Welcome to Axis ProRata, where we normally take 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision

of tech, business, and politics. But today we're doing a special five-part series on the coronavirus

pandemic, which is changing our economy, our health care system, and our way of life.

I'm Demper Mac. This episode is focused on how

COVID-19 could impact our politics. And I'm pleased to be joined by Axios' Margaret Talib.

This week, we saw both Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders canceled their large-scale events, with President

Trump eventually following suit. But as you write today, politics is fundamentally about engaging

people. So for these candidates, what is their

plan if they can't be shaking hands and kissing babies? Yeah, Dan, it's a really interesting test.

And this is going to be all about the virtual connections, you know, whether it's a virtual

town hall, as we've seen Joe Biden begin to roll out, whether it's engagement through TV appearances,

through literally speeches to no live audience, and through Twitter, which of course can amplify

all of those discussions. But I think there are two questions. And one is, will it deprive

the candidates themselves of that kind of boost of energy and that feedback that they can get

from large rallies and from small events at diners. And audiences at debates, which we're not going to

have a crowd at tomorrow night's debates. That's absolutely right. There's going to be that

debate was moved from Arizona to CNN's Washington, D.C. TV studio, and it will not be in front

of a live audience. And so some of those interactions that we've

seen in other debates, like for example, when Elizabeth Warren was kind of setting Mike Bloomberg on fire

and the audience was playing along, we'll see less of that. And it may create a more substantive

debate if there's less kind of playing to the crowd, but it also is going to, again, deprive some of

that energy and that instant

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