and good evening. breaking news here in washington, where you can bet there is a lot of late-night pizza being consumed right about now, especially at fbi offices right down the road in quantico, virginia. they are scrambling right now to analyze e-mails found on a device found by top clinton adviser, huma abedin, and her estranged husband, anthony weiner. now back at headquarters, they're also trying to describe if comey acted appropriately. and as you also might imagine, pundits and professionals alike are trying to assess the impact of all this on voters. we'll look at all of that in the hour ahead, starting with a pretty stunning piece of news, about how much we can expect to hear from the fbi or how little. cnn's pamela brown joins us now with that late item. what are your sources saying, pam? >> despite the backlash following his controversial letter on friday, james comey stands by his decision and believes he did the right thing, according to a person familiar

with his thinking. he has told fbi and doj officials that he doesn't plan to provide the public any additional updates until this investigation is complete. and that could take time. and after the election, anderson, we're expecting for this to come to an end. >> reporter: tonight, the fbi is in a race against the clock. cnn has learned a team of agents is using special software at fbi facilities in quantico, virginia, to sift through thousands of newly discovered e-mails, to isolate those relevant to the investigation of hillary clinton's private server. those e-mails will then be searched for classified information. a process that likely won't be resolved until after the election. in july, when director comey initially recommended no charges, he said no reasonable prosecutor would bring a case against clinton, despite finding classified information on her private server. >> we don't want to put people

in jail unless we prove that they knew they were doing something they shouldn't do. >> reporter: cnn has learned some of the e-mails found in a computer belonging to anthony weiner, estranged husband of longtime clinton aide, huma abedin, passed through clinton's private server. a source says abedine has no idea how the e-mails ended up on her husband's computer. several weeks ago they stumble on the e-mails while investigating weiner's alleged sexting with a girl. comey found out in mid-october, but wasn't fully briefed until last thursday. a day later, he went against department of justice policy, sending a vague letter to congress, unveiling the discovery of e-mails, over the objection of doj officials. tonight he's taking heat from every direction, even from his former boss, attorney general-appointed alberto gonzalez. >> i didn't understand it. i didn't understand what he was saying, what he was trying to say. i didn't understand the purpose of the letter. all of us was what perplexed about what he was trying to accomplish here.

>> reporter: now comey is under intense pressure to publicly release more information before election day. >> we are in a very unusual situation. it may be in order to protect the integrity of this election that he may need to say something else about what in relation to this investigation. >> reporter: tonight the white house spokesman said he would neither defend or criticize comey but acknowledged he's in a tough spot. >> he's the one that will be in a position to defend his actions in the face of significant criticism from a variety of legal experts, including individuals who served in senior department of justice positions in administrations led by presidents in both parties. >> pam, what about the timing here? when will we know more about the substance of the e-mails? is it not until comey announces

or, i mean short of leaks coming out. >> short of leaks coming out we won't know the substance until it is complete. that is laikely to happen after the election. there are multiple layers here. they have to weed out the ones that are relevant. and once they do that the lengthier process of taking the e-mails to the agencies to see if there is classified information and try to determine whether there was intent of someone knowingly and willingly sending classified information over e-mail. this could take some time. we're told, as i said, that director comey will not provide piecemeal information to the public. he doesn't want to come out and provide specifics until it is wrapped up, despite the growing calls for him to provide more information. >> all right. pamela brown, thank you very much. donald trump spent the day in michigan, a state that seems out of reach for him. more on that shortly.

but the first he made to voters that, the e-mail value dades everything he has been saying about hillary clinton. sara murray is traveling with the trump campaign. >> donald trump is betting on blue territory and cutting tax to turn around his fortune. >> i think we hit the mother lode, as they say. hillary clinton broke the law over and over again. we can be sure what's in those e-mails is absolutely devastating. thank you, huma. >> the gop nominee seeking to capitalize on the probe of hillary clinton's e-mails. >> i have to give the fbi credit. that was so bad what happened originally and it took guts for director comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had with them trying to protect her from criminal prosecution. it took a lot of guts. >> reporter: insisting they'll

reveal criminal activity, even though the fbi says it's too soon to tell whether the e-mails are even significant. >> hillary is likely to be under investigation for a very long time. >> trump hitting the trail today in michigan, a state that hasn't voted republican for president since 1988. >> in eight days, we're going to win the great state of michigan. >> reporter: that's as trump's advisers acknowledge they need to flip at least one or two states that tilt blue, adding stops in wisconsin and pennsylvania, after popping by colorado and new mexico this weekend. but in between swipes at clinton, trump is still raising eyebrows with his conciliatory approach to russian president, vladimir putin. and hillary, she has such a bad relationship with so many countries. putin can't stand her. doesn't respect her. they want to get isis, we want to get isis. we've put everything together, we knock the hell out of isis. wouldn't it be nice? wouldn't it be smart? >> reporter: as outgoing senate minority leader, harry reid, accuses the fbi of covering up

ties between trump and russia. without offering any evidence. in a letter to fbi director james comey, reid says, it has become clear that you possess explosive information about close ties in coordination between donald trump, his top advisers, and the russian government. a foreign interest openly hostile to the united states, which trump praises at every opportunity. as both sides trade barbs on the trail, they're also pointing to bright spots in early voting. democrats are running ahead of their 2012 total in colorado, and they're cutting into the gop's advantage in both arizona and florida. but so far, republicans appear to have made gains in iowa and ohio, compared to 2012. >> and sara murray joins us more for more on michigan. so a little bit more than a week left. donald trump focusing on several states, leaning towards hillary clinton, including michigan today.

does he really think he can win the blue states? i talked to kellyanne conway. she says she does believe in michigan, they can win. >> well, anderson, it would seem crazy that you would spend your last stretch going to places like colorado, like michigan, like pennsylvania and wisconsin, especially when the public poll shows donald trump with a relatively steep deficit in a number of these states. but the campaign is saying that their internal numbers are showing a much tighter race, and they believe they saw this tightening, even before the latest fbi revelations come out. but this also speaks to how narrow their path was originally. they're really looking at the math now, realizing if they really want a shot at victory on november 8th, they're going to need to flip at least one of these states from red to blue, and i think that's what you're trying to see them do in the wake of the fbi's latest move. anderson? >> sara murray, thanks very much. we have more breaking news tonight. a statement from huma abedin's attorney, karen dunn. it reads, from the beginning, miss abedin has complied fully and voluntarily with state department requests. including sitting for hours'

long interviews and providing work-related and potentially work-related documents. her cooperation has been praised by law enforcement and officials alike. and this is the really important part. she says, she only learned for the first time on friday from press reports of the possibility that a laptop belonging to mr. weiner could belong e-mails of hers. miss dunn concludes by saying, while the fbi has not contacted us about this, miss abedin will continue to be, as she always has been, forthcoming and cooperative. hillary clinton for her part campaigned today in a state where donald trump has enjoyed an edge lately, we're talking about ohio. our jeff zeleny is there. >> reporter: tonight, hillary clinton is pushing back on the fbi. >> a lot of you may be asking what this new e-mail story is about. why in the world the fbi would decide to jump into an election with no evidence of any wrongdoing, with just days to go. that's a good question. >> reporter: her closing argument against donald trump

now includes another apology about her e-mails, and the controversy that's dogged her. >> first of all, for those of you who are concerned about my using personal e-mail, i understand. and as i've said, i'm not making excuses. i've said it was a mistake and i regret it. >> reporter: it's a concession she rarely makes on the campaign trail. but she said it's high time to move on. and she's confident the case of her top aide, huma abedin, off the campaign trail for a third straight day, will end like hers did. >> they should look at them. and i am sure they will reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my e-mails for the last year. there is no case here. >> reporter: clinton is trying to regain her footing and turn questions about her into questions about trump's fitness for office. >> imagine him plunging us into a war, because somebody got under his very thin skin. now, thankfully, he's never been in a position where he had to help make life-and-death decisions for our country.

>> reporter: changing the subject may be a tall order. for 18 months, clinton's been trying to move beyond the e-mail controversy. now it's front and center again, a cloud of uncertainty still in the air. with eight days to go, the race is tightening in key battlegrounds, like here in ohio. at a cafe in cleveland, she kept her eye on the campaign, not the controversy. but inside her brooklyn headquarters, aides remained on a war-time footing, and democrats like senate minority leader, harry reid, took the lead in striking back. he fired off a letter to fbi director, james comey, saying, "through partisan actions, you may have broken the law. in tarring secretary clinton with thin innuendo, you overruled long-standing tradition and the explicit guidance of your own department." advisers to clinton tell cnn they are still assessing the potential fallout, but

acknowledge at least some souring from independents and republicans who were leaning their way. nationally, clinton retains an edge. she's up five points over trump in the latest cnn poll of polls. as trump questions her judgment on e-mails, she's raising doubts about his fitness to serve in the oval office, calling him a threat to national security. >> as i've said many times, a man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons. >> and jeff zeleny joins us now from cleveland. so clinton expressed regret today about her e-mail server. what's the thought behind that? trying to get it out of the way as quickly as possible? >> reporter: it is, anderson. and she also said, i'm not making any excuses here. it's one of the few times we've heard on a campaign rally, on stage acknowledge this. she's done it in interviews and other places, but never one at her campaign rallies, acknowledging that she has, indeed, made mistakes. and that is what some of those independent voters, perhaps, want to hear here, her say she's not perfect by any means, but she's trying to change the

subject so much to donald trump here. the clinton campaign is watching extremely carefully what is going on here, in the final couple of days. they do not believe that they've lost much support. and one of the reasons is, they've already identified all of their supporters. all of the democrats they need. what they need to do is turn people out, so that's one of the reasons that her campaign is going hard after the fbi, to rally those democrats. but the question is, what happens moving forward here? it's an uncertainty that they can't plan for. that's what worries her brooklyn headquarters. anderson? >> all right, jeff zeleny, thanks very much. the panel is back this hour. john king, gloria borger, kayleigh mcenany, bakari sellers, and jack kingston. and yes, you will be quizzed coming up. gloria, i guess the million-dollar question, we don't know the answer but i'll ask it anyway, does this have an impact on voters? do voters care? and we won't know until a couple of days later with polls.

>> i think you have to say voters care, but i think we're not sure of the impact. as john was saying earlier, you have to take this state-by-state. and i think that clinton voters are probably could be more enthused to go out and support her, because they think that comey did her a bad deed. >> and the democrats are certainly trying to hit that idea. >> they're trying to hit that. and on the other hand, any story that's about hillary clinton and e-mails is bad for hillary clinton. >> john, anytime it's not about donald trump's character, it's probably bad for hillary clinton. >> that didn't happen by accident. she did not walk into that rally today and decide to say, i'm sorry i did this. she didn't say "sorry." she said, i regret this, i won't do it again, but there's no case. paul knows her better than i do. >> i'm shocked this was thought out. >> but there has to be something in the data, something they saw, that made them decide that she needed to go out and talk about this. they can't just beat up the fbi. they beat up the fbi, they question the motivation there, but she also had to address the her part of it and that's significant. they see something that we haven't seen yet. >> paul, do you know what -- >> i don't know what they know.

i know what i think. >> what do you think? >> i think two things. gloria's right. this can motivate your base. if you feel like you're being unjustly attacked by law enforcement, a lot of democrats in america feel the same way on the local level. and i think she can use that to rally her base. and the problem is, if there's damage, it will not be with her base, it will be with these college-educated white people, who go back and forth, with each trump crisis, she gets inflated, i told you every time that we had her at 10 or 12, that was nonsense, and it slides back down. the criticisms from politicians don't, i think, move them. but the elite criticism of comey, i think, has been very powerful. >> what do you mean the elite criticism? >> larry thompson, the two top deputies in the justice department, one under a democrat, one under a republican, wrote in "the washington post" a column entitled jim comey is damaging our democracy. when these -- when law professors of ethics say that this is unethical, when those kinds of elites, former justice department officials, legal scholars of legal ethics, when they do that, i think that speaks to those college-educated

white folks and tells them -- >> congressman, do you think this matters? >> you have to ask, where were they when bill clinton was meeting with loretta lynch on the tarmac? if they are so worried about it. this investigation took place, they did not have subpoena power. they had to give immunity to five different people. they did not get to empower a grand jury. the investigation was going sideways from day one. and that's what law enforcement community has been saying. and i think that comey actually had an internal mutiny on his hands. >> before we get to too much on the partisan side, i do just want to legally, where is the attorney general in all of this, loretta lynch? is she damaged politically for having a tet 'a tet with bill clinton? >> i think she's not formally recused from any involvement in this investigation -- >> but if she looked like she was trying to stop it, thinsably, a lot of people would

be -- >> it will be politically problematic. she has a deputy who has not been involved. one of the many extraordinary things about this moment is that we have jim comey acting as investigator, prosecutor, public spokesman, and the rest of the justice department is completely silent. >> tom -- >> nobody in the fbi wanted that to be jim comey's role or the role of the fbi in this case. what they had hoped happened was, when bill clinton climbed aboard her plane, she would are done like harrison ford in air force one, get off my plane. because instead of a 15-second hello, good-bye, i thank you, mr. president, it turned into 30-plus minutes that are now the mystery of what was the nature of that discussion, just days before the hillary clinton fbi interview take place, just days before comey does the july 5th press conference and announces no charges. and then she doesn't say, i'm reaccusing myself, my deputy

attorney general will now take over, oversight of the e-mail investigation, or career prosecutors will take over, who have been involved in the case from the very beginning, with the investigative agents. she says, we're going to let the fbi decide. >> no, no, no. that's not -- what she said -- >> well, it is -- >> what loretta lynch said, is we're going to accept the recommendation of the fbi. that's what she said. she said, i'm going to accept the recommendation. what that doesn't give leeway to is director comey then stepping out there and making this statement. it does not excuse. i know we want to point to this meeting. what you have then is when the attorney general does something like this, she steps back and please correct me if i'm wrong, but that means that your deputy, sally yates, if i'm not mistaken, steps up and assumes that role. >> that's not what she said. >> she said, "we will accept the recommendation."

whatever she said or did not say does not give -- >> let tom respond. >> he made that recommendation. we recommend no charges. and the next day she says, okay, all of the cases against all of the principles in this investigation are now closed. and i've heard other people talking, recently, oh, it wasn't really closed, yes, with it was closed. in my career in the fbi, i opened then closed hundreds, maybe thousands of cases, and in many cases, reopened, if new information -- >> so is this a re-opening? >> this was closed. >> is this a re-opening of the investigation? >> yes, it is. the reason it is, when they obtain subpoenas and obtain legal documents like search warrants, it requires that the investigation be an open investigation -- >> i think tom is absolutely right. i think, you know, there have been semantic games about -- >> so when the republicans are saying, reopening the investigation, this is a reopening of the investigation? >> good point. >> we can argue about whether it's appropriate or not. >> we've got to take a break. we'll have more on this subject with our panel when we come back. trump campaign has been making in these crucial, final days. and why is he spending time in states he doesn't appear to have a chance of winning? do they know something we don't? what's the strategy behind that? stay with us.

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if you ask republican pundits, donald trump could have spent all day talking about two things, hillary clinton and e-mails. could have, maybe should have, they believe. instead, and this is key, he's done it before, he wandered off-message. here's what he said yesterday about a stop in albuquerque with what he claims will happen to immigration in a single week if hillary clinton were elected. >> you could have 650 million people pour in and we do nothing about it. think about it, that's what could happen.

you triple the size of our country in one week. once you lose control of your borders, you have no country, folks. >> and we're back with the panel. mikalah, is this an example of donald trump not staying on message or -- >> no, there's a story that's really been ignored and that's there's a flood of immigrants coming across our border. i.c.e. agents have pointed it out. there are new stories out there about this. >> 650 million? >> i think he's trying to illustrate a point here. i have an i.c.e. officer who sends me pictures of the drugs he picks up on you are border on a daily basis. there will be a big problem, a big influx of drugs. you think we have a problem in new hampshire now? it's going to be doubled, tripled if hillary clinton is president and has the open borders that she told a brazilian bank she hopes comes about. >> paul? >> she tells a lot. >> it is. by the way, what she told that brazilian bank was the exact thing word for word what president reagan used to say. it's a dream a lot of people

have. a trade zone from the tip of del fergo from the arctic. and people like that say that and they never -- we don't have a free trade zone to the arctic. but when donald trump speaks, we're no so enured to it, no one even expects him to tell the truth. the fact checkers all have post-traumatic stress disorder. they just employee a fuse, because he goes -- by some studies, no more than -- >> you can't excuse -- >> no, no, let him finish. >> but people who do this for a living have quantified. he goes two to three minutes per lie. it's just -- in his public statements. >> whoa, whoa. we're talking about lies from a hillary clinton camp -- >> it is breathtaking -- >> politifact just said, of the 18 people that ran for president, hillary is found to be the most truthful. >> she's bragging and said, huma abedin cooperated with the fbi, voluntarily. oh, wow, what a great american. she did not have an option. >> yes, she did. >> well, get an attorney. but the reality is -- >> no -- >> -- hillary clinton starts an

election -- >> so half of our -- >> this is a woman who said, i had one server. turns out it was 13. she said, i turned over all my -- >> she had one server. >> she had 13 devices. >> those aren't servers. >> okay, 13 devices, she said she had one. she said she turned over all her e-mails. 17,000 are still out there somewhere. she used bleach bit after it was subpoenaed to not destroy the evidence and 30 days later they used bleach bit to destroy it. and using hammers and everything else. and for her to lecture anyone about lying. and she's the one who said open borders. >> hillary clinton must be a wizard if all of a sudden we're going to have 650 million new people come to the united states of america in one week. and donald trump has been laying out -- in one week! and donald trump has been laying out all of these large bits of hyperbole, lies for the entire campaign. but one of the things -- and jeff zeleny pointed this out a little bit earlier, that i wanted to talk about, is that donald trump still has to win voters.

hillary clinton is at the point in the campaign where she's actually getting her voters that she's already targeted out to the polls. those type of comments that donald trump makes, these hyperbole, these lies that he's been saying that politifact says he lies over three quarters of the time, those are going to turn off the people that he needs to bring in. >> first of all academic institutions have studied politifact. republicans lie three to one ratio over democrats, so it is a partisan fact checker -- >> well, donald trump is an exemption. >> there is one candidate in this race that is under federal bureau of investigation, criminal investigation -- >> who? >> not on one point, not on just the e-mail servers, this is a really important story that we haven't mentioned once tonight. "the wall street journal," the bottom half of the story that broke last night said that four fbi field offices wanted to look into the clinton foundation. they were slapped down by the justice department multiple times. they were not given the investigatory power to go after the foundation as they wanted. >> bakari? >> there are two fbi investigations, not one. >> you just said two different things. one, it wasn't that they didn't get to go as far as they wanted, per se. they had a preliminary investigation that turned up nothing. first. >> according to the justice

department. >> second, this is what you'll see hillary clinton begin to do more of this week. she's now pivoting and she's now turning the light back on donald trump. because you will begin to see -- >> because she has nothing to talk about. >> you will begin to see more articles come out about the fbi investigation into paul manafort and his russian ties -- >> he's not with them. >> you'll begin to see more articles come out about donald trump and his taxes. >> his taxes? >> of course, because the newspapers back hillary clinton -- >> let's not get into a partisan brouhaha. we've got eight days. just, to have -- >> my head hurts. >> to have donald trump making -- in terms of the states that donald trump is going to, explain where he sees and where the campaign sees their path to 270? >> look, sometimes, it makes no sense, i'm sorry, when you see the republican in new mexico at this point in the election, you have to scratch your head. but maybe they have data we don't have. but here's the point. i think we'll go through this state by state in a few minutes, so i won't do it all now. but if you look at our sixes sixes to upstate on the board

right now. even if donald trump won them all and was perfect. even if he was perfect and won florida, won north carolina, won utah, won arizona, and won nevada, he'd still be short. he has to turn something that's blue, if you look at that map on the screen, if he wins all the golds, he's still short. he's got to turn something blue. of course, if you're donald trump, you want to go into these blue states and at least test. doing that 8 days out, you want to do that 20 days out. you're going 20 or 30 days out and see a poll which one you might be moving and saying, okay, put some ad money in, send a surrogate in, send the candidate back. to do that in the last week is pretty hard. he's trying to park six or seven aircraft carriers at the same time. very difficult to do, not impossible but difficult. >> and i was talking to a pollster in florida who said african-american voting is down, but hispanic voting is way up. and i don't know what donald trump can do about that in the state of florida right now. >> we've got to take a quick break. we'll continue the discussion in a moment. we'll take a look at the

question john king forshadowed. why is donald trump campaigning in states that are deeply democratic? we'll take a look at the map and break it down state by state. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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together, we're building a better california. teachers, firefighters and nurss support prop 51. prop 51 repairs older schools and removes dangerous lead paint and pipes ensuring classrooms are safe for all students. for safe schools vote yes on 51. welcome back. we've been reporting, donald trump is campaigning in michigan today, a state that hasn't gone republican in a presidential election in 28 years. the question is why. and you have a political question about voting history, you go to john king. he is joins us now to break it down by the numbers. new mexico sunday, michigan today, wisconsin tomorrow. a pretty reliably democratic territory in presidential races. what does trump see that the public polls don't? >> well, you talk to kellyanne conway earlier in the evening, and she said they see data in all these states. they won't share that data with us. we don't see it. the public polls certainly don't show it, anderson.

we're waiting to see if any new polls come out after the fbi revelation. let's go back through the history. i'll go back to the map. new mexico is what had a lot of republicans scratching their head. used to be a swing state in 2000/2004, but it turned into such a democratic state. ten points here in 2012. back to the mccain race, this is more of a democratic year, but it's a blowout. mike pence was there a week ago. donald trump was there this week. donald trump's in michigan, that's less of a surprise in the sense that his trade message should sell there, his economic message should sell there. although every poll has shown recently, he's been down anywhere from 7 to 10 points. a big question heading into final week. again, did the fbi revelation change it? we've seen no public data to suggest that yet. a poll just last week, after a lot of republicans did come home to donald trump, still have hillary clinton up seven. but in the final week, you're going see him, anderson, not just in florida, which is a swing state, but went blue last time. north carolina, this is 2008. i'm going to switch it so you see the 2012 map here to be a little more honest about the

dynamic last time. michigan today, pennsylvania, you look at these states. none of them, none of them, was he close before the fbi revelation. we'll see if something changes after. >> is the path to 270 any easier for him now? >> that's the question. we're waiting for more poll data, but let's switch to the map that matters, the one that gets to you 270. and as of today, we have hillary clinton across the finish line, unless she loses something. unless she loses one of these states we have shaded either dark or light blue, hillary clinton will be the next president of the united states. so if you're donald trump, you're looking at these toss-up states. i'm not saying he will win these, i'm saying if he wins these. clinton this is she'll win nevada, but let's say trump wins it. hillary clinton was leading in the last public poll in arizona. let's say trump wins these. florida's close. north carolina's close, although she's ahead. ohio's very close. even if donald trump wins them all, it only gets him to 264, anderson. that is why he's going to these blue states. if he pulls that off, which is

like pulling off an inside straight flush in vegas, he still has to find something. you're going to look at michigan. as i said, that's probably more of a stretch. you're going to look at michigan, look at pennsylvania, and look at wisconsin. why? because virginia and new hampshire have proven a little tougher. he was in colorado, that one's been tougher. but if you're donald trump, and if you're perfect in the toss-ups, you've got to find something. that's why he's looking. >> you do know, john, my knowledge of poker analogies is as bad as my knowledge of baseball analogies, don't you? >> like winning the power ball? >> all right, thanks. paul begala, in terms of trump's road to 270, does -- to you, does it seem any different than it did three weeks ago? >> no, and this e-mail story department break today. it has been four days, that's not long in human life. but in the half-lives of this election, it's been assessed. and i think king is right. got to wait a few more days and see. but the early polls, by the way,

when asked, does this matter to you, some 63%, with others, 70% say, no. trump has an exceedingly difficult path to 270. that's because he's a first-time candidate. he doesn't know this. i give him a lot of slack. but it turns out, when you call women "fat pigs," you do badly in the women's vote. when you say latinos are rapists and murderers, you do badly with latinos. when you question the president's birth in america, you do bad with african-americans. he has brought this on himself. the reason he has almost no path to victory is because he's alienated almost all the voters you need to win. >> let me say this. paul's running a super pac. one big difference and immediate difference is that sheldon adelson has now come in with $25 million, which he has said is the minimum that he is going to contribute. but the other thing is, that has an effect on other big donors who have kept their money on the sidelines. so i think that effectively spending this new money that's going to come in in the next seven days will be a big factor that we'll see in the polls.

but it may take three or four days to germinate. >> kayleigh, i know you wanted to get a point in. >> yeah, with i wanted to say, as bad as donald trump is, the clinton campaign has done a fantastic job of trying to caricature him as being the worst person on earth. the millions and millions of dollars spent on advertising when donald trump has spent zero. he's still in striking distance in michigan. that's because this culture of -- >> where's he in striking distance in michigan? this whole show, when we've talked about this corruption and the fbi, this is what created donald trump. this is what created bernie sanders. >> bakari, to kayleigh's point, why wouldn't hillary clinton be farther ahead? >> i mean, that's a very interesting question. i had never really thought about, why isn't she farther ahead? because she doesn't have to win by 200 electoral votes. she doesn't have to get to 300. she has to get to 270, that's

it, and she's president of the united states. but one of the things i want to talk to that the congressman was saying, hillary clinton has $800 million a day to spend, plus a little bit more. that's not even including some of the super pac money and some of the other things, other resources that she's had. but she's also cultivated a ground game. i mean, people forget the data, the ground game. if you look at the field offices, the people that are making phone calls. i know donald trump is a novice. this is when you have to take a step back and say, look, we have to get people around us -- >> john, do we have a sense of numbers? do we have any idea what kind of field operation versus donald trump? >> if she -- well, the republicans say they have this operation, i'll believe it when i see it, in the sense when you talk to people, you talk to state parties. the governor of ohio voted for john mccain today? is his state party doing everything it could do to help donald trump? no. if donald trump writes himself a check, if donald trump brings in more money, i suspect he's raising more money online after this fbi e-mail story. i bet trump supporters are giving him money. where the money is important now, and if hillary clinton wins

a close election, it may be because she disappeared in august and let donald trump get closer and raised all that money. each campaign has a list of voters. big data has changed. this is not -- >> you made this point friday. if you could just repeat it, because i find it -- it taught me something -- >> politics is not the way it used to be when i started doing this 30 years ago, when paul started doing it 310 years ago. campaigns now have a list of voters. this is public record. they know how many they need to win. and they get in touch with them. and they know if you voted early and they can come back at you if they didn't vote -- >> but you were also pointing out, they target -- >> they score you and give you a number. and if you were a trump supporter -- kayleigh, i'm sorry, if kayleigh mcenany was a trump voter and the "access hollywood" tape made her say, i can't do it, and she said she was going to vote for clinton and the clinton people identified you, you're in the database but listed as a soft supporter. so they try to get you and then they go after the bernie sanders supporters and those college-educated white people who might go back --

>> let john finish. >> but they have that database and they will look at it every single night. you were talking about the fbi people having pizza. guess what, democrats and republicans in campaign offices all over america are going through their list, who voted today? and then they go back out tomorrow. if the republicans can do what they promised to do, we'll see. >> this is why early voting matters. and this is why organization matters. if you go to a hillary clinton rally, and i'm sure you've been, they take people from the rallies to the -- to vote. >> correct. >> they are organizing on the spot. it's not as obvious at trump rallies, and it's just a different level -- >> but the trump people will say, look, our people are waiting for 12 hours out in the rain, and in the cold. >> i have no doubt the people at trump rallies are going to vote. >> gloria and john do have a -- one thing president obama did

exceedingly well, and republicans were behind in the times on this, is not only did he microtarget, he used social media to do so. i remember seeing a story about how he would actually reach to voters in certain counties in ohio, and say, hey, i know you care about manufacturing, go tell your neighbor, go told your union to go out and vote. it was microtargeting that infiltrated social media. and the rnc has tried to up the game, up the game, and i hope that they have. because that is important. >> but hang on. if you drive a certain kind of car, they know who you're more likely to vote for. >> but they also get -- it's not just them directly calling you, like after a while, they won't bug you, they'll get your pastor to do it or -- >> a smart campaign. and some republican campaigns do this, too. i don't want to give all the credit to the democrats, but at the presidential level, the democrats have kicked the republicans in the you know what the last two cycles. we'll see if they can recover. yes, the campaign will call you, but then they realize you're not responding. so they'll have the small businessman up the street where you go for coffee in the morning, they'll have your

pastor come to your house, they'll get local people who you might listen to more than a political -- >> we've got to take a break. we're really over time. just ahead, the man at the center of all the drama -- oh, hello. a quick zoom there. james comey, the moments that forged his reputation. we'll be right back. more "stay" per roll. more "sit" per roll. more "who's training who" per roll. bounty is two times more absorbent. so one roll of bounty can last longer than those bargain brands. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty. the long-lasting quicker picker upper. and try bounty napkins.

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over the past 72 hours, donald trump has been commending fbi director james comey for announcing that his agency would be reviewing e-mails, potentially related to hillary clinton's private e-mail server. >> it took guts for director comey to make the move that he made, in light of the kind of

opposition that he had with trying to protect her from criminal prosecution. >> it's a major change in tune for donald trump, who has spent weeks, as you know, slamming comey for not recommending criminal charges against clinton. here's what he said earlier this month. >> one of the worst things i've ever witnessed, as a citizen of the united states, was last week, when the fbi director was trying so hard to explain how she got away with what she got away with. because she should be in prison. >> well, this is not the first time that james comey has been in the spotlight. he was making headlines even before getting the top job at the fbi. gary tuchman tonight reports. >> hi, state your name. >> i, james b. comey -- >> reporter: james comey became the seventh director of the fbi in 2013, in the beginning of president obama's second term.

>> so help me god. >> so help me god. >> congratulations, sir. >> reporter: but years before that, he became the number two at the justice department under president george w. bush and was a registered republican. although now he says he's, quote, not registered any longer. but in the past, he donated to both the mitt romney campaign in 2012 and the john mccain campaign in 2008. he also served as a counsel on the white water committee in 1966. but his reputation for fairness has been well known. when comey took over the fbi director spot from bob mueller, this is what mueller had to say. >> i have had the opportunity to work with jim for a number of years in the department of justice and i have found him to be a man of honesty, dedication, and integrity. >> reporter: comey gained a degree of fame for his role in one of the most dramatic incidents during george w. bush's tenure in the white

house. comey's boss, attorney general john ashcroft, was gravely ill in the hospital. two of president bush's top aides rushed there to try to get ashcroft to endorse a warrantless eavesdropping program. comey was acting attorney general while ashcroft was in the hospital. and when he found out about the plan, he rushed to the hospital and stopped it. >> i was very upset. i was angry. i thought i witnessed an effort to take advantage of a very sick man. >> reporter: the eavesdropping evident was not endorsed. he prosecuted members the mafia. >> we are here this afternoon to announce the unsealing of three separate indictments against 14 alleged members & associates of the gam beano crime family. >> reporter: and he prosecuted america's domestic diva. >> martha stewart is being prosecuted not because of who she is, but because of what she

did. >> reporter: back in july, donald trump tweeted, the system is rigged after comey's state regarding hillary clinton. >> no charges are appropriate in this case. >> reporter: but friday as the story was just break trump said this. >> it might not be as rigged as athought. right? right? the fbi -- i think they are going to right the ship, folk. i think they are going to right the ship. >> gary tuchman, cnn, atlanta. a lot to discuss. ginning me now is constitutional and criminal defense attorney paige paid. also james coal, former deputy attorney general of the united states. jim, you as well as former attorney general eric holder, other former doj officials signed an open letter. it read in part, his unprecedented decision to comment on evidence on what may

be an on going inquiry 11 days before an election leaves us astonished. explain why. >> he has a number of long standing policies that you policies. the long standing view is that you don't talk about investigations and even stronger when you are in an election season you don't say anything that has the potential at that impact on election. he violated both of those policies. that's the source of our astonishment. there are wild allegations going on about what he said and what he many. these are just the kinds of things that those policies were designed to stop. we now see the need for those policies. >> but hadn't he said to congress that, you know f there was something new to let them know about that he certainly felt he needed to, having told

congress he would update them. >> he did say that. whether or not he should have said that we can talk about it another time. the question is did he know there was something new to say? he doesn't know very much about these e-mails, he don't know whether they are particularly relevant to this case. he doesn't foe whether the fbi has already seen them. he doesn't know if it has anything to do with classification. he should have more knowledgeable about what he had before he went out and talked about it. >> paige, do comey's actions amount to an error in judgment? >> i don't think so. i think it's easy for former justice department lawyers to step back and play arm chair quarterback at this point. they were not in the hot seat. he had a very difficult decision to make. i think given the fact he had been so public about his initial decision not to pursue criminal charges it was his obligation to let congress know that that had changed. and what is happening now is

inconsistent with his earlier statement. jim cole is right, we can think was it appropriate to do that. >> should he have talked to congress, should he have gone public about the initial decision. but once he did that, i think he has the right to come forth and let people know he is looking into it again. i don't think he could sweep this under the rug and not mention it. he wasn't looking for this. he is not trying to investigate hillary clinton. i think the last thing he wanted to see were these e-mails dropped on his desk this close to the election. >> was it a mistake for comey in july to go as far as he did. >> i think it is. his role as was as the investigator and the head of the agency. he is supposed to make his recommendations to the justice department in a confidential way so they are not influenced by politics. they are not influenced by pandering to the press. and then the prosecutors are supposed to make that decision, which is what they did. but he started to short circuit that process by going public

back in july. then when he talked to congress there has been a long standing resistance by the department to talk about investigations to anybody, including congress, because you don't want politics to enter into those investigations. i think when he did this, i think the biggest problem that we have is he created hess own problem by making these pledges to talk. at that i want po he has to take a hard look at what he has done. i think going to the comments that were just made, once he says something about this, which i think there is a serious question whether he should have in the first place, he now owes it to the american people to give them the context, to give them the limitations of what it is that he knows and he doesn't know. and by not saying anything at this point he is creating much more of a problem. >> anderson i don't know how you -- >> do you think -- go ahead. >> i don't know how he could

possibly say anything more without first actually reviewing the e-mail. we now know they have a swb. they are indexing the eeming. they will eventually be reviewed. but i think it would be irresponsible for him to come out and try to describe any more details about the investigation. he has done what he can do. he has done what i think he had to do in letting people know he is going to look into this again. >> yeah, and it certainly seems he is not going to be saying anything more. jim cole, i appreciate you being on, paige paid as well. just ahead, president obama's react. so we have extra sets of eyes on our wells every day. because safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better. because safety is never being satisfied. people would ask me that we traveled,ntries what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic. so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i'm from all nations.

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today the president and michele obama hosted their last party on the south lawn of the white house. that does it for us. cnn tonight with don lemon starts now. october surprise. or is it? >> there is no pace here. >> this is cnn tonight. i'm don lemon. a defiant hillary clinton still leading in the polls in spite of e-mails that may or may not be related to her use of a private server. the fbi saying we are unlikely to find out before the election. but that's not stopping donald trump from saying this.