strikes and heard from the secretary of defense and jm and saying this was not an asack on isis and the man that wants to be the house speaker and the success in his words taking downhill hill. and inside the secret meeting between pope francis and the kentucky court clerk jailed for refusing marriage licenses to gay couples. kim davis' lawyer tells us all about it. russia stunned the world carrying out deadly air strikes inside syria. you can see the dramatic video reportedly shot near the city of homs showing the aftermath of the air strikes. you can see fire and huge plumes of black smoke there billowing into the sky. people screaming, running into buildings in a desperate attempt to avoid those air strikes. we heard the pentagon secretary of defense saying we're not sure if there were any casualties. russian government claims the strikes are a preemptive measure fighting isis but the defense secretary ash carter responded to the russian air strikes.

>> fighting isil without pursuing a parallel political transition only risks escalating the civil war in syria. and with it, the very extremism and instability that moscow claims to be concerned about and aspire to fighting. so this approach, that approach is tantamount as i said then to pouring gasoline on the fire. >> earlier today, arizona senator john mccain warned the russian air strikes may be targeting anti-assad syrian rebels, not isis. >> these strikes near the city of homs is not under control of isis of the islamic state. so already we are seeing the true intentions of vladimir putin, which is to maintain a

strong position in syria, his foothold in the middle east and his propping up of bashar assad. >> the air strikes came after russia asked the united states to clear syrian air space overnight. the state department said that request would be ignored and u.s.-led air strikes against isis would inside syria would continue. the military action also comes just two days after president obama met the russian president vladimir putin at the u.n. here in new york. let me bring in nbc white house correspondent kristen weller, pentagon producer court cubi, foreign correspondent ayman mohyeldin at the u.n. and military analyst colonel jack jacobs by phone. thank you for being with us. kristen, we heard from the defense secretary, for those that missed the briefing, bring us up to speed on the u.s. reaction to the air strikes. >> reporter: i thought a couple of headlines, kate.

you had defense secretary carter confirming that russia had given the united states some warning, a couple of weeks ago telling them that they planned to launch air strikes, but they only informed u.s. officials an hour before they actually started launching those air strikes. carter saying, quote, this is not the kind of behavior we should expect professionally. he had other strong words, as you just heard him say. he called russia's tactic ill advised, without plans for a political transition and that points to the fact that the united states wants to see assad go. russia thinks that assad is the key to fighting isis. there's a real conflict on that very key point. the defense secretary saying officials in contact with the counterparts in the coming days to try to persuade russia to get on board with that strategy. we've heard a lot about this word deconfliction today. the u.s. and russia working

together while russia is launching the air strikes and the u.s. and its allies are also launching air strike that is there's no mistake in engagement in the sky to lead to escalation. and then to the broader point of what targets were hit and courtney will talk about this broadly, as well. again, the defense secretary saying at this point it appears as though the tar gets were hit were not inhabited by isis. thereby only propping up assad. this is why you have real consternation and frustration on the part of u.s. officials and the backdrop, of course, relations between the u.s. and russia at the chilliest point since the cold war. you heard the defense secretary touch on that, as well, saying that the u.s. continues to condemn rush why's incursions in ukraine, u.s. slapped a number of sanctions on russia for those actions. the defense secretary making it very clear they would not let up on that point but that's why this is going to be complicated moving forward. >> courtney -- thank you,

kristen. >>. courtney, we were seeing video from above. what have we learned about who they were targeting? >> under, there was no real details on what the u.s. believe it is russians were targeting and all we can go off of is the location, the area targeting. the area of the north and the east of syria is where isis really is. looking at a map, there's a huge swath of land that's isis controlled and held. and has been for some time. that's where the majority of the coalition and u.s. military air strikes occurring right now and have been for months now. where the russian air strikes occurred today was an area right near homs which is over on the western side of the country along -- near the coast. why rush why's interested in that area is they have their warm water port there, only warm water port that russia has anymore and then there's -- right near latakia with a

massive military build-up for several weeks, tanks, personnel, aircraft, you know, command and control, everything. all in and around latakia. >> let's show a map if we can. i don't mean to interrupt. helping people follow along. keep going. sorry. >> that's okay. so the russian air strikes were really nowhere near an isis presence. taking the russians as secretary carter said, taking the russias at their word, the russians said they're targeting isis. the air strikes today what that we know so far is not where 0 sis occurs right now. one thing we know that's somewhat consistent from the russians' behavior, activity in syria so far, past week or so flying what the military calls fam flights. familiarization flights, drones. drones in the air, flying over the areas we saw the air strikes

conducted today to familiarize themselves with the land, the targets, the locations. so from that perspective, it's not a huge surprise that this is where -- this area outside of homs is where they conducted the strikes today. >> colonel jack jacobs, let's play a piece of sound today. secretary of state john kerry talking about united states air strikes continuing. >> the united states and the coalition will continue the ongoing air operations as we have from the very beginning. we have conducted a number of strikes against isil targets in syria over the past 24 hours including just an hour ago. and these strikes will continue. >> so, colonel jacobs, how does the military coordinate between, you know, what they're doing, what u.s. forces are doing and what the russians are doing and how do we keep our u.s. forces safe? >> i think to the extent we will have any air strikes at all and i question whether or not there's going to be a continuing

campaign against isil in syria in the present circumstances, but to the extent that we were going to do any of that stuff, we deal it as far away as possible from the russians. there's been a lot of talk about having a deconfliction or high-ranking military people on both sides sit down and talk about protocols for avoiding that catastrophe, mistake in the air drops on friendly troops, identifying friend or foe aircraft to farkt because there's a great deal of danger here even away from the russian forces. >> i believe -- >> go ahead. >> i don't think it's likely that they -- the russians acquiesce. i think they'll stall having these kinds of conversations because they don't want a conclusion to it. >> stand by a moment to get to ayman in a moment but we have new tape just in here now on msnbc. reverend al sharpton spoke to hillary clinton and asked her about the air strikes.

let's hear what she had to say. >> you know, al, i had a different strategy back when i was secretary of state. i can't sit here today and tell you that if my strategy had been followed we would be in a different place because this has so much of a dynamic of its own. what i believed then is that assad was the principle threat because his bombarding and his ruthless behavior toward his own people was going to create more terrorists, it was going to create refugees, it was going to destabilize neighboring countries. all that has come to pass but where we are today which is the president's view that we need to build up the iraqi army, we cannot take back positions from isis because we're not going to put troops on the ground and we should not. whenever any of the republicans say we need 10,000 american troops on the ground, i think that demonstrates how little they really understand and the lessons that we should have learned over the last 15 years.

>> ayman, let's ask you about that. secretary clinton there making a distinction between what we know now and what we knew when she was secretary of state. i don't know if we lost ayman. okay. so we have lost ayman. let's go back then to kristen welker. kristen, how do you read what you made from secretary clinton? and making a distinction of when she was secretary and the situation on the ground right now. >> reporter: you are hearing her distance herself from president obama's foreign policy to some extent. this is something we have heard from her in the past and underscores the fact she's got to walk a very fine line on this. she wants to appear robust and she wants to remind people that she advocated for arming the opposition forces very early on before the president was on board with that strategy. at the same time, this is going to be a very hot button issue on the campaign trail. as you know, republicans have slammed president obama for his foreign policy in syria and in iraq in terms of fighting isis.

so she has to be careful not to go too far over to sounding like republicans essentially in her criticism of president obama so that's why you're hearing her choose her words very carefully but, kate, i think as we look forward to the 2016 campaign trail, this foreign policy issue will be the dominant issue that the candidates discuss and they're going to need to say whether they will put boots on the ground and what their policy's going to be moving forward to defeat isis. >> ayman, you are at the united nations. i think we got your camera back now. can you hear me okay? >> yes. >> okay. can you give us a syria 101 here? it is confusing i think for the viewers and me all the different factions that we're talking about on the ground and, you know, as we look at this video of the air strikes by russian forces, how significant is it that they've gone after spots in homs? >> reporter: it is very significant and to kind of break it down in very simple terms, you really have three major

forces fighting inside syria. you have the assad government or the regime and his actual forces and allies. you have isis and their close allies of a few different groups, as well as what the united states and the arab allies consider the moderate opposition fighters and for the regime they don't see a distinction between isis and the rebel groups that the united states and their arab allies are back. for russia and the assad regime, anyone trying to bring down the government is considered a terrorist and going after all of them equally. hearing the secretary of defense saying he takes the russians at the word probably because the russian word is different than the american word. russia is not making a distinction of those fighting the regime. the united states is. the united states believes there are good opposition forces on the ground. they want to support them. they have been trying to support them, get them weapons with help of arab allies, get them money to go after assad as well as to fight isis.

her's the problem. the assad regime is not fighting isis. 95% of the civilians killed inside killed as a result of the regime going after the biggest threat to the regime, which is the moderate opposition rebel forces and some other groups in that theater, in that battlefield. that's why this situation is so complicated and now more that russia is involve in the conflict is what the united states is going to do to support those rebel that is are now being targeted by the russians and by the assad regime. will they come to their defense and step up the support? allowing the allies to impose a no-fly zone? all those questions have just been that much more complicated by russia's decision and one other factor that's important, kate srks that now that russia is involved in this, you can bet that this is going to galvanize a new entire generation of jihadists to fight the russians in the same vein that those had come to fight in afghanistan against the russians.

that's not lost on a big part of militant groups, jihadist groups like isis and others using rush why's involvement for propaga a propaganda, recruitment and it is going to complicate that battlefield more. >> i heard earlier today that twitter and social media are filled with that already, with jihadist groups spreading the word and talking about russia. thank you so much, ayman. kourtdny and kristen and also jack jacobs by phone. i'll ask you to stand by and bring in ambassador christopher hill serving as ambassador to iraq and author of "jooutpost." they for being with us, mr. ambassador. >> thank you. >> so you've heard the discussion that we just had. ayman just brought up something interesting and basically said the syrian people, the people who live there, are caught in the middle. what does this mean for them? >> well, first of all, i mean, show me a war and i'll show you

refugees. no one is surprised a war causes refugees and the europeans feeling this and the neighboring countries. this is a horrific scene for syrian civilians. i think what is the real turn for the worst though in the last couple of days is just a couple of days ago our president had a summit meeting with the president putin and prior to the meeting they scowled and growled for the cameras but apparently the meeting couldn't have gone much better than the scowling and growling but clearly no there's one understanding, no sort of common way forward. this is a great concern right now and the fact that the russian air operations have been conducted against something other than isis, remains to be seen what they were, that can speak to the fact that the russiaens often are sort of a blunt force in these kinds of circumstances but it also speaks to the fact that they have a completely different view of this entire situation than we do

and that is worrisome and seeing in syria now, the makings of a real u.s. russian crisis. >> do you view this as -- i'm trying to think of the politest way to say it but is vladimir putin saying here i am and what i'm doing and i don't care what the u.s. thinks? >> well, show me a strange international move like what he's doing an i'll show you probables within russia and so i think what he's trying to do is to show what a tough guy he is and i think international relations should not be considered a sort of proxy issue to show how tough leaders are and yet that's precisely what putin is doing for the audiences back home. it remains to be seen what these air operations, what they really plan to do. we do have a major difference between the russian -- with russians over the issue of the assad regime. but i think it behooves the americans, as well, to do what ash carter asking of the russians, which is to lay out what our diplomatic, what our

political way forward is. i mean, do we just want provisional elections for a provinceal government and constitution? i'm not sure that's enough to pull people out of the trenches at this point. >> ambassador chris hill, thank you so much for being with us. appreciate your perspective. reverend sharpton's interview, we showed you a clip of that with hillary clinton, airing on "politics nation" this sunday at 8:00 a.m. eastern here on msnbc. coming up, did the possible incoming house speaker mccarthy make a big admission about the intent of the house benghazi committee regarding hillary clinton? also, inside the pope's secret meeting with the kentucky court clerk jailed for refusing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. kim davis' lawyer joins us here. donald trump is personal of family life with "people" magazine. the writer joins us. ♪

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turning to capitol hill this afternoon, the house is expected to pass a stop gap measure to avert a government shutdown at midnight tonight. that's after the senate passed it today. the bill expected to include funding for planned parenthood over the objections of many conservative members. but the news making the biggest waves on capitol hill today is house majority leader kevin mccarthy comment about the benghazi committee in the house and the impact on hillary clinton's poll numbers. take a listen to what he had to say. >> everybody thought hillary clinton was unbeatible. right? we put together a benghazi special committee, a select committee, what are her numbers today? her numbers are dropping. why? because she's untrustable. no one would have known that had happened had we not -- >> i give credit you for that. >> moments ago, hillary clinton

was asked by reverend al sharpton about those comments. >> what is your response to mccarthy's comments? >> i have to tell you i find them deeply distresses. i knew the ambassador that we lost in benghazi along with him we lost three other brave americans who were representing us in a very dangerous part of the world. there have been eight investigations in the congress. one independent investigation. we have learned all we can learn about what we need to do to protect our diplomats and our other civilians and we need to be enforcing and implementing those changes which is what i started and what secretary continued. so when i hear a statement like that, which demonstrates unequivocally that this was always meant to be a partisan political exercise, i feel like it does a grave disservice and

dishonors not just the memory of the four we lost but of everybody who have served our country. >> joining me now, nbc capitol hill correspondent luke russert, a lot to talk about. you have a vote within hours now and we just heard the comments of hillary clinton. >> reporter: yeah. kate, the vote by the way is fine. we don't have to get the shutdown clock we have seen other times here on capitol hill and rest assured that will go through but the big story, i think you are right. is this gaffe i think it's safe to say that kevin mccarthy said last night and it's caused some angst among house republican aides and said quote/unquote, yikes. john boehner from the beginning of this select committee set up has gone out of his way to say this is not partisan, directly been constructed to investigate the deaths of four americans in benghazi that occurred back on 9/11 a few years ago and they have done nefrg their power, the leadership level, to try to get

away from this being just a political exercise to put the mud on hillary clinton's tires. now, because of this, you are hearing from democrats forcefully including barbara boxer, senator of california, adam schiff here, ranking member i should say, on capitol hill, that this committee should be disbanded. now, october 22nd is the biggest day in the history of this committee. when hillary clinton is scheduled to testify. i'm told by democrats they expect to bring it up, democrats and the committee bringing the comment up as will hillary clinton. mccarthy issued a statement saying this had nothing to do with politics, everything to do with the consequences of what the former secretary has done in the false responses. but that's not doing enough i think to shall we say calm the anger of democrats here on capitol hill and not instilling a lot of confidence in a lot of republicans who did not want to go down this road in any capacity, kate. >> let's ask you. kevin mccarthy is running for

speaker right now, wants to be the new speaker of the house s. there so much concern of house republicans that may not happen? >> reporter: he'll be speaker. i don't think this could hurt that prospect but i think that what you're starting to hear now in this echo chamber is, is this guy ready? he will have the votes and nobody else really want this is job and the conservative forces that say they want it have not been able to assemble behind somebody else but keep in mind he will have the least amount of experience for speaker since anyone of 1891. never served as a committee chairman. first got here in 2006 so the questions are out there and an answer like last night on fox only amplify that, as well as give democrats quite a gift. this is something they have been trying to push for a while and have somebody as high up as a next speaker saying it, that's something to take to the bank and go all in on, kate. >> luke russert, talking to a me believe of the benghazi

committee in the house next. up next, kim davis and the private meetings with pope francis. the pope offering few but powerful words to the controversial court clerk from kentucky. and all eyes on the skies this afternoon as hurricane joaquin churns toward the bahamas wrchlt the storm is, where it's going and the punch it's packing. all that straight ahead. food is committed to truth on the label. when we say real meat is the first ingredient, it is always number one. we leave out poultry by-product meal, corn, wheat and soy. and, we own where our dry food is made - 100%. can other brands say all that? for grain-free nutrition you can trust, does your food go beyond? learn more at beyondpetfood.com

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liberty council, the conservative legal nonprofit organization represented davis, release add picture you're looking at. two rosaries that they say the pope gave to davis as a gift. joining me is chairman of that liberty counsel, matthew staver. thank you for being with us. >> thank you, my pleasure, kate. >> the biggest question we have all had here in the newsroom is how did a meeting between kim davis and the pope happen last week and nobody knew about it? can you give us any sense for how that clandestined meeting happened? >> well, i can't go into detail how it happened or who put it together and how the details came about but i can tell you that she, in fact, did have a meeting, private meeting. wasn't a group meeting. just her and her husband joe with pope francis and he had his security and his camera crew there. that were taking photographs. and it was a brief meeting but it was a very meaningful meeting for kim davis. as she said, she had his hands and they held hands.

he asked her to pray for her and she said she would. she asked him to pray for her. he said he would and he thanked her for her courage. they embraced and he also said these words, stay strong. and that was an incredible moving meeting. she said he was a very gentle, humble man who obviously had a lot of care in his continue innocence and expression so she will never forget that meeting but it was a brief meeting at the vatican embassy in washington, d.c. last thursday afternoon. >> kim davis is christian, obviously. not catholic. but this must have meant so much to her for him to take the time to meet with her. >> incredible amount. i mean, she said who am i to have this once in a lifetime opportunity that lots of people would want to have. and she found herself in this position here where he reached out and gave the encouragement to her and meant so much. her mother and father, lifelong catholics, she took the black and white rosary that was given

to her as a gift from the pontiff and she gave it to her mother and father and her father said, that if he lives to be 200 years old, this will be the most important gift he'll receive in this his life and thankful for that, as well. i think the bigger issue here is not how it came about but before and certainly during his stay here in the united states the pope has expressed a universal human right for religious freedom and his time in his incredibly busy schedule to meet with kim davis who went to jail for her religious beliefs and convictions is something that i think ought to cause all of us to say we need to respect this human right of religious freedom of all of us, no matter the walk of life. >> thank you for joining us and giving us those details. >> thank you. we continue to following the breaking news out of syria where russia launched air strikes today. they said they were against isis but that's being disputed an enthe top republican candidate

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she could control her cash flow, and keep the ranch running. chase for business. so you can own it. we are continuing to follow that breaking news out of syria where russia launched air strikes. these come just days, of course, after president obama met with russian president vladimir putin at the united nations. earlier today, andrea mitchell asked senator mccain if he thought the united states was caught off guard. >> do you think that the u.s. was completely blindsided by his recent diplomatic and military moves? >> i don't know why they were but obviously they were because john kerry and his spokesperson said it's not clear what russia's intentions are. it was perfectly clear what russia's intentions are. to prop up bashar al asaid, the father of isis. to make sure they have a secure base in the region. >> john mccain also saying today

that he doesn't believe isis was the target of those russian air strikes, the russians have been contending that that was their target. we'll continue to monitor that story, of course. we'll bring you updates throughout the next hour. now to presidential politics, tonight at midnight the third quarter fund raising window closes with several 2016 candidates making their last-minute pitches to potential don donors, a candidate not worried about fund raising, self-financed billionaire donald trump sitting down with cnbc's john harwood. >> you're a $4.5 billion man. >> okay. fine. where? >> in "forbes." >> okay. >> what do you think of their list? >> well, i their list, number one, i'm a private company. they don't really know my assets very well. i think that they're very good people. i like the people at "forbes." they don't know a lot of things i own. i don't think they give me any value for brand and my brand is valuable. i have a lot of cash. if i had -- i think, i mean, i

won't tell you the cash i have but hundreds of millions of dollars of cash. >> they said you said 800 and their assessment is 325. >> ydo you agree it's a lot? >> yes. >> okay. it is a lot. >> last night former president bill clinton had a slightly different take on trump's branding. >> well, the thing about branding is, you don't have to be -- you can be fact free. and i think -- >> tonight trump holds a town hall in new hampshire where many candidates are campaigning and the man many expect to be the big winner in third quarter fund raising, ben carson. this has a brand new national poll finds trump continuing to lead the field at 23%. 10 points ahead of carson and carly fiorina. we have team coverage on the trail today. msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt is in new hampshire with the carson campaign but

with're going to begin with katy cur covering the trump town hall. you listen to the sound played a moment with john harwood. he is a man when's not shy about how much money he has. >> reporter: no, he's campaigning on how much money he has. sees his assets as assets, exactly that, and assets to voters out there. he says he's very rich and because he's so successful he knows the tricks of the trade and be able to make the country successful again. it is all part of the donald trump stump speech and what is interesting about that exchange you just played with john harwood is that if donald trump ends up paying $100 million which he's pledged to pay for the come pain, if "forbes" is correct, that's a third of his wealth and the question of the campaign trail amongst the insiders and reporters is how much money is donald trump willing to pay? we'll find out in the next few days and few weeks how much he

has spent so far. we don't believe it's that much at all. mostly he is just spending money on travel and some money for his staff. but he's not spending money on on ads and not spending money on a number of other things other candidates typically spend money on so when all is said and done and stops getting as much national tv attention as he has been getting, how much money will he be taking out of his pockets to fund this campaign? that's when you're going to know how serious of a candidate donald trump is. >> let me ask you about something the man who last ran for the republican -- for president as a republican, mitt romney, said earlier. let me play the tape of what mitt romney had to say about donald trump. >> i will support the republican nominee. i don't think that's going to be donald trump. my party has historically nominated someone who's a mainstream conservative. and someone who has a foundation in foreign policy to give people confidence to guide the ship of

state in troubled waters. mr. trump over the weekend i think on "60 minutes" said that he thought it would be a good idea to let isis take over syria and then pick up the pieces. and i thought that was both absurd and dangerous. and i just don't think that that's -- that kind of proposal is likely to lead him to be our nominee. >> absurd and dangerous. have we heard from donald trump about today's news about the russian air strikes in syria? >> reporter: we have not. we expect that we'll potentially hear something from him tonight but he is very vague on details of things. as he was saying in the interview, there wasn't a lot of details as what his plans for the military or foreign policy would be, only to say that he's going to make the military so great that nobody would ever mess with the united states. it's something that donald trump according to a lot of people who have been watching is not clear -- clearly not an expert and a weak spot he had in the

last debate so foreign policy probably isn't something you hear him hit hard tonight and the details of it. since it is the news of the day and holding a press availability, we are going to ask him about it. remember, mitt romney, though, and the rest of the republican establishment is really rooting against donald trump to drop out at some point or to fizzle out or fall apart. the establishment doesn't like him as a candidate and ultimately what's appealing to the voters out here, not one of them. he's going against them. i spoke to carl icahn on the phone, the investor of apple and come out endorsing donald trump. he says this is exactly what this country needs, needs somebody to go in and shake things up and take apart the dysfunction of washington and be different. we don't need the establishment. so we'll see how it call comes the play when the voters actually cast their ballots and so far it is a very interesting divide between those that are fighting for the establishment and those who are just sick of everything.

>> right. and carl said today he might be willing to take a cabinet position if drrn gets to office. >> reporter: no. he did not. he will not take a cabinet position. >> forgive me. >> reporter: he will not and be part of the kitchen cabinet but not an ambassador and he doesn't want to be secretary of the treasury. >> that's what i get for reading e-mails too quickly. thank you for clarifying that. as we mentioned, ben carson campaigning in the granite state warning about the dangers of political correctness in america and a new sound bite from today, he compared it to nazi germany. >> actually i hate political correctness. and i actually think that it's destroying our nation. i know the pc police say you're not supposed to say nazi germany but i'm saying it because i don't care what they say. back in nazi germany, a lot of those people did not believe in what hitler was doing. but did they speak up?

no. some people say, oh nothing like that could ever happen in america. i beg to differ. >> i'm joined by caskasie hunt exter, new hampshire. i wonder if there's reaction to him using those words. >> reporter: kate, this is something that carson repeatedly says on the campaign trail and been questioned about over the years and he was questioned and he was not referring to president obama in making this comparison. but really, you know, his ability and continual making of comments like this does reflect a pretty deep anger in the electorate with the idea of political correctness and seeing that on the trump campaign side, as well. so, i think carson really staying in the same lane that he has, you know, for quite sometime. the other thing i wanted to go back to a thing you were talking about with katy tur. as far as the base of the

party's concerned, what romney had to say about trump, i covered mmp covered mitt romney eers campaign. romney was extremely concerned about making sure that the people that supported donald trump and that trump himself wasn't out there running around saying bad things about him and courted him extensively. he endorsed romney in a trump property. i think that that again goes to this idea that the republican base is really rebelling against the establishment in a way that we maybe haven't seen before. and i think it's contributing to what you're seeing here on the ground with ben carson, whether it's the comments he was making or whether it's kind of money he is raising. we are expecting that carson might come out on top ahead in fund raising than all of these other candidates, marco rubio, jeb bush, all of the others to normally expect to be able to be raising money and he talked about that today saying he has 600,000 individual donors at this point, kate. >> locking at the poll, it shows

donald trump with a significant lead over ben carson. have they commented? >> reporter: i think that you have seen the polls move around. our nbc news/"wall street journal" shows carson closer to trump. i think that at the end of the day it's the early state that is matter, as well, and gives heart to the campaigns further back and i think new hampshire in particular where we are today is a place where carson potentially does struggle and he's further back closer to where jeb bush is than donald trump in this particular state. >> early states. that's why you're in new hampshire today. thank you. we have much more on trump coming up, the softer side of donald trump and the woman who would be first lady talking to "people" magazine. also tracking hurricane joaquin, the hurricane intensifying heading for the bahamas. al roker joins me next. ve me a m and i've got the solution. well, we have 30 years of customer records. our cloud can keep them safe

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we're continuing to monitor hurricane joaquin in the atlantic. it's now a category 1 storm. packing 85-mile-per-hour winds. will it hit the east will it hi? we're lucky to have al roker back with us to track it all. >> you remember this time yesterday, i was saying to you, they had hurricane hunters flying in and we thought joaquin was going to intensify. it sure has. there's the big area of moisture that caused big problems this morning into this afternoon, and we're going to still see heavier rain up into northern new england, but you look at thursday, things kind of calm down, but we start getting wound up again by friday. from wilmington into virginia, there's a slug of four inches of rain, and that's going to get worse as joaquin gets closer to the continental united states. 85-mile-per-hour winds. this morning on "today" it was at 75 miles per hour.

the plot of it brings it to the bahamas, but look at saturday, it intensifies to a category 3 storm. by monday morning, 8:00 a.m., just offshore of new jersey but the cone of uncertainty. we talked about this yesterday, 520 miles wide. it could be inland. it could be a fish storm out to sea. still remains to be seen. but we do feare talking five ton inches, upwards of ten inches of rain. these are the models that we look at and just about all of them bring it onshore around the carolinas. but we i have bag ridge of high pressure over the atlantic. we also have a troth of low pressure down along the

southeast and the jet stream running along the coast. so the national hurricane center split the difference, put it between the uprights and bring their official path right up to the coast of new jersey, so we'll continue to track this, but kate, right now, it's still a little on the outside of being able to nail this thing down. it's going to take a while. but we know we're going to get rain and heavy winds, there will be flooding, power lines and trees down. it will be in a mess in the northeast from friday evening, saturday evening, right into monday and probably the afternoon monday commute. >> you're ruining weekend plans. >> that's my job. that's what i do. >> al, thank you. the personal side of donald trump, coming up next. un this b. but i really love it. i'm on the move all day long... and sometimes, i just don't eat the way i should. so i drink boost® to get the nutrition that i'm missing. boost complete nutritional drink has 26 essential vitamins and minerals,

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we've been talking about how donald trump wants to show his softer side now. this is "people" magazine, out soon in a brand new interview.

joining me now, charlotte trigs who did this interview in the penthouse here in new york city. what was it like? >> you know, it's very interesting. i mean, he's obviously comfortable on his turf, in his office, in his penthouse complex that they have. he's a really interesting guy. he was very open. we asked him anything that we wanted and he answered every single question. >> and we forget that he has children, he has a 9-year-old son who lives at home still. >> yeah, he has a young 9-year-old boy, they play golf together, do one-on-one dinners together, to have family bonding time. but he also has four grown children who are all very accomplished. he's very proud of them. he said he prides himself on being a good father. >> and his wife, did she have much to say? >> mel annia said she's not ready to get political yet, but she opened up about her husband's thoughts on immigration. she went through a long process

to become a naturalized citizen and thinks everybody is this have to follow the law, and that she's not a "yes" woman. >> did didn't she also say she can't argue with him sometimes? >> she can people can advise him, but he's going to do what he wants to do. >> charlotte, i appreciate it. thank you. we'll be back with more news on this wednesday busy right after this. across america, people like basketball hall of famer dominique wilkins... ...are taking charge of their type 2 diabetes... ...with non-insulin victoza®. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar.

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qualifying customers may receive $750 toward a new audi q5 good afternoon, kate snow with you in new york city. here's what's happening on msnbc live. russian air strikes in syria. just who was the intended target of those air strikes? and firing back, we have new sound in from hillary clinton, responding to an admission from the likely next speaker of the house, that confirms the house benghazi committee was squarely aimed at politics. maybe not confirms, but suggests that for sure. and pope france