that does it for us. we'll be back monday with more "mtp daily." see you sunday with a big post-convention "meet the press." "with all due respect" starts on time. i'm john heilemann. >> i'm mark halperin. with all due respect to donald trump, not everyone voting for hillary clinton is little. >> welcome to gotham city, the political media industrial complex's obsession with veep stakes and conventions is now over. the general election is now upon us. today on the eve of the hundred day mark until the election,

hillary clinton and tim kaine hit the road for the first campaign swing together along with their spouses, kicking off a three-day bus tour that will take them from pennsylvania into ohio. today, they held a post-convention rally in philadelphia, where they both spoke. donald trump and his running mate, mike pence are also in battleground states. trump at this hour speaking in colorado springs. pence speaking in ohio later this evening after participating in a motorcycle benefit ride in indiana earlier today. the past few days, the republican ticket mates have been twin pinatas for many speakers at the convention. last night trump used a rally in davenport, iowa to warn that he plans to strike back. >> you know, i have been watching these speeches at night and boy, am i getting hit. boom, boom, boom. i am getting hit and there's a lot of lies being told but i

guess they have to do their thing. i was going to hit a number of those speakers so hard, their heads would spin, they would never recover. >> this morning, mike pence condemned all this week's trump bashing by telling radio show host hugh hewitt that quote, i don't think name calling has anyplace in public life. kind of funny because pence's running mate has spent all day name calling on his favorite social media platform. trump today tweeted several times about his old standby "crooked" hillary and added a new one to his trash talking repertoire. quote, "little michael bloomberg" in response to the former new york city mayor's very anti-trump speech at the convention in philadelphia wednesday night. michael bloomberg of course is our boss. there was also this tweet from trump about one of several of the military speakers who targeted him in philadelphia. quote, general john allen who i have never met but spoke against

me last night failed badly in his fight against isis, his record equals bad, #never hillary. trump's name calling was clearly an advantage for him when he was winning the nomination fight. is it at this stage of the campaign still an effective tool? >> i'm starting to wonder whether trump's running out of gas. you think if he was going to go after our boss or anybody else, he wouldn't just take little. little's marco's nickname. he should be able to call him -- >> oldie but goodie. >> he shouldn't have two littles out there. pretty soon he will call me little john heilemann. that's not going to work. i can't -- i actually didn't object to it that much. i know a lot of people really get upset about the fact he did it. i did object to it in a profound way before. i don't object to it now in some profound way. i probably object to it less than mike pence does. but i can't imagine that for the available voters out there, he needs to reach beyond the republican base, that that's an effective way of talking to them. i'm not making an argument for

rules but i can't see how that's a winning tactic with the people he's got to get to vote for him if he's going to win. >> when he targets people he's not running against it takes band width and gets him off message and also runs the risk of playing into the narrative that he's thin-skinned, not presidential. however, if he's going to win, i think he needs to have people feel hillary clinton is unacceptable and crooked hillary does play into her biggest vulnerability. so i am not sure about crooked hillary, if it's effective, but it might be. i think going after other people is probably a mistake because there's a hundred days left and every day he spends making news attacking someone who is not hillary clinton, i don't think it does him much good. >> i agree with that. the other thing i have to say about specifically what you are raising about hillary clinton, crooked hillary clinton, he calls her a liar a lot even though he hasn't made it into a nickname, trump has a problem with the truth. they both have problems with the truth. there is also questions about trump's business dealings. those two particular epithets

seem to open the door to charges of hypocrisy if the press and others in the clinton shop find examples where he lied or where he's crooked. so there's a question about that, about the long-term effectiveness of those particular charges. >> you know, the thing is his personality and in the camp like nicolle wallace and you probably are, too, and i certainly am, trump's not going to change. >> no doubt. >> i don't think anybody will -- >> yeah, yeah, yeah. academic discussion here. not a discussion about actual change of behavior. >> but crooked hillary, i don't think -- >> it's not going anywhere. not going anywhere. this afternoon, on a day when the u.s. commerce department reported a disappointing 1.2% growth in the gross domestic product, hillary clinton and tim kaine set off on the bus tour through the rust belt making their economic pitch to a key demographic there, working class white voters. clinton laid out some of her priorities for the economy during her nomination acceptance speech in philadelphia last

night. she whipped up her own take on that special blend of the populism that made bernie sanders and donald trump so popular this cycle. >> democrats, we are the party of working people. i believe american corporations that have gotten so much from our country should be just as patriotic in return. it's wrong to take tax breaks with one hand and give out pink slips with the other. if you believe that we should say no to unfair trade deals, that we should stand up to china, that we should support our steel workers and auto workers and home-grown manufacturers, then join us. donald trump says he wants to make ameri great again. we, heould start by actually making things in america again. we're not only going to make all of these investments. we are going to pay for every single one of them and here's how.

wall street, corporations and the super rich are going to start paying their fair share of taxes. >> mark, you noted last night there were not that many specifics on economics in this speech and that is not quite true. how big a problem do you think that was for the speech's effectiveness and also for beyond, the speeches they will make in the rust belt and beyond that in the campaign? >> whenever i say she doesn't have specifics i get criticized on twitter and other places, people say she's got infrastructure proposals and college, et cetera. >> on the website. >> yeah. you and i have long critiqued hillary clinton in saying she does not have a theory of the case on the economy, she does not marry up as bill clinton did so effectively his life story and his understanding of the economy and what needs to be done in proposals that people can grab on to. i asked clinton supporters all the time what is she going to do on the economy and the ones people most know are not new

original ideas, not innovative for the most part. there are some that have wrinkles to them. it's a big problem. she is leaving herself as vulnerable on this as anything else in this race because if trump ever starts talking about the economy in an effective way, she's going to be in trouble. but she's lucky because he's not doing it either. >> amazing how little trump, apart from the big grandiose claims, how little he has talked about, not giving any details. >> at clinton headquarters every day they say a little thanks, the guy's not talking about the economy. >> i think the bigger problem, there's a little bit of a thing you have to make a distinction between. you are right about the theory of the case problem for her which is distinct from the problem of new innovative ideas. i am for new innovative ideas. her bigger problem, again, in the convention speech and beyond, she still nods aggressively now towards the sanders supporters and then tries to put herself more in the center on the economic argument. i don't know whether she's now an uber progressive on the economy or if she still has traces of new democrat on the

economy. i don't know what her -- even at the high theory level what her argument is, let alone the specific marriage up to particular policy proposals. >> right. everyone i talk to in both parties thinks if she's president, regardless of what happens with the house and senate, that she will try to do tax reform and infrastructure in the beginning and maybe immigration reform. all three of those could have a big effect on the economy. i'm surprised she got through that speech last night without grabbing hold of this issue. >> and the fact that trump has failed in a way we both described, seems like a big opening for her. >> opening for both of them. all right. so the conventions are behind us. the next most important and potentially race-altering events are the general election debates. as of now the first one is scheduled on september 26. until then, there's not a ton coming up on the political calendar that is scheduled. the next two months are pretty quiet. on capitol hill, for instance, the house and senate are in extended recess until early

september. you got three weeks of olympic coverage coming up followed by labor day weekend. that means breaking into the news in some big way is going to be tougher than it's been of late. there are, however, some events to keep an eye on. the iowa state fair is a frequent stop for both nomination fight and general election presidential candidates. that goes from august 11 to the 21st. in september, congress does come back and immediately there will be a fight over government shutdown deadline at the end of the month that will get the campaigns of the two presidential candidates involved. both the u.n. general assembly and clinton global initiative as usual convene here in gotham city in september. so what are the rhythms and contours of this race going to be like for the next two months with nothing as galvanizing as veepstakes and the convention? >> my hope is for the first time ever in this campaign cycle, we will have a conventional moment where during the olympics, we can all take a little break and

rest up and get ready for the fall. given the way things have played out so far and the aggressiveness of trump, the attempt to grab every available news cycle, we will have sporadic chaos throughout and obviously reaction to world events that happen. but i don't see that there will be a rhythm. >> there are three things i'm interested in on the trump side. i think hillary clinton will be relatively predictable. both might take trips overseas. but three things for trump. they say he will do a series of policy speeches in august and september. >> they have been saying that a long time. >> yeah. two is how does the fund-raising go? because as of this moment, trump is going to be badly out-raised and let's see if they can fix that in august which is a very hard month to raise money in. lastly, presumably they will start television ads. even in september i'm curious to see when they go on the air, what kind of ads and how effective are they. >> those are good questions. i'm giving up almost trying to predict how things are going to

go in this race. all i know is that in a normal year, an olympic year and presidential year, you get basically a news blackout for the period of the olympics. i just done feel that's how this is going to be. >> chuck todd pointed out two states to watch because we will get a lot of state polling even in the summer, michigan and wisconsin. when the first wave of those polls come out post-convention, when the bounce has settled down, is trump in the game in those states. doesn't need them to win the white house. but if he's out of them there, it will be a canary in a coal mine for other states he needs. >> for sure. when we come back, a look back at the conventions and which party will get the better polling bounce out of them after this break. now she writes mostly in emoji.

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a tale of two conventions. here's what happened. the boos. republicans. democrats. the guy who came in second got booed for endorsing. prime time attendance. republicans, empty seats. democrats, packed house. celebrities, democrats, meryl streep, kareem abdul-jabbar. republicans, duck dynasty guy, underwear model and scott baio. musical guests, democrats, indicakaty perry, too many to count. candidate intro video. by a guy who once played god. republicans. by angelina jolie's dad. protests. republicans, they were small. democrats, they were big. american flags. republicans, they were small. democrats, they were big. theme song. clinton -- trump -- ♪ you can't always get what you

want ♪ interesting choice. balloon drop. cleveland, big but kid looked bored. philly, bigger and the adults looked way too excited. >> when it comes to the tv ratings, democrats beat the republicans in the first three nights of their respective conventions but trump trumped clinton when it came to how many people viewed their respective acceptance speeches on this past thursday night and the previous thursday night. there has been a lot of chatter about how much of a polling bounce trump has gotten and hillary clinton may get. what do you reckon will be the likely n likely impact of these two events? >> i think clinton is going to have leads anywhere from plus eight to minus three. that's a wide range. you could say i'm hedging a little bit. >> a little? >> i really do think that -- i talked to two clinton people who said we had a great convention,

we executed, things went great even with the sanders controversies, but we're not sure we will get a big bump out of it for a variety of reasons. i think that trump has gotten some bump. clinton will get some bump. but i'm not sure in the end we are not just going to see a wash and see basically a race that is roughly even with clinton having an edge in some important states. >> i think she will get a bigger bump than trump has gotten but not some massive off the charts bump. my guess is she will be, by the time we get to next wednesday, she will be ahead in national polling by four or five points and probably in a lot of battleground states, she will be ahead but maybe within the margin of error and a couple she will be outside the margin of error. i think we agree on this. they did an exceptionally good job with this convention at the pure level of the way most people experience it. it was a great television production and it's one convention where something we have said over the last two

weeks, may not be true. which is that we care most about the nominee's speech. that's the thing that's easy to remember or a failure. in this case, the democratic convention in its total composition, all the speakers across those nights prosecuting that case and that frame is the reason why it has been more successful than the cleveland convention. >> if the people who watched the convention were persuadable voters, but my sense is if you look at the ratings numbers, most of the people were democrats and enthusiastic democrats. not people who need to be stoked to turn out. and i have no idea because i have seen none of it, content analysis of what people learned about the convention online, on local news, et cetera. again, with the exception of michelle obama's speech, as strong as the democratic convention was as a matter of programming and mechanics and production, i'm not sure any other speech besides michelle obama's would have broken through to people. >> the gentleman last night, the muslim american gentleman who removed the constitution from

his pocket, everybody in our world was talking about that as the signature moment of the convention. i have no idea how many actual people watched it. when we come back, a pair of strategists discuss their pair of conventions, the pair of conventions we just witnessed. that's after these words.

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two reasonable men, strategists from opposite sides of the aisle are now sitting on opposite sides of our set and the nation, joined by steve schmidt, msnbc political analyst, republican, former senior strategist for john mccain's 2008 presidential campaign and a doppelganger for woody harrelson and bob shrum, who has worked on many campaigns, including the presidential bids of al gore and john kerry and bob is in california as far as i know. you're in california, right? >> i am. i'm happily in california. all things considered, i'd rather be here than in philadelphia. >> i hear you. it's nice that the guy in california is wearing a tie and everyone here in new york is not. want to talk about hillary clinton's speech last night. i thought it was solid but i don't think it's going to change the race much. what did you think? >> i think it was a solid speech. she did the best that she could do with it. it was workmanlike. it was effective in the sense that i think the national security parts of it really hit home. the argument to the democrats are laying out is that donald trump temperamentally from a

sanity perspective, he is mentally unwell and not fit to be the commander in chief, to sit atop the national command authority and be trailed by military aides containing the nuclear codes. it's a powerful argument and you will see a lot of it as we move through this general election campaign. >> bob, both michelle obama and hillary clinton had as long as they wanted to prepare for their speeches. they both could have speech writers and practice sessions. what is it that kept hillary clinton from doing a speech as dramatic, emotional and well-received as michelle obama? >> well, hillary clinton's the candidate. she has a different task and she's not reminiscing about her years in the white house as well as endorsing someone as michelle obama was with hillary clinton. i thought hillary clinton did very well in that speech. they obviously spent a lot of time on it. she practiced it. it was personal. she was funny. i mean, i know her and in private, she can be very funny but very seldom in public do you

see that. i thought it was great when she said he spoke for 70 odd minutes at his convention, pause, and they were odd. when she said he knows -- thinks he knows more about isis than the generals. no, donald, you don't. the other thing she did that i think is very interesting, because you always debate in these acceptance speeches how much to go after the other person explicitly. she did it, but she did it from a moral high ground by creating a paradigm of the tolerant, inclusive america that was strong and compassionate at the same time and as steve suggested, then painted a picture of someone who doesn't fit that paradigm at all, who gets irritated at a tweet and shouldn't have his finger on the nuclear button. >> i thought one of the things, you heard in hillary clinton's speech last night, in some of the other speeches but focus on hillary, one of the things they tried to prosecute throughout the convention was the republicans are the pessimism party and democrats are the optimism party. there was also a focus on trump as an egomaniac.

the thing he said about how i know the system better than anyone which is why i'm the only one that can fix it. hillary clinton threw that back in his face. if you were running the trump campaign, would you have flagged that line a week earlier and said this is going to be a political problem? like it's part of a political vet? >> of course you would. look, there's an authoritarian aspect to that and hillary clinton is exactly right. in this country we do things together. when a president speaks to the nation, he always speaks through the prism of we. my fellow americans. not i. so of course, that was entirely predictable to see where that was going. >> bob, let me ask what you think, you said a bunch of things about hillary clinton's speech you thought were good. what can we infer having seen it now was the main strategic objective of that speech and tell me how it did or didn't accomplish that objective. >> look, the democratic convention was reagan-esque if i can say that. the republican convention was

goldwater-esque. divided, angry, had a very strange acceptance speech. i think she was trying to culminate the convention on an affirmative note that also indicted donald trump. i think she wanted to convince people that they could trust her on issues, that she would fight for them, and she wanted to convince people that they couldn't trust donald trump on national security policy. and boy, it wasn't just her speech, but you see general allen up there? you see all those flags? if you were a visitor from mars who came here only once every 12 years, you would have said gee, that must be the republican convention, look at all those flags, look at the generals. so i think she had a very clear objective here to end affirmatively and to disqualify him. >> you would have to have been a visitor from mars with a history of american history to ask that question. less than 30 seconds. one sentence from each of you, the democratic convention was very well planned. but if they could turn the clock back and make one decision differently, what do you think it would have been? >> i think it would have been to

remove debbie wasserman schultz sooner. >> steve? >> that's probably it. other than that, it was about as flawless as you can do one of these things. >> you don't have to be partisan as you just proved to understand they really did a great job, just meticulous planning, incredible production. incredible production. >> incredible production. >> steve smith, bob shrum, stand by. we will continue our conversation with these two. th. crabfest is back at red lobster with so many kinds of crab and the most crab dishes of the year. so dive into whatever floats your crab-loving boat. like crab lover's dream. crack open tender snow and king crab legs, and twirl creamy crab alfredo. or try the new alaska bairdi crab dinner. sweet and straight from the icy waters of alaska, you've gotta get it... to really get it. but it won't last forever, so hurry in. soon, she'll type the best essays in the entire 8th grade. get back to great.

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we are back with republican strategist steve schmidt and democratic strategist bob shrum joining us from los angeles. we saw hillary clinton and tim kaine walk out the door this morning and do an event in philadelphia, then get on a bus and head off into the rust belt. what do you think about how that ticket is looking in terms of its chemistry and political effectiveness? >> i think they look good together. i thought he did a really good job in his speech, his introduction to the country.

i think that he conveys an absolute total normalcy. he's the guy who if you go away on vacation for ten days, he mows your lawn and paints your fence for you while you're gone and lets the dog out a couple times. he just comes across like such a decent guy. i think he takes the edge off of some of the personality liabilities that she has, frankly. >> bob, let me ask what you think about how trump and pence look together, how they are performing together so far? >> you don't see them much together. there doesn't seem to be much chemistry between them. one of the things that strikes me is that trump, whenever he's with pence, almost seems to want to put him down, make sure he's put in the shadow, finishes sentences for him, doesn't let him talk. there seems to be a genuine partnership now between hillary clinton and tim kaine. i don't get that sense with trump. i think it would be smart if he acted differently. >> which one of them, bob, start with you, which of the two running mates is most likely to make news on a consistent basis

between now and election day? >> i think kaine is most likely to make news on a consistent basis because i think they will give him a major role in the campaign. of course, the big news they will both make is the vice presidential debate which can sometimes be significant as it was in 2012 when joe biden used it to come back from that first obama/romney tee badebate. >> i think mike pence is part of the news cycle today. i think he was part of the news cycle in an awkward, unfortunate way after the "60 minutes" interview. mike pence goes out today, says the democrats were tough on donald trump, all the name calling that's involved. huh? really? you are out there as the vice presidential nominee saying that the democrats are being unfair to donald trump in name calling? if you go out and say stuff like that you will be in the news cycle but in the wrong way every day. >> yeah. i want to ask you about, come back to the convention for a second and think about the overall thing. we saw trump's bump to the extent there was one. we talked about this.

what do you expect to see hillary clinton and tim kaine get out of that convention? >> i think that hillary clinton in national polls is going to be hugging 50%, 51%, up five or six. i think trump will be down 43%, 42%. but if she's not, and they don't bounce out of this convention, and be outside the margin of error they have a real problem. it's time to hit the panic button. maybe not the red alert button but the yellow alert button, because you can't do one of those conventions any better than they did it. if there is a voter appetite that just says as the old marketers adage go, you can have a great campaign around the dog food but if the dog won't eat it, he won't eat it. if they're not ahead, they got a real problem. blg >> bob, what do you think? >> i think steve's exactly right. i suspect there will be a bounce of five or six points. i think she did something that acceptance speech that gore, for

example, did in 2000, confounding the stereotypes and connecting with people. if it doesn't happen, it is time to worry because it means the resistance to voting for her is very real. i would bet she will be 50%, 51% and he will be back around 42%, 43%, 44%. >> you both think hillary clinton is a favorite in this race, right? >> no doubt. any democrat is a favorite in the race demographically. >> bob, you agree? >> oh, yeah. absolutely. >> what's something trump would have to do in august that would make you rethink that? >> you know, i think august would be a very tough time to change that. you could change it for the worst. you could make a mistake. you could say something you shouldn't. but with the olympics going on and all the other stuff that happens in august, the end of summer, i think the only real game changing thing, if i can borrow a phrase -- >> long as you pay the royalties. >> anyway, you interviewed me for the book so i will borrow the phrase.

the only real game changer i think here for trump positively could be those debates. i actually, i complicate it for clinton because they have to have debate prep for crazy trump, kind of normal trump and somewhere in between trump. those debates, as steve has said, i think, are going to have one of the biggest audiences in television history. >> should trump as the campaign keeps teasing, give policy speeches in august? is there any advantage? >> they have said they were going to be doing policy speeches all through the campaign. look, i think the race now will be relatively stable until the debates. i think it locks into place. i think you might see some bouncing around by a point or two but when we see these numbers on wednesday, those numbers are going to be stable until we move into the first debates. so should he give policy speeches that flesh out some ideas? he should, but i doubt very much that you are going to see what we would understand in a normal election cycle serious substantive policy speeches.

>> you think the trump russia story has a lot of legs? >> i think it's a disturbing story in any one of a number of different levels. i think that at this point, republicans have been weirdly quiet about it. i don't think that will last. i don't think that would be the case if they were in session in washington. there are other aspects of this story now that are going to begin to report out. manafort's relationship with yanukovych in the ukraine, other russian interests, some of the ties the senior foreign policy advisor has had. the questions that democrats are asking about who's going to get security clearances in the trump campaign for the national security briefings, these will be potent questions. if somebody in the trump hierarchy is rejected for a clearance, that's going to become public and if it does, it will hurt the campaign. >> steve schmidt, bob shrum, you guys are both awesome.

really happy to have you here. when we come back, we will check in on the first day of hillary clinton's bus tour.

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with a rally in philadelphia. we are joined by kasie hunt and bloomberg politics senior white house correspondent margaret taub both with that very bus in hatfield, pennsylvania, 30 miles north of philadelphia. thank you for coming on the show. kasie, you are actually on a bus. tell us about your day so far. >> reporter: to be clear, there are multiple buses involved in this bus tour, not just one. there are two buses plastered with "stronger together" wrapping. the kaines and clintons both of course traveling in this entourage. we have two press buses, press pool van and all the new motorcade vehicles for the additional secret service that's now protecting her. so far, we are running behind schedule which is pretty typical for the clinton campaign. we are in hatfield, pennsylvania at the factory that makes lincoln logs. i don't know if you guys, i don't exactly know what age you have to be to play with lincoln logs. i was a huge fan. the message of course is small

manufacturers, bringing this back to the white working class voters we talked so much about that donald trump has appealed to and potentially could put pennsylvania in play. the clinton campaign is airing ads here not in colorado, where trump is today. i think the folks i talked to at the convention from pennsylvania say that they do think there's a potential risk for this state to kind of slip away. i would say the opposite is true for colorado. i was seeing reporting on that as well. i was surprised by how quick the republicans i talked to privately dismissed trump's chances in that state. >> margaret, just talk to us about the event that took place in philadelphia today. hillary clinton apparently up sort of late, boogeying down after getting the nomination. what was the mood at that first event in philly? >> reporter: that's right. we were at temple university, very crowded auditorium, lots of enthusiastic people waving flags and the clintons and kaines

taking the stage together at the same time. she told us she hadn't gotten much sleep but was so excited, she couldn't go to bed last night. but at the same time, talking about how humbling an experience this is and how she understands that it's a really big deal. that's event one. from there, we rolled in this motorcade of all kinds of buses to a toy factory in hatfield where they are actually really cool toys and she arrived to find a big h with an arrow through it. spent apparently several days putting it together. that's all fine and good but the latest bit of intrigue is a report unconfirmed and unresponded to by the campaign from reuters suggesting that some of the clinton campaign e-mails may have been hacked in some form. we have no details from the campaign yet about that. we expect to hear something shortly but at this point, no confirmation, no denial, no explanation. details to come. it's probably not the way she

wanted to kick off day one of the general election campaign but perhaps if they had to choose rather today than on the night when she accepted the nomination. >> kasie, when i went on a clinton presidential campaign bus tour in 1992, we had a ton of access to both clinton and gore and their spouses just wandering up to them, asking questions. i know there's probably no press conference on the schedule, but if you been able to talk to hillary clinton or will she make herself available to the media at any point in the next couple days? >> reporter: no to your first question and not to my knowledge to the back half of your question. no. i mean, it's exactly what you would expect from the clinton campaign that the two of you have covered from the beginning of this campaign. we are far away, she's ushered in and out. she is doing an interview with a local nbc affiliate so there is that. we expect she may be asked about that hacking report that margaret just referenced. but really, it just feels like

traveling in not quite the white house motorcade where obviously you are sort of following the president around and you don't ever get very close to him but it's not that far away from that. >> margaret, i just love for you to weigh in on this kind of current conventional wisdom that having tim kaine around seems to make hillary clinton a looser, better candidate which is of course when the alchemy works, it happened with clinton and gore. bill clinton was a great candidate before gore but the two of them was value added. >> it seems to be very true so far. i was struck by that in their initial event when she introduced him as her running mate and certainly today, we saw more of that. he seems to put her at ease. he's kind of goofy like the boy next door except for he's a 58-year-old man. he just says things like gee whiz and his wife seems happy, you see the four of them walking around together. it's interesting to see the way tim kaine worked that crowd in philadelphia. he knew the audience, the

pennsylvania audience. we were talking about being catholic, he was asking whether there were any irish americans in the crowd talking about his father's background as an iron worker, kind of a tip of the hat to the union guys and manufacturing workers who they were trying to reach. he seems to soften clinton a little bit, back her up, he's sort of physically deferential when they are onstage together. she does seem comfortable when they are in the presence. >> i'm trying to discern what the balance is in terms of what they are saying out there between attacking trump and talking about themselves and their positive vision for the economy and so on. >> the bus is moving. >> yeah. >> the bus is moving. we are moving. on to the next stop. we are supposed to end the day in harrisburg although i'm not sure it's possible we are going to make an off the record stop before we get there. the balance between those two things, i think it's actually

not that far off what you heard last night in the convention speech. you are hearing them obviously tailor to exactly the people margaret was talking about. hillary clinton walking that line on the economy in particular. on the one hand, trying to present an optimistic message that contrasts with what they are saying as trump's dark pessimistic message while at the same time trying to acknowledge the pain people are really feeling. i think that's kind of her challenge as she tries to appeal to these voters. she's doing that by talking in this more optimistic way, focusing on their issues but also hitting donald trump as somebody who doesn't understand it, as somebody who, you know, doesn't actually make anything in america, despite the make america great again hats, et cetera. i would say that's about where the balance is. she is, i think this is part of why you saw this come through in the convention speech, she's spret pretty comfortable attack donald trump. we learned it back when she was -- they are keeping that up.

>> kasie hunt on the move, our action reporter from the bus in pennsylvania and margaret talev, thank you both. coming up, bill clinton's former events director talks about convention optics. i work 'round the clock. i want my blood sugar to stay in control. so i asked about tresiba®. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ tresiba® is a once-daily, long-acting insulin that lasts even longer than 24 hours. i want to trim my a1c. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ tresiba® provides powerful a1c reduction. releases slow and steady. rk woke your body's insulin. when my schedule changes... i want something that delivers. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪ i can take tresiba® any time of day. so if i miss or delay a dose, i take it when i remember, as long as there's at least 8 hours between doses. once in use, it lasts 8 weeks without refrigeration...

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♪soccer to wrestling. track and field to basketball. ♪ fencing to cycling. diving to balance beam. ♪ ♪all you have to sa♪ ♪ is, "show me," and boom it's on the screen♪ ♪ from the bottom of the mat, ♪ ♪ to the couch where you at? ♪ ♪ show me the latest medal count♪ ♪xfinity's where it's at. ♪ welcome to it all. comcast nbcuniversal is proud to bring you coverage of the rio olympic games. this is nbc nightly news with tom brokaw, reporting from nbc news headquarters in new york. >> good evening. bill clinton and al gore got what they needed from new york city, a unified democratic party, a harmonious convention, so today, they have loaded their message on to a bus and moved out of the big apple headed for the heartland. nbc's andrea mitchell is covering the clinton/gore ticket. >> repter: before hitting the road the democratic ticket launched a major effort to win the backing of ross perot supporters. bill clinton and al gore are both career politicians and

their kickoff rally had all the trappings of a traditional democratic campaign. >> before we're through, we're going to go back to the heartland of america and into the hearts of america. we are going to take to people who are for perot, the people who are democrats, the people who are republicans, the people who have given up and dropped out and build a coalition to reclaim our country's heritage. thank you, and god bless you. >> reporter: they then boarded the lead bus in an eight-bus caravan heading across nine states from new york to st. louis. they trying to appeal to the middle class swing voter, the people clinton was targeting in his acceptance speech. clinton is riding high after a successful convention but knows that lead can evaporate overnight. another reason to campaign hard right away is that he's anticipating a tough republican counterattack. >> that was a bit from our fries at nbc nightly news, 1992, bill clinton began a post-convention bus tour that had some pretty striking similarities to the clinton/kaine bus tour that

kicked off today. joining us now, josh king, bill clinton's former director of production for presidential events at the white house in the campaign before that. also the author of "off script, an advance man's guide to white house stagecraft, campaign spectacle and political suicide." josh, thank you for coming back. >> thanks. feeling a little ptsd watching that clip. >> i'm feeling nostalgic. the bus tours were incredible. >> andrea looking so young and the producer just off the "smoky and the bandit" bringing us through nine states in six days. i was in west virginia at a plant now closed down. this bus tour is focusing on small manufacturers. back then it was heavy industry. that heavy industry through the same states is hard to find now. >> this bus tour is less than a day old but how is clinton/kaine measuring up to clinton/gore on the bus tour gambit? >> what's very important is they are actually doing it. this is something i have been talking about for a couple weeks

and almost trying to give some telepathy to the trump campaign that if you want to build on your convention, what you have to learn is the lesson of '92 which is the balloons come down on thursday night, but come friday morning you have to keep the momentum going. so that by going to temple university and setting out on the bus through these two key states, pennsylvania and ohio, creating the bond between both hillary clinton and tim kaine but also anne holton and bill clinton, that connectivity was so important to '92 to create sort of the momentum that kept you through the summer because shrum and steve said earlier the olympics are going to take over in a few days and this campaign will lock in. it's important to see what the magnetism is between these two candidates going forward. >> i saw you walking outside the wells fargo center sweating like the rest of us a couple days ago. everyone agrees the democratic convention was well staged. what did you see you thought they did not do well?

>> well, i think this was mentioned earlier, the wasserman schultz episode from very early on. i think that the bounce you have to take is are you going to do anything -- they are clearly going after centrist democrats, moderate republicans and is anything they are doing in those three hours going to tick them off or turn off these potential voters they are trying to go to. so was the celebrity factor a little high on some of the nights? perhaps. but what i took away watching the four hours and particularly honing in on the one hour of prime time live from 10:00 to 11:00 was a really well choreographed show. i don't think they played the celebrity card too heavy although you might say that alicia keys and katy perry might not appeal to some of the people. >> and demi lovato. >> exactly. >> what does it take in the

current media environment to dominate the news with a bus trip? clinton/gore did it in a bygone era when nbc nightly news was going to cover it in a big way. what do you have to do now to make a bus tour light, keep the momentum going? >> what's most important is local harrisburg, pittsburgh, youngstown, canton, columbus, cleveland press is going to do with this trip. they will be darned excited about it. it will be the biggest thing to happen -- >> bigger if they do things like hillary clinton is doing interviews with the local stations. >> exactly. kasie might be upset she's not doing a general avail for the traveling press but this is going to give wall-to-wall coverage for ten minutes on the top of the local news plus be on the front page of all the local newspapers. again, winning 18 electoral votes in ohio is almost ball game. >> let's just pretend for a moment you are the mastermind behind this convention. you saw your convention out-rate the republican convention the first three nights. on the fourth night, hillary clinton falls short of donald

trump, hillary clinton shows up and says jim, what happened, you would say what? >> well, i would say there was incredible star power on monday, tuesday and wednesday nights. thursday, there's a lot of other things to view. >> why did donald trump beat me? same things to view last thursday night. >> you know, when i watched this morning's morning shows, and i read all the tweets, and i got the whole sense of this was an incredibly well-staged four-day convention, i thought less about what the rating ticker might be for thursday night versus the previous thursday night and said you know, job well done by a guy like ricky kirshner. >> basically you wouldn't answer the question. >> i wouldn't be too bothered by it. >> josh king, thank you again. i'm anne howard and i'm michael howard. we left on our honeymoon in january 2012. it actually evolved into a business. from our blog to video editing...

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head to bloomberg politics.com right now for more on the clinton bus tour. we'll be back monday. thanks for watching. get some rest. sayonara. >> "hardball" is next. war drums. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews back in washington. tomorrow is saturday, marking the hundred day mark to election day. today marked the unofficial start of the presidential campaign. for donald trump it was another turning point. campaigning in colorado amid chants of "lock her up" trump promised a hard-hitting campaign.