this morning on "meet the press." our summit on ebola. >> for the first time in the history of the united states, somebody with ebola walked in the front door. >> as two nurses come down with the disease, is the wider american public in danger, and is the government doing enough to make us safe? we can't give in to hysteria or fea fear. >> we have gathered experts in africa and on the ground to ask questions about how serious this danger really is. and plus, addicted to off e office. >> i feel like running for congress. >> three men aiming to make the unlikeliest of comebacks and two of them from prison. >> you are found guilty, you pay

the price. >> and are we beginning to see the tide of a small wave. joining me are mike murphy, chief foreign affairs correspondent andrea mitchell and former adviser to president obama stephanie cutter and manu raja. >> announcer: this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. >> for better or worse, one topic has taken the the headlines, ebola. here is the headline, "contagion of fear." with we have tried to separate fact from myth, and we have geared this dr. anthony fauci from the national institutes of health, and dr. dan berry from the ebola response team from africa, and the chair of

emergency medicine at johns hopkins university and prize winni winning laureates as well. and so we hope to answer these questions, how dangerous is ebola to our health care system? and should there be a travel ban to the affected countries and are americans worried unnecessarily? let's start by looking at america's growing fears that began in a week that began with an unnerving announcement. sunday a nurse who cared for ebola victim thomas eric duncan at texas presbyterian hospital is diagnosed with ebola, herself. nina pham becomes the first american to contract the disease on u.s. soil. >> i u don't know how it happened and the cdc is investigating it, because that is likely what happened, inadvertent breach. >> and then monday, her dog is moved to a decommissioned naval base to be monitored. tuesday, the cdc is looking at every aspect of the procedures

at texas presbyterian hospital. >> we know that a single breach can cause an infection. >> and then wednesday, amber vinson, another nurse in dallas becomes the second american to con can tracan -- to contract e the united states, and then we learned that he she had flown to cleveland and two schools are clo closed down and the plane is isolated. and then congress questions health officials. >> it is not a drill. people's lives are at stake, and the response so far has been unacceptable. >> and then friday the white house appoints ron klain to manage the are response to the disease. and still more fear in warrensville, ohio, the mayor closes the city hall because an employee's husband works with someone who shared a flight with amber vinson. and at the pentagon, a bus is

quarantined when a woman falls ill and vomits in the parking lot. and this morning the cruise ship that was carrying a presbyterian lab worker who had to self-quarantine on the ship is docked in the galveston the and is dock and driven away by law enfor enforcement. we are joined by dr. anthony fauci who is the head of the disease diseases and allergies at nih. >> good to be here. >> and you are treating one of the patients nina pham at n hishgs h. >> yes, the condition is fair and stable. i had a long conversation with her late last night, and as you might expeck, she has a serious disease, and i believe that she is doing well. my full intention is to at some time in the hopefully reasonable feature is to walk out of the hospital with her. we can not predict, but she is doing well. >> we are getting close to the magic 21-day figure for anyone

who was working and treating the late mr. duncan. >> right. >> and so when we get there, does that mean that everybody connected in dallas is out of the woods? >> well, no. you have to look at it, chuck, in different phases. when mr. duncan first came to the emergency room when it was not and we didn't know that he had ebola, there was a group in that cadre that saw him, and we are later today at the 21-day period for that group. then he goes into the hospital with the event in which two nurses got infected, and there is another group there that is further out that we have to follow, and then different groups as the further you go out, they are free, but the ones today that are going to be quote off of the hook are the ones who saw him initially in the emergency room. >> and let's talk about the government response. the president named ron klain, unofficially, the ebola czar, and how necessaries for the president to name somebody to basically make the bureaucracy

speak to each other? >> well, the president made a good move and i will the tell you why, chuck, because you have multiple agencies involved, hhs, dod, and the state and the federal, and we have had good coordination with lisa monaco and susan pierce, but they have very, very important day jobs, so we need someone to coordinate whose only job is doing that. i look forward to working with ron. >> have you met yet? >> we have exchanged e-mails and are going to be set to meet this week. >> and the role of the surgeon general, more helpful to have the surgeon general to be the public medical spokesperson for the government? >> well, it is nice to have a surgeon general, and you need to get the information out to the public. i believe that information is getting out well. and i am spending a good amount of time to get information out, and tom frieden is doing that, and as long as you have someone to get good and honest and clear information out, that is good. the that is the surgeon general, that is good.

>> would you saw it is a dress rehearsal to see how the government would respond to an actual outbreak? >> well, i would not call it a dress rehearsal, because it is serious stuff, and we are taking it extremely seriously. but when you talk about the initial experience, it is always important to how you fine-tune. and people need to understand that although there are some missteps in the beginning, those things are experiences that put on your radar screen and make you improve. we think about it every single day, how can we do better? and what is the best way to do this or do that. and right now, actually, things are moving quite smooth-- smoothly big thing is to get the contact brackets and make sure we follow

them. >> so we are sticking to the four hospitals, any diagnosed ebola patient is going to be transferred to one of the four locations. oo either yours here, emory and where else? >> well, we need to shore up and have more than the four in which you have people pretrained and you come in and that is the first time that you think about it. it can't be just four. we we may not need anymore and we hope that we don't, but in case there are more cases, we want to make sure that we have people who are pretrained, predrilled over and over and have the right protocol going. >> i guess i go back to the protocol, and how did we not have the right protocol in the first place, and it seems that we are learning the protocol as we go. >> well, it is a good question, and here is the answer. the original protocol on the cdc website was a protocol that was adopted from w.h.o. in which they handled the epidemic under much different conditions than a tertiary care hospital. they did it in the bush. it is not where you were giving people intensive care, and it was clear right away that we needed to modify the protocol to be much, much more strict in which no part of the body was

exposed, but that is the initial protocol. >> and quickly, the vaccine. >> yes. >> and one of the colleagues seemed to hint that if you had been funded or more money, you would have a vaccine today, and is that hyperbole? >> i don't agree with that to be quite honestly, because there have been constraints in biomedical research, and it has been less than robust in the active. >> you can't say that? >> you cannot say we would or would not have this or that. everything has slowed down, but i would not make that statement. >> dr. anthony fauci, thank you. i am joined via skype from accra, ghana, with dr. dan berry, and was the w.h.o. unprepare

unprepared? i know that the w.h.o. is looking back to see what happened and what did they miss, and you know, what part of this could they have dealt with rlier, and i know that there is going to be after action reports, but what part of this were you unprepared for? >> the world was not e prepared for an outbreak of ebola like this nature. we have never seen it before spreading in wide geographical areas, and spreading in urban e areas and widely densely populated areas, and the the travel patterns in western africa are different than eastern african. there it is spread fast, and here it is not. but the world, and the u.n. and the populations were not prepare and now we catching up. >> you have a goal of 70% burials isolated and safe, and 70% of isolated cases in a clinic, and that is a goal set 30 days ago and is it going to

be set? >> that was set in the beginning of september, and the target has to be met by december, and that is how we bend the curve and are relieve the transmissions, and we spent four days with the hundreds of top experts around the world, and including top officials from the u.n. officials here to figure out how to hit it. and now it is consulting with the governments and the implementations of getting it done. >> is your issue more money from the governments infrastructure or actual doctors? >> the most important priority we need right now are health care workers, people to manage these complex health ebola treatment units as well as the doctors, nurses, hygienists to staff them. we are fighting a war against ebola, and we need soldiers on the ground, and instead of soldiers in camouflage, we need soldiers in lab coats and ppe suits to take care of the vi

victims. >> anthony danberry reporting from ghana. good luck and a lot of people are counting on you. >> thank you. and now, joining us is the chair of johns hop h kins university, and also, laurie garrett who is a director of global e relations. lori, you have a op-ed, five myths of ebola, and ebola won't spread in rich countries, and the preparedness is in the u.s. to fight it, and if gone airborne, it would not be stopped from spreading to the u.s., and a vaccine is around the corner. let me start with the post 9/11 emergency preparedness, and the u.s. is ready to fight ebola, and you don't believe it is the case? >> no. we have spent billions of dollars on project bioshield to co come up with the the miraculous vaccines and treatments for

pathogens including ebola. and we have spent billions to get every single health department in the entire united states to go after drill after drill after drill. get the cops, and get the firefighters and all of the public health people, and put on the hazmat suits, boom. the problem is that it was always envisioned in the context of wmd, weapons of mass destruction. >> it was going to be a bioterrorist attack, and not something like this. >> and somebody has a box of something dangerous right here, and boom, you swoop in and you stop it, but what we were not drilling and what hospitals like johns hopkins may have been the exception, but the majority of the hospitals in america never really imagined, okay a contagion and it is ongoing and in the community and my physicians are 24/7 reexposed, reexposed, and that we did not drill. >> and dr. callahan, you are in charge of emergency preparedness at johns hop kin, and when you look at texas presbyterian, what lessons are you taking from it,

and do you believe that you would have been better prepared? >> we have been preparing for this going back to the late '90s when bioterrorism was a big deal, but because of the type of organization and institution that we have, we did foresee that the bugger danger was from natural hazards and so we have been preparing all along, and we have dealt with anthrax and sars and avian flu and h1n1 and murs. and we have been drilling and have experience already over the last decade, and so all we did was to modify to have it specific for ebola the kind of screening that goes in, and we put it right into the e electronic medical record, and you come through the front door and everybody is asked key questions. >> you think that every single hospital in the country needs to put protocols like this in or is that too much? >> well, it is not too much.

as we found out. and i think that the issue in dallas is that the rest of us are saying thank god it wasn't us. this is a needle in the haystack and it could have been any hospital anywhere and so all of the hospitals and like 4,000 acute care hospitals in the nation need to do the up front screening. >> reality check here and i want to put up in the graphic of u.s. deaths from 2011 coming to diseases and other things. flu and pneumonia killed over 53,000 people, and motor vehicle accident accidents, 35,000, and accidental falls 27,000, and tuberculosis only 600, and ebola, 1. so that is a reality check. >> well, chushgs i don't -- well, chushgs i don't know how many epidemics, and the same t pattern, but when it is something new, it creates a fearfulness and the flu, and it has been around and everybody should be afraid of it, but it is not, because it is a routine and it is there. and ebola is new. having been in the ebola

epidemic in zaire, it is a frightening disease, and when the virus in particular begins to wreak havoc with the central nervous system, they are deranged and violent and that is dangerous for the health worker, and the sorrow of it is very extreme. so it when it hits a community as i saw in zaire, it is t terrifying, but the americans need to relax. we have to be realistic, because the real problem is not one or two cases here in the united states, but the real problem is that this epidemic is completely out of control in africa, and it is only -- >> and you think it is out of control, that december 1st deadline -- >> never going to happen. >> at 70% -- >> no, if you do the math right now, and with know we are off by a factor of 2.5 meaning that most of the people are never

getting reported in the system, because they never come to a health facility, and the health facilities are all full. so the cdc estimates for every one that we know about, and there is 2.5 that we don't know about, and so if you take the raw numbers of what has been offici officially reported close to 9,000 cases cumulatively and you divide it by 2.5, and you are way over the 20,000 point that was projected for november. it is doubling every two weeks, and we are going to be looking at 100,000 cases by the time we sit down at thanksgiving, and with we are going to be looking at 200 to 300,000 cases by christmas, and it is an explo exploding epidemic, because it is in on the general population. >> can i get in on this? >> and if that is the truth, we will have more cases in the united states, because maybe people will come here looking for treatment. >> and i want to put one thing in context, the american people do not need to worry that there is going to be somebody with ebola deranged in the shopping mall going rank nuts. i mean, you are so sick at that point, you are not going to be out in public.

i want to be sure that people understand that they are not going to be coming into contact with somebody that sick out in public. >> and very quickly, i wanted to ask you this and more questions after. the issue of getting rid of the waste. what do you do? what should texas presbyterian -- how are you going to remove waste? >> well, a high level topic, but a really dull answer. >> yes. >> there are protocols on how to handle the waste, and how to put it in drums and autoclave it, and regulations by the department of transportation of how it can be transport and those are nicely delineated and the cdc has it on the website for guidance. i think that just about any hospital to today if they haven't worked that the out, they are working that out in the exact way. >> all right. dr. callahan and laurie garrett, thank you. stick with us for the ebola summit. we will be joined by two senators when we return, one of whom says we need a travel ban here in the united states.

[ male announcer ] some come here to build something smarter. ♪ some come here to build something stronger. others come to build something faster... something safer... something greener. something the whole world can share. people come to boeing to do many different things. but it's always about the very thing we do best. ♪ [ female announcer ] we love our smartphones. and now telcos using hp big data solutions are feeling the love, too. by offering things like on-the-spot data upgrades -- an idea that reduced overcharge complaints by 98%. no matter how fast your business needs to adapt, if hp big data solutions can keep wireless customers smiling, imagine what they can do for yours.

make it matter. welcome back. as i told you, dr. gabe kelen and lori garrett are with us. i'm joined by senator roy blunt and democrat bob casey of pennsylvania. senator blunt, i want to begin with you. you are calling for a travel ban. there's a lot of -- it sounds like the white house would be supportive but they don't know how to implement it in a way that would prevent healthcare workers from getting to the hot zone. what do you say? >> we don't have flights directly in and out of any of these countries. all of our people go through some other country to get there anyway. the question is, do you let people come here from this area that is clearly stressed? one way to prevent had a is nth

issue them a visa. they have to have a visa that allows them to stay here. i would suspend that until we have this under better control and have a sense that the carriers they are using are monitoring this in a better way than they have been up until now. >> senator casey, where are you on this? >> i don't think there's a medical consensus. we have to do everything we can to ask the medical experts and develop that expertise. >> sometimes a fine line is that if it makes did sh do you think you have do things fwaus makes the public feel better? >> no question that there's a great fervor for this. it makes sense lockically about how you think to stop something. we have to focus on the source of this. you naerd your last segment severe this is at the source. we have to stop it at the source. i think with our local hospitals, not just big medical centers but every hospital has to try to achieve a measure of

absolute preparedness. that's why -- i was at a hospital in pittsburgh the other day. changing and moving quickly to implement better protective protocols. >> you both have toured hospitals in your hom states last week. cdc protocols are voluntary. they are not mandatory. should we make them mandatory for a temporary basis? >> i'm not sure if you made them mandatory would you have a way to enforce that. hospitals need to be concerned about this, obviously the containment hospitals that we talked about make -- are the place you would want to have people if you can get them there. that doesn't stop somebody from walking into a hospital somewhere else. we're just frankly not as safe as we were a month ago before you had multiple cases developing in the country. by the way, people didn't get upset about this as long as hospitals were dealing with it in the right way. you had two missionaries come to

emory. they were there. they were cured. i didn't see a single comment by any american saying we're concerned this isn't being handled correctly. it's only when it's not handled correctly that people get concerned. >> senator casey, why don't we have a surgeon general? >> it's washington dysfunction. we should have one in place. i think that's part of the problem. absent that, i believe that we have to focus on two places. stopping this at the source and making sure that hospitals are doing a lot more drilling. this basic task of taking equipment or protective equipment on -- taking it off and putting it on has to be the subject of constant drilling. in our state, the state health department requires two of those a year, two drills a year. that's not enough. >> senator, i'm going back to the surgeon general issue here. it seems to be politics. the nra said they were going to score the vote and everybody froze. that seems petty in hindsight,

does it not? >> the president really ought to nominate people that can be confirmed to these jobs. then we should confirm them. there's no question -- >> should the nra have a say? they can have an opinion. he's not going to make gun policy. >> i'm not sure -- you would have to ask senator reed why he hasn't moved that to the top of his list to be confirmed. this going on -- >> would you confirm him? >> a number of people have been confirmed, until this came up, i heard very little discussion about the surgeon general. i'm hearing now that the attorney general nomination won't happen until after the election. we put everything off until after the election. that's one of the reasons that things don't work. >> i want to talk politics of fear. let's me play this. >> ebola epidemic along with isis shows you how we should really secure the border and not

grant amnesty. >> don't worry about this. really? the government needs to stop acting if if it's absurd for people to fear a virus that liquefies their internal organs. >> every sdzombie begins with somebody saying we don't need to worry. >> what we need from congress is constructive proposals based upon science and medical expertise not based upon politics. i think in the senate, roy would agree, i think there's a lot of consensus that our public health system hasn't been invested and that we have to deal with this in a bipartisan way. >> any advice to people on overdoing it here? >> i would be careful about overdoing it. i understand that if this was one incident where people thought the government wasn't doing what the government was supposed to do, it would be much less of of a reaction than we see now where there's this long

list of the government being one step behind whether it's the board he the irs, the secret service, now this health concern is more real than it would be if there wasn't a sense that the government is just not being managed in a way that people would want it to be managed. >> senators casey and blunt, thank you for coming in. i appreciate it. i want to bring in the panel, mike murphy, andrea mitchell. andrea what we heard today so far, do you think we're in a position where it looks like government, particularly the obama administration is reacting with the urgency that a lot of people thought were missing? >> not clear. it's not clear to me yet that hospitals all around the country are getting the message, that they have to do drills. have they done the drills? do they have the gear? is it stocked?

will another emergency in a local hospital make the same mistakes that texas made when mr. duncan first came in? that's where a lot of the exposure came. then most alarmingly, the fact that the nurses went by their own account of the records from the hospital, that nurse pham apparently, unless the records are incorrect, went in and out without the proper gear given to her. >> we were talking about budget cuts and the ability to find a vaccine. the bottom line is that the nih still has billions of dollars a year that it spends on finding a vaccine. to what extent do you think the government is to blame for not prioritizing efforts to find a vaccine for ebola? >> lori, take that. >> i think that's grossly unfair, at least it's targeting the wrong piece of it. yes, project bio-shield was created. the idea was to get incentives for industry to come up with

vaccines for ebola and other key pathogens. the problem was that no one could convince industry that it was in their interest to build up a huge stockpile of something that might never get used. might never get purchased. when did you imagine we would need an ebola vaccine? there was a vaccine center. they did develop a prototype possible ebola vaccine as have other sites in other companies in locations around the world. there was no incentive to take it through the pipeline for commercialization. >> it strikes me -- math is a big element of this. the math is in africa. we tend to focus on here. but that's where it's out of control. we're the only superpower. it is going to land on us. what are the specific resources to stand bending the curve before it's out of control? >> i'm glad you asked that. the harder we make it for volunteers to be assured that they can come home to america

after they have been in the epidemic, the harder it is to recruit people to go and be in the epidemic. we are under staffed in terms of both our military staffing and healthcare worker staffing, grossly. in order of magnitude, we're behind the virus. it's up in a marathon, it's on the 20 mile line and the response is around five miles. >> how do you incentivize doctors and healthcare workers to go? there's been hess tans. >> some of these issues that have come up, people are scared go into that environment because they have seen all of news that they may actually get infected. we have heard earlier from our colleagues who have been there that ppe supply was not assured, that one week they have one type of supply, the next week nothing, the week after that something else. they are not assured they can come back.

now that the u.s. government is in there through the military and there are better supply lines, the ngos have figured out to have a more assured supply and we have a better idea that if you follow this type of protocol, you are not going to get infected, i think we will have an easier time. >> very quickly. >> the doctor did say even though we can't guarantee we would have had an ebola vaccine, everything has slowed down. money toward the ebola vaccine is cut in half to what it was. more cuts are coming under the congressional sequester. does that concern you? should corn restore the funds given the leave elf anxiety across the country? >> i for one obviously always support keeping us with a strong scientific solid well-supported research enterprise. >> i would echo that. here is how it works. you have a fixed budget, a crisis comes. you move all your resources into

that. now the real question is not this. we're concentrating on this. we got a wake-up call. we have done it. what is it that the resources have been moved away from that two years -- why didn't you look at this? you are not prepared. >> there you go. i guarantee you are right. the money will be there short-term. the question is long-term. thank you everybody who participated in this. we will move to more politics. one of the more bizarre starts to a political debate in history this week. >> ladies and gentlemen, we have an extremely peculiar situation right now. >> peculiar is one way to describe florida. ebola has managed to infect the describe florida. ebola has managed to infect the campaign. get to the terminal across town. are all the green lights you? no. it's called grid iq. the 4:51 is leaving at 4:51.

♪ they cut the power. it'll fix itself. power's back on. quick thinking traffic lights and self correcting power grids make the world predictable. thrillingly predictable. it's built on preparation.ion. for the city of barcelona, throwing one of the world's biggest parties starts with the cloud. powered by microsoft dynamic crm, azure, and sql server this cloud helps ensure all voices are heard and the festival goes off without a hitch. this cloud turns chaos into clockwork. (fireworks) this is the microsoft cloud. your customers, our financing. your aspirations, our analytics.

your goals, our technology. introducing synchrony financial, bringing new meaning to the word partnership. banking. loyalty. analytics. synchrony financial. enagage with us. with just over two weeks until the mid terms, i'm going to meet the voters.

i have a new rv. i will travel through some key battleground states in the midwest. you can follow my travels on "nbc nightly news" and nbcnews.com. "nbc nightly news" and when folks think about what they get from alaska, they think salmon and energy. but the energy bp produces up here creates something else as well: jobs all over america. engineering and innovation jobs. advanced safety systems & technology. shipping and manufacturing. across the united states, bp supports more than a quarter million jobs. when we set up operation in one part of the country, people in other parts go to work. that's not a coincidence. it's one more part of our commitment to america.

it's in this spirit that ingu u.s. is becoming a new kind of company. one that helps you think differently about what's ahead, and what's possible when you get things organized. ing u.s. is now voya. changing the way you think of retirement.

means keeping seven billion ctransactions flowing.g, and when weather hits, it's data mayhem. but airlines running hp end-to-end solutions

are always calm during a storm. so if your business deals with the unexpected, hp big data and cloud solutions make sure you always know what's coming - and are ready for it. make it matter. welcome back. with the mid term elections just over two weeks away, debate season has been in full swing. this past week was the political version of march madness. we had confrontations over ebola, president obama, even owe whether a candidate could bring a fan on stage. of course, there was the occasional verbal fist fight. >> 20-count criminal indictment, face the face. >> gentlemen. >> it's ridiculous. >> in a campaign where ad spending is expected to be over $3 billion, one of the last places to catch candidates unscripted is, oddly, on stage.

>> i would give president obama a six to seven. >> with the president's job rating sit at or below 40% in the senate battleground states, it's easy to for get he's not on the ballot. >> under the obama prior xhnd. >> senator hagan voted with president obama -- >> the task, running from the president without alienating his voters. >> i disagree with the president. we need to build the keystone pipeline. >> when he gives the green light despite americans -- >> why are you reluctant to give an answer on whether or not you voted for president obama? >> bill, there's no reluck tansy. this is a matter of principal. >> not all republicans are eager to embrace their party label either. >> when it came to the violence against women act, i stood against my party. >> even the republican party's leader in the senate, mitch mcconnell said this week he wants to repeal healthcare

reform but not kentucky's popular state-based healthcare exchange. it's obamacare by another name. >> you would support the continuation of kinect? >> it's a state decision. it's fine. i think it's fine to have a website, yeah. >> as voters tune out, campaigns are now trying to get their attention by turning to the politics of fear. >> ladies and gentlemen, we have an ebola outbreak. we have bad actors that can come across the border. >> this all goes back to isis, ebola and the other problems that we see on the border. >> candidates are sharpening their attacks. >> he would be the only senator that from his own words has built a can a year around outsourcing american jobs. that is not -- >> they fine tune the art of the back handed compliment. >> he did go to harvard and certainly we're proud of that. i know he probably couldn't get into the university of arkansas. we get that. >> i would like each candidate

to say something nice about your opponent. >> you are very well dressed opponent. i admire your accumulation of wealth. >> as campaigns haggle over every detate from the number and format of debates, to that electric fan down in florida, the unforgettable moment can happen when a candidate just doesn't show up. >> we have been told that governor scott will not be participating in this debate. >> or sometimes when a few too many candidates do show. >> you are uncivilized. >> oh, vermont. stephanie, you have been a debate prepper for years. what have you seen in the debates that makes you either feel bert for the democrats that you think maybe you will survive this? >> i think that democrats are holding their own in these debates. that's because basically republicans are like one trick ponies. insert the name and then obama.

>> 2006 it was insert the name. insert bush. >> what is proving to be true is that this election hasn't been nationalized. time and time again in many of these debates, many that you showed, it's more about local issues. look at the back and forth that mcconnell got in over the kentucky healthcare plan. he stumbled on it. didn't know what to say. that's about healthcare in kentucky. >> murphy? >> you can't get allison to admit who she voted for with the jaws of life machine. that's a disaster. when the president's numbers are down to 40%, broccoli is at 45. you will have a rejection. what they are trying to do -- i don't think it's working well, they are trying to make the election about some negative wedge issue. i believe that the thing is moving in a good republican direction because the national reject the president numbers. we have had a conga line of

screwups. now we have ebola, which i think you have to be careful about politicizing it. it does become a narrative of incompetence. >> there does seem to be a line on ebola. of the debates, it seems as if the most telling moments -- the most telling may be the florida moment. if any debate has an impact on numbers right now it appears that's the one. >> that's right. crist was leading before the fan fiasco. >> not by much. >> republicans now kind of throwing in the towel knowing that this is something that voters will remember when a peculiar incident like that, a fan -- voters were just tuning in to the race. that's one of the things that they will end up remembering when they go to vote. >> my fear is that because of this -- of debate moments like that becoming potentially game changers that you will have more candidates refuse debates. >> in fact, that's the republican strategy for 2016 in the primaries. they have said that they aren't going -- >> afraid of moments. >> afraid of debates.

the fan moment -- there's going to be another florida debate tuesday night. he has been bringing that fan for ten years. the fan has a twitter account. >> the fan won the debate. this next debate, nothing will happen. >> that's why he has a fan. i have a reform proposaproposal. ban staff from baits. governor scott was not served. >> do you think it might cost him the race? >> he has a chance in the next debate to reset it. it was a fumble. let's get the staff oust this and let them debate. fewer open mike night debates. >> you will get more time, i promise. coming up, addicted to running. some candidates oust prison and back on the campaign trail. >> the only way i can lose this race is -- >> if i got caught in bed with a dead woman or live boy. there was no chance of that happening.

time for cnbc's executive edge week ahead brought to you by comcast business. >> if you have an iphone 6 and live in the u.s., you can start using it to pay for goods and services tomorrow when apple launches its mobile payment season. earnings in focus as a dozen dow components are scheduled to release. fears of slowing global growth and the ebola situation. that's your cnbc executive edge. and ththe conference call. the ultimate arena for business. hour after hour of diving deep, touching base, and putting ducks in rows. the only problem with conference calls: eventually they have to end. unless you have the comcast business voiceedge mobile app. it lets you switch seamlessly from your desk phone to your mobile with no interruptions. i've never felt so alive. get the future of phone and the phones are free.

comcast business. built for business. but at xerox we've embraced a new role. working behind the scenes to provide companies with services... like helping hr departments manage benefits and pensions for over 11 million employees. reducing document costs by up to 30%... and processing $421 billion dollars in accounts payables each year. helping thousands of companies simplify how work gets done. how's that for an encore? with xerox, you're ready for real business. dad: he's our broker. he helps looks after all our money. kid: do you pay him? dad: of course. kid: how much? dad: i don't know exactly. kid: what if you're not happy? does he have to pay you back? dad: nope. kid: why not? dad: it doesn't work that way. kid: why not? vo: are you asking enough questions about the way your wealth is managed? wealth management at charles schwab

twhat do i do?. you need to catch the 4:10 huh? the equipment tracking system will get you to the loading dock. ♪ there should be a truck leaving now. i got it. now jump off the bridge. what? in 3...2...1... are you kidding me? go. right on time. right now, over 20,000 trains are running reliably.

we call that predictable. thrillingly predictable. politics is a profession

very few walk away from willingly, and sure some senators the and congressmen who move on to lucrative lobbying careers, but boy, being out of office stings for these guys and the ache never goes a wway. so it is no wonder that so many attempt to make a comeback. i asked willie geist to spend some time with three colorful figures who have a real chance to make it back into office, and two of them in fact spent some time in the big house. >> reporter: this 87-year-old man is working the phones for vote votes. >> i'm one politician who knows how to deliver on the promises. you know me. governor edwards. >> reporter: that is edwards as in edwin edwards a congressional candidate who spent 16 years as governor of louisiana before spending 8 1/2 years in prison for racketeering. he is wone in a crop of candidates characters and all seeking political reredemption this fall. there is 76-year-old larry pressler out for the morning jog

and stunning the political world as he is running neck in neck to win back the south dakota senate seat he lost in 1976. >> i have seniority and i can be a powerful senator for south dakota. >> reporter: but one person is not thrilled about the prospects of him going back to politic, his wife. >> she is not excited. >> reporter: and the legendary six-term providence mayor buddy cianci looking to return to city hall after a prison stent of five years for conspiracy to commit rack are tearing. >> i did my time. in this system of justice, you have a chance and i was sentenced and i did it, and i did it like a man. >> reporter: he was released from the federal gated community, the 76-year-old see yancey wants his job back, and holding court this night at a drag bingo game. b for buddy. >> reporter: why back in?

>> a cle line in tdecline in th that is number one and i looked around and none of them have a vision, so u decided to run. >> reporter: he has the critics, but the poll shows that providence might get him out of a bad time. >> i got you out of the bad time in 1980. well, i'm glad that you remember it. >> reporter: even on the phone, everyone remembers edwin edward s. did that gentleman say that you helped him in 1980? >> yes. >> reporter: do you recall? >> no, but he was very grateful. >> reporter: and they are spending time catching up with voters who feel like old friends. edwards who many people in louisiana still call the governor and now has a 1-year-old son was first elected to congress 50 years ago. >> a lady asked me the the other day, you are 87 years old and retire and why don't you do what you feel like doing, and i said, l

lady, that is what i feel like doing, running for congress. >> reporter: and he is not worried about the 8 1/2 years behind bars. >> i did nothing wrong and it had nothing to do with the politics, and nothing to do with my role as governor. >> reporter: but the justice system disagreed, but as we balk we walk around baton rouge, people agreed. >> he would be an excellent congressman. >> reporter: he has given american politics some of the most famous quotes like this one from the 1983 gubernatorial race. this is the most famous quote, the only way ki lose this race is -- >> if i got caught in bed with a dead woman or a live boy, and you know what, there is no chance of that happening. >> willie is joining me now. and by the way, i know that he said that he did nothing time and nobody who serves times says that they were guilty. >> right. >> and there is some debate over the greatest quote the one there or the one in the 1991 race against david duke the grand wizard of the klan, and asked if he had anything in common with

david duke and he said, we are both wizards under the sheets. >> and of the three, buddy cianci is the one most like ly o get back in office? >> yes. >> pressler even though he is neck and neck, he is likely to win, but the most likely is buddy cianci, and they say we don't need a 70-something guy out there who has been in jail running the city, but there is still some support. >> and he has his own marinara sau sauce. >> and without the squirrel, and the toupee that he so famously wore for so long. that is for but

nearly one in three children in america is overweight. let's lighten up those numbers with fruits and vegetables, lean protein, and lots of water. add in plenty of active play and the odds of good health are in your favor, the more you know. welcome back. the panel is still here. we have our new nbc news wall street journal weekly tracking survey. andrea mitchell, ballot among likely voters, the biggest lead we reported for the republicans among -- this is the nbc wall street journal early in the week.

it had 45-43, but among likely it went up to five. it was -- here is what i can tell you. it was a bad week for democrats. is it holding? >> it's a bad week to democrats. the white house has been under fire. our republican former partner in polling has said that it's the get out of vote effort and that democrats do a lot better at getting out the vote. it's going to come down to a ground game. i think that texas supreme court decision on saturday morning is going to be really telling, if there are more voter restrictions placed in some of those states, it's going to be really hard for democrats. >> your buddy is a republican strategist had this great quote this morning. government is failing. people are trapped in a room with obama and the democratic party. they want to get out of the room. the only door out leads them to a room full of lepers, the republican party. is he right?

>> i'll be with him at the republican dinner this year. >> we will do well for free. people will reject the president. we will win republican states. the question is what do we do with it? 2016 is what counts. it's a tougher electoral, bigger turnout. we will have the power to talk about middle class economics and policy. if we don't, we will blow the republican opportunity. >> the obama get out of vote machine, is it going to show up? >> we're at the point where in this race where campaigns really matter. >> i feel like this whole year the campaigns have mattered more than we thought. >> the democratic campaigns at least. i can't speak tore what's going on incite the republican campaigns. the democratic campaigns have been really working and doing what they need to do. look at iowa. the mail-in ballots, a hugh percentage have voted. two to one of sporadic are voting for the democrat. independence by 25% are voting

for the democrat. that's happening in races all over the country. i do think this is going to be a good year for republicans. you are going to gain seats. i think if there is going to be a tidal wave, we would see more of a movement by now. >> we would have seen it. i will get to what washington knows but isn't saying. in this case, it's about healthcare and the idea. we have seen the biggest false promise of the 24 midterm campaign has been about the affordable care act. listen to mitch mcconnell here. >> i want to -- if we had the ability to do it, we would. >> he is never going to have the ability. >> even if he gets the majority, it's 51/49. >> are republicans over promising? their base is going to expect to see that. >> it isn't going to happen. it's a sign of the challenges mcconnell is going to have if he becomes majority leader. he will have conservatives pushing very hard to do

something on obamacare. then he will have a bunch of blue state republicans who are up for re-election in 2016 who will want no part of it. then, of course, you have a democrat in the white house and a very conservative house republican conference. how he threads that needle is going to be very, very difficult. i'm not sure he should want the march jurorty. >> i have heard, house republican leader say to me, for the first five things we pass and one is healthcare, we have failed. >> they don't want to go near it. why reopen that? they just want to figure out -- they haven't figured out yet what they want to throw up there. as veto bait to try to put the president on the defensive as quickly as possible. >> 15 seconds, murphy. she thuf come out with five things they were going to do with the majority? are they going to regret they didn't do that in. >> no. they will do it a week after the election. if they don't -- >> if they have since. >> if he they don't, they're in trouble. on wednesday, i will roll into kansas, iowa and wisconsin to

meet the voters in the rv you saw earlier. if i come into your town, come say hi and share rv sightings. we will be back next week with stories from the road. 20 years of serving the underinsured healthcare people in arlington, virginia, well done. if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

pennsylvania voters will pick the man to lead their state in just over two weeks. they'll choose tom corbit or businessman tom wolfe with a campaign marred by vicious attack ads down to the final push to your vote. good morning. i'm keith jones for "nbc 10!@issue." we talk to governor tom corbit behind in the polls since the beginning of his campaign. he talked about funding philadelphia schools and how he deals with historically low approval ratings. first, a glimmer of hope. a slow and steady boost