thank you very much, jacob. enjoy and have fun. we will come back to you later. claire mccaskill and michael steele, thank you both. that does it for us, but do not go anywhere. our special coverage continues next with chris hayes and alex wagner. i'm here with my friend and colleague, chris hayes. tonight we will hear from the candidate himself as donald trump officially accepts the republican nomination for president for the third time. we are also closely following the situation in washington,

where there is a sense of mounting pressure for president joe biden to bow out of the race ahead of next month's democratic convention. the washington post reports former president barack obama believes biden needs to reconsider a second term and the new york times now reports that biden may be considering the possibility that he needs to leave the race. chris, last night if you are following along with the scripted remarks that were advanced to us of j.d. vance, there was an ad lib. he made about kamala harris. >> i saw that. >> that was not just happenstance. that was clearly, i think, trying to account for a potential future where joe biden is not actually the nominee and i sort of wonder whether you think we will hear similar ad lib.'s or plain scripting from donald trump tonight. >> i am very curious. it is not that hard to talk about the biden-harris ticket. this is the most uncertain and volatile political situation

that i have -- >> modern american politics. >> probably since 1968, which is the touchstone everyone points to. there was some craziness in 2008, particularly the primary and the financial crisis five weeks before the election. that was 2016. this level of uncertainty and volatility, the reporting we are getting today. i don't know. we are all reading the paper. the reporting to me right now, there is a sort of strange quality of a hedge nature like thinks that he may need to reconsider. no one wants to say anything definitive, understandably. >> also if he doesn't decide to bow out, democrats need to get behind the person who is the nominee. >> it is so funny to think when you said that word in the opening, the third time he accepted the nomination, just how long this period for the

country, for the republican party has already lasted since donald trump started running in 2015. it is nine years later that we've been through this. we are staring down the barrel of possibly some more. i don't know. but it has been a long era. >> and to just put it in perspective, the second time around and after january 6, the idea that donald trump -- we should not lose sight of what happened in 2021. and just how little support he had for at least 48 hours inside the republican party. even moms extending after that. the notion that he would be taking the nomination for a third time with the party more united, more in lockstep than it ever has been. >> in fact on the final night of the republican convention it is overwhelmingly clear that donald trump and the maga movement have successfully purged the dissident factions of the republican party, particularly older vestiges of the republican party. take a look around the

convention floor and think about who is not in that room tonight. there are three living former republican vice presidents. dan quayle, dick cheney and mike pence. none of them are there. mike pence said he won't vote for donald trump. dick cheney called him a threat to the republic. also absent, the former republican president before donald trump. he's not that old. his name is president george w. bush. he is still around. also not there, one-time republican presidential nominee, the guy giving the speech in 2012, mitt romney. also absent. high-profile ex-house speakers at the top of the party. paul ryan, john boehner. all of these men were once the backbone of the republican party. they have been removed for being insufficiently pro-tran32 and the most obvious evidences tonight's lineup leading to donald trump's big acceptance speech. typically the presidential nominee is introduced by a fellow statesman. in 2012 rising star florida senator marco rubio introduced

mitt romney. in 2004 the election after september 11, the new york governor introduced george w. bush. in 1996 bob dole spoke after his own presidential nominee. that is usually how it goes. 2024, a very different story. tonight taking the stage ahead of donald trump speech, we have the golf pro from the golf club in west palm beach as well as the golf general manager of the trump national doral, the golf general manager. also fired fox news host tucker carlson and alina haber, the attorney the lost the case for trump to pay $83 million in damages to a woman that a jury found liable for sexually assaulting and addressing room and subsequently defaming multiple times. then we will hear from two stars in the professional

wrestling world. hulk hogan and president of the ufc, dana white. you may know white from the 2022 incident caught on camera when he physically assaulted his wife at a nightclub in mexico. and kid rock of course. he also played the 1996 rnc. with the performance of a nearly 25-year-old song. that is the new republican party. mckay coppins is a staff writer for the atlantic who joins us live. george conway is a conservative lawyer and former republican here with us in new york. mckay, we will start with you because you are in the arena right now. it is an important part of the unity that yes, there is unity in the republican party. it is unity born of a successful purge of any remnant of dissident factions. >> trump's supporters and allies are pretty proud of that fact. conversations i was having just hours ago with some of the delegates, they were kind of

saying to me, i am sure glad mitt romney is not here. they were like i don't think he would fare too well here and then they started listing off some of the same republicans you just named and were kind of mocking them, laughing at them. there is a sense of not just unity, but triumph over the conquest that trump and his faction has completed over the gop. i will also mention quickly that i have been checking in with some of those republicans who have been exiled from the party this weekend the thing that honestly strikes me the most, you know, they are frustrated with some of the things they've heard. a lot of them don't like j.d. vance, but more than anything what comes there was almost a lack of interest. they are so alienated from this party that it almost doesn't feel like something they even need to pay attention to anymore, because they have no belonging to it and i think that is an interesting development. >> speaking of which, george conway is here in studio.

>> i don't feel like i belong there either. >> you are not there. >> i was there this morning, but not in the security perimeter. i don't know what kind of perception i would have received. this is totally, absolutely an unrecognizable political party. if you can call it a political party. if you -- i think it is more of a personality cult. that's what it's become. you have to swear complete loyalty to the leader and if you don't, then you are out and you are excluded and policy really doesn't matter. here we are. make america great again. okay, let's give half the world to the russians and the other to the chinese. what are we even talking about? >> george, the fact that the people leading into the former presidents acceptance speech are golf pros and ufc fighters tells you a lot about the next administration, but also i think if i am a potential trump administration staffer i am

wondering, okay, we are going to purge the deep state. there is this notion that there will be a whole new bureaucracy from maga world. will that be people with no institutional and political experience? i understand the sort of zeal behind that, but on a practical level how do you get anything done if it is a bunch of ufc fighters and golf pros in the doj? >> you send hulk hogan down the hall and get the prosecutors not to prosecute your friends. i don't know. i don't know how it is going to work. i it is just -- it is not a serious party and not a party that is interested in governance. it is a party interested in serving the interests and appeasing the whims of one man who is very resentful and very much wants to wreak vengeance on those people who crossed him. >> mckay, you talked about, you used the word triumphalism. it is striking. one of the clear lines is there

is a gender gap. there was a gender gap before and there is a gender gap now. democrats do better with women, republicans do better with men. you would think you would look at that and think okay, the convention is our opportunity to get some of those voters, right? so we are doing pretty poorly with women voters relatively speaking. you know, what can we do? well, we've got a golf pro, the golf manager, which is big, and then we've got hulk hogan and the ufc guy who assaulted his wife on tape. that is the programming tonight. >> i have to say i am pretty puzzled by the programming decisions tonight. there have been moments this week where it actually did feel like the party was specifically targeting elements of the electorate that they are weak with. that they have had a number of

african american and latino speakers. they have had, you know, moms who talk about the plague of drugs and, you know, talk about how their families have been impacted by inflation and things like that, but tonight, what should be the climax of the convention, the moment where donald trump is going to accept the nomination. traditionally this is when you have, by far, the most viewers. they have tucker carlson and hulk hogan and kid rock. it feels like a lot of dissonance with what was supposed to be this message of unifying the country. whether you ever thought that that was real, it certainly seemed like the campaign was telegraphing that and i don't see a lot of evidence in that in the programming decisions tonight. we will see how it goes. >> george, this make clint eastwood's empty chair look

like a major headlining act. republicans have never, with all due respect to republicans and former republicans, have never been at the front of the cultural vanguard, but the atrophy on that level and to just be in this bunker of cultural insignificance i mean -- again, golf pros. they can't get anybody who is part of mainstream culture to be part of this showcase this evening. >> right and it is a freak show. i just don't understand, as mckay said, i don't understand who they are trying to appeal to. i really don't. >> men, young men. men and young men. >> they don't even have like pga tour winners. >> ufc -- >> give them ufc, but again, this is introducing someone who is going to be accepting the republican presidential nomination for the third time. they have done this three times

before and rather than build support in any kind of cultural sphere, it has atrophied to the point that literally an employee at the golf course is introducing him. >> it feels like a fever dream if someone told you in like 1989. hulk hogan and donald trump at the rnc. >> this is where we are at. george conway, hang around. we have much more to talk to you about. mckay coppins from the fiserv arena, thank you for perspective and wisdom. we appreciate your time. >> msnbc coverage of the final night of the rnc is just getting started and there is a schedule line in the program tonight with the same question we've been asking all year. are you better off now than you were four years ago? we will have the answer next. >> we, in the republican party are the law and order team.

>> law and order. >> president trump will bring back law and order. >> restore law and order. >> restore law and order. >> we support law and order. >> yes indeed, this morning i did walk out of a federal prison. in miami. (janet) so much space! that open kitchen! (tanya) ...is that a walk in closet? (ethan) i want those tiles! (intercom) boosters engaged. (ethan) wait! we've got a problem! (janet) problem?! (ethan) how can you sell your house when we're stuck on a space station for months???!!! (tanya) no, no! bad timing, janet!!! (janet) but that was the one!!!! (brian) no, no, no... opendoor!! (tanya) don't open the door. (brian) opendoor gives you the flexibility to sell and buy on your timeline. (all) really? (brian) yea!!! (intercom) we have liftoff. (janet) nice! (janet) houston we have a playroom!

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[ put a little love in your heart could help with your skin or joint symptoms. by david ruffin begins to play ] my bad, my bad. good race. - you too. you were tough out there. thank you. i'm getting you next time though. oh i got you, i got you.

down goes jewett. jewett and amos are down. what a lovely sign of sportsmanship. you okay? yeah. ♪ ♪ the republican party of the convention has been running all kinds of speeches and montages and one of the videos on the

schedule this evening that caught our eye is called reagan, better off, obviously referencing the question ronald reagan famously posted the debate in 1980, are you better off than you were four years ago? i can't believe it, but it has been a theme this whole week. >> are you better off than you were four years ago? >> you have to start by thinking where we were four years ago. >> every american knows that we were so much better off under president trump. >> i'm going to ask you one simple question. are americans better off today than they were four years ago? no. in 2019, the median household income in the united states was $4000 more than it is today. >> no, no. i see that.

2019 was five years ago. four years ago was 2020 and donald trump was president for that year, too. this is what it looked like exactly 4 years ago today. >> a record number of coronavirus cases in georgia and arizona. in florida they are running out of crucial treatments. >> sicker than we have ever been. >> unidentified federal officers forcefully detained protesters. >> that is something you see in authoritarian regimes. >> is a national debate on facemasks rages, the president weighs in. >> i want people to have a certain freedom and i don't believe in that, no. >> that was just from july 18, 2020 but the entire year was a terrible, chaotic disaster and it was all, all of it, under trump's watch. >> breaking news tonight, president trump declaring the

coronavirus a national emergency. >> a national emergency. two very big words. >> too little, too late. like we knew it was coming. >> dr. fauci said earlier this week that the lag in testing was of failing. do you take responsibility for that? >> i don't take responsibility at all. >> unemployment, the worst since the great depression. american families going hungry. thousands lining up at food banks. >> we have to get our country open. >> what metrics will you use to make that decision? >> metrics are right here. that is all i can do. >> massive crowds gathering to protest the death of george floyd. in cities from coast to coast, violence erupts. >> you have to dominate. if you don't dominate your wasting your time. they're going to run over you. you will look like a bunch of jerks. >> fresh fallout over the government decision monday night

to use physical force and/bangs to disperse peaceful protesters from in front of the white house. president trump posting for pictures, holding up a bible without explanation. >> who? proud boys? stand back and standby. >> the president privately acknowledging early in the pandemic that he knew the virus was deadly and highly contagious. >> it is also more deadly than, you know, even your strenuous lose. this is deadly stuff. >> president trump a short time ago flown to walter reed hospital as a precaution after both he and the first lady tested positive for the coronavirus. >> the president ascending from the helicopter and walking to that balcony that you see, removing his mask and posing for photos. >> will you commit to making sure there is a peaceful transfer of power after the election?

>> we have to see what happens. i have been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. >> let's go to pennsylvania. we have joe biden sitting at 253, so just pennsylvania would put him over the top. >> this is a fraud on the american public. this is an embarrassment to our country. we were getting ready to win this election. frankly we did win this election. >> the president is now telling his supporters that he also wants them in the streets in washington on january 6. saying on twitter, be there, will be wild. >> that was four years ago. chaos in the streets. a pandemic or aging. >> yep. >> the run-up to the attempted coup. i continue to be bold over that they are asking the question. yes, of course. >> even if you put the national news to the side, i went back and looked at what i was doing four years ago and it is my eldest son's birthday in this

timeframe and we were celebrating his third birthday. we were celebrating it with just parents and his younger brother and there are photos of us with the grandparents on zoom. there are so many other people in this country that had to say goodbye to loved ones on zoom. who had funerals on zoom, but who missed out on life for so long with the people that mattered most to them and the idea that everybody has forgotten about that is just shortchanging the intelligence and emotional effects. >> right now this sort of jedi mind trick, which i think is born of a bunch of complicated things, is working. that's the thing, it's working. there is a reason that the selection is where it is and i want to come back to george conway, who is back with us. we are also joined with the publisher of the ball work and host of the focus group podcast. alex and i were talking in the

editorial meeting today about the triumphalism, a word that mckay used. first of all them pulling off this amazing -- of that year. there is a supreme confidence they are exuding that they have this in the bag. they don't have to worry about swing state voters. that this is just plucking an apple off the tree. >> i think they have been planning for a while to run against joe biden and they believe joe biden is somebody they can beat in a landslide. tim alberta had this great piece in the atlantic where he was hanging out and they believe that they can beat joe biden and states that are not even part of the swing state calculus. places like virginia. places like minnesota. i think they will find themselves in a different position if it is anybody else other than joe biden, because suddenly there is someone who

could prosecute the case. i think joe biden has become the center of the story and one of the things that has happened with voters and i do focus groups and talk with voters all the time. it is not that they have forgotten exactly. it is that that is an intense time and with the pace of the news media and everything else they have lost the plot, lost the time frame on when everything happened. which is why for so many issues today it is about being capable of driving a narrative and raising the salience of certain issues. you need somebody who can explain that four years ago people were trapped in their homes. tons of people were out of work and when joe biden came in, this thing happens sometimes where people think donald trump is the one who passed the infrastructure bill and joe biden was president during the pandemic. you have to be able to articulate and remind them of

what is happening and you have to do it in real time, relentlessly all the time, because otherwise voters -- >> don't remember. >> especially because that time was a black hole for people, so it creates a weird space in their brain. that is why you have to prosecute this case. >> i will say in addition to the way in which the trump campaign strategy is centered on joe biden, there is, even with joe biden at the center of it, there is a confidence that, dare i say, george, seems like hubris given that the republican party has no platform other than curbing bodily autonomy and mass deportations. >> absolutely. this party, they are trusting people that people have forgotten. they are hoping that because they think they can make the issue about someone other than trump, that is how they think they will win. that is what happened in 2016, hillary became the issue. 2020, trump became the issue.

now biden, they made him the issue. in a weird way some of the trump that happened -- some of the stuff that happened to trump . you didn't get to see his craziness and all of a sudden there is that attack on saturday and there is natural sympathy that occurs and we miss , we forget about the crazy, we forget about the chaos. as if it is another lifetime. >> that point about literally, sara, when did certain things happen? i think it is such an important one. what year was that again? when was biden? when was trump? i genuinely think your point about prosecuting that case, it is like here is the calendar. look at it. zoom in, july. joe biden, not president. that is so key to the next four months of this campaign, whoever is the democratic

nominee. >> i'm going to say something that sounds crazy, but voters don't think about january 6 that often. they don't. if you ask how they feel things are going in the country, they often don't bring up abortion. you have to raise the salience of these issues for people because when you remind swing voters about january 6 or even when trump gets in her face. george is a right that donald trump not being front and center in the conversation, that the media is fighting the last battle. they don't carry his rallies. they cut off his mics during debates. everything is built to keep donald trump days he is not on twitter the way he used to be, he is on truth social that nobody reads. that is creating with people a sense of distance with trump that allows them to not remember what he was like before and feel slightly better about him than they have, but i agree

that it is hubris. the second this race turns and is about donald trump, it becomes a more difficult prospect because voters still don't like donald trump. >> sarah long well with double work and george conway, starting a new pack to explore the depths of trump's mental concerns. thank you for joining us, both of you. night four of our special coverage of the rnc continues while the drama on the democratic side continues. we will talk to the biden- harris campaign cochair about all of that, coming up. stay with us. ver 50. it's lying dormant, waiting... and could reactivate. shingles strikes as a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. and it could wake at any time. think you're not at risk for shingles? it's time to wake up. because shingles could wake up in you. if you're over 50, talk to your doctor or pharmacist

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we are back on the final night of the rnc. we want to bring an nbc news correspondent jacob soboroff, covering the rnc this evening. >> reporter: i am directly below president trump's box. he watched the speeches a little bit and then he got up and walked out. i have a chance to shut a question at him as he was walking by. here it is, take a look. mister president, how are you feeling? what do you want the nation to know ahead of your speech, sir? president trump says he is feeling good ahead of his speech tonight. so again, chris, you see there and this is as close as i have seen former president trump since the assassination attempt. he said he was feeling good. he gave me the double thumbs

up. he looks good. he was moving normally and was on his way to a destination that we don't know, but we expect to see him on the stage a little bit later tonight. >> all right, jacob soboroff at the fiserv arena. donald trump will be giving his speech later this evening, the third time he will be speaking before the rnc. since our show last night we learned there are a growing number of democratic leaders pressing president biden to step aside. some of it on the record, some of it off. the washington post reports president obama is telling allies that biden needs to consider the viability of his candidacy. congressman jamie raskin wrote a letter earlier this month that praised him and compared him to a baseball pitcher in a championship game whose arm is tired out. interesting metaphor. this comes on top of senate majority leader chuck schumer and house minority leader hakeem jeffries and nancy pelosi all raising concerns

about the presidents ability to win reelection. even some of the president strongest internal backers are bracing for the possibility he steps down. one of them saying, we are close to the end. claire mccaskill is a former senator from missouri. symone sanders-townsend is the cohost of the weekend here on msnbc. you will never guess when it is on. they join us now. >> can i say, claire and i were sitting here listening to you run through the things and when it comes to the obama piece, i have talked to people very close to president obama and i do think the characterization that he is part of the push joe biden out coalition is not true. i would bet my bottom dollar on that and my last $20 on that. >> as i was saying earlier in the show, if you look at the wording around the stuff it is all intricately hedged. he is considering the viability. here is a person who i think is working behind the scenes.

nancy pelosi. we did, when she gave that interview on morning joe, we did a monologue where i was talking about democrats in genuine disarray and she was just like no, this is how it is going to work. she almost single-handedly along with president obama carry that thing through and i get the sense from talking to people that she is at work quite a bit lately. >> when adam schiff came out then i knew nancy pelosi was doing overtime. because i don't think adam schiff would've come out. he is very close to nancy pelosi. she endorsed him which would be unusual in a situation like that. >> when he was running for senate. >> several of her members were running against each other and i've got to say, i said this the last hour with our other friends. call me skeptical about obama actually getting involved in this. i know him pretty well. he is very careful.

very careful about what he says and who he says it too. so there is a lot of yammering going on. >> he is not down at the bar -- >> i mean when everybody else was ready to dance, not even dance on joe biden's grave, but literally bury the man alive, politically, president obama did a fundraiser for joe biden the day after the debate. i think that is like, okay, i don't believe it. >> also the past is important. president obama encouraged joe biden not to run in 2016 and does not forget how that ended with trump's victory and i think, you know, he is loath to be seen as orchestrating another moment -- >> and really helped joe biden in 2020. it was important. >> there are people who knows what is happening and maybe they will tell us what is going on behind the scenes. cedric richmond, cochair of

president biden's reelection campaign joins us now. thank you for spending time with us. i do wonder if you can first talk to us about whether the reporting in the new york times and other outlets is correct, that president biden is considering stepping off of the democratic ticket? >> the new york times reporting is absolutely wrong and it has been consistently wrong. the president has said that he is running and it is the end of story. so he was just out here in nevada talking to the naacp and he is running his campaign along with the vice president. >> can i just ask how the president is doing? we learned he had covid yesterday. that of it -- that event was canceled. how is he now? >> well, he is in warranty and like you are supposed to do when you have covid. as far as the symptoms and all

of that, i don't have any news to tell you. >> in the last, i would say 24 hours, there has been an excess of reporting about leading democrats making known their concerns directly to president biden that he could lose the election and that it could also really hurt democrats down ballot, even incumbents who are not necessarily in close races. can you confirm or deny that those meetings took place and whether or not the arguments moved president biden? was he opened to them at all? >> president biden is the head of the party. he talks to the leadership all the time and what they expressed to him, i am sure it will remain between them, because they don't talk about what they talk about in private and discuss it publicly. i will say that the president has said over and over again that he is the best person to be donald trump. in fact he is the only person to be donald trump. so what we really should talk about is how donald trump's plan hurts the middle class.

how radical he will be as president and i think that is the focus. the president has said what he is going to say and for most democrats the base is rallying around the president and i would encourage everyone else to jump aboard. we have a race to win and a race to run and that is what we should be focusing on. >> the polling is changing in battleground states and not in president biden's favor, so i wonder what does the campaign plan on doing differently than it has been doing this far if president biden is staying at the top of the ticket? >> i would invite you to bring belcher on. >> we did have them on last night. >> and his polling he shows that between people who watch the debate, the president's numbers went up. those who heard about his performance and heard the nervousness from democrats, that is where he has trouble.

if i were advising democrats, house members, senate members, it would be to run a campaign focused on the issue. donald trump has an extreme agenda. he wants a nationwide abortion ban that he doubled down on with j.d. vance. all of those things, that is what we should be talking about. if we talk about that the poll numbers will change and we will move in the right direction. there are a couple of things out there. the president is not going anywhere, the president can win and we should campaign on the issues because we are right on the issues and we have a candidate with values and character. if you look on the other side you have a guy who only cares about himself, lies all the time. twice impeached, convicted of 34 felonies and that is what we should be talking about. >> senator jon tester of montana tweeting, saying that he doesn't think the president should seek reelection. he joins a number of democrats and again i understand why you don't want to be talking about this and if i were in your job

i would not want to and even in my own job it is not really the story want to cover, but the thing driving the story is the fact that there are democrats privately and publicly saying this. >> let me say this. they are saying it publicly and then you ask a follow-up question and they don't have an answer. the ticket is a biden-harris ticket. 14 million people voted for him and the president is running for reelection, so they should run for reelection. i like senator tester. i think he is one of our great fighters in the democratic party, but on this i will tell you that i think he is wrong and i think we should be focused on reelecting a president and vice president and our senators and congresspeople should be running the race to get reelected. there is a lifetime between now and election day and if we focus on what we should we will come out on top. >> thank you so much for your time and thoughts. we appreciate it. we know it is a complicated time. still with us, claire mccaskill and symone sanders-townsend.

what do you make of the strategy by the biden-harris campaign? >> is doing his job. >> yeah, what you want the guy to say? >> he is doing a difficult job right now which is, you know, maintaining the course. i honestly feel for him and he is doing a great job and he is right. joe biden is so much better than donald trump. it is no contest. but the question is, he was not on a trajectory to win before the debate. that is why they took the earlier debate, to change the trajectory. instead of helping by him coming out and showing that he was ready to do this and could do this, it did the opposite and we are now seeing the fallout over the past two weeks including my dear friend, my best buddy, jon tester. >> let me put something on the table because i do think this conversation -- i understand

why the conversation has moved in this direction. let's say joe biden were 55 years old and he were down two points in the national polling average. and we were seeing this, this whole thing. i think everyone would be like, what is going on? why is everyone freaking out? there are four months. get in the bunker and fight. that is not the case. the fundamental issue it seems to me is the polling is bad, but fundamentally not just the debate, but subsequent appearances, there have been some that are good but in many of them the president seemed not that capable of making the case in precisely the way that people feel the case needs to be made. >> i was on with tom llamas earlier and he played a clip and said there were things he needed to clean up and i thought back to when i worked for him in his last

presidential campaign. everyone kept talking about the gaps and i was just, this is joe biden with more age. some of it is joe biden with more age and i think people have forgotten that because memories are short. i do think about the fact that if you were 55 we would not be having this conversation. i think about at the end of the day, this is joe biden's decision and his decision apparently is i'm going to continue to swim against the tide. i think the tides are strong and 1400 black women came out today and signed a letter that said they support the ticket. these are grassroots leaders across the country in battleground states and national leaders. women like the head of the national coalition. these are women who are out there organizing their communities. again, there are these split screens. elected leadership and the house and the senate saying we

feel like you are dragging us down. if the election were held today joe biden would lose. the election will not be held today. polling is not predictive, it is indicative. it is democrats job to literally move the polling. when i talked to leaders they feel like the elected leadership, in congress they don't want to do the work in these key districts. they have never had to run a presidential election, whether it was obama. that they one. whether it was obama, bill clinton in 1992, where the president -- it is usually the other way around. i don't know, democracy is on the line, so the other option is to go to vegas with money and gamble and you don't know when you get paid next and that is what it sounds to me like democrats are about to do. >> i asked what is the strategy

if he stays at the top of the ticket. what changes? it sounds like there is not particularly a different strategy it is just everybody needs to shut up and sit back and that will bring him back up in the polls. >> that is i think what people are saying. i think it is going to take something more than that. i think it is going to take something bad happening on the trump side. him acting out in ways we know he is perfectly capable of acting out. he is going to be a fool a number of times between now and the first tuesday in november. donald trump is going to do that. there is also a split screen going on because i am trying to be empathetic to those senators running in tough states. if you look at a lot of the people who are saying that it is joe biden forever, they are in very safe seats. they are never going to be

defeated by a republican. these battleground states that will decide whether or not we control the senate, and that is a big deal to the values we care about and these guys have been pulled, whether or not them standing up for joe biden hurts them in the eyes of the voters in their states. you are saying they don't think joe biden can do the job for another 4 1/2 years. you have people like jon tester and sherrod brown who are in very red places in terms of trump being ahead and now you have the same thing going on in all the battleground states. so for people that are in swing, you make majorities in the middle. in swing districts. wing distri states like pennsylvania and wisconsin and michigan. >> in nevada, i'm sorry, my mama raised me right, the senator point about the signatures, the road to the

senate is always talk, defending 23 seats, 22 if you don't count west virginia, which we should not be counting. when it comes to the house, it is different, house democrats always in better position. running on the generic ballot points ahead of the republicans on the generic ballot, that is what you're looking at with at house races. when i look at people like stephen, front line member, chair of the black caucus, it could be red in nevada and he is standing with the president. i do think it boils down to people that want to do the work. what i'm hearing is they don't want, given the time still on the calendar, the democrats, elected democrats, their names are on the line as well, they do not want to do the work of the president on their coattails because they feel like the data they have seen says that they lose. the biden people say, we have data that says it is competitive and we could win. it is not predictive, it is indicative area a lot of

indecision. >> there's a lot of re uncertainty, four months, people have to make decisions on uncertainty. we will see, i have no idea which way this is headed. >> i have no idea if republican national convention is a finished a biden or his ouster's. you could argue there so omany different ways, rubik's cube of strategy. senator claire mccaskill, thank you some of for your time and thoughts, and we will see you on post coverage on msnbc. rachel maddow is coming up on the final night of the republican national convention in milwaukee, wisconsin right after this break.

[tv turns on] the controversial and extreme conservative plan for the presidency, known as project 2025. [static] of an executive with unprecedented power. [static continues] crushing the independence of the fbi and the doj. the mass firings of civil servants. and shutting down climate change initiatives. this is a culture war. i'm joe biden and i approve this message.

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in recent days, they have been trying to portray themselves as the party of unity. but here's the thing, here's the thing, if you claim to stand for unity, you need to do more than use the word. [ cheers and applause ] >> you cannot claim that you stand for unity if you are pushing an agenda that deprives whole groups of americans of basic freedoms, opportunity,

and dignity. >> kamala harris speaking earlier today, vice president very forceful advocate on the trail. i think widespread consensus that her political ability has expanded and increased as a public communicator, partly because the white house, over the last four or five months, letting her do more. she has been out a lot more, in particular talking about abortion things like that. >> things that matter to voters. i want to pick up on something she said about unity, we should note the republican national convention is unified around donald trump's candidacy. when it comes to literally anything of substance, even within the convention hall, great camps of differing opinion on a number of things. j.d. vance got up there last night, we are not the party of wall street anymore, we are the party of the working class, on the same day there was reporting trump was interested tapping jamie dinan to be the head of the treasury department. >> yes, further corporate tax

cut down to 15%. >> those two statements are at odds, two statements of principles at odds with one another. mass deportation, people holding up mass deportation signs, spanish men in particular don't think men will do that and would not support him if they thought he was the republican party has not been held to account, in large part by its voters, on any of the policy trump seeks to enact or any of the plans he has asked for a second term . >> they are is reporting today about the platform committee, they put under lockdown, confiscated their phones, gave them 20 donald trump truth social posts strung together, this is your platform and you are going to like it. in terms of sheer words, 20%, 15% of what a normal platform is. that is usually the process by which some of the coalition of fights get hashed out, none of that. these are my tweets. >> will lock down, don't ask questions, donald trump, j.d. vance or the people, get in

line, pull the lever, that is unity. >> that does it for us tonight. rachel maddow picks up coverage of night four of the republican national convention with donald trump's speech coming up. you made it! you made it, thank you for joining us tonight. you made it. it is a last night, the final night of the 2024 republican national convention, which has been held this week in milwaukee, wisconsin. incidentally, milwaukee, wisconsin is located in milwaukee county, wisconsin, a county won by democrat joe biden by more than 40 points in the last election. that gives you sort of the opening irony and opening, i guess appropriate framing in