♪ john: welcome to the best of "best of with all due respect." with labor day right around the corner, we decided to take a look back at some of our best moments from the summer. this week, hillary clinton focused on immigration after crossing the border and meeting with the mexican president on wednesday. new polls show clinton's and favorability rating is creeping up into donald trump territory, el donaldo.

awaitedfore his eagerly address on immigration tonight in phoenix, arizona, trump sat down with the mexican president for a private discussion about that very issue, which in this -- which the statement afterward trump called substantive, direct , but still with a sharp warning about open borders and open trade. and then both mexico united states, this is a humanitarian disaster. having a secure border is a sovereign right and mutually beneficial. we recognize and respect the right of either country to build a physical barrier or wall on any of its borders to stop the illegal movement of people, drugs, and weapons. cooperation toward achieving this shared objective -- and it will be shared -- of safety for all services is paramount to both the united states and to

mexico. trump went on to say that he and who wouldot discussed pay for that border wall. earlier today in a speech to the american legion in cincinnati, hillary clinton instructed voters to pay no attention to the man south of the burner, telling them not to confer trust in trump just because he met with a world leader. clinton: hitting countries, working together was my job every day. it's more than a photo op. it takes consistency and reliability, and it certainly takes more than trying to make up for a year of insults and insinuations by dropping in on our neighbors for a few hours and then flying home again. that is not how it works. to -- john: we're going to talk about donald trump's integration speech in a moment, but this trip, hastily arranged, kind of haphazard and

its organization and announcement, kind of a risky gambit for any presidential nominee to undertake. did it pay off? havee: voters that maybe not been paying close attention all summer, like we have, may have turned on the tv tonight trump lookingd differently than he usually looks. he was in a foreign country standing shoulder to shoulder with a foreign leader. hillary clinton is right -- it is not a race everything he said over the past year and i think jeb bush would agree with that, too, but they are both trying to appeal to a small group of voters who really do not like either of them. it is a group of voters who are not sold on either one, and they may have seen a new donald trump today, it appears. was very low energy, making your old friend jeb bush look hyperactive. to way that nominees go foreign countries is to try to look presidential and give people a sense of what it might

look like if they were president and had to do a lot of these meetings. trumpe: that's why donald went. some go just to learn who the other leaders would he they would work with. there were a lot of questions about what the goal of this trip was, and it turned up to be pretty conventional, which was to give the impression he could have a calm, sober, subdued appearance. i do not know if trump's core supporters look at that and say that's the tough talking donald trump who is going to take it to the mexicans. certainly for those people in the middle who look at that and worry that trump is such a hot head, that anything he does inside or out american soil is going to blow up, that was at least not blowing up. it was not a conflagration. nicolle: in terms of where he is, there are some voters out there that he showed up in a foreign country and did not get run out of the place -- that was

a good day for him. erik, tell us what went down today in mexico city. : absolutely extraordinary press conference today between donald trump and mexican .resident pena nieto this all came together in the last 24 hours, from what we know. they said in the press conference they agreed on a lot of things, but at the same time, they skirted a lot of the hard issues. president pena nieto said thep's rhetoric has hurt mexican people, perhaps a nod to the comment about rate this and andate this -- rapists criminals. donald trump said they discussed the wall but did not discuss who would pay for the wall. a lot of things that really damaged the relationship do not sound like they were on the agenda. a surprising and interesting meeting, but one in which we did not see that clash and some of those tensions on display.

john: president pena nieto has compared donald trump to hitler,, -- to mussolini. how happy did he seem to be to be sharing the stage today? lookspresident pena nieto very focused, very serious. behad been told there would no questions, and then at the end of donald trump's statement, some of the reporters who had been covering him shouted questions. as donald trump is want to do -- is wont to do, he began answering them, and president quite knowdid not what to do with that. he may have a longer track record on this than hillary clinton in terms of not holding a press conference, but i cannot amember the last time

presidential press conference with questions in mexico, so he talked about that rhetoric, but it was a little bit of an uncomfortable moment in terms of donald trump, as he often does, going off script. nicolle: what struck me was donald trump's comments about nafta. he said it turned out better for mexico than the u.s. do you have any reporting from mexico, is the government of that opinion? was there anything in this meeting or coming out of it about taking a fresh look at nafta? certainly one place with the mexican government does not agree with donald trump. the mexican government is always highlighting the benefits to the u.s., talking about how much u.s. content goes into every dollar of exports from mexico. they talk about the benefits of cross-border production chains, supply chains, particularly the big one inry, a

mexico. when donald trump and president pena nieto talk about modernizing nafta, i'm not sure they are talking about the same thing. john: when the news broke this morning that this was going to happen, a news report said there might be protest, might be outrage in the streets among mexicans about trump's arrival. how much of that actually played out yahoo! a lot ofdid not see that, but there was really scant time to be able to organize anything. the traditional rally and protest point, the angel of independence monument, people had less than 12 hours to organize things once the news came out, so we saw people going to twitter and talking about how mexico has so little to gain from this and trump is doing badly in the polls, so mexicans who oppose him talking about how really breathe vented his campaign, but we have

not seen a lot in terms of actual people out in the street -- mexicans who oppose him talking about how this could into hiseathe new life campaign. nicolle: note to anyone who fears a protester, announced at the last minute. we are smarter for your reporting, eric. thank you very much. ♪

>> and a two-way contest, ,illary clinton is donald trump but down from her post-convention lead.

larry sabato is the director of the center for politics at the university of virginia. he is tracking polls and joins us now from uva to make us smarter and talk about the state states.eground what should we be paying more attention to? larry: the two-way is much more indicative of how the race will probably turn out, and these ex-different -- the six-point closer to is probably about five points for hillary clinton. there is research, and i think it is very good research, that the four-way race just by introducing the names of third-party candidates, you increase their support just -- especially in a race like this.

their numbers will go down between now and november. some i want to talk about battleground states. you say colorado, minnesota, wisconsin, michigan, virginia, all likely democrat, but a bunch of traditionally blue states are much closer than expected. where is hillary clinton most vulnerable right now? iowa: she is vulnerable in because almost half the population is white, noncollege, .nd that is trump's bailiwick in nevada, she is him what vulnerable because they had been through a terrible recession, longer and deeper than the rest of the country. carolina isnorth incredibly close. it always is. i tend to think it has a little bit of a blue tint this year. florida and ohio are highly competitive, but i still give clinton the edge.

nicolle: what do you think -- what do you attribute the tightening this week to? nowary clinton's numbers look a lot like what they looked like after the comey press conference. it seems like when there is a scandal, she gets a tightening. when she had a couple good weeks, she widens the spread. do you think this is a pattern we can expect? larry: i think it is simply the gradual evaporation of the convention bounce. donald trump had a very convention bounce. it wasn't very impressive because, to be blunt, his convention was not very impressive. the democratic convention was excellent from a number of different perspectives. hillary clinton got a big ounce out of it, but just on schedule, the convention bounce has declined as we approach labor day, and we are back to a lead that makes sense. remember how polarized we are. i think it's very unlikely that hillary linton is going to do much worse than barack obama did

in 2012 or much better than 2008 whenma did in everything was going the democrats' way. john: let's go back to the map and look at some of these states that are traditionally red state that people are now talking about the possibility the clinton campaign could put in play. they said today they are going on air, for example, in arizona. there's five other normally republicans take that could be in play -- georgia, arizona, and to some extent, maybe utah, kansas, missouri, arizona. which one of those normally read states is a place where trump might be vulnerable yahoo! two --there are only arizona and georgia. the margins for him as the republican nominee will be considerably lower than for other republican nominees -- the popular vote, that is -- but

does not matter. as long as he gets one more vote than clinton in those states. but arizona and georgia are ripe for the picking. yet, we are so polarized. on my map, i still kept them light red, simply because in the end, i tend to think the partisans will come home, but if i'm wrong, it will be about arizona and georgia. nicolle: finally, let's shift to senate races.he you say democrats another slight favorite to win back the chamber. larry: the senate's 54 seats, 46.blican democrats have to win for, assuming tim kaine breaks the tie. public and incumbents in illinois and wisconsin are likely to lose. the question becomes -- where do the other two seats come from? the most likely third is indiana where senator evan bayh is

trying to reclaim his old seat, and then i think pennsylvania and new hampshire are both withng to democrats republican incumbents. democrats only have to worry about nevada. thank you so much for bringing us a look into your crystal ball. john: up next, republican political strategist and never trump are -- never trump-er discusses the democratic debate right after this.

john: we are back with our republican smart guy who has advised paul ryan, mitt romney, and many others. i'm going to ask you to do something that is sort of akin to asking the donald to be humble, which means it's not likely to happen. for 10 that you are running donald trump's debate prep --

pretend. what would you do? take it seriously. what do you think the challenges and main strategic objectives would be? dan: the first thing i would say is do not take the wrong lessons from the primary debates because what he is about to experience is nothing comparable. the primary debate was on a stage with 13 people, and all those debates were an hour and a have to to two hours. the amount of time he was on for cumulative -- 10, 15 minutes. he had a lot of breaks, not only ad breaks but when ted cruz and marco rubio were fighting. donny: he gets to be king of the hill. dan: but it's also stamina. andd debate prep with rubio even when you would see him

backstage, he was exhausted. he did not like the debate prep much. he likes his moments, but he did not like standing up for hours and having to deal with all the fatigue associated with that. now he's on, 100 million people will be watching. it's him against one person. there are no breaks. there are no distractions, and hillary clinton has had much more debate experience that is relative to these kinds of debates. her debate with bernie sanders in the last half of the primary process are much more similar to what she will be dealing with with trump. her debates with barack obama basically one-on-one in 2008. she has much more experience. do mock debates. he says he does not want to. donny: he doesn't want to do a lot of stuff he has to do for the job. i have a feeling regardless of what is on the docket, it will be just one debate.

if he gets humiliated, he's not going back up there, sought have a feeling this could be our only debate. any thoughts? dan: it has always been my feeling that anything except the first to bait is up for grabs for exactly the reason you're talking about. the trump campaign has not said they are committed to all three debates in these locations under the presidential debate. i think after the first debate things could change. dan: he would have to do so well for him to fail. even if he does well, i don't well enough to say he's done. he could probably bring most of the republican voters home, which is what happened to romney after the first debate. when you dig down, what really happened is he just brought home skeptical republicans. i think trump could do the same

thing. that's not winning the election. donny: let's say he wins not by three touchdowns but wins a toid debate and people start change their thinking. i think his concern is that one ignorant gaffe, that one explosion, that howard dean moment. ask you about gary johnson. what are the implications? if johnson gets into the debate, it means what for each of them? dan: i used to think he was just a problem for trump, that he just would have had the potential to get disaffected place to go,ters a but you watch the positions he has taken, the arguments he has made, there's a lot that could reach out and appeal to hillary voters and appeal to bernie sanders voters. i think him being there is potentially a problem for both, and it's not clear to me who are

there are voters that should be going to both of them that could wind up going to johnson. if i were either of them i would not want him there. ; if you were moderating and each had the gotcha question, you'll moderating, what's your question to put them on the spot. john: i'm trying to come up with one of the top of my head. i think you would want to test trump on substance and policy in a way that does not feel ridiculous. like trying to name the capital of some obscure place in the world. and i sure he could name the prime minister of britain -- i'm not sure he could name the prime minister of britain. basic geography, questions about the constitution. he has been confused about the number of articles in the constitution before. trying to get him to reveal some whoing flaw that anyone

could be president of the united states should know the answer to that he doesn't. dan: you don't even need to go that far. you don't need a true gotcha question. one of the last debates where rubio started to press trump on policy or his health care plans and rubio said, "i will give you my time. explain your health care plan," and he couldn't. you don't have to do gotcha. just press him on basic policy. yield your time. what do you think would be the best question to go after clinton with in this context? think dissecting the first term obama national security legacy. again, i would stick with policy and really make her own that period. the best shot republicans have against hillary is to make this election -- which it is and should be -- a change election

and make it a third term of what any republicans think is failed or unsatisfying presidency. it's not pretty. the world is a mess. you saw mitt romney struggle with immigration and the hispanic have relation of close in 2012, not being able to question.deportation what can trump do tomorrow to solve the problem he has between the general electorate once and what his base demands? think much. if you believe tomorrow he is trying to say something to reassure latino voters as know, whiteust, you educated, as we talk, suburban voters. if you believe he is actually trying to reach latino voters, i believe hillary clinton, dnc, 's have a super pac

massive amount of resources to remind the electorate that regardless of trump -- of what trump says, this is what he has been arguing the past year. with these elections going minute to minute, we tend to think this speech is important, that is important. at this stage of the election, if you are a voter in ohio, are you paying that much attention? what is going to have a bigger impact on you -- that or the 20 or 30 ads you are going to see during the week on your local broadcast channel reminding you that donald has traffic in xenophobic rhetoric? i don't think one speech at this -- this stage of the general election, it's all about mass deployment of media and grassroots organization. just to be clear, dan is famously never trump. -- a best a 2-for-1 of wood in the best moments from both nominees' campaigns coming

up -- a best of within the best moments from both nominees' campaigns coming up. ♪

congratulations. you survived your second -- yes, second -- summer of trump. we thought we would use this labor day weekend to look at the b-subplots of the summer. >> if you are saying he cannot do his job because of his race, is that not the definition of racism? mr. trump: he is mexican. textbookyan: it is the