good evening. i'm chris matthews in new york. in his strongest comments to date on donald trump, president obama today called the republican presidential nominee woefully unprepared to be president. he also questioned his judgment and temperament for the job. obama said trump is in a different league from past republican nominees like john mccain and mitt romney. >> yes. i think the republican nominee is unfit to serve as president. i said so last week and he keeps on proving it. i think i was right and mitt romney and john mccain were wrong on certain policy issues but i never thought that they couldn't do the job. but that's not the situation here. and that's not just my opinion. that is the opinion of many

prominent republicans. >> the president called on republican leaders to not only repudiate trump's statements but also his candidacy itself. quote, there has to come a point he said at which you say enough. >> i think what's been interesting is the repeated denunciations of his statements by leading republicans. the question i think that they have to ask themselves is if you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him? what does this say about your party that this is your standard bearer? there has to be a point at which you say this is not somebody i can support for president of the united states. >> trump responded later in a statement. he questioned the leadership of president obama and hillary clinton.

he said obama and clinton have single-handedly destabilized the middle east, handed iraq, libya and syria to isis and allowed our personnel to be slaughtered in benghazi. they have produced the worst recovery since the great depression. they have shipped millions of our best jobs overseas to appease their global special interests. they have betrayed our security and our workers, our nation has been humiliated abroad and compromised by radical islam brought on to our shores. we need change now. that's trump talking. congressman, u.s. congressman charlie dent's a republican from pennsylvania. michael steele is the former chairman of the republican national committee and msnbc political analyst. eugene robinson is a columnist for "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst. i want congressman dent to start. are you going to vote for trump? >> i have no plans, i'm not endorsing donald trump, i have no plans to vote for donald trump. i said that repeatedly given the incendiary comments and the lack of policy specifics and policy knowledge. those are the issues that have

kept me away from him. bottom line, it's a tough situation to be in. we have two presidential candidates who are sky-high unfavorability ratings. i said that hillary clinton is unacceptable in my view, too, given the way she mishandled classified material, negligently and carelessly. donald trump's incendiary comments are also a bridge too far for me to cross. >> congressman, the problem most people have, especially moderate or centrist republicans is there's only going to be four names on the ballot and two with a real chance of winning. that's secretary clinton and donald trump. what do you do on your ballot when the time comes this november? >> well, chris, i feel like a lot of, like millions of americans right now who are unhappy with the choices. when we have two candidates who have sky-high unfavorability ratings we feel like we are in an awful position. like i said, i'm not supporting hillary clinton under any circumstances and i'm not prepared to support donald trump or vote for donald trump based on all these comments. >> that leaves a blank ballot at the top of the ticket or voting

for gary johnson, probably and bill wells. where are you on that? >> i kind of wish that the libertarian ticket were flipped around. i have a high degree of respect for governor. he's an eminently qualified guy. top of the ticket causes me a lot of concern so i guess i'm in a position where i'm not prepared to cast a ballot. that's just where i am. again, i want to make sure we maintain the house and the senate. i'm very concerned with making sure pat toomey wins re-election. >> yeah, i know. just to stay on you because you are sort of the situation here right now with regard to trump's latest behavior, is it the dope issue that keeps you away from gary johnson? >> the dope, yeah, i mean i guess that didn't help. i think he made some comment to the effect he wasn't going to smoke any dope between now and the election. i guess it's that, and it's just other things. i'm just not very comfortable with some of his positions,

those few i have heard. the governor is a really stand-up kind of guy, have a lot of respect for him but i'm not >> even some of trump's strongest supporters distanced themselves. rudy giuliani said today the situation quote, could have been handled better. here is new jersey governor chris christie today. >> we need to honor their sacrifice for our country and we need to honor their son's sacrifice for our country. and to focus on anything other than that to me is missing the point. that's what we should be doing and any comments that we're making publicly or privately should be with that in mind, so my view on this is that the khans have a right to say whatever it is they want regarding the loss of their son. you're not going to find me being critical of mr. and mrs. khan no matter what they do, even if i may disagree with any one particular statement they

might make. it's just inappropriate for us in this context to be criticizing them and i'm not going to participate in that. >> michael steele, as former rnc chair, still a republican, how do you face up to this? because what the president, who's a democrat and has basically his thumb on the scale, he wants hillary to win, he's saying don't vote for trump. well, there's only one other really natural option. you can go for johnson or stein, republicans not going to vote for the green party, probably. you are forcing them to say you don't like your guy because he's saying stuff about muslims and american gold star families, so you got to vote for my guy or my woman candidate here. you got on vote for hillary. they won't accept that from him, are they? >> let me ask you this. >> or are they? vote for my candidate. >> let me get this straight. after seven years of not listening to barack obama, republicans are now going to start listening to barack obama on who to vote for for president? come on. no, i appreciate the president pontificating from the podium today. it was very nice to hear him

opine on a very, what is a very personal beef he has with donald trump, rightly so. i get it. the whole birther thing. but look, at the end of the day republicans like the congressman and others will have to make a very personal decision about this nominee, the direction of the party, the direction of the country. those are all going to be very personal decisions. i'm not going to base a decision today on what i know today. let me get closer to this election, the voting day, and see where we are. i think that's what i'm hearing from a lot of republicans as well. i think it's still very fluid, it's very dynamic for a lot of folks. they don't like this, they think this is a fight that donald trump, like so many others, have unnecessarily picked with the khans but at the same time, they are not ready to go hog wild like the president wants us to do for hillary clinton because as congressman dent pointed out, that's a bridge too far as well. >> eugene, i think you may even have had this experience at holding your nose occasionally when you vote. oh, my god, am i really doing

this, some of these guys are not exactly the winners you wanted. as a professor at georgetown once said there's a huge difference between free choice and free will. free choice, you get a couple options. free will, you can make it up. like i know congressman dent is trying to do. come up with something here, come up with something. but you're looking at that ballot, it's choice. it is not free will. you are stuck. your thoughts. >> yeah. yeah. it's not, you know, with apologies to michael, for these elected officials it's not strictly ja personal choice. this is a public choice. and i think what president obama was doing in a way is sort of pointing that out and saying all you reasonable people, you are saying all these reasonable things about the khans and about this controversy and this and that, yet you still say you are going to vote for this unreasonable person at the center of all this, donald trump. and so you want to hitch your wagon to him, be my guest. >> here he goes today. in an interview with "the washington post," your paper

today, donald trump refused to support, listen to this, senator john mccain and speaker paul ryan in their republican primaries. ryan, by the way, trump said i like paul but these are horrible times for our country. we need very strong leadership. we need very very strong leadership and i'm just not quite there yet. i'm not quite there yet. i tell you, congressman dent, this guy just is such a player. this is gamesmanship. he doesn't even know this guy running against paul ryan. he's not trying to make up his mind. he just wants to ditto here or whatever the right word is. that's probably not the right word. what do you think trump's doing here? >> i don't understand why he would want to get involved in paul ryan's primary. paul ryan will win that primary, he's got 80% of the vote. he's going to win. i don't see anything productive coming out of that for donald trump to kind of put a stick in the face of paul ryan. it makes no sense to me at all. in fact, it further antagonizes

many folks he would need to have support him. it makes no sense to me. i also would like to follow up. i heard what the president said today, too, but most republicans aren't in the business of taking advice from president obama on how to vote in a presidential election. i just wanted to -- >> let's take a look at this. here's the khans, ghazala and khizr. they told me they didn't want and suggested they wouldn't accept an apology from trump at this point. here they are last night on "hardball." >> the best apology would be that his supporter repudiate him, and pronounce their repudiation. we don't need any apology from him. we are beyond those apologies. we were promised several months ago that he will pivot in the right direction, he will change and he will not do all that, but >> do you want to hear anything more from him? >> no.

no, i don't want to hear anything from him and i don't want to say anything to him. >> michael, this sounds like they want the guy to lose at this point. >> of course they do. they spoke at the democratic convention, chris. of course they do. i get that. taking the gold star family portion out of it, you know, i think that this is the unfortunate part of our politics when we start bringing these families into this political atmosphere, a highly charged political atmosphere, this becomes an unfortunate conversation. there's no way that in my view, my own personal view, that that family should have been subjected to a national stage this way. >> i would normally agree with you and be suspicious like we all should be about when somebody comes forward to the advantage of one party to the disadvantage of the other. however, the khan family, mr. and mrs., both of them, he wrote an article, public article that brought himself to the attention of the clinton people. he raised his hand and said i've

got something to say and i want to say it. >> no, again, that's fine, but again, i think the political parties hold some responsibility here on both sides when they do this. this is just -- >> you mean they, the democrats, should not have allowed or urged that family to make their statement more widely? there's a problem with that, you're saying? >> yeah. i just think the way this has played out particularly given sort of the asymmetrical nature of the other candidate, donald trump basically took what mr. khan said as a personal attack on him when he talked about not reading the constitution. that's what pricked his skin in that regard. now this is where we are. so i think that sacrifice should have been the only thing that donald trump talked about but unfortunately, the politics prevailed. >> just to make it clear, i can argue you are always reasonable when you are arguing here and i accept it as a point of view but tell you one thing. when trump attacked the woman here, a very quiet woman who is in grief over the loss of her

son which we can all figure out, we can figure out that emotion, she didn't want to have to confront a situation where she couldn't speak. last night on the show, when i asked her what was it like the first time you saw your son in uniform, she couldn't talk. she pulled her veil across her face, turned to the side, didn't want to show her face. i accept completely her reason for not wanting to say something on stage. when he went after her on that, that to me got very nasty. very nasty. very nasty. anyway, she's what we call a civilian. what i mean? a civilian. gene, more next time, sir. i have been told to stop talking. you are all staying with us. coming up, is trump hurting his own brand. think about it. his brand is i'm a nationalist fighting for america, i'm appealing to work people. then he calls on russia to get on his side against hillary clinton, to hack into her e-mail. he's fighting now with a gold star family, the ultimate patriotic family, challenging the essence of his patriotic call, his nationalism.

then he goes after saying a woman who gets preyed upon at work should just walk away from the job as if working people have that option with their employers and workplace. most people are working paycheck to paycheck. they don't just walk away and say i don't like the unhealthy workplace here. donald trump needs to win. that's ahead. plus two warriors join us. former senator bob kerry, medal of honor winner and retired general, barry mccaffrey. we get their thoughts on the nature of sacrifice and trump's battle with the khan family, who were on this show just last night. here's trump's behavior. is it helping hillary clinton expand the electoral map? new polls are giving democrats real hope they can flip some traditional red states blue this year. hillary is on the road right now to about 55/45. let me finish with a very basic thought. about life and death. this is "hardball." check this out.

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congressman richard hanna became the first elected republican to say he's going to vote for hillary clinton, the democratic candidate. in a letter to the syracuse post standard, congressman hanna wrote for me it is not enough to simply denounce his comments. he is unfit to serve our party and cannot lead this country. hanna's a moderate republican not running for re-election this year.

welcome back to "hardball." donald trump's strong nationalistic appeal has rallied millions of working class voters. >> i make this promise. we will make america strong again. we will make america proud again. we will make america safe again. and we will make america great again. >> he's compromised that appeal, you could say, by seeming to be in cahoots with russian

president putin. last week, trump encouraged russia to hack into hillary clinton's e-mails. >> it would be interesting to see, i will tell you this, russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. i think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. let's see if that happens. that will be next. >> this week, trump went after the parents of a fallen soldier. >> his wife, if you look at his wife, she was standing there, she had nothing to say, she probably, maybe she wasn't allowed to have anything to say, you tell me, but plenty of people have written that. >> finally, trump got flagged for failing to stand up for working class people. he told "usa today" that if his daughter ivanka was sexually preyed upon at work, she would just leave. he said i would like to think she would find another career or find another company if that was the case.

but many americans live paycheck to paycheck, we all know, and struggle to find just one job and hold on to it. they are the ones trump needs, i would think, if he hopes to win this election. back with michael steele, eugene robinson and joined by molly ball, staff writer for "the atlantic." molly, your thoughts on this. take your time. i think trump has a strong brand first of all. i think it appeals to people i know in pennsylvania who do like that shove back. they have been shoved around as a working person and shove back. that has a lot of people for working people. until this week he's been running evenly with hillary on just that. your thoughts on whether that supports that brand or hurts it? >> i think it's totally consistent. i think the nationalism that donald trump espouses is not the sort of abstract patriotism of like the american idea and the founders and the constitution as much as some republicans wish he would talk more about those things. it's about muscularity, about strength, about not being a victim, not being kicked around.

if you are a working woman, you don't let yourself be a victim of sexual harassment. you're too tough for that. if you are the american leader, you sympathize with putin because he's strong, he's tough, he doesn't let anybody boss him around on the world stage. i think actually, all the things that he's saying that you are referring to are consistent with the brand that trump has been espousing this whole campaign. >> gene? >> well, i differ a bit if you are sexually harassed, find another job or find another career sort of line. because as you pointed out in the introduction, most people can't just snap their fingers and find another career or find another job. they don't have, most americans have negligible savings. they are not able to support their families in the interim while they look for that new career or that new job. and to me, it betrays just an ignorance of women in the workplace and the fact that there are so many female-headed

households, including many that these days would be tempted to look at trump as a potential president, i think less tempted if those remarks really get any traction. >> michael? >> first off, can i just applaud molly. you just encapsulated the entire persona of trump. you are the first person i have heard put that as exactly as you have and i think that's important, an important take-away in understanding why trump is driving this election the way he has. to gene's point, i would disagree with you slightly from this perspective. donald trump in answering that question was talking about his daughter. he was answering the context of how he raised his daughter and what he knows his daughter would do. he's projecting that back to molly's point, that that's an ideal for a lot of women. a lot of women would probably make that hard choice and say

i'm not going to stick around with this crazy any longer. but his perspective was not from the perspective, well, if a woman were in the situation. he was asked what would you do if ivanka faced this and he knows how he raised his daughter and he answered that way accordingly. >> let's ask, let's go on, the thing about harassment and the cases we have been talking about, it just seemed to me instead of arguing whether the person's guilty or not of actually doing something, they shouldn't have done it in the workplace, the employer in this case, he almost brushed aside whether that was a worthy conversation. that's the thing, he should have said well, depends on a couple things. instead he said i would go get another job. it's like the victim's responsible for solving a problem. that seemed to be what he was saying. if you heard it differently, explain. >> no. i think that's right. i'm not saying that it's correct and i'm not saying that women are to blame for being sexually harassed at all. i'm saying the prism through which trump sees the world is, you know, a sort of extreme

machismo, the feeling of a lot of american men specifically who feel oppressed by feminism, who feel oppressed by women who think that they can run a workplace or be a boss when making america great again is about going back to a world where men were in charge. >> let's go back to a couple of other cases. when you ask somebody in russia, the russian intelligence, defense intelligence group, whatever you call it these days, and you say would you do some hacking into my opponent's e-mails, does that sound like nationalism? i mean, that's the ultimate in globalism. i'm going to this rival country, i'm going to have them hack into my opponent so i can be in cahoots with the government of russia. that doesn't sound like machismo or me against them, america first. it sounds like somebody that is outsourcing your politics to a rival nation. i'm just looking at trump from the position of a consistent brand.

your thoughts? >> you know, chris, i would disagree a bit on that point in that i think trump's version of america first is you know, we will take care of our business, russia can take care of its business, right? so the whole buddy-buddy aspect with putin and the russians, i'm not convinced that hurts him with his core supporters. it hurts him with a lot of foreign policy experts. it probably hurts him with a lot of moderates and independents but i don't think it hurts him >> how about the other one? how about going after the gold star family with the brutality you would use against an opposition political type? >> no, i think that hurts a lot. evidenced by the fact the veterans of foreign wars came out with a statement against trump there. if the vfw is not in trump's corner, this was a bad week. >> let's get back to the attempt to try to reconcile the rational

basic nature with trumpism. he has sort of a bonaparte nature, this guy. i got to give one cousin or something mexico, i'm going to give somebody else, he brings the daughters, the sons out. it's pretty outrageous, i think. but it's not republican. he's not bringing out his favorite governor or favorite senator. he don't have any of them. how do you bring him into line or your party into line so that as these months pass and we get into the debates, if there are debates, we see there's a republican candidate and there's a democratic candidate? >> yeah. >> are we ever going to get with a clear vision that choice or not? >> no. i don't think so. you raise a very interesting point. that cannot and should not be lost here. you put it just right. bringing the republican party to trump or trump to the republican party, that's the ying and yang tension right now. what you are saying is donald trump, whether it's regarding

mccain and ryan and the lack of endorsement, whether it's his response to the response to what he said about the gold star family, he is pushing, he's pulling and grabbing the party towards him, going back to molly's point about the machismo, the sort of every man kind of approach that he has, that's the republican party he wants. he wants a strong man republican party that's ready to tackle the problems ahead. so you are going to get to a point where you are going to have a republican democrat sort of nice as american pie kind of scenario, this tension is going to go with us throughout the rest of this election. >> i just wonder how many republicans, the ones i talk to, are ready to vote for hillary clinton. i don't think she shined up her reputation lately either over this comey comment, claiming he exonerated her basically which he didn't do. anyway, thank you, michael steele, gene robinson and molly ball. >> the republican party has

traditionally been a party for a strong military. but trump's battle with the khan family is eroding that. we talk about sacrifice, that word.

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a man came up to me and he handed me his purple heart. now, i said to him, i said to him, is that like the real one or is that a copy? and he said that's my real purple heart. i always wanted to get the purple heart. this was much easier. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was donald trump saying he's always wanted a purple heart after he today received one as a gift, i guess, from a member of the audience. as nbc news reported, the

decoration which is awarded to service members who are wounded in combat was in fact a copy. well, this comes as trump faces scrutiny over whether he knows what it is or what it means to sacrifice for his country. to actually do it. last night i interviewed gold star parents khizr and ghazala khan who trump had targeted since their appearance at the democratic convention. here's trump's description of sacrifice followed by mr. khan's reaction last night. >> i think i made a lot of sacrifices. i worked very very hard, i have created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures -- >> certain things cannot be defined. his answer defines it. any decent american listening to that figures it out, what he's saying, how he's defining sacrifice. this candidate is about -- is now a candidate of a major political party and close to

become president of this country, commander in chief of this country and that is the definition of sacrifice? >> i'm joined by two veterans, former senator bob kerry and general barry mccaffrey, who have both received purple hearts for their service in vietnam. senator, what's your reaction to this? i'm just going to stand become and let you because you have been a warrior and you have been in it and you know what courage means under pressure and what it's like to face the enemy and be wounded. >> look, i think his comments are so selfish. it wasn't like he was talking about the sacrifice this veteran who had given him his purple heart. nobody wants the purple heart. you don't go into combat hoping you get injured. he had a choice in 1968. there were 300,000 people who were drafted in 1968. he had a choice and he made a choice to find a doctor who would say he had bone spurs on his heels. that was the height of the number of people in vietnam when he made that choice. he made a choice not to serve,

to learn to play golf and work for his dad. that's a choice that he made. i don't think he understands, i genuinely don't think he understands what happens when 75% of people who were serving in vietnam were the people he pretends to represent. his blue collar billionaire message. i just done think he's behaved that way. i don't think he understands the sacrifice of mr. khan and the gentleman who gave him the purple heart have made. >> general? >> well, the senator is dead on target. look, a purple heart isn't like an emmy or oscar, for god's sakes. many thousands of soldiers fighting in iraq and afghanistan, including captain khan, the first medal he got was the purple heart when he was killed in action. there's just been a series of babbles out of mr. trump that tells me he has no conception about the armed forces or what it means to serve. that certainly includes the notion of sacrifice.

>> what do you think of his implication there that i don't know whether to take the guy seriously or not. his implication that somehow, the senator, try this one, that getting a purple heart handed to you is somehow transferrable, like you know, it's like a $10 bill. here's one, i always wanted one, here's a sawbuck for you, buddy, and somehow he's actually received, received this recognition as if that medal means that he's now recognized for being wounded in battle. i don't even get the thinking here. >> yeah, all the way through that, he demonstrates an extraordinary selfishness. if you are going to be president of the united states you are going to be commander in chief. you have to understand that men and women are putting themselves on the line and as the general said, captain khan got the purple heart because he died in iraq. no appreciation, no respect, no

sympathy whatsoever. >> i'm with you. >> i don't know how you can be commander in chief if that's your attitude towards the men and women who are serving. >> i'm with you. i don't get it. senator, as you mentioned, the "new york times" reported on the sacrifice trump never had to make, scrutinizing how he avoided the draft in the vietnam era, writing quote, mr. trump's public statements about his draft experience sometimes conflict with his selective service records. he's often hazy in recalling details. after four education deferments the record suggested he was exempted from the draft in 1968 which is when trump says he obtained a medical deferment due to bone spurs, that's in quotes, in both heels of his feet. but as the "times" reports for many years mr. trump, 70 years old now, has also asserted there was ultimately the luck of a high draft lottery number rather than medical deferment that kept him out. what do you make of that? if he had a 1y, did he need the high draft number?

>> no, but what he said isn't true. he made a choice in 1968, he found some doctor to say he had bone spurs. >> do we know that? do we know it wasn't a military physician who -- >> there's no evidence of -- look, in 19 -- in march of 1968, he could have gotten in the military. he could have served in the military if he had chosen it. you saw the picture and what was he doing in '68? he was learning how to play golf. he went into business with his dad. he made a choice. now he doesn't want to face that choice. he wants to say no, and sort of connect it with a lottery which didn't come into effect until the next year. he didn't get out of the service because of the lottery. he got out of serving his country because he made a choice. and remember, the people who choose to serve in the military, i was only in for three years. people who choose to serve in the military, not only to put their lives at risk in training and in combat but they live

under a different set of rules. they don't have the freedom and the liberty that you have when you are in civilian life. what i hear, when i hear donald trump talk, i don't think he understands that choice and the change in your life and the risks that you take once you make that decision you are going to serve your country in the military. >> talk about what it was like for draftees that went into infantry. what was it like for them? >> you know, in '68 i was interim company commander fighting in vietnam where i got wounded for the third time. there were only two regular army soldiers in our company generally speaking. the first sergeant and i. 25% of the armed forces in vietnam were draftees. 35% of the killed in action, but at infantry company level they were all draftees. again, joining senator kerrey, mr. trump made a choice, he's falsely portraying that choice. he decided to not join the 60,000 of us who were killed and 303,000 wounded in responding

obediently to the laws of the land. he should have been eligible for the draft and gone. he was an athlete, he was a wealthy kid, he had influence, he got out of going for that reason. >> senator, general, thank you both gentlemen for your service. for the first time in history, the gallup poll has found fewer voters want to vote for a candidate after his convention. that's the case with donald trump. fewer republicans are happy about voting for him after this week of wow that turned out to be a week of no. the roundtable joins us next.

welcome back to "hardball." just 98 days now to go until the general election in november and hillary clinton's getting a significant bounce in the polls after the democratic convention. an nbc news online poll shows secretary clinton now leading

trump by eight, eight points nationally. clinton at 50, trump at 42. that's eight point spread. that's significant. the results are very similar to two other national polls out yesterday, all following a pattern showing clinton with a big lead in the high single digits, up near 10. a gallup poll shows this year was the first time people said they were less likely to vote for a nominee of a party after that party's convention. 51% now say they are less likely to vote for donald trump. do you believe this, after the republican convention versus 36 to say they are more likely. joining me now for this roundtable is margaret carlson, perry bacon and ashley parker. ashley, i want you to start here. it is kind of amazing that after a week of hoopla and ballyhoo all choreographed by the candidate himself after he said i'm going to make this the most exciting convention in history, it all ends up with him below where he was when he started the week. your thoughts?

>> i think you are exactly right. donald trump sort of, he's a showman. he's a star of reality tv and kind of a king at this stuff. he promised us very sleek, very well-produced, very star-studded celebrity convention and you know who did that? the democrats. it just didn't happen on the republican side. they were also sort of beset by some mishaps from melania's plagiarism to ted cruz's nonendorsement. that really hurt him. >> right. a soap opera star and wrestler, corporate wrestler guy, are not what he promised. i went to cleveland the week before the convention and trump was promising all winners, no losers. it was going to be a great, a cross between a las vegas floor show and "the apprentice." really wasn't any of those things. the more people see trump, the less they like him. this was four days because he broke with tradition and he was

there most days, and then that final speech in which he was just bellowing couldn't have helped him. >> he did yell the whole time. perry, let's go through a couple reasons why it may have gone down. first, for two or three days, you can blame the media all you want but that was a hell of a story when it turned out that his wife, melania, was giving a speech that had been given by the other guy's wife, the president's wife, the first lady. it's a big story. it's stunning. i have to tell you, i'm not to the bottom of it yet. i still don't understand how you can grab a huge chunk out of a speech that you know you went to to look at, and it ends up surviving whole basically in the speech and neither the person who gave the speech nor the person who was advising and writing the speech for that person let it happen. i don't get the motive. why would you want to commit suicide? it looks like sabotage because they found out about this immediately. i don't get that. why did he let ted cruz, who he despises, speak at the

convention against him? explain. why didn't he rehearse his speech he gave on nomination night? why didn't he at least read it a couple times so he didn't have to yell it? all three are his fault. >> you know, we went in the convention knowing two things. the democratic party was very unified. the republican party was not very unified. >> was trump himself unified? does he know what he's doing. >> great question. also, hillary's staff, she had a big, organized staff and trump did not. the conventions showed that. melania's speech was plagiarized in part, probably bad staff work. ted cruz does not like donald trump. the thing about ted cruz, as speaker for the rnc, joe biden and barack obama on wednesday for the dnc, so the problem trump's campaign came out in the convention, these were not new problems. people in the party don't like him. they kind of came out versus the dnc, hillary is unpopular in a lot of polls but you knew she had warren one night, michelle

obama, president obama, joe biden. it shows you how the democratic party is working together. we knew that going in. but the conventions really showed that. i assume that's why the bounce happened was you had -- i'm not sure hillary gave the best speech, she had all the other great speeches, michelle, the president particularly. >> a guy who promises to keep terrorism out of the country can't even keep it out of his own convention. it is unbelievable how many -- he talks about the snake coming in and biting, and then he lets ted cruz come in and bite him like a snake. >> chris, he thought until the last minute he could turn ted cruz, until the last minute. then he did this stunt by coming out at exactly the right moment to do the boos. and he thought he won. he thought he won that. >> well, trump's no day at the beach. not trump, cruz. he let the guy mess up his picnic, to become the skunk at the picnic. it was his picnic.

it wasn't the other guy's. the other guy got to be the skunk. the roundtable is sticking with us. up next, they tell me something i don't know.

take a look at this. a landmark poll out of georgia, shows hillary clinton and donald trump tied in georgia at 45-45. that's in georgia. the last they voted democrat in a presidential election, bill clinton in '92. we'll be right back.

we're back with the "hardball" roundtable. margaret, tell me something i don't know. >> so, chris, on this week of donald trump's sacrifice, i wanted to hark back to '93 when trump told howard stern that he too had many sacrifices, his vietnam was dating in new york and not getting an std, something he repeated and later for play boy magazine and substituted iraq for vietnam. but he's had these attitudes for a very long time. >> perry? >> you had this wave of voter i.d. laws, you have to present your i.d., or some kind of identification to vote. there were a lot of suits filed, saying they discriminated against african americans and the elderly. you've seen six states, including north carolina and wisconsin, strike down these laws. that could be a big factor in the election if those two states are close.

>> and ashley? >> so the trump campaign has famously banned a lot of news outlets from h events, including "the washington post." the pence campaign, pence is the kinder, more sober-minded donald trump has been working overtime behind the scenes to be accommodating to the press. donald trump, if he starts letting the outlets in, it's going to be because of the pence world agitaing behind the scenes. >> thank you all. when we return, let me finish with a very basic thought. it's about life. you're watching "hardball," the place for politics.

let me finish tonight with a very basic thought. it's about life. it's what president kennedy once said. it's that life is unfair. we all of us know this. we see it in a variety of life's experiences that dismay us and make us feel unfortunate. at at those times when misfortune comes at us. with a direct hit. life is unfair. jack kennedy offered that in response to a question from the press about him calling up military reservist to active dutiesy and the dislocation that causes their family. but it's the conversation of donald trump that's brought that to the surface. does anyone not know this? especially in matters of peace and war, treading so heavy into our lives. the khan family had a son go off to battle, he showed the grace

of courage, he gave of himself so others could live. he met the highest moral standard. he gave his life for others. donald trump has only one thing to say on this matter, and then no more. he has to express that minimum of human regard to once having heard of what captain khan did for his buddies and his countries, showing quiet respect for the fact of human life, that the very good can die young. that the best we humans can do when it occurs, if nothing better, than offer a moment of silence and love and gratitude that we have such heroes and recognize that fate is no kinder to those ready to give all. as president kennedy said before he was taken young, that life is unfair, as is death. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in" --

>> i think the republican nominee is unfit to serve as president. >> -- president obama lambastes republican support for trump. >> there has to come a point at which you say, enough. >> his question for gop leadership. >> why are you still endorsing him? >> this as trump openly hoped for the economy to go down the tubes quickly. >> the numbers are getting worse and worse all the time. if they get real bad, i hope it happens fast, so they'll all blame me. >> plus, trump's son and daughter on sexual harassment. >> ivanka is a strong woman, i don't think she would allow herself to be subjected to that. >> don't worry about that baby. i love babies. actually, i was only kidding. you can get the baby out of here. >> when "all in" starts right now. >> i think she might believe me that i love having a baby crying while i'm speaking.