♪ >> welcome to "the best of with all due respect." the political world is focused squarely on the second of a -- second debate between the two nominees. the panel event taking place in st. louis coming on the heels of the one and only vice president debate. >> mike pence is feeling pretty good today. good reviews from all corners. 36 million people watched pence

versus kaine, the lowest numbers, fewer eyeballs than joe biden and paul ryan. disciplined defense of donald trump. criticism of hillary clinton and her policy. when it comes to debating skills, donald trump may have been upstaged by his number two. it was a narrative mike pence was trying to knock down. he called trump the ultimate winner of last night's face-off. trump was in a credit-taking mood today in nevada or putting pence on the ticket. mr. trump: how many of you watched the vice presidential debate last night? [cheers and applause] mr. trump: mike pence did an

incredible job, and i am getting a lot of credit because that as my first so-called choice. my first hire as we would say in las vegas. he was a good one. phenomenal. he was cool. he was smart. just take a look at him. he was meant to be doing what he is doing, and we are very proud of governor mike pence. thank you, mike pence. >> speculation and reporting that donald trump did not like the notion he would be called not as good of a debater as mike pence and mike pence was seen as helping him out of the hole. how do you think mike pence is reacting personally? john: there is another element. the defense of trump policies. that is much as a cause for donald trump to be upset. pence did not really defend a lot of donald trump policies. that is one of the things that might have sent him off. look, he did not tweet in the middle of the night. he may be protesting too much. he is over praising today. on the basis of now, on the basis of reporting, i would

think it has been overblown, the notion that trump has taken offense to the way mike pence played it last night. >> if it is the case that donald trump feels he needs to win on sunday for the debate, one of the smartest things the staff has convinced him to do is to talk about the debate as a win of ideas. ideas. lower taxes, smaller government, smarter foreign policy. if trump is focused on that in reaction to pence, i think he is doing just fine with this and i agree. it seems to me it is overblown, and donald trump has not the best poker face in the world. he seems content with where mike pence left them. john: nominees do not like to be overshadowed by their understudies. however, john mccain being upset about sarah palin. actually, he looked at the

crowds and thought, hey this is helping me. i think donald trump recognizes that he was on a bad run. he now knows the pressure is all on him to perform but i will say i think the framing of it as a battle of ideas, there were a lot of foreign-policy issues where mike pence effectively took exception to trump and the clinton campaign put those out in a long list that mike pence was in a different place and donald trump. it's not like he has not -- has really adopted his policies. mark: he has on some. this is the best day they have had in a while. michael pence was not talking about the indiana miracle, he was talking that donald trump. donald trump might be feeling a little bad, but he is holding it in check.

>> the second presidential debate is this sunday. the gateway to the west, the home of the red birds, just a few miles from here tonight. that is right. we are talking about st. louis. we have already seen trump practicing new moves on the campaign trail in advance of the debate. there are also some tips he might be able to take from mike pence's performance. unlike donald trump in the first presidential debate, pence often turned the moderators question into opportunities to attack hillary clinton. he also spoke directly to the people through the camera. gov. pence: people in scranton no different. people in fort wayne, indiana, know different. this economy is struggling. he mentioned order security. that is how washington always later. -- always plays it.

after traveling millions of miles as our secretary of state including being an architect of the foreign policy of this administration, america is less safe today than it was the day barack obama became president. >> that is a good skill. it is always effective. donald trump did not do a very much. what else could donald trump from that. what else could he learn from? >> amazing the way tim kaine lay-up. he would fight with the moderator, fight with mike pence. >> he did not know which camera to talk to. >> obviously they win over it with them, i don't know why he couldn't do it. donald trump sees this as optimistic. one thing mike pence has always been good at, despite some quarters of the liberal media calling him dour, he is always been good at reaganesque optimism. look at this and think about it donald trump talked more like this on sunday. gov. pence: when you hear donald trump say he wants to make america great again, when he

does that i believe american people will be standing tall. they will see real change can happen after decades of talking about. when that happens, the american people will stand tall, stand together, and we will have the kind of unity that has been missing for way too long. >> that is the kind of message trump could adapt, i'm surprised he did not do it before. he got so caught up in negativity with hillary clinton. >> he could do it. the democrats are right. donald trump spoke says -- donald trump's book says that america is a hellhole. i need to fix it. his messages he wants to improve the country, but his view of where america is now is dark and pessimistic. that came through in the republican convention. it would hard for him to be as sunny as mike pence but he has to try. another thing about mike pence, he is folksy and plainspoken.

donald trump is not from indiana. i do think donald trump could learn something from the colloquial way in which mike pence talks. let's take a look. gov. pence: i am a small boy -- a small town boy from a place not too different from farmville. i grew up with a cornfield in my back yard. my grandfather emigrated to this country when he was about my son's age. my mom and dad, they built a -- everything that matters in a small town in indiana, they built a family and a good name. >> there is a couple things about that. one thing, the colloquialism. the other thing, the biographical nature in human terms. i did not hear a lot about from donald trump on the first debate. >> he likes fast food and he was born in queens. and he will never be on the same level as mike pence in terms of having an ordinary life because his life has been anything but ordinary. >> coming up, the undercard. how is last week's tim kaine mike pence presidential debate

impacting the presidential race. right after this break. ♪

♪ >> welcome back. our next guest tonight -- fired up and ready to go. donald trump campaign senior adviser, deputy campaign manager for martin o'malley's presidential effort. regular spots to president obama's reelection campaign. >> spicy over there. >> all right you two, let's start with this question. if you are looking for a data point that would suggest you donald trump was ready to have a stronger second debate that first debate, what would you look at? liz, you first. >> are you looking for a number? maybe watching mike pence and learning from him. i do not think that is one of donald trump's strong suits. look, mike pence, we were looking at this. he has always had this

reputation of being this blowdried, good presentation on tv type of guy and it came through last night and i think donald trump could learn from it. >> even if that is your first choice. what is something you have seen or heard that makes you think, he gets it. >> first of all, i would think we are leading in this race and we will continue into st. louis and las vegas. i think the visit out west, starting in virginia was great. great speeches, great crowds, he is energized. he is ready to go. we are excited to talk about the issues. national security, economy. this format lends itself to donald trump. he is authentic, she is robotic, he will do great.

>> where are you leading in the polls? >> we have two new polls out today. one puts her up two over trump. and the reuters poll puts her up by six points nationally. every national poll and every other poll for the last 5-6 days has shown her picking up steam. >> we are up in the upi, we're up a new rasmussen. as far as that manifold, the last one in august was down for but that is a poll that has trended toward hillary clinton. but other post -- a very good measure. >> i didn't know there was still a upi poll. >> they have been a good measure. polls are coming out nationally. they are impacted by the media spin after the previous debate. i am not concerned. [crosstalk] >> i'm confident in that first performance. i am very excited for the one in st. louis. >> i call it reenactment of the hindenburg.

>> ok. >> a metaphor. >> that is fell flat with me, but fair enough. >> i thought it was a tim kaine line from the debate. >> you are anti-trump, but i want you to try. >> i hate everybody. i'm anti-clinton. >> you have come out as you are for johnson, right? talk from the standpoint as someone doesn't like either, how do you think it played out? >> i think given that it was debate that seemed to focus very heavily on the negatives of hillary clinton and donald trump, i felt like a great deal of what was said was tremendously accurate. unfortunately, like most americans i came away from it feeling extraordinarily demoralized about the terrible choices that the two major parties have put forward this cycle and, you know, really hoping a lot of other people who

were watching that will hopefully investigate other options, consider writing themselves in or some bills that -- writing somebody else that they like or skipping out on the presidential voting altogether and focus on down ballot. i thought it was an interesting debate. for once this cycle we saw a debate where people sort of acted the way you would expect them to act in debate which was sort of gratifying and relieving and refreshing. >> i did not expect tim kaine to act like that. coming in, i was really surprised. i expected a measured debate with some fireworks but i was shocked by the way tim kaine carried himself [crosstalk] >> you talk, i will talk now. >> you should not interrupt all the women all the time, but you are like tim kaine here. >> here is what i was going to say before she jumped back in,

on style, you are totally right. governor pence is ready to step into the office of vice president. tim kaine had canned lines. not much beyond it. he did not seem to enjoy himself. >> i want to switch to send a knife. >> that is not true. >> start with liz smith here and then the other liz. it seems like donald trump doesn't need a good debate performance but a good audience. what is your sense of the trajectory the country is on. sunday night, will the ratings been anything like a word last time? >> i do not accept. -- i don't think so. look, i am not an expert. i would say 70%, 65%. >> liz, what do you think? >> i have no particular views with regard to ratings or rematch. i suspect that yet again we are

going to see debate between two people who have historically high unapproval ratings. >> more of the best of with all due respect after this word from our sponsors. ♪

♪ >> some backup from the nations capital. in our washington, d c, bureau, senior correspondent who covers the clinton campaign. thank you for joining us. margaret, how is the clinton campaign and hillary clinton herself approaching sunday night's debate? >> several of us talking earlier today, and they emphasized that donald trump will probably, better repaired to this next debate. -- better prepared.

it is a low bar. it is not surprising to think that he will surpass that. they don't think that donald trump will go to the personal attacks, presumably on bill clinton's past infidelities. he has sort of flirted with it but they do not expect him to do that. i would be shocked if she was not preparing for that anyhow just in case. but for her, the real challenge is the different format. it is a town hall format. she is really strong when it comes to kind of i was going to say man-to-man combat, one-on-one combat. that venue where she is emotionally connected to strangers she is never met as tougher for her and something she is working on for the next few days. >> on the republican side, donald trump will do more prep. will he do anything like a normal candidate would do in terms of the mock debate.

building the set, stopping it with that stopping -- stocking it with questioners and etc.. >> yes and no. he refuses to do a scripted debate. he says it is not for him. he is doing a dress rehearsal in new hampshire. he has a public event, townhall meeting. i believe he will be there with governor chris christie who has taken the lead in preparing him for the debate. it will be a chance for him to work on how to interact with the voters, with body language, how to build a connection with people when they are asking a question and to talk about some of his answers.

he is trying to work on better this time than the first debate is taking advantage of opportunities to get hillary clinton. if cyber security comes up, talk about e-mails. and so forth. we will see if it works. >> i want to switch to the storm. i am sure the washington post newsroom has turned its attention. donald trump needs a lot of attention on this debate. he needs people to watch it. what is your sense that your newsroom in general on thursday to sunday will be on politics as opposed to the storm? >> i think right now we at the storm and politics of taken a backseat although sunday is three days from now. a lot will depend on what the impact of the devastation is in florida and georgia. we will see. millions of people being evacuated. clearly it is a big story, a bigger story if there are casualties. >> of course our thoughts are with all of the people in florida. a huge storm and one where public officials are doing their best to try to prepare but the devastation cannot be controlled by human beings.

>> look at the politics, we talked about it earlier. you have two battleground states in florida and north carolina that can be affected in a significant way. talk about the ways you think it could be affected, the efforts to rally the base in both parties, etc. >> absolutely. one thing that robby mook said was they were expecting as many as 40% of the votes altogether could be cast before election day. three states he emphasized were florida, north carolina, and nevada in terms of state that could be decided before election day. two of those dates are directly in the path of the storm and so that becomes a very important proposition for the clinton campaign. we saw the controversy over them being halfway done placing an ad through the weather channel and pulling it back. they are obviously concerned with not being seen as politicizing the storm and distracting from public safety issues. it is going to affect the continuity of turnout effort, doorknocking efforts, that sort of thing. the infrastructure of a campaign has built in. they are saying there communicating directly with volunteers and staff.

they're saying, listen, your first priority is to lead -- follow instructions about evacuation and that sort of thing. the intensity of the storm, what actually happens and how it affects people will matter on a couple fronts. number one, and obviously weeks between now and election days will people get home to vote. another issue is public response, both of a republican governor in a republican state and the democratic president who remains so popular. will minority areas so affected by the storm affect turnout and believe of what a democratic administration could do versus a republican administration. then looking at it both as hillary trump -- hillary clinton and donald trump. will they visit sites and how they do in those real and delicate situations. that may matter.

the storm will have a huge impact potentially in terms of this. >> as we head toward sunday night, the first debate usually has the highest audience. do you get the sense between the storm and the fact it is the second debate, football on sunday, people will be tuned in on this in any numbers like the first one? >> i cannot imagine it will reach the numbers of the first one, but i think it will probably reach more people than the vice presidential debate, which had fairly low viewership a couple nights ago. somewhere in between. as important as people watching the debate, people tuning into the 42-78 hours following and seeing the clips online and adding a sense of how trump performed, whether he improved, whether he scored enough points against hillary or not. >> the clinton campaign, following recent history, being super aggressive on social

media, press releases, seems to be out doing the donald trump campaign to somerset. will the rnc gear up to become better at winning the debate after the debate? >> i assume they are trying. although one thing that is striking, as prolific as donald trump is on twitter, his advisers really are not. it is not like the clinton campaign where there is an army of operatives and strategy constantly trying to drag the twitter media conversation. >> yes, i don't know if they don't realize it or not. political reporters are heavily influenced by following twitter, during the debate, the aftermath. whether or not it matters is much as the reporters think or not, it certainly is one place where the clinton campaign outdoes the trump campaign. >> exactly right. >> margaret, one more question

for you, bill clinton came to the first debate. do we expect him in st. louis? do you know? or is it less likely given he stirred up a little controversy with his affordable care act comments? >> also, he was a good in his town hall debate formats, you would not want the memory of him to upstage the memory of her. in the first debate, it went down to the wire whether he would be in the room are watching from the hotel room and the decision to put them out there was really made in the last minute, so anything is possible. it is a game day call on their part. at least it was the first time around. >> i would like to see him there. it dresses the place up. i really want him there. >> who doesn't want to see him there? >> the handshake with melania.

>> thank you very much for joining us, appreciate it. >> coming up polls and policy. we will break down the latest bloomberg swing state numbers and discuss what is falling to the wayside during this rock them sock them campaign. ♪

mark: welcome back. we have a brand-new bloomberg politics battleground poll looking at north carolina, which remains an essential part of donald trump's narrow path to victory in november. in a four-way race, our poll shows hillary clinton leading among unlikely voters by just one percentage point, and clinton is up by the same margin in a two-way race according to our poll. that is slightly tighter than another new poll, where it shows the tar heel state. this one is from a batch of quinnipiac poll surveys released this afternoon. let's look at those. take a look at this map. we have hillary clinton up by three points, 46% to 43% among

likely voters in north carolina , and new q polls put clinton up five points in florida, or to -- up five points in florida, 46% to 41%. and up four points in pennsylvania, all of those measured in four-way races, but in ohio, the outlier, trump seems to be gaining ground. there he is leading clinton by five points, 47 to 42 points. now, there is one more poll that i want to show you. let's take a look at this. in new mexico, a state that would ordinarily be considered safely stashed in clinton's column, an albuquerque journal survey shows yesterday that beating trump by four points, 35% to 31%. how is that possible? new mexico has been blue for a long time. you have to think about gary johnson, a two-time governor of the land of enchantment. he pulls a hefty 24% of likely voters, so look at all that stuff, those q polls, our poll and albuquerque journal poll. where does that leave the

electoral math and map? -- a trump has far the fallen further behind than he was going into the first debate. he had the momentum and had pulled almost even with clinton, where there was a plausible electoral college path. he must win florida and north carolina to have a chance. he is behind in those states. if you look at where she is in these polls and where he is, he can come back, particularly if gary johnson gets a percentage chance to vote. i think for trump to win he needs some combination besides the big three in iowa, ohio and florida. he needs probably three small states, unless he can win pennsylvania, which looks less likely. the reality is, i think trump needs to win both debates and probably clinton to have a big stumble or disclosure, and he needs to perform day in and day out better. without those things, i think he will get tens of millions of votes, i think he will get over

200 electoral votes. but he will lose. there are a couple worrying things. one is that the gary johnson vote is starting to collapse. and as that happens it seems to be that a lot of that put will of that vote -- a lot of that vote will go with hillary clinton or stay home. you look at a lot of those small states that he has to put together if he makes that map. once he wins the essential ones, put aside this new mexico thing but nevada, where he had been ahead, she is now ahead. colorado, ahead a lot, and new hampshire, stronger than him there. pennsylvania is probably out of reach. the dauntingness of it -- this week when trump was on the brink of maybe, maybe being even and now slipping on all of these fronts right now. if i am in the trump campaign, i am scared. mark: she is the favorite and he has been hurt badly, but we should not overreact. a good week for him, a bad week for her, he could get that close to parity, but he will

always have a narrow path. john: time is running out. mark: getting lost in all the political sniping is all the major policy issues that would normally get at least some attention in the coverage of any race in the white house. for instance, "new york times" had a story about the affordable care act future after the election and on our website, bloombergpolitics.com, a great story by jennifer on the hillary clinton proposal to limit contracts to make it more difficult for workers and consumers to bring legal action against corporations. out on the campaign trail, candidates have dipped a pinky toe into the policy war waters. trump talks at times about his tax plan and a proposal for childcare deductions. he announced a cyber review team that they say will look at the issues of online security. clinton in turn has unveiled plans for expanding opportunities for workers with disabilities, improving student debt, working on prescription drug costs, and others, but they don't get much coverage. with 36 days to go, why is there

less policy coverage than the past and is there anything that can be done before election day? john: because we are suckers for the shiny object and when i say we, i mean our colleagues and us to some extent. these two candidates provide compelling, hilarious, appalling theater almost every day and it is hard to resist covering that stuff and focusing in the way that we should more on the issues of substance. mark: it is hard to cover policy when they don't give you experts , which we asked for all the time. it is also hard when you have this thing. i always say it is hard to call -- cover policy the week before the new hampshire primary or super tuesday, and this will campaign is like that, always a big thing. the candidates did not take the summer off. but still, and again, not exempting our self, i will look back and say that one of the great failures of this cycle is that we let the carnival cycle and freak show atmosphere of the

trump campaign and clinton campaign -- more trump than clinton -- and just never really said, we need to do 20 minutes on education. john: you're right that they don't focus on policy enough. trump has almost no policies. clinton's policies are buried in her website. but the clinton campaign is also intentionally making the race about temperament questions throughout -- questions. they are not focused on trump's policies but on business record and temperament. we don't have much time left, but it is not too late. we could talk about health care. we could talk about criminal justice reform. there are a lot of jobs, obviously. there are things that we could try to do and try to get policy before election day. the voters will be electing someone who has a huge influence on their lives to read -- lives throughout -- lives. coming up, we ask the veteran strategist but the campaigns need to do before november 8 to win the white house, right after this. ♪

mark: welcome back. with us now is mike murphy.

veteran strategist of many campaigns, despite his youthful look. .e is a never trumper a look at the former super pac that tried to get jeb bush the republican nomination. mike: fell a little short on that front. mark: today, we tap into mike murphy's sense of how to run a campaign and look at what the two presidential candidates can do, should do in the remaining weeks. let's talk about trump. my sense is that their internal data is not too far from public data. down five nationally. nowhere near the 46 minimum they need to win. so, they have put out some new ads. they have two debates coming up. what are the options to go to the boss and say, we are behind and we need to change the dynamic or we will lose? mike: the good news is the media attention has never been hotter. the bad news is they are in october and the clock is ticking. and it is bad. so, what they have got to do is, the ads are interesting, the polling is interesting. but they have got to get trump to start running a campaign that

brings new voters in. he is stuck in the cul-de-sac were he is losing college-educated white people by too much and he is losing minorities. that is a chokehold. the way to break that is to see a more creative trump hammering on his wrong track, change everything, no more politicians, i will put you to work, without tripping over his own shoelaces. that could be the bridge too far. mark: we all say there is nobody like trump. whereou ever had a client you have to go to him and say, you performed at best inconsistently? i need you to focus on the home stretch and they have done it? yes. i only do that for people who don't have trumpian disconnect from the campaign. trump is doing his thing and there is staff scurrying around trying to nudge him in the right direction. unless trump decides to change up things, he will not use the earned media hammer to move numbers and that means he will be down to ads. in the ad were, they are -- in the ad war, they are being

outspent substantially. that is not enough. he has got to get the earned media moving at a narrative that helps them and we have not seen it yet, but there are still -- john: is there? the world is different now than it has been and there are not that many days left. if trump started behaving like a perfectly disciplined candidate, doing exactly what you want, is there still time to move the numbers or is the overhang from everything else that has happened in the past months just too great? mike: i think it is heavy baggage, but the only shot they have is to change it up and put trump on a script that resonates with more people than his primary voter base. that is all they've got. there are headwinds but if they don't do that, it will fold in on him and it will be the three point to five point race for hillary. mark: if you look at the map, what was the path you would try to run? mike: i would try to fix the big stuff, because that will fix the little things. i mean, if you are not working right nationally, you're not going to fix ohio. where, at least in the polling,

he is closest. i think he has to draw up some of the states. colorado is out of reach for him. virginia will be really hard with tim kaine. so it has to be florida and north carolina and ohio with the real push. but if he does the national stuff right, that will get better. maybe the polls in iowa to the draw to the inside straight, and generally, the fewer minority voters, the better chance. in the clinton campaign, my sense is they are going to her every day and saying, you are up five nationally, the battleground states look good, trump has no past, and she turns to senior staff, including you , and is like, what can we do to be more aggressive? or do we need to be? mike: because trump has proven the logo appears campaign should be, he takes bait like nobody i have ever seen. i would put a couple insult comics on the road and provoke him every day for the rest of the campaign. get sarah silverman a plane and a bus and poke at him. let him pick surrogate fights

and then i would send dog whistles to republicans and yell that tim kaine is a moderate and that would help them have somewhere to land. there is another point or two for her if she does that right . if she doubles down on elizabeth warren, which is basically saving face, she could scare away some voters she could get from trump. remember, college-educated white voters, who are normally republicans but don't like trump, need a little reassurance to land with her. there is a reason mitt romney carried them by double-digits. they are not that comfortable with liberal democrats. she has to be careful about the dog whistles. so, surrogates and landing pad for more fiscally conservative voters. john: the same way that the trump campaign is worried about the voters you are talking about, the clinton campaign is worried about millennial voters. they are really underperforming with the group that barack obama performed extraordinarily well with your at -- well with. should they be as worried about that as they are? mike: no. when in doubt, september is about misleading polling data. october is the normal gravity of

elections coming in. democrats are doing democratic things, republicans with republican things. they will get their share. maybe not obama share, but they will get plenty of millennials. the question is if her message that she closes on, will it be welcoming or will she double down and alienate voters that we know vote, which are independents who are more fiscally conservative? mark: candidates start to say, with increasing frequency, where is the reverend wright tape? where is the secret ledger from trump headquarters? mike: they wonder what will happen to change everything. mark: should trump senior staff be egging him on? saying, who knows what julian assange will do today? or they will say, mr. trump, let that take care of it self. mike: the worst thing to do in october is to obsess over things you do not control. the trump campaign should be having at least some influence on trump. if they could fix that, that is 90% of their trouble. i think it is a bridge too far,

knowing trump. don't waste time on fantasy stuff, try to get trump to act like a change candidate without risk. that is the trap he keeps walking into. mark: including keeping him out of his head. mike: there is an old joke in my business, never tell the candidate a joke on debate they you don't want to hear. whatever you do, don't tell this joke -- two alligators, a rabbi, next thing they know they go for the joke. less clutter in his head. trump is better more focused on change, i will deliver the economy and i am not the bogie monster. john: last question on the clinton side. we all know barack obama and michelle obama, a great story. two new surrogates, one old, one new. bill clinton, al gore. what you do about bill clinton and saying stuff that is problematic? should she be employing al gore or not? mike: i would put bill clinton in those metal bending states. bill clinton is the best weapon they have.

with gore, they are selling it that gore is a ticket for millennials. they had this problem they are worried about. one thing millennials are not interested in is yesterday. al gore should be raising money. i do not think he is a voter mover. mark: i think they think he draws press attention -- >> mike: maybe. they should have insult surrogates to take on donald trump. voters who would normally be republican that it is ok to land on hillary. you are not going to get a loving administration. mark: jethro and steve mcmahon join our show to discuss the state of the presidential race, right after this. ♪

mark: welcome back. if we had countdown clocks, we would have the countdown clock up right now, because there are just days left before the presidential debate. joining us from houston, texas, jeff roe, former presidential campaign manager for ted cruz. steve mcmahon, cofounder of purple strategies. welcome. we have not talked to either of you in a while, so what is the state of the presidential race as you see it? >> trump is down a bit. it is super bowl of sorts for sunday to realign the race. it is important because of the storm, because of the other news, because of early boats starting to come in, particularly in key states. in the next few weeks, it is critical to reset the narrative. if you remember going into the first debate, trump was on a tear, he had momentum and was putting states that were seemingly out of reach into play, and that changed sunday night. it slid back and kind of resembles how it looked before we went into the conventions, so

now i think it makes sunday very critical. to be clear, there are outlier polls that are showing trump hanging tough nationally, but most of the numbers seem to have a margin of victory advantage for the clinton campaign. mark: trump put himself in the -- holehold h --ole because of a bad debate performance, can he take himself out of it? steve: structurally, the race has been about a three or four point advantage to the democrat and that could have been whoever was nominated because the electoral, college that trump has become trump again and again to slide backward. you look at battleground states and the states where look like he could have had a chance to win, it now looks the key is falling behind, states like colorado, new hampshire and some others, nevada, that he really needs desperately to win, and even in ohio, a poll showed hillary clinton ahead for the first time in some time. he is losing ground in florida,

virginia, the states that he must have, and losing ground in states that republicans have never been successful unless they have won, like ohio. i think it is getting very late in the game for him to turn around and being desperate, angry and lashing out is the wrong strategy for him and it is what i predict will see sunday night. john: think about the town hall format. we have talked about this a lot. it is not obvious that either one of them is demonstrably better in this setting. who do you think, if you think of donald trump as the showman, she has got more experience debating. who do you think the format favors? this will not surprise you because i'm a democrat, but i think hillary clinton is more natural because they're much more like the way democrats have to campaign for president and the way democrats campaign to run for the senate. donald trump has mostly been big rallies standing behind the podium, screaming insults at people, and he is not walking around the crowd interacting with real voters. i think for hillary clinton, it

is a much more natural setting. donald trump is obviously a showman and will be a good performer, but i think for her, it does not take performance. it is who she is and how she has campaigned. mark: when you ran ted cruz's campaign, you spent a lot of time watching your guy on the debate stage with donald trump . make the case for why steve is wrong and it is a more favorable setting for donald trump. >> i would actually agree with him. this is why i think the reason this. mark: go ahead. ruin my question. >> this is what i would say and where i think steve has it wrong. he has an opportunity to showcase a part of himself that he has never done before. that sets the expectations. if you see this guy he was red-faced, yelling, and you get the big presidential look and then you see advertising even of late, where he is kissing a child on the cheek at the end of one of the commercials.

this is opportunity. i believe he walks in at a structural disadvantage on the way he has campaigned versus the way hillary has campaigned, but as an opportunity, i think the sky is the limit for donald . if he comes out and is emotive and shares, connects, and he shows his heart as mike pence would say, that is a real opportunity. mark: he should avoid kicking babies out of the room. >> probably so, for one night. mark: are you sure he did not bite that baby? [laughter] john: i went to ask about one race that has gone attention, which is rob in the ohio senate. jeff, what lessons are there for other candidates running this year with portman running way ahead of trump in ohio and putting away a race that people thought would be close? >> there is this incumbent dilemma that they have. when they have a candidate that is announced and running against them, how long do you ignore

them and just kind of act like nothing is going on in your race and everything is fine versus when do you engage them? it is a dilemma that goes on in every campaign. what that campaign did well and what incumbents do poorly is engaged immediately. they accepted they are in a tough race in a presidential swing state in the battleground year and they went after it early and often. i think that is one of the lessons. as an incumbent, you want this invincibility and not show credibility to the opponent. it is tougher than i am saying it is, but it's difficult decision to take a race seriously, show that you are worried and you could be defeated, and engage the campaign structurally from the beginning. he did that and was a master at it. it did not hurt that he had a poor challenger, but he put this race away, and can you believe we are talking about the dcc pulling out of critical battleground states that they should always be in at this point in the race. john: steve, donald trump's

paperback is out and it was known as what was called "crippled america: how to make america great again," and the new version is "great again: how to fix our crippled america." what do you take from that? do you think that was a well-handled switch? what is the lesson of the fact that he decided to go that way? >> here is the lesson i take from it. kellyanne conway is firmly in control. somebody must have explained to donald trump that angry people do not get elected president of the united states. the american people typically, whether it is democratic or republican, they tend to be drawn to somebody who is offering a positive, aspirational vision for the future that takes america to a better place where we all benefit, we all work together, we all kind of strive. you can see it in hillary's slogan, stronger together, that is an embodiment of this idea. i think donald trump figured out that the election is about the

future and it is about a better future, and that is what people want. even his most ardent supporters desperately want a better america, and i think he probably made that little switch in time for the paperback so he could sell more copies and perhaps position himself better to actually be that kind of leader. john: thank you. the best thing about it is the look of the different faces. there is. thank you for watching this episode of "best of with all due respect." don't forget, the second presidential debate is coming up. you can watch a coverage on bloomberg tv or twitter. be sure to go to debate. twitter.com or follow our handle for a pregame and postgame show and the main event, the full 90-minute presidential debate. as always, if you watch us in washington, d.c., listen to us on the radio at bloomberg 99.1 fm. thank you for watching. we will see you soon. sayonara. ♪

carol: welcome to "bloomberg businessweek." i am carol massar. david: and i am david gura. we are coming to you from the magazine headquarters in new york. carol: genetically modified mosquitoes on kamikaze missions to eliminate their own species and the zika virus along the way. some in the florida keys say, not so fast. david: and how patagonia, the clothing company, plans to fight climate change with beer. sounds like al: good move. we also take a look at if google is the new apple, taking a look at the company's first real threat against the iphone. david: all that ahead on "bloomberg businessweek."