- [woman] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation and hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by klru's producers circle, ensuring local programming that reflects the character and interests of the greater austin, texas, community. - i'm evan smith. he's a familiar face on msnbc, a host and guest host of various shows, a political correspondent, and your one-stop shop for election night data and demographic analysis. he's steve kornacki, this is overheard. (applause) (light keyboard music) let's be honest: is this about the ability to learn or is this about the experience of not having been taught properly? how have you avoided what has befallen other nations in africa and elsewhere? not to say that he made his own bed, but you caused him to sleep in it. you saw a problem and, over time, took it on. let's start with the sizzle before we get to the steak. are you gonna run for president? i think i just got an f from you, actually. (laughter)

(applause) steve kornacki, welcome. - sure, thank you. - thank you very much for being here. i know that it is not fair to the rest of the country to say this, there are stakes in this election, but as journalists, this has been a great time, i mean, has it not? - it's been fascinating-- - amazing. - in the way that we thought a year-and-a-half ago we were getting the next clinton-bush race. - [evan] right, boring. - and then, after that, maybe clinton-scott walker, maybe clinton and marco rubio. nobody thought we'd be getting the clinton-trump race. and besides just the personalities, the interesting thing about donald trump is how much he has challenged about what we thought we knew about politics and what we thought we knew about what you need to do to run a successful campaign, and it's just been a fascinating political science experiment, if nothing else. - did you know much about him before? i mean, you do have the benefit of having reported extensively in the new york metropolitan area, as they say. so, what was your knowledge of him at the time? - well, yeah. so, i grew up in massachusetts, actually, and i think i was about nine years old, and for christmas one year, my aunt, who didn't know me too well,

needed to get me some kinda christmas gift and she got me trump, the board game. (audience laughs) - oh my god, it was a board game! oh my god! - probably 1990 or so, you know? - deport all mexicans, advance three spaces, right? (audience laughs) is that what it was? - it's a different iteration of trump. this one was a lot more the tabloid donald trump. but yeah, i actually never played the game, but it was one of those things that sat on the shelf 'til my family moved at the end of high school. we're like, "we don't need this anymore." i should've saved it, it would've been worth something. - but you've been one of the most expert reporters on the subject of chris christie and bridgegate. you know that area. so, you observed trump, if not from close-up, then at least with your nose pressed against the glass. - yeah, i mean, although, i think there's two periods of donald trump sort of as a public figure. and one was when he was a very present figure in the new york real estate and political worlds. that was the '80s, that was the early-'90s. and then, what happened was, obviously, the real estate market crashed, atlantic city got into all sorts of trouble, that's where he was leveraged pretty much to death down there.

and the new donald trump, the donald trump of the last 15 years or so, he has business holdings, he has some properties and stuff, but it's not like it used to be. he's not a political guy, until this campaign. he just existed as sort of the media's idea, the entertainment industry's idea of a rich new york guy. - but, of course, one interesting thing about his campaign is he is leveraging that '80s donald. he's leveraging the high-flying business success donald as the basis for his desire to be president. "i can do for you what i did for my businesses." but as you point out, it hasn't gone so great. - well, and what he's really leveraging, something we've never seen in sort of modern presidential politics, and it's 30 years plus, 35 years of just celebrity, of familiarity to people in some way or another, going back to the late-'70s, early-'80s, whatever generation you're in, and even somebody in their 20s right now who only knew the apprentice on nbc, whether it's somebody who goes back to the '70s and actually saw him build buildings in new york city, whether it's somebody who got the board game

when they were 10 years old, we had familiarity on some level with this character of donald trump. and i think there's all this conversation about did the media make donald trump? and in a way, obviously, this is a guy whose image was created not by the media in the last year-and-a-half, but by 30 to 40 years of the media. - that's a great point. the media may be the problem here, but it's not that we created donald trump in the last 16 months. - he is a creation of the media over the media age. - over 30 years. do you think that we've done, again, our industry, a pretty good job of calling him out at moments when he needed to be called out? - (sighs) i know this is probably not a popular opinion, but i think yes. i think donald trump, when he has said things, and this has happened an awful lot, when he has said things that have stepped outside sort of the traditional bounds of political conversation, that is something that's been flagged. i think, every time that has been, to the extent the media's able to challenge him on this have challenged him on it, have put it out there. i think there all sorts of issues with making contradictory statements.

i think they've been documented, i think the fact-checks have been there, and i think, honestly, people say the media has dropped the ball because it's a close presidential race, but take a look at it. he is the most disliked nominee of either party in american history. he emerged from the republican primaries with that. at a certain point, i think the question isn't, "how come people don't know all of this stuff about him?" it's, "well, they know all this stuff about him "and they're still voting for him." i think that, to me, is a more interesting question. - and i wonder if the extension of that or the flip side of that is we're not giving him enough credit. he ran against 16 people, including the governors of big states or the former governors of states. this is a guy who vanquished a very large and formidable field. nobody gave him credit for doing it or thought that he would it at the time, and why are we not celebrating the fact that he did something so extraordinary? - well, and he did something too, and this might've been accidental; i don't know that donald trump had a grand plan for this as much as he might've sort of stumbled into it. but he, at some point, read the republican party,

the base of the republican party, he read sort of the pulse of red america in a way that none of those other 16 candidates did. he understood what really animated them, what really motivated them, how to tap into it, in a way that all the consultants around jeb bush and marco rubio and scott walker, none of them had a clue, and donald trump tapped into that. and i think, again, understanding what that is, who that is, what's driving that, to me, that's the interesting question. - let's talk about that specifically before we talk about secretary clinton, the anger that's out there that he's tapped into or exploited. it has been said, and i certainly subscribe to this, that this is a middle finger election. bernie sanders was the middle finger of the left hand, donald trump is the middle finger of the right hand. trump and sanders actually had more in common with each other than maybe they did with some of their opponents in their primary field. \why are people so mad? you walk out in the world, i know that there are difficult times for some people, but surely this is not the worst time in the history of our country, and yet the level of anger directed at our political system is at least unprecedented, it feels like, in my adulthood.

- yeah, well, and i think there is more mistrust, there's more distrust right now of, what do you wanna call 'em, elite intuitions. - institutions. - right. and the media's certainly part of that, congress is certainly part of that, big banks, wall street, obviously, the meltdown, the bailouts, all of that. i think there's this sense that there's a lot of power, there's a lot of influence, there's a lot of shaping of the country, of the culture that's taking place, it's people feel who feel they're out of the conversation entirely. and i think there are people on the left who feel that way, and they gravitate towards bernie sanders. i think there are plenty of people on the right who feel that way. i mean, the interesting thing to me about donald trump is the message that's driven him, the message that's driven his campaign, has not been very ideological. it's been a lot more cultural. it's been a lot more about sort of grievances. it's been a lot more about resentment of the media, of media elites. - well, a lot people who disagree with him on the right are people who object to the fact that he is not ideological enough. - and look what was more powerful in the-- - he's not a legitimate republican, a legitimate conservative.

- and look what was more powerful in the primaries. because everybody, every republican consultant, every expert who was on tv for the last six years explaining what the tea party movement meant said, well, everything that ted cruz embodied in the primaries, it was what was supposed to be animating the conservative movement. and you put that on stage with donald trump, donald trump scrubbed the floor with him. - amazingly so. so, secretary clinton, we have known in various capacities over the years. we knew her as senator clinton, we knew her as the first lady, she has a long history of public service. president obama said at one point during this campaign, i mean, more than one time, "she's the most qualified person "ever to run for president "who's not a sitting vice president." weirdly, that doesn't seem to be enough. that's not a deal-closer, is it? - i've never thought that excites voters. "i'm qualified, i have a great resume, i have experience." political consultants over the years covering this stuff - i've never thought that excites voters. have told me the experience is gonna matter, the experience is gonna count. i have found very few voters i've encountered

who feel passionately about experience. - what is it on the democratic side of this conversation that motivates people? maybe it's the same thing as on the republican side, maybe it's more visceral. - in terms of the sanders side? - well, in other words, if qualifications are not enough to get people to rush to embrace her, what is the thing? - it's donald trump right now. it's, "hey, we gotta keep this country from being run,"-- - never trump. - "by donald trump." surely, i mean, there's some polling i saw the other day that asked clinton voters, "are you voting more for hillary clinton "or against donald trump," and it was basically split down the middle. i think it was 50 said they were voting for hillary clinton, in the high-40s said they're voting against donald trump. now, four years ago, if you asked that question about barack obama's voters, it was over 70% said, "i'm voting for obama." eight years ago, it was 82% said, "i'm voting for obama, "not against john mccain, not against the republicans." - so, it is possible, steve, in this election that the ultimate winner will really be the person who didn't lose, right? - yes, we're looking at somebody who's gonna have the votes of people who simply said, "you weren't as bad as the other one,"

and is likely to have, i think, less than 50% of the vote overall. - so, what happens on january 20th, when we have a new president who is instantly opposed, in theory or in reality, by more than half the country? are we screwed? - we're probably looking at a continuation of what we've had. - right. so, it's a little bit like obamacare. if you liked the last eight years, you can keep it, basically, right? - yeah, here's the wildcard in all this though. if hillary clinton gets in, and i think a lotta the psychology on the republican side we're all sort of trying to predict, what would a paul ryan do as the speaker of the house of representatives? how much leeway would he feel that he had? how much latitude would he feel he would have to sort of cut deals with a president clinton? - oh, they're gonna turn him into john boehner in about five seconds if he does, don't you think? - i would think so. i mean, i think what he was looking for though, and i think you've seen a few republican leaders who fall into this category, i put ted cruz into this category too, who were looking at this race in the middle of the summer, when ted cruz first refused to endorse donald trump and he made that show at the republican convention, he was thinking past the general election.

he was thinking, "hillary clinton is gonna win "and she's gonna win by such a margin "that after the election, "i'm going to look smart to republicans after the election "because i saw this disaster coming "and i separated myself from it "and i started to separate our movement from it." that was ted cruz's calculation. then, he woke up at the end of september and he's looking at polls that have hillary clinton only a couple points ahead and is looking at a conservative base that's saying to him, "hey, you're gonna be the reason we lose this thing." and he said, "well, i can't be the one "who gets blamed for it," so he comes around. i think paul ryan had been hoping for something similar to what ted cruz was hoping for, which is this ends up being not just a clinton win, but a big clinton win. - but not knowing the outcome of the election, isn't it possible that cruz made the wrong decision in endorsing, that this was the moment when people would be saying after november 8th, "what did you do during the war, daddy?" (audience laughs) so, hillary wins and the few of them, john kasich, who continues, even after ted cruz endorsed trump, to get on the trump train, ben sasse from nebraska, a couple of others around the country who've just said, "i'm not endorsing."

isn't it possible they would look smart and brave at the end of this and not pay a price? - so, it's possible, and i think they will, but it's also a question of, again, this election has sort of shown what we've seen for a while now, which is how divided the country is, how fragmented the country is, and how tribalized the country is. so, i think john kasich is gonna be a hero in sort of blue america after this election. john kasich could have a shot at the democratic nomination for all i know. (audience laughs) - but being the democrats' favorite republican is not always the thing you wanna be. - right, but what ted cruz saw, he didn't just see the polls tighten up with trump and clinton. what ted cruz saw was his own standing with republican primary voters nationally has dropped like 20 points since he put on that show at the convention. - has indeed dropped. all right, so you're the map guy. - all right. - john king used to be the map guy, move aside. you're the map guy. - (laughs) i'll let you say that. - of cable television, you're the map guy. all right, so be the map guy for us without a map to illustrate. it's not a national election, it's 50 state elections, agreed? national polls don't matter?

- well, the national polls matter. i don't think you're gonna have a national race where hillary clinton wins by five and is in danger of losing the-- - so, as we sit here today, there's a washington post/abc news poll out that has hillary clinton up two points, within the margin of error, effectively a tied race. the reality is the electoral map is not tied. - right. - right? the electoral map ultimately decides the election, not national polls. al gore would've been president if we had national-- - right, i think what i'm saying is when you get within about two points in the national polls, i think then just look at the electoral college. but if clinton were up or trump were up five, six points, you don't need the state polls 'cause the states will fall into line. - go through the map for us, again, without the map to illustrate what you're saying, narratively, and kinda give us a sense of where this is headed. - sure. so, look at it this way. the democrats have won, they're on a winning streak here of two straight elections. so, take the blue states that barack obama got in 2012, they add up to 332 electoral votes. the red states that romney got, they add up to 206. so, if you're donald trump, here's what you need to make happen if you wanna get to 270.

your first challenge is you have to lock down the red states, the romney states, those 206. he's in decent to very good position to do that in all but one state right now. the one state's north carolina, and north carolina looks dead even. and the problem that he has in north carolina, trump has two problems there. number one, obviously, he's made no progress when it comes to building non-white support, and north carolina's a state where almost a quarter of the electorate's gonna be black and he's gonna get blown out there. second problem he has is college educated suburbanites, especially in the research triangle area of north carolina. this is a group republicans traditionally win; he's in danger of losing. so, he's gotta lock down carolina, huge challenge. if he doesn't, i don't think he gets to 270. - but let me just stop you, there's another issue in north carolina that ultimately is not on trump, but he is a loser on this issue, and that is the whole fight over hb2 in north carolina, which has been a problem for the incumbent governor, mccrory, it's been a problem less so for the incumbent senator, richard burr, where you have this very controversial legislation that has caused the ncaa to pull out of north carolina.

that is actually motivating democratic voters. - but here's the funny thing, 'cause there's so much talk nationally about, and you've heard this, i'm sure everybody's heard this, donald trump's at the top of the ticket, what are the republicans underneath him going to do, because he's gonna be a drag on them? the polling in north carolina says the opposite's happening there. donald trump, right now, is outperforming pat mccrory, the governor. he's outperforming the senator running for reelection. so, he's actually getting better numbers there. so, to this point, donald trump, to the extent the republican party brand within the state of north carolina is being tarnished by this, that tarnish is not rubbing off on him to the extent it is on the others. - so, you're prepared to say, this is something, you're prepared to say that if he does not win north carolina, he doesn't get to 270? - i'm as prepared to say it definitively as i can say anything definitively, which is to leave myself some wiggle room. (laughs) (audience laughs) - and so, the fake, head fake, i should say, toward georgia or arizona, and to a lesser degree toward utah by the clinton campaign is just that, it's fanfiction. - it was also a product of the polling in the mid- to late-summer, when it did look possible.

you had to entertain the possibility then that we were heading towards our first landslide in a while. - [evan] it's not gonna happen, it's not gonna happen. - now, no. - okay, so he needs to hold the romney states. then what? - okay, then you start talking about what blue states can he win? and here's the key divide to keep in mind, you hear this a lot, it's that divide among white voters. college-educated white voters, think of suburbanites here, generally more economically upscale, more moderate on cultural issues, not as comfortable with trump on something like immigration. think of those voters on one side and think of non-college whites on the other side. it's more blue collar whites, economically downscale. in a lotta cases, they like trump's rhetoric, whether it's on immigration or whether it's just sorta that defiant posture towards the establishment. so, think of those two groups. trump is overperforming with the non-college whites, underperforming with the college whites. so, where does that help him? so, you think of a state like nevada, state like iowa, state like, at least in part, ohio, and a state, in part, it's a complicated state, but florida. those are places where he is helped among white voters by what he's doing.

so, he could add a nevada. so, look at it this way. if you're at 206 and you're donald trump, here's your path to 270. you add florida first, okay? it's a toss-up right now. add that, you're at 235. if you can add ohio, he's ahead right now in the average of polls, that puts you at 253, okay? then, you get nevada, he's slightly ahead there right now, that puts you at 259. if you can get iowa, and he's definitely ahead in iowa right now, you're up to 265. 265, you need 270. where else can you go? it looks like he's gonna get a single electoral vote out of maine. the rural congressional district in maine, one of two states that does this, is filled with exactly his type of voters. that puts you at 266. now, where do you go to to 270? a couple options. number one, they were hoping for new hampshire. new hampshire's one of those states where they're rural-- - it's not looking good, right? - right. and this is the problem for him. in the rural areas, he is doing better than republicans should. in southern new hampshire, which is essentially a boston suburb, he's getting blown out. he's not doing what the republican should do, i should put it that way. so, new hampshire looks iffy. they were hoping for pennsylvania. pennsylvania looks like it's going by the boards

because of the philadelphia suburbs. so, what state right now is the best single possibility for him? it's become wisconsin. and he's trailing in wisconsin, so i don't wanna oversell it, but if you're looking for that state with everything else we sketched out, that state that could be the tipping point state that the trump people are starting to recognize and even the clinton people, i think, to a degree, it's wisconsin. and wisconsin's one of those, i know the democrats have won it every election since '84. george w. bush came within three-tenths of a point in 2000, four-tenths of a point in 2004, so it has been close. scott walker's won there. - but scott walker's won three elections. - that's right, so this is a state, and also, you think of non-college white voters, exactly what i was just talking about, the demographic profile of wisconsin is not that dissimilar from the demographic profile of iowa. so, if you see trump overperforming in iowa relative to what mitt romney did, there's always been the possibility, and he's not the first republican to look at this, the possibility that wisconsin, there could be some fertile ground there for him. so, i think that's where they've gotta start looking. - but this is a three-carom bank shot, what you're talking about. - oh yeah, i don't oversell it.

- for him to win every one of those, i mean, he'd have to really run that table. - listen, again, i think the whole things falls apart if he can't win carolina, and i think carolina is, at best, 51/49 for him right now. - it's really becoming a problem. okay, so you did a very good job, by the way, with no map. (audience laughs) i've done it once or twice. (laughs) - that was excellent, that was good. (applause) also, i thought, as journalists, we didn't have to do math. you do math pretty well, which i wanted to say. (audience laughs) i wanna ask you about cable news. so, you were not a tv reporter from birth or even necessarily from your beginnings in this business. but you were a guest for a while, if i'm remembering correctly, regularly a guest on some of those programs, and then suddenly they bumped you up. - that's sort of it, yeah. i guess it's like coming through the farm system or something in baseball. (audience laughs) - how do you like it? you know, there was a period of time in our lifetimes, mine a little bit longer than yours, where going on television as a journalist was a death sentence or, at minimum, a step down in terms of the seriousness of the work that you did. but the world we live in is a different world.

- my introduction to it came actually, my first job in journalism, really sorta first professional job outta college was covering politics in new jersey. and i was covering it for, this was innovative at the time, a state-based online political news site, so there was no-- - you know, we oughta get one of those, actually, in texas. (audience laughs) - you might know a thing or two about that. - i'll get back to that, actually, yeah. - but yeah, no print product, and yet we were sort of dominating political coverage in the state in a way that newspapers weren't 'cause we were talking just to a political audience. and so, through that, there was this guy who did a weekly television show on news 12 new jersey. the joke was it was named after the number of viewers it has, but it was a great-- (audience laughs) - that's good, that's good. - i got to msnbc a few years ago, they said, "we'd kill for that audience," but things have changed, (audience laughs) things have changed, things have changed. but what i found was when they put me on the tv show, it was a lot easier to get my calls returned. it was a lot easier to pick up the phone-- - oh, that's interesting. - so, i wanna get a member of congress on the phone, i wanna get a member of the state legislature on the phone, a political leader.

they'd seen me on tv. they felt they knew me or they felt some familiarity with me. it wasn't just a name, it meant more to them. that was my first lesson in the power of television. - yeah. now, you are a reporter, this is the challenge that i have in talking about you or introducing you, is you are, at heart, it feels to me like, a serious person who does serious reporting, and the stuff you just did with the map is a great example of that. and yet, you've been put in the position of being a host. is that a good thing or a bad thing, in terms of the reporting chops that you have? - (laughs) it's been a challenge. i mean, i'm sitting here now sort of on the receiving end of the questions and thinking i wish i was as good as you at asking these. - oh wow, please. (audience laughs) - i remember the first time i hosted a show really on my own, the weekend show at msnbc, and this is a couple years ago, early 20-- - this is when it was up? - yeah, so i took over up. - and you succeeded from chris hayes. - chris hayes, that's right. so, this was in like march-april 2013. i'd been doing a panel show. so, i went from a guest to being a contributor, that means they pay you to be a guest, then they put me on a panel show, so i've got three other people around me.

when you're on a panel show, you don't have to worry, you don't worry about the dead air 'cause somebody's there to pick up the slack. - someone's gonna talk, right. - right. that was a culture shock though, going to hosting my own show, and it was a two-hour show. and often there'd be a panel there, but i was aware, every time i finished asking a question and let somebody else start talking, i'm like, the minute this person stops, i better have something to say, 'cause there's no guarantee anybody else around this table is gonna jump in. or if it's a one-on-one interview, i really have to have something to say. and what i never appreciated watching television at home, what i learned immediately, was that makes it hard to listen sometimes. - we just have a couple minutes left. something that strikes me about you and chris hayes particularly is that you're not interested in getting a couple of people on to shout at each other and to be the referee of a fight, which was the cliche of cable news some time ago. and, candidly, if you turn on hardball, not on a day maybe when you're doing it, it can still be that. you're trying to get at something different, and it's the thing that most people complain

is missing in political discourse these days, and it's civility. is that a deliberate decision on your part? - yeah, i mean, i'm not much of a shouter. i think that's sorta the other thing, and everybody needs to find their own comfort zone or whatever, but yes. when i'm hosting it, i wanna have people represented from across not just the political spectrum, but again, i think so much of this too, it's almost like red america now means something that's not even ideological in a lotta ways. blue america means something that's not even ideological in a lotta ways. it's a lot more cultural, and each has its own sort of media ecosystem. and so, i find fewer and fewer places that bring those voices together. and also, when they come together, i don't want it to just be like shouting back and forth at each other. so, trying to get them to engage, and that was especially with the weekend show we had 'cause we had two hours of time both weekend days. so, we had time to do it, we had space to do it, but it was tougher to put it together than i thought it would be.

- do you worry that msnbc is part of the problem here? i don't want you to say bad things, and you won't, about your employer, but we hear a lot about confirmation bias journalism. fox and msnbc are often positioned, fairly or not, as the poles. - well, i mean, what i always point out with msnbc to people is, the way i look at it is in the morning, we have morning joe, we have joe scarborough. we have a former republican congressman. we have a conservative voice for three hours every morning. and at night, you go chris hayes, you go rachel maddow, you go lawrence o'donnell, you're definitely on the left there. and in the middle of the day, and i'm doing the 4 o'clock hour right now, if we're doing our job, we're giving you the news. we're not giving you as much in terms of opinion or voice or anything like that. and i think of the old newspaper model. i mean, you've got the op-ed page. you've got very passionate voices on the op-ed page, and we have a conservative voice at msnbc, we have a couple liberal voices at msnbc. and in between, if you're tuned in for either one of those

or for both of those, we wanna just give you the facts, we wanna give you the information. what i can sorta specialize in is i can try to break down the numbers and try to make some sense of it. and whatever side you're on, i'm trying to give you some information. so, that's what i see happening, i hope is happening, i hope people are getting out of msnbc. but also, i take your point and i think about it all the time and i think it's very true. more than ever, people can pick their news. and i get the feedback all the time and i tell myself i hope it's not too representative of what's out there, but especially in an election season, how many people on the left, if it's a headline that is at all critical of hillary clinton, "how dare you? "you're only helping donald trump." and on the right, if it's a headline that's at all critical of donald trump, "how dare you?" and i think that's destructive. - well, stay buckled up for the rest of this campaign. - yeah, thanks. (laughs) - steve kornacki, thank you very much. (applause) - sure. - good, thank you, good. we'd love to have you join us in the studio. visit our website at klru.org/overheard

to find invitations to interviews, q&as with our audience and guests, and an archive of past episodes. - the people he's appealing to don't trust all of those media institutions. they don't trust cable news networks that aren't named fox. they don't trust the new york times, they don't trust the washington post. and if the washington post and new york times or cable news starts saying these magic words that people on the left think will suddenly discredit donald trump, they will be shocked when they find out that donald trump's support actually goes up. - [woman] funding for overheard with evan smith is provided in part by mfi foundation, improving the quality of life within our community, also by hillco partners, a texas government affairs consultancy, and by the alice kleberg reynolds foundation.

[ ♪ ] hello, i'm kamla. my guest today is michael price. he's the chief technology officer of seismic warning, a silicon valley-based company. and we are going to talk to him about what are the tectonic shifts he has seen in silicon valley, because he has worked here for over 30 years. he also worked at pixar, the iconic film company. - welcome. - thank you. so we're going to talk about tectonic shifts, not only physically, but also in the tech area. what brought you from pittsburgh to silicon valley? i got an opportunity to work in a start-up company, and i was thrilled by the chance. kamla: what start-up was that? it was called valid logic systems. it was an electronic design automation company. what was it like 30 years ago when you came to silicon valley? it was a transitional state from what was an agricultural,