okay, so labor day is over. it's off to the races on this election, and it is getting tight. >> indeed. thanks for joining us, everybody. >> "america's election headquarters" starts now. thank you, jon and jenna. welcome, everybody. we begin with a fox news alert right now. we're waiting for campaign events from both hillary clinton and donald trump. and if some of these new polls we're seeing are right, it's anybody's race at this point. hello, everybody, i'm martha maccallum. live pictures from the swing states where the presidential candidates will take the stage moments away. it is post-labor-day and this race is very much on. clinton in tampa, florida today. donald trump is in virginia beach. the new numbers are these from cnn. they show donald trump ahead by two points. it is the first national poll that he has led in over a month.

he had a very rough period coming out of the dnc and then worked very hard to turn that around. look at these numbers. this is the independents, 49 to 29 for donald trump. that is something that has his campaign feeling pretty good today. live fox team coverage for you, mike emanuel standing by with the clinton camp in florida today. but first let's go to chief political correspondent carl cameron in greenwood, north carolina today, where trump will be holding a rally tonight. hi, carl. >> reporter: the donald trump world is very happy about that cnn number, it's perfectly timed. the labor day sprint now exactly nine weeks to election day. 63 days, and each day gets shorter and more consequential. more events, more battling back and forth, more tv ads filling the airwaves in the battleground states. and both candidates today focused on key battleground swing states, historically very important for republicans in

particular. donald trump starts the day out in virginia, a state that for years has been reliably voting for republican for president, but not so much now, hillary clinton has a fairly strong lead in some of the recent polls there. she's in florida today. both candidates talking about national security issues. she's in southern florida state university, not too far from centcom tampa area. she'll talk about how she wants to keep the country secure. donald trump will be talking about that in virginia, a state with a high population of military, active and retired. he'll come to north carolina, another key battleground state that trump really has to win. a loss in north carolina could set up a domino effect on election night that would not look good in the later time zones. marble th martha? >> thanks, carl. people are working on hard to shore up their votes. hillary clinton holding a rally in florida, a critical

battleground state, neck and neck with donald trump there. cnn correspondent mike emanuel joins us live from there, hi, mike. >> reporter: hi, martha. the interstate 4 corridor where tampa is situated will likely decide who will win the sunshine state in november. for the second day in a row on her plane, hillary clinton answered reporter questions after taking a great deal of heat about not being accessible to the traveling press. she sounded a little frustrated when asked once again about the clinton foundation. >> it doesn't matter how many times you ask me and how you ask me. these issues will be decided after the election. and we will decide the appropriate way forward. when i became secretary of state, the clinton foundation, a world renowned charity, went above and beyond anything that had ever been expected if any charity disclosing every donor. we have 330,000 donors.

nobody has ever, ever made that kind of disclosure. >> reporter: you made reference to the new cnn/orr poll. donald trump with a big lead among independents. and who would be more likely to be a strong leader, hillary clinton has a big lead on better temperament to be president, and who is more likely to have the skills to be commander-in-chief. she downplayed these polls earlier today. >> as to the poll, i pay no attention to polls. when they're good for me, and there have been a lot of them good for me recently, i don't pay attention. when they're not so good, i don't pay attention. >> reporter: speaking of florida specifically, the real clear politics average of recent polls shows a close race here in the sunshine state. hillary clinton with a 2.7-point lead over donald trump.

that suggests that the trump and clinton camps will invest heavily in terms of time and energy during the final nine weeks of this campaign. >> exciting time, mike, thank you. congress is back to school, so to speak, today, after having most of the summer off. this as house oversight committee jason chaffetz is back at work. he is seeking a review by a u.s. attorney amidst new calls for an independent investigation of hillary clinton's e-mail deletions, congressman chaffetz saying someone tried to block a congressional investigation by destroying evidence, amount to go obstruction of justice, he says. he points out that the company that maintained hillary clinton's private server deleted an archive of her e-mail despite preservation orders and a subpoena from congress, which is

troubling. good to have you with us, congressman, welcome. >> good to be with you, martha. >> people are sort of in two camps. some people believe this is over, that when jim comey stood up and said we didn't find any reason to indict, that ended the issue. and others, like congressman chaffetz and yourself, no doubt, believe -- >> well, remember, when asked if she had wiped her server clean, she said, with a cloth? it wasn't a cloth, it was a hammer and bleachbit. we learned in early march, "the new york times" reports she had a separate server. preservation order is put in place, and the documents are then destroyed, by someone who we don't even know his name,

someone from plat river networks. this is interesting, the destruction takes place after a conference call between secretary clinton's legal team, david kendall, cheryl mills, and platte river networks. sometimes after that conference call, information that is destroyed that is under subpoena and preservation order. that calls for more investigation, more looking at this, because it's absolutely wrong. >> it seems a number of entities have decided to drop this, including the fbi. congress is dogged in continuing to dig here. here is what hillary clinton said when asked about this. >> i've been on the senate armed services committee for years before i was secretary of state. i take classification seriously. the fact that i couldn't remember certain meetings, whether or not they had occurred, doesn't in any way

affect the commitment that i had and still have to the treatment of classified material. >> your response to that? >> well, if she takes it seriously, how does she not even know that "c" is for classification, versus a letter of the alphabet? everybody knows she didn't take it that seriously based on what we've discovered. all the e-mails that were work-related, she testified to me in the benghazi hearing last october that she had turned over every work-related e-mail, and they erred on the side of being inclusive and turned over to the government what they could. we know that's not true, there were 17,000 e-mails that were not returned to the taxpayers, to the government. the other interesting thing, martha, from the latest we've learned from the fbi, we now have two individuals who have taken the fifth. we knew bryan pagliano took the fifth last year, he's the guy who set up her server situation, who worked for the state department. we now have a guy on the other

side of the equation who worked for platte river networks who also took the fifth. we don't know his name, it was redacted, but he asserted the privilege as well, would not answer the question about the conference call with clinton's legal team, did he destroy the documents. he wouldn't answer that question. two people directly tied to this e-mail server situation who have taken the fifth, one for the government and one for platte river networks. i think that's telling as well. >> how are you going to move through this process? what's your next step? do you think you'll get anywhere? >> we need to know who this guy is from platte river networks. when he assume he asserted his fifth amendment privilege, we don't know. we need to know who he is, maybe he'll assert some privilege again, maybe his fifth amendment privilege in front of us, but we need to bring him in front of the committee. >> i keep going back to the fact, in remembering the day that hillary clinton stood before the cameras, and she said, i had one blackberry for

convenience. i know that was a mistake, but i had one blackberry, i did that for convenience. we now find out she had 13 back berries and they were destroyed either through bleachbit or with hammers. it paints an entirely different picture that she really has not answered that question. >> it was cloth, it was a hammer and bleachbit, 13 devices, she said she had one. one of the many false statements she made, some of them under oath before a congressional commit last october. no other american could get away with this. and just because you're secretary of state, major nominee for president, former first lady, former senator, you shouldn't get away with it either. >> the fbi has said that she didn't make any comments that they believed, you know, were inconsistent. yet that is just so hard to believe, given what they released on friday from these notes from this interview. a lot of big questions out there, and you guys are trying to track them down.

thank you very much, congressman, good to have you with us today. >> take care. donald trump's next appearance in virginia beach today, and hillary clinton in tampa, florida. no, the other way around. donald trump in tampa, hillary clinton in virginia beach. former president bill clinton getting big bucks to serve as an honorary chancellor at a for-profit university. a look inside the $18 million deal he made with them and the reporter who helped break the story, when we come back. you both have a perfect driving record. until one of you clips a food truck. then your rates go through the roof. perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance. i'm terhe is.at golf. but i'd like to keep being terrible at golf for as long as i can. new patented ensure enlive has hmb

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all right. we're back. virginia beach is where we find donald trump right now.

he's holding a private event at this hour, not so private, actually, there's a camera there, in virginia, an area with plenty of military voters. he's expected to speak about military issues. general flynn is there as well. let's listen to a little bit of this to get the flavor of it. >> it's been really praised by the veterans and veterans' groups. the va, the veterans administration, the waiting and all the problems, you do have some good doctors but people can't get in to see the doctors because the bureaucratic workings of the veterans administration are a total disaster. you know all about the rate of suicide and all of the problems, numbers that honestly are not even believable when you hear 22 people a day, 22 people a day, these are numbers that you wouldn't even think are believable. and a lot of it is because of the fact that they can't get better, they have no service

whatsoever. it's been really badly handled. one of the things i've done is we allow, when that wait is so long and so horrible, and by the way, sometimes a simple procedure or a simple prescription, a simple thing, can make a person's life wonderful health-wise, and they can't get to see the doctor. we have a plan where you're going to leave, go across the street, down the road, or a few miles away, you're going to see a doctor, a really good doctor, you're going to get taken care of 100%, or you're going to go to a local hospital, whether public or private, you'll get taken care of, and your government is going to pay your bill, and you're going to all set. it's going to be very good, very simple. [ applause ] >> that's a promise, that's great. should have been done a long time ago. and along that line specifically, because you talked about this with female veterans, think this is very important because of the size, the scale

of the number of females we have in our military serving as volunteers, talk a little bit about what you have described as how you would take care of them. >> the female veterans have been like the forgotten people. and i think it started because it was, you know, obviously a while ago, there were far fewer. and they haven't increased that capacity. and now you have tremendous numbers of female vets. and we are going to do procedures that they've never done. we are going to help the female veteran. they have not been helped. they've really been left behind. even more so than our male veterans, they've been left behind. it's just not going to happen. we're going to straighten it out. if things aren't being done right, they'll have the right to go to a local doctor or physician, a local hospital. again, whether it's public or private, whichever one is most convenient, whichever one is better, and they'll get themselves taken care

whether it's male or female. and that's so important. the other issue that's so important is mental health. because the mental health problem is such a massive -- it's a such a massive problem in the va. and that's something we're going to devote a tremendous amount of time to. it's not just amount of money. the money they're spending is a huge amount of money that they're currently spending. but they're people that are incompetent in the va. and they have people that are stealing. if you look at phoenix and what's gone on in phoenix where they can't even fire the people, they found people that are stealing and found people that are very dishonest, they can't even get rid of them. all of that is going to change. you're going to be so proud of what we'll have. you'll take it and you'll be so proud of it, believe me. [ applause ] >> and just to highlight, one of the things that you have talked about is accountability of the

people that are serving our veterans in the veterans administration and the veterans administration system, the whole system. and i think that for all of us, accountability is probably something, not just in the veterans administration but in government as a whole. we'll switch topics and talk about some of the refugee policies now that we see bubbling underneath us here, coming into the united states. what do you think of hillary clinton's policies and how do they differ for your own? >> look, she's a disaster in so many ways. [ cheers and applause ] i don't even -- i don't really even think she believes it herself. she was brought so far left. she was brought so far left by bernie and the group. and i think we're going to get a lot of the bernie people because of trade, if you want to know

the truth. a lot of the bernie people are coming with us. the one thing he was right about is the fact that our country is being ripped off like never before on these trade deals that are disasters. nafta has been a disaster for the united states, it's destroyed our country. and that's one thing he got right. and a lot of people liked him because of trade, more so than anything else. but when it comes to immigration, first of all, she thinks that everything is more or less fine. she wants to allow 650% increase over and above what obama is allowing to come in from syria and the middle east. 650%. he's already allowing thousands and thousands of people in. and we don't know where they're coming from. you people know because we're military people. we don't know where they're coming from. you see the damage that one person can do. you just have to look anywhere. you see the damage that whether it's an orlando or whether it's

two people that just got married or they're married and they're, you know, from san bernardino. you see san bernardino, they're getting thrown a party, a shower party or a baby party, and then a short while later they go and kill 14 people in the group. look, we got problems, folks, we have to figure it out. if we don't figure it out, we have to be careful and vigilant and strong. she wants to allow a 550% increase. you know, it's very interesting, i was saying she wants to allow 500% more coming in from that region. and the press said i was wrong. i said, oh, what's the real number? 550. it's true, they said i wasn't wrong. >> you lowballed it. >> as long as they can prove you wrong, they're happy. 550% increase of people coming from syria and that part of the world. we can't do it. i want to build safe havens, and we'll have other people build them, we'll have other people

fund them. we'll lead the charge. barack obama has doubled during his fairly short period of years, he's doubled our national debt. doubled it. it's going to be close to $20 trillion when he leaves. $20 trillion. so we have to get rid of at least a good portion of that. so we're going to have other people. we're going to have the gulf states pay for this. because we're going to build safe havens. look, we all have big hearts. we just can't allow these people in our country until we find out what's going on. we can't do it. we can't do it. [ applause ] >> and i think that also, as you have said, that they also impact our health care system. they impact all the other costs. it's very, very important. you have illegal immigrants, i hate to say this in this room, you have a lot of vets in the room, but you have illegal immigrants that she wants and he wants treated better than veterans. these people are treated better than people that are in this

room. you know it. they are treated better than veterans. and let me tell you, folks, that he got their priorities mixed up. that's going to change so fast, okay? it's going to change. [ applause ] >> we have a couple of people, by the way, mayor rudy guiliani of new york. what a great -- stand up, rudy. [ cheers and applause ] rudy. they love him. do we love what he did. he took a city that was a disaster. he took new york city and he made it great. think of it, made it great again, right? he made it great again. rudy, great to see you. and eric trump's wife laura is here. she's done a fantastic job. [ applause ] >> laura's been working very hard, in particular in north

carolina, but helping also with virginia. we have some people in virginia, mike rubino and the group, they've been amazing. hopefully we can get everybody registered, because virginia is a very important state. we have to win virginia. thank you. okay. >> so speaking of disasters, the iran nuclear deal. iran has -- i mean, we're talking about putting nukes into the hands of an ayatollah that says death to america, death to israel, and they continue to fire ballistic missiles all the time in violation of this deal. iran has engaged in growing hostilities, has increasingly shown it continues to have nuclear ambitions. as president, what are you going to do about iran? >> first of all, if you look at the policies of hillary clinton and barack obama, they have created what will be a world power, they're talking about a regional power, it's going to be a world power.

they have become rich. they have become powerful. the deal is one of the most negotiated deals of any kind that i've ever seen, if you look at it. how about the $400 million in cash that we gave them flown in, obviously for hostages. that was the big lie also, just like obamacare was a big lie, this was a big lie. [ applause ] and think of it, $400 million in cash. and they kept the hostages. remember, it had nothing to do with the hostages, but the hostages weren't allowed to leave the airport until such time, and then they came. who ever heard of $400 million in cash, different denominations, different countries, they want money from different countries. who even has the power to authorize something like this? so what we've done is created a monster. we've created in three years,

four years, if you look at -- if you take a look at iran from four or five years ago, they were dying. they had the sanctions, they were being choked to death. and they were absolutely dying. they weren't even going to be much of a threat. they didn't have anything going. now they're a power, we've made them a power overnight. number one, they're highly threatening to the state of israel, they are so bad for israel. obama has been so bad for israel. but they are a great threat. and they're a great threat to us. they're going to have nuclear weapons. this path in my opinion is going to be a quicker path to nuclear weapons. the deal is grossly incompetent. i don't know if you saw the other day, they have the little boats going out, they're making horrible gestures, they studied the united states and gave those gestures to our sailors and our captains on the boats. oh, boy, i bet those guys wanted to blow them out of the with regard to, i bet you, i bet you

they wanted to blow them out. [ applause ] and so you see these four little boys circling, circling, going around, taunting, taunting. it's like they've been emboldened. we've made a deal that's such a great deal for them and they feel power. remember the ten sailors who were a little bit off, they were in the water. instead of saying, hey, you're in our water, please go over there, they humiliated our country. they humiliated those ten people. and the only reason we got them back, of course you would have gotten them back very fast if i was president, i can tell you. the only reason -- [ applause ] the only reason we got them back was the payment the following day was due. a lot of the money the following day was due. and stupid they're not. and they wanted to get that. just think of what's gone on, here we are, we made them a

power. and we also happen to have given them iraq because iraq, i always say, iraq and iran were very similar militarily, and they fight, fight, fight, then rest. they would fight, fight, fight, then saddam hussein would do the gas, somebody else would do something else, then they would rest. we knocked out the one. iraq has some of the greatest oil reserves in the world. so iran is going to get whatever isis doesn't already have and probably take that too, by the way. what we've done to create a major, major power through really stupid leaders, stupidity, is just shocking. it's one of the dumbest deals i've ever seen. john kerry is a terrible negotiator. [ applause ] but don't forget, this was a deal, this was a deal that hillary clinton wanted. she wanted this deal. this was a very important deal. and she wanted that deal.

and most people don't even get it. normally you understand a deal, you say, yeah, i understand, we get this -- we get nothing. we get nothing. this was a deal at the highest level of incompetence, the deal with iran was at the highest level of incompetence. we'll solve that problem if i get the chance, believe me, and if i get the chance, you'll be happy, you'll be very happy. [ applause ] >> and just to remind everybody, iran is still designated by the united states state department as the leading state sponsor of terrorism. and we've put them on a path to a nuclear weapon. press amazing what we've done. staying in the same region, because this is something that all of us that have served in the armed forces over the last 15 years have been a part of, fighting al qaeda in iraq, now fighting isis. and isis continues to expand

their operations. they have this caliphate that they've established in syria and iraq and they've launched attacks throughout the west, latest count was somewhere between 22 and 25 countries that they have launched attacks in in probably the last two to three months, resulting in 17,000 casualties around the world, a stunning display of capability by isis. what is your response to isis? what do you believe we should be doing? >> first of all, it wouldn't have started if we had proper leadership, because what happened -- [ applause ] we shouldn't have been in iraq. but we shouldn't have gotten out of iraq the way we got out. where literally they announced we're going to leave by a certain date. the enemy couldn't even believe it. actually a lot of people thought it was a little bit of a deception, because they couldn't believe anybody would say it. it turned out to be true.

and we should have left a small force, relatively small force, as much as i didn't want to be there, we should have left a small force. really isis just evolved out of all of the turmoil, the weakness, the stupidity, the decisions from hillary clinton and barack obama. isis started off in a small area. now i read the other day they're in 28 different states or nations. 28. think of it. they're spreading rapidly. a report came out where they were told within the government that they wanted to minimize isis. the fact is they know it's gotten very much out of control. and we have to do and about -- we can't allow the chopping off of heads, the drowning of people in steel cages, the viciousness, the violence, we have to knock out isis, we have to knock them out good. we have to get countries that are affected by isis. a lot of people say as an example, russia. hillary likes to play tough with

russia. putin looks at her and he laughs, okay? he laughs. [ applause ] putin looks at hillary clinton and he smiles. boy, would he like to see her. that would be easy. because just look at her decisions. look how bad her decisions have been, virtually every decision she's made has been a loser. wouldn't it be nice, honestly? because russia, russia doesn't like isis any better than we do. wouldn't it be nice if we actually got along with russia and we could knock them out together, as opposed to tough talk? she tries to do the tough talk and then she leaves. i watched it yesterday on the airplane, talking tough about russia. then she turned around and sat down. which wasn't even played on the national media, wasn't that incredible? it wasn't even played. so we have to get along with people. we have to get along with certain nations, very importantly, because it would be awfully good to have russia and

others with us on major attacks on isis. [ applause ] >> and to stay on isis a little bit, because i think this is an important topic, and it's certainly one of the national security threats that our country faces today. you have described at times different components of a strategy, military, cyber, financial, and ideological. can you just expand on those four a little bit? >> that's it. cyber is becoming so big today, it's becoming something that a number of years ago, a short number of years ago wasn't a word. now the cyber is so big. and, you know, you look at what they're doing with the internet, how they're taking recruiting people through the internet. and part of it is the psychology, because so many people think they're winning. and, you know, there's whole big thing. even today's psychology, where cnn came out with a big poll that trump is winning. it's good psychology, you know.

it's good psychology. [ applause ] >> i know that for a fact because people that didn't call me yesterday, they're calling me today. that's the way life works, right? but i think we're doing very well. and i really thank the state of virginia. so many places have been so incredible. i thank you very much. but cyber has been very important. it's becoming more important as you look. a lot of it does have to do with ideology and psychology and lots of other things. we're in a different world today than we were in 20 years ago and 30 years ago. one of the biggest problems or one of the reasons we have to knock 'em out is because the p weaponry is so powerful today. in the old days we would have said, we have rifles, we shoot them, they have uniforms, we have uniforms. this is a whole different war. the weaponry is so powerful. and we have to beat them over there. we're allowing people to come over here.

we're allowing, think of it, you're military people, we're allowing people to come over here. and, you know, i used to watch the migration. i would see people with cellphones. i would say, where do they get cellphones? some of the people had horrible things on their cellphones including the isis flag. you say, what are we doing? what are we doing? we're allowing people to come here. and we don't know, do they turn on us? are a small percentage of them bad? because if a small percentage is bad, that's not acceptable. that's not acceptable. we can't take the risk. [ applause ] general, the bottom line is we have to get very tough and smart or we're not going to have a country left, i can tell you right now. [ applause ] >> and staying in the same region of the world, because there's so much going on, and it is just unraveling in front of

our eyes, there's been a bunch of different discussion about what to do with assad. do you support regime change in syria? >> look. we have a problem. it's called isis is fighting syria. now we've built up iran to be a big power. iran is on the side of assad, syria. russia is on the side of assad, syria. so we build these people up, we created this strong power in iran which seriously, folks, you know better than anybody, four years ago they were dying. they were gasping for air. and all we had to do is let them sit for a little longer, in fact double up your sanctions. you could have really negotiated a deal. how kerry never left that deal is incredible. everybody knew it was bad. they're dancing on the streets all over iran. literally, they're all celebrating, you know, shouting death to america, the dumb

americans. what they're saying is incredible. they're saying death to israel. this is in the middle of the negotiation. if i had a negotiation like that, i would say, let's check this negotiation, something's not going very well. we just kept going right through. he never left the table once. if he would have left that table and said, i'm sorry, you guys. first of all, we should have gotten our hostages back before we started the negotiation, okay? 100%. [ applause ] and we should have said very nicely, with respect, sorry, folks, until you do it -- and then you leave the room. because they're going to say no, we're not giving your hostages back. then you get up, you leave, you get back to the plane, double up the sanctions. they're going to call you before you get back to washington, turn the plane around in midair, the hostages are yours, not the $400

million. believe me. and it's 100%. it's not like 99%. it's 100%. you leave, you say very nicely, i always tell -- you know the story of my father, who was a very good negotiator. he taught me so much. he would say -- are you listening to this, ivanka? he would say, son -- he thought i was too tough with things. he said, son, take the lumps out, my father, fred. >> take the lumps out. donald trump, as he is speaking to the crowd there in virginia today. we want to go to our guests here, simon rosenberg, president and founder of the new democrat network and a former campaign adviser for bill clinton, and alex connant, a former consult ant for mitt romney. we watched hillary clinton's introduction moments ago and we'll go to her in just a moment. i want to get your thoughts,

donald trump, the candidate, post-labor-day, that we're seeing today. simon, let me start with you. >> insuring. look, i think the race has gotten more competitive, everybody expected that. he's starting to get back recalcitrant republicans who had resisted coming to him. i just watched that whole interview. the thing most disappointing to me about donald trump and foreign policy is he had multiple opportunities to criticize russia. why he continues to view them as our ally and friend is one of the great mysteries of this campaign. >> alex? >> if i was on the clinton campaign right now and watched the trump interview, i would be very worried about the debates. trump came across as informed, came across as somebody who has studied up on the issues. he was poking holes in the obama/clinton foreign policy record which is a disaster.

that's what he needs to do if he's going to be successful, not only in the debates but in the elections. that's why his poll numbers have slowly improved, he's staying on message and putting him in these sorts of settings, very start by his team. >> he was talking to the veterans initially, and he was talking about illegals entering this country. he said they're treated better than you are, veterans of our own country, an idea that clearly resonated with this crowd in military-heavy virginia. he also talked about the iran deal. he said the $400 million that we gave them was a big lie. he talked about what he saw as a terrible deal that we made with iran. all of this, as you point out, alex, is information that you can easily see him going to in these debates. it does give the clinton team a little bit of a window into the studying that he has done and where he's going to be coming from in these debates. he's talking about putin, i don't think he actually believed that they were on our side, simon, but what he was saying

was if we could get on the same side, and you can debate for a long time whether or not that could ever be possible, but he believed that that could be a powerful first fuful force aga. when you look at the latest polls in virginia, the overall has hillary clinton up by five points. but the most recent numbers that come in september 1st, now we're in the first week of september, the september 1st numbers are starting to show a much narrower margin in virginia. those come from the middle of august. gentlemen, stand by. let's dip into hillary clinton and listen a little bit to what she is saying today on the stage in florida. let's watch. >> that's why you'll read what i want to do in here. we're going to try to make community college free. we're also going to have apprenticeship programs. i'm going to give a tax credit to any company that is willing

to pay a young person while that young person is learning the job at the same time. [ cheers and applause ] so infrastructure, advanced manufacturing, clean renewable energy. we can do this. we are living off the investments that our parents and grandparents made. it's time for us to step up and build america's future. and let's make it fair while we do that. that's why i've said we're going to emphasize the importance of small businesses. right now small businesses are having a tough time. in florida and across america, getting access to credit, right? and getting the kinds of regulations and overlapping expectations and standards that don't really make sense. i want to make it clean and clear, and i particularly want young people with an idea for a small business, to feel like they can do it. so i have proposed a moratorium

for three years on student debt so you can actually get a business off the ground, get it started, make your future. [ applause ] i also believe we should raise the national minimum wage. anybody working full time should not be working in poverty. and finally, let's guarantee equal pay for women's work, which will raise familiar income. [ cheers and applause ] anyone who is willing to work hard should have enough money to raise a family. did any of you watch the democratic convention? i don't know if you saw these two young people, 17 years old from kansas, young man, young woman, went to the same high school, about to be seniors, get a summer job, working in a pizza restaurant in their hometown. they're pretty excited. i remember when i had what i

thought of as my first real job, not baby sitting, not knocking around, but a real job where i had to show up someplace, get a paycheck. that was pretty exciting. the young man, young woman, where at our convention. here is the story they told. they were talking together one day after work with each other. the young woman said, you know, i'm excited because i think i'm actually going to be able to save some money for college making $8 an hour. her friend, the young man, looked at her and goes, i'm making $8.15 an hour. and the young woman said, well, you couldn't have any experience before this job doing this, did you? he said, no, you know i didn't. she said, well, what do you think happened? it must be a mistake. so they together, and i give the young man a lot of credit, good guy, right? they go to tell the manager that

there's been a mistake. they're doing exactly the same job. he's making 15 cents more an hour. what happens? the manager fires them both. a and you know what? that's legal. if you find out about somebody else's salary, even if you're doing exactly the same job, you can be retaliated against, including being fired in most places. when i say let's have equal pay and some people i see looking quizzical at me, of course you have to have equal pay. well, yeah, if you're in the military and the pay scale is set, or you're in the government and it's set, or you're under a union contract and it's set. but if you're in the vast majority of jobs in america, you have no idea whether you're being paid fairly. so we cannot let that continue. that's wrong in america. if you're doing the job, you deserve to get the pay. [ applause ] and so how are we going to fund

this? i'll tell you. we're going where the money is. we're going to the people who have made the money in the last 15 years. we're going to the top 10%, the millionaires, the billionaires. they're going to have to start paying for supporting our military, supporting our education system, supporting our health care system. [ applause ] there could not be a bigger contrast between what i've proposed when it comes to taxes and what donald trump has proposed. he actually has proposed giving trillions, and i mean that with a "t," trillions in tax cuts to big corporations, millionaires, billionaires, and wall street money managers. that would not only explode our national debt, it would lead to massive cuts in education and health care, and many of his

proposals would really benefit his own family, but do nothing for the remaining 99 plus percent of americans. and in fact independent analysts have said this. they've looked at our plans. he doesn't have much in the way of plans. but they've looked at what he's said and they've concluded if we did what trump is recommending, we would lose 3.5 million jobs in four years. if we do what i'm recommending, we stand to gain over 10 million jobs in the next four years. >> all right. we'll keep listening and let you know if there's more news from here. clearly both candidates in very important places right now. hillary clinton in tampa, florida. donald trump still speaking to the crowd, a veterans crowd in virginia this afternoon. going to bring back in our panel, simon rosenberg, former campaign adviser for president bill clinton.

alex conant, political consultant with firehouse strategies. also joining me is charles payne, host of "making money with charles payne" on fox business network. welcome to all of you. charles, interesting to hear sort of the lines of thought from each of these candidates. donald trump speaking to veterans, speaking about isis, speaking foreign policy, and hillary clinton talking about equal pay today. >> it is interesting, and i think this is probably going to be a line where both of them are looking at where they want to shore things up. veterans obviously a strong point for donald trump. but overall, interesting enough, when it comes to strong leadership, he generally ranks higher than hillary but when it comes to foreign policy, he doesn't. he's trying to shore it up to the people who would be most critical of it. hillary is trying to get back on the sort of bernie momentum. you listen to it, you talk about the pay gap, you've heard this a lot, between women and men. even ivanka has kind of talked about this. it could be a good thing for her.

the woman thing comes back into play, not necessarily vote for me because i'm a woman, but i'll be the champion of women. redistribution of money, and an economic policy that doesn't focus on growth but more redistribution, which tells me that she believes or the democrats believe that we've peaked, that this nation has somehow peaked so what we need to do from this point on is find a way to divvy up the spoils more evenly. >> let's bring simon and alex in. when you look at the recent polls that we just saw, one of the things that you note is the temperament issue. and hillary clinton has largely run her campaign over the last couple of months saying that donald trump doesn't have the right temperament to be president. that is still an issue for him. simon, is he going a bit of the way towards fixing that, as you watch him on the campaign trail over the past couple of weeks? >> as a democrat, i don't think so, because in part you heard him on immigration being all over the place. it was very hard to tell, he

said one thing one day, changed his mind the next day. and it showed that he's still struggling, i think, to get his arms around the enormity of this job. this is really hard, this is not like being a real estate guy in new not about being a real estate guy in new york. so i still think he's struggling on this and i welcome charles -- i know you and i have debated the economic issues on other shows here on fox. i think democrats are going to start talking more about the economy. i think that's one of the things you're seeing clinton doing today. that's going to be an evolution in our strategy. >> one of the obvious problems with that is where we've been for the past seven years. and when you look at the situation that the economy is in, it can be difficult for democrats to point to real strength and really recovery, although they do try to make that argument, alex. >> yeah, i think it's really interesting. so far, clinton's entire campaign has been one big attack on donald trump. she has not really laid out any sort of cohesive agenda for what she would do if she were elected president. i think the sound bites we just

heard from her event today in florida were interesting, because she was talking about her agenda, but it was so liberal. she's talking about raising taxes on the wealthy. and this is right out of the liberal playbook. and she's doing it because she needs to excite her base. the polls that came out today that showed trump doing much better shows that she has a real enthusiasm gap with trump. her voters are not excited about voting for her. that's why she's getting back to the liberal stuff, talked about an agenda, not tacking trump quite as much. i doubt that that will work. i don't think that her base is ever going to be excited about voting for her, but it will be interesting to see if it does. >> over the weekend, charles, donald trump was in detroit. he went with ben carson to see his childhood home and then they went to church together. do you think there's any upward ability for him among african-american voters? has he put a question mark into their minds to any extent, do you think? >> i think he's highlighted some

things already prominent in the black community that the media missed. if trump hit the scene playing the saxophone, things he did when he got into office angered al a lot of people. i think for the republican party, you cannot show up every four years with this kind of stuff. donald trump, once president obama gets on the campaign trail, he'll probably match mitt romney, but i think the gop probably needs to follow his lead, with a more sustained, every single year, all the time sort of campaign. make it more grassroots, because the black vote doesn't have to belong to democrats, but you're not going to change it overnight, that's for sure. >> yeah. simon, we did not hear much from hillary clinton today. it was mostly domestic based, and everybody picks their topic for the day, really, but we're hearing a hammering from donald trump on the way isis has been handled, the way iran has been handled. how much of a concern is that

for you, when you look forward to the debate environment, that that's going to be tough for hillary clinton. >> i don't think democrats view -- i think that democrats are not worried about the debates. i mean -- >> simon, one second. i'm being told we're hearing something from donald trump here about hillary clinton. let's listen to this for one sec. >> -- how about the acid wash of the e-mails that didn't mean anything? how about the 33,000 missing e-mails that were acid washed. acid washed. and rudy was telling me, nobody does it because it's such an expensive process. 33,000. these e-mails had to do with the wedding. i give that five. the wedding, and the other thing, of course, was the yoga classes, right? now, look, look, folks, this is, this is a very sad time, i'm

telling you, for justice in our country. this is a very sad time. i've never seen anything like this. never seen anything like this. i mean, go a step further. how about, i guess it was july 4th weekend, the interview take place on july 4th weekend with no taping, no tape recorder, no nothing. and right on the weekend, when the information that watching. they wanted was released on friday, before labor day weekend. friday afternoon. everyone's away. no, no, this is a very, very sad situation that's going on here. this is a very sad situation. i've never seen it like this. we're like a third world country. we're like a third world country. never seen anything like it. but on november 8th, we will cure this problem.

>> simon, obviously, this is a line of attack that he is going to play hard. does it resonate? >> i think what i was going to get to is i don't think democrats are worried about the substance of these debates. i think they're confident that hillary clinton can defend barack obama's record and lay out her agenda. i think we were nervous that trump was a very strong debater. he won many of the debates that happened in many of the republican primaries, he's an experienced television personality, he knows his way around this. he's unpredictable, right? so i think we're not going into this -- i think hillary is doing everything she can to prepare for debating this guy, this year >> and alex, he's clearly going to go down this road. i cannot imagine a debate on september 26th when he does not look at her and say, you know, why did you bleachbit this server when you told everybody that you just needed one device,

because it was convenient. there's a big gulf between those two ideas. >> that's right. not only will he prosecute that case, but i think lester holt, who's the debate moderator, will also ask hillary clinton about it. it will definitely be a topic. for the life of me, i don't understand why she doesn't is a full-fledged press conference and answer these questions once and for all, because they continue to dog her. her campaign, she thinks she's going to win, she's playing a pretty prevent defense, but a prevent defense only prevents you from winning. >> charles, look at the momentum of this race right now and scroll forward a bit for us. what is your take on where the country is on these two people right now? >> i think there's a big question mark, to be quite frank with you. and it's interesting you bring it up, because it's been noted the there have been these three-week cycles for both candidates, where they sort of come on and get this momentum and in hillary's case, i think it has been part and parcel prevent defense and i think they chopped it up to old school playbook. hey, not only prevent defense, but we're going to spend the

month of august when no one's paying attention and raise a ton of money and go as hard as we can in the last moments, hoping to swing the momentum again. this is probably going to end up being about momentum, or what you guys have already talked about, enthusiasm. you look at this cnn poll for instance this morning, among likely voters, where donald trump is beating hillary clinton. that likely voters, those are enthusiastic folks that are reflected in those huge crowds for donald trump, so he's gotta going for him. reconcilery's got to find a way to rekindle that. i think it's going to be an effort to make her look more human, more in touch with folks, and she's a policy wonk, but translate that into how maybe you help everyone else. we'll see. by the way, speaking for momentum, one thing to watch out for, we were talking economy. i did an extensive, exhaustive report. i just put it out today on my website, how the stock market and gdp sometimes can be a harbinger. and one thing people need to understand, the gdp doesn't have to be gangbusters for the incumbent party to win, it has to be better than the previous

year. the bar is pretty low. i'm looking for that october surprise and gdp to be 3 to 3.5% for hillary clinton. >> wow. you know, when you look at the sort of temperature in the country right now, alex, and you look at the right track, wrong track numbers, there's a feeling that this could be a change election, but donald trump would have to convince voters that he is a solid player. that he will be somebody who's fit to be in the office. how far has he gone in convincing them that, do you think, in the recent weeks? >> yeah, that's right. any republican running would be trouncing hillary clinton in this election right now, because she is so unpopular, and such a poor candidate, except donald trump. because so far, he has failed the judgment test in the eyes of voters. he has not convinced voters that he has the judgment to be president of the united states. that's the real challenge for him over the next two months. i think that's what today's event, last week's trip to mexico, that was all about trying to convince people that he's capable of being president. he's running out of time very quickly, and hillary clinton is spending a lot of money convincing voters that he's not

ready, reminding them of all of the dumb things he's said on the campaign trail. that's a real challenge for him. but at the same time, she has to give voters a reason to vote for her, and she has not done that, and quite frankly, i'm not convinced she's capable of doing that, which why at the end of the day, most americans don't like the two choices we have on the ballot this fall. >> it seems like she's gotten that message the past couple of days, because she's kind of coming out of her shell. she's spoken twice on her new campaign plane and she is getting out there more. we'll see if that continues. thank you to you all, gentleman, for being here. simon rosenberg and alex and charles payne. great having you with us. the campaign very much underway, everybody. labor day is behind us and we are 62 days away from election day. this is a train that is rolling down the tracks and we're going to be on it and following the whole thing throughout. thank you for being with me here today, everybody. i'm martha mccallum.

straight ahead is my friend, bill hemmer, who is standing by and in today for shepard. now, here's bill. good afternoon. thanks for being here. >> thank you, martha. today's fallout from benghazi. new released e-mails showing how clinton tried to manage a showdown on capitol hill. and the dozens of lawsuits now underway that could expose thousands of more documents ahead of the election. and a new survey showing donald trump in the lead and how both candidates are focusing hard on those swing battleground states, which might include texas. and the story of a murder suspect who broke his handcuffs, escaped from a locked room and stole a pickup truck to make his getaway. he's still on the run now. it's all ahead in the next hour, right here.