look at realistic policies. >> for us, brigid, this work day is over. you get the last word. thank you for your time. a police officer is dead and a manhunt is under way for his killers. this is "hardball." good evening. i'm steve kornacki in for chris matthews. tonight there's a lot of political news including jeb bush finally firing back hard at donald trump. we've got bush's attack. we've got trump's response. that is coming up. we will also talk to the attorney for that county clerk down in kentucky who is defying the supreme court by not issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. she says it violates her religious beliefs.

but we begin this hour with the manhunt under way northwest of chicago. police are searching for three suspects. this after an officer was shot and killed this morning. the shooting happened in the town of fox lake, illinois. that's close to the wisconsin border. the officer has been identified as charles j. gliniewicz. he's a 32-year veteran of the town's police force, married and a father of four. >> tonight, not only did fox lake lose a family member, i lost a very dear friend. understandably our officers are having a very difficult day today. we lost a family member. they're dealing with the loss of their colleague, partner but also identifying efforts to find the person responsible for this senseless tragedy. >> police say officer gliniewicz was on routine patrol when he began pursuing what he called suspicious activity. the lake county sheriff's office

said he was on foot pursuit before contact was lost. officer gliniewicz was later found near a marshy area stripped of his gun. he died at the scene. there is audio from another officer who arrived on the scene. >> send everybody you possibly can. officer is down. >> police are using helicopters, k-9 units and s.w.a.t. teams to hunt down three suspects. one described as a black male and two white males. the fbi, atf and u.s. marshals have joined the intense search effort. nbc's john yang is in fox lake. he joins us with the latest. john, three suspects at large. what can you tell us right now about the hunt for them? >> well, this hunt is still going strong, steve. just about -- less than half a mile up the road this way, i can see flashing lights, a huge police presence. above you can hear the sound of

a helicopter hovering over. across the street a staging area. you can see vehicles from several police, sheriffs, state police in the area. all focusing on this little town about 10,000 people of fox river. this all happened about 8:00 this morning. the police officer, as you said, on a foot patrol -- foot chase, rather, after three suspicious people. this hunt still going on, closing in on its tenth hour as they still hunt down these three people. they're still looking for them, and this hunt is still going strong, steve. >> john, do we have a sense of what kind of search perimeter they've set up there, how big it is, how quickly they were able to establish that after the incident this morning? >> it's hard to say because they haven't established -- they haven't shut down sort of a big area. there seems to be a housing subdivision up here that is sealed off. you have police surrounding the area cutting off streets going into it. it's heavily wooded.

they're obviously giving the three suspects cover, as it were. the one thing they are worried about, they'd like to get this done quickly if they could. sundown is about 90 minutes away. you start losing light. the helicopters -- there is infrared technology. they've got federal officials in here, u.s. marshals, atf, fbi and a whole array of state and local officials. >> john, if you could just tell us a little bit about the community up there, too, fox lake, where outside of chicago, pretty far outside of chicago, i guess. tell us about the town, what's the reaction, is this a town that's afraid right now? >> this is a town very much afraid. they've been asking people to stay indoors, keep behind locked doors, to keep an eye out, to look for anything suspicious. the schools were on lockdown

today. they delayed the closing of schools, the release of students by an hour. they asked parents to drive to the schools to pick up their children. the children were walked out by law enforcement and by school officials, walked out to their cars. the commuter train station here was closed all day long. only reopened during the evening rush hour. people saying that they really would like this to get over with because they want to be able to go back to their homes and be -- feel secure once again. steve? >> all right, john yang live in fox lake, illinois, thank you for that report. jim cavanaugh is a retired special agent in charge with the atf and manny gomez is a retired fbi agent. jim, to you first. we have this sort of unofficial, i don't know if deadline is the right word but sunset coming 90 minutes from now. what is law enforcement doing and what can they do between now and sunset to try and expedite this? >> well, they're going to have a hard time trying to rush it. tonight they're going to have the infrared, they'll have the air, they'll have some

advantages at night and try to leverage that. but there's nothing to say absolutely that these killers are still in those woods. i mean, how did they get to the cement plant? normally when criminals go to do something and they were doing something there -- we don't know if they were casing the place, going to steal something, were they burying something or digging something up? it's kind of a remote place. they were doing something when the lieutenant saw them. and most likely they got there in a vehicle. so they could have been running toward it or going to get to their vehicle or going to a vehicle stashed on the road behind there. if they didn't make it to the vehicle, they could have slipped away before the perimeter was set up. that's not to say they're in the woods. maybe they're on foot and they are in the woods. law enforcement has to deal with those possibilities. >> our understanding is that the officer saw suspicious activity, alerted his base about suspicious activity, then he pursued it by himself. is that a common tactic in

policing when there's multiple potential suspects to go and track it down yourself? >> we're talking about a small town here of 60,000. this lieutenant was a police officer for over 32 years. he was highly experienced and highly trained. he made a judgment call to go after these people by himself. obviously, he was very experienced and he felt that he could handle this by himself. he did call for backup, which is the proper procedure. and could he have waited from backup? that's a judgment call. however, the suspects were getting away. so he called for backup, he was going after the suspects and obviously something went very wrong very quickly. >> jim, obviously, it's speculation at this point but you've seen so many instances like this before, tragic instances. i wonder, i mean, to kill a police officer, it almost feels like something heavy had to be going on there that they're trying to cover up for them to

have the instinct to actually kill a police officer., seihi y was going on there or these guys have, you know, deep prior criminal records and they don't want to go back to jail. could have been a burglary, could have been anything, could have been drugs, could have been an assault, could have been a murder they were covering up, they could have been digging something up, burying something. he could have seen them walking out of the woods with a shovel and said what are you doing at the cement plant. and he pursues them and this is the result. something is afoot, something criminal going on, he recognizes it, lieutenant joe and he pursues them and pays with his life. they could be in chicago flipping the news trying to see what's going on. if they made it to a vehicle, they could be out of that area in just a few minutes. what detectives and agents have to do is go back to all those businesses on that street because this is a small town, they've got to lock down every camera, i'm sure they're doing

it. know every single vehicle that passed through that town from midnight the night before till shortly after the lieutenant was murdered and try to identify every car and have the residents say, if you were on that road between midnight and, you know, noon, you need to come into the police and talk to us. we need to take your car off this film until you're down do the one or the dash cam video of the officer. they've got to find something that will link these guys' identities if they're not in the woods. >> we learn so much about these investigations from tv, from csi, the sophistication of technology right now. what kind of forensic evidence do you think is left behind here that could provide some clues? >> well, the forensic evidence is going to be on the gun belt. they apparently took the firearm from lieutenant joe and there may be some fingerprints or some forensic evidence in the uniform or the gun belt out of this police officer. there could be some forensic evidence in the woods, but like jim said, and i totally agree,

in today's environment it's very difficult for these guys to get away with this. they're going to be checking cameras, they're going to be checking videos. there's atf, fbi, local police, state police looking at this case and trying to find out. the next 48 hours, which is crucial, if there is any video of any vehicle, of any persons of interest, that they could come up with. and then the investigation continues until they track these killers down and bring them to justice. >> all right, jim cavanaugh, manny gomez, appreciate the time. thank you. >> thank you. >> we'll continue to track developments from the manhunt in illinois. but up next, 2016 politics. jeb bush is no longer ignoring the man who knocked him from the top spot in the republican field. donald trump. bush has a tough new attack on trump, but is it too little and too late? plus the county clerk in kentucky who is openly defying the united states supreme court, refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples. we will talk to her attorney tonight.

and there's nothing damaging the latest batch of hillary clinton e-mails. but that's not stopping the right wing from stoking the notion that her presidential campaign is ready to implode. finally may not be the front-runner in iowa yet, but dr. ben carson is surging. if donald trump isn't worried, maybe he should be.

welcome back to "hardball." after days of getting slammed by donald trump, the bush campaign

is hitting back and hitting back hard. the final straw seems to have been this incendiary video that trump put out yesterday. >> yes, they broke the law, but it's not a felony. it's kind of a -- it's an act of love. >> today the bush campaign released a minute and a half video going right after trump's past support for liberal policies and for hillary clinton. here's part of that video. >> i lived in new york city and manhattan all my life. so my views are a little bit different than if i lived in iowa. >> partial-birth abortion? >> i'm very pro choice. i am pro choice in every respect and as far as it goes. as far as single payer, it works in canada, it works incredibly well in scotland. the fact is that 25% for high income people should be raised substantially. hillary clinton is a terrific woman. i've known her for years.

i live in new york, she lives in new york. and i've known her and her husband for years and i really like them both a lot. >> do you identify more as a democrat or republican? >> well, you'd be shocked if i said that in many cases i probably identify more as a democrat. i have no idea. >> trump wasted no time hitting back. he tweeted yet another weak hit by a candidate with a failing campaign. will jeb sink as low in the polls as the others have who have gone after me? he said while millions are being spent against me in attack ads, they are paid for by the bosses and owners of candidates. i am self-funding. this afternoon trump put out this new video on instagram with the caption, no mary clintons or bushes. >> do you recognize the commitment of someone had has devoted her life to public service. i want to say thank you to both secretary clinton and to president clinton. >> what does that make hillary

clinton to the bush family? >> my sister-in-law. >> so who is winning this political slugfest? i'm joined by nbc news senior political correspondent perry bacon, joan walsh and huffington post bureau chief ryan grim. joan, i'll start with you. trump's been out there taunting jeb bush. bush fires back with a slick and sort of the kind of attack you'd expect to be mounted against donald trump. donald trump fires back. who is winning here, trump or bush? >> i think trump is still winning. his sense is so theatrical, steve. he uses a willy horton kind of ad against jeb bush, the same kind of ad that his father used against michael dukakis. it's brilliant. you feel like he's playing on that, that we know that and we'll enjoy it a little bit more because of it. but i will say that i actually thought that jeb bush's ad was pretty good. i thought that if people really get his closeness with the clintons, his being pro choice saying over and over i'm pro

choice, that could hurt him. but trump is right. nothing has hurt him so far. the people who have taken swings at him, if anything they've gone down in the polls. bush has been sinking. i don't know that you can win an insult contest with donald trump. >> since he jumped into the race, being that trump has focused a good portion of his attacks on jeb bush. take a look. >> i'm not worried because how can bush be in first place? this guy can't negotiate his bay out of a paper bag. and the poll just came out, and i'm tied with jeb bush. and i said, oh, that's too bad. how can i be tied with this guy? he's terrible. he's terrible. remember this, jeb bush will never take us to the promised land, no matter what you do, it's not going to happen. there should have been 2 million people watching. you agree? about 2 million. that's been sort of standard. 2 million people. they had 24 million people.

who do you think they're watching? jeb bush? huh? i don't think so. how about florida, i have a governor, we have a low-energy governor and we have a senator. and we're leading big in florida. if you want a nice person, honestly, you should vote for jeb. the country's going to go to hell, but we won't talk about him. >> i've been saying for a while i listen to donald trump do this and i can just imagine the republican heads nodding and saying, yes, we are so sick of politics, we're so sick of our spineless party and everything that jeb bush is saying and doing is typical of a politician, typical of everything we're sick of. >> i think that's right. what you see so far, trump is doing well, he's doing well in the polls. i do think in this particular case bush benefits because the trump ad, you look at it, we kind of already know jeb bush is the candidate who is more pro immigration. the trump ad was good, but it's still something we already know. a lot of voters i talk to don't really know that trump has taken all these kind of liberal stands, his love of the clintons. that will add new information

and maybe raise doubts about trump's. i thought it was smart for bush to put this out. smart instead of attacking from the left to attack trump from the right. >> i wonder about the ability of trump to deflect these -- we saw in first debate when he's asked about the clintons, he basically said, look, i bribed them to come to my wedding. that's essentially what he said at the first debate. and his against for all this is basically, look, i was a businessman. i gave money to every politician. i wanted favors from them. now i'm here to clean up the system and save the system. do you think that buys him leverage -- excuse me, leeway with republican voters? >> yeah, i think it does. people know he's from manhattan. and i think jeb might be overestimating how damaging it is to hear trump say, i don't know why i'm a republican. because a lot of voters in the republican party and who will vote in republican primaries don't like the party either. and they will tell that to pollsters. they'll tell that to anybody who

asks. democrats, a lot of them will say the same thing. i'm not a republican. i'm a conservative. they know trump is angry, they know he says whatever he's thinking. i do think that some of that stuff is new information, and certainly if he had some kind of pro life supporters and they see that, that's going to give them a lot of pause, but beyond that, i don't think it does a ton of damage to him. >> tonight show last night chris christie was asked about donald trump and christie's own role in the debates. >> donald trump is in the lead of all these polls. is this a surprise to you? >> oh, no, i completely expected that. didn't you? >> no. >> of course, everything he does a spectacular, wonderful, amazing. the best. >> the last debate, i was waiting for you to talk. >> me, too. >> do you jump in? are you allowed to jump in? >> no, you're not supposed to. but a few people did. >> i know.

>> but i didn't think that was appropriate. >> it seems to be working for whoever did it. >> by the way, stay tuned on september 16th. we may be changing tactics. if i get to like 15 questions in a row, count them at home. if i get 15 in a row, uh-oh, he's going to go nuclear now. >> i think he wants to mix it up with donald trump. i think he thinks he's got nothing left to lose at this point. if there's anybody capable of getting into that kind of insult contest with trump it's christie. >> that's true. there's no way to go nuclear and get attention except to mix it up with trump. on the other hand, rand paul tried it and he came off like a little kid. christie might have more gravitas to do that, but again, i think it's a sign of desperation that he's threatening to go nuclear in the next debate. he really -- that doesn't have any kind of a winning message so he's hoping he can get some attention, i assume, by mixing it up with trump. but i don't think that's really going to help. >> perry, the whole trump phenomenon, the fact that he's

endured, the fact that he's thrived through all these things that are supposed to kill him in politics, in the republican party especially, are we learning something about the republican party that maybe we didn't know? is he shattering the truisms that have been out there about republican politics? >> i'm not going to say that, steve. i think i want to wait and see if he wins a couple primaries first. the fact he hasn't been endorsed by republican lawmakers, the establishment, i think we are learning that -- remember, in 2011 herman cain went up and down quickly. one thing trump has taught me is a candidate that's really good at manipulating and getting media coverage and really savvy about the media can kind of ride that wave longer. i wouldn't have initially thought calling lindsey graham's cell phone and announcing it on television is a great idea but trump seems to understand the modern media in a way this no other candidate does. that's the lesson. if you can keep yourself in the attention all the time, that can help you to rise in the polls and get people to tune in to

you. people are watching because of donald trump, that does help you. that is a skill. bernie sanders should learn from that in some ways. >> perry raises a very interesting point and a key point for trump. if he's going to have a chance of winning this nomination, that we'll have to get to the point where real republican elected officials start saying he's our guy, we endorse him. he's got to get some real endorsements. can you imagine that happening over the next couple of months? >> no, if he comes out of iowa with a win and comes out of new hampshire with a win and then rolls into south carolina where he could be popular, then he starts getting delegates who are talking about going to the convention, then you start thinking are we going to have some kind of brokered convention or chaos on the floor here, then people follow winners, not necessarily serious people or people they agree with. they follow power. so it could be get itself. >> when you saw him get up on

stage in that rally in mobile and put that make america great hat. i said, i think he might be able to get some endorsements here. >> i agree. >> if he does, he'll be a real contender. thank you all for being here. coming up, in defiance of the united states supreme court, a county clerk in kentucky refuses to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, says she is acting under the authority of god. i'll speak with that clerk's attorney next.

is this what you want to remember that you stood up for this? that your children have to look at you and realize that you're a bigot and you discriminate against people? is that what you want to have? is that what you want? >> god's word. >> god does not belong in the county courts. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was the confrontation in a

kentucky court this morning as a clerk kim davis refused to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs. the supreme court's move means that davis has no legal authority to withhold the licenses but still she won't budge. >> the supreme court denied your stay. >> we are not issues licenses today. >> based on what? >> i would ask you all -- >> why are you not issuing marriage licenses today? >> because i'm not. >> but why? >> under whose authority? >> under god's authority. >> lawyers for the couples want davis to be held in contempt of court unless she starts issuing the licenses. this afternoon u.s. district court judge david bunning ordered davis and her staff in his court thursday for a hearing on the matter. in august bunning ordered davis to grant licenses to same-sex couples noting her religious convictions cannot excuse her from performing the duties that she took an oath to perform as

rowan county clerk. davis who was elected to the clerk post in 2014 stopped issuing any marriage licenses after the u.s. supreme court upheld gay marriage in june. she wants her name to be removed from the marriage license because of her religious beliefs. joining me now is attorney matthew staber, the head of the conservative liberty council group who is representing kim davis. thanks for joining us. let me ask you this. the supreme court in this country says that gay marriage is legal, if a gay couple wants to get married, they can get married. they are constituents of hers in her county. why does she get to deny them something that the supreme court says they're entitled to? >> the supreme court has never ruled on this issue with regards to religious freedom. she's protected by the first amendment of the united states constitution, the kentucky constitution and also the kentucky religious freedom restoration act. she's just simply asking for accommodation. the issue is not really whether these individual can get a license. they can drive 30 minutes in any direction to get a license.

>> hang on. i mean, that's -- they can drive 30 minutes in any direction. they live in the county, they're taxpayers in the county, they're constituents of an elected official. she gives out marriage licenses as part of her job and the supreme court has said they're entitled to get married. and she says, my religious beliefs don't allow for gay marriage. why does she have that right as a public official? i understand what you're saying if you're talking about, hey, coming into her house, coming into her business, something like that, it's a private business, a private house, i understand your point. this is a public official. these are her constituents. >> the supreme court has also said that just because you're a public employee, you don't lose your constitutional protection. she has the same first amendment and other religious protections and rights of conscience. she doesn't lose that because she becomes a public official. she's been in this office for 27 years and the clerk job as a year. just remove her name from the license. that's all she's asking.

she doesn't want the license to be issued under her name. it could be issued under the authority of the state of kentucky. she said that she would record that, she would file it just like she does any other document. but with having her name affixed to it, that's where the problem is with regards to her own identity and her religious convictions. it's a very easy accommodation. in fact, the head of the clerk of the courts of all the kentucky clerks has recommended that as an accomodation for all of clerks. >> where does this stop, though? what about religious objection that maybe it's this clerk or another clerk who says i don't think that a couple that's been divorced, i don't think one of them should be remarried? does the clerk get to say i'm not giving you license for that? >> well, in this particular case, no one doubts her sincerity, no one doubts the collision -- >> i know. sir, matt, excuse me, i don't doubt her sincerity either, but

i'm asking where else does this extend? if she says she has a moral and religious objection to sail-sex marriage, it raises the question, does she have a moral and religious objection to a divorced person getting remarried or a moral objection to somebody engaged in premarital relations getting married? where does this end? >> that has never been the issue. the issue was that from the time that she began marriage has always been one thing, and it's been between a man and a woman. two months ago that changed. so the job duties changed. the fact of the matter is she has a right to have her faith accommodated. the governor could fix this in a heartbeat. the clerks association recommends an accomodation. this is an easy fix. in any situation, not every religious objection can be accommodated. you have to look at the facts and circumstances. here there's clearly options available and those options should be pursued. >> do the people we played the video at the top there, it's

arresting footage if anyone wants to watch all of it online. do the people in that office today trying to get married, those same-sex couples in the office, do they have a right to get married? >> well, they can get married anywhere. >> they can't get married right now, they can't get married in this county. >> they don't have the right to have kim davis give her the wedding. the supreme court has never said that your right requires someone to actually participate in your particular conviction or your belief or your activity. they can get a license anywhere if they wanted to. that's not the issue. >> sir, they cannot get a license in rowan county right now because your client says it's against her religion. >> our client needs to be accommodated in her conviction. it's a conviction that we accommodated through many years. we have accommodations through every stripes and levels. we have private individuals. that's what the essence of america has been about, to accommodate religious freedom. not to trample someone's religious beliefs.

kim davis just simply wants to be treated with the same dignity and respect that anybody else who has a conscience conviction is treated with. and that's why we have the first amendment, that's why we have the individual state constitutional protections. >> i imagine the same-sex couples in committed relationships would also like to be treated with that same dignity as well. i appreciate you joining us tonight. up next, thousands of hillary clinton e-mails released. while they're revealing, so far the right has failed to find a smoking gun. plus the latest on the manhunt in illinois.

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my use of personal e-mail was allowed by the state department. it clearly wasn't the best choice. i should have used two e-mails. one personal, one for work. and i take responsibility for that decision. and i'm confident that this process will prove that i never sent nor received any, any

e-mail that was marked classified. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was hillary clinton at a press conference wednesday answering questions relating to the private e-mail server she used to conduct business as secretary of state. today as part of a judge's order, the state department released the largest batch of clinton's e-mails to date. an additional 7,000 pages including 125 e-mails that, while not classified at the time they were sent, have been subsequently classified by the state department. one is a memo from sid blumenthal in which he said john boehner is despised by the younger more conservative members of the house republican conference. they're repelled by his personal behavior, he's louche, alcoholic, lazy and without commitment to any principle. another shows her interest in the political ambitions of david petraeus.

who freely talked about running for president at a dinner in 2010. one e-mail shows how clinton had difficulty receiving a public statement from her staff. she wrote, it's a public statement, just e-mail it. i share your exasperation, but until ops converts it to the unclassified male system there's no physical way for me to male -- e-mail it. number of the sensitive material that crossed over her server. but even if they never present a legal problem for clinton, there's always political implications. i'm joined by the "hardball" roundtable. heidi przybyla, richard fowler and lisa lerer. heidi, let me start with you. this is round, you know, 6,000 of this right now. we know the initial scandal, if you want to call it that, was the fact that she has the private e-mail server in the first place as secretary of state.

what is it at this point that is driving this story along so that every time this happens, it's big news? >> well, two things. first of all, it feeds a 20-year narrative that critics of the clinton family have been feeding and cultivating for 20 years starting with whitewater that they're secretive and somehow not to be trusted. you see that showing up in the poll numbers. secondly, just the nature in which the clintons handled this, it's going to come back and bite them several times. instead of just releasing everything all at once in one big dump, we're going to, via the courts, see several dumps of these e-mails. this is the august summer season when the news cycle maybe is not as hot and so, as things pick up more in the campaign trail and we see what these subsequent drops that really there is no smoking gun in here, maybe it will ebb a bit. but there will be several rounds of this. >> chairman reince priebus released this statement on clinton's e-mails last night. on hundreds of occasions,

hillary clinton's reckless attempt to skirt transparency laws put sensitive information and our national security at risk. richard, i guess to me when i look at this, i think there isn't the smoking gun evidence as heidi is saying or the smoking gun evidence about knowingly putting classified information into these e-mails. there's is history of secrecy. we see the devastating poll numbers as to her trustworthiness. the headline itself, every time we have another e-mail release, it almost sounds almost sinister. there's another release of the secretive e-mails. there's almost an implication there that something is amiss. >> i think you're exactly right. the fact that we see these headlines over and over again force people to believe this. there's no smoking gun. she's violated no loss whatsoever. but yet the conserve at it right are pushing this narrative that bill and hillary clinton are

evil and untrustworthy. the first thing you assume is she did something wrong here. she'll have to really get out in front of this. sit down, do a big major interview. no question is off the table and put this behind her for this campaign to work. >> lisa, the other thing here, as we put some of the clips in there and the intro sid blumenthal, this shadowy figure who has been around hillary clinton for so long, the obama administration didn't want him in an official position in the state department saying some really inflammatory things. and his e-mails talk about that relationship between hillary clinton and sid blumenthal. what role does he play in her political life? >> he's played a really longtime role here for hillary clinton. he's been a longtime confident of hillary and the clinton family. he's controversial not only among republicans but some democrats, the obama administration, and even in clinton's orbit who see him a little bit as a conspiracy theorist. he was a staunch defender of

clinton through claims of a vast right wing conspiracy. the issue now is that while he was contacting clinton and corresponding with her quite a lot, there are hundreds of e-mails from sid blumenthal to clinton in just this tranche that we got last night. he was also being paid by the clinton family foundation. so there are questions about whether there was a conflict of interest here. was he advising her and taking money from her? it gets complicated and certainly republicans think there's an awful lot to dig into here. the bottom line question is, as we say, there's poll numbers that do not look good for hillary clinton when it comes to her, how honest is she, how trustworthy is she. those poll numbers have not been good for two decades now. has this story or is this story doing anything -- doing any additional damage that wasn't already there when it comes to honesty and trustworthiness?

>> i think that it is, absolutely. but the big question, steve, is who is it doing the damage with? because when you peel back the poll numbers and you look at the internals. the people who have given her the highest, biggest spike in her unfavorability ratings are who, republicans and republican-leaning independents. these are people, as you know, who are never going to vote for her and certainly don't matter in a primary. when you look at her numbers among democrats, she's inched up a few percentage points which is not to be dismissed. but when you look at the bernie sanders phenomenon in iowa, that is, in bernie's own words, a pro bernie sanders reflection. it is not necessarily anti-hillary clinton. the answer is yes to your question but most of that damage comes from republicans and republican leaning independents who have a honeymoon period with her when she was secretary of state. now she's coming back down to earth and those ratings, she's

clearly back in the political arena and the more polarizing atmosphere. >> 2011 seems like a long time ago right now. the roundtable staying with us. up next, ben carson has been quietly rising in the polls. what is behind the rise of this political outsider? the president has gained two it's from daddy. sfx: dad's voice i love you baby girl. duracell quantum lasts longer in 99% of devices so you can always be there. ♪

the president has gained two new supporters for the iran nuclear deal.

bob casey and chris coons came out in favor. that means that president obama is one vote short of what he would need to uphold a potential republican veto. a congressional vote on the deal is expected mid-month.

up next, behind the scenes

>> we are back with the roundtable. heidi, richard, and lisa. that was dr. ben carson railing against the political class in his first ad buy of the 2016 cycle. a one-time underdog, carson has rapidly gained in the polls since the fox news debate early last month, especially in the crucial first caucus state of iowa. according to the latest poll from monmouth university, carson has now jumped into a first-place tie with donald trump, both at 23%. what's more remarkable is that carson has jumped 15 points since that same poll was conducted back in july. while the former iowa favorite, scott walker, has fallen 22 points. he's down all the way to just 7% now. there's no doubt that ben carson's rise is driven by the anti-establishment zeal that's overtaken the electorate. a whopping 73% of republicans in this country prefer a washington outsider as president than someone with d.c. experience. democrats feel the exact opposite. 77% of them say they want someone with washington experience, while just 18% would like an outsider. it's a pretty stark contrast in

opinion. let's get to the panel on this. richard, let me start with you. donald trump, it's the summer of trump. i totally get the trump surge in the polls. he's all we talk about, he makes a lot of noise, he says provocative things. i really am at a loss to understand what is fueling this rise by ben carson in the last few weeks. because for all i can see in that first debate, he practically disappeared on stage. >> i think you're right. he definitely disappeared in the first debate, but he's had a really good ground game. he spent a lot of time in iowa, a lot of shaking hands and getting to know them and beyond that. because he's so mild mannered and a nice guy, it adds to his popularity in the state. because of that, the republicans in iowa definitely believe that washington is broken. and they want an outsider. and ben carson fits the mold. he's not as bombastic as donald trump, but he understands how to talk to these voters. that's why he's the marquis candidate going in right now. the question is, how long will he last? will he survive the trump attacks that will be coming his way very shortly? whether he survive the attacks from a lower tier candidates

like a scott walker or jeb bush? that's what we should be looking out for. >> the comparison with donald trump all this summer, when he started rising in the polls, everybody said, well, look back four years ago, herman cain, michele bachmann, any of these guys who surged for a few weeks in 2011 and disappeared the minute they got scrutiny. trump has survived the scrutiny. when you look at ben carson, is he equipped to survive that kind of scrutiny, too, or does he fit more of the profile of a bachmann or cain or another one of the short-lived phenomenon of 2011? >> what's unbelievable about trump, some of the smartest minds in washington, you talk to people in this town, and no one knows how this story's going to end. they don't understand the rise of trump and don't know what the fall of trump will look like. many think it will happen. and if that's the case, carson is very well positioned to wait this thing out. the thing about ben carson that a lot of people don't know is he has a lot of money.

he's an excellent fund-raiser and has done very well with small-donor donations. so he has the funds to wait out trump, see if he has implodes, and if he does, be the guy in iowa waiting to pick up trump's support. >> and heidi, quickly, scott walker, what a disaster for him right now in iowa. must-win state for him. >> scott walker's only path to the nomination, unfortunately, ran through iowa and we've seen a pretty stunning fall, as you mentioned. he's made a number of gaffes, including recently his comments about potentially building a wall along the canadian border, which just make him a little bit, you know, of a joke on some levels. and he's just, more importantly, though, beyond that, he's just kind of fading into the background. it's not that he's made any one particular major stumble. >> a 22-point drop this summer, that is amazing. heidi, lisa, robert, thank you all being here. "hardball" is back right after this. aw. aw. ♪

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that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts

right now. tonight on "all in." >> this is not a guy who's a conservative. >> jeb bush begins fighting the trump onslaught. >> if you look at his record of what he believes, he supports democrats. >> is it a fight he can win? then, the assault on the clinton campaign reaches onion level parody. >> is this a joke? it feels like a prank. >> is this a joke? no, it's not a joke. >> tonight, james carville on nothingburger e-mails, james o'keefe, and the prospect of a biden campaign. plus, why an arizona congressman is apologizing to a second grade class for fearmongering over the iran deal. and black lives matter are here to respond to this. >> they're hate group, and i'm going to tell you right now, i'm going to put them out of business. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes with the summer of trump looking more and more likely to keep oin