remote diagnosis tonight. thank you for staying up late with me tonight. really appreciate it. >> excellent company. rachel maddow starts now. see you tomorrow. we begin in the middle of march 2004. 2004 was one year since the u.s. launched its invasion of iraq. this was a couple of weeks after john kerry had swept through the super tuesday primary states and become the presumptive democratic nominee for president. the jeshl election was matchup was set. it was going to be kerry and bush. sn george w. bush the incumbent president and president bush called john kerry, the night of his big super tuesday wins and congratulated him. said he looked forward to the fight in the fall. then bush's campaign did something that wasn't very grabs or magnanimous, they went after

kerry very hard. they went after him on the issue that many voters thought was supposed to be the strength for john kerry, remember he was a vietnam war hero. support for the war hero is when the campaign started. >> i'm george w. bush. and i approve this message. >> few vots in congress are as important as funding our troops if war. though john kerry voted for military action in iraq in 2002, he later voted against funding our soldiers. no, body armor and higher combat pay for our troops. no, better health care for reservists no, wrong on defense. >> you few then it was going to be a pretty long campaign, that was a brutal ad, right out of the gate from the bush campaign, it was a pretty major campaign of the sitting commander-in-chief. a year into a war, accusing his opponent of keeping them in body armor and health care from american soldiers.

now, of course the truth was a lot more complicated in that 30 second ad, made it seem as the senator kerry had, indeed, voted against president bush's $87 billion request to fund military operations in afghanistan. kerry was not alone, a lot of democrats, most democrats had voted against thatch this was their way of showing their displeasure with the president's prosecution of the war, itself. but this is the senate. this is capitol hill. this is congress it's always more complicated than that. the other story is kerry and those democrats supported a separate version of the funding bill a. separate version that was paid for by rolling back some of the bush tax cuts for the wealthy. shortly after that brutal ad came out, john kerry was at a town hall in west virginia. west virginia was still a swing state in 2004. the issue com up and kerry tried to got it straight. >> let's get the record clear, secondly this is important.

i actually did vote for the $87 billion before i voted against it, because i voted for joe biden and i thought this, joe and i broughten in and to the $87 billion. we said this should be paid for now, not adding to the deficit t. way we should pay for it is say to the wealthiest 1 or 2% of american, instead of accepting $690 billion of tax cuts over the course of the next ten years wouldn't you just be willing in the spirit of patriotism and sacrifice to just take $600 billion over the next ten years? you know what? the president said no the republicans voted no the democrats voted yes we didn't get. >> and by the way, at issue here was not just funding for afghanistan, it was operations in iraq and afghanistan. obviously it was iraq in 2004 that was the politically

contentious issue. anyway the bush campaign puts that ad up when john kerry becomes george w. bush's gem election opponent. john kerry plays a little defense on it. >> that is his attempt to take the issue out of play, maybe a decent argue, he was saying democrats favored shared sacrifice, that was his message. he said i fought for a war funding bill that would have made the wealthy share this burden of the bill. that was the message john kerry was taking there that's -said if you take the whole thing in full. unfortunately, all the people was going to hear was this. >> i actually did vote for the $87 billion before i voted against it. >> amgd that is the kind of killer devastating sound by the political ad makers live for. somebody in the bush campaign was watching john kerry at the

town hall that day, heard that line, isolated it and knew they had an ad. that was an ad that echoed through that entire campaign, more than a decade later, it's an ad we still talk about. two days after that john kerry said it the bush campaign added that sound byte to its ad about kerry voting against the funding the bush campaign as we say, they spent the rest of the campaign saying john kerry was nothing more than a flip-floper. you remember the 2004 campaign. you remember how that went. democrats, at least, those with inner knowledge of the inner workings of the senate, well they knew what john kerry had meant when he said he voted for the funding before he voted against it. he was trying to make a nuanced point about legislative process, kerry. had tried to repeatedly explain what he meant there. again the sound byte, it was so clear, it was so simple. it was so aedes to understand the damage was done and the damage was profound. that sentence came to define

john kerry. when you are running for president. that's what this example shows. when you say something the wrong way, it will create an entirely new and entirely different story. and it will drown out anything and etching that you actually mane to the say, any substance, any nunsz, you are trying to communicate. say something the wrong way in the right way the wrong way and it will come to define you. this happens in every presidential campaign. it certainly happened in 2004. until this year, it had never really happened on a nearly daily basis. but now this year, we have the presumptive, the republican nominee donald trump who seems to have made a strategy out of saying things that will make news for their inartfulness or inflammatory nature.

his word choice itself becomes the news on an almost daily basis, no exception the past week. >> isis is honoring president obama. he is the founder of isis. he's the founder of isis. he's the founder. he founded isis. and i would say the co-founder would be crooked hillary clinton. co-founder. crooked hillary clinton. >> now, obviously, when the republican nominee for president of the united states calls the sitting president the founder of a major terrorist group, it's going to get a lot of attention. it was such an outlandish claim the media hasn't been sure exactly what to do with it. several outlets have gone the straight forward route of fact checking the claim, giving it a pants on fire rating for instance, that seems like it misses the point. donald trump is doing something here besides a simple missed statement of fact. this is much bigger what he's doing here.

it's hard to imagine donald trump is consciously creating an alternate history in which president obama held an informal meeting saying we are creating a terror group isis. trump is representing a main stream republican argument about the culpability in the rise of isis. one can make a reasonable argument along those lines. this morning, general michael hayden the national intelligence directorm, the head of the cia, he responded to trump's comments by doing just that. >> choosing those words corrupts the dialogue, corrupts what should be a very serious dialogue. we're right the actions of the obama administration in withdrawing from iraq, going to zero and we've talked about this on previous shows, actually set the conditions for the recovery of al qaeda in iraq which then became license. so there is a very powerful case to be made.

but when mr. trump uses this language to make that case, two or three things happen. number one, he enflames the debate and we don't need the flame. we need cold, rational discussion. he insults his audience. he goes to these code words to make a fairly valid point why does he do that? does he not think his audience could not accept the slightly more complex the slightly more right hand message that this predecessor made serious mistakes that led to the creation of isis? why does he put it this way? >> there have you it, you may not agree with it. you may think he's wrong. what michael hayden did there is layout a reasonably argued critique of the obama administration's foreign policy, specifically with regard to

isis. that's not who donald trump did. his comments not making headlines because of their nuance, not because of his specific critiques, they're making headlines because of his language, his word choice, because of his blunt statement that the president of the united states is the founder of isis. that's the only thing making news here. not the argument, the wording of the argument. there are a lot of things that are frustrating to republicans about donald trump. he says lots of outrageous, unacceptable things. many which stem from nothing more than personal vendettas. but it's got to be extra frustrating to republicans that even when trump tries to make one of the republican establishments decently crafted attacks on the obama administration and by extension on hillary clinton, even when he sets out to do that, each when he claims that that's what he tries to do, he ends up coming up with crazy sounding words, that become in and of itself the story.

even when trump's allies, people that want him to win this election, give him the benefit of the doubt, people who want to help him craft a winning message in this campaign. even when they hear him say that and they try to walk him back into a more reasonable posture, limits of the normal political debate, even when they try to do that, he will still stick by the rhetoric. here he is this morning with conservative radio host hue hewitt. >> last night you said the president was the founder of isis. i know what you meant. you meant that he created the volume, he lost the peace. >> i just use different language to communicate. i know i am keeping you on. >> they don't talk about your language, they do talk about my language.

for egypt, l libya, r for russia. they screwed everything up. you don't get an argument from in the. by using the term "founder" they are hitting on you again. mistake? >> everyone is liking it. i give them the most valuable player award. i give it to him and i gave cofounder to hillary. i don't know if you heard that. >> i played it. >> i gave her the cofounder. let me ask, do you not like that? >> i don't. i would say they lost the peace, they created the vacuum in to which isis came but didn't create isis. >> i disagree. with his bad policies that's why isis came about. if he had done things properly he wouldn't have had. therefore he was the founder of isis. >> i use different language to communicate that. let me close with this. >> wouldn't talk about your language and they do talk about

mine. >> good point. >> whether consciously or not, donald trump may have given away the game at the end of the exchange. you heard it there. he said he, hugh hewitt would talk about the issue of isis differently. snoo he lays out a politically reasonable argument. trump replies, quote, but they wouldn't talk about your language and they do talk about my language. donald trump appears to want his language to be the headline. he wants his language to be what people are talking about. maybe because for donald trump being talked about is the whole ball game. sure enough at his rally in florida tonight, trump repeated his line that president obama is the founder of isis. everyone has agreed from the moment that trump entered this race that he knows how to get media attention. question has always been, whether he can use that media attention as a means to an end or whether media attention, itself, is the end, itself. joining us now is sarah flores,

i found that exchange and we played the extended version, the exchange with hugh hewitt an interesting window in to donald trump's reasoning. you don't got him to be intraspecttive that much. hugh hewitt hi lays out in the normal terms of political debate in this country would be a reasonable argument you would expect the politician to be making, donald trump says basically, yeah, nobody would hear me if i said. that i have to say it this way. do you think there is something to that? is he accomplishing something by talking this way? >> no question, we saw it work extraordinarily work in the primaries. he got 2 billion earned media he won the primaries. the question on everyone's mind and what i think the ongoing ark. is -- argument is does it work in the general?

what we are seeing is it keeps you in the game, but it's not winning. >> that's my question, certainly it gets headlines, everybody that hears this in the media, there is this question of what do you do with it if you sort of in a more sort of outrage there is, the reaction the more attention there gets. there is the question, is that what he is looking for here? we talked about this question of temperament in donald trump, because he is making the headlines because he's outrageous, does that ends up hurting him? >> i think if you are a trump voter right now, you are not voting for him because he is the most politiciany candidate. he's the guy that says it in the easiest way for everyone to understand and agree with. you are voting for donald trump for exactly what we saw today, which is he's a guy that speaks from the gut. he doesn't always say it perfectly. you agree with his point. has tough, a winner. hillary clinton is corrupt, a liar, everything that beltway d.c. has been failing auto for a long time.

so i think for his core following, there is no question that this strategy not only wins, a day where all the media talks about is what donald trump said pointing out the president's failures, hillary clinton's failures, that's a win for trump. the question is, does that help expand his base? that has yet to be seen. >> what is your sense? that's been the question all along since he emerged from the republican primaries. he has basically trailed since he became the presumptive nominee. a couple polls put him ahead, take that hard core base expanded. does this help or does this hurt? >> you know what, i actually think this in particular probably overall, maybe it's a wash, maybe it helps. past things have hurt. this does highlight a weakness of the last eight years of the obama administration, it

highlights a weakness of hillary clinton. we are all talking ab it. >> i don't mean to interrupt s. that what people are talking about or how outrageous he is? that's the question i keep coming back with donald trump. there is that truism here, no such thing as bad publicity. i have always thought, there is such a thing as bad publicity. >> there is such a things a bad publicity the. i don't know that is it. you and i may be talking about the language he used. i don't think that's in american living rooms tonight. the trump voters i know are talking about how he's highlighted the failures of this administration. if are you on the fence, if you he the world is in chaos. this is a scarier place than it was eight years ago, i don't think this moves the needle for you towards hillary clinton. >> all right. let me ask you a bigger question, from the standpoint of a republican here. i seen this not necessarily today. you heard it from hugh hewitt in the interview, they knew how to take what donald trump said and translate it into a more

politically acceptable argument. we saw it in north carolina. republicans had the instinct to defend him. but you could see didn't now how to. i must have heard three or four explanations from republicans who wanted to defend donald trump. they didn't know quite how to interpret what he said. what's the spec challenge you face as a republican when he makes comments like this, that are so they're blunt and ambiguous at the same time. >> well, this is where asking a fully built out campaign structure is enormously helpful. their surrogate operation hasn't been as robust. the ground game the fundraising operation, we can talk about several different categories, but here we're talking about the surrogate operation. you know, in a large scale presidential campaign by the end of august, heading into labor day, you know to use the olympics, you are headed into the finals the semifinals are ending right now. so you want your surrogates out there prepared to defend anything your candidate says.

in past cycles, we seen the media jump on silly stuff. binders full of women, what you pointed out with john kerry maybe. so i do think voters are prime to see this as the silly season. well, he didn't phrase it right doesn't resonate with voters because the media cried wolf so often. so particularly for republican voters, those things are becoming less important. at the same time the campaign needs to start ramp up that surrogate operation heading into this post-labor day we'll call it the olympic finals of presidential season. >> sarah flores, former deputy campaign manager for carley fiorina thank you for your time. we appreciate it. we have a lot more election news ahead, including donald trump's controversial stop in florida earlier today plus one of those weird issues whether donald trump and hillary clinton's campaigns overlap. stay with us. ♪it's peyton... ♪it's peyton on sunday mornings.♪ (peyton) you know with directv nfl sunday ticket

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so go out and spread the word and once i get in, i will do my thing that i do very well. and i physical it's probably maybe the only way i'm going to get to heaven. so i better do a good job. okay. thank you. >> why was donald trump so subdued in that speech? it's because he was in a room full of evangelical leaders, a group he will need some help from i guess to get into heaven, not to mention the white house. that's next. ♪ ♪ isaac hou has mastered gravity defying moves

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>> so last month there was a moment during donald trump's acceptance speech at the republican convention that caught a lot of people by surprise, one is donald trump, himself. >> only weeks ago? orlando, florida, 49 wonderful americans were savagely murdered by an islamic terrorist. this time the terrorists targeted lbgtq community. no good. and we're going to stop i. as your president i will do everything in my power to protect our lgbtq citizens from the violence and depression of a hateful foreign ideology. believe me.

and i have to say as a republican it is so nice to hear you cheering for what i just said. thank you. >> kearse at that convention for a line about protecting gay people and even donald trump acknowledging that its not something we have heard at many republican conventions before. this gets to something that political observers have taken note for all of the many provocative and inflammatory comments trump directed towards mexicans, muslims, minority groups, for all of that gays seem to be the exception.

he has been largely quiet on the topic. with that convention moment serving as an exception, a notable exception. that is an interesting backdrop for the trip that donald trump made just today, a few weeks after that convention moment in cleveland. today donald trump addressing a convention of conservative pastors and their spouses. this features no shortage of hard liners, also the setting was noteworthy as well. it took place in orlando, florida, almost two months since the day since the attack in that city. the conference was sponsored bety american renewal project a. group that was founded by this man. >> so here we, are killing 60 million baby, red ink as far as the eye can see, homosexuals praying at the inauguration...if america gets mercy, i believe -- this doesn't sound good -- i think the process of mercy looks like car bombs in los angeles, washington, d.c., des moines,

iowa i think if we get mercy, the process is going to be a very painful process. >> and that man you heard there is david lane, he's warned of homosexual totalitarianism is threatening the future of the country. his group sponsored the event in florida that donald trump headlined today. some of the other people include matt staber, he ethe nounced the victims of the orlando massacre as a homosexual lovefest, a pastor talks about militant homofascism. >> america fascism seeks to take over our land. >> and a man david barton who has said a cure won't be found for aids because it's god's punishment for gay people. >> the became says if you engage in homosexuality, your body will do things that will penalize you, so if you can have a

vaccine for aids, then you're keeping your body from penalizing. i don't think they will find a vaccine for aids. >> those are some of the people speaking at this conference in florida. so why did donald trump, a guy who said the opposite of what many are saying, why did he speak to this group today? it has to do with politics. where the votes come from generally for a republican president for candidate. go back to 2004, george w. bush got elected. he got 79% of the evangelical soechlt also, evangelicals turned out. four years later, 2008, john mccain got a smaller chair, 73% of the evangelical vote in 2012, mitt romney was back to 79%. now, there is some concern in the trump campaign and in republican circles about support and turnout this year for evangelicals for donald trump. like russell moore outspoken

against trump and there is a sense, too, donald trump once defined himself as very pro choice, donald trump who has donated to democrats who has led a lifestyle that landed him on the gossip pages in new york city for years, there is a sense that could put him in a little trouble with evangelical voters. that they might stay home. the most recent nbc news survey monkey poll, donald trump is losing ground to hillary clinton, he is crushing herbie almost 50 points the margin was up higher in an earlier poll, up 60 points in july. you see trump and bush with 79%, a little work for donald trump to do. the question beyond shoreing up eevangelicals. a question of turnout. a question of if it is worth their time and energy to go to the poll and vote this november. no sot much will they vote for

clinton or trump but will they vote at all? that's the challenge for donald trump. snoo that is what brought donald trump to the headline speaking roam at this event today with 700 very conservative pastors and their spouses and we should mention, given what we showed you about what donald trump said at the republican convention this summer. given the fact there were prominent anti-gay speakers where donald trump spoke today, well, donald trump, he didn't say anything in his speech about those comments that they made about gays. he didn't echo them in anyway, again, as he has done, he largely stayed away from it. back in november, ted huckabee, bobby jindal, cruz said creating it was a mistake. because of the anti-gay rhetoric. they were knee deep in the republican primary trying to win voters for the iowa caucuses, republican-based voters. donald trump, of course, doesn't have to worry about winning the primary anymore but as we said

he faces the challenge of turning out skeptical evangelical voters in the fall. so it's an open question -- are evangelical supporters going to be there for donald trump this fall? it is an unusual challenge for republicans. they usually have to worry about evangelicals in the spring but not the fall. different this year. something to watch. life insurance automobile insurance i spent 20 years active duty they still refer to me as "gunnery sergeant" when i call being a usaa member because of my service in the military to pass that on to my kids something that makes me happy my name is roger zapata and i'm a usaa member for life. usaa. we know what it means to serve. get an insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life. mapping the oceans. where we explore. protecting biodiversity. everywhere we work. defeating malaria. improving energy efficiency. developing more clean burning natural gas. my job?

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convention. donald trump stepped in to all kind of controversy with the khan family, after that convention, numbers down in swing states. we talked about the possibility of a hillary clinton landslide even this week, but this is curious, with all that bad news, there is one state, one but state where donald trump got some very good news this week. i will tell you what that state is. we will tell you why he got that good news, because there is a reason for it. that's next.

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polls have him down in georgia, north carolina. there was one state in this sea of bad news for donald trump where he got good news this week. it's the state of iowa. iowa a state that barack obama won in 2012, a state that president obama won in -- sorry, a little trouble with the board here. try this again. won in -- i can't talk and do this at the same time sometimes. here it is. here's the good news for donald trump. he's ahead 41-40 in iowa in the new poll today. all of these polls this week show hillary clinton had -- donald trump in a swing state that was a blue state in the last couple of elections actually taking the lead. it's also our poll here. we have hillary clinton ahead by four. this is much closer than we are seeing in other polls. the question is, what's going on in iowa with hillary clinton doing so well elsewhere, why is iowa strong for trump right now, relatively speaking? it has to do with this major

divide we have been talking about this is the story of this general election. it's that split among white voters with college degrees and white voters without them. nationally, this is what it looks like. we talked about this. white collar, professional, suburban republicans with college degrees hillary clinton leading by six. no democrat has won this group in an election. she's winning by six. whites without a degree, trump up 25 points. this is the group he is drawing strength from. what does this have to do with iowa? how many are in his house, 36% nationally, in iowa it is 54%. there are a lot more of the kinds of voters donald trump has been going after and doing well with in iowa than you have in other states. another wrinkle as well when you look deeper in iowa among white

voters without a college degree, mitt romney got 62% of the vote nationally in 2012. but in iowa, he didn't do that well. he got 48%. he got under 50. barack obama did better. within this group, there's a big share, a bigger share than average of the electorate in iowa. within this group there's also room to grow for donald trump. he has two things g in phase favor. in iowa, nourt going to see in a lot of states. you have already more than half of the election tore rate. and you have room to grow for republicans. even though donald trump is getting bad news in all soorts solve other states he's holding his own in iowa. that's the reason why. back after this. we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression. and everywhere i look... i'm reminded to stick to my plan. including preservision areds 2. my doctor said preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula that the national eye institute recommends to help reduce the risk of progression

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county. it's a famous county in american politics, a big blue collar county outside of detroit. it's where the term you hear all the time in politics reagan democrats, blue collar democrats who broke with their party and voted for reagan. that's where hillary clinton went today. mccomb county, michigan. she went after donald trump in the way that democrats typically go after republicans in presidential elections. she went after him as a defender of the rich. but more to the speech. hillary clinton defended herself on an issue where she could be vulnerable, trade. >> what about trade? after all, trump talks about it all the time. my message to every worker in michigan and across america is this -- i will stop any trade deal that kills jobs or holds down wages, including the

transpacific partnership. i oppose it now. i'll oppose it after the election and i'll oppose it as president. >> clinton saying she opposes tpp now and that she will after the election. that's the key phrase there. more on that in just a minute. trade is a challenging issue for clinton for two reasons, one specific trade deals like the north american free trade agreement, nafta, are now more unpopular than ever. a poll found a plurality of americans found nafta has been bad for the economy and an ity trade sentiment is higher in rust belt states like ohio, michigan and pennsylvania. these are potential swing states that donald trump is going after hard this fall. in the michigan primary, exit polls show a majority of both democratic and republican primary voters believe that u.s. trade with other countries takes away more jobs than it creates. big margins there. you see it on your screen.

the other reason trade is a potential trouble spot for clinton she has a long, complicated history with it. it was her husband, bill clinton who in '93 pushed the nafta agreement through congress, signed it in to law. not to mention in her 2008 primary race against then senator barack obama, both of them at that point were trying to position themselves as the most anti-nafta candidate. more recently as secretary of state clinton expressed support for the tpp agreement. at one point she said it set the gold standard in trade agreements. that's what she said originally but then facing a challenge from the left by bernie sanders and the democratic primaries she came out and opposed tpp. and then after beating sanders in the primaries, one of clinton's closest political allies, governor mcauliffe said she would flip her position back on tpp if if she is elected president. she would go back to support it.

mcauliffe tried to then walk the comments back. that's the back story. that's why clinton took pains to say she will oppose it even after the election. it is the past two democratic presidents, obama and bill clinton 0 who pursued major free trade deals as president. this as a major chunk of their party base wants nothing to do with the deals. there's tension within the democratic democratic coalition. what is different is democratic presidential candidate hillary clinton is this time running against a republican who's embracing a fiercely anti-trade message. last major general election campaign came as anti-free trade as trump but you have to go back to 1992, the independent candidate h. ross perot. remember, perot warned of the giant sucking sound nafta would

make draining jobs are the american economy. staunchly opposed to nafta more than 20 years ago. a generation later, that perot message is resonating with a growing slice of the american electorate, especially in rust belt america. hillary clinton unlike recent democratic nominees has to worry about her opponent potentially connecting with voters on this issue. that explains why she's running ads like this. >> where are these shirts made. >> bangladesh. >> good. we employ people in bangladesh. >> where are the ties made. >> they are great ties. >> ties are made in china? >> china. >> the question hillary clint clinton's campaign has to think about. is clinton doing enough to reassure voters in places like mccomb county, michigan, who

worry about her commitment when it comes to trade? joining us is debbie dingell of michigan. a supporter of the tpp. and hillary clinton. you heard and know as well as anyone in the history of hillary clinton on tpp we laid out there. you heard her speech in your state. you heard her say i oppose it now and after the election and as president. do you believe her and why? >> i wouldn't be supporting her for president if i didn't believe her. i surprise people when i was asked before i was sworn in what my position was going to be. i was elected to congress to protect the working men and women in the state of michigan, working families. i've talked to hillary clinton about this many times. she has promised me she will oppose any trade deal that would hurt my constituents or working families across this country. she couldn't have been stronger. she made it clear.

she opposes it today, she will oppose it after the election and she will oppose it when she's president. >> you say oppose any deal that hurts the people and the workers in your dristrict, realisticall are there changes in your mind that she as president could seek to this that would allow it to meet the standard you set there? >> let's start with currency manipulation. i got excite when donald trump talked about it last year, too. and then we found out that donald trump doesn't walk his talk. he talked a good game and i was excited to see someone bring attention to an issue we're always talking about. but right now japan with its currency manipulation gives toyota $8,000 cost advantage per vehicle when it comes in to the country. if we can get a trade agreement that would actually deal with currency manipulation, not just the japanese, it's china and other countries -- we do have to

compete in a global marketplace but not at the cost of jobs in this country. she said it today, when we talk trade deals. look, i thought nafta was a good deal in the '90s and so did gm, ford and chrysler and now ford and chrysler are opposing the deal because people said we would be able to have jobs in a global marketplace and the reality is now companies are going overseas and not producing those jobs here. >> when you look at donald trump, you say this is something we haven't seen in a general election in a long time. the republican party and its national platform with the canidates it nominated in the last generation has been clearly free trade. you have donald trump saying get rid of nafta. it's been a disaster. is he making inroads with blue collar voters in the rust belt. >> i have always said the race will be competitive but he has cheap shots. today after i left the speech that hillary spoke at, i went to

a liquor store to get a diet coke and this were three big mccomb county blue collar workers you are talking about and they were being pretty point blank about how they were going to vote and i started to talk to them and i said, okay, you say you are going to support donald trump, do you know where he is producing these products, he is making them in mexico and china. no. we proceeded to have a 15-minute talk and when i was done giving them the facts they said we have to rethink this. that's what we have to do. get under the sound bytes to what the substance is. >> that's an interesting story. we spent so much time trying to analyze and dissect the voters of a place like michigan, voters of the rust belt, so many swing states that donald trump is targeting. you mentioned he encountered a group of rust belt voters. they are initially when you encounter them saying they are donald trump supporters. what is initially drawing them

to donald trump? >> because they hear him say he will fight for jobs. they know we have been impacted by bad trade agreements. i want to look at you and say, it's not only the unions. at this point in time the auto companies themselves, ford and chrysler oppose strongly to tpp as the uaw is. that's because they are tired of bad trade deals. we need to negotiate trade deals that will protect the worker in this country and government that will fight for our people here. when you talk to them and tell people and he says he's going to do that, is he creating jobs and manufacturing here? they stop and think. >> thank you for the time. >> thank you. >> we'll be right back.

top republican in the united states senate majority leader mitch mcconnell is back home in the state of ki kentucky during this long summer recess. clearly his thoughts are already on the fall. he used some alarmist language today, talking about his party's chances of holding on to that senate majority that they won two years ago in this november's election. mcconnell was his hometown in louisville today and called the republican's chances of holding the senate "very dicey." i may or may not be calling the shots next year mcconnell said. the reason for his pessimism, you can guess, the initials are

d.t. and it occupies the spot on every republican ballot this november. but does the data paint a bleak picture for the republicans' chances of hanging on to their jot majority? there's a lot to dive in to there. i will have the surprising answer for you tomorrow night. before that, there's much more ahead tonight. stay with us. ♪ (vo) making the most out of every mile. that's why i got a subaru impreza. (avo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. get zero percent on select subaru models during the subaru a lot to love event, now through august thirty-first. the search for relief often leads here.s, introducing drug-free aleve direct therapy. a high intensity tens device that uses technology once only in doctors' offices. for deep penetrating relief at the source. new aleve direct therapy.

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>> by the way, is there any place to be that's better than a friday night in florida at a trump >> the presidential test of the day today was, what day was it? and at least one candidate didn't have that answer. >> i can't be president either, i thought it was wednesday. >> no one is even dreaming of you being president. thank you steven. >> all right. thank you. politico broke the news, breaking news, the top republican party officials plan to hold an emergency meeting tomorrow with the trump campaign. campaign that is now in panic mode. one of the reporters will join us.