mark: i am mark halperin. john: and i am john heilemann. with all respect to king trump, it looks like the democrats have this one in the bag. ♪ on a day when the new york times delivers thrilling details from a new tribe called west album we strike a musical theme , on the show tonight. including donald trump's change of student -- change of tune. but first, the polls pick up tempo. can barely keep up with the onslaught of surveys from key state polls that flooded our inboxes today. with less than a week before e-day, florida remains a razor

thin race. in one poll, clinton is up by one point among likely voters, in another, she is up by two points. in ohio, 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 campaigned yesterday and mark halperin was, clinton is still up and six. her advantage in colorado 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 trump holds a five-point advantage. we also have a new bloomberg politics purple national poll of independent voters. it shows clinton with a small lead, 30% to 27%. man 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 -- what is standing out to you right now? mark: the two campaigns agree that her lead has narrowed nationally and in the key battleground states. it is funny. it you and i have the same experience every four years. they say we have a three-point lead we have got a , solid 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, under the current public polling no plausible passage for , electoral votes. 270 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. 350 no one is talking like that anymore. you look at all these battleground state polls and the states hillary clinton needs to win, she still, she is kind of where she has been. if you look at the last three months 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 more behind then he is narrowing the gap where he would want to be six days out. mark: even as clinton plays defense in states like wisconsin, michigan, pennsylvania by going herself and having surrogates visit, she andl can look at the map say that unless there is a huge national 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. john: 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: let's talk about the trump. 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. either a presidential candidate or one of their top surrogates. all anyone really wants to know right now here in iowa and elsewhere is the answer to one question is trump cutting into , clinton's lead or not? we just talked about the fact that the national and state surveys suggest he is cutting 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 tracking poll, but not a significant surge in any other polls. newad to lock into some clinton controversies and there had to be this expansion of the electoral map that there is indication of. 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. that is not there 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 still 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. i know you have thoughts about this list that are probably more nuanced than mine. he is making some progress on some fronts in that list. mark: if you put the list back up, i would say the two right now keeping trump and his supporters energized is the first thing on that list, winning news cycles. trump went weeks after the access hollywood tape not winning a single news cycle. he has won several in a 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 spirit, but can create a little n.t of an allusion -- illusio

he can make them think the polls are tightening faster and more than they actually are. john: god knows we saw that in 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 trump's way in this last week, hillary has an advantage. both candidates are honing their closing pitch to voters in this final week. donald trump is out with a new ad today called "united," which showcases a more uplifting message it then we are used to seeing from the gop. these days, trump's stump speech, talking about violence in our communities. while still harping on the and scandal in the

clinton world 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. [booing] mr. trump: i am asking you to dream big, 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 too 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 cynics, not the critics. john: that was donald trump last night in wisconsin, future belongs to the dreamers. today at a rally in miami, trump repeated the lines but returned to his favorite goto topics, wikileaks. and a new report 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. as trump plays those dual roles, attack dog and motivational speaker 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 eau claire, wisconsin, if yet -- say if that was the speech he

had given 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 as optimistic in any speech as i heard him last night. 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 of that sound false to me. and yes, i agree with you. this'll be the third or fourth instance we have cited that if he had started campaigning in a disciplined way and done it since may or june, the campaign would be in a different place. he has not done that, though. you hear him talking about dreamers and dreaming, you think, "who is that guy?" not, "that is the donald trump i have always known and loved." mark: before he was a

presidential candidate i heard him talk optimistically like that quite a bit. we will see if he keeps up 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 dates announced today. more, right after this. ♪

mark: welcome back to waterloo, iowa, where bill clinton is doing a rally for his wife nine. -- tonight. the feud between the democratic party and the fbi continue today. president obama was asked about

james comey's decision a few days ago to inform congress about its revised look at the hillary clinton e-mail server. in a backhanded way president , obama took a shot at the fbi chief, but also said the recent move will not impact how voters feel about the presidential race. president obama: there is a norm that in their investigations, we do not operate on innuendo, incomplete information, leaks. we operate based on concrete decisions that are made. mark: the white house played down the president remarks, but they come a day after the fbi released heavily redacted documents related to the 2001 investigation into bill clinton's controversial presidential pardon of a fugitive. the fbi says the posting was in response to a routine -- what is going on with the fbi and james comey?

as a player right now in the presidential race. 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 is just 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, in 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. yesterday, this thing, i cannot 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 -- needs to take 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 -- continue to be aggressive. the white house playing down what president obama said. but it went farther than his

speaker josh earnest said. the clinton campaign is says their data does not show any damage to them from comey, and even the republicans play down comey as a factor. as compared to the drumbeat from the affordable care act and all the wikileaks disclosures. 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 doj or 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 -- havee found or in not found because they got us into this mess with this vagary and innuendo and they need to resolve it before election day. mark: if they have anything resolved enough to say. john: right. donald trump has been spending an awful lot of time in

traditionally democratic leaning states this week. down to the final stretch, hillary clinton and her surrogates are spending valuable time not only in tossup states, but 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. joe biden will be in madison, wisconsin. we talked yesterday about how the clinton campaign is going on the air with big ad buys in several of these states. 24 hours later, what more do we know? the clinton campaign claims it it is not panic, they are 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 want to keep that from being a firestorm, because those bedwetters, they will often leaked to the press that 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 up 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 clinton is trying to hedge against a possible loss where trump can win elsewhere. more from waterloo, iowa, after this. ♪ mark: 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. i talked to the governor about it today. police arrested a man, 46-year-old, earlier today in

connection with these shootings which have rocked the state. governor brent told me that has been his focus today on the campaigning goes on. tim kaine and bill clinton canceled an event that was supposed to be held this evening in des moines. but bill clinton is set to speak in waterloo. 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 member paul ryan. talk about how that house race might impact the president? >> it is an interesting race because he is is supposed to be 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 acting like he is vulnerable. what has the congressman said about donald trump throughout the campaign, particularly after the access hollywood tapes? >> 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 how much has this part of the state then engaged in the presidential race? >> 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 more surrogates than the candidates themselves. mark: thank you very much. john, we will throw it back to you. john: we are bringing in michael steele, washington dc, 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? >> it is very fascinating, i do not know where the energy is coming from but donald trump has , garnered a great deal of energy from various pockets within the party and 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. either they figure 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. finding his way to a different message. what you think are the factors that are core to the changes that you see? michael: i thought initially the factors driving, that was the latter that the trump campaign has settled down on this message. she really drove into donald trump that you have got to say this and do this in the last week. but then, all of a sudden, the comey thing hit. it was a very different feel. people started to remember, i forgot i did not like that about hillary clinton. i think that is kind of moved

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. you can feel the wind and weather are changing. real quick, we saw this report from florida yesterday which suggested hillary clinton has banked a large amount of early votes. a lot of battleground states where early voting has been going on for a while. give me a sense of whether you think that that early vote is overriding the importance of any tightening happening this week.

michael: i am not convinced it will. i think there is a presumption that this early vote is going to be 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 trump has will be too important. john: that is it, thank you for watching. ♪

♪ kong,0 a.m. in hong midday in sydney, 9:00 p.m. in new york. i am rishaad salamat. >> this is "bloomberg markets: asia." ♪ rishaad: the stock slump deepening as the federal reserve stands pat. december hike to sen needing further assurance. rishaad: