mark: i'm mark halperin. john: i'm john heilemann. to alll due respect those people stressing out about the election, a word of advice meditation expert dan harris. namaste.s day -- ♪ john: on the show tonight, coldon foundation in stations, vladimir putin's cyber depredations, and ensuing powers of meditation. but first, the politics of feminization. high-profile women on both sides were out in full force today. in winston-salem, north carolina

this afternoon, hillary clinton made her first campaign appearance with another soon-to-be first lady -- soon-to-be former first lady, michelle obama. it was a buddy picture unlike we have ever seen. and tonight he is there anyone more inspiring than michelle obama? -- and the president have ms. clinton: is there anyone more inspiring than michelle obama? ma: i admire and respect hillary. she has been a lawyer, first lady of arkansas, first lady of the united states, u.s. senator, secretary of state. [cheers] obama: that's right. hillary does not play. she has more experience and exposure to the presidency than any other candidate in our lifetime. yes, more than barack, more than bill.

she is absolutely ready to be commander-in-chief on day one, and yes, she happens to be a woman. [cheers] in springfield, ohio, donald trump held his own rally back dropped by several "women for trump" signs. it was melania who stole the show this morning with two interviews. on good morning america, melania defended her husband and is missed the women who accused him of sexual assault. .> they are lies all the accusations should be handled in a court of law. to accuse somebody without andence is very hurtful very damaging and unfair. do we still need to talk about that? i think american people need to hear about the problems that we have in america.

they want to hear what we will do to make america better. .et's talk about jobs let's talk about secure our border. that's what american people want to talk about. >> what do you need prayer for, if you will? that's what we say and evangelical world. important,s the most because if you have health, you can keep going, keep fighting, and do the best for the people of america. have been saying that donald trump has to improve his standing with women to have a chance at winning. at this moment, where those efforts stand? obamatoday, the michelle appearance is going to dominate. she has been on the trail some, but not a lot. since this summer, donald trump has cut the gap in some extent nationally with hillary clinton.

some republican women have come home, but not enough. if hillary clinton continues on the trajectory she is on, despite donald trump occasionally talking about childcare, despite melania doing interviews in the last few days, the combination of the clinton campaign's relentless focus on female voters and the "access hollywood" tape will leave trump with, unless something dramatic changes, a very big gap with women that will make it mathematically impossible. there are long-term questions about the republican brand, damage being done to it. i am actually somewhat some rise -- somewhat surprised. i looked at the exit polls from 22012 when barack obama beat mitt romney by 11 points, 55-44. according toon, cnn orc, is up by 13 with women. quinnipiac, 15. bloomberg, up by 14. she is not doing substantially

better than barack obama did. then again, barack obama won the election. not surprised there has been a bigger fallout with women than there has. mark: over the summer, he was more like 20 points down. some of that has come back. i think, if you look back at the trump campaign's work and their aspirations to appeal to women, african-americans, hispanics, their efforts were so slow in starting, so haphazard. he is going to leave a legacy of no blueprint whatsoever, except in the negative sense, about how it -- about how the republican party can do better. a legacywill leave where he has put his surrogates, people around him -- they put themselves in the position -- but he has put them in a horrible position where they have had to defend him from largelythat are

credible, only because he admitted on tape that he does these kinds of things to women. that tape will have a -- that tape will play for a long time. newt gingrich, for a guy that close to an election, inexplicable. another wikileaks disclosure giving fresh ammunition to impropriety in clinton world. as it is being called, bill clinton inc. a longtime aide to bill clinton appears to describe a system that generated a lot of money for the clintons. according to the memo, his consulting firm made a charitable donations to the clinton foundation, while at the same time hiring bill clinton to the tune of millions of dollars for speaking fees and consulting gigs. those deals also included

"in-kind services for the president and his family for hospitality, vacation, and the like. cap -- and the like." donald trump address these directly, and he mixed -- he minced no words. the lines between the clinton foundation and personal financers get blurred. we heard about doug brand bragging that he funneled tens of millions of dollars to bill clinton inc. arrangementled the unorthodox. the rest of us call it out right corrupt. e-mailhere is another that people are talking about today. this one is from 2014. it appears to show done been setting up a meeting between a client and john podesta.

house seniore adviser thin. he is now chair of the clinton campaign. all of this pays into a plate of pay -- pay to play narrative that the clinton campaign has been trying to shut down. john, how well does the description of clinton world d play with voters between now and election day. john: i have always thought that of money, philanthropic work, and policy were areas of real concern for the clintons as we move forward. these e-mails describe a messy, seedy bunch of business. it is the case that donald trump is a horrible messenger on this issue because of the problems with the trump foundation, and

because the trump foundation is at least as corrupt, if not more corrupt. also, there is the piece that i speculated might be shown, but has not yet been, which is did in the this influence policy? both of these undercut this is a potent issue, and it is also awfully late. mark: it's late, and i think most voters who here about this and process it takes that's the way it operates. we should say this is the way a lot political families operate in government. the difference here is the scale and background of the clintons. there are plenty of people in washington who arrange meetings for contributors all the time. danger here is, if there is another disclosure, the press has become a nerd to the daily release of the wikileaks batches. we don't know if julian assange and others have a plan to drop something big and later, if the russians plan to send something overlay. some clinton people said last week that they made a mistake,

but the press does not care anymore. the press is primed to read this every day and look for things. if this is a big thing, it will get a big hearing. john: although with the clock ticking, if you were really going to drop a bombshell -- mark: you may not know about early voting. john: you might not want to wait before the day of the election to do it. mark: did they early voting in australia? -- do they have early voting in australia? john: again, there is a lot to criticize here, but again, it still remains very remote from the real lives of real people. mark: and hillary clinton's name has not come up much at all. that's important. but wait -- john: but wait, there's more about the campaign duet debut about hillary clinton michelle obama, after this break. ♪

♪ ms. obama: i know some folks have commented that it has been unprecedented for a sitting first lady to be so actively engaged in a presidential campaign. at that may be true -- and that alsoe true, but what is true is that this is truly an unprecedented election, and that's why i'm out here. of michelleas more obama, the star of hillary clinton's rally today in north carolina. , one of the best reporters in the business, and darren, political correspondent for "the washington post."

of the body think language? i remember in 2008, bill clinton and barack obama did one event together and the body language was not that warm. it seemed warm to me today. it was. in theme out together class act, clinton arm and arm pose that you would see maybe with a vice president, but very close together. michelle obama made a point of saying that she considers clinton a friend. i think that was in some ways a nod to the perception that they do not have a particularly close relationship. it is certainly true that they don't have an enormous amount of experience with one another and that their relationship was not so great eight years ago in the election.of the 2008 it has grown considerably deeper

and warmer sense. i thought michelle obama really had substantive things to say today about what she thought clinton could do as president that go beyond a standard one democrat endorsing another kind of stump speech. big: i think one of the stories of 2016 is the reality that michelle obama is the biggest star of the democratic party. at a higherrming level than her husband, but she is not out as often as her husband. how much will we see of her between now and election day? surprisingly large amount, even by the clinton campaign's expectations. michelle tell you that obama wants to do as much as she is volunteering to do. they say they are not pressing her to do more, but she came to them with a number of proposals about things she wanted to talk

about, including today's event as a side with hillary clinton. i think one data point that is d aling is that they booke really big venue today. it is a stadium that conceit 14,000 people -- that can seat 14,000 people. the way it was booked today, it was fewer than that. there was a capacity crowd of about 11,000. that is more than twice the size of the very two or three largest clinton rallies we have seen all year. rallies -- at recent and we are two weeks from the election -- crowd sizes at recent rallies have been in the 1700, 2500, maybe 3000 range. certainly not 11,000. mark: i wanted to talk about the wikileaks. jennifer paul mary was on msnbc

today, and basically everything she said was, the russians, the russians. did you get the sense that they planned to keep that up as their answer for the next two weeks, or is something going to force their hand? anne: they don't think something has forced their hand yet. it certainly appears that with 12 days left, they think they can get it out by just continually saying, "this is stolen property, stolen by the and "has anybody taken a good hard look at donald trump's connection to the russians?" all valid points, but completely beside the wind compared to the mounting pile of dirty laundry that we see in these e-mails area -- in these e-mails. do not dispute the authenticity of the e-mails, they simply will not confirm it. john: it is interesting to point out that donald trump went out again and giving vladimir putin raise on the campaign drill,

giving the clinton campaign a little bit of a gift. to what extent is the clinton campaign fully aware -- have they gone all the way through john podesta's gmail now so they know what assange has and they will be prepared for what comes out? so, just, you'd hope to know what the potential throat is that's out there. really don't know from the outside is exactly when it was clear to the campaign that this material had been stolen, and exactly how much they knew about the size and t.ope of that shift -- thef apparently never deleted anything. he had many years stored in his gmail. one hack, whoever did it was able to go back many years,

spanning podesta's time out of to when he was chairman and weighting of the campaign. there was a lot exposed, and you have to think that the campaign and lawyers have been going through that for months. we knew that they knew that there was a risk out there. we did not know exactly what it was. itk: we talked about earlier, but we would love to see you enunciate it. we have seen weeks of these e-mails come out. the batch produced on strange -- produced front page stories in your paper. what about that memo caused people to make a bigger deal about it and previous e-mails? e: it through a lot of lines quite explicitly. band, that, you have done

one of bill clinton's most trusted and loyal aides, appearing to fingers at bill clinton saying, look, how come have someying that i of this overlapping business has far morenton than i do and has even greater exposure. if you consider it a risk, he has greater exposure than i do. that is an extraordinary thing for someone in his position, and frankly who owed his position to build runs in to say -- to bill clinton to say. one interesting aspect raised the profile of it and caused us to write about it in the detail that we did. here you see john podesta trying down a little bit and say, coolidge a little bit, i don't think that's the kind of like you want to use, and band

is saying, that's exactly what i want to say and i want to defend myself. mark:, more on wikileaks. we talk about russia and the future of cyber warfare, after this. ♪

♪ there has been a lot of discussion around wikileaks, but few people who really understand the methods, context, and meaning behind the hacks and hackers that have been meddling in this year's election. are documentary, i talked with two of those people, and what they had to say was super scary. [video clip] john: friday morning,

washington, d.c. wikileaks and the russian relationship. trying to explore this very question. so, your first encounter with this story was what? of russianseen a lot activity going around, but the big moment of change came in june of this year, when a rowdstrike first came out with convincing evidence that there were russian hackers that were behind the attack on the democratic national committee. dimitri, how are you? >> good to see you. come on in. i got questions. -- i've got questions. had called us.

they did not know if they had a breach, but they saw some signs on the network. they called us in, and within a couple hours, we noticed there were two adversaries on the network, which we tied to ,ussian military intelligence and the other group we tied to the successor of the kgb. i actually think they did not .lan to start leaking us going public accelerated their timeline. they panicked and said, we need a distribution channel, why not go to wikileaks? because wikileaks is wikileaks, it's like having something up here on the front page of a newspaper. then we realized this was old-style russian information work. >> exactly. it's information operations. that's how russians think about cyber. how do we use it to weaken our opponents psychologically? to try tos not just

influence the election to favor one candidate or the other, but influence the entire process. do is createed to enough chaos, maybe in the voter registration rolls area did you show up, sorry, your name is not on the list, that happens two people behind you. putin'splays into overall objective, to weaken the american presidency. , in my believe, is not to influence the election, but to actually discredit the entire process. is to showhis motive that he has more nuclear weapons in his arsenal, and to show that he has to be dealt with with some respect. >> it's all about propaganda. that's how the russians think about that. the government is not prepared for the propaganda campaign that is about to unfold. john: today, vladimir putin said

it was rubbish that russia was behind donald trump, but there is no doubt in this point, among most experts, that russia was the one who drove this hack and somehow those documents made its way to wikileaks and julian assange. you can watch "the circus" on showtime. up next year, though, we will take a closer look at this issue of cyber war and how it might flareup on election day, with one of the guys you just saw, david singer. first, these words from our sponsors. ♪

♪ is there anyone who really thinks in full seriousness that

russia is capable of influencing the choice of the american people somehow? america is not a banana country, is it? america is a great power. if i am not right, please correct me. that was russian president vladimir putin speaking about a banana country, dismissing concerns that his government is meddling in the u.s. election. during the break, you saw a segment with david sanger that was built for "the circus," produced in conjunction with bloombergpolitics. we are joined by the man himself, david sanger with the "times" d.c. newsroom. also, stephen leavy. thank you both for coming. david, update us on related sense of what -- on your latest sense of what the u.s. government's posture is on retaliating against russians, or taking some measure against them continuing? >> so far, the discouraging of

their activity was limited to public statements they have made , including the one joe biden made a bit more than a week ago now, threatening some kind of covert action to stop them. the fact of the matter is, we had not seen public sanctions. if there has been covert action, it has been subtle. so far, the only thing we have seen is the revelation in the aboute of some e-mails their actions in ukraine. no one is convinced that that if therican action, that u.s. did something they were hoping it would be a little bigger than that. there is some debate on whether or not the administration should act before the election, because if you do act before the election, that gives the russians a chance to act back on the day of. so it's possible that you are not going to see real

retaliation until after november 8. john: i want to ask you this question, steven, what happens next potentially? forget about wikileaks and the stuff coming out trying to screw up this election. what about election day? what is the risk? there is a lot of risk. we saw last week a big attack on , theinternet companies infrastructure of the internet. that happened during election -- if that happened during election day, there would be a good amount of chaos. there's still no indication of who was responsible, right? steven: no. most think it was not a foreign government, but other people think it was a probe. it does not have to be the russians. it can be individual actors anywhere in the world, really.

there have been a lot of people talking for a few cycles now about the vulnerability of our election systems. is in her favor is it is not one centralized system, so if you are going to attack the general election best way would be over the whole internet in general, because there are 51 different states and districts that are voting, and each one has a different system. john: david, we know the voting machines are not online. they are not the into the internet. as stephen suggested, if there was a massive outage in the internet, that would create an atmospheric chaos. you and i discussed in washington was more specific, going to the question of affecting voter registration, and those systems are online. just sketch out the scenario by which that could create chaos and pandemonium on election day. dated: the possibilities here is you've got a lot of people who are newly registered.

they registered into a central database. ,hey show up on election day and they've got their receipt from the day they registered, but no one can find them. they may have to vote on a provisional ballot. if you have a lot of those, thousands or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands, it would really slow the works down, and you might not even get conclusions that night. a lot of states are preparing for that. are printing out their database, or printing it out in sections and giving it to the polling races -- polling places so that there is a backup to the system. but as you have just heard, every state is different, and as a result, everyone's got different procedures. get to thee when you actual voting machines. most of them are off-line, it

although there are a lot of people who are overseas who are veterans who are allowed to vote by e-mail. there is a question about the security of that. and even if that happens, there are a lot of states, five in specific, that do not have any paper backup to the ballot that you cast. if there is a question later on, very little to go back and do the audit. other states have only partial backup. steven: if you want to do slow down and generally have some polling place where there is chaos, the question is, how can they tell? i can guarantee with confidence that there will be polling places were people will be lined up, unable to vote. there will be people who will show up that say they can legally vote and they will not be able to vote there percent chance -- there. there is a 100% chance of that happening. mark: wikileaks, despite their

motives, their goals, do you feel that what they have done with the podesta emails has been a success? yes, it has. the very first one, where they get the head of the dnc to resign, that's a pretty good hit. it's interesting, the ones that came out talking about hillary's speeches, had they come out during the primaries, i think it would have had a bigger impact. their impact was greatly reduced because it happened to be the same day that we watched donald trump in the trailer talking about, you know, his views on women. were pretty much overshadowed. , if there isally an impact, we don't know what, if anything, is to come, so would like to see happening is that they have successfully less impact.

my hopeful view is that we are getting to sensitize to what is in private -- getting desensitized to what is in private e-mails. some order is restored to the universe as we realize that just because e-mail is stolen, it is not necessarily salacious on its face. the: we had y2k, which was same kind of anticipation of a potentially cataclysmic event. and when there is a super bowl, and national security event, how much bandwidth of the intelligence community and computer experts within the federal government is going towards preparing for election day? i have been talking to people involved in that effort, and they are preparing for a monitoring sense. remember, the voting system is a state and local system in the united states, so not only is there no central database, there is no central authority, both federal authority over this. as we discussed the other day, voting system -- the voting

system is not considered critical infrastructure. is, theington monument jefferson memorial is, but not the underpinnings of our democracy. that is something likely to change after election day. you have federal government officials who can look for signs of trouble, but they don't have a lot of authority here because is vested in the states. one: i want to talk about other scenario, the possibility of how intrusion can happen in terms of how the vote totals are reported. back in obviously cause chaos. -- that can obviously cause chaos. steven: it sure can. remember, the totals you here on election eve are unofficial totals. let's say in a close state like north carolina, the early results you got word donald trump up by three.

of course, i making up these numbers. a few days later, after all the official numbers are together and all of the mail-in ballots are counted and everything else, what you hear is no, hillary clinton won by one. of are going to have a lot trump supporters under that circumstance say, hey, something suspicious happened here. i heard that night that he won, and now she won. was someone playing with the numbers? the answer might be that someone was playing with the preliminary numbers, but not the real numbers. thank you both. when we come back, we will head inside the trump rocker for a look at the campaign's day to shop. you are inon -- if washington, d.c., you can listen to us on 99.1 fm. ♪

♪ behind thed trump's scenes data operation is something his campaign has kept almost entirely from public view, but bloomberg was granted exclusive access to a large part of the data itself which trump is using the final days of the election season, and possibly beyond. we are joined by one of the authors from that piece, sasha issenberg. it is great to see you here. and your beard. tell us about your story. and i went down to san antonio, where the trump campaign has built a sickly a second headquarters. there are people who go to work off of an office near the by the airport, and that is where trump has built a digital data operation that they

have been null to talk about. he has been using social media out of his own account as a sort of broadcast medium, but from june onward, they have built a system that is doing a lot of targeted communication and building a lot of data on his supporters. this is the first time they have pulled back the curtain to talk about what they had been up to. thing that caught my eye was the notion of voter suppression. here's part of what you write in the piece in "business week." we have threeays, major voter suppression operations underway. they are aimed at three groups clinton needs to win over, idealistic white liberals, young women, and african-americans. yeah, campaigns sometimes engaged in voter suppression, but why would someone say that given the optic of it? sasha: i think this is the campaign that is

run by top-tier people who have very little, if any, experience .round political campaigns you look at stephen bannon, , these are people who have very little experience at all. i think they have developed a strategy which is sort of dubious from a scientific perspective, but they have no idea how fraught the term "suppression. is. they think they are going to the most unreliable parts of the democratic coalition, where polls did not show a lot of enthusiasm for hillary clinton over the course of the year. they think if they give them negative information about hillary clinton, it will keep them home. that's a little different than what the term suppression means illegally, but the fact that they threw that around as freely as they did is a sign that -- be a but you don't need to

political expert. you just need app some sense of morale of the and pr to not mention that to a journalist. sasha: this grows out of their strategic assumption that the end of the campaign, which is that they have this very fervent base, the thing that is getting them to 42% or 44% in staples. they recognized that is not going to be enough to get 270 electoral votes. their strategic assumption at this point is the only way they can turn their coalition into a winning number is to shrink the size of the electorate. this is their gambit to go after groups where they think they have the most chance to reduce turnout among democrats. john: your piece is unambiguous about two things. one, that they understand that they are almost certain to lose, and two, that they have longer-term ambitions along the lines of what some suspect, building a media operation on

the back of it. talk about that. sasha: trump has given an indication that he does not trust polling. they are doing a ton of it. every night, they run electoral simulations. we quoted a piece saying that basically their numbers are tracking the silvers at 538, but with a lag because they are not relying on public polls. going to they are lose, and what comes after it is likely either a splinter political movement or a trump media property, and they will have 13 names -- 13 million names to be an audience or constituency for either. the story is fantastic. everyone should read it. you can find that piece on the bergpolitics.com, and in the latest edition of this this week. up next, it is time for some meditation. we will be right back. ♪

♪ with 12 days left in this election, the campaign may have you burnt out and stressed out. you are not alone. joining us to talk about the stresses of this election cycle is becoming her of abc news nightline and good morning america weekend, the great dan harris. also, the author of the book "10% happier." happierhost of the 10% podcast and 10% happier inc. dan, welcome. haveow a lot of people stress related to the election. how pervasive is election 2016

stress? dan: quite pervasive. more than half of americans say the election is getting them anxiety. 25% of americans say it is getting in the way of them doing their work because of political discussions. 50% say the prospect of a clinton presidency makes them anxious, 70% for trump. mark: so it's not just doug band. no. he is having a tough cycle, no question about it. others are having problems with stress, compulsive eating. so what am i supposed to do about it, dan? dan: that was a softball. . think there are three tips one is limit your media consumption. don't do too much. john: just "with all due respect. " dan: maybe nightline if you have

time. the big piece that doctors are recommending across the country, privately and publicly, is meditation. i think it really helps. in fact, we posted some free guided meditations for people who are freaking out about this election on our cap, 10% happier. john: smoking dope? dan: i don't know if there is research that has gone into that , i don't want to name any names, but his initials are alfonso pena. one of your stage managers is applauding. meditation?bout will that help someone who has never done it before with 12 days to go? dan: i think so. meditation works quickly. you and your wife karen helps me write the book. and a lot of people don't know this, but he is one of my closest friends over here. i don't view meditation as this

magical, metaphysical fix. it is great exercise. just as when you exercise your body, your muscles get stronger, your heart gets stronger. when you exercise your brain, you get less yanked around by your emotions. that's what's happening. we feel hopeless, anxious, and angry, and we are allowing that our relationships with coworkers and spouses, and meditation helps you get not so yanked around by that. john: there is a perception that meditation is kind of hippie did hippie-dippy bullcrap, but you are saying this is a legitimate thing. dan: i was of the view that people into meditation like cat -- we now know that he smokes dope -- john: and those two things are

connected. and: in many cases. correlation is not necessarily causation. thates, i was in the view it was completely weird for a long time, and science shows that it can rewire key parts of your brain, lower your blood pressure, so i started to give it a shot. there are different kinds of meditation that you can do, but i think if you do up the street up, secular, mindfulness meditation, you are in good hands. john: it does not have to be transcendental to work? : you can transcend and a lot of environments. a lot of people do tm who are pretty straightlaced. mark: you've got a "nightline" coming up on this? dan: i do. it will be on next week. we convened a panel of clinton supporters and trump supporters and had them meditate together. it was super tense in the room, because these people have serious disagreements. by the end, actually, they

started talking about -- this will sound a little grandiose, but it is a point worth making -- shared humanity. have comepeople who from basically shooting daggers out of their eyes at one another -- mark: strong trump supporters and clint supporters, and by the end they are singing encarnacion. dan: basically. mark: tell us where it is available. dan: it is available in the app store, and if you do not have a phone, you can get it online. john: why 10% have your? why not aim higher? dan: i pulled it out of my rear end. it is a joke. thank you for not getting the joke. john: i would like to be 190% happier. and: i am trying to counter program against the overhyping of the $11 billion a year b ullcrap machine known as the self-help industry. harris.e dan

thank you very much. john and i will be back right after this. ♪

john: how much do you love that guy? mark: dan harris? godzilla plus. to bloombergpolitics about what donald trump's followers are saying on the stealing of the election. sayonara. ♪

mark: a senior adviser to donald trump says -- tells business work that the campaign has

through voter suppression operations aimed at lowering the turnover hillary clinton. the campaign targets liberals, young women and black voters. e-mails fromacked hillary clinton's campaign with his/her staff''s anger after news broke that she used a private server. wikileaks has released thousands of stolen e-mails from clinton chairman john podesta. united nations will make another attempt to evacuate 200 wounded people and to deliver food and medical supplies into the syrian city of aleppo. airstrikes have been halted for nine days in advance of the evacuations, but those efforts have failed. $265 millionp aay to settle claims related to derailment in philadelphia. 8 ok an-- 8 four