 4th, you won't hear about it any more.

Brian: That was not a one-off. He keeps saying this at rally after rally this week.

President Trump: I told her, you turn on 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.

Brian: Maybe not. What the Trump campaign is more focused on is a claim from a former business partner of Hunter Biden, claiming Joe Biden was involved with at least one of Hunter's business ventures. Joe Biden has claimed he never discussed business with his son. The president's son-in-law Jared Kushner is controversial again too this week, and he's an actual White House advisor, claiming Black people don't want to be successful, we'll talk about that later in the show, and that the Trump administration is less about policy and more about attitude.

Jared Kushner: You have a disproportionality between what issues people are vocal on, and what the people, the voters really care about. What Trump's been able to do is, I say he's basically did a full hostile takeover of the Republican Party. I don't think it's even as much about the issues. I think it's about the attitude.

Brian: Not as much about the issues, it's about the attitude, and sure enough they did not issue a Republican platform remember, at the Republican Convention this summer, as parties always do at their conventions. They just said, "Oh, the 2016 platform still stands. Never mind that we have COVID or anything else," Jared Kushner on Fox on Monday.

There was another controversial police killing of a Black man in a mental health crisis. This time in Philadelphia, as many of you know, resulting in protests, plus some looting, and the Pennsylvania national guard being called in, and a new round of campaigning on the need for police reform, or law and order, depending on who's doing the campaigning. An intense collection of developments as the presidential election that many see as a historical turning point heads toward the end. With me now, Associated Press, White House correspondent, Jonathan Lemire. Hi, Jonathan. Thanks for coming on during such an incredibly busy time. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jonathan Lemire: Good morning. I am always happy to be here.

Brian: Can we start with the contrast of the national and international coronavirus surge, the Dow reacting so strongly the last few days, but Trump dismissing it as he campaigns in places that are being hard hit. Is he just kind of stuck with the hand that he dealt himself, coronavirus denial and minimization all year, as cases and hospitalizations surge at just the wrong time?

Jonathan: Well, you hit it exactly right there at the end, but it's happening at precisely the wrong time for the president's reelection hopes were, and exactly, in the wrong places. Wisconsin, one of the key battleground states, of course, this election, and is now one of the complete hotspots for this rise in infections. The president yes, his aides have wondered repeatedly during this campaign, if there were moments where perhaps he could or would pivot and change his messaging somewhat on the coronavirus.

There was real hope in some quarters that he particularly might, after he fell ill himself, that he could come out of, recover from having COVID-19 and speak about it differently, perhaps with a little more empathy, not his strongest suit, but just even suggest more somber and sober approach with the American people. Say that, "Yes, we will turn the corner, but we're not there yet," but he's not doing that at all. He is of course, minimizing and downplaying the threat of the virus on a daily basis. That rant you just play with there about COVID, COVID, COVID, aides close to the president told me that it's just an extraordinary frustration that he is unable to change the subject.

That's one thing that he has been very good at in his time in politics, the candidate, and then as president, where he has the ability to drive news, to push narratives, to get the cable TV stations to change their chyrons on a moment notice with a tweet. To in some ways, dictate at times, the next day's headlines, with a distraction and sometimes his allies fog machine, and that just simply hasn't been the case since February and March when the virus came to American shores.

It has dominated the national discourse and it has dominated this campaign. We have seen him for months now, and an intensified effort in recent days, to try to change the topic of conversation, whether it be about Hunter Biden or the economy. Then now lately there's a push on immigration again, he's just there, just throwing things up against the wall to see what sticks and to this point nothing has. It is COVID-19, that is, to this point, what this race has been about. As we head to the final few days, there's no sense of that changing.

Brian: It's hard to know what will drive turnout or whatever undecided voters are left who will make up their minds at the last minute. Is it the viral surge in Wisconsin? Is it the backlash to the police killing, or the backlash to the looting in Pennsylvania? Do you see political dynamics shaping up now more state by state or more at a national arc?

Jonathan: I think there's a little bit of both. I do think of course, the national arc remains the coronavirus, but it is certainly felt harder in certain states, particularly there in the upper Midwest, like Wisconsin. Then yes, Pennsylvania, which many election pundits, but more than that, both campaigns, feel is perhaps the most vital battleground state. What we're seeing there in Philadelphia may play a role as well. Let's of course remember this, to this point we have seen a historic surge, an unprecedented rise in early voting, and mail-in voting.

To this point, that has largely, not entirely, largely, seemingly benefiting the Democrats. Although certainly Florida's a state where Republicans have really cut in at Democratic margins. The president, because he has cast doubt on the integrity of these votes, he has suggested without evidence, so let's be clear about that, without evidence that it's ripe for fraud, he has pushed Republicans to vote day of. His campaign is counting on a massive turnout on election day itself, November 3rd. Will that be enough to offset the early gains made by Democrats? We shall see.

Here is, as one adviser put to me yesterday, a growing concern and perhaps flaw with that plan. They're asking Republicans to stand in line, potentially for hours, on November 3rd at a time when the virus is now surging again, and the president who has pushed people to do it in person, now may in fact, lose votes if there are some who feel like they would not be safe to go physically to the ballot box on Tuesday.

Brian: I heard the elections expert, Ari Berman say the big early voting turnout can be seen as a backlash to voter suppression. We'll see when the votes are counted, but certainly we've never seen anything like this in terms of the early vote, in- person or by mail, between the fervor to vote anyway, because of pro-Trump, anti-Trump, and the virus prompting so many mail-in ballots coming early, so people can vote from home. How are you at the AP preparing for election night?

Jonathan: Oh, it's going to be a long night, Brian. I don't think there'll be much in the way of sleep probably, but we are, of course, the AP has been doing this for nearly two centuries. This is our bread and butter, and we have a fantastic team of race callers and analysts, and they will be thorough, and methodical, and careful, and accurate as they always are. Certainly, they're watching the counts, these remarkable early votes, and we will see as the states report that evening. I'm sure a lot of your listeners know there are some states, including some of the most important on the map, that we'll have a pretty good idea that night.

Florida, chief among them is known for counting fast, processing early votes ahead of time. Same with North Carolina, but other states, like Pennsylvania, may be a very different story. Pennsylvania, a state that is not used to anywhere near this sort of volume of mail-in votes, of early votes. Also, a state that can't start counting I believe until that day, so it could be several days before we get an accurate total out of Pennsylvania, which is making both campaigns nervous as, we can go through it, if you'd like, but there are certainly certain electoral maps scenarios where this campaign, this entire election may hinge on the winner in Pennsylvania.

Brian: We'll do the election map scenarios in some segments that we have upcoming between now and election day. Listeners, I will tell you that I will be anchoring the first hour of our election night coverage. That's the seven o'clock hour on Tuesday night. During that hour, we know that the polls will close in Georgia and North Carolina, which could be two pivotal swing states this year.

Those are both states that count their early votes early. That is when the polls close in North Carolina and Georgia, they'll be able to say what those absentee ballots showed, at least to the degree that they've already been received. It is possible, at least possible, that we're going to have a very early indication of how this is going to turn out.

Because, frankly, if Biden wins North Carolina and Georgia, he's winning the election. We will see what we can see in that first hour, seven o'clock, Tuesday night. Join us for that and all our election coverage that night, and throughout next week if necessary. As we continue right now with Jonathan Lemire, AP White House correspondent. Yesterday in the Senate, the CEOs of the big tech companies, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, were called to virtually testify. Democrats and Republicans are both unhappy with how Facebook and Twitter, especially, are handling information down the stretch of this election. Here's Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg pleading for sympathy, portraying himself as being caught in the middle.

Mark Zuckerberg: The reality is that people have very different ideas and views about where the lines should be. Democrats often say that we don't remove enough content, and Republicans often say we remove too much.

Brian: Here's Texas Republican Senator Ted Cruz on one side of that scolding Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, for taking down the New York Post story about alleged emails, linking Joe Biden to Hunter Biden's businesses.

Senator Ted Cruz: Mr. Dorsey, who the hell elected you and put you in charge of what the media are allowed to report, and what the American people are allowed to hear.

Brian: Here's part of Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey's response. He is speaking here specifically about the time they placed a warning label on a tweet from the President, for what Twitter called confusing people about the safety of mail-in ballots, when the record shows that historically, there has been very little mail-in ballot fraud, Jack Dorsey.

Jack Dorsey: We saw the confusion it might encourage, and we labeled it accordingly. The goal with our labeling--

Senator Roger Wicker: You're speaking of the president's tweet?

Jack: Yes.

Brian: Jonathan Lemire, what kind of position are the tech companies in?

Jonathan: A difficult one. Certainly, it was striking how highly partisan yesterday's hearing was. Certainly, we have seen here in this stretch run of the campaign a lot of anger from conservatives, from the right, from Republicans, and in particular from the White House, about these social media groups, the Hunter Biden story being chief among them. The New York Post Twitter account, still suspended. That link to that story with the initial allegations. You were not able to share it, after that initial few hours.

This is just the latest example of the president accusing, and most of the time, with no evidence whatsoever, a bias from these tech giants, Big T as he has taken to calling them, believing that they are censoring conservative thoughts. His eldest son, Donald Trump, Jr. has been at the forefront of that argument as well. Certainly, the Republicans weren't the only ones to have expressed some displeasure with these tech companies. Democrats have also said that they should be patrolling their sites and services more aggressively, that they should be looking to root out disinformation or misinformation.

We're in a new place here. We saw the way these tech companies and, in particular, Facebook, were used to manipulate during the 2016 campaign. Certainly, the national security officials have warned that is happening again now. Then I'm sure in the post-mortems of this race, there will be more of that to come out. Obviously, the timing of this hearing, just a few days before the election, underscores just how vital and political it's become.

Brian: Jonathan Lemire, AP White House correspondent with us, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Jonathan, can you unpack what's known about the Hunter Biden, Joe Biden claims on any side of this? Did Biden lie at the debate last week about having no discussions with Hunter about Hunter's business dealings, or is there evidence that the original New York Post story was Russian disinformation planted with Rudy Giuliani, critique from the other side? What's real and what's in question here?

Jonathan: Well, Brian, that's a good question. It is still being sorted out exactly what is real and what is not. First, let's just take a half step back here, of course, since that, remember, that it's now been for a year and a half or more, that the president has tried to dig up political dirt. He and his allies have tried to pick up political dirt on the Bidens. Let's remember, of course, that is what got him impeached, asking Ukraine last summer to do just that, led to his impeachment. Despite that, they have not given up that quest.

Tony Bobulinski is a gentleman who has stepped forward and said that he was Hunter Biden's business partner. We saw that he spoke before the debate last week which was in echo of course, of the surprise news conference that President Trump or then-candidate Trump held four years ago, before one of his debates with Hillary Clinton, when he appeared with four women who accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.

This certainly didn't land quite as spectacularly as that, and it has, to the frustration of the Trump campaign and many of the conservative media who have been really circling around this story, and pushing it as an October surprise. The Biden camp has made clear. They have said over and again, that Joe Biden was not involved with this. They have pointed to his schedule that does not contain meetings with the international business contacts that Bobulinski and others have said that he did, that Biden has perhaps not always have the best of answers in terms of handling his son's business dealings, but they have had a clear line to say that he wasn't involved.

Also, we should note these allegations from Bobulinski come in 2017, after Biden left office. What is true or not is still being sorted out. Certainly, those on the right haven't given up hope. I don't know if you saw last night, Tucker Carlson suggested on Fox News, that there were documents, incriminating documents on this matter that were lost in the mail, and therefore he couldn't provide them to his viewers, and seemingly accused a conspiracy of preventing that.

What is clear, is at least to this point, with five days out, this hasn't moved the needle much. Polling from both campaigns suggests that this doesn't have the impact of the allegations of corruption that Trump levy to Hillary Clinton four years ago, suggesting that whether it was her time at Secretary of State or using the Clinton Foundation to enrich herself. That did have traction with voters, fairly or not. This one simply hasn't. At least not yet.

Brian: The Republicans argue to Jack Dorsey, to get back to the tech companies angle, that they don't remove every media story that's based on anonymous sources, so why did they do that to the original New York Post's story on this and block the Post's account? Do they have a point on that?

Jonathan: I think that that is a popular argument among conservatives, and I've heard it from some of the Trump campaign. I think the difference is that yes, certainly, stories about using anonymous sources are fairly common covering the White House and covering Washington, but there's a suspicion here that this was not necessarily an anonymous source, but rather a deliberate disinformation attempt by a foreign government, perhaps the Russians, but also the idea of using hacked materials, materials that were illegally obtained, which of course became a major question, flashpoint in the journalism community four years ago, when the WikiLeaks hack of the Clinton campaign emails were thoroughly covered.

A lot of these organizations have done a lot of post-mortems, and done some hard searching as to whether or not that was handled appropriately four years ago. I think there is a sense of being a little more conservative this time around to obtain hacked materials. I will say, and your listeners can decide whether they think it's different or not.

A senior White House official, just in the last couple of days, made this comparison to me, acknowledging that perhaps that these materials were inappropriately obtained and maybe yes, maybe they shouldn't be covered, but the point this person made was simply, well, the New York Times has done a series on the president's tax returns. They obtained those tax returns when they shouldn't have. This person made the comparison that those materials were "packed", and wondered if, why would the same rule didn't apply.

Brian: I guess as a comparative campaign matter, and maybe this is why it isn't moving the needle politically at all, as far as the polls can tell, if Trump wants to run on Joe Biden's allegedly, given we only can say alleged at this point, business dealings through Hunter Biden, it has to be seen in the context of Trump owning $400 million, I should say, owing $400 million and refusing to say to whom, and in what country.

His son saying they don't need US bank loans because they have all the financing they need from Russia, a few years ago. Don Jr. Inviting the Russians to trade dirt on Hillary Clinton for a meeting with Trump's top people in 2016, that famous meeting. Ivanka getting a group of new product patents from China shortly after the election. I could go on, do they really want to play who's the cleaner familial business relations family, as it relates to the public interest?

Jonathan: The political environment is just so different Brian. You laid that out really well. Four years ago, Donald Trump presented himself as the outsider. Americans knew him as this celebrity businessman who certainly had some bankruptcies, but at the same time, and was a tabloid star, but was a star. The Apprentice was clearly successful, had a lot of money. He was saying that he was pointing to Hillary Clinton as a "creature of the swamp", that she had been a product of the Washington environment and had tried to enrich herself and her family.

Four years later, it's very different. First of all, the Americans have watched day after day as Trump has not totally distanced himself from his business. He has not, as you said, revealed to whom he owes his debts. He has, at times, certainly his companies have made money off of his presidency. He only dines at Trump restaurants. He only stays at Trump resorts. The number of times that he travels to Mar-a-Lago, or Bedminster nearby, [unintelligible 00:23:20] in New Jersey, and has to bring the entire package with him, including Secret Service, that's a lot of money the government is paying Trump work.

There's that and also let's also not lose sight of this, that Joe Biden is simply a different opponent than Hillary Clinton was. Hillary Clinton was someone who, for decades, was public enemy number one in the conservative media. There was a lot of real anger and baggage piled up against her in a lot of American's minds. Some of it fair, some of it unfair, some of it undoubtedly sexist, but all the same it was there. Joe Biden's a different character. Yes, he's been in Washington for four decades as well, but he has mostly, he is a lesser figure in the conservative media until the last year or so.

He's also someone who didn't burn as bright as a star as certainly a Secretary Clinton did. Even as vice-president, his political persona was this regular guy. There wasn't a sense that he was manipulating the office to make money, that he wasn't using trading in on his name to do so. Certainly, Joe Biden, compared to most Americans, is a wealthy individual, but the attacks haven't landed like they did on Secretary Clinton. Joe Biden is simply a different opponent. That is something that has deeply frustrated the president and his team, who still seem to be trying to impose the 2016 playbook this year in a very different race, one dominated by the pandemic, against a very different candidate.

Brian: Daniel in Bay Ridge, you're on WNYC with AP White House correspondent, Jonathan Lemire. Hi, Daniel.

Daniel: Hi, thank you for taking my call, Brian. Mr. Lemire, I have a question. In 1934, Congress created the Federal Communications Commission with the federal communications act. The FCC grants station licensees privileges to use the airwaves in exchange for an hour of public information programming that came to be called the evening news. That's how Dan Rather, Walter Cronkite and many others became trusted members of our household at night at six o'clock or seven o'clock in the evening.

Is there a proposal or an idea somewhere in these Senate hearings to perhaps say, "Well, listen, just like the airwaves belong to the public, what you're using is internet bandwidth, which also belongs to the public, and in exchange for posting and putting on whatever programming you want, since this has become our method of entertainment, we want to mandate that you, for one hour a day, provide informational programming or unbiased informational exchange, that is just purely public affairs information. In exchange we'll grant you a license to use your bandwidth in perpetuity or however that comes for renewal." I think you get the gist of what I'm asking.

Jonathan: I do. Thank you for the question. I don't know, truthfully, if that's something that has been discussed or would be discussed, but certainly the tech companies, and their place in American society is in the crosshairs right now. One thing that is happening at these hearings is indeed a review of what's known as Section 230, which is a federal law. It's a few decades old, that spares social media sites from being held liable for posts, or videos, or photos, or content, that they allow or remove, that it basically spares them from being sued.

The president, in his unhappiness with these companies, has suggested that maybe that should be looked at, that maybe 230 should be revoked. It's not just a conservative issue right now, although certainly you'd think traditionally, Republicans would be for the free market, would want to unencumber these companies. Right now, there is this sense of, is there a suggestion of bias? Do these tech companies, which for the most part, not all, but for the most part are based in California or Washington, loose states. Are the people who work there biased against Republicans?

These are all the arguments that they are making. Democrats have certainly some degrees, things that they're not happy about either. I think it will be very telling as to what happens, and of course we will see, the political environment could change wildly in a week, where perhaps there will be a Democrat in the White House, and perhaps there will be a Democrat-controlled Senate as well. Maybe giving an extraordinary amount of power to one party as it revisits this issue.

Brian: Yes. There are so many aspects of that Daniel. You raise a good question and we've done whole separate segments on that and we will, again, no doubt. Because when you look at this Section 230, it's more come under criticism by Democrats in recent times than by Republicans, because of Section 230's premise is it allows the sites like Facebook and Twitter to say, "Hey, we're not publishers of content. We're just a platform where anybody can just post their own content, and let the public decide, and let the public conversation happen.

If the New York Post wants to post a story, or The Nation wants to post a story, just to take a left versus right example, we're just a platform where they can do that so everybody could see it." Then after so much disinformation, including prompted by the Russians and other foreign governments, planted, I should say, by the Russians and other foreign governments, got in there and seemed to really be affecting American democracy, and mostly from the right, it's been more of the liberals in America who've been saying, "No, you can't just be a neutral platform when the net effect of calling yourself neutral is to let disinformation flourish in the land and have a pernicious effect."

They've been wanting the Section 230 to be tightened, so that there's some responsibility, some legal accountability on the part of Facebook and Twitter. Now, they're trying to do something along those lines and they targeted this Hunter Biden, New York Post story, as something that looks suspiciously, like it might be foreign disinformation. Then of course that's caused the backlash from the other side that said, "Wait a minute. That came from the New York Post, which is an actual news source." Here we are. As far as 1934, Jonathan, I think you covered the midterm elections of 1934 for the AP, didn't you?

Jonathan: I'm not that old Brian.

Brian: The context then was really different. It was scarcity. There wasn't even television with Walter Cronkite yet, it was radio. Radio frequencies, there can only be so many on the AM and FM band, which is all there was back then, and they had such a huge influence at that time for being new and so ubiquitous, those regulations requiring public affairs programming, were done in the context of scarcity. Whereas today, anybody can start a webpage.

All of which is to say, those aren't the ultimate answers to the questions, but that's some of the interesting and historical context, and the complexity of where we find ourselves right now. Let's take one more question, because this is going to get right back into the voting. Andrew in Westchester, you're on WNYC with Jonathan Lemire from the AP. Andrew, we've got 30 seconds for you. Hi, there.

Andrew: Hi, just wanted to dig in a little more into the early voting stuff. Yes, it's a record turnout, but in some States like Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, it's a big percentage of the 2016 vote. Either the outcome's been largely determined in those states, or turnout's going to be at a record level in those states beyond what both campaigns potentially are expecting.

Brian: Right. Jonathan, anything on that or how to view the election through that lens?

Jonathan: It's a great point and one we will learn in the days ahead. Is it possible that simply that it's the same universe of voters. That people are just choosing to vote ahead of time, because of their enthusiasm or because of concerns about the pandemic and they're afraid that the lines would be too crazy on election day and it wouldn't be safe, or is it simply like say, are Republicans in Florida who have seen a lot of early voting in the last few days, are they simply cannibalizing their election day total?

That is possible. However, it is also possible that we're going to see more than that. There is an expectation that this is going to be massive turnouts this time around, greater than certainly recent elections. One analysis suggests there'll be a turnout of, well more than 150 million voters, which could be a higher turnout rate in any election since 1908. Which would be, and certainly it's on pace to exceed the elections of 2016 and 2012. The highest turnout rate in a recent election was 62% in 2008, Barack Obama's first election. This is what we are going to see in the coming days is who exactly are these voters, and I'll just say briefly on this, I know we're wrapping up.

Democrats believe that they are having success finding new voters among the young, among those who are just, even if they're not voting for Joe Biden, but have turned out to vote against Donald Trump and what they've seen the last four years. Then, of course there is finding new voters. It's frankly the theory of the case for the Trump campaign, who do believe, has spent a lot of money doing so, trying to target low propensity voters or voters who have never cast their ballots before to vote for him this time around, with a recognition that their base from 2016 simply isn't enough in 2020, that they need to grow that.

They've also seen him hemorrhage support among independents and disaffected Democrats who crossed party lines in 2016, who now might be coming home after four years of the president. This is what we know, the numbers are going to be huge this time around. We are seeing it already. We will see what is expected to be big numbers on Tuesday as well. To everyone out there, just get out there and vote, stand in line, if you have to.

Brian: AP White House correspondent, Jonathan Lemire, I hope you get some sleep around the edges over the next week. We'll be following your stuff.

Jonathan: It'll probably be December. Thank you so much.

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