okay? incompete incompetent. we've been humiliated by president obama and his policies. we've been humiliated by the iran deal to start off with where they get back $150 billion. we've been humiliated as a country when they took our sailors. they forced them to their knees, and the only reason we got them back is because we hadn't paid the money yet. and that's the only reason we got them back, otherwise they would have had to wait until i became president. believe me, they would have come back fast. they would have come back very fast. you look at our numbers, just take a look at the numbers. homeownership, the lowest number, the worst number that it's been in 50 years.

homeownership. you look at everything that's going on, we've doubled our debt during the last eight years of the obama administration. our taxes are through the roof. by the way, hillary clinton wants to make your taxes much higher. i'm cutting taxes big league. big league. very big. very, very big. look, america has been, again, it's been humiliated in so many different ways. but just take a look. in libya, take a look. libya, look at that mess. and that was clinton telling obama what to do. i guarantee if he had his choice again for secretary of state, he'd love to have a do-over. that i can tell you. you have libya, cuba. look at china. building massive fortresses in the south china sea. and just taking your jobs.

taking your jobs in daytona. taking your jobs. look what's happening. look what's happening in mexico. i'll give you an example. a friend of mine builds massive plants. he builds plants. that's all he wants to do. and i see him recently and he said, we are building the biggest plants, the most impressive plants you've ever seen. i said oh, that's good news. he goes, no, no, they're being built in mexico. i said what about in this country? what about in daytona? forget about it. you have to get me elected. we'll be building in daytona. we'll be bringing jobs back. we'll be bringing jobs back again. so -- by the way, look at your space program. look what's going on there. someone just asked me backstage, mr. trump, will you get involved in the space program?

look what's happened with your employment. look what's happened with our whole history of space and leadership. look what's going on, folks. we're like a third world nation, and then you get back to crime. you see what's happening with the police. you see what's happening with -- take a look at orlando. look at san bernardino. look at the world trade center. take a look at what's going on. n then worldwide, and we let isis take this position. it was hillary clinton that she should get an award from them as the founder of isis. that's what it was. that's what it was. her weakness. her weak policyies. [ crowd chanting "lock her up" ]

then on television this weekend, hillary clinton in asking -- she's asked a pretty simple question. anyone could have answered it. and she lied. she lied. she lied so much and to such an extent that it's become a big scandal. it's become the big story. and it's actually taken a little while to see because the press is totally dishonest, and they don't -- no, they don't want to tell. they don't want to talk about what's really happening. believe me. they, and we all know it, they want a certain narrative. and that's not the narrative they want. but what she did is lied so badly and you have the fbi director saying she lied, right? said she lied.

said she was negligent. said all of these things, and now she's running for president. shouldn't have happened. shouldn't be allowed. shouldn't be allowed to happen. so again, i look and i'll never forget the scene this morning. and remember this. iran, i don't think you've heard this anywhere but here. iran provided all of that footage, the tape of taking that money off that airplane, right? $400 million in cash. how does the president do that? how do you do that? we're going to send $400 million in cash. this is in cash. in currency. now here's the amazing thing. over there where that plane landed, top secret, they don't have a lot of paparazzi. the paparazzi doesn't do so well over there, right? and they have a perfect tape done by obviously a government

camera, and the tape is of the people taking the money off the plane, right? that means that in order to embarrass us further, iran sent us the tapes, right? it's a military tape. it's a tape that was a perfect angle, nice and steady. nobody getting nervous because they're going to be shot because they're shooting a picture of morning pouring off a plane. and then you say, where does that money go? who gets that money? i doubt it's the people of iran. i doubt it. but you say, who gets the money? then you also say, who is authorized to give cash? who is authorized? no, no, who is authorized to give cash? and you know what? i'll tell you. it's a disgrace. and iran released that tape which is of quality like these guys have. iran released that tape so that we will be embarrassed. and two days ago, one of their

tops said we don't care about the deal with this country, with the united states. we're going to do whatever we want. said it. scornfully said it. we're going to do whatever we want. we're not going to abide by any deals. who does the united states think we are? look, they were in big trouble. they had sanctions. they were dying. they were in big trouble. they probably eventually would have collapsed. and we took off the sanctions, and we made this horrible deal. and now they're a power. they've gone from being in deep, deep trouble. iran is now a power. and they're going to have nuclear weapons much sooner than you think. and they have plenty of money, and they have plenty of everything now. you know we're fighting in yemen, and we're fighting them. everybody is fighting. we're fighting all over. but we're fighting them. they don't want 'yemen.

they want the oil in saudi arabia. so they're fighting in yemen. but we're on the other side of the fight. and the question was asked of secretary kerry, and this was something all started by crooked hillary clinton. this was all started -- this was all started by hillary clinton. this was -- everything was started by her. they relied on her. they relied on her. so what happens is you ask the question, why didn't you settle yemen as an example? why didn't you get something settled in syria as an example where we're fighting. they're backing assad. and the answer it was too complicated. that was the answer. it was too com -- wow, this is a lot of people here.

[ cheers ] it was -- folks it was too complicated, they said. it was too complicated. so now, we look like, we paid $400 million for the hostages, right? such a bad precedent. such an unbelievably bad precedent set by obama. now two more have been kidnapped since then. you know that, right? so you have two more. where is it going to end? where is it going to end? what we're doing is insane. we have a president that doesn't know what the hell is going on. >> all right. listening in there on donald trump. he's speaking in daytona beach, florida. florida a pivotal battle ground as it is every year if you look to donald trump in a potential path to 270 electoral votes. very hard to see him getting there without winning florida.

he's been trailing in the polls, within striking distance, though. he is in florida. everyone was focused on what trump would say when he stepped to the podium. he was about an hour late in doing so. he stepped to the podium about ten minutes ago. his first public speech and public appearance since reports began emerging in the last 12 hours and overnight about internal discord in his campaign. we have seen, some of this is spilling over into public view. newt gingrich in the last few hours telling "the washington post," a top trump ally, the current race is which of these two is the more unacceptable because right now neither of them is acceptable. that's newt gingrich talking about donald trump and hillary clinton. our own reporting says that r s reince priebus is applectic from circles around him about donald trump and his refusal to endorse paul ryan running for re-election out there in wisconsin. also reporting in the campaign there's a demoralized sense around the campaign after what's

been a rough few days for donald trump. we were looking to see what donald trump would be saying in reference to that. the headline is at the very beginning, he said his campaign, quote, has never been so united. so donald trump continues speaking in daytona beach. we'll keep an eye on that. katy tur is following all of that. his nod to all the stories in the last 12 hours is he's saying the campaign has never been so united. >> donald trump watches the news and reads headlines about himself. he's going to come out and try and push back on this idea that there's internal discord. that his aides are telling him to back off the unnecessary attacks like attacks on the khans and instead focus on hillary clinton. from our reporting we can tell you that party sources are trying to stage what they're calling an intervention with donald trump. people that are leading that right now are reince priebus,

rudy giuliani and newt gingrich. they have donald trump's ear and could exert some influence over him. they're actively looking for other people to get involved to try and convince donald trump that he has to stay on message, that he has to avoid these unnecessary errors. that he has to stay out of the headlines for fighting with gold star families or for pitting a purple heart to his own chest or for fighting with a baby. even though donald trump was joking about kicking the baby out of his rally the other day and didn't actually kick the baby out of the rally, party sources say it was just an unnecessary thing for him to say, and it just distracted from donald trump's message. sources close to trump say they've had conversations with him pleading with him to focus on the things that's work for him. job security. the economy. job creation and national security. the messages that resonate with trump voters. remember, he's trying to appeal

to those white working class voters in swing states like florida, pennsylvania, north carolina, and ohio. our latest nbc news online survey monkey poll showing that even in that strong voting bloc, his core voting bloc, he's starting to lose some of that support. that is because it seems that the controversies, the many controversies that he embroils himself in on a daily basis, frankly, are starting to take their toll. the campaign realizing this. the party realizing this. trying to get donald trump back on message. trying to get him to stop fighting with other republican politicians and get him to start running for the presidency and start running a race and a campaign that he actually can win. >> all right. katy tur outside of trump tower in new york city. she's been on the right side of your screen. on the left side, donald trump, he continues to speak down there in daytona beach, florida. we're going to bring in

barry bennett, a senior adviser to the trump campaign. thanks for taking a few minutes with us. obviously the state of the trump campaign has been in the news in the last couple of days. in our reporting you just heard it there from katy tur is you have some top republicans, top backers of donald trump, including newt gingrich, reince priebus, rudy giuliani essentially looking to stage a political intervention here to get donald trump to change his tactics. does he need an intervention? >> i don't know if you call it an intervention but he's been easily distracted the last couple of days. i'm a former senior adviser, not a current one but he's been distracted. you can't afford distractions with only 98 days left. he's got a very powerful message that he delivers fierearlessly should stick to that message. it's about people in pain, america under assault and a government that does nothing but wrack up debt and waste. he needs to stick to that every

day. that needs to be the answer to every question asked. >> i've been hearing a version of that advice offered in public toward donald trump for a while now. i've never seen him embrace that strategy for more than 12, 24 hours. what is it about him that's just allergic to that? >> you know, i think that they are putting him in situations like these rallies where he talks for 30 minutes. so you have to control the information that gets in so that it comes out. i think the campaign is trying very hard. i think mr. trump is a first time candidate, learning all these messages on the trail for the first time. he's already remarkably better than a year ago and he'll continue to get better. you mentioned your poll out today, i guess it was. he's only five points down. to previous cam paypaigns with much, it would have sunk any

other campaign. >> donald trump in the republican primary season, he ignored the critics. he ignored all the people saying you can't do "x." you have to do "y." and he ignored them. he was told a thousand times your campaign has reached its end point and now he kept winning. did he learn the wrong lesson from the primary season because if you're trying to just trust your instincts in the general election you have a different audience to worry about. >> that's a danger obviously but he was right 99% of the time. if you go into the general election there's such a meg phone on you and he's so powerful. when he talks, it goes around the world. so he really needs to focus his message. maybe do a one or two times a day, not 15 times a day. and talk about -- real people haven't had real income and real wages in a really long time. let's talk about that. the weekend of the convention in

akron, ohio. 107 people overdose on mexican heroin. let's talk about that. you know, we've got to get back to these basic issues they got in the primaries. >> we have just one of the latest controversies here involves paul ryan, the speaker of the house. donald trump saying he's not yet ready to endorse paul ryan in his republican primary in wisconsin. that's coming up very soon. what was your advice to donald trump on that right now? >> you know, paul ryan started this dance and it continues. but if i were donald trump, i wouldn't waste ten seconds worrying about what washington thinks about me. he's appealing to people who have never voted before, never voted republican before for sure. and that's where his victory coalition is. it's not on k street. i wish this wasn't a side show. i probably wouldn't have said anything if i were him, but this is not going to hurt him. >> barry bennett, thanks for the time, as always. >> no problem. turn to joel ben ibeninson,

chief strategist for hillary clinton's campaign. you are a political veteran. you've run a lot of campaigns. you've had a lot of different opponents to deal with through the years. we're looking at this reporting about what's going on inside the trump campaign. reports the staff might be demoralized. there are top republican leaders who want donald trump to sort of shift gears. what is your sense? as somebody who has faced a lot of different types of candidates and a lot of different types of campaigns, when you look at the trump campaign, your opponent, what is your sense of the state of their campaign? >> i can only, you know, react to what i'm reading. the same reports you are, steve. and, you know, the reporters seem to have some sources inside the campaign reporting on this. what i do know about donald trump is that he continues to alienate the majority of americans every day he goes out and speaks. every day he fabricates, you know, charges that are

completely untrue. he seems to be unraveling. he's coming apart a little bit here at the seams, it seems. and that's never a good place for a candidate to be. as for where we are, look, there's a very stark contrast here between hillary clinton, who at her convention laid out a clear vision of how she's going to make a difference in people's lives. the strength of america is when we're stronger together and lift each other up and not tear each, down and he has done nothing for days but demonstrate that he is temperamentally unfit to be president, that he keeps tearing america down. you just heard him on stage tell people america is a third world country. there isn't any american, republican, democrat, independence, who believes that. he's just continually tearing the country down and tearing americans down. it's why he's losing support from republicans from coast to coast right now. >> we just heard as well from barry bennett, a trump supporter who was talking about an unfocused style by donald trump. that's one of the things that

we're seeing this week. he's jumped around from subject to subject. i'm wondering as his opponent, has that's affected the way you de vrid devise strategy. >> i think you have to be attentive to his unconventionality and as i say, coming a little unhinged every day, throwing, you know, some other ridiculous charge and uninformed charge which he's been doing for the last couple of days. but we stay focused on what we're talking about. look, hillary clinton has proven her bona fides, proven she's ready to face the challenges we face around the world by working with our allies to take on isis donald trump keeps engaging and embracing vladimir putin. he keeps praising him and showing he's unfit, unprepared to be president when he says he might recognize russia's invasion of ukraine and annexing of crimea.

this is a guy not just footsy with vladimir putin but giving him a big bear hug. they need someone who is going to work wither allies, recognizes the real threats to us and keep us safe and has a real plan to defeat isis. >> what about the other point barry bennett made? for all of the controversy that donald trump has stirred up and for all the denunciations he's attracted from some of his fellow republicans in many cases, you are still looking at a race that's single digits. ranges from 3 to 9 at the high end in the polls i've seen recently. the fact it's still a single digit race. does that say something about your campaign and candidate? >> what i've been saying for several weeks coming out of the end of the primary season is we tend to have very close elections for president in this country. we've had very few races where one candidate, certainly in modern times, beat another candidate by ten points or more. the range that you're seeing

here from midsingle digits to high single digits shows the strength of our ability to community to a broad swath of americans. we are not just talking to democrats. we are talking to middle of the road voters, speaking to republicans. people who know that we need to build an economy that works for everyone, not just those at the top, who believe that we need to invest in our schools so every child no matter what zip code he or she lives in can get a great education because that's how they'll get the future they deserve. and a candidate who knows how to keep america safe, work with our allies, not alienate them. our job is to keep focused on the conversation that hillary clinton is leading with americans all across this country every day. >> joel benenson, chief strategist with the clirnton campaign. we don't have double-digit races anymore. the last time a presidential race was decided by double dig ids you have to go back to 1984. the reagan landslide that year.

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trump still speaking in daytona beach. he's been behind in florida in recent polls but he is there campaigning today. going to continue to keep an eye on that. while we do, we'll talk about one of those controversies that donald trump has waded his way into in the last few days. that one involving his decision yesterday, his announcement yesterday that he is still not ready to endorse paul ryan, the speaker of the house of representatives who is running in a republican primary for the house in wisconsin. ryan in response, he says he's unfazed. a spokesman for the ryan campaign telling nbc news that

neither speaker ryan nor anyone on his team has asked for donald trump's endorsement. with trump drawing attention to this paul ryan primary race next week and with that primary coming up, we thought we'd take a quick look. does paul ryan have anything to worry about? there's really two questions here for ryan. one is that immediate question of the primary next week, the republican primary in the first district of wisconsin. here's the good news for paul ryan. the polling says he's very popular in his district. check this out. 84% favorable view among republicans in the first district of wisconsin. that doesn't look like an incumbent in much danger of losing. here's something else working in paul ryan's favor. they had a presidential primary in wisconsin's first district back in april. and it was not exactly donald trump country. ted cruz beat him by almost 20 points there. cruz getting over half the vote. there's some trump support in the district but this is not one

of those strongly trump districts. ryan looks like he's in good shape for that primary but i said there may be two things he has to worry about here. the second one is the general election in november. remember every member of the house is up for re-election. that includes paul ryan. well, his district there in wisconsin is one of those that in the right year for a democrat, the democratic presidential candidate can carry it. if you go back to 2008, barack obama defeated john mccain in paul ryan's district there in wisconsin. in 2012, paul ryan was actually on the republican ticket. mitt romney's running mate. ran at the same time for re-election to the house. won his race but only got 55% of the vote. that was four years ago. that does raise the question for paul ryan. it's a potentially tricky one. if he's in a re-election race this november that gets thorny if the district doesn't warm up to donald trump, it could be a bind. if he separates himself from trump, he could lose trump voters.

if he attaches himself too much to trump he could lose swing voters. two things for paul ryan to worry about. to talk bhomore about this trump/ryan war, i want to bring in chris cillizza, founder of the fix blog. donald trump couldn't resist yesterday. paul ryan critical of him, and he basically seemed to deliver the message. if you can say that about me, i can do something right back to you. >> it's fascinating. i read through the transcript. this san interview my colleague did with trump. there's two things that stand out. one, trump is basically talking directly to paul ryan and saying, well, you know, the other guy has been saying nice things about me. i'm sort of on the fence. i wonder what you could do. like this is very much a sort of threatening without saying a word i'm going to get you. but you don't want me to be on the side of your primary

opponent. they go off in another tangent after he talks about paul ryan. he comes back and says do you want me to answer that paul ryan question, which he's already done and he re-emphasizes the, i don't know. i'm just not there yet. phil rucker my colleague says, why? what do you need to see? i'm just not there yet. the question is you're not being nice to me, you better start being nice to me, or else. >> how does paul ryan or john mccain. john mccain also coming up with this interview. he's got re-election to worry about out in arizona. how does mccain respond? how does paul ryan respond? is there a circumstance where ryan wins this primary next week, comes back to washington and the next time trump steps in, it's, that's it. that's the last straw. >> let's take them apart. their electoral fates are not all that similar. ryan is going to be in fine in the primary. i think you always have to be cognizant of the eric cantor upset by a guy we've never heard of, professor dave bratt who

knocks out the second or third ranking republican in house leadership a few years ago. with that in mind, everything looks like ryan is taking this seriously. he's popular. the district is competitive but more favorable for republicans since ryan won it. mccain, there's a reason john mccain came out this week and blasted donald trump for his comments about the khans but did not unendorse or take his endorsement back because he faces a primary challenge. so john mccain in his heart of hearts if you took politics out of it, he's not a donald trump fan. he'd give you his unaltered vision of donald trump but it would be pretty negative. but he doesn't want to anger the republican primary voter in arizona, many of whom are supportive of donald trump. the former governor jan brewer was a prominent endorse of donald trump. mccain has more problems there. arizona is more of a hotbed for the trumpism within the republican party than is wisconsin. >> it's interesting, too, talking about arizona.

some news coming out this afternoon. on the republican side, as you said, donald trump very popular with a lot of republicans. a general election poll just coming out in arizona that shows hillary clinton leading 45% to 42% over donald trump in arizona. this is a state that went for bill clinton back in 1996. otherwise, this has been a republican state pretty much through the years. does this speak to a larger shift of a certain type of state away from donald trump? >> yeah. and you have been talking about this on election nights on the show all the time. i've been writing about it. this is the most important thing to understand. donald trump cannot win the white vote by enough in some of these states to make up for how poorly he is doing among the hispanic and african-american vote. any state with a decent size chunk of hispanic voters, if you are getting 11%, 12%, 13% of the hispanic vote, it's almost impossible for you to run away with these. arizona, i still think, they were talking about 2008 and then

mccain wound up being the nominee. home state senator. favorite son, he wins. in 2012, romney had other places to target and problems. with a candidate like trump who has struggled to come close to romney's 27% nationally among hispanics that will start moving in that direction. whether it can hold off depends on how much of the white vote trump can hold. that's true in north carolina, in virginia in texas to a certain extent, although i still think texas isn't there. talking 20or 24 before the hispanic vote becomes a bloc in which you cannot lose as bodily as donald trump is going to lose. any state, colorado. there's a reason we're not talking about new mexico. new mexico is a swing state as recently as 2000. george w. bush won new mexico over al gore in 2000. it was not even talked about in 2012 because obama won it by 13 points because of that hispanic margin. the margin in new mexico in 2016

between trump and clinton, 20, to 25-point win. >> some of these states move quickly from red to blue. >> and the problem very quickly is how many states are moving blue to red? that's the issue. michigan maybe. maybe wisconsin. maybe pennsylvania, but it's all maybes. it's not definites. >> chris cillizza with "the washington post." thanks, as always. >> thank you. after the break, the white house today insisting that a $400 million payment to iran wasn't ransom. >> what the united states did was resolve a longstanding claim at the hague that saved the american people potentially billions of dollars. >> including donald trump, see something very different in this report. the details on this and what the trump campaign is saying about it today right after this.

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so i just want to tell you, the campaign is doing really well. it's never been so well united. we startod june 16th. i would say right now, it's the best in terms of being united that it's been since we began. we're doing incredibly well. >> welcome back. here are your h lines at the half hour. donald trump is still speaking right now in daytona beach, florida, telling supporters that his campaign has never been more united than it is right now. that comment comes amid reports of major infighting and lack of morale inside the trump campaign. also, trump's running mate mike pence is also speaking right now holding a town hall in denver. earlier today, trump endorsing house speaker paul ryan in his re-election bid. trump saying yesterday he's not ready to endorse ryan or arizona senator john mccain who is also facing a difficult re-election

battle in arizona. president obama is cutting short more than 200 federal inmates' prison sentences. the white house announcing the president commuted 214 sentences. that's the largest total. 67 people serving life sentences, most of them for nonviolent drug offenses. police officer with the washington, d.c., metro subway system is now in custody. he's accused of trying to support isis. federal agents arrested nicholas young this morning. they say he met 20 times with an fbi informant he thought was being radicalized. young becomes the first law enforcement officer to be acc e accused of trying to aid the terrorist group. one firefighter has been killed battling a fire that erupted when a plane crash landed in dubai. investigators are still figuring out what went wrong. 300 people were on board the plane. all of them escaped, though ten did have to be hospitalized.

turning back now to politics to the presidential campaign. the trump campaign trying to deflect attention away from reports of infighting. and to the news today that the u.s. sent cash to iran just as four americans were freed back in january. this story first reported today in "the wall street journal." trump's campaign chairman paul manafort suggesting that the $400 million in cash amounted to a ransom payment that ensured their release. >> yes, we do believe that the u.s. government paid for the release of the hostages. and that's not a way to deal with terrorists. that's not the way to deal with enemy governments. more importantly, the american peep once again were lied to by the clinton/obama administration as to what they were doing on behalf of their country. >> and the white house insisting that money was not ransom. i'm joined by msnbc contributor steve clemens.

so the prisoners came back. the money went to iran in cash. does paul manafort have a point? >> no, he doesn't. you know, i reported on this on january 17th we saw a lot of things happen at the same time. the iran deal was coming forward. we -- the president came out and gave a speech about that. he said we have two other pieces of business. the release of american citizens and the resolution of this trust fund issue that had been locked up in the hague. this was money that was iran's money that was going to be used for the payment of american weapons which we never delivered on. we froze these funds. the president came and said we've got a compromise on this and we're going to pay the iranians $400 million. i don't see where the secret is other than the fact that allegedly we delivered in big pallets of cash. but it was announced by the president of the united states. it's the weirdest secret i've ever heard. >> what about the idea that it's a quid pro quo. if this money wouldn't be turned

over if the prisoners weren't turned over. >> two ways to look at this. if you are opposed to the iran deal in any way, shape or form, then you will find conspiracy in what happened. if you are someone that sees the administration trying to take steps forward to clear the environment that relationships that were shaped during a negotiating a nuclear deal also helped move forward the release of people like jason and others and the iranians insisted on clearing the deck on their international dispute with us in the hague, then you have something that's kind of a lazy susan in the dinner table where there are lots of pieces and they're interlocked. there are six, seven, eight, nine or more pieces tied together. so in my view, while you had different teams negotiating these different things, they were absolutely interlocked, and not a quid pro quo of one thing for the hostages, despite the timing. everything happened that week. everything.

the most important thing was the strategic deal reached with iran on it neutralizing its nuclear weapons capacity. these other two pieces were atmospherics also tightened in that same time period and the u.s. president came out and said that publicly and openly. >> what about the cash payment here. this is not money being wired in a traditional sense. this is cash being delivered. has sort of a covert feel to it. what's the purpose of that? >> well, i suppose if we had banking relationships with iran, we could wire money to them. we don't. we have sanctionedu ran, sanctioned banking institutions with dealing with iran. after the very big pallets of cash we've sent to iraq, we seem to be good at delivering pallets of cash. but this was iran. i think the deeper question is, once iran got that money, the question i would be asking as an iranian citizen, what happened with those bills? that's something we don't know. and i think is a legitimate question to look at what does the ooiranian government do wit

the proceeds and arrangement it's had. the notion of dealing with it, doesn't matter if you have a wire or take cash. it sounds dramatic to imagine pallets of cash being secretly flown. one it wasn't secret, but, two, we simply don't have financial arrangements with iranian financial institutions any longer. so the cash payment makes total sense. >> steve clemons, thank you for the time. ahead, we'll bring it to you as we do every day. our most important number of the day. so some republicans are worried about the state of the donald trump campaign and they are worried about something more particular. if he goes down, they are worried how many republicans could he take with him? our most important number of the day is going to tackle that right after this. gary, gary, gary... i am proud of you, my man. making simple, smart cash back choices...

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we're getting all sorts of reports that republicans are nervous about the state of donald trump's campaign. he's been in so many controversies, so many fights this week. hillary clinton clearly got a bounce out of the democratic convention. a lot of republicans worried about where this is all going. and they're not just worried about donald trump. and whether he's going to win this fall. they are worried about themselves. and that takes us to our most important number of the day. let's take a look at what it is today. 30. why is it 30? take a look at this.

this is one of the most important things republicans have in politics today. they have control of the house of representatives. the republican congress. you see right now this is the current bounce. there's two vacant seats in very democratic districts. we're going to count those as democratic seats right now. here's the bottom line for democrats. if they want to get back control of the house, take it away from republicans, you need 218. 218 seats. that's just over 50% of the total number. democrats, do the math. they'd need 30 seats. they'd need to pick up 30 seats this november if they're going to get back control. it's a real stretch to see democrats doing that. that's a number on the mind of republicans as they worry about the state of the trump campaign. they worry if he goes down, does he go down in a bad enough way that the democrats start to get close to that number. let's give you a few more pieces of information to keep in mind. think back to 2012. barack obama won the

presidential election over mitt romney. fairly significant margin there. this is what the house map looked like. these are all the districts they won. the interesting thing is this. barack obama didn't win a majority of congressional districts in the country, even though he won the election. one of the advantages republicans have in trying to hold the house and keep democrats from getting to 30. look at some of the big landslides, even when one party's candidate wins a landslide. bill clinton won by eight points. that's a solid margin. his party only gained two seats in the house. ronald reagan won 49 states in 1984. republicans only picked up 16. richard nixon won 49 states, 61% of the vote in 1972. republicans only picked up 12 seats. democrats would need 30 if they'll get back the house. that bodes well for republicans holding the house. there is one example in modern times of a party getting more than 30. lyndon johnson, that landslide

over goldwater in '64. his party picked up 37 seats there. that's the kind of gain and landslide the democrats would need if they'll get the house this election. you have to go back more than 50 years. the most important thing is they are worried about how bad it could be. they don't want the democrats getting near 30 when it comes to battle for control of the house. that's our most important number of the gap. here's hampton pearson with the cnbc wrap. >> the seven-day losing streak per the dow is over. the major averages all closing higher. the dow gaining 41 points, s&p up 7, nasdaq climbing by 22. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide.

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donald trump is back on the campaign trail. he's in florida today. he has wrapped up his first of two events. this one in daytona beach. we showed you a bit of it earlier. see the arena emptying out now. jacob rascon is still standing by. so we watched a little bit of that speech. looked like donald trump at least at the top was trying to convey the message, hey, you see all these reports about chaos in my campaign, about lack of morale, not true. that was the message i was getting from the top of his speech. what did you hear? >> right. one of the first things he mentioned, the campaign has never been more united. he went right off of the bat talking about that. then he went into typical stuff we hear on his stump. he also talked a lot about the news about iran today.

but then he got into some of the older controversies about megyn kelly or "the new york times" reporter, former "washington post" reporter and how he was imitating him. it's not clear why he gets into those things. you heard also about the wall. whenever he mentioned hillary clinton you heard the crowd chanting "lock her up," something we've grown accustomed to since the convention. you saw a confident trump. it seemed he had a lot of energy, and he was a very aware of the media reporting about the campaign disunity. he mentioned dishonest media several times. and nothing unusual there, steve. >> jacob rascon in daytona beach, following donald trump today. going to turn to sam stein also a senior politics editor at the huffington post. so let me ask you this. we were talking to barry bennett, a trump supporter, earlier. he's acknowledging it's been a

bad week for donald trump. guys have to get more focused. picks too many fights but he's still only down about four or five points in these polls. >> sure. but we don't know how low it's going to go. why he suddenly decided he needed to talk about megyn kelly again. this is not a new controversy. this was settled many months ago. the fact he felt the need to bring it up at this rally amidst all this chatter of needing to stay on message is confounding. he's still operating as a stream of consciousness candidate with little apparent self-control. >> sounds like my takeaway from this week n i've probably had this thought a couple times before, this is the donald trump we're going to see through november. no reason to think we'll suddenly see traditional sort of press release message discipline, message of the day candidate. >> yeah, and it's sort of been i

guess hilarious to watch as various republicans have over the past couple of months been like, he's just got to get it under control, show some discipline. everything will be fine. we can then support him. and it's like, well, we have enough of a sample size to know what type of politician he is, what type of person he is and what type of candidate he is. it's pretty important moment from yesterday when president obama basically said the republicans need to distance themselves from trump. but that signified it's the end. they'll never follow obama's directive to distance themselves. they would be criticized for having that be the thing that made them do it. plenty of opportunities. plenty of controversies in the past couple of months where they could have theoretically said that's a bridge too far. we're past that point. >> i've heard a lot of suggestions out there for why this is donald trump's m.o. why he will not become that kind of candidate you're talking about. the one that resonates with me.

this is a guy who thinks like a showman and thinks that would be boring. he could imagine losing the audience if he's repeating the same message. what's your thought? >> let me use my psychiatry degree. i don't have one. let me try to get into this. the most telling thing from "the washington post" interview was if you read the transcript, there's five or six instances in which in the middle of talking to phil rucker of the post he was distracted by what was going on on the tv near him. he'd figure out if he was getting portrayed nicely or not. he's preoccupied with his public perception and how he's doing ratings wise. the simplest explanation is that he believes firmly that if people are talking about him, even if it's negative attention, that it can't be anything but good for him. now that's an interesting theory to bring to a presidential campaign. not sure if it works but it would explain a lot of what is

objectively outlandish behavior. >> sam stein with the huffington post, appreciate it. >> that's going to do it for this hour. i'm steve kornacki. "mtp daily" with chuck todd starts right now. if it's wednesday, republicans in crisis. is it time for the gop to break the emergency glass? it's "mtp daily," and it starts right now. good evening. i'm chuck todd in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." and welcome to 36 hours of total and complete chaos inside the republican party. whole hour we'll take you inside what appears to be a crisis that's facing trump or the party or both and what may be dire optsions facing many in the party. grin and bear it and hope he changes? unendorse him? or three,