palestinian flag to fly along those of the u.n. member states against the objections of israel and the united states. thanks to all of you for being part of my program this week. i'll see you next week. good morning. it's time for reliable sources. our weekly look at the story behind the story. this morning there is breaking 2016 news. donald trump losing some support for the first time in this gop race. cnn orc poll is out this morning. it's the first major poll since the republican debate last wednesday. it shows that carly fiorina surge. trump still leads the candidates with 24% support but that's down 8% since early september. fiorina is now at 15%. that's way up from 3% before. what a difference a debate seems to make.

how is trump reacting? here is what he told jake tapper. >> let's start with new poll numbers. you're still many the lead by a wide margin but you have lost some support. what do you make of it all? >> i'm a little surprised because other polls have come out where it picked up after the debate. i'm in first place in every poll. gained substantially in a couple of them. i'm a little surprised. it's a poll. >> summer officially ends on tuesday but is the summer of trump already over? ne media outlets have been benefits but i wonder if the press will tear him down just as fast as it built him up? my guests know more about politics than me. let's bring them in. thank you both for being here this morning. >> great to be here.

>> good to be here. >> you all know how the news cycles work. does it feel like the love affair is over? >> i don't know if it's over. if you look at our website you'll see the top ten stories. usually six out of ten are trump. i was surprised he didn't say your poll losers, muslims and mexicans. i just think we have a collectively and i think history will show this, we have not exactly covered ourselves in glory. >> you're feeling a bit embarrassed about the summer of trump, so to speak? >> i wouldn't say i feel embarrassed. he has found the soft spot. he's kind of like that missile at the end of star wars that finds the one flaw in the death star. he has really filled the space between sort of politics and media. he fully understands what we need. he's obviously blown our ratings

and our web traffic through the roof. the question what does this have to do with electing a confident president? >> i think we have learned a lot about the republican electorate through the rise of trump. what do you make of this idea maybe he's more vulnerable before the debate on wednesday? do you sense that and this hasn't been a shining moment? >> i agree this hasn't been a shining moment. i'm not sure if i could point to a shining moment in the recent past but it's been especially bad. i've called this trump is the media's open mic moment. we're sort of having to decide how to cover him on the fly because he hasn't fit into any pre-conceived narratives. he hasn't followed any trajectories that people have predicted. the media has had to vamp as they cover him. i think the media has faltered

in covering him because they covered him as a personality and his remarks as outrage upon outrage. i think it's the conservative media that's opposed to him that's covered his policies and critiqued his policies better than the mainstream. i think you'll find more comprehensive coverage in places like the national review which is not place i would go to cover the democratic party but they are covering trump pretty well. as far as the debate performance, i think he definitely faltered. i'm not sure. i like everyone else is scared to say when the summer of trump is over. we might be in for the autumn of trump as well. >> every single week there's been a risk of predicting this too soon. i was looking at a tweet i want to put up on the television screen. he wrote this this morningcnn p. you compete with trump by being

more compelling than trump. what do you make of that idea that carly is learning from trump, being more compelling than him and surging in the poll? >> i think she also provided a contrast in the way people can deal with the public stage. backing up just a bit to the question of how we have covered him. i do think the conservative media has covered him well and the fact checking media as well. you have a lot of people who are jocking for access. one of the things i've been concerned about is when have you seen a major candidate phoning it in to the sunday shows. the guy gets cut a lot of shock and is given a lot of exemptions that other candidates aren't given. >> i think if hillary clinton wanted to call into the show we would take her call.

be bobby jindal called we wouldn't take his call necessarily. >> there's a dynamic in being a celebrity who wants to do this from his couch. presidential campaigns, i spent 18 months on the road with hillary clinton and she has a cast iron constitution. she did six, seven events a day in iowa. it was terrible for all of us. she showed up. what's the woody allen thing like 90% of life is showing up. i think we ought to start noticing this, donald trump isn't showing up to a lot of things. >> hillary clinton is doing her first sunday interview show in four years. we saw an interview blitz the past few days. i'm told the next interview she'll do is the tom joyner morning show on radio. what do you think this strategy is about, all these interviews? obviously the press has been asking for this for many, many

months. will journalists be satisfied? >> i don't think journalists are satisfied with anything hillary does. that's the curse of her being hillary clinton. i think as a journalist i'd rather her be more out than not. she can do well in these situations. for her, i always feel like it's a little bit of a gamble. the problem and the advantage of being hillary clinton is everyone has made up their minds about her. there's very few people that will be swayed one way or the other. the people will be reminded why they like her. the people that don't will be reminded why they don't. at some point she has to be out there. they're trying to take krocontr of that. of course i welcome her taking questions even if she doesn't answer them as thoroughly as i want. >> have we learned anything from these recent round of

interviews. the characteristic that i don't think people pay enough attention to is her risk aversion. you saw this manifested in terms of the fact they wanted fewer debates. i've heard from a lot of hillary people that she probably would have been advantaged by getting into the debates earlier and sooner. there's a lot of fear that bernie sanders projects and do her damage. clinton is capable of making gaffes. i think we're in a point of time her unfavorables are higher than any point in 2008 where she needs to get out there and start taking risks. >> tell us about this new call for more democratic debates. the first debate is mid-october. there's only six scheduled. there's been increasing calls for debates. >> we've seen some petitions circulated. this is being pushed my martin

o'malley who hasn't gained in traction in the polls. biden is considering accelerating his timetable to jump this by october. i don't know how true that is. there is a real sense that this coronation is a competition and the number of debates need to reflect that. >> thank you both for spending some of your sunday with us. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> thank you. it's been a lot of news from the sunday morning news shows including on state of the union the donald trump interview is coming up. coming up, we'll look an extraordinary week ahead in the kble media as pope francis dominates the air waves. in a moment we'll have live coverage from cuba. as the pope preaches redemption one major media figure is about the find out if the audience is about to forgive. talking about bryan williams

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that it only works at progressive.com. so, you can't use it to just buy stuff? no. i'm sorry, gustav. we have to go back to the pet store. [ gustav squawks ] he's gonna meet us there. the name your price tool. still only at progressive.com. we have three chevy's here. alright. i want you to place this award on the podium next to the vehicle that you think was ranked highest in initial quality by j.d. power. hmm. can i look around at them? sure. umm. highest ranking in initial quality. it's gotta be this one. this is it. you are wrong. really? actually it's all three. you tricked me. j.d. power ranked the malibu, silverado half-ton and equinox highest in initial quality in their segments. that's impressive! i'm very surprised! i am. i'm very surprised. chevy hit three home runs.

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game has 20,000 viewers. cnn's biggest audience in history. the previous record was set back in 1993. that's when al gore and ross perot debated nafta with 16.8 million viewers. now this debate even bigger. why do the ratings matter? all those candidates on stage had a huge opportunity to swag te sway tens of millions of voters. 23 million viewers is the average of the viewer ship for those 180 minutes. it turns out the prime time debate reached 37.9 million people. those are amazing numbers in television. fox's debate averaged 24 million. this is the biggest show of the fall. what is causing all this?

is it all trump and what does it mean for the candidates at the networks? david, david, welcome to all of you. thank for being here. is it all trump? are these ratings entirely thanks to donald trump? >> you've had for eight years or almost eight years democratic in the white house. they're looking for this our opportunity to reclaim the white house. i absolutely think this is donald trump. you look at the monster numbers at the debate and look at the undercard. you have candidates that are scoring within the margin of error on that stage for the lesser debate. that's a huge audience as well. this is a significant amount of the electorate. i think it hyper charges us.

as much as he's turned this into something of a show of entertainment, of circus he's also energized people to thinking about the political process which isn't all bad. i think he's changed the electricity in the water, if you will. >> david, in baltimore, i wonder if this is built in structural advantage for the republicans and a disadvantage for the democrats. i don't see any way it's going to get 23 million viewers unless cnn persuades donald trump to show up. >> i don't disagree that trump has made a huge difference but if you look at his ratings for the apprentice, he started with 20 million. by 2004 he was down for 4 million. those are huge audience losses. when he says look 23, 24 million it's because of me. no. you've got a show and you're not doing it. you're doing 4 million and 7

million. i agree he makes a big difference. he really amps up the show biz component of this. something else deeper is happening when you get this kind of an audience for this kind of telecast. >> this is a long debate. there was some criticism of that. it stayed pretty steady. almost 20 million viewers even at 11:15 in the evening. let me play a bit of what we heard during the debate. >> ms. fiorina you were ceo of hewlett-packard. donald trump said you ran it into the ground and got viciously fired. for voters looking for somebody with private sector experience why should they pick you and not donald trump? mr. trump said the money you raised makes you a puppet for

your donors. are you? you have raised concerns about mr. trump's temperament. would you feel comfortable with donald trump's finger on the nuclear codes? >> these were questions designed to have that two shot and have candidates talk with each other. do you think we learned about the candidates and the relationships with each other? >> i think we learned some things. i think we learned a bit about whether trump might where fin if other people were given equal standing even though the break down of the time showed he got the lion's share of the time. >> he was attacked the most and got the chance to respond the most and that's basic fairness and sense of decency that tapper and other folks were trying to instill. it's a minimizing debate. it makes the candidates a little small to always be responding to something somebody else has said. people are always going to be criticizing each other on the

stump. that particular format meant that people were diminished from the opportunity to present themselves in mar affirmative and substantive way. seems like a lot of sniping. >> i sensed a lot of substance. you didn't? >> there was fair amount here or there. if you went through that transcript and looked a t first hour of the debate, so much was on the question we heard jake there and it's a legitimate one. do you trust donald trump with his finger on the device? a lot of it was substance. >> what i didn't understand is the criticism that said the debate was too long? as a journalist, i want to hear as much as i can.

from a television or entertainment perspective, maybe it went too long. what was your take? >> i really did think it was long. when it moved past 11:00, i was like will this thing ever hand. in fairness, 11 candidate brought fiorina in. that's a big, big number to deal with. the debate did try to deal with substance. i kind of agree with part of what david said. i thought with the two shots and the questions where you ask someone about something they said about you that cnn was pushing the conflict angle which makes for good prime time television but maybe too much. when i went back and thought about it, i have to say this, not everybody was diminished. carly fiorina definitely was not diminished by what happened in that debate. i did feel that donald trump was diminished. i thought he looked smaller in tv terms than i had ever seen him. part of that might have been that there was a very intense

conversation going about policy matters like isis, syria and trump seemed to hang back. maybe-his age. maybe he couldn't do three hours. ben carson didn't do three hours but carly did three hours and she was as strong at the end as she was at the beginning. i don't think the format diminished it. i wasn't crazy about one jake tapper by himself who i thought did a good job overall and two people off to the side but cnn has done that before, so it's nothing new. i like the three people from fox in that sense. there's a sense of you get a choppier product with that. people don't follow up on discussion. i thought it was substantive and i don't think they were all diminished in my way by it. >> next gop debate is october 20th. cnn has said nothing about who will moderate. by then we may only have one debate and not two. >> i'm sure the that the

networks would like that very much. i think it's very awkward for them to do it. fox was willing to take on its own authority to challenge the candidates directly. i thought it was an interesting choice to put it in the words of candidates. there's a number of statements that went by the way side and weren't able to be fact checked. >> really impossible to realtime fact check. >> not in front of that enormous audience. >> please stick around.

we wa up next the pope celebrated a historic mass in cuba. here in the u.s. he's the subject of a red news, blue news divide. you can't breathed. through your nose. suddenly, you're a mouthbreather. a mouthbreather! how can anyone sleep like that? well, just put on a breathe right strip and pow! it instantly opens your nose up to 38% more than cold medicine alone. so you can breathe and sleep. shut your mouth and say goodnight mouthbreathers. breathe right who knows, one of these kids just might be the one. to clean the oceans, to start a movement, or lead a country. it may not be obvious yet, but one of these kids is going to change the world.

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welcome back to reliable sources. it sure does seem that pope francis has captured the attention of the world and the media in a way his predecesso

never did. take a listen to this. >> he sounds like a left wing professor at london school of economics. >> the pope has gone beyond catholocism. i was profoundly disappointed. >> seems to me that the pope is preaching politics from the pulpit. that's something i'm not too keen on. >> i'm catholic and he can stay home. some of his comments have no place. he's in the wrong country. >> just a sampling of recent rhetoric we've heard on fox news and heard on radio as well. joining me is the author of the pope biograpy. paul, thank you for being here.

this has been a wonderful read. very educational. i'm wondering why you're thinking we're hearing that rhetoric. why is it so important for the rush limbaugh's of the world to try to paint this pope as a liberal radical? >> previous popes have been critical of capitalism. they were also critical of communism. this pope carries on with that but he's also a latin american and he has the kind of ambivalence towards the united states and resentiment and admiration that you find in latin america. he worked for 20 years in the slums. he's focused on looking at the world from the bottom up from the point of view from poor people. there's a ferocity to his rhetoric which wasn't there with previous popes. i think that's what rattled the cage of the conservatives. >> today he's in cuba. he completed a mass in revolution square in havana. i wanted to pull up on screen

something i was trustruck by in rolling stone magazine. we can put it on screen. it says consider the 24/7 global media coverage. when else would an economic message that's critical of capitalism as francis's be granted such stage. an example is the way that the pope has decried the excesses of consumerism. i wonder what you make of that the press in the next few days will be forced to talk about income and equality that doesn't get much of hearing this mainstream media. >> he sees them as rooted in the gospel. a lot of people that agree with him politically do accept. this is classic teachings of jesus and for the first hundred years the catholic church has had catholic social teaching.

find way of having a responsible wealth creation. we should mention there's this set up that we see in the press. liberal and conservative, right an left. the pope doesn't line up quite that way, does he? >> no. that's a political template. >> it's almost like they don't know how to describe him. when we think about views about gay marriage and how they have shifted in the united states. they haven't shifted within the church. >> they have shifted with francis. what you see with francis is he's in favor of equal rights for gays. he's in favor of civil unions. >> but not gay marriage. >> marriage he think is between man and a woman and it's not appropriate to talk about same-sex couples in that way. he's against gay adoption. he says nobody have a right to a

child and children have the right to a mother and father. he turns the thing upside down a bit. it's more nuance than you might expect. >> much more nuance than the red-blue divide we see. thank you for being here. chris, good morning. what does it feel like as a journalist and a person to be there in that square? >> reporter: well, there's no question that we have been in the midst of history being made on so many different levels. those who believe in the promise of better here in cuba said that revolution square will become evolution square. him giving catholic mass in front of tens of thousands. the big icon of jesus that was

put up. those are the obvious manifestatio manifestations. you have to look at him through a religious lens. he's a pure catholic. you see an inconsistency in terms of gay marriage. on the other side he seems to be sympathetic to the communist cause. he is towing the line of dogma. what has made him different is two things. one is he is doing inflection points. what do we care about? not what the rule is but how do we focus. that's been difference. he has become what we call himself a missionary of mercy. he's trying to focus people on way to take care of the needy and that seems more political than we've seen with pope's past.

being here today all of that really resonates. this is the perfect crowd for him. they have been starved on so many different levels. they believe they can't practice faith or anything they want to. the wi-fi being offered up as a concession to the vatican. that provided wi-fi here, everybody holding up their smart phones like we were in america. that doesn't happen here in cuba because the service is so spotty. you can't get on the web. he can only promise so much. how will his message change when he he goes to the united states. there's no question he seems capitalism and industries as he borrowed from jose marti as a

problem and they cause suffering. how will he finesse that message in the united states? will he be as subtle? >> i was going do ask about the wi-fi. in this day and age with this pope, it's not just us that can tell his story. it's all the people in that square. thaumg thank you so much for coming on the program. >> good to be with you. >> cnn will have continuing coverage of the pope's visit. when we come back, new developments about a lie that's followed barack obama throughout his presidency. donald trump has been right smack in the middle of this story. ♪ that's a big bull.

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. president obama is a christian. he was born in the united states. many americans say they don't think so. this issue is back in the news because donald trump is defending his lack of defense. a questioner said obama is a muslim and trump didn't correct him. this morning it's a big topic on sunday morning shows. we have collected up trump's comments from nbc, abc and cnn. notice what trump says. >> for the record, was president obama born in the united states? >> you know i don't get into it. i talk about jobs. i'm talking about the military. i don't get into it. >> can you imagine supporting or being comfortable is a muslim ever became president of the united states? >> would i be comfortable? >> i don't know if we have to address it right now. i think it's something that could happen. >> you said you had no problem putting a muslim -- >> some people have said it already happened. >> do you not have a responsibility to call out this hatred? >> we could be politically

correct if you want but are you trying to say we don't have a problem because i think everybody would agree we certainly do have a problem. you have a problem throughout the world. >> it feels to me like trump is treating facts about the president's past like they are debatable points. steve, thank you for being here. i'm curious to explore this strain within the conservative movement. what do you think it represents when polls show a significant minority of republicans, i think 43%, according to one poll, say they don't believe the president is christian. >> 15% in your own c nrkcnn pol democrats thinks he's a muslim. when you combine think he's a muslim or don't know, right now it's about 48% of your cnn poll. are they all racist or hate

mongers. the president has been perceived by many as being an islamist sympathizer by his actions. most of his middle east policy favor the muslim brotherhood. >> favor the muslim brotherhood? >> yeah. he was very upset when they got kicked out of egypt. look at the middle east. it's a disaster. look at libya. >> some of those are debatable points. whether he sympathizes is a debatable point. it's not debatable about his citizenship. >> he says he's a christian. that's good enough for me. he's a citizen until somebody shows he's not. when your policies abroad and at home. he used the prayer breakfast in february to bring up the crew saids right about muslim terror attacks. look what the evil christians did. he's a very strange devout

christian by his actions and his policies. i think that's fair to say. >> isn't there enough to criticize about the president without invoking his religion. >> who invoked his religion? when hillary clinton was asked in 2008, she said of course he's a christian as far as i don't know. why isn't the media scrutinizing her. >> it was seven years ago. trump was doing it this morning. >> he never said something. the cut that you cut off at the end where trump said there's a problem all over the world. he said specifically with radical muslims. radical. that puwasn't portrayed in this cut. i'm not his defender but i'm an expert in media bias. >> i wonder what it means we see the country expressing doubt.

most people believe it or is it a way of voting against the president or do you think it's a believed thing? >> i think there's a lot of people who believe there's a lot of doubt about this president. remember donald trump wanted to give $5 million to the charity or charities of the president's choice if he simply released his led college records and transcript. >> that's about sewing doubt. >> the president said no. >> trump was the brunt of the jokes back then. why not the president. the media's all messed up. again, i don't think he's a muslim. i believe he's a citizen. there's enough room where people would have their doubts as evidence by your own poll. it's not just republicans and trumpb supporters. it's almost a majority of americans that think he is or don't know. i don't know the exact answer why. >> doesn't every responsible

journalist or opinion analyst type have a responsibility to say loudly and clearly the president was born in the u.s. the president is a christian. >> not every time. >> no. otherwise it shows doubt. >> hillary referred to -- said the republican presidential candidates have a lot in common with terrorists. >> i think that gotten more coverage. >> and joe biden said the president was the first clean, articulate black person to ever run for president. he got a pass on that. bernie sanders, i know it was 40 years ago but he wrote an opinion piece, a fantasy that women liked to be raped. they think of being rape bid three men at the same time when having sex with their spouses. why don't these things get the coverage? >> do you think there's anything as a false equivalency? >> i think there's a double standard.

>> that was a recent story. >> or barack obama in '10. >> i think it does damage to our country when trump sows doubt in this way. we saw other candidates on sunday morning shows saying the president is a christian. yes, he was born here. >> barack obama '10 told a hispanic audience you don't reward your enemies meaning the republicans. he said if you're against the iran deal are like the hard line iranians and craziecrazies. is that good? >> it's not the same add delegitimatizing the president of the united states. >> trump didn't do it. he addressed a question. i think we're making a big deal here about nothing. >> i appreciate your being here. >> my pleasure. next, brian williams, his seven-month exile coming to an end. his battle to regain viewer trust is just beginning.

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the fastest internet and the best tv experience is already here with x1. only from xfinity. welcome back. after seven months off the air, brian williams' redemption tour is about to begin. he's reporting to work tuesday morning in his first role as breaking news anchor for msnbc. he'll be on the air tuesday afternoon. as you probably remember, williams lost his nbc nightly news anchor job after a series of fabrications were found in his reporting. williams' path to redeem his reputation and career will begin with the coverage of the pope's first visit to the u.s. again, thursday afternoon. the pope lands around 4:00 p.m. i'm guessing that's when williams will also come on. but can williams really shake his credibility problem? he was even accused of embellishing stories about how

he met pope john paul ii back in 1979 at catholic university of america. here's how williams described meeting the pope in an nbc blog post in 2005. he wrote i chatted up a secret service agent who told me the pope would be coming our way but he gave a different version to "esquire" magazine that same year. he said i met pope john paul ii on his visit to the campus simply by positioning myself at the top of the stairs of the shrine of the immaculate conception. i just figured that's where he would be stopping. there was no mention about the secret service agent. that's obviously a small detail, but it hits at a very big question of his credibility. those pope stories were covered quite a bit back in february. now that williams is coming back, let me bring back david z uc -- gentlemen, all three of us will be tuning in and be curious how viewers react. david, you didn't think he should be returned at all to nbc

or msnbc. what do you expect the audience's reaction will be? >> i don't know. i've seen stuff on social media already mocking him in this last week about the return with the pope. people saying high thought he was the pope or the secretary of the pope making fun of his exaggerati exaggeration. i don't know, with millennials i think that's going to continue to be a problem and it's the nature of social media that i think he's going to continue to get beat up in that realm. brian, you know i do not believe he should be coming back. i think he violated the fundamental sin of this business, which is to tell the truth. he did not tell the truth. he lied on multiple occasions. >> they do say, though, these were minor league offenses, not major league offenses. to give the other side, what i've heard from nbc executives is we think we have one of the biggest stars in television. now we get him on msnbc, a channel that's been struggling in the ratings. david, my prediction here is that a lot of audience members

will be thrilled to see him back. >> oh, america is the home of the second act. i think that this is not a decision taking on journalistic grounds, this is a decision taken because brian williams is actually an excellent studio performer and he can present the news very well. and they can argue, look, most of what's been found that he did wrong is chiselling minor stuff, embellishment and largely, happened off the air. weren't part of his newscast or main broadcast. in that case it can work. this also plays into msnbc being rebranded in the daytime as more of a hard news entity, competing with cnn than trying to mimic from the left what fox has done well from the right. i think in this case they're making a nonjournalistic decision on one of their best known names even if it's one of the more taurn hee tarnished on moment. >> brian, i was just going to say in saying it's minor, how do you base that? i mean he lied about war and people die in war.

but brian, you're appropriating the honor from those people who fought honorably. >> over a 20 or 30-year career some people would say it's minor. but the viewers and their remotes will ultimately decide this. both davids, thank you both for being here this morning. >> thanks, brian. stay with us, we'll be right back on "reliable sources." ♪ [ male announcer ] he doesn't need your help. until he does. three cylinders, 50 horsepower. go bold. go powerful.

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before we go, looking ahead to tonight. primetime television's biggest night, the annual emmy awards, airing live at 8:00 p.m. on fox. we could see history being made as tarijip. henson vie to become

the first african-american women to ever win a lead actress emmy award. check out cnn.com and our coverage of media all week long. cnnmoney.com/media. that's all for "reliable sources." stay tuned, "state of the union" starts right now. breaking news, brand new poll numbers. our first look about what voters think about the republican pack since wednesday's explosive debate. who is up? who is down? who might be on the way out? the man at center stage, donald trump, will be here to respond, live. plus governor chris christie. >> i am a republican in new jersey. i wake up every morning as an outsider. with a democratic legislature who's trying to beat my head in. >> pundits say he had a good night. are the points he scored enough to put him back in the game? an exclusive sunday interview next. then governor kasich trying