(the lion sleeps tonight.) woman snoring take the roar out of snore. yet another innovation only at a sleep number store. john: good evening sports fans, i am john heilemann. here with mark halperin and kansas city, home of the royals. 2014 american league champions. we hope, the american league 2015 champions, because we can't tolerate the idea of a canadian baseball team in the world series. tomorrow, we will be interviewing ben carson, heading to iowa for a jampacked weekend of presidential politics. but first, it's hillary clinton on the hill day. so we have a big benghazi-heavy lineup today. since 10:00 a.m., the secretary of state gave her secretary to trey gowdy committee.

the republicans were by and large familiar, but the gop tried to break new ground on the vulnerability of the compound where ambassador chris stevens and three other american officials were killed in 2012. and on a narrative crafted by clinton and the obama administration why the attack happened. we also saw a somewhat new approach involving clinton's longtime friend and former advisor, sidney blumenthal. republicans implying that clinton was more attentive to blumenthal than ambassador stevens when asking for security in benghazi. >> you have got a lot of e-mails from sidney blumenthal, and you said that mr. blumenthal was a friend of yours and had your personal e-mail address. you say chris stevens was a friend of yours. he asked numerous times for extra protection. did he have your personal e-mail? sec. clinton: congressman, i do

not believe that he had my personal e-mail. he had the e-mail and the direct line to everybody that he worked with for years. john: mark, republicans have had hours to pick and poke and prod at hillary clinton. did they report or charge anything that was genuinely or relevantly new about benghazi today? mark: they teased out a little bit, something that no american i know cares about, which is her relationship with sidney blumenthal. on the events in benghazi before security in libya, during the evening of september 11 that year, and afterward. they plowed a lot of familiar ground on her e-mails. there is some nuanced new stuff, but nothing that will break through for the american people as a smoking gun, brand-new information that we're hungry to know more about.

john: i have to say, the obsession with sidney blumenthal, for people like us who know sidney blumenthal and her relationship with him, we have talked about that for a long time. it's an interesting relationship. he's an interesting dark figure in her life. fascinating stuff. you might even put in a book about presidential elections. to the millions of americans who are supposed to care about this on the matter of benghazi, whether her e-mail system exposed classified information to the world, those people don't care about sidney blumenthal at all. we have a couple tidbits about things she said to the egyptian prime minister about the source of the attack immediately after, but these are small things compared to what they have claimed is a big thing. mark: the hearings will continue into the evening. as of now, on the substance, on the back-and-forth of the facts and questions, trying to trip her up, the democrats and the clinton folks are happy. the republican critics are

disappointed because they have not brought to the fore the kind of new information this committee they said they would have based on access to e-mails. not just clinton's, but others as well. john: trey gowdy spent months bragging about how they had all this new information. how all this new stuff is going to come to light. hillary clinton and her defenders will be able to say that the previous seven or eight investigations have covered this ground thoroughly already. mark: that's the substance of the hearing. but it's also important in a congressional hearing to deal with style. it is no surprise, given the nature of this conversation, some emotions boiled over the pot. for her part, secretary clinton appeared clearly and visibly annoyed at times. the telltale sign was when she rested her head in her hand. more than once, republicans stopped clinton midsentence, and insisted she read the notes her staff were handing to her. john, on the important question of style and political theater,

who won the day so far? john: i think hillary clinton won the day, and i will tell you why. i think it is never a good look from republicans when republican men are interrupting democratic women. i don't like that look of hers. it's not perfect by any means. that is not a good look for her or you. but i have to say, she was interrupted constantly. that interrupting, being lectured to and condescended to doesn't help republicans either in the context of this hearing or the broader politics of gender. mark: she clearly came to say her piece, strong, confident, appealing to people's concerns over the families of the four americans who lost their lives. she did not lose her cool. she stood up to them when she needed to. just like with the debate, she was totally prepared. she knew what she wanted to do. there was nothing that came up that she was not prepared for. on the issue of her relationship with sidney blumenthal, which is still a mystery, why the white house and secretary clinton, when they thought it was a terrorist attack, continued publicly to say it may have been based on the video.

on those substantive issues, she handled herself okay. she did not create a bad moment, even though on the merits or -- on those two issues, she was weaker. john: i said yesterday that hillary clinton has a lot of flaws, but she is a diligent preparer, and when she is prepared and has experience, she almost always comes out at a minimum okay, at worst okay, and often better than ok. she came out better than ok. mark: she sat with david kendall, her lawyer, and other smart people. i have no idea what the republicans did to prepare. they did not watch episodes on netflix of "perry mason." because none of them knew how to ask the question in a way to actually put her on the spot, which is part of what they are trying to do. john: one things we know from a journalism is that when we do a bad interview, it's where we don't have a strategy. when we do a good interview, it's when we do have a strategy. they often in these cases didn't seem to have any kind of strategy except trying to score tiny mini points inside the beltway. mark: right.

john: right now in that benghazi hearing, clinton is taking questions from martha roby of alabama. one question is whether the democractic frontrunner has finally succeeded in putting this matter to bed politically, or if there will be more investigating down the line? mark, where, if anywhere, do republicans believe they scored points today? mark: so far, none. again, you see on social media and on the web, the democrats are gleeful, the republicans are being critical of the committee. although we haven't seen too many specifics. this doesn't get her out of the woods with the fbi. i think it does strengthen her hand. she's never coming back to this committee. i suspect other committees in the house and senate wanting to investigate e-mails are going to have a heck of a time getting her back. she is going to say that i went to the committee that discovered my e-mails, i'm done. john: and i gave them all the time in the world and stayed until they shut the lights out. i look at my inbox, we both look at our inboxes.

when republicans think they are making ground, i get a lot of e-mails making the claim. same claims over and over again. today, i was shocked about the dearth of e-mail i got from the rnc, any republican conservative groups. it just wasn't there, the volume was not there. i was not even getting specious e-mails today, whereas my inbox was flooded with democrats claiming victory. mark: this could be a stretch from the debate to joe biden's decision not to run, to what is shaping up to be a strong performance politically, substantively on most issues. this is shaping up to be the week where clinton reasserts herself. however, bernie sanders continues to be strong. the fbi investigation continues. you imagine how this week could have gone. john: remember eight years ago this month, her campaign which had been cruising, suddenly turned in the opposite direction and barack obama surged and took control of that campaign. this time, mirror image.

mark: we are going to have more on the benghazi hearings and go more in depth in the hearing room after this word from our sponsors. ♪

mark: joining us from our washington bureau, al hunt, to talk about more what happened today. we're going to look at some video excerpts of the hearing from hillary clinton's appearance before the house committee. here is ohio colleague jim jordan. >> where did the false narrative start? at 10:08, with no evidence, before the attack is over, at 10:08, when two are still on the roof of the annex fighting for their lives, the official state department blames a video.

sec. clinton: if you look at the statement i made, i clearly said it was attack. i also said that there were some who try to justify it on the basis of the video, congressman. >> calling it an attack is like saying the sky is blue. of course it was an attack. sec. clinton: we were in a position, congressman, to make sense of incoming information, and watching the way the intelligence community tried to make sense of it. >> there was not conflicting information the day of the attack. your press secretary said, there is no connection between cairo and benghazi. it was clear. you are the ones that muddied it up, not the information. here's what i think is going on. here's what i think is going on. mark: so al, thanks for joining us. republicans came weaker than they would have thanks to kevin mccarthy's comments.

politically and overall, did the republicans on the committee play their hand well or not? al: no, it was a mess. the republicans made the cubs look good. the only bad thing that we learned about hillary clinton was that she had too many e-mails with sidney blumenthal. those questions about her judgment had nothing to do with benghazi. mark and john, basically the secretary of state is in charge of policy, libyan policy, not in charge of security at consulates. during the reagan years, there wasn't a hearing three years later and tens of millions of dollars. if the secretary of state had been leon panetta or john kerry, does anyone think those hearings would have been held today? john: clearly you do not, al. [laughter] >> i do not. john: let me play another piece of video for you on a different topic.

hillary also had a chance to address the e-mails that have been getting so much political attention, much of it negative in these past months. let's take a listen to her discussion of that. sec. clinton: i did not conduct most the business that i did on behalf of our country on e-mail. i conducted it in meetings, i read massive amounts of memos, a great deal of classified information, i made a lot of secure phone calls. i was in and out of the white house all the time. there were a lot of things that happened that i was aware of and that i was reacting to. if you were to be in my office in the state department, i did not have a computer. i did not do the vast majority of my work on e-mail. john: al, the political discussion for the past several months, all we have heard about is e-mail, e-mail, e-mail. they were expected to be a big focus on this hearing. how do you think she handled the questions regarding her electronic communication systems?

al: john, there is no justification for what she did with e-mail. as mark noted earlier, the fbi is still investigating. she has paid a real price. just look at the polls. today's hearings, what new did we learn about it? and guess what? her aides wanted to make her look good. boy, is that a shocker. i don't know why the republicans, when they said this was about the tragedy involving chris stevens and the three other americans, why they got so carried away with the e-mails that had almost nothing to do with what happened. mark: al, does any of the blame of this hearing go to the republican leadership? should they have been looking at this for the republican party and the house? al: they should not have had this kind of hearing. a perfectly legitimate hearing would have been on libyan policy. peter roskam is one of the few

republicans that started off well, it did not end up great. but that's not what this hearing was all about. the libyan policy wasa disaster, but you cannot say hillary clinton was responsible for what happened on the semptember 11, 2012. that's not the responsibly of the secretary of state. they made it worse. jim jordan was foaming at the mouth, his hatred was so great for her. and that poor fellow from kansas who got slamdunk by andrew mitchell on television last week had to watch it again. it was a bad hand, and they played it poorly. mark: one other big subplot was the one democrats on the committee played in helping hillary clinton at every turn. let's look at an exchange between the chairman, trey gowdy, and the ranking democrat from maryland, elijah cummings. >> would the chairman yield? >> i would be happy to, but you need to make sure the record-- >> and that's exactly what i want to do. >> then go ahead.

>> i move that we put into the record the entire transcript of sidney blumenthal. we're going to release the e-mails and the transcript, that way the world can see it. >> we are not going to take that up at the hearing. >> i have consulted with a parliamentarian, and i have informed us that we have a right to record the vote on that motion. we want the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, that is what we want to have. let's let the world see it. >> why is it that you only want mr. blumenthal's transcripts? >> i would like to have all of them released! >> the survivors, even their names? you want that released? >> let me tell you something right now -- >> the only one that you have asked for is sidney blumenthal. mark: al, could the democrats have done any more to help hillary clinton than they did in the room so far today? al: no, they were every bit as partisan as the republicans. but that played to her advantage. she was the one that rise above

it for most of the hearing. what elijah cummings did very shrewdly was he got trey gowdy to lose his cool. that's something that the chairman can ill afford to do. i think the democrats were totally partisan. some of those questions were softballs like you and i have never seen before. that was the purpose. mark: i thought gowdy started very strong in tone, and as you saw in that clip, the democrats got under his skin and he ended up resorting to the kind of partisanship and yelling and tension that he did not want in this hearing. al: he kept he kept insisting this hearing is not about hillary clinton. no one could watch the 7-8 hours that took place already today and not say this was about hillary clinton. mark: al hunt in washington, thanks so much for joining us. when we come back, we check on today's political news, including exciting stuff about iowa polls after this word from our sponsors.

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john: welcome back. a little bit earlier in the show, i guess my eyesight is terrible and we are halfway across the country in kansas city, i mistakenly referred to one congressman for another. my bad. we will see whether these benghazi hearings shake up the poll numbers in the democratic race to the presidential nomination. but in the meantime, we have a new bloomberg politics des moines iowa register poll. what that shows is hillary clinton leading bernie sanders in the hawkeye state, 48% to 41%. do you believe those poll numbers? what events are driving these poll numbers? mark: if you look at the poll, the gun issue.

i bet before the debate, not too many iowa democrats thought too much about bernie sanders position on guns. democrats in iowa are bothered by his record in the past about opposing some gun-control measures. they are less bothered by the fact that he is a socialist. they seem fine with that. it shows you the power of hillary clinton's opposition research team, her ability to take that research and play it. i always thought it would be hard to go negative on bernie sanders. her instinct are right. this is one issue where she can get away with it and drive numbers. john: she not only did it effectively in the debate, which is the big stage for it, she did it earlier when people are paying attention. she did it in a powerful, respectful way. she did it in a contrasting way to make yourself look good and more liberal. and he was, as you pointed out over and over again, woefully ill-prepared for what should have been an expected attack. he had a really bad set of answers to that question. all of that combines to a problem for him, especially for liberal iowans.

mark: sanders and clinton are close in both states. the reality though, and piggybacking off her strong week in a 10-day period, if hillary clinton can break bernie sanders's back in iowa and new hampshire, she will be the democratic nominee. john: those are the states he can win. mark: she has to be confident. if they come up with these gun issues, and she drives it effectively in the debates, she can put this thing away. john: this is why this jefferson jackson thing is coming up on saturday is important. i mentioned 2008 a couple times. that was a big night for barack obama, where he began to turn the tide. john kerry in 2004 had a very big -- mark: my hunch is that mrs. preparation will come into the dinner with a prepared speech. let's see if sanders will be smart enough to use the dinner. john: people expect this is a big moment for bernie sanders. if clinton has a big night on saturday, that could be huge.

if sanders is prepared saturday night. tomorrow morning, 6:00 a.m., bloombergpolitics.com, we have the last batch of our iowa poll, this time the republican presidental race. and on "with all due respect," reactions from two republicans, ben carson, and ted cruz, later in the day in iowa. for now, let's close by dipping into the big congressional news on capitol hill besides hillary clinton hearings. paul ryan appears he has sufficient support under the terms he set to be the speaker of the house. it's been fun watching him go from "no" to "yes" as the likely speaker. what would a ryan speakership be like for him, for the republicans on capitol hill, and for america? john: let's first acknowledge one thing, which is that republicans proved this week that they are not wholly suicidal. by being able to get it together enough to make the kinds of concessions and pull together an offer that unifies support for paul ryan.

they showed they are not going to commit hari-kiri. the fundamental dysfunction of the party, i don't know we will see differences in terms of the problems republicans have governing. they were better today than they were seven days ago. mark: ryan will not turn the floor over to nancy pelosi. boehner might do it before he goes on the debt ceiling. how ryan deals with the continuing resolution to keep them being a government shutdown. i think ryan may try to start strong and establish himself by getting the president to engage in negotiation, even if it might seem like two separate deals. trying to say to republicans, let's get a continuing resolution. but i will get some thing in return for it and show my side that i can stand on principle and stop barack obama. john: he's still a political guy, right? the way in which he has been attacking from the right, the attacks on him being this harry reid's favorite republican, the guy that wants to make deals

with barack obama, he still has a right flank that he has to cover. he can't look like he's going to do what john boehner does and go to pelosi right off the bat. mark: reid said something nice before he got the job, now that he is the de facto speaker he attacked him today. john: public enemy number one. mark: he's going to have a difficult time. it would be nice if john boehner could take more of his plate. if you get through these initial months, next year could be interesting. particularly how he interacts with president candidates. john: we will be right back here from kansas city with an absolutely grotesquely shameless plug after this. ♪

>> we have set this at least twice already, i think it's useful to say at a third time. we will be interviewing ben carson and ted cruz.

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after posting surprise earnings. i'm emily chang and this is "bloomberg west." coming up, another huge beat after the bell. alphabet with a third quarter win. the first buyback in google history. microsoft on cloud nine, thanks to rising demand for cloud services. notice a theme today?