Yahoo! Finance's Melody Hahm joins The Final Round to discuss Congress' coronavirus response package, which allocates $400 million for election security and protections.

Video Transcript

JEN ROGERS: So as Anjalee said, there was a lot of different measures in the stimulus bill, and one area of them is election safety. And I want to bring in Melody Hahm here to talk a little bit about this.

So, Melody, it's interesting. The House itself is kind of trying to figure out how they're going to vote to pass this historic stimulus measure without spreading more coronavirus among its members. This is going to be an issue for citizens though. This is a 2020 election year. What does the stimulus bill have in it for protections?

MELODY HAHM: Yeah, it's very interesting because $400 million is allocated-- designated for, quote, unquote, "election administration" and a lot of the support measures there. I actually just got off an interview with California Secretary of State Alex Padilla who is basically the overseer of elections for the state of California for both federal and local elections. That is his central role as secretary of state, and he essentially is saying that is, you know, a drop in the bucket. If you calculate it exactly, it's less than 1/2 of 1% of that $2 trillion that is proposed. And his exact quote in a statement was "we cannot have a functioning economy if we do not have a functioning democracy."

As we know, Jen, a lot of the efforts state by state have been to really get people to mail in their ballots if they're feeling too lazy and don't have enough time to go to the polls. I think this pandemic has brought to light that that may become the new way that we may be voting in November. A lot of pundits are speculating that we could potentially, worst-case scenario, have an entirely mail-in ballot system because even if the best-case scenario by summer we, quote, unquote, can go back to normal and can be out of our houses and go out and about, I think there will be some markedly changed behavior in the way that people think about interacting with people, being in close quarters.

Of course, that's up for debate as to what kinds of cohorts will actually change their behavior, or some may revert exactly back to prepandemic. But I do think it has lasting repercussions.

We also spoke with Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group-- I know he's a friend of "The Final Round" as well-- on "On the Move" yesterday, and he was saying it's fascinating to him, and rightfully so, that no one has asked him about Biden in the last two weeks as you think about the risk factors ahead. He anticipates, for one, that Trump's approval rating will go up over the next several weeks and months, even if it's just by sheer virtue of exposure, by having folks like Dr. Fauci on his stage who are kind of giving him this sort of robust credibility in a way that he's not been able to have.

I know there's a lot of mixed sentiment around his own, you know, appropriate behavior and presidential nature during this time, but I do have to say that this does not bode well necessarily for galvanizing the Biden cohort, and perhaps it might turn over people who do not want an extreme turnover amid such a pandemic and, of course, the ensuing crisis that will follow economically.

JEN ROGERS: Yeah, it's really hard to break through. It's not noise. It's actual news that people want to consume, and team Biden are trying to figure that out for sure there, Melody.

MYLES UDLAND: Well, it will have to be Andrew Cuomo instead, I think.

JEN ROGERS: Yes. I mean, [INAUDIBLE] on Twitter, draft Cuomo.

MELODY HAHM: Yeah. And one thing that I was noticing even with Cuomo's strategy, it is very Trump-esque, right, where even if you think about the individual shoutouts with Tim Cook donating masks, SoftBank donating masks. It's these solitary sort of spotlights that he's bringing to business leaders. It is so reminiscent of the way that Trump was really applauding people who were bringing back manufacturing to the States, and it's almost giving me deja vu right now.

JEN ROGERS: Maybe people have learned a few things, tricks--

MELODY HAHM: Yeah.

JEN ROGERS: --from watching.

MELODY HAHM: Art of the deal.