that does it for us tonight. we'll be back tomorrow with a brand new nbc news presidential battleground map. "with all due respect" starts now. i'm mark halperin. >> i'm john heilemann. with all due respect to donald trump's wall, it looks like the mexicans may have found a way in. >> that could be a mexican plane up there. they're getting ready to attack. on the show tonight, a tarmac chat. veepstakes flap. a former british hack. first, donald trump's new campaign tack. he did something remarkable did.

he kind of sort of acted like a semihemi demi normal presidential candidate, holding an event in manchester, new hampshire where he delivered a scripted speech about manufacturing job loss, unemployment and trade policy. as trump read his remarks, the e-mail in-boxes of reporters like us were flooded with press releases from the campaign filled with facts and figures to bolster the message and reinforce his remarks. >> when you have large numbers of unemployed blue collar workers, incomes go down across the entire country. when you force workers in america to compete with workers earning $1 a day overseas, our whole standard of living goes down. so our middle class is around ten percentage points since 1970 and share of gdp controlled by workers has steadily declined and shifted to corporations. so we became the richest economy in the world with the biggest middle class in the world by

becoming the biggest producer, the biggest producer in the world. >> unlike what was once cable news standard practice, not a single channel took trump's event live today. as team trump tries to make his campaign seem more like a normal well-oiled political operation, how's it working out? >> you know, the press is obsessed and a lot of people in the democratic party are obsessed with the mechanics of trump's campaign and obviously there's something to that. now there's this meme of well, yeah, we are grading him on a curve, tehe's acting like a norl candidate. we are see more of this where he goes to some event, not in some arena, and i think local coverage at a minimum will get more on message and there's a powerful message today. we have a big trade deficit. it's not perfect, not nearly as good as the clinton campaign in terms of execution, but it's better. >> i actually think given how

bad it was, just a week ago, just a week ago, ten days ago, given how little there was of any of the standard scaffolding of a normal presidential campaign, i'm actually surprised how fast it's turned around to the point where again today, if you did not know any of the history, none of the history of how bare bones that operation was, and you just dropped in today, you would think you were in a normal presidential campaign. again, in terms of as a reporter covering it, that inflow i mentioned before. that was a normal event today. i didn't think it was particularly great but it was normal. >> the message of do you like the deficit, the trade deficit, do you like what's happened to american manufacturing jobs, do you like what's happened to incomes. if you do, keep voting for the status quo and career politicians. if you don't, vote for change. it's his core message. it's an economic message that isn't impossible for hillary clinton to respond to, but difficult. >> i don't think it's that difficult because the problem is

that you can diagnose all the problems in the world but trump, what trump doesn't have yet which is a lot harder than putting out press releases citing the problems, is an actual agenda with real policies, with real solutions, things that would actually solve any of these many problems he's identified. this is a good first step but unless you have those things, big deal. >> except that his only chance of winning is to basically make it a referendum on the status quo. if he can do that, i agree he will need more specifics but not that many more. that's not the key part of his chance of winning. >> i still think it's pretty important given some of the stuff he's saying would maybe make the problem worse. >> the clinton campaign is getting blowback today for an ordinary and in another way, extraordinary private conversation on monday between bill clinton and the attorney general loretta lynch. that meeting took place in the a.g.'s parked plane on a tarmac at the phoenix airport while both clinton and lynch were visiting the city for separate reasons. both of them said this was just a chance meeting and that their

conversation was only about family and other personal matters. the encounter of course raises questions about the ongoing justice department investigation into the use of hillary clinton's private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. lynch says the conversation steered clear of anything having to do with that case. some democrats criticized lynch's judgment in allowing the former president to get on her plane and have a private talk. donald trump went further in his criticism this morning on mike gallagher's radio program. >> it was really a sneak. i mean, it was really, you know, it was really something that they didn't want publicized as i understand. is that correct? >> it is. >> i just think -- >> what a stark difference. >> i think it's so terrible. i think it's so horrible. i think it's the biggest story, one of the big stories of this week, of this month, of this year. you know, i have been talking about the rigged system, how it's rigged, and you know, this is terrible. >> there's your example. >> nobody can understand why

nothing's happened. you see a thing like this and even in terms of judgment, how bad a judgment is it for him or for her to do this. who would do this? >> again, trump is not the only critic of that meeting. democratic senator from delaware told cnn the meeting didn't send the right signal. press secretary josh earnest at the white house was asked a lot of questions at his daily briefing and deflected them. i heard from other democrats who rolled their eyes at this and think it was clearly a case of poor judgment. but will it be forgotten or will this somehow continue to be a lingering problem for the clinton campaign? >> it's hard for me to judge whether it will be a lingering problem. there's some amount of runway on what will happen with the fbi investigation. >> runway, tarmac. >> whatever. look, bad judgment. horrible judgment. i don't think it's a partisan point to make. bill clinton should not be having a private conversation with the top law enforcement official in the country when his wife is under investigation.

loretta lynch should not be having a conversation with the former president in a private setting. we will never know what happened in that conversation. i'm more or less happy to give them benefit of the doubt. none of us will ever know what actually happened in that room and it just casts doubts on it, it raises suspicions, conspiracy theorists will run wild. just dumb. >> here's why i think it's a big problem. when this investigation ends if hillary clinton is not indicted, people will say obama covered it up. unless they take an extraordinary step, there will be nothing more and probably not even without an extraordinary step, a statement saying the investigation's over. if they don't indict, nothing happens. this will add to the partisan tint on the decision in a way that was unnecessary. it will happen anyway but it was so unnecessary. i do think if fbi agents start to leak which if she's not indicted i predict they will, here are all the things that came out during the investigation, people will say yeah, the fbi wanted to indict and loretta lynch squelched it.

>> i agree that it could be a big problem if fbi agents start to leak and some of the leaks have credibility that. could be a problem. this again, i'm always focused on who's the moveable voters in the electorate. the people on the right who will vote for trump at this point, conservatives, others inclined toward trump, will think conspiracy one way or the other, regardless whether this meeting takes place. people for clinton will vote for clinton. in the middle, will anybody look at this, remember it on election day and say that's the reason i'm voting against hillary clinton? >> you are underestimating intensity. >> maybe. >> in terms of turnout. >> i sometimes have done that. it's high season for summer veepstake speculation. reporters are spending their days digging up as much as possible on poe tntential runni mates. one person on hillary clinton's list dielis dealing with a lessn flattering headline today. tim kaine, seen by many as the front-runner for her running mate and certainly someone on

the short list, accepted $160,000 worth of gifts and paying for travel expenses. a lot of this is not really new but until not, hasn't gotten a lot of national attention. asked for comment, the office said they went beyond the requirements of virginia law, publicly disclosing gifts of value beneath the reporting threshold. he's confident he met the letter and spirit of virginia's ethical standards, end quote. this story is a reminder that many people on trump and clinton's vp short list will at least have some potential liabilities and some political baggage. newt gingrich, the lobbyist. chris christie, bridgegate. tim kaine has this. my question for you, how does this flap compare to the likely political problems that come with pretty much any running mate choice? >> if this is the worst thing in tim kaine's vetting file, he will be picked. it is a reminder that everyone has this. i think if i was tim kaine, the main thing i would be concerned about is where did this story come from. i don't think politico found it

on their own. so the question is, did it come from a rival democrat, did it come from a republican, was it a float by the clinton folks. it's a little concerning. i would be concerned. >> it all depends if there's any other stuff. right now, 100% i agree with you. if you compare not just bridgegate for christie but the things that we reported on that are in his history, that were problematic for him getting selected by romney that gave the romney people second and third pause, right, this is small stake stuff. it is i think -- i think there are more vetting problems with a lot of the people trump is considering than when the people clinton is considering but it is clear the knives are now out on both sides. democrats will try to take out other democrats and the republicans will try to take out everybody on clinton's short list over the course of the next couple weeks. >> it is off-brand for tim kaine. i was a little surprised. although they do have an explanation for a lot of this stuff. it also shows you, this kind of stuff can be more of a problem. a few years ago, i don't think anybody would have cared about stuff like this.

in the current environment, doesn't look great. we have debated on this program which donald trump poll numbers one should pay attention to at this point in the race. there are national surveys, trump is not doing all that well in for the most part, then there are battleground state poll numbers where trump is for the most part pretty competitive. lately we have been noticing there's another bit of dissonance. his non-horse race numbers, like his favorability and traits would make any other candidate seem like a dead man walking, yet trump is still in the race despite really bad numbers. for instance, a new fox news national poll has hillary clinton beating trump 44% to 38%. but that's still within the margin of error. at the same time, 89% of registered voters in the survey say the phrase hot-headed accurately describes donald trump. that doesn't seem so great. more than half of republicans, this is incredible, in this poll said they prefer someone else as the republican nominee at this point in the process, that is not a great number. so john, which numbers do you

think are more important leading indicators for trump at this point? the horse race number, where he's nationally not doing that well, or the traits which are problematic? >> well, look, i think if you ask the question why is it now in a lot of the polling averages on a national basis trump is still within the margin of error but dropping, the trend lines are bad for him, and the numbers in some of these polls are quite large and others are still worrying for anybody, six, eight points, whatever, the traits are what's driving that. so if i were trump, there are traits hillary clinton is really behind, too. trump should be worried about these traits for sure. >> hot-headed may be a good thing to some people. the fact so many want somebody else, it's not good. i have come to believe, what is it going to take for trump to win, i think he can win with all these bad traits. i think people will look at -- whoever is elected will have a lot of warts. the press focuses on trump's warts and less on clinton's warts, in part because trump's are astonishing and we are kind

of used to clinton's. we are used to decades of thinking people don't necessarily trust the clintons. >> unless you believe that trump is going to succeed in bringing a whole bunch of new people into the process, unless you believe that, he's got to get over 90% of republicans to vote for him. right now, it's not that a lot of democrats hate trump because they hate him. the question is among republicans, right now trump is way underperforming with republicans and the reason he is is because a lot of republicans think the negative things about him, too. he changed their view of republicans. >> back to a strong vp pick, strong convention and strong debate. coming up, teflon don and ironclad clinton. we discuss the criticism and potential scandals, next. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists. polident's unique micro clean formula works in just 3 minutes, killing 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. for a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture every day. try phillips' fiber good gummies plus energy support. there's a more enjoyable way to get your fiber.

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there's one thing we know about this unusual presidential race, it's that both presidential candidates have already faced a truckload of

flaps that don't seem to stick to them, at least not the way it would stick to normal previous nominees. we talked earlier in the program about bill clinton's tarmac conversation with attorney general loretta lynch, but that is just one of a covey of negative story lines the campaign has been dealing with. in case you haven't been keeping careful track, we have you covered. >> clinton, controversies? here's what happened. benghazi investigation. ongoing. house committee issues report. private e-mail server investigation. also ongoing. top clinton aide deposed. said boss' private server got in the way of work. among this, bill clinton, attorney general loretta lynch and the meeting in phoenix. coincidental but private. looks bad. lynch said it was just social. finally, according to the hill, priorities usa super pac pro-clinton received $2,000 in bad donations. clinton's campaign declined to comment. >> both clinton and trump would

argue they are hounded and all these flaps become huge controversies but most of these are not sticking. going forward, what will it take for a flap like these to actually stick to clinton and dominate her day in a negative way? >> you know, we mentioned before obviously if she got indicted, if one of the people around her got indicted, if the fbi came out and said that her server had been hacked and classified material had been exposed to foreign hackers. those would obviously break through. i think there's the whole mass of things. the press, anything that relates to the clinton foundation, something like where there's some clear link between dollars and something she did as secretary of state, i think those could break through. the bar is pretty high because people have pretty coarse hides when it comes to clinton scandals. >> and the kind of kabuki of what happens, the news organization gets opposition research, run the story, republicans say it's the worst thing that ever happened in the history of western civilization. the democrats circle the wagons, the clinton campaign does their

various attack backs. the bar is pretty high. the benghazi hearings failed because they were totally partisan. the thing today with bill clinton and loretta lynch, you had a few people being critical. to me, that's an essential ingredient if something will stick to her, the democrats think it's problematic. >> look, let's not underestimate the extent to which these things have stuck to her in a long-term way. >> no question. >> her honest and trustworthy numbers are horrible. horrible. this last cbs poll had her close to 70% of people saying they don't think she's honest and trustworthy and she's trailing trump on that metric. that is all about the accumulated weight of these things. >> not one of the things we just talked about have dominated television. >> i agree with that. >> that's surprising. >> there's still a dead weight thing going on. let's talk about trump. trump is of course no stranger to scandal, pseudoscandals. his team is facing a trifecta of unflattering stories on his business seminars, charitable

giving and soliciting foreign donations. once again, we will catch you right up. >> donald trump headlines. the bad ones. here's what happened. charity, trump says he gave millions. the "washington post" says no, not really. >> he hasn't given his own foundation since 2008 any money. >> as far as we can tell, yes. >> e-mails, campaignings finance watch dogs say his campaign solicited donations from foreign nationals. one accusation comes from paul ryan. not that paul ryan. that paul ryan. who says it's a no-brain tore violate the law to send fund-raising e-mails to heads of foreign government on their official e-mail government accounts. yet that's exactly what trump has done repeatedly. trump institute. ever heard of it? no. you are thinking of trump university. different venture, similar controversy. >> it's a great place to meet people and they're sort of like you, they're smart, they're intelligent, in some cases they're beautiful or good-looking. >> according to the "new york times" trump lends his name to a seminar series with a steep price tag. that according to the reporting lifted at least 20 pages of

teaching materials from an obscure magazine published in 1995. >> here's johnny! >> finally, 2008. trump got good press when he pledged to save ed mcmahan from foreclosure but according to the bloomberg reporter on this story, that didn't really happen. trump didn't end up buying the house. some other rich guy did. still, trump takes credit. he brought attention to the dilemma and mcmahon never lost his home. >> so i ask you, just doing our little flip-around here, lot of things about trump that are controversies like some stick, some don't. what's the bar for him? >> as much as i think the clinton campaign should be grateful things don't stick as much as they used to, i can understand their frustration. they pralant a story it would appear with the "new york times," front page, trump institute. i haven't seen it anywhere on television. people aren't talking about it. that story has got a million hooks, a million angles, got that video. >> it's got plagiarism.

>> profiteering, greed, almost no pickup. i can't tell you what it would take. donald trump, same when he was running the republican process, just stuff does not stick to him. press is to blame for some of it. voters, whatever. but man, the bar, i couldn't even tell you what the bar is. donald trump himself said it t best, he could go on fifth avenue and shoot somebody and wouldn't necessarily cost him with voters. >> i don't think that's necessarily true. >> up next, a tale of two republican strategists. one now a libertarian. the other a novelist. we will talk to both in a minute. what knee pain? what sore elbow? advil liqui-gels make pain a distant memory nothing works faster stronger or longer what pain? advil. don't you dare follow your dreams. think big. or demand your own space.

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new alka-seltzer heartburn relief gummies. enjoy the relief. welcome back. we are pulling up to alliteration station with our next two guests. mary madeline and stuart stevens. long-time political strategist, she recently joined the lib tear ian party on this program. stuart is a former senior campaign strategist for mitt romney's presidential campaign bid and author of an extraordinarily well timed new novel called "the innocent have nothing to fear." thank you both for coming on the show. >> where is the convention? >> new orleans. the new orleans -- >> i think like the olympics, should be in one place, conventions should be in one place. new orleans should be the place. >> let me ask you, i 100% agree with that. let me ask this question. beyond the obvious publicity value, if cleveland were to turn

into a genuinely contested convention, what likelihood do you give to that happening at this point? >> pretty close to zero. i don't see how it will happen short of trump completely falling apart. or trump deciding he doesn't want to run which seems exceedingly unlikely. >> you have given up? no way to stop him now? apart from the general election? >> the guy is going to be the nominee. >> you agree? >> today, but i will say the never trump forces are not going away. if you can't be stopped, you can be blocked at least philosophically which was the whole point of libertarianism. i'm not trying to make a statement but there are an increasing number of people, increasingly vocal, leaders in the party, who are saying give us something, give us something that some semblance of

reflection, of philosophy, of principles that once were part of the republican party. >> if they came to you and said we have to stop donald trump in cleveland, help us, what should we do, what would you say? >> i wouldn't do it. you know my opinion on this. i think the party is already in perilous whig-like shape. that would just accelerate its demise. but i would say to continue advocating principles. you can see some of his speeches to the extent where he's on teleprompter number two, we are hearing some echoes of some things we recognize as potential conservative philosophical tenets. >> trump doing any damage to the party right now? >> i think he's doing tremendous damage. the nightmare scenario is if what happens with hispanics mirrors what happened with african-americans in 1964. before you guys have talked

about this, republicans would get 30% to 35% before 1964 of african-american vote. not great but it's a lot easier to get to 50 from 35 than it is from what we are getting now which is somewhere between 5 and 10% usually. if that happens with hispanics, in this election, for republicans, it's a generational disaster. i don't know how you recover. >> stuart stevens, mary, that was a short block, we have a longer one coming up. stick around. nutrition. do you really know what it means? no. the answer is no. because it's complicated and science-y. but with my nutrition mixes, you don't have to worry about the science. you can just put it in your pie hole. planters. nutrition starts with nut. and you're talking to your doctor about your medication... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain

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we're back with two very accomplished people. political strategist republicans. mary matalyn, stuart stevens. tell me something you wonder about donald trump. >> i wonder what his north star

is and i take the point and i'm internalizing it that he's not political, he's not idealogical. i don't really understand what his north star business, if that is his north star, what his economic north star is. i appreciated some parts of the speech the other day, the globalization, bilateral, not multi-lateral, but if he wants to go back to the constitution, he needs to understand that the reason we had tariffs because we couldn't do taxes because we just came out of a war and wanted to stimulate credit and all that. he's not even using that template as a basis of his economic transition in this new global economy, in this new paradigm. >> same question, stuart. >> why is he so emotionally unstable? he's incredibly insecure. what happened to him? he's someone that has been given

everything in life by virtue of -- had every advantage in life, yet he seems to be constantly feeling like someone is cheating him. i don't understand that. something happened. i don't think it's anything at age 70 you're going to fix. but it's sort of in many ways, sad. >> like they took his sled away from him or something. >> something. he loves "citizen kane" so it could be a rosebud thing. but it's a terrible quality in a president. >> but, but, but i think we psychobabble too much. every person we know, we have been knowing each other for decades, do you know any cool person that's sane? no. we are all nutty in some way. the most brilliant people we know, i think his manifestation of his whatever he has, and he clearly has something, we don't recognize it so we call it

insecurity or narcissism or something like that. i judge him by his kids. maybe that's -- but i think america sees that, too. >> he does lash out at people in a way that's unusual for someone trying to win support. >> that's a different -- we are measuring him by our template. we know a lot of other people, friends of ours, dear friends of ours, husbands of ours who lash out and don't exactly understand how their words are falling. i think he's getting that. >> you think donald trump is emotionally and temperamentally stable as george herbert walker bush? >> i thought w and papa were different. >> do you think trump is as stable as either one of those bushes? >> i think he's very theatrical and knows more about what he's doing than we think he does. >> do you think he's likely to lose the election? >> politics is all about probability. the probability is because of the reasons you were talking

about earlier, he hasn't coalesced the republican vote, the margin of error now for a republican to win nationally is so small that you have to give an inside straight of an inside straight. there's no reason to think he can do that. >> you think he can win? >> i think he can win and win big. >> just describe the dynamics -- >> you will want this to go by the conventional templates that we know and this is sort of a rumsfeld-ian we don't know what we don't know. it's a whole new paradigm. we don't know when you are living through a new paradigm. we are running against an incredibly weak, incredibly weak high negatives, can't get over them, never will be loved person who thinks that money and machine is going to beat trumpism. it's not about trump. we hear him but people who are supporting him and people who will never support her are hearing, when you talk about immigration, they don't hear that it's racism.

or when you talk about profiling or syrian refugees shouldn't be let in because they can't be vetted, they don't think that's bigotry. so he has some where to go that people want to go and she has nowhere to go. it's just a different dynamic. if you want to go state by state, it's too early to do that. if you want to use something we recognize polls, she should be way ahead of him by now. dukakis was way ahead of us in whatever it was, '88. they are all merging together. >> here's what i go back to. four groups of voters, if you want to do it in simplistic terms. men, women, white, non-white. which of these will trump do better than mitt romney and which one is she going to do worse than obama. somewhere in there, that's all we got. where is it going to be? that's why i would particularly look at white women. romney won white women by 14

points. probably to win a national election, if you look at a turnout in what will be in all probability, you need to move that closer to 20 if you are a republican. right now, he's, what, breaking even with white women? so you're way off. maybe he does a little better with white men but you have to do a whole lot better because romney did really well and it's sort of like baseball. it's a lot easier to go from .350 to .450. he really has to start hitting .600 or .700 with certain groups. >> that's a demographics is destiny model which is not -- >> you agree the entire electorate can be defined that way, right? man, woman, white or non-white? >> that, but -- >> there's nowhere else to go. >> well, you can be somewhere in between now. hispanics are not homogenous

thinkers. millenials are not supporting i am woman, i am strong just because she's a woman. i have two young daughters, they like or don't like her based on policies or whatever. there's not that level of homogenous thinking in this very volatile, to use an overused word, electorate which has been volatile for some time. hispanics care about the economy and women care about the economy. everybody cares about the same things. >> at some point you have to get to numbers. is trump going to do better with whites than romney did or with non-whites? he has to do better with one or the other. >> he will do better with non-traditional voters, non-white. i don't want to compare him to romney necessarily. then the current expectation. he's not going to lose texas by seven points. she might lose maine or at least one district in maine. who is she going to do far worse with if you want to do

demographics as destiny, millenials, critical to him. i think he will do better with some non-white voters. >> who is trump's best pick as vice president? >> listen, i don't think who's vice president matters much in electoral sense. if i was him i would go with someone with very strong foreign policy credentials. i think that's his greatest weakness which would be the case for anyone who hasn't held office before. >> who is trump's best vice presidential pick? please say a name. don't do what he just did. >> take your time. the show's an hour. >> ted cruz. >> ted cruz? >> ted cruz. >> think about it. >> thinking about it now. >> thank you both. stuart's book is available now. and it's good. >> really good. >> coming up, we turn to other looming election happening in

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european unity has been a poisoned chalice for generations of politicians. it's time that the political parties have been a graveyard of political reputation. >> that was michael elliott in 1996, bbc documentary series which examined the impact of

europe and european union on british politics. joining us to talk about the latest brexit political developments, the man himself, former editor of "time" international and "newsweek" international, michael elliott. we all found that boris johnson had suddenly dropped out for reasons unknown and unknowable. why? >> who do you want to write the script for this movie? it's the most -- been the most astonishing day of a week long of astonishing days. this morning as you say, everyone thought boris johnson was not only going to declare as leader of the conservative party but frankly was the front-runner and all but certain to be the next prime minister. then what happened is that his partner in arms, michael gove, with whom he had fought the referendum to take britain out of the european union decided that oh, no, boris wasn't quite up to the job, that he was, so he declared and two hours later, boris threw the towel in and

pulled out. absolutely unbelievable developments that the british political village are still trying to absorb six or seven hours later. >> so handicap the remaining field. who's got the inside track at this point? >> so the leading candidate is the home secretary, theresa may. she was actually campaigning to stay in the european union. she didn't campaign very intensely, it must be said, but she is a remainor. she announced her canned des di the leadership this morning. i thought she did very well. she has reputation for not being particularly charismatic or compelling but i thought she was great this morning. she made a couple of good jokes. she's already being called the angela merkel of british politics. she's i think the front-runner. there are, let me see now, three

lea leaveres of whom gove is the best known. there are five candidates. i think it will come down to theresa may or michael gove. >> we will have a new prime minister, new leader of the tory party. what's the likelihood of two things, the first, what's the likelihood jeremy corbyn will be the leader of the party or be replaced and what's the likelihood we will have a snap election called in the u.k. before the end of this year? >> really great questions. let's take the first one first. jeremy corbyn has lost control of three quarters of the members of the parliamentary labor party but still has enormous import with the labor party leadership who cast the votes for -- sorry, labor party membership who cast the votes for who the labor party is. so right now, if he decided to see out this fight he's having with the parliamentary party and stand for re-election, i rather

suspect he would win. that would split the party into two completely different arms. you would have a left wing membership and the sort of soft left moderate member parliamentary party and i don't see how they can campaign together. something we have never seen before. will there be a general election? theresa may went out of her way in her declaration this morning to say there would not be that a new conservative government of which she hopes she will be the prime minister will see through the next four years to the next scheduled election, but i think what we have learned in the last eight days is you really can't predict what's going to happen in british politics more than 24 hours ahead. so whether as negotiations get out of the eu develop, you have yet more eruptions in british politics, there has to be a general especiallection, i woul rule that out although at the moment there are no plans for it. >> michael elliott, a man touched by greatness who had it

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our next guest tonight is two guests tonight. joining us from our d.c. bureau, democratic strategist stephen mcmann and joining us from san diego, the former press secretary for george w. bush's 2000 presidential campaign, mindy tucker-fletcher. the video you are seeing now is from a tour she gave to c-span of the bush headquarters in austin, texas. here's a quick flashback from a simpler, more texas time. >> we are pretty high tech here, we like to think. we have our own television studio. this is the brains of that

operation where they can feed video and audio from here. they monitor the room next door which is the studio which i will show you. this is sort of the technical aspect of that, where they keep track of our own television and audio needs. >> monitoring of twitter in that campaign. mindy, fletcher, thank you for joining us. mindy, i want to ask you a version of the question i asked stuart and mary. what's something you wonder about hillary clinton? >> you know the thing i have been wondering about hillary clinton for a long time is who she has around her to help her articulate her voice. i think she's smart, she's intelligent, she seems to be funny at times. i don't know that she's found that right staff person that really enables her to be the best her. i think that's probably been holding her back for a long time. it's a question i wanted to ask somebody with insight into her team. >> steve, either answer that question if you know the answer or answer mine, which is what's

something you wonder about her? >> well, first i will answer your question. i think she has a number of people around her, including joel, one of the best strategists in the party and john podesto, and many others. what do i wonder? i wonder if she is frustrated when donald trump is speaking to people's emotions and she's being -- having to be really the reasonable, rational, calm, deliberate leader a president has to be. donald trump isn't running as a president. he's running as a carnival show. she's trying to project and demonstrate steady, solid leadership. sometimes people, there's a saying in our business that they will quickly forget what you told them but they will long remember how you made them feel. donald trump understands that and is making people feel something that i think is probably frustrating at some level for the clinton campaign. >> let me ask you, bill clinton,

loretta lynch politically, how big a mistake, if a mistake at all for bill clinton to seek that meeting and how big a mistake politically for loretta lynch to accept mr. clinton to come on her plane? >> well, i think it was a mistake. it was a mistake for both of them. i'm kind of surprised at the judgment that was exercised in that case. i'm sure nothing inappropriate happened but i'm also sure that the way it looks to a lot of people who suspect these things and the conspiracy theorists is not good. there's just no getting around that. >> mindy, what do you think about that? just if you can render a judgment there. >> it just plays into the narrative. people are already pretty distrustful of him given his background. they tend to be distrustful of her given what she's been shrouded with the past few months. it was a really dumb move. it showed a tin ear on someone's part even if nothing happened, everyone will think something happened.

it was just a really dumb move. on the campaign like this, running against the person they are running against at this level, they will have to be smarter than that. >> will it matter a few months from now or will this be forgotten? >> no one thing really matters that much but if you play into a narrative over and over and over again, that does start to matter. they have to be careful. they can't do things like this again. >> you were involved in national politics at a high level and now have been out in california. tell everybody what you think of donald trump being the nominee of the republican party. >> you know what's fascinating is here in california, over the past few years, we have already gone through sort of a trump-like change. the party sort of has imploded if you look at the top of our ticket, we have a senate race that should be competitive, we have no one really running that's competitive. it was a trump-like mentality that sort of created that. it's really interesting to me from this vantage point to watch it now happen at the national level. i think it's a fight for the soul of our party.

i think the people who go along to get along are being very dangerous and entering into something they don't quite realize what they are entering into and the ramifications of which will be terrible. i think he's a terrible nominee. he doesn't represent the best of our party. for me personally i find myself at home not allowing my children to watch him give speeches. that is such a fundamental problem with our nominee, it speaks to things way bigger than party. just concerns that any normal mom sitting at home on their couch would have about this person who wants to be president. >> steve, i know you wanted to answer the question about whether the lynch/clinton thing would matter. but also answer this. in your view, is there anything that could happen between now and over the next few months in the e-mail related controversy that would have a substantially significant political impact on hillary clinton negative, obviously? >> okay. for the first question, i don't think the meeting ultimately will have any impact on the

campaign. i think mindy's right. it does sort of feed a narrative of the critics and that's unfortunate. i'm sure nothing inappropriate happened there. it probably shouldn't have happened, in any event. as to whether or not anything will happen on the e-mail thing, i don't see anything developing. as you get closer to the convention and to a nomination, i think it becomes less and less likely that anything will develop that will be meaningful and significant. look, this investigation has been going on for an awfully long time. there are many, many, many fbi agents involved, if you believe everything that's been leaked, and yet they don't seem to have anything. so i don't think there's anything there. if they did have something, my guess is given what i know about the rules for proceeding in political cases where there's a campaign going on, if they had something, they almost certainly would have done something much sooner than now. >> just go back to what i think you said about donald trump, would your preference be that no one in the republican party, no member of congress, no governor endorse him? >> that would be great because that would lead to i think what

i hope is coming which is a larger conversation inside the party about what the heck do we do at the end of september, headed into convention? >> who do you plan to vote for if it's clinton and trump on the ballot? >> the conversation going on here is wow, my vote doesn't count because i'm in california, democrats always win. everybody is relieved, it doesn't matter how i vote because hillary will win california and everyone is relieved because nobody knows what to do. republicans don't know what to do. they are very frustrated. they don't necessarily want hillary clinton but they certainly don't want donald trump. it's a horrible place to be. >> who you going to vote for? >> i'm hoping for a dust-up at convention. >> okay. >> i don't have to decide until november. i'm hoping for a better choice. >> mindy, thank you. steve, thank you both. great to talk to you. more after this. everything you're good at now, you were once... pretty bad at. it's the same for credit. even if you're not good at it now, that's okay.

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talking about before when donald trump promised to save ed mcmahon's beverly hills mansion from foreclosure? see you tomorrow. >> coming up, "hardball." it's an angry country but who does it trust? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews from washington. the faces are angry out there. you ask people what they think of the way the country's going, ask what they think of politicians, of the congress, and you get answered with a snarl. you look at trump, the guy out there challenging the system and all you see are the people hitting back at him. big business, u.s. chamber of commerce, and now organized labor, too. the big question is jobs. why we're losing the good ones, the jobs that let a father raise a family, get his kids into