looks like the democrats think they have this one in the bag. john: on a day when the new york times delivers thrilling details, we strike a musical theme on the show tonight. but first, the polls pick up tempo. can barely keep up with the onslaught of surveys from key that flooded our inboxes today. with less than a week before

e-day, florida remains a razor thin race. donald trump is ahead by five percentage points. north carolina, clinton leads by three. pennsylvania, clinton leads by five points in one poll and four in another. in wisconsin, where donald trump campaign yesterday, clinton is up by six. in colorado, it has shrunk to three points. in virginia, she is up by five percentage points. in arizona, the state just last week that her campaign was talking about winning, donald holds a five-point advantage. clinton has a small lead among independent voters. that is a lot of data. mark, you have been on the campaign trail and up in wisconsin, and in iowa today with rudy giuliani, paul ryan,

bill clinton, all over the place. in this jumble of data, as you look at it from your vantage on the campaign trail, what is your opinion right now? mark: the two campaigns agree that her lead has narrowed nationally. it is funny. it you and i have the same experience every four years. solidy, we have got a lead. if you are down three, you say, we are closing the gap. we can overcome that through enthusiasm. i would say donald trump, everyone agrees, he has closed the gap but there is still no, no plausible passage for electoral votes. he has a lot to do if he is going to be in the game in less than a week. john: one of the biggest changes is that a week ago, smart people that we know were saying the only suspense left in this election was whether hillary clinton would end up between 250

and 400 electoral votes. no one is talking like that anymore. you look at all these battleground state polls and the state hillary clinton needs to win, she still, she is kind of where she has been. she has a small but stable lead in a lot of battleground states. right now, if you look at all this data, there is not really a path for donald trump. again, he is within the margin of error in a lot of places. he is within striking distance in a lot of places. he is behind narrowing the gap where he would want to be six days out. mark: even as clinton plays defense in certain states by going herself and having surrogates visit, she still can look at the mouth and say, a mess -- unless there is a huge shock, she can win enough blue states to get to

270. barring a national shock and many states ending at different than the public data, she had got it. look, the way you have to look at this on some level is six days out, whose hand would you rather be playing? her hand or his hand? no doubt, you would rather be playing her hand. mark: i am here in waterloo. paul ryan is doing an event, not for donald trump but for the local congressman here. iowa, like a lot of battleground states, it is hard to move a few inches around without seeing a major player. in iowa, and elsewhere, is the answer to one question. is trump cutting into clinton's lead or not? the surveys suggest she is having into the lead, but not enough to get all the way there. for a while, i have been saying there are certain things trump needs to do it he is went to be

in a position to pull off an upset in this presidential contest. a surge in national polls is one of the things and we have seen that in the abc news/ washington post poll. log in to some new clinton controversies and there had to be this expansion of the electoral map that there is indication that. if you look at my whole checklist, how many of those things has trump done? not to go ahead, but to put himself in the game? john: about half of those, you could look at the checklist and say he has accomplished about half of them. some of these will be questions about what you meant with your language. we are not seeing a surge with donald trump's polling standing. he is creeping into a more competitive position, but not surging. he has had a little luck, a little bit of a sense of momentum, but so playing defensive in arizona and not really driving, though he is trying to drive, but not really

driving to my mind a really potent message of change. you have talked about this list, there is more nuance than mine. he is making some progress on some fronts in that list. mark: if you put the list backup, i would say the two right now keeping trump and his supporters energized is the first thing on that list, winning news cycles. thep went weeks after access hollywood dave not winning a single news cycle. he has won several inamed row now. that is number 10 on -- several in all row now. that is number 10 on my list. they can go out and say a bunch of stuff, right from the headlines every day now, that gives him a sense that things are moving our way. like i said, that is a positive for the republicans because it gives them a sense of upbeat. because it is creating a bit of an allusion. he can make them think the polls are tightening faster and more than they actually are. inn: god knows we saw that

2012 with the atmosphere around mitt romney's campaign. here is an important thing we do not discuss enough. we talk about early voting sometimes in the show, but we saw some polling last night that suggests that hillary clinton is winning overwhelmingly with the early vote in florida. we cannot know for sure, but one of the things that is happening here is that even if all of these things go trans way in this last week. if all of these things go trump's way in this last week, hillary has an advantage. both candidates are honing their early pitch to voters in this final week. donald trump is out with a new whichay called "united," showcases a more uplifting message that we are used to seeing from the gop. speechays, trump's stump , while still harping on the rigged system is replete with

optimistic rhetoric like this. mr. trump: hillary wants us to think small and believe things cannot change and wants our lives to revolve around washington, d.c. ooing] to dream big, new push for bold change, and to believe in a movement powered by the people and their love of this great country. i am tired of politicians telling americans to defer their dreams to another day when they really mean another decade. america is tired of waiting. the moment is now. there is no challenge to great and no dream outside of our reach. there is not. there is no dream outside of our reach. do not let anyone tell you it

cannot be done. the future lies with the dreamers, not the synnex, and not the critics. cynics, not the critics. trump returned to his favorite goto topics, wikileaks, a bit new reports that a justice official involved in the clinton e-mail probe apparently gave the clinton campaign a heads up as to when congressional oversight hearings would take place and the e-mails would be made public. ,s trump plays those dual roles how much does it matter that he has added some of these dollops of optimism to his repertoire? mark: like a lot of things that are going right for his campaign these days, it is certainly helpful. i had one person who has watched trump very closely after watching last night's speech in wisconsin, if

yet given that beach, this would have been a much different race for the republicans in the summer. people like an optimistic candidate and president. hillary clinton goes back and forth between optimism and dark as well, but trump has rarely been optimistic. john: part of the problem for trump is that when he strikes his notes, at least to my ear, he sounds so inconsistent and discordant with the way he has campaigned for the last year-and-a-half that based on false to me, and yes, i agree with you. this will be the third of fourth instance we have cited that if he had started campaigning in a disciplined way and done it things would have been different. you hear him talking about dreamers and dreaming, you think, "who is that guy?" no t, "that is the donald trump

i have heard and loved." mark: there has always been dark in there. we will see if he keeps up the optimism in the advertising. we take a break. up next, hillary clinton and her surrogates continue their blue state tour. we will discuss all of that and more, right after this.

mark: welcome back to waterloo, iowa, where bill clinton is doing a rally for his wife nine. the feud between the party and the fbi continue today.

james comey decided to inform congress about its revised look at the hillary clinton e-mail server. president obama took a shot at the fbi chief it also said that the recent move will not impact how voters feel about the presidential race. obama:la -- president there is a norm that in their investigations, we do not operate on a new window, incomplete information, leaks. we operate based on concrete decisions with -- that are made. mark: the white house played down the president remarks, but they came a day after the up yard released heavily redacted documents related to the controversial presidential pardon. the fbi says the posting was in response to a routine -- what is going on with the fbi and james comey? john: i think the fbi, you and i

are in agreement about the inappropriateness of what comey did in july and on friday, and i think what the fbi did yesterday's crazy, just crazy that they are injecting themselves into the race. the only way in which, well, i think it is crazy, number one. number two, and a weird way, i think it is starting to help the clinton campaign because it is making them such a target for the campaign of discrediting that the democrats want to do. i cannot, this thing, figure out what is going on there. the fbi is really kind of out of control. mark: whoever handles public affairs over there needs to put james comey aside and walk through the remainder of the time between now and election day. i have seen a few people defend him in the last few days, but for the most part, democrats and you need to be aggressive. it went farther than --

i believe, the clinton campaign says about their data does not show any damage to them from comey, and even the republicans play down comey as a factor. there is new wikileaks disclosures related to potential coordination between the justice department and the clinton world and the state department and clinton world. those things are going to get a fair amount of attention, pushed by the republicans and the next couple of days. john: if the fbi manages to get through the e-mails from weiner's computer before election day, and whenever they show, i feel like they have an obligation to report to the country on what they have found a have not found because this whole thing is they got us into this mess with all of the vagary and innuendo and they need to resolve it before it election day in terms of what they find. mark: have got something resolved enough to say. john: right. donald trump has been spending an awful lot of time in

traditionally democratic leaning state this week. for a while, that the daqing to other the clinton campaign. in the final stretch, hillary clinton and her surrogates are spending valuable time in blue states that were a week ago considered safely in her column. bernie sanders and chelsea clinton are in wisconsin. on friday, clinton is heading to michigan for a campaign event in detroit. we talked yesterday about how the clinton campaign is going on the air with big advise in several of these dish big -- big ad buys in several of these states. not seeing their numbers crater, they simply believe it is prudent, given the have a lot of server against and hillary clinton has a lot of money in her bank account to make sure they are playing defense in these states. you have clinton supporters from the bedwetter category and

screaming, you need to fight for this state or you will lose it. they will often leaked to the press the clinton campaign is not paying enough attention to our state. john: you cannot overstate how much of that kind of howling occurs in the last days before a presidential election where the local democratic parties and donors in various places start calling of the campaign and saying "send somebody here, and if you don't it will be a disaster." you have the resources, human resources in terms of surrogates, and financial resources to be on the air. there is not a good reason not to spend the resources to try to calm those people down and play defense to the extent defense is required. mark: if you look at the big five right now, you would have to say that clinton's bad run has solidified trump's position in iowa and ohio. that is the theory of the big three to try to win, the silver

state, i like to call it. florida and north carolina. he could still be five short. i think linton is -- i think clinton is trying to hedge against a possible loss where elsewhere.in more from waterloo, iowa, after this. ♪

anchor: welcome back. i am here in iowa where news broke overnight that two des moines area police officers were ambushed in their police cars, fatally shot, captivating the state. mark: police arrested a man,

46-year-old, earlier today in connection with these shootings which have rocked the state. the governor told me that has been his focus today on the campaigning goes on. tim kaine and bill clinton canceled an event i was supposed to be held this evening in des moines. joined by christinia crippes in the eastern part of the state. you have a senate race, the presidential, and in this eastern district, you have an incumbent republican, house speaker paul ryan. talk about how that house race might impact the president? christinia: it is an interesting race because it is addressed through one of the most wonderful incumbents, but he had not been acting like it. he has the benefit of iowa being one of the few tossup states or swing states that is leaning toward donald trump, so he has not been really acting like he

is horrible. mark: this is a first-term -- he vulnerable. in hisbeen clear support. he does not go out of his way to mention donald trump, but he will, when asked, say specifically that iowa is still behind donald trump. mark: conventional wisdom in public polling suggests trump has the lead here and have habit the lead. how much has this part of the state then engaged in the presidential race? christinia: it has been interesting. we have seen more surrogates. this is the second time i have seen bill clinton. it is one of the areas we are seeing a lot more circuit rather than the -- more surrogates than the candidates themselves. mark: thank you very much. john, we will throw it back to you. coming back to the show, we are going to cut away from mark halperin in iowa.

you are in washington, d.c.. good to see you. give me a sense on the basis of what you know right now, we have been talking about the state of the race, all anyone cares about right now. what is your sense right now? karine: i do not know -- michael: i do not know where the energy is coming from, but donald trump has garnered a great deal of energy from various pockets around the country, in listening to kellyanne conway today, talk about this race, you really get the sense that they have got their fingers on something. it is a figured something out or something is moving in their direction. this may be just a 24-hour thing on the heels of what developed with hillary clinton, but there is a different kind of energy out there. just out today at a starbucks, talking to folks, and it was surprising to me the resignation that trump could possibly win this thing here in the metro area.

it is a very different climate, i think, in the last 24 hours or so, and you are seeing it pop up in various parts of the country and it will be interesting to see how the campaign galvanizes that given the lack of organization in the traditional sense that they seem to have on the ground. john: do you think this is mostly driving from the shockwave from the comey letter on friday that has changed the dynamic in your view? or do think this is a case of natural tightening? trump exercising some degree of discipline. what you think are the factors that are core to the changes see? theael: i thought initially factors driving, that was the latter that the trump campaign has settled down on this message. kelly and really drove into donald trump that you have got to say this and do this in the last week. then, all of a sudden, the

comey thing hit. people started to remember, i forgot it did not like that about hillary clinton. movedk that is kind of into that space. how much of that space is going to occupy in the next few days, john, i think is going to matter for the trump campaign. that means how they are able to capitalize on that, make that a much more integral part of their message, driving home their vote, and getting their base excited. right now, they seem to have more wind at their back than they had a week ago, and it is paying off in terms of what we are seeing in the polls. john: all right. i agree with you, michael. it seems you can feel it out here. i am here in utah. mark is on the road in wisconsin, iowa. real quick, we saw this report from florida yesterday which suggested hillary clinton has aen a large amount -- banked

large amount of early votes. give me a sense of whether you think that that early vote is overriding the importance of any tightening happening this week. ithael: i am not convinced will. i think there is a presumption that this early vote is going to for hillary, all hillary clinton vote. i do not get that sense. when you look at the african-american turnout, particularly in places like florida, where it is down by significant percentages, this energy that tom has right now going to be too important. john: you are going to stick with us. a second. ♪ . . seeing is believing, and that's why

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there's more in store than you imagine. visit an xfinity store today and see for yourself. xfinity, the future of awesome. speed always wins. especially in my business. with slow internet from the phone company, you can't keep up. you're stuck, watching spinning wheels and progress bars until someone else scoops your story. switch to comcast business. with high-speed internet up to 10 gigabits per second. you wouldn't pick a slow race car. then why settle for slow internet? comcast business. built for speed. built for business. president obama: i'm going to be honest -- we've got all kinds metric to see what is going on.

right now, the latino vote is up , overall vote is up, and the african american vote right now is not as solid as it needs to be. i know there are a lot of people in the barbershops and beauty salons, in the neighborhood saying to themselves we love so it was exciting and now we are not excited as much, you know what? understandybody to that everything we have done is dependent on me being able to pass the baton to somebody who believes in the same things i believe in. obamathat was president on tom joyner radio show. we are back with michael steele and now joining us from new york, we have a democratic

strategist, the former democratic strategist for martin o'malley's presidential run. michael. back to you, one thing you are talking about was the african-american vote. reason talking about the to presume hillary clinton is going to do well because she has greater infrastructure and more ground game and greater get out the vote will stop talk in detail about what we've seen in the last way for hours in terms of the reporting on the african-american vote. : the bottom line is she's not bill clinton and she's not barack obama. she has never had that kind of with thatip community. you don't hear that same level of interest. folks don't like donald trump. that.s no secret about

but they are not enamored with hillary clinton campaign banked on that vote being there. bud black folks are looking at this race a little differently. and they don't have the same level of passion and concern. the numbers are significantly off when you consider the history in 2012 and 2008 and that's why you see hillary scrambling in states where she shouldn't be trying to get that vote out and the president on tom joyner posto -- tom joyner's shows a night to pass the baton to hillary and they are like ok. reportinglook at the in the new york times nuc president obama out and look at his schedule and where he is the clinton campaign seems to be tacitly admitting something people have been concerned about which is the thing michael steele is pointing to is true.

do you think it is true that she has a problem with the african-american vote and what, if anything, should she do about it? there is an issue. we see it in the numbers. getlways knew she would that percentage, the same percentage as obama did. she gettion was would that raw vote total? that is what the early vote numbers are showing us, that they have to do a little more work. there was an article out monday that gave an interesting insight. stanford, north carolina. a small town. sent timry campaign kaine there because barack obama got 30%. that's the kind of thing you are going to see.

she's able to do that. she and her surrogates were in 14 media market, so they were able to spread about and go into those communities, where you saw donald trump yesterday in wisconsin and pennsylvania with one of his important surrogates, which is mike pence. but her surrogates are all over the place. but they can do that in that small town. i think that's important. john: the question is this -- nobody doubts president obama is a powerful surrogate for hillary clinton, but that big question has been transferability. six days out, if african-american voters are not enthused about hillary clinton, particularly in the context of her running against donald trump, what is barack obama going to be able to say or do that is going to change that in a measurable way? guest: that's a great question

and we saw that in 2010. the president speaking for , andials who were running that transfer did not actually happen. they have two continue putting their foot on the gas. they have the ground game and that is what matters. trump has the momentum, but they have the ground game. they are going to do the barbershop and beauty salon and out aave to send president every day. michelle obama is going to be out there every day and they have to hammer home what is at taken this election. if i could add to that, the key thing preventing the black community from trumping -- jumping onto hillary clinton bandwagon is there's a lot of things in donald trump's message

that resonate with black as ms. owners. excellentreated an level of hesitancy. if hillary can pivot that message and make it more specific to the black community in terms of ownership and opportunity, that may squeeze out a little bit of that extra vote, but donald trump's message have someint does sticking value with small business owners in the black community. you see kellyanne conway and others saying we have expanded the map. trump going to more states that he has onto before. smart for thet is trump campaign to spend time in wisconsin, michigan, new mexico, places that have not gone republican and many cycles.

or should they be picking the specific states that they must win on the narrow path that he there? just camping out michael: call me crazy, but i think it's good strategy. the clinton campaign is now on defense. they are going back into states where they shouldn't have to go in colorado and florida they thought were going to be slamdunk because that's what the numbers said at the end of summer. this has worked out rather smartly for the trump campaign, but there is the downside. because of the lack of ground game, the question remains are you too trusting of that vote to show up on its own? do you have to put some extra

boots on the ground to make sure that vote turns out? john: let me ask this question about hillary clinton and her strategy. in addition to the surrogate activity and the concern about specific things like the african american vote, we see her doing something she didn't want to do, which is going hard negative against donald trump, talking about his problems with women. close out this campaign on an optimistic, positive, unifying message, but now she's back to the disqualification message that she was on for many months. wise to goessary and back and focus on trump rather than shifting to a different stance on these closing days? as we saw on friday night, the comey letter kind of changed the stakes. election day is not on november

8. it's happening right now. what she's doing is trying to remind people that this is the character of the other side. this is why donald trump is unfit to be president. that's the message, there's some positive messages as well if you watch her but she is really hammering home the character of donald trump. to say thing i wanted comeys 72 hours after the letter, she was able to raise online $11.3 million. she's able to not leave anything on the table. this has been a volatile election cycle, so that's a smart thing to do, if you have

the money, spend it, don't leave anything on the table. will there be another big october or november surprise? do we have a november surprise between now and next tuesday? guest: i want to say no but this has been so unprecedented that i wouldn't be surprised if there was a november surprise at this point. michael: i think yes, there will be more to come, absolutely. i'm sort of tired of these surprises and i hope you would both say no. i guess i have to put on my seatbelt and get ready for another high impact event. thank you. we have a republican roundtable coming up next. if you are watching us in washington dc, you can listen to

us on the radio radio at 99.1 fm. ♪

john: there was a time a long time ago when our next guests were working toward a shared goal to make jeb bush the nominee of the republican party. now they are divided on their support for donald trump. joining us now is a former strategist for the jeb bush campaign and in new york, the founder of sky bridge capital who is on jeb bush's team and is now on donald trump's economic policy council. i'm going to start you with the same question i start everybody with at this point. whether you like the horse race or not, we are a week out and it

is a horserace moment. where do you see the race right now? guest: there's a trend right now in donald trump's favor. i think the fund metals are difficult. there are some state he's never led in that he has to win at least one or two of here in the closing days to get himself to 200 70 -- two 270. if i was the clinton campaign, i would think about going out and buying about 10,000 bedpans. do you feel like the races where? do you think your guy has pulled level with her or will it play like the comeback kid? guest: some poll say he's ahead, he is tied, so the momentum is our trend.

in the samein sport thing is true in politics. he's going to bring more people to the game than secretary clinton and president obama's super worried because that's why he's doing these radio shows. this is goingat to be close but mr. trump is going to pull this off on november 8 and he will be the 45th president and then we will invite david and all those people who used to work with me with jeb bush into the tent because we have two govern and figure out a way to get along together. i will last this question up away donald trump is spending his time. he's spending time in these deep blue states. they have him in wisconsin and north carolina. you are a data guy. ofn you look at the history those states, does it seem to you to make a lot of sense to

spend scarce time in states that have not voted republican for a long time? guest: states like wisconsin have republican governors and they are helping them there. i was in macomb county, which is a democratic county and it was one trump placard after the next , which is why guys like michael moore are saying wake up, donald trump is going to be the next president. this is an unorthodox thing -- it's not super data dependent but some of the polls are telling them that he is in striking distance and it is sending a message that he's going to be president for all americans. for's why he has a message the african-american committee, the latino community. he wants to build a coalition that includes everybody. so the blue state strategy is listen, we are going to turn it into a purple nation and make it a nation for all the american

people. i like the strategy and i think it will hand out as most of the things he has done with his intuition. i'm going to ask you to play this hypothetical game. pretend you are donald trump's campaign manager or chief strategist. would you have him spend his time the way he's currently spending his time or would you have him pursue a different i think they've got most of it right. i would probably spend all of my time in wisconsin, new hampshire, i might try virginia. they have him going back to iowa . i'm not sure that's a good call. it looks like he has iowa put away. the coalition that has got him where he is his non-college educated white voters and you have a lot of them in wisconsin

who are not therefore mitt romney and were not there for john mccain. you have a lot in new hampshire as well and i think he's going to have to take one of those two blue states. you could probably make an argument for virginia, but i don't think there's a coalition that exists in virginia to win. i think you got to go to new hampshire, wisconsin and that's about it. i don't see him winning in colorado or any opportunity to breakthrough in michigan. enough think there are white working-class voters to put him over the top. i'm probably spending most of my time in those two states and hit florida again as a state where you can lock it home. he doesn't win this election unless he runs the table on all of those states that have been swing states over the last six to eight weeks and then he has to take another state or two. the one thing you said that is now taken for granted,

we see this in the polling all the time. you are an iowa guy, a des moines resident will stop explain this to me. part of the answer is demographics. what has changed that has made iowa so much more reset it to donald trump than it was to mitt romney or john mccain? i think the wrong track number is driving a lot of this. there's a lot of frustration among voters. you saw it in the off years of 10 and 14 where you had a much higher turnout where you had disaffected and angry voters upset at washington. trump seems to really have struck a chord with these voters. the clinton campaign is just not an inspiring campaign.

she doesn't have a good message for people like that. obama was new and fresh and hope will and the wrong track number was not as high in 2012 as it is today, you know the economy seems to be improving at a slow rate. there's no credit being given to washington or the obama administration, so hillary clinton has failed to inspire a coalition of new voters obama inspired in 2008 and 2012 with incredibly high turnout in democratic precincts. it's not happening for her and that is where the opportunity is for trump. john: stay with us. we will continue this conversation after these words from our sponsors. ♪

john: we are back with a republican strategist and the author of the book "hopping over the rabbit hole." question,ask you one which is one of my hobby horses. i want to talk about donald trump's taxes. another brutal story that said manipulated the tax rules or played by the rules where he is not paid taxes in many years. given that donald trump has refused in contravention of all norms of the way presidential nominees usually behave to release his taxes, how can we come to any other conclusion but that donald trump has not paid taxes for decades? i think that's unfair. he's acknowledged he has paid millions of dollars in taxes and the big issue for mr. trump,

because it such a complex tax form, you've seen the page where he has seven feet of tax papers -- youing through, he guys have to remember this, he's not a politician for the last 30 years. what i would say is that he's done everything ethically and legally. if you went to law school, there's a famous case that says you can do everything within legal limits to avoid paying taxes and perhaps mr. trump has done that. but if there was something wrong there, the irs would certainly have let us know by now. has: in those debates, he conceded that he probably hasn't paid taxes for a long time. same basic question. any reason why i should conclude anything other than donald trump has not paid taxes on the basis of his behavior? guest: i don't think there's any

reason to conclude anything than what we know. he took an almost a billion dollar loss which would have allowed him to go two years into the past and 16 years into the future and right those losses off against any other income. my guess is he probably hasn't paid taxes in that long. he doesn't want people to know he hasn't paid taxes. john: thank you both for being on the show. we will be right back. ♪

watching.ks for from myanmar, good night and sayonara. -- from me and mark, good night and sayonara. ♪

mark: i'm mark crumpton. you are watching "bloomberg technology." with less than a week to go before election day, hillary clinton's focuses on arizona, a

reliably republican stronghold that could be in play. donald trump, who has been reinvigorated by the f ei review is in florida, a battleground state whose electoral votes could determine whether he wins the white house. the latest tracking poll has clinton and trump tied at 46%. for the first time, the survey indicates from is seen as more honest. among independent voters, the poll shows hillary clinton with a narrow edge. in a race involving third-party candidate, clinton leads 30% to 27%. a senior russian diplomat is urging the next president to work with moscow to end the war in syria and defended russia's military intervention is a fight against terrorism. decision day over a challenge of theresa may's authority to initiate the country's exit from the european union.