we'll be back monday, same bat time, same bat channel. thanks for watching. for everyone here at "with all due respect" we say to you, sayonara. >> coming up, "hardball with chris matthews." uncertain trumpet. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. donald trump who believes love means never having to say you're sorry is starting to take back his words. he woke up this morning saying all his repeated claims that president obama is the founder of isis wasn't meant to be for real. trump made the about-face in a tweet this morning saying quote, ratings-challenged cnn reports so seriously that i call president obama and clinton the founder of isis and mvp. they don't get sarcasm. well, at a rally later this

afternoon, trump again said he shouldn't have been taken at his word and attacked the media for doing that. let's watch. >> i make one mistake, a little thing, oh, he mentioned something wrong, he got it wrong. headlines all over. so i said the founder of isis. obviously i'm being sarcastic. then, then, but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you. and they all said he should not say that. that is -- they should call him an enabler. call him an enabler. he's an enabler. i said that doesn't sound the same. he's an enabler. people will say what's -- these people are the worst. so they knew i was being sarcastic but now they're analyzing. did i really mean that, how could i say that. these people are the lowest form of life. i'm telling you. >> well, this comes after donald trump in just the last 48 hours made the accusation multiple

times repeatedly doubling down on his charge every chance he got. here's trump doubling and tripling and quadrupling down on the charge that president obama is a founder of isis. here he is. >> he is the founder of isis. he's the founder of isis. okay? he's the founder. >> as far as i'm concerned, and i'll say it and i'll say it to anybody that wants to listen, he is a founder of isis. they must love him. >> barack obama is the founder, he is the founder in the true sense. >> you mentioned president obama being the founder of isis. what did you mean by that? and hillary clinton -- >> exactly that. he's the founder of isis. yes. he's a founder. he's a founding father. >> do you think it's appropriate to call the sitting president of the united states the founder of a terrorist organization that wants to kill americans? >> he was the founder of isis, absolutely. >> i know what you meant. you meant that he created the

vacuum, he lost the peace. >> no, i meant he's the founder of isis. >> i call president obama and hillary clinton the founders of isis. they're the founders. >> you know, i don't think i have ever seen anything quite like this. i'm joined by nbc's hallie jackson at the trump rally in altoona, pennsylvania. let me ask you this, hallie. why didn't we all believe what he said? for weeks now, time after time, even when hugh hewitt tried to talk him off the cliff or off the 34th floor window, he said no, no, no, no, he's the founder of isis. this morning at 6:30 he gets up and says oh, that was not what i meant, that was sarcasm. how do you figure? >> reporter: listen, this is a pattern that fits into trump's playbook in the past. i think you nailed it with the repeated times that he was given an opportunity to get out of what he said. he was asked point-blank what did you mean, do you want to walk it back, didn't you mean x, y or z. trump repeatedly said no, i meant he's the founder of isis. here's the deal. i think what happens is trump sees the reaction, he floats these if you can call them trial

balloons, he looks at how the media, he looks at how supporters and others are reacting and then he decides how he will either walk it back or not. even his walk-backs are only semiwalk-backs. he came out before the morning shows this morning, tweeted about it being sarcasm. later in the day talked about it being sarcasm although he acknowledged not totally sarcastic so walking back the walk-back, if you will. remember, remember when he suggested that the russians should hack hillary clinton? he was asked about that in an interview and he said at the time that of course he was being sarcastic. what this does, it allows him to do a couple things that play well with rooms like this one in this conservative part of pennsylvania. it allows him to go after democrats for spinning these what he calls talking points. number twosh, it allows him to t the members of the media standing on this platform with me which is something his supporters love to see and which is for trump, proven to be an effective strategy. >> moments ago, donald trump said the only way he could lose

pennsylvania and the election is if his opponents cheat. let's watch that. >> only way we can lose if my opinion, i really mean this, pennsylvania, is if cheating goes on. and we have to call up law enforcement and we have to have the sheriffs and the police chiefs and everybody watching, because if we get cheated out of this election, if we get cheated out of a win in pennsylvania, which is such a vital state, especially when i know what's happening here, folks. i know -- she can't beat what's happening here. the only way they can beat it in my opinion, and i mean this 100%, if in certain sections of the state, they cheat. >> well, you know what he's talking about, hallie. he's talking about philadelphia. that's what he's -- certain sections of this state, certain sections? i know what he's talking about when he's out in altoona and

johnstown. that's a message, they cheat in philly. that's what he's saying. they wouldn't cheat here in altoona or even pittsburgh. no, they cheat back in the east, back in philly. i know what he's saying. >> reporter: right. he talked about philly, when he brought up philly, you know as a pennsylvania man yourself, people here booed. they jeered the mention of that, the mention of philadelphia, for example. but this idea that trump is continuing to talk about a rigged system maze on two fronts. number one, to trump it's a way of continuing to promote this argument that the big guys are stacking it up against him, that he's the underdog and he's fighting for the people like the ones in altoona. on the flipside his critics argue this is actually one of the more dangerous long-term arguments that donald trump is making, that when we all wake up on november 9, if trump loses, he can then point to the system and say it's not right, it's not fair, it's rigged, that undermines the foundation of what the election system is built on in this country. it is an argument that he started making a couple of weeks ago and that he's brought up time and time again in places in

rallies like this one. >> it will sell in ecuador. that's the kind of stuff they do in third world countries with less developed democracies. you always say you will have it stolen so you never really lose. i'm joined by eli stoekles and heidi presley. heidi, this has really gotten out of hand. why do we even record his words? two days later he says they don't matter, they were something else. >> on both points. in terms of the rigged system this is the same argument we heard him make in the primaries when it looked like ted cruz was going to be challenging which is that he's struggling in the polls, these numbers may be baked in and he starts to lay the groundwork for what will be the excuse for why he winds up losing is that the whole thing was rigged, it was the establishment taking him down and it's essentially the same thing he did in the primaries, kind of a preemptive strategy. >> what we have from leaders is basically their physical sort of appearance on the stage. we look at them. then you listen to them. there are no actions in

politics. there are words. if his words are totally indescribable, unreliable, incredible, what is his campaign about? if he says this doesn't matter because i didn't really say this and this has gone on from the time, the other classic example of course, is when he said the russians, i want them to hack into hillary's e-mail. >> or when he said the video showing the money drop, was showing the money drop rather than hostages being released. he has this cavalier approach to words and to facts and to the truth, and that's something that yeah, worked well for him in the primary but like hallie said, his message plays well in that room. his problem is he's still talking to the same room. it's a challenge covering him. it's like trying to describe a snow globe that never settles. the clips you played, he's sitting there saying it was sarcastic. well, it wasn't that sarcastic. he's constantly contradicting himself. makes it really challenging. >> how do you follow him? >> his supporters see what they want to see. >> i know. i think you're right. >> i thought this was different,

though. in some ways, trump does kind of go off the cuff and go off message and makes a gaffe here or there and it gets blown up. in this case, this was pretty deliberate. he did it over and over again. i really think in trump's mind because let's be clear here, no one's running this campaign but trump, and in his mind, this was a good strategy to try and -- >> i have a 30/20 theory. 30% will vote for him no matter what he says. the others like the birther thing. he's really from africa, he's not one of us. then you throw in this latest stuff. of course he's the founder of isis, he's from africa. he's a muslim. of course. that 30% are buying the literal charge. then he gets worried, wait a minute, i can't win with 30%, i need the 20%, the people who read the newspapers, i better pull back. he gets up at 6:30 this morning, i can't win with 30%, i got to go back to the suburban people, independent voters who just want a change, who don't like the clinton and bush thing going on all the time, i got to get them back. so he says it was just sarcasm.

but then he's scared for a second, flop sweat again, he goes oh, my god, i better say i wasn't really being sarcastic. he's trying to get to 30, his core, and pick up the 20 and he's getting a little bat crazy about this. >> i think it's a matter of who he's listening to. he knows what he thinks and believes and thinks he should be able to say but he's losing his leverage with the rnc and with -- >> that 20% he needs. >> trying to hammer into him hey, get on message finally. he needs the rnc because they are basically his campaign in all the states. when they call to yell at him, at some point he's running out of leverage. >> he was up around 50%. now he's down around 35%. d democratic senator chris murphy took to twitter, saying quote, what i'm looking for is a president who has a good sense of humor about isis. assassinations and russian cyber-warfare. trump's allies have been critical of recent comments

about the president. bob corker telling a reporter quote, to say that an elected official in our country founded a terrorist organization like isis is taking the facts that took place in 2011 and carrying that far too far. even newt gingrich is showing exasperation with the trump campaign. here's what he said this morning on fox. >> but one of the things that's frustrating about his candidacy is the imprecise language. he sometimes uses three words when he needs ten. i know what trump has in his mind but that's not what people hear. and i think that's -- he has got to learn to use language that has been thought through and that is clear to everybody and stick to that language because otherwise, the mainstream media's going to take every possible excuse to pile on him. >> this isn't about piling on. let's take a look now at the pattern here. just this morning, at 6:30, you had to get up early to catch trump, he tweets the fact that you know, it was just sarcasm. this day after day relentless

thing i just showed you a few moments ago of him saying obama is the founder of isis along with hillary clinton, of course. but this isn't the first time trump has clarified a statement just like this. after he asked russia, like talking to a country to commit an act of cyberterrorism against hillary clinton's campaign last month, trump later explained he was just being, here's the word, sarcastic. >> russia, if you're listening, i hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. >> when i'm being sarcastic with something, first of all -- of course i'm being sarcastic. >> you know "saturday night live," just kidding. he thought that was a great line. just kidding. that's what trump's like now. no, just being sarcastic. >> a lot of his appeal is doing it so differently, being so unconventional, being willing to throw everything out and be entertaining. but most people i think at this point, the election's gotten to this point where we are looking at who's going to actually be

president. there's a seriousness to it now. you want sarcasm, you watch a bill murray movie. you don't want to see that in someone whose words will have geopolitical impact. >> he says don't invest in the stock market. a president of the united states says that. it could cause a collapse of the market. he says things that oh, that doesn't matter. >> add it to the list. we have to move on day by day when he says these things. i really do feel like we are reaching that ceiling point in the polls where he came out of what was generally not the most successful republican convention in history compared to a very successful democratic convention and it's only been stumble, stumble, stumble since then with the gold star family fight, the second amendment comment the other day and i really feel like those people who might have given him a chance, the independents, more moderate republicans, those are starting to harden. >> the 20% he needs to go from 30 to 50. i will talk about it at the end of the show. also, when he came out of that convention, it was a dull convention. he gave a pretty good speech at the end. it was a barn burner at the very

end. the week wasn't that good. then he comes on, this week was worse. this is the worst week for him. >> paul manafort said as soon as americans see donald trump as a believable president, this election is over. they didn't see it that week and they certainly haven't seen then. >> what do you think paul manafort is thinking when he goes to bed at night? how great it's going. thank you both. coming up, new battleground polling makes the point you made, shows hillary clinton out to a big lead in key states. that's raising the possibility this race might be a runaway, with less than 90 days until the election. donald trump has a lot of ground to make up, putting it nicely. can clinton afford to play it safe? right now she can. this week. i think it's a good week for her. plus donald trump was in erie and altoona today in pennsylvania. he's heading to youngstown, ohio monday. trump's counting on disaffected white voters in the rust belt. the kind of people j.d. vance writes about in his new book, about the appalachian people in southwestern pennsylvania and that part of the country. he joins us tonight to help us

understand the hardcore supporters of donald trump. and hillary clinton releases her 2015 tax returns. now she's daring trump to do the same. the roundtable will be here with that and the question why people are asking after donald trump's rough few weeks why, and does trump really want to win this thing. i keep hearing that. i'm not into psychobabble. i think he does. he doesn't know what he's doing. finally let me finish with the outlook for this campaign. i got it figured i think. real is touching a ray. amazing is moving like one. real is making new friends. amazing is getting this close. real is an animal rescue. amazing is over twenty-seven thousand of them. there's only one place where real and amazing live. book a seaworld vacation package and eat free.

new numbers on two states president obama won in 2012. republicans had hoped to pick up this november. let's check out the "hardball" scoreboard. in virginia, hillary clinton holds a 13 point lead, in virginia. clinton 46%, donald trump 33%. in colorado, a 14 point edge for clinton with 46% of the vote to trump's 32%. these are not good bellwether

results for trump. coming up, two other states that could prove to be even more trouble for trump. the polls that foreshadow a possible landslide victory if you look at the race for hillary clinton and if the numbers hold up until november. gary, gary, gary... i am proud of you, my man. making simple, smart cash back choices... with quicksilver from capital one. you're earning unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. like on that new laptop. quicksilver keeps things simple, gary. and smart, like you! and i like that. i guess i am pretty smart. don't let that go to your head, gary. what's in your wallet? we've been hearing so much about how you're a digital company, so you can see our confusion. ge is an industrial company that actually builds world-changing machines. machines that can also communicate digitally. like robots. did you build that robot?

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welcome back to "hardball." we have new numbers out tonight from our nbc news/"wall street journal"/marist poll of two states donald trump we have always figured needs to win for any plausible path to victory on his part. starting with the always crucial swing state of florida, a state obama carried in 2012 and that trump needs to pick up. clinton holds the lead of 44% to 39%, a five point lead. not huge but real. also in north carolina, a state that mitt romney won in 2012, that trump needs to hold in november. the republicans need to hold on to that. clinton has opened up a nine point lead there, 48% to 39%. without trump carrying these two important battleground states, florida and north carolina, just how big could a hillary clinton

victory be in november? msnbc's steve kornacki has the latest for us at the big board. steve, i have been trying to figure out how trump wins for weeks now. everybody tells me he's got to win florida. he's got to hold north carolina for the republicans. even then, he has to win pennsylvania and ohio and some other states. but those are essential. how do they look? >> those are cornerstones. let's take you through it. first of all, if there's a simple trump road map, at least theoretically, this is what his campaign has been pointing to for awhile now. what he would have to do to improve on where romney was in '12, you win pennsylvania, you win ohio, you win florida. that has been the simplest path for trump to take. you see that would get him to 273. like you say, though, he's got a problem here. he's down in florida right now. we had him earlier this week in our nbc marist polls down in ohio. big, big problem for him in pennsylvania. there's a couple polls out that have him down double digits there. those key three states for him, he's not leading in any of them and is getting flat out blown out in pennsylvania. then you add on to that north

carolina. north carolina as you mentioned, a romney state in '12 but right now, hillary clinton is the one, she is in position to flip a red state to blue. look what happens if she does that. if she flips north carolina, even then if trump gets those three he's been talking about, look at that. he's short of 270. so yeah, he's got to get north carolina, he's got to hold the romney states and he's got to start flipping blue states but the reality is, we talk so much about what trump needs to do. right now, hillary clinton is in better position to flip red states than trump is to flip blue states. >> you're the best. thank you so much. steve kornacki in new york. jamal simmons, democratic strategist and micah caputo, former trump advisor. everybody is watching the same television shows. nationwide, they watch the same stuff. the numbers seem to be moving pretty much in the same direction. trump's not moving up anywhere. he's moving down everywhere. your thoughts? >> well, i'm most disturbed out of these polls that come out today about virginia and

colorado. those are two states that were traditionally republican for many years and have been tilting more and more blue. it looks like they have probably gone blue. but the nbc/marist/"wall street journal" poll has always been bad for trump. i think really what's got me concerned here is that -- is north carolina, like you mentioned. if hillary's really -- say she's up five instead of the nine that's in this poll, it's still bad for trump because he's got to win north carolina and of course, arizona and georgia are also said to be close and those are must-win states. when it comes down to it, you're right, it's going to be florida and ohio but if we don't win north carolina we have a problem. >> you know, everybody watches television. let me put it this way. they don't watch the same shows. some people watch fox, some watch cnn, some watch us. they do know the same stories coming out of trump's mouth. >> some people watch the olympics. >> that's normal. but to hear trump saying the same stuff everywhere, it has to be troubling to them. >> i'm sure it is troubling to them. it's one of the reasons you are seeing the numbers hover around this 40% mark.

what's interesting to me is it looks like hillary could be on the verge of an electoral college majority. the question, does she get an actual numerical majority. she may have a 49% ceiling because everybody else goes to third party candidates. i don't know what that tells us, but it does maybe hold down some of these other races around the country that we see that are looking pretty good. >> what do you think of that? who wins -- i keep hearing people talk about going to gary johnson, the libertarian guy with bill weld. i don't see a lot of movement there. it's somewhere above 5%, up around 7% or so. some people say it's moving. i don't see it moving yet. >> i also think if people are writing off the green party, they will be in a lot more states than people even realize and they will probably be on the ballot in places where hillary clinton will be on the margin. so these third parties are going to play more of a role than people expect. >> -- with jill stein, people on

the left say hell with the democrats, i'm going hard left, i'm voting for jill stein? think that will happen? >> don't talk about a land:slide yet. that's like measuring for the drapes in the white house. >> why not? >> it's not going to happen. this will be a lot tighter. it's really early right now. if this were 21 days from now, if this were labor day and we had these numbers i would be really concerned. there's a lot of time left on the clock. paul manafort and donald trump have time to right this ship. >> the betting window is open any time i'm not on the air. give me a call. i don't usually make bets but i -- >> here's one place we might be a little bit of agreement here. i do think there's a possibility you could see some young voters, 71% of whom were with bernie sanders who are too young to remember the 2000 election when ralph nader basically cost al gore the white house. you could see -- >> there's another person that cost al gore the white house. al gore. who lost tennessee. >> i'm going with the nader -- what you could see are some

young voters who are too young to remember the sting of that get enchanted by one of the third party candidates and peel off. >> i thought it was going to be close. it may well get close again. right now trump doesn't seem to have the ability to sustain two or three days of good press. he started off monday this week, you tell me what went wrong. he had a whole plan, he talked serious economics and trashed hillary clinton. yet he's gotten so overboard with the trashing of hillary clinton it's not credible. she didn't found, she wasn't a founder of isis. that's too long a stretch for people to buy. >> but he was also not a leading recruiter for isis as hillary clinton said. i checked his resume. he's not a recruiter for isis. they are both exaggerating. they are both being sarcastic. they are both being sardonic on this. also, i will stipulate that newt gingrich was right here. the word choice makes things difficult and when we are behind like this, word choice really matters.

>> are you hiyou are a highly a fellow. why don't you become a tutor to trump? put a towel over your shoulder and stand next to him, say i think i can help you with that. thank you both. thanks for coming. still ahead, donald trump has tapped into an anger this year of white working class voters. we all know that and talk about this but my next guest really tackles that voting bloc head on and kind of an interesting understanding way with a compelling narrative for those often left behind by our economy and society. the untold story of 2016. stick around. this explains the 30% core for trump through hell and high water.

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welcome back to "hardball." from the outset of this campaign, donald trump has made the strategic gamble that he can turn out an oversized share of this country's white working class voters. it's one of the reasons he's in altoona, pennsylvania tonight. his bet is that his appeal in the industrial midwest and other areas hollowed out by the exodus of manufacturing jobs will make up for any shortcomings he is likely to have with minority and well educated voters. now a new book by j.d. vance managed to capture with striking precision the very people trump is hoping to carry him to victory. "hillbilly elegy" is a personal story about vance's own family but the "new york times" aptly describes it as a tough love

analysis of the poor who back trump calling it quote, a compassionate discerning sociological analysis of the white underclass that has helped drive the politics of rebellion, particularly the ascent of donald trump. mr. vance has inadvertently provided a civilized reference guide for an uncivilized election. i'm joined by j.d. vance. this is a remarkable work you have done here. great writer. you are a great writer. i kept thinking of thomas wolfe, one of my heroes and "you can't go home again." let's talk about your family. what is it you are trying to achieve in talking about people you call hillbillies, rednecks, whatever. what are you trying to get across to everybody else? >> what i wanted to try to get across and what i wanted to try to explain is these problems of equality and upward mobility are really complicated. i think that on the left, we tend to have the conversation about what government isn't doing and on the right we tend to have a conversation about

what individuals aren't doing and it seemed to me we weren't having a conversation about what both weren't doing and what both could do better. so i thought that by opening up my own life and my own family and being very honest about my own problems, that i could be part of a better conversation. >> what do you think makes people who have it rough, they live in mountains, they don't have jobs, they don't have obviously the things most of us think are good things to have in life, they don't have beautiful homes or beautiful jobs or families that can sort of get educated and move ahead to the next generation, what makes them break bad? >> well -- >> what's the cause and effect here? you are talking about people living in mountains and thinking they do things that are self-destructive. what's the chicken and the egg answer here? >> it's not just those people but the brought appalachian diaspora in pennsylvania, michigan, indiana, ohio and so forth. it's a broader trend, not just people living in the hills. i think the answer again is

pretty complicated. one of the things i realized in writing this book is that family breakdown and family chaos which i thought of before i wrote the book is primarily a problem of individual character, it's intergenerational. families pass on their chaos and strife to the next generation. in the same way that a lot of other problems pop up and that have existed for many generations, it's just complicated. it comes from a combination of economic dispossession but also learned helplessness and problems that people have acquired through their families and from their neighborhoods. >> i'm not finished the book. but i thought one of the things, we talked about this, one of our producers is from africa, we talked about how the whites have a particular situation because they come up with the idea, the white people have had advantages, privileges in western society and if they don't make it, what went wrong with me. that's different than minority groups who never felt they had any special break coming to them. when white country people see black people making it in

society, when they see immigrants from south asia, east asia, making it in our society, see them on television in roles, quite significant roles, do they get a special bitterness from that? >> i don't know if they get a special bitterness from seeing other people succeed but i do think they get a special bitterness from the expectations that they had for their own lives not materializing. my grandparents were really optimistic about the future. they thought their children would have the american dream even though my grandparents were born in poverty in eastern kentucky coal country. but it hasn't really materialized. you think about these areas that have really suffered economically that have stagnant upward mobility, it's a certain pessimism about what their own children and grandchildren will expect. i think that's where the real bitterness comes from. >> you talk about the values there that i consider like loyalty and honor and loyalty and honor i think are great values. but you see in the culture you grew up in, that's a problem. they are a problem. loyalty and honor. >> absolutely. i think loyalty and honor are obviously great traits and they are some of the things i took

from my culture, that hillbilly culture i love and really care about but it has its limits. when i was 5 years old, loyalty and honor meant if someone insulted my mom i had to punch him in the nose and i got in a lot of fights because of that. but if you think about what that means in the context of modern 21st century marriage or in the corporate boardroom, conflicts cannot be resolved like that, successful conflict resolution requires a calmer head and cooler thoughts. i think that's one of the things i had to learn in my own life and frankly, it's something that i didn't know growing up. it's something i had to adjust to. >> some of the things you write about remind me of, you know, southie in boston or south philly. irish and italian in different places there. or my relatives, some of them. this whole neighborhood thing, loyalty to neighborhood, loyalty to your church, to your crowd. sometimes violence, sometimes

street fighting. it doesn't seem alien to me, the people in the country. explain the overlay. >> well, i don't think it should be too foreign. in a lot of cases, these values and these traits exist not just in the appalachian mountains but exist in the broader working class, so just the broader white working class that doesn't have a college education. one of the things that occurs to me is that if you grow up poor and you don't have a lot going for you, your honor is one of the few things you really have, right? so you are willing to protect it at all costs. but again, if you are upwardly mobile and trying to get ahead in the world, those traits don't necessarily serve you well when you are sitting in a corporate boardroom. >> i like the way you write. i like the way, you have certainly done well getting to yale law school. it's the ohio state university. >> thank you for calling me out. >> the book, you ought to read it, it's a fast, beautifully written book. you can knock this baby off in a

weekend. up next, after trump's rough week, hillary clinton tries to keep the pressure on him, releasing her own tax returns and demanding doe the same. i like this. tit for tat. get out there and do it. this as some wonder about the republican, does donald trump really want to win? he certainly does not want to show his tax returns. we know that. ♪ 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. reducing energy poverty in the developing world. making cars go further with less. fueling the global economy. and you thought we just made the gas. ♪ energy lives here. and an early morning mode.ode. and a partly sunny mode. and an outside... to clear inside mode. transitions® signature adaptive lenses...

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welcome back to "hardball." it's been a three gaffe, actually three gaffe filled weeks since the conventions for donald trump. this week he seemed to start on sounder footing. on monday he went on offense with a serious economic speech. here he goes to remind you. >> all hillary clinton has to offer is more of the same, more taxes, more regulations, more bureaucrats, more restrictions on american energy and on american production. more of that. >> but that pivot towards the economy and serious stuff was

short-lived. >> hillary wants to abolish essentially abolish the second amendment. by the way, if she gets to pick -- if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. although the second amendment people, maybe there is, i don't know. >> isis is honoring president obama. he's the founder of isis. he's the founder of isis. okay? he's the founder. he founded isis. and i would say the co-founder would be crooked hillary clinton. cofounder. >> wow. each of those missteps, he took back that founder of isis thing. each of those missteps came a lost opportunity for the trump campaign to try to focus on the media's attention or try to get the media to focus on hillary clinton which is always what you

don't want in politics. mou the clinton campaign is trying to seize the moment and released hillary clinton's and tim kaine's fax returtax return. tonight's "hardball" roundtable is jonathan allen, anne gearan and richard fowler also joins us. so this was, i follow the phillies, we all follow our favorite teams. when they have a bad week you keep hoping next week will be better. trump comes out of the convention, it wasn't a great convention. the last speech was pretty good but the rest was a disaster. he's hoping this week is going to be good, it was terrible. >> absolutely. >> what's going on? why can't they string five days together? >> i don't think they can string five days together which is shocking to me because trump is a business guy. >> you're laughing. >> i am laughing. >> you are enjoying this. >> you got to enjoy it. it's comical.

it's like a really good, really bad reality show where the main star always does something crazy the week after so you continue to tune in. >> what do you think, it's howard stern? >> kim kardashian. >> that's the second time in the history of the show that name has been put together. put it away. >> trumpnado. >> come on, be serious. why has trump had such a bad week? he knew the challenge, had to get serious, say something intelligent and focus the heat on hillary. >> he can't seem to get out of his own way. he had several opportunities this week where he could have trained scrutiny on her. there was the release of some more e-mails which while not damning, are unflattering. he could have spent a lot of time talking about that. >> it did show there wasn't a firewall between the clinton foundation and the state department. it certainly shattered that. >> the foundation aides thought they could seek favors from

state department aides, that does not rise to the level of hillary clinton saying or doing something on behalf of the foundation which is what trump is trying to get at. >> she's doing what she said she wouldn't do. >> it shows there was no firewall. he really missed that opportunity. that should have been a giant opening for him and instead we spend three days talking about second amendment threats, is he inciting threats on hillary clinton's life and is she, are she and barack obama the founders of isis. it's an absurd conversation. >> why doesn't trump every night sit around and say what's hillary clinton scheduled to do tomorrow, anticipate where she will do something wrong or something coming out about her and jump on that? play offense. you have to anticipate. you got your homework. what's she going to do, where's she going to be, let's be ready to strike and get it on her. >> trump doesn't have that kind of patience. what we watched from him is an inability to sit back for five

minutes and not be the center of attention. when his advisors tell him to do something he does the opposite. like an infant. if you have a small child and tell him to go to bed, they go no, i'm not going to bed. if you go don't go to bed, they might go to bed. the advisors -- >> you have kids. you know this. >> i do. the advisors obviously are telling him to keep it cool and he has no ability to do that. >> do you think the problem is he's a business guy, i don't care whether he's got one billion or 11 billion, i don't think the lifestyle changes. he's used to being right and succeeding. he's used to a business press which you only get, you are a business reporter, you get in when the guy or woman says you come in. he's not used to everybody following him and attacking him. he's not used to this. >> no, he's not. yes, a lot of the reason that he is behaving the way he is i think, we are all playing armchair psychologists here, is because he has profited in his business career by having a combative personality. you do not let something slide. you don't just take a punch, you

don't step aside, you don't try to change the subject. somebody punches you, you punch back. that is what he has been unable to stop doing despite the advice not only of his advisors but reince priebus is on the phone with him going please don't do that and he does it anyway. >> it tells me, i will talk about this at the end of the show, there's an opportunities for him not now, i think he's really screwed it up, maybe a month from now. right now i don't think he can win, right now. because that 20% he needed, he has 30% no matter what he does. he's right. he could shoot people down on fifth avenue practically and still have the 30%. he needs another 20% and he's losing that 20%. he's almost lost two-thirds of it now. he can't get that. this game only works for the hardcore. >> i agree with anne. he's not punching smart. this week, politico reported the president is pushing tpp. great opportunity for donald trump to jump in and say listen, this is bad trade deal, hillary believes in it, even though she says she doesn't -- >> by the way, there's truth

there. he probably is, the president is probably going to try to get it through in the lame duck. >> he absolutely is. that's what clyburn said to our show on the floor of the democratic convention. it's going to happen. he should be punching every day and he's missing it. >> could pick up bernie people with that. >> he's doing the opposite right now which is you could go after hillary clinton on some of these state department e-mail issues, go after her on flipping on tpp, and instead what he's saying is she's the co-founder of isis. now, i mean -- >> is that to cover up the second amendment thing from earlier? how many people subscribe to the rock star problem, where the rock star gets so high up, like the movie, "jersey boys." tell me how you're going to behave, you sell 100 million records, he can't take the attitude. he's being self-destructive because he tacan't take it up there. lot of people telling me he wants to lose. he can't take the altitude.

he's too high up there. >> i don't know what's in his head other than that he isn't taking the advice people are giving him in which they say if you want to win, do x, y and z. it's a hard thing, right? he thinks in many respects, you see him behave that he's doing what he's always done and that's always been successful for him. >> he looks at some guy and says he ought to do this, how much you worth? how much have you got? you have a house on fifth avenue like i do? i don't know about cuban. mark cuban? i don't know about that. the roundtable is staying with us. be right back. she spent summer binge-watching.

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the president's summer reading list includes, the underground railroad. barbarian days, who would have figured? h is for hawk by howard mcdonald. seven neefes by neil stevenson. and the girl on the train by hawkins. we'll be right back. until i learned more about once-daily xarelto... a latest generation blood thinner. then i made the switch. xarelto® significantly lowers the risk of stroke in people

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only two of the top 20 donors will be there, from a close source in texas. >> bad news for him. he goes where the money is and the money's not there. >> nope. >> so we're all talking about hillary clinton's tax returns. she's trying to get donald trump to release his. if he doesn't and he wins, he will not be under any duty to release them even if he's president. federal law protects income tax returns. they never have to become private and gerald ford never released his. >> just like bernie, we'll never know. >> republicans are worried and democrats are ecstatic about what they're not seeing on the ground, which is a donald trump organization in any of the major battleground states. >> he's not there. >> there's nobody on the ground for him. >> thank you. good to have you back. missed you, sir. thank you all. when we return, let me finish with the outlook for this campaign. i've got it sorta figured.

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let me finish this friday night with the outlook for this campaign. it looks to me like donald trump has a core of 30%. these are people who share the angry indictment she is making against the direction the country's leadership crowd are taking us in, who see the republicans as well as the democrats as sitting in the cockpit, steering in the direction that suits them, making trade deals for the good

of wall street, flooding the country with illegal immigrants to provide cheap labor, and a growing voting bloc for the democrats. getting us into stupid wars while leaving the fighting, dying and suffering to the country's working people. 30% is not enough to win. a candidate who polls at that level is not just poised for defeat, but humiliation. to be a footnote in the history books, like that of landon in '36, or dewey in '48, gold water in '64, losers with a capital l. candidates that make their parties decide they've made a huge mistake. what's bringing down trump right now, is not the 30% holding for him. but the 20% he had been courting with great success before now. it includes republicans who want to be loyal to their party, independents who believe the country is ill served by have two families, the bushes and clintons benefit from dynamicic

successions and democrats ready to take a risk on someone new, even more than a bit odd from the usual political type. it's this 20% that trump has been kissing away by his recent buffoonery, this ballroom brawl with the gold star family, this high schoolish back and forth with paul o'neil, claiming that barack obama is the founder of a terrorist group. can he win that 20% back? string together enough good days to make up for the non-sense of the past weeks? can he make us forget about things that he says that people don't believe? can he stop bouncing in our brains like an 8-year-old on a trampoline? as of today, that strikes me as elusive, with each line retracted as sarcasm, trump seems on a march down to the 20%, that will stick with him less out of loyalty toward him than spite toward the elite, who

have wished this guy defeat since he first came down the elevator of his golden tower. that's "hardball" for now. "all in with chris hayes" starts right now. tonight on "all in" -- >> so i said "obama is the founder of isis." the founder. >> trump lets america in on the joke. obviously i'm being sarcastic, but not that sarcastic, to be honest with you. >> serious trouble for republicans in stunning new battleground polls, and why this was the worst week of the campaign for donald trump. >> don't believe the garbage you read. >> plus, hillary clinton releases her taxes. >> you learn very little from tax returns. >> why her opponent is refusing to do the same. >> then the 2016 fever swamps. >> watch her reaction. because it's -- it almost seems seizuresque. >> the