that does it for us tonight. we'll be back tomorrow. "with all due respect" starts right now. in the mannamerican politic system there are two separate yet equally important groups. the candidates who run for office and the fbi investigators who decide whether to prosecute them. these are their stories. tonight, a political noir

starring person of interest hillary clinton. i'm here in charlotte, north carolina where clinton and president obama made their debut together on the campaign trail just a little while ago. mark halperin is about 160 miles away from me in raleigh, where donald j. trump is holding a competing rally tonight. he'll be with us later in the show. for now i'm joined by my colleague, al hunt of the washington bureau of bloomberg. the context for both events today were completely and utterly changed, however, by the even bigger news that came out this morning. fbi director james comey announcing the end of his agency's months-long high stakes investigation into clinton's handling of classified information at the state department. in his public remarks at fbi headquarters, comey offered a harsh critique of clinton's e-mail practices as secretary of state but ultimately recommended no criminal charges be filed against the presumptive democratic nominee. >> 110 e-mails in 52 e-mail

chains have been determined by the owning agency to contain classified information at the time they were sent or received. eight of those chains contained information that was top secret. although we did not find clear evidence that secretary clinton or her colleagues intended to violate laws governing the handling of classified information, there is evidence that they were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information. although there is evidence of potential violations of the statutes regarding the handling of classified information, our judgment is that no reasonable prosecutor would bring such a case. we are expressing to justice our view that no charges are appropriate in this case. >> even all the way down here in charlotte you could hear the collective sigh of relief from clinton's brooklyn headquarters. the campaign put out a statement that said in part quote, we are glad this matter is now

resolved, end quote. republicans were predictably quick to jump all over comey's decision, questioning the impartiality of the fbi's probe. paul ryan, speaker of the house, released a statement that read in part quote, while i respect the law enforcement professionals at the fbi, this announcement defies explanation. no one should be above the law, end quote. chairman of the senate judiciary committee charles grassley is calling on the fbi to make its e-mail information public and donald trump of course turned to twitter, first tweeting quote, fbi director said crooked hillary compromised our national security. no charges. wow! hash tag rigged system. he also tweeted quote, the system is rigged. general petraeus got in trouble for far less. very very unfair. as usual, bad judgment. al, my friend, what happens now? >> well, hillary clinton has a second reason to issue, utter a sigh of relief, if you will, and

that is because the republicans are playing this so stupidly. what james comey said today is absolutely devastating. she was not only careless, she was reckless and arrogant in using this but rather than seizing on that, they are trying to suggest there's something rigged here, there's something crooked. james comey is a man of impeccable integrity. no one could question his judgment really on this. and i'm shocked at paul ryan. i'm not shocked at donald trump. what they ought to do is just seize what is out there, because it is different than david petraeus. intent really matters here. david petraeus, a man for whom i have a great deal of respect, gave classified information to his mistress. if that's not intent, i don't know what is. hillary clinton was just arrogant and reckless and the gop should be making that case. >> yeah. i think that's right. look, director comey clearly understood the politics of this and you could see rather than leading with the fact he's not going to indict hillary clinton,

he led with a thorough-going critique of her, gave her political opponents a lot of material to work with. i'm sure we will hear a lot of it from now until election day, people citing and seizing on comey. the bottom line, a number of people have asked me over the course of the day how do you think this plays for hillary clinton. talking to her senior staff here on the ground and having my own sense of this, this is a really simple story. the story here is binary. indictment or no indictment. if hillary clinton was indicted or director comey suggested that criminal charges should be brought against her, recommended that, this would be one of the worst days in her life. she might not be the democratic nominee and might not be president of the united states. as of today, a week after basically being exonerated in the benghazi matter, today she essentially has been exonerated in this e-mail scandal, e-mail controversy. it is a good day for hillary clinton and although there will be a lot of arguments going

forward about what she did wrong, she is more or less politically free and clear of this. there has been damage done but she's free and clear. today is a day of dueling tarheel rallies in the state where i'm in. donald trump holding one of his signature events in raleigh while clinton shared the stage with president obama. just a couple blocks from where i'm sitting. after giving a speech to the national education association teachers union in washington this moing, clinton boarded air force one and flew with her 2008 rival to a state that obama won eight years ago but lost narrowly in 2012. onstage at the charlotte convention center not far as i say from where i'm sitting at this moment, obama took some jabs at donald trump while praising clinton's experience and, well, let's take a listen to that sound. >> i don't know about you, but we are fired up and ready to go, ready to win this election. please join me in welcoming the

president of the united states, barack obama. >> hillary! hillary! hillary! i have had a front row seat to her judgment and her toughness and her commitment to diplomacy, and i witnessed it in the situation room where she argued in favor of the mission to get bin laden. i saw how as a former senator from new york, she knew, she understood because she had seen it, she had witnessed it, what this would mean for the thousands who had lost loved ones when the twin towers fell. this is not entertainment. this is real. this is not a reality show. this is reality. and being president of the united states means you have to deal with reality. but i'm here today because i believe in hillary clinton.

and i want you to help elect her to be the next president of the united states of america. that's why i'm here. >> al, we are still waiting to see donald trump so we can't do a side by side comparison but we can talk about the clinton/obama event. i was in the room. you watched it more importantly in some ways on television which is how most people were experiencing that event. how formidable do you think that tandem looked today? >> pretty darned formidable. bill clinton really helped barack obama enormously in 2012 in charlotte, north carolina with that convention speech. boy, was today payback plus some. barack obama at a time when hillary clinton, you're right, it was a great day, the fact she escaped indictment but her trust issue is a real problem with voters. obama now is far more popular than either clinton or trump, for that matter, and i think he's got standing and i think he

did it today, he did it well today. it looked good and i think north carolina, a state i spend a lot of time in, i know democrats think the one mistake obama made in '12 was not contesting north carolina, he might have won it again. i think right now if i had to bet, as of today, i would put it in the "d" category. >> i will say this. this is obviously a historic moment and a lot of democrats have waited a long time, first having nominated an african-american and elected him president, now about to nominate the first woman ever to lead the democratic party, hoping to elect her president, to see the two of them onstage, former bitter rivals for a period of time in 2008, then partners in statecraft in the administration, now political allies, the crowd here was in love with what they saw onstage and the clinton people were in love with it, too. not just because of the earlier news of the day but seeing this onstage, knowing we will see a lot more of it, knowing how much president obama wants to help hillary clinton if for no other reason than to protect his

legacy and take out donald trump, and the fact that obama is a convert to her cause. they think that's very powerful, that he was once a critic of hers, now is a convert. they think that's a big powerful political plus that he can bring to this race and they saw the first sign of it here today. >> well, i think you're right. but i will bet you privately, at least among bill and hillary and some of the real clinton loyalists, it must rankle a teeny bit because they think they are the great political strategists of all times and they need obama. obama, i'm not going to say he can carry them. that whole thing about an eisenhower jacket, there are no coattails, i don't think an outgoing president has much coattails but there is a certain imprimatur he put on today that is very important and effective. >> she needs the enthusiasm of democrats and democrats love barack obama. when we come back, we will get more reactions to the fbi's announcement from team trump and a clinton supporter. that's coming up after this.

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it was of course as we have just been discussing a mega-monster gigantic news day for hillary clinton. my friend mark halperin joins us from the trump rally in raleigh, north carolina. we are also joined up in new york by clinton supporter and former democratic congressman howard ford jr. and in our home studio, republican strategist and senior adviser to the trump campaign, kellyanne conway. i'm going to start off with you guys. i ask you this question, no doubt as i said earlier in the show that the question is indictment versus non-indictment. hillary clinton's big winner today. she didn't get indicted. that's good for her. what do you see as the biggest political downside to the way in which this was announced, the timing of how it was announced

and the things that comey said in the process of exonerating her from any criminal charges? >> i think a lot of it has been said dtoday. i would agree with your earlier characterization regarding the clinton/obama team, how formidable they look. al hunt made the comment as well. i think i saw mark earlier in the day making the case that to your question that mr. comey, director comey gave a lot of insight into what the thinking was around this. he talked about some of the things that he -- carelessness on the part of hillary clinton and some of her team. no doubt some of that will be used. i think a lot of this will erase itself meaning the focus and the attention to this, as much as i think mr. trump and others may try to continue to gin it up, we move from it. furthermore, the most important point is the one you made leading into this or right before the commercial. if barack obama continues this kind of campaigning for mrs. clinton, secretary clinton, and they are able to reassemble the

coalition, president obama's that he was able to build in '08 and strengthen in 2012, i think it's very very difficult for mr. trump and his team. largely because the demographics of the country continue to move in favor of democratsn many key states. if that turnout level is as high it's was in '12, it bodes well for mrs. clinton. i didn't mean to cut you off, mark. >> kellyanne, you are an attorney, adviser at the trump campaign. what is the campaign's posture towards what mr. comey has? >> mr. trump has put out a statement and he will speak to that. whereas comey refused to indict hillary clinton today, he certainly impugned her. he apparently agrees with 67% of the country who say she's neither honest nor trustworthy. it's not as if they said gee, i think i can't trust hillary clinton because she's under investigation for her private e-mail server, let's see what the fbi decides to do before i

decide if i should continue to not trust her. americans don't trust her because they believe she lies for a living. they see it as a fundamental character flaw. that will not go away any time soon. i would note in their pep rally down in north carolina today, neither president obama nor secretary clinton did a victory lap on the comey decision. she did not say i have been vindicated because she's being very careful. director comey's words were very harsh. he's not recommending indictment but he said she was extremely careless. the statute says gross negligence which i believe was met, and he said people who were sending and receiving her e-mails should have known. you are talk about hundreds of e-mails, all should have known this was wrong. >> so let me stick with you. why not just make that argument going forward? is that the argument, the trump campaign and others in the republican party are going to make, or will we hear it's a conspiracy, somehow comey was in the bag with the clinton

campaign, somehow this is all part of a quote, rigged system as donald trump likes to say? >> i think you will hear all of that. really, that's a large part of what this election is about. i think mr. trump got 14 million votes in the primary, some of the crossover voters, for precisely that reason. one thing that won't change between now and november is the insider/outsider, establishment/nonestablishment election that has been set up between these two people. the other thing that won't change is who is the insider and who is the outsider. i think in some ways, this plays right into mr. trump's argument that it's a rigged, corrupt system that always benefits the insider somehow, some way. i think that bill clinton put his wife and attorney general lynch in a very bad position last week so folks will go back to that. it wasn't like that was ancient history. it was last week. i think finally, it's not going to erase the fact that people see her as corrupt. the fox news poll showed 58% think that hillary clinton is corrupt. i don't remember pollsters asking the word corrupt as a presidential attribute when hillary clinton was not running.

>> harold, if someone did what hillary clinton was said to have done by james comey applied for a job at the state department or justice department that required a security clearance, could they get it? >> i would imagine so. i heard mayor giuliani or heard that he made that comment. i would have to take a look at the application in full but i don't believe under the standard that mr. comey laid out, she didn't violate any statutes. he recommended to the fbi that -- tfbi recommended, excus me, to the justice department that no steps be taken. >> we have to go to break. >> the answer is no. >> i want to clarify, if you were attorney general and someone applied for a job with you, senior position involving national security, that would not disqualify them, in your judgment? >> we would have a real serious conversation beforehand but no. >> it is disqualifying. it's poor judgment. it's a deal breaker and will be for many voters. >> stay with us. we will pick up this

conversation when we come back. ♪ using 60,000 points from my chase ink card i bought all the framework... wire... and plants needed to give my shop... a face... no one will forget. see what the power of points can do for your business. learn more at chase.com/ink see what the power of points can do for your business. if legalzoom has your back.s, over the last 10 years we've helped one million business owners get started. visit legalzoom today for the legal help you need to start and run your business. legalzoom. legal help is here. for hillary, it's always been about kids. it's in the quiet moments when you see why she does this. and when millions couldn't get health care, this first lady

worked with republicans and democrats to fix it. creating the children's health insurance program, so that every child gets the health care that child deserves to have. now eight million kids are covered. that's the kind of leader she is. and the kind of president she'll be. i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. w...i was always searching for ways to manage my symptoms. i thought i had it covered. then i realized managing was all i was doing. when i finally told my doctor, he said humira was for people like me who have tried other medications,... but still experience the symptoms of moderate to severe crohn's disease. in clinical studies, the majority of patients on humira saw significant symptom relief... ...and many achieved remission.

humira can lower your ability to fight infections... ...including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers,... including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions,... ...and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb,... ...hepatitis b, are prone to infections, ...or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. if you're still just managing your symptoms, ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, remission is possible. we're back with kellyanne conway and former democratic congressman and current clinton supporter, harold ford, jr. kellyann, you watched the clinton/obama event today. putting aside the questions of the fbi, did you see a politically potent tandem

onstage or some -- in some way do you think they are deeply flawed? >> today was a great day for hillary clinton. her political career and candidacy could have been over with an indictment. instead she got on air force one and went to north carolina, you and i paid for it of course, and stood with the president. it's a great day, any time you can have a two-term sitting president basically say to voters, elect her and give me the third term is potent. ronald reagan did it for his vice president, george herbert walker bush and it mattered. people really wanted the third term of reagan. it's not clear that the whole country wants a third term of barack obama but i have to say that when he was reading from the teleprompter which was most of the time, i thought it was a great solid steady call for her to be the next president and he was dissing donald trump because he can't help himself. then i thought offscript he went on full-on partisan pundit and that was unfortunate. he's still the president of the united states, still commander in chief. he has every right to endorse and campaign with her but there's a line that should not be crossed in terms of how

political one becomes. i listened to garden variety pundits all day long insult donald trump and they seemed petty and catty. i would expect something a little different here. >> in fairness, mr. trump has personally attacked the president over and over again, and continues. he's not put out the fire yet that he believes the president was born in the united states. mrs. clinton paid her way on that trip today. i don't want to repeat what i said about the two of them together but i thought it was a formidable piece. if i were on the other side of this equation, the biggest worry i would have would be whether or not this group, the two of them along with their many supporters again can reassemble and reconstitute that unbelievable coalition president obama put together four years ago now. >> the reason donald trump is here today is not a coincidence. he changed things up to come to basically try to step on the obama/clinton campaign. explain the logic of coming to the same state and what's his message going to be tonight in the wake of obama campaigning with clinton in north carolina?

>> perhaps the greatest, one of the greatest assets of donald trump to the electorate has been that he is unapologetically unafraid of hillary clinton, bill clinton and all the clinton candidacy means. that's very refreshing because we have had republican nominees in the past that really pull their punches on any number of things. so he's taken the case right to them. he's saying i'm not ceding to you one of the swing states, north carolina. the only one of the nine swing states that mitt romney bothered to win in 2012. so it is a marginal red blue state, has a republican governor and senators but it could go either way. barack obama won it in 2008. but also, i think he will go out there and make the case against hillary clinton. that's what i think. today he can quote right from the comey report, right from the comey press conference. i think the trump campaign can run ads quoting director comey where it literally says fbi director comey and he's saying she's reckless, she was careless

but quote, no reasonable prosecution. he's taking the case to her and is saying we will be back again and again and make this state competitive. >> hillary clinton last week with senator warren, today with president obama, later in the week with vice president biden. there is any risk, we look at those people and say they are great surrogates for her. is there any risk she starts to look a little uninspiring next to such a heavy hitting lineup? >> no. i just think it reinforces for voters and for the party and independents alike the wealth and diversity and strength of the party. look, when you look at a president clinton, hillary clinton in the white house, with whomever she chooses as vp, and surrounds herself as was reported over the weekend, she might consider the ceo of apple, tim cook, to be part of that team. you combine it with a formidable team in the u.s. senate, i think it signals to the country here's a president that can work with congress and get things done. you even heard republican senators quietly and some even

publicly say they could work with her on foreign policy issues, economic policy issues. i think just the contrary, i think even today with president obama, she opened with a lot of electricity, lot of excitement and lot of substance. to hear the president underscore how smart and substantive she is amplifies the point even more that she's not only ready but ready to work with congress in the process. >> today may be her best day with president obama on the trail. as you suggest, maybe over time it won't wear as well and she will be diminished under the far brighter star power of elizabeth warren and certainly president barack obama. the other risk is that we all know cool is not transferrable. so her problems are likability and trustworthiness. you really can't impute that to someone else. i think he will do her a great job at the convention, much like her husband bill clinton did for barack obama in 2012, most important speech in my view of the democratic national

convention in charlotte that year. but she runs the risk of looking like she needs to be propped up, that she just can't do this on her own. >> we have less than 30 seconds. before you join the trump campaign, you thought tom cotton was donald trump's best vice presidential choice. do you still think that? >> that was a parlor game, say something nobody else has said. i think -- i love the list. the short list is growing. really serious for people like governor mike pence of indiana, senator joni ernst, newt gingrich is still in the mix. he's got a very strong list to choose from. i like the fact that he's meeting with them one-on-one and being somewhat public about it. just being very honest about who is being considered. it also shows a unifying of the party that is often not mentioned fairly enough in the press. >> thanks very much. kellyanne conway, harold ford, jr., thanks a lot. coming up, our takes on the vice presidential sweepstakes after this.

welcome back. there are only a few days left to take care of your 2016 fantasy lineup. this is the final stretch of the veepstakes season. we are seeing action from potential running mates. let's start with the democrats. a handful of hillary clinton's possible number twos were on sunday news shows this week including senator sherrod brown of ohio and cory booker of new jersey and tom perez, all dishing out talking points while dodging questions about whether they would join the ticket with hillary clinton. where do things stand at this moment with hillary clinton's running mate decision? >> well, i don't know who she is actually planning to pick but i will say if i'm the clinton people, they are very happy with the choices. no one will make the case that her choices are going to revolutionize the race. the two names i hear the most from clinton people who they are very happy with are tom perez, labor secretary, and tim kaine,

the senator from virginia. people seem genuinely happy with those. they would be perfectly satisfied. my sense is they don't think she's headed toward a surprise pick but the person she thinks is the best. they think she won't pick until trump does which means maybe not until after his convention. he may well pick on the eve of his convention. >> that's one of the key elements here, the question of timing, when does trump pick. if it's true that trump picks next week as is being suggested, that will give clinton some time through the republican convention and into the time frame she would announce, likely the friday or saturday after the convention to step on his headlines. certainly i hear tim kaine more than tom perez. tom perez, someone who seems to be maybe someone who they want to seem is in consideration rather than someone who is actually in consideration. i still think tim kaine is the front-runner and elizabeth warren might be the best choice. >> the other thing, chuck todd raised a name over the weekend.

tom vilsack, agriculture secretary, former governor of iowa. i thought early on that that's who she was going to pick. he fits, i would say he's as exciting as tim kaine. he fits what she wants, a governing partner, someone who people would say is qualified, someone she would like to work with, someone who will be loyal to her. i'm not hearing that necessarily. >> yeah, same here. i think the main case for tom vilsack is she really likes him a lot. you can't discount how important that is. it seems hard to believe he will end up on the ticket but maybe we will be surprised by that. all right. turning to the question of donald j. trump, billionaire and presumptive republican nominee at his new jersey golf club this holiday weekend. trump met with two possible running mates who until recently have not been widely speculated about. that would be indiana governor mike pence, who huddled with trump on saturday, and iowa senator joni ernst who had her

face-to-face meeting with trump on monday. tomorrow, we are newt gingrich reportedly campaigning with the donald in cincinnati and of course, tonight where you are, senator bob corker from tennessee. the same question i asked you before applies on the republican side. where does trump's running mate decision stand in your mind? >> well, look, one of the funniest things i ever heard somebody from a campaign say about veepstakes was kellyanne conway who said the short list is getting longer and acted as if that's a good thing. similar to what happened with john mccain. down to a handful of choices, then saying you know what, these choices may not be good enough. expanding to pence, to joni ernst and a number of aides, the new aides who have come in in the last few weeks since cory lewandowski left, around this time, looked at the list trump was honing in on and said no, no one on that list is actually right. you need to think anew and think more broadly. i think, although i doubt he and pence would hit it off, it sounds like maybe they did and i think pence makes a lot of

sense, considering the other alternatives. >> well, he's got to solve the problem that he has right now, the big problem he has, which is getting the republican base, republicans to come home and pence might be as good a solution on that front as any solution. i think that's the best argument now against putting chris christie on the ticket. someone who i think temperamentally trump is really attracted to. christie doesn't solve the problems of getting republicans to come home to trump. i know the clinton people, some of them i talked to today, think trump will go with his gut in the end. they don't know anything about what's going on internally but they all suspect it will be christie or gingrich but they could be wrong. democrats don't know very much about republicans in general and about trump in particular. >> yeah. i don't know this for a fact but one source suggests to me he's been talked out of gingrich, they will find another role for gingrich in the administration, and that then may well be a dead letter. but everybody says in the end this is trump's decision.

trump may just go with his gut and that could mean anybody. i don't envy the vetting lawyer and the other lawyers and older lawyers working with him because they are under pressure just like with palin to vet somebody in a big hurry under time pressure. >> let's remember that's exactly what happened eight years ago. might have to go through it all over again. it was another rocky weekend for trump. you would think that hillary clinton's interview at the fbi headquarters would have dominated the fourth of july holiday long weekend. instead, we were all talking about that tweet that the trump campaign sent out with what seemed to be to almost everyone an image of the star of david. some said to the contrary it might be a sheriff's badge. here's a quick refresher. >> donald trump star of david. here's what happened. saturday, trump tweets image of hillary clinton, pile of money and red star. >> many people would say that resembles the star of david. >> it's immediately called antisemetic. its origins investigated.

>> previously posted on a white supremacist message board. >> then deleted and replaced by an image of hillary clinton, pile of money and a circle. wait, that circle enhance, enhance. >> the points of the star were still visible. >> a firestorm of controversy. >> on monday, trump tweets that it was a sheriff's star. twitter responds then why did you delete it if it wasn't an issue. clinton's campaign calls it antisemetic. trump's campaign says clinton is trying to divert attention from her issues. >> this is a simple star. >> this hand wringing that's going on over a shape in a tweet is out of hand. >> it's a star of david over $100 bills. this is imagery which is significant to a lot of people. >> on to the next story. >> that is hurlt hurtful to a lot of people. i want to play veepstakes with you. >> given the momentous clinton news dropped by director comey

today, is this trump tweet controversy over or will it linger somehow? >> i think it's over because of the comey news and because veepstakes, the conventions are coming. i do think once again trump has got to prove himself and his operation prove himself to republicans. he can't let a story like this fester. whether you think it's unfair or the press is out to get you, whatever, you can't let a story like this fester. i think he's off the hook probably for this one in terms of dominating the news but he does have to prove himself that he won't let these kind of things happen. >> this is not the first time that donald trump has tweeted things that have their origins in the nastiest, most disgusting corners of the old right universe in twitter. it's like the sixth time where an image trump tweeted has been sourced to a white supremacist, antisemetic, racist twitter account. he's got to cut it out. he's got to stop it. if he keeps doing it, people are

going to come to the conclusion he's playing with fire, trying to rile up parts of the republican base that are the ugliest parts of it and if trump doesn't want that impression, he can cut it out. he just needs to stop. >> even if, even if it was an absolute accident, total coincidence, even if, he still should take the opportunity to apologize, to be indignant not about hillary clinton in this case or the press, but to be indignant about the groups who he's being associated with. that lack of indignation is hurting him with republicans as well as democrats. there's no doubt in my mind. >> 100%. the antidefamation said donald trump has had no problem denouncing people he disagrees with in the most clear and unequivocal terms. he denounced a lot of them. he should be denouncing these kinds of people and websites and twitter accounts with the same kind of clarity. all right. coming up, al hunt comes back on the show and weighs in on why he says the fbi was right

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we are joined again from washington by bloomberg view columnist and our great friend, albert hunt, who wrote a column today entitled hillary clinton needs a dr. no. as i read your column today, brilliant as always, it said comey made the right decision but hillary clinton needs some help.

what kind of help does hillary clinton need? >> she needs someone to say mrs. clinton or madam president or madam secretary, you can't do this. she shouldn't have done the e-mail server. someone should have told her that back in 2009. someone should have told her i'm sorry, fine, if you want to give speeches, but you're a very rich person. don't take $275,000 from goldman sachs. someone should have told bill clinton don't go on that airplane with loretta lynch. the clintons have a lot of talents and in a time of crisis you feel pretty good about hillary clinton but they also have a sense of entitlement and arrogance. we are somehow good people so the same rules don't apply to us. she needs someone to tell her no, that's not rieg. >> in the context of going forward, why shouldn't that person be someone you know well, john podesta? >> he's the one who best qualifies for it. he was at the state department but kind of a cautionary flag there which i wrote about in

that column today. john podesta left the white house in the early morning of january 20th, 2001 convinced that he had persuaded bill clinton don't pardon mark rich. a really sleazy fugitive. poor john got back a couple hours later after a few hours of sleep and found out clinton had pardoned mark rich. it's not an easy task. >> al, in hillary clinton's operation of this campaign now, is it possible to put someone in that role? how would it actually be enacted? >> well, i think i'm thinking more of a presidency if she should win. john podesta is an adult. i think he can do that in the campaign. these other incidents occurred before the campaign. i think she's made some mistakes but nothing quite that egregious nature. she's got a lot of smart people around her but most of them continued to be real hillary

loyalists. it's not that you want people around you that aren't loyal. you want people around you who will say no. i was corresponding with our mutual friend bob shrum today who said president kennedy said to him you have to have two or three around you who will say you can't do that, let reward them and let them know that's what you need. that's what she needs. >> i am apparently a lucky man because i have way more than two or three around me. my question for you is, you are talking about dr. no that she needs. she's recruiting a dr. yes. we talked about the veepstakes earlier. who makes sense for her as a running mate? >> well, i don't think tom perez does. i don't think the idea of an unelected person should ever be a running mate, as good a labor secretary as he might be. i think the one that makes the most sense is tim kaine unless she thinks she's in political trouble. then i think you have to go to elizabeth warren. i don't think they want to pick sherrod brown, cory booker, someone who doesn't really add that much excitement and is from

a state that they will be replaced by a republican, at least in massachusetts you have a special election a couple months later. >> you have been writing a lot of columns lately. i seem to remember a recent one where you took to task some sanders supporters who were trying to sink tim kaine. talk about that a little bit. >> well, yeah. you can say there's a better choice than tim kaine. two criteria ought to be number one, can the person be president and number two, is the president comfortable with him both in a campaign sense and also particularly in governing. tim kaine clearly meets those tests. she may decide someone's better but to say that tim kaine is out of bounds, that this is a guy who has a 90% voting record, has been a committed liberal by virginia standards, certainly even by national standards, that he's unacceptable i think would really create a crazy caucus within the democratic party which was what we used to see some years ago. >> all right. al hunt, thank you for being with us twice on this show

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welcome back. we're at the duke energy center for the performing arts waiting for donald trump to arrive for his first public event since james comey spoke about hillary clinton. he will appear today with a special guest. joining me here to talk about the special guest -- >> another special guest. >> nbc's katy tur. senator corker who we think has been on the list [ inaudible ] will be campaigning. what's going on with these auditions? >> these are very public tryouts. [ inaudible ] it's so loud in here. but donald trump is trying to test out not only how he interacts with these potential vps but how the public takes

them. you will see bob corker here today. how does the crowd react to bob corker. are they as enthusiastic and as excited as they are for him as they are for donald trump. also, newt gingrich. is the crowd as excited for newt gingrich as they are for donald trump. i think newt gingrich is able to whip up a crowd in many of the same way donald trump is. bob corker, we have to see. governor pence, we will have to see. this is unpre presprecedentunpr. usually these are circle the wagons, closed door whispered meetings. you don't hear about these things under normal circumstances. >> what's interesting is trump is a great performer. he knows how to great a reaction from the crowd. i bet he watches exactly what you said, when they speak, do they move the crowd. that's such an important part of how he will campaign. >> looking at this from a political vantage point, who will help in the rust belt states or with a scertain

demographic. trump has doe fefied all expectations. but does the character match, is he somebody that will play the role donald trump wants him to play if they get into the white house and what i have been hearing is that donald trump might want more [ inaudible ] than say joe biden or dick cheney. >> beyond the tweets trump put out in reaction to the comey announcement, there was a lot of press relieaserelease. what's the message? >> rigged system. rigged system. that's the narrative they have been trying to paint in this campaign the entire time. they really started focusing in on it in the past couple months saying that not only was it hard for him to get the nomination because it's a rigged system and that inoculates them from the idea of the delegates taking the votes away from him -- >> we will throw it back to you. they are doing the pledge here.

>> okay. katy tur, thank you for being with us. thank you, mark, for being with us. we'll be right back. ld start it from the beginning. (jon bon jovi) with directv, you can. you see, we've got the power to turn back time let's start over, let's rewind and let's go back and not quit the gym and have a chance to say goodbye to grampy tim oh, that's the power to turn back time. (vo) get the ultimate all-included bundle. call 1-800-directv. ugh. heartburn.g ] sorry ma'am. no burning here. try new alka-seltzer heartburn relief gummies. they work fast and don't taste chalky. mmmm. incredible. looks tasty. you don't have heartburn. new alka-seltzer heartburn relief gummies. enjoy the relief.

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one more thing before we go. we couldn't help noticing president obama's many faces while he was sitting behind hillary clinton on stage at that rally here in charlotte. i was kind of amazed by them. in case you missed it, don't worry. we cataloged some of the presidential facial expressions on display. ♪ ♪

♪ >> man, i love those things. that was kind of fantastic. mark, want to come back to the big news of the day. comey, nobody expected it, nobody in clinton world expected it today. what's your view about its impact and what happens now in the aftermath? >> well, what comey did was extraordinary and i understand why he did it. he felt given the public scrutiny particularly in light of what loretta lynch did in meeting with bill clinton he needed transparency. it is an extraordinary step for an fbi director to lay out the facts of a case like that and then exonerate her. again, i know why he did it but some people are questioning that and i think he's now going to have to explain more and i think people will dig into some of the things he revealed. he revealed some new things

today about hillary clinton's e-mail practices that either weren't known at all or confirmed. in the main, not being indicted is a huge political thing for her but in a weird way, comey laying it out saying i'm a man of integrity, i know all these facts yet still didn't want to indict her, that helps her in some ways. if they get a few breaks this thing may be behind her and republicans have to look elsewhere. >> i couldn't agree with you more. i think people again from the clinton officials i talked to today here in charlotte, they see it that way. they actually, obviously their first thing was we are not indicted, that's great. the second thing was having comey take her to the woodshed, of course it gives some republicans some ammunition to fire at her but it does raise comey up in some ways and gives them, they could say look, comey didn't go easy on us, he didn't go light on us, he didn't seem like he was unwilling to recommend an indictment but he still didn't indict. it speaks well to his integrity. >> if he had just done what

would formally normally be done anything and let her lawyer said not indicted, people would wonder is there political influence, what happened, what standards did they use. i think it's unprecedented within the context of a presidential campaign. in the end again with a few breaks, this could help her more than some of the alternatives although it is still a scathing indictment of how she conducted herself. >> as you know, the clintons always think they can survive scathing. what they can't survive is indictment. so they will take scathing any day of the week. all right. mark, i will really look forward to hearing what you have to say about what happens down there in raleigh when we next see each other. until then, all of our viewers, everybody, tim jones has a great story on bloomberg politics.com. right now, it's about a town in vermont that's debating whether to allow syrian refugees to resettle there. coming up this week, we will be covering clinton's campaign stop in atlantic city. tomorrow i will be there, mark

will be in cincinnati with donald trump. after that, joe biden's debut on the campaign trail. until tomorrow, from me in charlotte and mark in raleigh, good-bye. coming up, "hardball" with chris matthews. obama trumps e-mail-gate. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm joy reid in for chris matthews. hillary clinton finally got the big moment she's been waiting for. campaigning for the first time with president obama this afternoon. the two even arrived in north carolina together on board air force one. president obama gave a fired-up speech, throwing prodigious amounts of shade at donald trump without mentioning his name. >> everybody can tweet but nobody a