in las vegas. hi, >> donald trump needs a stem lar debate performance. polls continue to show him struggling in the battleground states and nationally, which is one reason why he may be paying himself as a victim of an unfair system. >> they even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths. people that have died ten years ago are still voting. illegal immigrants are voting. >> reporter: donald trump ramping up his unfounded claim that the election is rigged. >> you look at what's going on in st. louis and many other cities. there's tremendous voter fraud. >> reporter: his willingness to accept the election results if he loses now in question. >> mr. trump, if there is overwhelming evidence of any kind of fraud or irregularitiei. >> reporter: trump frustrating many republican lead who are have rejected his allegations of

rigging. >> as a republican, i want to reassure donald trump and all ohio voters and voters across the country that the system is not rigged. >> reporter: the republican nominee also intensifying his feud with house speaker paul ryan after he said he wouldn't defend trump. >> maybe he wants to run in four years, or maybe he doesn't know how to win. maybe he just doesn't know how 20 win. >> reporter: trump taking his rage against the establishment and hillary clinton a step further in wisconsin. >> it is time to drain the swamp in washington, d.c. >> reporter: trump proposes a package of ethics reforms, aiming to tackle corruption in washington, including tighter restrictions on members of congress and white house officials taking on jobs as lobbyists. >> this will go a long way to ending our government corruption. >> reporter: a proposal sparked by his accusations that the fbi and state department engage in a criminal conspiracy. >> this is felony corruption. >> reporter: after newly

released documents suggest a top state department official pressured the fbi to declassify an e-mail about benghazi that was on the private server clinton used while secretary of state, possibly in exchange for offering to help station fbi agents overseas. >> the allegation of any kind of quid pro quo is inaccurate. there was no quid pro quo. >> reporter: clinton is not commenting. she's been off the campaign trail for days, preparing for tomorrow's final debate. clinton's campaign now setting its sights on historically conservative states as she widens her lead in the polls, deploying her daughter chelsea, michelle obama, and bernie sanders to arizona in hopes of turning that red state blue. now, as part of that effort to go after red states, the hillary clinton campaign announcing yesterday that it would spend $2 million in arizona as well as another million dollars in

missouri and indiana. also part of an effort to help turn back the senate to democratic control. illinois and missouri two key states for democrats as they try to get back the senate majority. the question is how long or short will hillary clinton's coat tails be come november. >> okay, manu. thank you for all that. let's discuss it with cnn political analyst and washington bureau chief of the daily beast jackie kucinich, and cnn political analyst david gregory. donald trump says there's tremendous voter fraud. every think tank, every university, everyone who's ever looked into this says no, there isn't, there are isolated incidents. there is certainly not tremendous voter fraught d in t country. it sounds like he's trying to plant the seeds of doubt. is it also possible it will have the unintended consequence of suppressing the vote for him, suppressing the vote for all of them if people think their vote is not going to count?

>> that's the question. that's why his undermining of the system over and over again is a dangerous -- it's a dangerous precedent, but it's also a dangerous strategy for him, which is why i think you hear some people in this campaign say, oh, no, no, we're just saying the media is rigged, not the actual election. but they've gone back and forth on that. so there isn't a cohesive message here coming out for the trump campaign because you have the candidate saying one thing and the surrogates saying something else. >> well, he got pence to flip. pence came out strongly saying we'll absolutely accept the results of this election. he's hoping they're favorable for him. now he's saying, well, there is fraud. he's saying, do we have the actual sound? let's play what the vice president is saying now, the republican nominee. >> we will absolutely accept the results of the election. look, the american people will speak in an election that'll co culminate on november the 8th.

the american people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. that's where the sense of a rigged election goes here. >> there's a lot of talk about rigged elections out there today. i have no question the national media is trying to rig this election with their coverage. >> mike pence learning to play the trump game, professor david gregory. what do you make of that? >> you know, this is tried and true. this is well worn, this idea of going after the press and the coverage of the press. i don't remember donald trump or mike pence complaining when they got all kinds of access to the media and had their events covered live when they hurled insults at other people and won during the primaries. but now things don't look quite as good. there's no evidence there's any kind of rigging going on. you have republican secretaries of state like in swing state ohio saying it's an irresponsible charge. so we have no idea what the impact will be. i think what's important to know is there's no evidence to back

this up. you have in mike pence somebody who's all over the place on this. they're not actually making a specific charge. they're using loaded language to go after the media, which is their right to do. not a lot to see here. this is a campaign that's losing, that's pulling out all the stops. >> yet, there is a challenge in terms of voter registration systems. in fact, the director of the fbi has talked about how there could be a threat because there were machines in arizona and illinois that appear to have been hacked. the entire system was not come promiezed, but somebody's user name and password was stolen. james comey of the fbi tried to sound the alarm bell about this, but it wasn't because of the media. it is possibly because they think there are russian actors doing this. listen to this. >> we have seen indications of efforts to penetrate or scan voter registration databases. those happened in july and august. still an active investigation on that going on right now by the

fbi and our partners. with respect to the vote count, we're looking carefully. we don't see any indication of an effort to change votes nor would that be a likely scenario in the united states. >> the irony that if there is any rigging going on, it's by the russians, you know, who presumably are trying to help trump. >> and this is what the trump camp doesn't want to talk about. they've never said anything possibly negative about what russia is doing and whether russia is meddling. this what the director of the fbi says is going on, jackie. >> by the way, he's not sounding the alarm. he was responding to a question that was raised because donald trump is out there saying everything is rigged without any kind of evidence. there's lots of penetration of critical infrastructure that they're going to investigate, which doesn't mean there's actual evidence they see anything affecting the count. >> why doesn't donald trump want to talk about this? >> i mean, it doesn't go really to his narrative that, you know,

the media and the clinton campaign or the democrats are trying to rig the election. but even on russia, he and mike pence have sort of diverged. mike pence has talked about punishing russia. donald trump has said that, you know, russia might not be involved. so even there you see a schism between donald trump and his vice presidential nominee. >> so what do you think about what came out from the fbi, these e-mails with patrick kennedy, undersecretary at the state department, trying to get them to declassify an e-mail that belonged to hillary clinton as part of this evolving dispute about what she had on the server and the allegationins of a quid pro quo. yes, the fbi said there's no quid pro quo. what's the impact? >> this reminds people of the clinton e-mail scandal. any time voters are reminded -- >> remind or substantiates? >> because you have the fbi and

the state department denying this, i mean, they're saying it isn't substantiated. again, it reminds people why they don't like hillary clinton and why they might not vote for her. >> david, what's your take on the fact that patrick kennedy appeared to be asking for a favor and for a quid pro quo? >> well, it's not clear to me exactly what happened. i mean, first of all, i think people need to understand that there are bureaucratic fights over classification of documents within the government all the time. i think there's no question this is new fodder for donald trump to try to make a case about the e-mails during this last debate against hillary clinton if he can try to stay focused enough to make that case. i don't know what's being discovered here that the benghazi committee wasn't able to find through grilling hillary clinton for some 15 hours on the hill or their final report, which didn't find any of this impropriety. i think it's also striking and worth pointing out how unprecedented it is that the fbi

would release what are called 302s, which is how this was discovered, which are interviews with witnesses in a case where they found no criminality whatsoever. it's only because of political pressure that jim comey, head of the fbi, is releasing this. completely unprecedented when you don't bring any kind of criminal case. i don't think that's pointed out enough, that he's bending to that political pressure. >> he got bashed for not bringing the case. people say it was political pressure. now he's releasing these 302s. he's getting bashed for bowing to political pressure. it's not a good time to be in public service right now. >> panel, stick around. we want to talk to you about melania trump coming up. tomorrow is a big night. camerota, please try to restrain your disappointment. you have a big party for tomorrow night, the debate party? >> absolutely. i'm going to try to stay up. it's well past my bedtime. >> no, stop it. >> but i'm going to take a power nap so i can watch this. >> let's keep it honest here. tomorrow night is the big night.

this is the last chance to see them both together going at it, hopefully on what matters to you. 4:00 p.m. eastern is when our coverage starts. >> i can stay up for that. meanwhile, melania trump speaking out in a new interview with cnn, her first public comments since that 2005 tape surfaced of her husband making lewd comments about women. why does she think he said those things? >> he was lead on like -- egg on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff. >> okay. more of that conversation next. (vo) when i brought jake home, i wanted him to eat healthy. so i feed jake purina cat chow naturals indoor, a nutritious formula with no artificial flavors.

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melania trump is breaking her silence in an interview with anderson cooper. she addresses the leaked audiotape of her husband making those lewd comments about women. she also responds to first lady michelle obama's blistering takedown of her husband. wtch this. >> i said to my husband that, you know, the language is inappropriate. it's not acceptable. and i was surprised because that is not the man that i know.

and as you can see from the tape, the cameras were not on. it was only a mike. and i wonder if they even knew that the mike was on because they were kind of boy talk. and he was lead on like -- egg on from the host to say dirty and bad stuff. >> you feel the host, billy bush, was sort of egging him on? >> yes. yes. >> is that language you had heard him use before? >> no. no, that's why i was surprised because i said, like, i don't know that person that would talk that way. >> he described it as locker room talk. to you -- you sort of alluded to that as well. is that what it is to you, just locker room talk? >> yeah, it's kind of two teenage boys. actually, they should behave

better. >> he was 59. >> correct. and sometimes i said i have two boys at home. i have my young son and i have my husband. but i know how some men talk, and that's how i saw it, yes. >> michelle obama, who you i know have spoken positively of in the past, she said last week about what your husband said on that tape, she said this was not just a lewd conversation, this wasn't just locker room banter, this was a powerful individual speaking freely and openly about sexually predatory behavior and actually bragging about kissing and groping women. in terms of what he actually said on the tape, not saying he did it, but what he said, the behavior described to you, is that sexual assault? >> no, that's not sexual assault. he didn't say he did it. and i see many women coming to him and giving phone numbers

and, you know, want to work for him. inappropriate stuff from women. they know he's married. >> you've seen that? >> oh, yes, of course. it was in front of me. >> in front of you? >> in front of me. and i said, like, why you need to give your number to my husband? i'm very strong. people, they don't really know me. people think and talk about me like, oh, melania, oh, poor melania. don't feel sorry for me. don't feel sorry for me. i can handle everything. and for people talking like that, i see in the press a lot, almost like celebrities or people they think they're celebrities, i would suggest to

them to look themselves in the mirror and to look at their actions and to take care of their own families. >> in terms of what michelle obama was saying, she was saying that essentially any unwanted advance toward a woman, kissing a woman, touching a woman without consent, that is sexual assault. that's the definition. >> yes, i agree with that, but every assault should be taken care of in court of law. and to accuse, no matter who it is, a man or a woman, without evidence, it's damaging and it's unfair. >> she went on to say, michelle obama, she talked about that feeling of terror and violation that too many women have felt when someone has grabbed them or forced himself on them and they've said no, but he didn't listen. >> who didn't listen? my husband didn't do anything. >> no, i think she was just

talking general about -- >> oh, i'm not surprised. i mean, she should also look maybe the people who supported her, what they're doing. so i'm not surprised she said that. >> let's bring back our panel. jackie kucinich and david gregory. let's start with what ended that conversation, that piece of the conversation. michelle obama should worry about the people who support them. she's probably referencing the clintons. what is your take on melania trump wanting to come out, dealing with these difficult allegations for the wife to deal with? but how does it come across? >> i wonder why she didn't come out sooner. the damage is sort of done at this point. but no, she's an important surrogate for her husband, particularly on issues like this. who knows him better than melania trump. her standing up for him and standing up so strongly for him, i mean, that -- again, i'm just

surprised it didn't happen a little sooner. >> david, it's the double standard on both sides that's so confusing and hard to get your mind around. there are striking parallels between what the accusers of bill clinton from the '90s say he did and what the accusers of donald trump from, you know, the past 20 years say he did. yet, both sides say, well, there's no evidence of what those other women say and you should have taken it be to a court of law if you really wanted to be believed. it's so interesting to hear both sides sort of disavow the other side but say that their person is telling the truth. >> right. look, there's no question -- i don't know. is there a double standard? did bill clinton get a pass in some ways by voters? may have had something to do with the timing. may have had to do with -- meaning a lot of those allegations came out initially when he was first running for president in the primaries early in 1992 as opposed to the end of

the race here. you know, bill clinton is not on the ballot now. donald trump is facing this. the reality is that it's not just these charges. but they have come at a time when women are moving away from voting for him in huge numbers. i think the singular reason why trump is most likely headed to lose this election is because women won't vote for him. so melania trump offering testimony on behalf of her husband fine. people can see it for what it is, as support of a spouse, but i don't think it's going to have much impact here. the more that becomes known, the more he ignores it and says it's all lies. >> also, you have this dynamic. look, it is he said, she said. unless you have proof corroborating the time, the date, the behavior. >> with sexual assault, it's always he said, she said. >> it's hard. even if you believe 100% with all of your heart and your head, i did nothing to this woman, it's hard to make that case as the politician without casting

this kind of pall over someone making a claim because you don't want to do that. you want to encourage women to come forward when they've been violated. so it's a tricky situation, even if you're 100% in the right. that's something we see the trump campaign dealing with. donald trump decided to deal with it directly, doing something we haven't seen him doing much lately, which is talk to the media directly. he did an interview with abc surrounding one of his events. here's a portion of what he said. >> i have great respect for women. i have tremendous respect for women. these people come up maybe for a little fame or maybe for some other reason or maybe because they're part of the clinton campaign, and i think a couple of them were involved somehow with the clinton campaign. the one that i met on an airplane 30 or 35 years ago, i mean, nobody can believe that's a believable story. listen to that story. in addition to that, there's even a witness. but can anyone really believe that a thing like that took place? that's ridiculous. the point is, it's lies. pure lies. and the media shouldn't be

playing that up. >> the witness to that event he's referring to isn't particularly helpful. they have their own credibility issues. this is the line for donald trump. in fairness to him, he wants to say, i didn't do this, but you have to be careful because if you really bash the women, and she did start down that road originally -- >> start down that road? he was there. >> he talked about the looks of one of the women. but there's going to be recoil from people. >> he's also saying they're part of the clinton campaign, which they're not. these are not women who knew each other. this was not coordinated. >> sounds like the cosby defense from when you were covering that. >> it's very cosby-esque. when the flood gates open, the flood gates open. >> this is part of a pattern for donald trump. i think voters can make up their own minds. this is a man who says he respects women and accused a female questioner, megyn kelly, of menstruating when asking him

a tough question. voters can make up their own minds. so this is part of a pattern of behavior and the way he talks publicly about women and others that is one of the reasons we're seeing the biggest gender gap we've seen in decades. >> panel, thank you very much. great to talk to both of you. we have to get to another top story now. the fight to recapture the iraqi city of mosul from isis is under way. are iraqi and kurdish forces making any progress? we'll give you a status report and take you to the front lines next. sure, we could have stacked these tires. or put them on a rack. but the specialists at ford like to show off their strengths: 13 name brands. all backed by our low price tire guarantee. yeah, we're strong when it comes to tires. right now during the big tire event, get a $140 rebate by mail on four select tires. ♪

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all right. there's a battle raging. we're going to take you right to the front lines. cnn's senior international correspondent nic payton walsh is there with kurdish forces, seeing firsthand what is happening on the ground. he joins us live near mosul. what's the situation? >> reporter: chris, progress here is not as fast as they want but perhaps not as slow as pessimists thought it could be.

plumes of smoke behind us. that's oil fires, suicide car bombs used by isis to push peshmerga back. they're never sure quite how safe they are, either side, as we saw getting pot shots taking out of them, suicide bombers popping out of holes in the ground. according to the afp news agency, turkish prime minister has said their jets took part in coalition air strikes over the city. that throws potentially a big geopolitical span into all of this. iraq has been very clear they want turkey out of this. turkey is part of anti-isis coalition. they may have been in the air. we can't tell from here who's been bombing who. that may well anger the pro-iranian shia militias who are saying they want to get involved in the mosul fight but shouldn't be a part, according to the official plan here. so all these geopolitical bits of fiery rhetoric swirling here. all eyes frankly on -- as these forces move down this road towards the city of mosul, where there are 1.2 million people

potentially caught in the cross fire inside that urban sprawl. do they get out to the refugee camps where potentially they can find shelter? or do we see a nasty and bloody end to what is the last chapter of isis in iraq. alisyn? >> nick, thank you so much for all your reporting and all of your intense video that you're sharing with us. thank you for being there. we'll check back with yo uh. back here at home, the latest national polls show hillary clinton widening her lead over donald trump. however, in the key battleground states, the race is tightening. our panel breaks down these differing numbers next.

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new swing state polls show the race between hillary clinton and donald trump tightening. in nevada, north carolina, and ohio these are all must-win states for trump in his narrowing road to the 270 electoral votes needed. let's bring back our panel to go through these numbers. let's start with the new cnn poll out of nevada. i think these are all margin of error races. clipn to has 46, trump has 44. north carolina is even tighter. clinton with 48%, he gets 47%. ohio, trump is winning there 48% to clinton's 44%. jackie, what do you think? ohio keeps being held out as, you know, the trump people have consistently been favoring trump in ohio. what's going on in that state? >> a lot of it is his trade message. ohio demographically is good for

donald trump. you're seeing his trade message really resonate there. you're talking during the break, there are some self-inflicted wounds going on in ohio. he is ahead there, but then you have his ohio chairman going after the ohio gop chairman and saying that he's not loyal and disassociating himself. >> so there's this infight. >> he could win ohio. >> there was a poll recently that had her up one after the recent spate of events in ohio. but it's very tight. david, help us understand. we keep hearing, whether it's the cnn poll of polls or some of these other larger offerings, that clinton is growing her lead, but then you look at these background states and it seems that the race is just as tight or compressing. distinguish the two for the audience. >> well, you do have a collection of polls that show her with a pretty commanding national lead. even some of these background states, the fact this was a

republican state in 2012, talking about north carolina, where she has an edge. nevada is a democratic state from the last cycles. i think a lot of what's important that will happen in the final three weeks will not be visible to us on a national basis. it's really going to be about how they close and how they turn out the vote. i think the difficulty for donald trump, he's got a narrow path to 270, and he's not finding a way to grow his base of support. even in tight states, a state like ohio favors him demographically with white working class voters and men, but still finding a kind of ceiling in these other states. thoo and can he close as well as hillary clinton in terms of money, message, surrogates, and all of those areas where she can get out the vote. >> if you look inside these polls and the demographics of who's voting for him, let's do that because the all-important female vote, we've heard so many times women might decide this. if you look at nevada, north carolina, and ohio, she wins the female vote in every single one

of those states. pretty handily. except again, ohio, where she gets 48, he gets 45. jackie -- >> and all margins are less than what we've seen in the overall poll. it says it's about 20 points with her. none of those numbers are close to 20. >> so with women voters, have we seen them leave him since the lewd comments? >> it depends on what poll you're looking at. in the cnn poll, no. in other polls, you see a little bit of fluctuation. in terms of the video, we have seen people didn't really care about. didn't really change a lot of minds. in terms of the other allegations, it really varies. bottom line is, as we were talking about, this is going to go down to the wire. also, every day counts right now. early voting has been going on in ohio in particular. i believe in north carolina as well, though i don't have that in front of me right now. so every day counts with these candidates. everything they say, because people are voting every single day. >> give me a two for, david.

one, why is there a different margin with women in background states versus the overall. secondly, what do you think of his suggestion that clinton is looking to expand the electoral map into red states like arizona? >> i don't have a good answer with regard to the first question and why there's such a distinction, but i think we've seen enough polls now to show that the gender gap is big, bigger than we've seen in decades and that he's not making any positive gains there, which is a real problem. again, making some efforts. melania trump trying to soften his hard edges among women and so forth. we'll see what happens. i think that -- you see this in campaigns. sometimes it can be a head fake to try to go into states and say it's tighter than it is. you see the polling out of arizona, which means they've got an opportunity, the clinton campaign, to extend this map and try to win this in a more commanding fashion. they're putting money, they're putting chelsea clinton there, and michelle obama going to arizona as well. >> david, jackie, thank you. so join us tomorrow night

for the final showdown between hillary clinton and donald trump. cnn's debate coverage starts at 4:00 p.m. eastern. a stunning admission from the head of the nation's largest law enforcement group. what he is saying about police actions toward minorities, next. guess what guys, i switched to sprint. sprint? i'm hearing good things about the network. all the networks are great now. we're talking within a 1% difference in reliability of each other. and, sprint saves you 50% on most current national carrier rates. save money on your phone bill, invest it in your small business. wouldn't you love more customers? i would definitely love some new customers. sprint will help you add customers and cut your costs. switch your business to sprint and save 50% on most current verizon, at&t and t-mobile rates. don't let a 1% difference cost you twice as much. whoooo! for people with hearing loss, visit sprintrelay.com.

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if you could boil it down to five things, these would be them to know for your new day. number one, donald trump taking

his claim of a rigged system a step further, calling for government ethics reforms. this is probably a good idea no matter what. comes at the same time as new e-mail fallout for hillary clinton, triggering allegations of a quid pro quo between the fbi and state department. >> melania trump breaking her silence in an interview with cnn's anderson cooper. she says that leaked audiotape of donald trump making lewd comments about women was nothing more than, quote, boy talk. and her husband was egged on by billy bush. iraqi forces and their allies making significant gains as they push into mosul. the first 24 hours of the battle marked with air strikes, fierce gun battles, suicide car bombs. pentagon officials say the operation is actually ahead of schedule. people in aleppo telling cnn there have been no air strikes by russia and syrian forces in the region. this comes as both sides had agreed to an eight-hour humanitarian pause thursday to allow rebels and the wounded to leave that war-torn city. the head of the nation's

largest police chief group apolling fapoll i -- apologizing for the, quote, historical mistreatment of racial minority. terrance cunningham saying the apology is a first step and calling for common solutions to protect communities. for more on the five things to know, go to newdaycnn.com for the latest. donald trump stoking fears of a rigged election. it's firing up his supporters and possibly inciting violence. >> like i said, it's pitchfork and torches time in america. >> we're going to take a closer look at the consequences of trump's words next.

there is record-breaking october heat. it is moving east. how long will it last? let's bring in cnn meteorologist chad myers. he has all of the answers for us. what are you seeing there, chad? >> i see a couple days. not much more than that, but we

will have 40 record highs across the country today all the way from about detroit down to the gulf coast and as far as the northeast, obviously. it'll be 89 degrees today in memphis and almost making a run at 90 in nashville. new york, baltimore, d.c., enjoy it if you like the warm weather. only a couple days of this to go. it is going to cool down. in fact, new york city by sat and sunday, the high will only be in the 50s. middle 50s. morning lows in the 40s. yes, just a little respite with a little dip in the jet stream coming our way. something else i'm watching, too, i know we talked about matthew ad nauseam a couple weeks ago, but this storm could make its way up the coast as a rainmaker. we'll watch it. i know we kind of dropped the ball on this with all the political coverage, but believe it or not, matthew killed 45 people. a storm that we consider a near miss still killed 45 people in the u.s. alone. so keep that in mind. we'll keep watching.

>> and i'll tell you, chad, it wasn't a near miss to the people that it hit. it sounds painfully obvious, but a lot of people's lives changed forever. their property and a lot of people lost everything. chad, thank you very much. we'll check back in a little bit. so donald trump escalating claims that the election is rigged. why do we care? there is voter fraud. well, because when you do it so extremely as he has, it's inciting, it's making people angry. the fear then becomes violence. so we just heard the milwaukee county sheriff, clarke, who's become a big deal in american politics. he was talking about this. listen to it. >> they want you to give up, folks. they want you to say, the hell with it, it's fixed, it's rigged, and it is, but they want you to say, the hell with it t i'm not going to participate. that's what they're hoping for. it's not going to work. it is not going to work. stay strong.

find new voters. get them to the polls. like i said, and i'll continue to say, it is pitchfork and torches time in america. >> they love it there, but could people take the message wrong way? >> what is the wrong way? what is the message of pitchforks and torches? >> it sounds like angry townsfolk going to storm some situation they are against, right, whether it's frankenstein or whatever they're coming after. >> so what's the other message? >> that's the question, right. good one. thank you very much. let's bring in david frum, a senior editor at "the atlantic," who was a speech writer for president george w. bush, and cnn reporter sarah murray, who's been on the trail with trump and knows what it's like to be in this environment. sarah, let me start with you. a lot of talk is just political talk. it's just rhetoric. it gets people heated up. but this seems to be different, that it's not just contrary, it's hostile. and it's getting to be

potentially violent. what has been your experience? >> well, i think it is different because you have a candidate now talking about a rigged election system, essentially trying to undermine the integrity of our american elections. and this is part of what makes america such a great country, is that we have an open, free, decentralized democracy. it is extremely, extremely difficult to rig an american election in a widespread way because of that. but this feeds into the narrative for donald trump that the fix is in, that everything is not only stacked against him but stacked against regular working class voters, whether that means the political establishment, whether that means the media, or whether in this case that means the election system. it's particularly worrisome because it could have the impact of not only voter intimidation but also voter suppression. it could just inspire people to stay home. in many ways, this is actually what the trump campaign is aiming for. they are hoping that this will fire up donald trump supporters

and that it will keep young voters and minority voters just depressed enough so they won't show up on election day. >> david, what do you think the consequences are of all of this language and the idea that there's tremendous voter fraud? >> well, i think we'll have almost the opposite effect of what sarah just say. maybe 1 out of 10 hears this and decides to do something terrible. but 99 out of 100 will be discouraged. most of you will hear this and say, well n that case, i'll stay home. donald trump's whole hope is to immobilize people who regularly do not vote. down market white people, especially males, people who probably didn't vote in 2012 because they didn't see the point, to get them to the polls. the way as president obama showed in 2012, you get people who don't vote much to go to the polls. you make them believe that their votes matter, that they're powerful.

this is the one time in four years you can really make the mightiest people in the country quake before you. if you tell them it's hopeless, it's doomed, you're rigged, yeah, somebody may throw a brick through a window or worse, but more people are going to say, just going to open another beer and stay on this couch. that has terrible repercussions to down ballot republicans. >> the irony is that clarke is saying what they want you to think, what they want you to think -- he's really talking about donald trump. donald trump is one saying the system is broken. so it's odd that he's trying to help trump by giving a message that may not help. what is your take, david, on the impact of someone like a sheriff clarke with the hat pulled low, you can't see his eyes, talking about pitchforks and torches and all that other nonsense? >> well, sheriff clarke tweeted out an image that showed people with torches and pitchforks. they were really old. my reaction was it looked like the 30-year cast reunion of young frankenstein. look, the fact is the republican

coalition skews old. so there is a problem with -- they're not people who are likely to throw bricks. but the voters whom trump wants, they skew whiter and younger. they're low turnout voters, people with weak commitment to the political system. the reason they give for not voting is they think the system is rigged. when you empower them, you may not rev them up, you may sedate them. that's doomed not only for trump but down ballot republicans. >> i don't know, david. i find your assessment comforting. staying home and cracking open a beer, that's fine. >> no, it's not fine. everybody should vote. >> sure, i get that message, but i'm more concerned about violence. let's face it, we've already seen some, sarah. the animosity certainly towards the press, you've been subject to this at trump rallies. it's real. >> well, i think that's the reality. you're right. a lot of people, david, will just sort of brush this off and call it political rhetoric.

a lot of people don't. we see that day in and day out because people do turn out for donald trump rallies by the thousands. these people, they're angry. they're angry because they feel like economy has left them behind, because their politicians have left them behind, because they don't feel part of their community in whatever way they did before, and they want someone to help channel that anger. donald trump has really done that. at every turn when there's an opportunity to turn down the temperature, and i feel like the wake of this attack on the north carolina gop is a good example. donald trump doesn't turn it down. he ratchets it up. day to day on the campaign trail that, means that if you're a member of the media, you walk into an event to thousands of people screaming at you, flipping you off, telling you, you know, that you suck. so there is a real impact of this. >> david, sarah, thank you very much for your take on all of this. great to talk to you. >> what is your take on this situation? tweet us @newday or post your comment on facebook.com/newday.

we're following a lot of news this morning. we have the latest from the front lines of the battle for mosul. let get to it. voter fraud is very, very common. >> elections today are more secure than they've ever been. >> where are the street smarts of some of these politicians? >> it isn't easy running against someone who is so negative, so dark and dangerous. >> voter fraud cannot be tolerated. >> it is not just who wins this election. it's actually bigger than that. >> they want to influence the american people how to vote. and they're influencing in the wrong way. >> i am so tired of hearing the other side tell me how america is going to hell in a hand basket. >> good morning, everyone. welcome to your new day. donald trump continuing his claims of a rigged election, blasting republican leaders who deny that. trump also slamming hillary

clinton over new documents released by the fbi that show a state department official pressuring the bureau to declassify an e-mail on benghazi. >> also, melania trump decides to take to the air waves. she does interviews defending her husband. she does it with anderson cooper in a cnn interview. she says the women accusing him of unwanted advances are lying. there is so much at stake. we have just one day until the final face-off. last time you'll get to see clinton and trump head to head. it's tomorrow night. just 21 days until the election. let's begin our coverage. cnn's manu raju live in vegas. >> reporter: good morning, chris. yeah, donald trump really needs a stellar debate performance in this debate hall behind me tomorrow night. polls continue to show him struggling and losing both nationally and in key background states, which is probably repeatedly