that's right. tonight, rio olympics start. opening ceremonies. don't miss it. "mtp daily" is live all next week. coverage starts 5:00 p.m. after the olympics. "with all due respect" starts right now. i'm jennifer jacobs. >> i'm mark halperin. with all due respect to the nation's fact checkers, make sure you get this one exactly right. >> i don't throw babies out, believe me. i love babies. tonight, the iran take backstroke. an e-mail server balance beam. first, the gold medal event. donald trump and mike pence are taking the tours to green bay,

wisconsin for an evening rally. you won't see any badger state political gold medalists there. governor scott walker, speaker of the house paul ryan and senator ron johnson all mplan t skip the event because they all have proverbial prior engagements. the national party chairman, reince priebus, is also not planning to attend although he is home in the state today. he does plan to accompany trump to a series of finance events over the weekend so he's not avoiding his nominee. if you are a republican, who has been in panic mode over trump's bad week, there is mildly good news today. trump appears to be trying to make a midcourse correction. listen, for instance, to what he had to say in des moines, iowa at a rally this afternoon where he got back on track criticizing barack obama and hillary clinton. >> so i wrote up some little points today and it concerns her, it concerns president obama, who is doing a terrible

job, terrible job. you look at what's going on, you look at what's going on in our country and you see what's happening, but i thought i would discuss this because we know hillary, i know hillary, and it's interesting. did it this morning. unstable, hillary clinton, lacks the judgment, temperament and moral character to lead this country. i was the first one i believe to use the word unfit in referring to her. now they pick it up and they use it on me. i always thought that i was extremely fit. in fact, all of my life i have been told you have the greatest temperament because you go through pressure, you have to be able to handle pressure. she cannot handle pressure. >> there's a man trying to stay on track. today also brought an uncharacteristic admission of error by the candidate. some sharp press releases criticizing hillary clinton and during tonight's rally in

wisconsin, trump is expected to, for real, endorse paul ryan ahead of the speaker's tuesday primary. jennifer jacobs is with us. we thank her for sitting in for john. i want to ask you, what is all this a sign of and what could it lead to for the trump campaign? >> well, donald trump knows how to read a poll, right? he knows paul ryan is going to win and win by a lot. so when ryan wins, if trump had no hand in it, that reflects poorly on donald trump. i had one gop strategist say today that if he really does endorse paul ryan tonight like we think he's going to, the sound of him swallowing his pride is going to be like the sound of guzzling at a college beer bong party. >> not sure what that exactly sounds like. does his endorsement of ryan make it seem like it never happened at all? in other words, is there any residue of this that will hurt the trump campaign? >> it's still embarrass that paul ryan is not going to be there. that sends a signal that paul ryan doesn't want to be seen next to the gop nominee, much

less being photographed with him. so there still is that sting there. but i know that republicans will appreciate the fact if trump does this, it freshens up that feeling that republicans had just two weeks ago after the convention when everyone came out of cleveland with locked arms and there are some republicans who feel that was very much squandered. >> they left cleveland as united as a republican party with donald trump as the nominee could be. the ted cruz thing helped trump in a way for sure. i think that, you know, not that long ago like a day and a half, people were thinking the party was about to come crashing down. tonight's event i think despite the absence of all those people, if he endorses i think they're somewhat back on track and they have survived this week without mass defections of any sort. they lost a handful of people, both some elected and some not. i think clearly, a lot went on today with the trump campaign to get him to go read that statement. as you suggested, clearly

nothing is as bracing for him as a series of polls and national polls and state polls showing he's behind. >> remember also that these two candidates, mike pence and donald trump, squandered the two sides of the party. so when you have got trump talking about paul ryan and saying i'm hesitant, i'm not sure whether i can support him, when he even mentioned paul ryan's name at one of his rallies in florida this week, there were boos from the audience. the audience ate that up. so you have got one candidate, trump, the candidate of the people. you have mike pence, the candidate of the gop elite. so trump can speak to the people and pence comes in and soothes the nerves of the gop elite. trump can say something about the khan family, the parents of that late soldier, and that anti-muslim undercurrent that might have been there resounds with some of the people and then pence comes in and soothes the nerves of the elite again. >> there is this issue now, trump does not like to be criticized. if he held out his endorsement from ryan maybe that would send a message, don't criticize him. now i think he does run a little bit of a risk of people saying

as we go on, if he does say more things they don't like, of them being critical of him again. that's a dynamic he does not like. all right. as we said, today donald trump did something we don't typically associate with him. he admitted he made an error. we are talking about that fabled aka alleged videotape showing the secretly delivered $400 million to iran by the u.s. government. the delivery itself and allegations of u.s. cash for hostages has been a talking point for republicans all week. a good opportunity, many said, for trump to criticize both hillary clinton and barack obama over foreign policy. but instead, that's not the way the week has gone. let's get you caught up. >> donald trump, here's what happened. >> breaking tonight, "wall street journal" just went off with a stunning story. >> late tuesday, the report, $400 million in cash was sent to iran. coinciding with the release of four hostages. early wednesday, trump pounces. scandal, republicans join in. call it ransom. fox is on it. >> you have the hostages landing in geneva. >> wednesday afternoon, trump says he saw a tape.

>> they have a perfect tape. >> tape of the money coming off the plane. >> it was the perfect angle. nice and steady. >> twitter responds, wait, what tape? late wednesday night, "the washington post" asks the trump campaign, do you mean this tape, the b-roll fox played of the hostages landing in geneva? yes. so there is no tape. late thursday, trump says remember that tape? >> you saw that with the airplane coming in. nice plane. >> says the tape his campaign says doesn't exist was provided by iran to embarrass us. >> very odd. >> the nets picked it up. >> tale of the tape. >> sur garogates are questioned. >> why does donald trump keep bringing this video up? >> i can't answer that question. >> jeff lord says you know, that b-roll did kind of look like a secret cash drop. >> i saw that and that's what i thought i was seeing. >> friday morning, trump tweets okay, it was the hostage plane, not the plane landing in iran. exclamation point. friday it's all over tv. >> so is it all now cleared up? >> no. >> all right.

so unusual for trump to tweet a correction. he didn't fall on his sword completely but he did acknowledge his error. what does that say about where he stands with his campaign since i suspect this wasn't his idea, and where does -- do you think this leaves us with trump's capacity to limit distraction? >> it shows that he's willing to listen to all those influential republicans who said listen, take control of the wheel and avoid the cliff. one interesting thing that happened this week at one of his rallies in florida, he really showed his cards about why he's running for president. he talked about how much he loves it. he admitted that it gets him pumped up, said it makes him feel 20 years younger. he talked about how he loves hearing that thunderous chorus from the crowd of them calling his name. then he kind of corrected himself and caught himself and said but the real reason i'm running is to make america great. that gave us insight into his thinking. i know there have been some donors who have been reaching out to some of the senior staff, i know it wasn't easy to get hold of some of them this week. they were kind of underground. but some donors have been

calling and saying very gently, look, this messiah complex is not helping us. he can't look like he's infallible. so this shows that he can correct a mistake and move on quickly. >> there was no benefit to talking about this nonexistent tape, video. there's no benefit to it. wil say people are, the current narrative based on the polls, based on his poor performance, based on his attacking the khans day after day, people are underestimating the degree to which this guy is competitive and does not like to be embarrassed. this was an embarrassing week for him. so the tweet was a way to move that narrative away and the reality is the press is open to the narrative now of trump fixing things. today were some baby steps. he still has a world of hurt with the polls and other issues but baby steps to show that he can actually do things to turn the page. >> one quick note, though. he did not say he was mistaken. he didn't say i'm wrong. he very carefully just said, he

explained which plane he was talking about. but it was a very interesting way of avoiding culpability. >> baby step. coming up, binders full of men. after these words. be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if you had liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels. smart. with liberty mutual new car replacement™, we'll replace the full value of your car. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. get between you and life's dobeautiful moments.llergens flonase gives you more complete allergy relief. most allergy pills only control one inflammatory substance. flonase controls 6. and six is greater than one. flonase changes everything. ♪

today, monthly jobs report showed an increase of 255,000 new jobs, that's higher than even bullish economists expected. the unemployment rate stayed even at 4.9%. on the official halperin bupfo meter showed four out of a possible five. trump's campaign is painting this in a different way, pointing out the recent 1.2 growth rate statistics and said the country is quote, in the middle of the single worst recovery since the great depression. but given the last few months of job data, punctuated with the exclamation point of today's report, the question i have is

can hillary clinton go now from emphasizing as she has been there's more work to do, people are still hurting, to more of a happy days are here again message? >> yeah, she can. and she can more easily refute trump if he says that the obama economy is bad. although with the trump campaign, they are so good at avoiding bad news and spinning things, they have this eternal sunshine thing going on, like they were arguing they could talk about the gdp report and slow growth of the economy, they can also go back and talk about the underemployment rate, the people who are only working part-time when they should be working full-time and talk about that. that just ticked up a teensy little bit. there are ways they can refute this and come back at hillary clinton but it definitely makes it harder for him to insult the obama economy. >> the growth rates are not great and people's long-term anxiety is still high and the wrong track number driven a lot by the economy is still high. i suspect we will still be high by election day. this does give her a big talking

point. nothing bigger than the jobs number for people and the notion wages may tick up a little bit. i do think, i have said for awhile, for all the superficiality of this race, for all the personality-driven aspects of it, i still think if either candidate can convince people they have ideas for making the economy better, they will have a huge leg up in the race. so i don't think it's enough for donald trump to be negative about the economy. i don't think it's enough for hillary clinton to become a little more bull eish. they have to have actual ideas. >> who on the trump side is talking about jobs? donald trump made this race a referendum on his character, on his personality. his whole playbook is being controversial. >> the one thing i will say as we close this thing is this is a huge thing for the clinton campaign. they want optimistic things to talk about. they would like her to be more optimistic about the president's record. this makes it easier. on the economy today, the trump campaign announced an economic advisory council consisting of 13 people. you can't spell advisory without a "y" which it turns out the y

chromosome can be found in every single member of trump's council. yes, ahead of his planned economic speech on monday in detroit, he unveiled a diverse roster of all men, including rnc speaker tom brock, howard lorber, trade relations expert peter navarro and chief economist of the heritage foundation, steven moore. on bloomberg tv today, moore said a broader economic advisory list does include some women. we were unable to locate that list. kind of incredible in this day and age they put out a list of advisors of all men but leaving that aside, what does the idealogical makeup and background of this team say about trump's economic orientation? >> it's an interesting group of people, all of them very successful in business or in their field, not all of them are yes men. some of them have been very critical of donald trump. for example, i guess who is it,

steven moore has been critical of trump for calling for high tariffs for china. he called trump's judge curiel comments indefensible. you have dan demico who used to be trump's trade advisor who has praised nafta in the past so he's not necessarily exactly online with donald trump. he doesn't think free trade is a bad thing but he really stresses manufacturing, keeping manufacturing in the united states. a lot of these guys are friends of trump's, donors of trump's. tom and he did real estate deals together in the 1980s, he was one of the early supporters of the trump super pac. he has an interesting philosophical outlook. in an interview with bloomberg reporters, talked about how hillary clinton is a very competent person and would be a very competent president and also said listen, i'm liberal on social issues, kind of a lame republican. so you have an interesting mix of idealogical philosophies from

these guys. >> to me the most striking thing is only one guy with an academic background. it's basically people in the private sector, lot of people in finance and services who are trump types. they are strong-willed, business people with little or no government experience who want to make america great again and who believe the private sector needs to be unshackled. i think it's actually the gender lack of diversity notwithstanding, it's actually a good signal to the public of the kind of people trump would bring into the government if he won. people who don't know how government works, don't come in to try to change things like trump himself. all right. move over, it's time for hillary clinton's e-mails. secretary clinton gave a talk today at the national association of black journalists, national association of hispanic journalists in washington, d.c. where the two groups convened. she spoke briefly, then took a few questions from some of the journalists there including nbc news' kristen welker who asked about clinton's comment over the weekend to chris wallace at fox suggesting director james comey

vouched for her truthiness regarding the e-mails. that comment earned her bad reviews including "the washington post" giving her its maximum number of pinocchios for lack of honesty and accuracy. she got other abuse as well. today, clinton was given a chance to clarify and maybe clean up what she had said over the weekend when kristen welker asked the follow-up. obviously she took the opportunity. >> i may have short-circuited and for that, i will try to clarify because i think chris wallace and i were probably talking past each other, because of course, he could only talk to what i had told the fbi and i appreciated that. now, i have acknowledged repeatedly that using two e-mail accounts was a mistake, and i take responsibility for that. but i do think having him say that my answers to the fbi were truthful and then i should

quickly add what i said was consistent with what i had said publicly, and that's really sort of in my view, trying to tie both ends together. >> that didn't do much to clarify. look, she continues to be purposefully not addressing some of the tougher things comey said. she's clinging to the exculpatory stuff he said and overstating that and not dealing with some of the criticisms and the question again today, failed to address the question of what she said in public, not what she said with the fbi. the question is why is she leaving herself open to dragging this out more, why not just give a more definitive answer? >> that was certainly some word soup. but the democrats can argue listen, anything, maybe she has said a couple things that were not exactly accurate, but they can argue this week that trump has just completely stepped on that opportunity to come at her after anything she says pales in comparison to the week trump has had where he said joking, not

joking, he thought that baby was annoying and talking about anyone who sexually harassed you, you should just switch careers, not endorsing paul ryan, saying john mccain hasn't been good to veterans, americans should pull their money out of 401(k)s. it goes on and on. >> she's counting on what the clintons often count on, which is the press basically getting tired of plowing the same ground, that the public will lose interest in it and they continue to believe that saying i'm sorry, i made a mistake, i shouldn't have done it, is enough. i still think she's not addressed the question of what she thinks she did wrong and that relates to the question of comey's criticism. it's not clear to me if people are going to keep asking her about it but today's answer, we will see if "the post" trots out pinocchio again but today's answer was more of the same of claiming things about what comey said that he didn't say. particularly because he didn't address her public statements which is our bigger concern for the public than what she might

have told the fbi behind closed doors. coming you, donald trump's big wisconsin rally and what it means for weekend plans.

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kerrick, worked with senator ted kennedy, dianne feinstein, chuck schumer and many, many, many more. gentlemen, thank you for joining us. bill, start with you. if hillary clinton calls you tonit and says i know i've had a great week, trump has had a horrible week, but what should i be worried about, what would you tell her? >> i think the big thing they have to worry about is trump's chances of getting a rebound here are probably pretty low between now and labor day. they have to be ready for the debates. that's 270 electoral college votes, 270 minutes of debates, so they just have to be ready for that because that's going to be trump's only chance to get back in this game. >> ed, you are voting for trump, right? >> no. >> you're not. who you voting for? >> i'm not not voting for trump. i'm a non-trump supporter. i'm a good republican. i'm certainly not going to vote for hillary. trump hasn't met me halfway yet. >> so you might vote for trump is what you're saying? >> well, the possibilities are

becoming less likely and the scenarios are more remote but i'm not never trump. something could happen. >> give me one example, if he called you tonight and said i saw you on "with all due respect" i really want your vote, tell me what you need to do, what would you tell him? >> you need to be sane and mute for awhile. let us all rest and reflect. >> what about you, bill? what would you tell him? >> well, i agree with ed. the biggest thing, there's a talk show host out here, doug mcintyre, has a great phrase for trump's malady. he has political tourettes. he's just got to shut up. these things he just throws out there, every other day, that cause enormous distraction and trouble. if he doesn't figure out how to stop that, he's going to really get clobbered. >> in that regard, if he were just quiet and the economy

became the issue and something happened in the national security realm and hillary's inability, she boxed herself in. she can't ring the alarm about the economy, she's bought into obama, all things obama, national security and economically, she can't ring the alarm, trump could be standing there where people say things couldn't get any worse. let's give this guy a chance. if he would just be quiet, that could happen. i'm not sure it's desirable. but it could happen. >> do you guys believe the polls -- >> i'm not sure it's possible. that's the other problem. it's probably not possible. >> i will concede that. doesn't look that way. >> let me ask you both. do you guys believe the polls? if the election were tomorrow, who do you think would win? >> hillary. >> hillary. definitely. i think -- >> the story of 2016 -- go ahead, bill. sorry. >> this is one case where the national polls are probably more useful in terms of information

than some of these state polls. i think the trend nationally is pretty clear. you are beginning to see it filter down when you start having polls with hillary ahead in georgia and arizona. this is a national race and it's hers right now. >> the story of 2016 so far, i hope it will be in mark halperin's next book, the 2016 story of the polls, the polls have been right. the polls haven't been wrong. i went around for a year in 2015 saying everybody ignore the polls, trump can't win. >> they have been pretty accurate. guys, we will talk about down ballot races when we come back. or plain water. and even though their dentures look clean, in reality they're not. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists on the denture, and that bacteria multiplies very rapidly. that's why dentists recommend cleaning with polident everyday. polident's unique micro clean formula works in just 3 minutes, killing 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. for a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture every day.

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jennifer jacobs and i back with ed rollins and bill carrick. guys, it seems clear there will be some more republicans who, based on their sense of what's right and maybe the politics, want to distance themselves more from donald trump. we have seen a couple people do that already.

ed, you first. if you had a client running for house or senate who said i want more distance from trump, i'm not comfortable running in harness with him, what's the best way to do that and message that? >> everybody's sort of struggling with what the right decoupling formula is from trump. obviously, it depends on the state where you're running. it's different in arizona than it is in pennsylvania, ohio, et cetera. everybody is dealing with that right now. but nobody wants to have a rupture with the core of the trump supporter because they're the core republican -- the first 35% of any republican's vote are trump supporters. so there is no easy formula. there's no easy way to do it but i think this week, you did get into an era where it is sort of every man for himself in a good way for republicans. there's no longer any pressure to be for trump. there's pressure to figure out how to accommodate the reality

of trump but everybody's looking like i said for that decoupling formula. >> bill, if you are ted strickland in ohio or maggie hassen in new hampshire, what's the best way to try to tie your republican opponent to trump? >> well, i think you are going to have to do it on the big picture issues, economy and national security. that's obvious. but i think you could, as a democrat, you could get carried away with this idea of linking trump to your opponent. i think in some cases, that's going to do all the damage it's going to do just organically and pushing that as an issue in the campaign, using it in your paid communications, that kind of thing, that might not be the smartest move to make. >> bill, the idea that donald trump drags -- is a drag on the ticket for some people in the swing states, which state do you think is that effect happening the most pronounced?

>> well, the battleground states, you're going to have the ones where there's kind tested senate race and very contested campaign at the presidential level so ohio and pennsylvania, i think that's really a big deal in both those places because the campaign is going to be so present, probably in new hampshire as well. i think in illinois just because it's such a strong blue state it will be a real drag on mark kirk. >> you agree, ed? >> yeah. mark kirk got a headwind regardless. ron johnson in wisconsin has a headwind. probably less severe. but the bull's eye here is for trump and for the republican senate is going to mostly be pennsylvania and ohio. that's going to be the toughest place to negotiate the presence of trump versus a must-win senate race. >> there seems to be no doubt --

go ahead, bill. >> i just was going to say, the one thing about pennsylvania and ohio are now going to be all hands on board for trump because virginia and north carolina are so bad. i mean, he's just losing in places that are going to make the pressure more intense on pennsylvania and ohio. >> ed, it seems like donald trump is doing a very good job of uniting the democratic party. why is hillary clinton not providing that same service to the republicans right now, or so it seems to me? >> well, she hasn't broken through in awhile. she's a good uniter for republicans but trump seems to be stepping on any news that would remind us of the very things we like the least about hillary and remind the broader electorate, as a matter of fact. if this race is about trump, he loses. if this race is about hillary, she loses. and can trump let the bad

economy take over, can he let hillary be front and center, can he just be neutral for awhile and see what happens. so far, he cannot. >> the other thing -- >> go ahead, bill. >> the one thing about hillary, as voters start moving towards her and we see the head-to-head is moving faster than the attributes below that, voters will reconcile their support for her as a vote with their feelings about her. they just will. they will not -- there will not continue to be this contention between saying you are going to vote for her and having negative feelings about her. they will reconcile. it will become positive feelings and a vote for her. >> between -- >> i saw one of the network polls today where she has some healthy lead in the head-to-head, yet by four or five points, people trust him to deal more effectively with the economy than they do her. i think bill's right. those two things will reconcile.

surely the trump people noticed that and if they have any sense at all they will try to exploit it. >> less than a minut to go. summer vacation, the olympics. is it possible for trump to make up ground in august or does he have to wait until after labor day to have any meaningful closing of the gap? >> i think it's very hard to do. i really do. she's got an advantage in paid media, she's going to have more ads on the air in battleground states, so add that into it. if somebody can figure out the scheduling process in the trump campaign we may have the secret to the problem. they continue to go to odd places which doesn't help them either. i think it's very tough for them to make up any ground between now and labor day. >> ed, if there was one state where trump would make up ground besides ohio, what would it be? >> maybe new hampshire. >> symbolically important. >> virginia, north carolina. if he had some sort of strong

heartbeat there, i think that would be a good sign. >> okay. bill, ed, guys, thank you both for coming in. enjoy your weekend. coming up, a look at what the clinton campaign seems to be doing to capitalize on trump's bad week. ♪ one coat, yes! ♪ there is a day, for every number. ♪ ♪ there is a time, for all my slumbers. ♪ ♪ and i can see, that i can't run and hide. ♪ one coat guaranteed marquee interior. behr's most advanced paint. come find our top rated paints, only at the home depot.

michael hallary clinton, and i approve this message. michael hayden: if he govers consistent with some of the things he said as a candidate, i would be very frightened. gillian turner: he's been talking about the option of using a nuclear weapon against our western european allies. max boot: this is not somebody who should be handed the nuclear codes. charles krauthammer: you have to ask yourself, do i want a person of that temperament controlling the nuclear codes? and as of now, i'd have to say no. [bill o'reilly sighs] and as of now, i'd have to say no. he wrecked the rec room this summer. his stellar notebooks will last through june. get back to great. this week, these items just one cent each. office depot officemax. gear up for school. gear up for great. proof of less joint pain. and clearer skin. this is my body of proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis

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joining us now, ann gearan and joining us in studio, nbc news correspondent katy tur who covers the trump campaign. ann, you first. let me just ask you, as the clinton campaign obviously had a happy week, what's on their to do list now for the month of august? >> well, beyond going on vacation, which we expect hillary clinton to do the latter part of the month, really to try to stay out of the way of donald trump as much as possible if what he's going to do is do damage to himself. they really hope that the last week or so is a trajectory that they can hold on the where republicans are peeling off from trump and either endorsing her or saying they can't support him. either of those things, the

clinton campaign will take. just sort of continuing to get her jobs message out and not trying to make any big moves of her own that will be what they do for the rest of the month. >> do we know is she going to the hamptons? is that where vacation will be? >> martha's vineyard is the most likely location. there are fund-raisers there. >> katy, within the campaign today, jason miller, communications director, did a radio interview where he basically said we had a pretty good week in some ways. is there panic and concern that they need to have a dramatic change in the way campaign's going or just grind it out with battleground state rallies and maybe trump being a little more disciplined? >> i'm not hearing panic within the campaign. i think donald trump has gone from controversy to controversy so this is not an unusual position for this campaign to be in. they have sort of become a little bit used to it. they trying to spin that this has been a bad week for hillary clinton. jason miller said the same thing to me repeatedly this week. but the reality is donald trump

is down in a lot of battleground state polls. you guys know this. significantly down in places like pennsylvania. 15 points in new hampshire. that's a big number. and he's going into wisconsin tonight and he's got problems in wisconsin. so the campaign may not want to say there's anything wrong but there's a course correction in donald trump's own actions, this morning tweeting that he was actually looking at video of the american detainees leaving the plane in switzerland. then today, trying to explain the baby and now from our reporting, endorsing paul ryan tonight. expected to, at least. it's donald trump. you have to be careful with how you cage it because he can always change his mind. there does seem to be an attempt towards a course correction and acknowledgment that things are not going well. >> anne, do you have any thoughts on the gary johnson effect? when you talk to voters, especially independents, are you hearing anything about gary johnson in any of her crowds

or -- do you think he will have any effect on the race at all? >> you do hear his name a little bit. i don't expect him to have a very large forget. i also hear the green party candidate's name a little bit as a protest vote. jill stein is a protest vote against hillary. again, not likely to have a very large effect. >> who within the trump campaign right now to the extenthere are camps, are there camps? is there division about how to proceed? >> you know, there's less two-camp atmosphere than there was when cory lewandowski was there. lewandowski does still try to pull some strings behind the scenes. the rivalry between him and manafort is ongoing and there's a bit of revenge politics going on there. manafort has been trying to purge the campaign of everybody who was loyal to loon do lewan.

from the conversations i have had, there is not a sense this is us versus them within the campaign. it's an idea it's us versus everybody else. >> is that coups pretty complete at this point? is there any cory loyalist in there? >> there are a couple strongholds there. but for the most part, it does seem like it's complete. >> manafort won. >> yeah. but then again, donald trump talks to cory lewandowski all the time. that's part of the issue that some aides are talking about. there is an undercutting going on between manafort's influence and cory's desire to maintain the ear of donald trump. >> lot of comments this week about trump, one piece of good news was the fund-raising. did that get the attention of the folks in brooklyn? >> yeah. i mean, they are concerned a little less so than they were six weeks or so ago. but they are concerned about the rally around the candidate

aspect that they see happening on the republican side, where there are republican donors in the view of the clinton people, there are republican donors who are sort of holding their nose but giving money anyway. and the clinton people are somewhat concerned tha that means that what they had hoped for in there being an ongoing fund-raising gap will not materialize. she had a very, very good month in july and they are trumpeting that pretty hard. >> it should be noted as impressive as trump's record was, she is in some ways having more success fund-raising than incumbent president barack obama did and that's not nothing. i said this yesterday and i'm sure donald trump will think i'm being politically correct. how could they put out a list of economic advisors of all men? how could that possibly happen? >> i don't think they rooealize what they were doing. that's part of the issue with this campaign. they are not going out and trying play defense before they get attacked for these sorts of

things. it is hard to believe that there's not one economic mind out there that is a female. >> it's a big country. >> good portion of this too is donald trump's friends, his donors and other big business leaders. it's not necessarily an economic team so much as it is people who donald trump believes know what they are talking about. >> his press secretary told us before the show they will roll out more names on an ongoing basis and presumably it will include women. it's hard to believe at a time when you trying to appeal to a broader group of voters that you could just -- >> look at who's close to donald trump. there's not a lot of females. >> put ivanka on it. >> ivanka is one of his closest advisors. for the most part, the rest of the top people in donald trump's circle is men. it's a very male-centric world. >> let me ask you, the bus tour this week, i have heard it was pretty grueling. how did she like it? do you think she had a really

good time? was it successful? >> well, i was on the bus tour at the very back of the motorcade and people kept asking us oh, what's it like, are you on the same bus with her, are you playing cards with her. like wait a mite, let me explain. when the bus goes around, when the motorcade goes around a curve at just the right angle from the back of the motorcade i can see her bus way up there. she did seem to have a good time at the events. there wasn't a lot of sort of classic bus tour sorts of stuff that went along with it. they weren't stopping for ice cream and stopping alongside the road to shake hands or anything. in fact, there was really none of that. only on the last day did she even stop at a restaurant anywhere and that's where she had a small q & a session with reporters. overall, the clinton campaign believes it was a success in

getting out her economic message, the idea that she has a jobs program, plan to add jobs and promote college education for those who want it in areas of the country that are in their view particularly susceptible to trump's economic message which is blue collar white america in pennsylvania and ohio. that's where the bus tour was centered. that said, she went to places in those states that had sort of a counter programming message. she went to advanced manufacturing facilities and talked about revitalizing american manufacturing. >> great made for tv bus trip. anne, thank you very much. katy, stay with us. we'll be right back. ♪ mapping the oceans. where we explore. protecting biodiversity. everywhere we work. defeating malaria. improving energy efficiency. developing more clean burning natural gas. my job? my job at exxonmobil? turning algae into biofuels.

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in the spirit of the olympics, jennifer jacobs has passed the hosting baton to katy

tur. joining us is an expert on wisconsin where he used to be based. ken, trump is there tonight with pence. they are obviously making a push there. that's a state democrats have consistently won. how realistic is it for trump to put wisconsin in play? >> simple answer, not very realistic at all. i think wisconsin is sometimes that football with lucy and charlie brown. i see no evidence that wisconsin's going to be competitive. we don't see any advertising dollars there. it's going to be interesting to see what sort of crowd they draw tonight because pence after the convention went to waukashau county. there is no more important county in terms of generating votes and he only got 500 people. i don't see wisconsin, my former home state, being in play this year. >> i know wisconsin went to ted cruz during the primaries. is there any reason to believe

donald trump could turn it around there and if he could, what does he need to do? does he need to get talk radio on his side? does he need to get behind forcefully paul ryan today, say he does support him? is that an option, can he turn it around? >> well, the point you made about talk radio is a really important one. in the milwaukee media market which is over 40% of the state, conservative talk radio is huge and different than conservative talk radio in much of the country, conservative talk radio in milwaukee, in wisconsin, what's anti-trump during the primaries and has remained anti-trump. so the number of votes that a republican would have to generate out of they are called the wow counties, the counties that border the city of milwaukee, a republican just can't get that unless talk radio is on their side. i see no evidence that they are going to come on his side in a big, megaphone way. >> we have talked a lot about the disparity in advertising between clinton and trump and the two sides. clinton is going to buy national time during the olympics.

no indication trump is. why buy national at this point when it's not a national election, why not focus on the battleground states? >> it's interesting. something that we may see more of down the line. clinton has $32 million bought over the next three weeks. half of that is national, $8 million on national cable news networks, and $8 million on nbc on the olympics. i think it's a case where it might just have been easier where it was hard to get inventory, hard to buy battleground state by battleground state, if you just wanted the olympics, so it was easier and perhaps even cheaper for them to just buy national even if there is a little wastage. the other thing is i think that it makes it a little bit more attractive for the national media to talk about it if it's a national buy. >> in the past you said that we shouldn't be paying attention to the polls. is now the time to start paying attention to the polls? does it matter now in august? >> yes. start paying attention to the polls now. i think we do see some variance

from poll to poll, but there is a general picture emerging of a clinton bounce and not so much maybe a clinton bounce but whatever the opposite of bounce is for trump and this race clearly isn't in the seven, eight, nine percentage point range, and i think that is a meaningful number at this time, and you know, again, i should stop making predictions this year, but i can't imagine that changing very much before the debates in september. >> without improvement, worst case for trump? someone thought trump's score was 40%. we see him in some polls below 40%. is it possible in that polarized country the republican nominee again worst case, no trump comeback for him, that he could do worse than 40%? >> well, what's interesting in the polls is all the polls basically agree on their horse race number but when you look in the internals they actually have some disagreements.

one of the ways that the polls differ is how loyal republicans are. in some of those polls, you see trump starting to dip below 80, closer to 75 among support from republicans. republicans will vote for the republican but if you start to get republican loyalty dping below 80, and hillary clinton able to be competitive with i independents you could get into the 40 or under range. >> ken goldstein, thank you very much. katy tur, thank you. we'll be right back. stay in co. 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. works like your body's insulin. when my schedule changes... i want something that delivers. ♪ tresiba® ready ♪

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sears optical as we talk about trump's chances in wisconsin, what are trump's chances in iowa? >> well, yeah, it's a purple state. very difficult to see where it's going to roll. obviously they went for ted cruz in the caucuses and trump maybe didn't do any good for himself today by saying to the crowd in des moines i'm not a big fan of the iowa caucuses. i'm not sure how well that went

over. >> we shall see. he was there today. bloomberg politics.com right now, john mccormick's great piece is up there about clinton's spending binge on the olympics. sayonara. coming up, "hardball with chris matthews." unhinged? let's play "hardball." good eecvening. hillary clinton was endorsed today by a veteran national security official but it was the language she used describing her opponent donald trump that's most shocking. the former acting cia director praised clinton as highly qualified for the presidency. his other reason for backing her is what he called his alarm over the prospect of a donald trump presidency. michael morell said trump is not only unqualified for