>> this is one of those nights when the politics will continue into the midnight hour. >> thank you. >> thanks to you at home for joining us this hour. happy tuesday. i'm excited, as you can probably tell. i'm not a very good actor. when i get excited about something, you can see it. i'm excited because i got you something. we were looking in the nbc archives today, for something totally unrelated to what we found. that's a long story. but what we came across was some footage from the presidential election in 1988. now, you may have seen little pieces of this, little snippets of this have been sort of dug up and posted elsewhere this year, because of its relevance to what's going on right now in our politics. but what we found today was the unedited whole thing, and it's nuts. i mean, everybody always says there's nothing new under the

sun, particularly in politics, everything's happened before. you know what, it's right. it's true. there is nothing new under the sun. everything about this year in politics has felt like it is so weird and so unprecedented. and sometimes i say things are unprecedented, never been like this before, but my god, it has all happened before. and if it hasn't, we should have seen this year coming based on what happened in the past. what i'm going to show you is from 1988. democrats picked michael dukakis to run against the republican candidate, george h.w. bush, ronald reagan's vice president. the democrats had their convention first that year, july, 1988. republicans had their convention second, theirs was this week in august, in new orleans. and this what we found today, this was "nbc nightly news" footage from the republican convention in new orleans, 28 years ago exactly.

watch this. >> down there on the floor right now, with chris wallace is someone who has prospered enormously during the years of reagonomics. who do you have? >> that's right. one of the interesting things about any national convention is the surprising people who show up on the floor. here tonight real estate tycoon and best selling author donald trump. >> well, thank you very much. >> you're welcome. you have flirted with the idea of politics. now you're here at your first national convention. does that get you interested in making the plunge? >> you have to tell me something, who told you i flirted? >> well, you took out a full page ad in "the new york times." >> i feel strongly about the country. i love the country, but i think you're going to have george bush as your next friend. he's an excellent guy and a friend of mine. >> well, i wasn't talking about this year. but you've said if you ran for president you'd win. >> i think i'd have a very good chance. when i do something, i like to win. i think i probably would have a

good chance. >> tom brokaw mentioned that you have prospered in the reagan years, and some people said he ushered in an era of greed and conspicuous consumption. some say donald trump is a conspicuous example of that. you make no apologies about the hundred-room mansion in palm beach or the $30 million yacht. >> well, i employ thousands and thousands of people that wouldn't have jobs if it weren't for things that i built. probably 25 or 30,000 people. over a four or five-year period. and i think people are thankful for it. >> can you laugh at the doons bury cartoons about the solid gold sinks in your yacht? >> everybody tells me i'm supposed to be honored by that. but maybe somebody he can find another topic. but i seem to be in a lot of his cartoons. not sure if they're good, bad, or indifferent. but i guess i'm supposed to be honored. >> thanks for coming tonight. >> thank you.

>> gary bordeaux portrays georgia as the invisible man. one of bush's sons put his arm around him and looked at him with a forced smile and said, be kind here, be kind. >> be kind. one of bush's sons -- you think that was jeb? be kind? george w.? maybe it was marvin, the other one, i don't know. what they're talking about there, both in terms of trump being upset and the vice president of the united states at the time being upset, george h.w. bush. what they're talking about is doons bury. the comic strip and gary trudo. you might remember, just a couple of weeks, gary trudo re-released all of his donald trump cartoons from the past 30 years. we had him on the show to talk about it when the book came out. it went to the top of the best-seller's list. it was great.

but that summer, gary trudo, he really was bothering donald trump in the weeks leading up to that convention, to that surprise interview at the republican convention with chris wallace, who at that time worked for nbc. gary trudo was on a tear about trump's giant yacht. they used the yacht and the sort of -- not just conspicuous consumption, but the tackyness of the yacht as an extended story line to basically rip donald trump for being tacky. and for being pitiful and mean as well. for example, this was from that time. it's the first panel of one of the strips that came out that week. trump on his act, talking to his captain. look at the performance quality of this vote. you can't buy this quality, you have to will it. do you think you can handle her, captain? captain said, no problem, mr. trump. next panel, okay, that's trump's finger he's pointing there.

you see that outboard over there, with the kids? yeah, i see it. final panel, swamp it. piece of cake. apparently that kind of teasing really, really bothered donald trump. being the subject of that kind of joke 28 years ago did -- didn't work for him. sort of rubbed him the wrong way. because after all, we now know he was already thinking of himself as presidential timber in 1988. he wasn't the butt of some comic strip he didn't understand. 28 years later they're still making fun of donald trump, but that was good foreshadowing for all of us. for us seeing donald trump would be bothered, in fact, angered by anybody making any joke about him or criticism about him in any form. >> gary trudo bothered donald trump then and now. gary trudo and doons bury also really did bother poppy bush at the time.

according to the anecdote shared by tom brokaw at the convention, he bothered the whole bush family. when papi bush was running for president, gary trudo portrayed him as invisible. if you think about that in terms of the art of cartooning, that's ambitious. invisibility is a hard thing to draw. he ended up showing george bush as this, a negative space, an exploding asteroid notation. in this case, he was shown speaking at the republican convention this year, just a block of space between two teleprompters. that kind of ridicule on the comics page, made the papi bush folks crazy. not for the same reason trump was made crazy. i think the george h.w. bush people worried about it, not because they can't stand

ridicule, but because that was too close of george h.w. bush's real image overall, or the lack thereof when it comes to an image. it was a big deal for his campaign that he was basically invisible in ronald reagan's big, dark shadow. we know that was part of their concern about him as a candidate at the time. we know that in part because of the very next thing that happened that night on nbc's broadcast from the republican convention, in august 1988 in new orleans. you just saw at the start, tom brokaw tosses to chris wallace and they go to surprise interview, wow, it's donald trump on the floor of the convention. and donald trump says in 1988, that, yeah, he thinks he might want to be president and if he does run, he'll win because he always wins. then it goes back to tom brokaw. and the next thing that tom brokaw does is bring on this guy. >> we want to go down to lisa

meyers, who is with the media wizard of the vice president's campaign. >> yes, tom, i'm here with roger ailes, who has been called the ernest hemingway of campaign advisers who is immortalized in the selling of the president and tends to the vice president's image. one of the things that even george's friends say is that one of his biggest problems is his public persona. fixing that is your job. are we going to see a different george bush tomorrow night? >> i don't think you can fix a 64-year-old man who's been pretty well for himself. george bush is one of two men who is going to be president. and i think he's pretty good. i think he's under-rated. i think he gets up for the big game and he's about to launch into the fall campaign. i think he'll do fine. >> big difference between the fight of george bush who can be warm and witty and relaxed, and the man who appears in public, sometimes awkward and

inarticulate. >> well, when somebody sticks something like this in your face and sticks a camera like that in your face and you're not used to it, you feel a little bit more uncomfortable and i don't think george was brought up with cameras. he probably never saw television until he got back from the war and graduated from college. so he didn't grow up with this equipment. and i think that makes him nervous. >> thank you very much, roger ailes, who said that the one thing, if he could change something about george bush, it would be he wish he had a little more ego. >> roger ailes, in 1988, already a legendary republican political strategist at that point. what about that rift that george h.w. bush didn't see a television until late in night? where did he come up with that? but he would go on to run fox news by the following decade. in 1988, he was running the media strategy for the george h.w. bush r president campaign.mx it's amazing. in that interview, he said the only drag -- she's quoting him there, saying the only drag

about working for that particular candidate in 1988, that candidate, papi bush, he didn't have enough ego. now it's 28 years later, and roger ailes appears to have that particular problem solved. because his presidential candidate this year is donald trump. "the new york times" reporting today that roger ailes have been pushed out of fox news last month, he's found a new gig, quote, advising donald j. trump has he begins to prepare for the all-important presidential debates this fall. the trump campaign immediately denied that roger ailes is on board with the trump campaign in any capacity, but "the times" say they have four different sources saying roger ailes is advising donald trump ahead of the debates and two of their four sources said that his role could extend beyond the debates.

now, on a very surface level, roger ailes, working on the donald trump campaign, this is both totally expected and a little bit odd. because even though, yes, roger ailes had this phenomenally successful political consulting career and a phenomenally successful career building fox news into an unprecedented success, in cable news and republican politics. he built a cable news network into republican television. even though that's his resume, or what should be on one, he was just forced out of fox news a few weeks ago because of multiple allegations of sexual harassment from multiple employees. so the man at the center of this controversy, is now on board while the scandal is still erupting. that's what's odd. what's expected about it, if there's anybody who doesn't care

about that kind of a scandal, it's probably donald trump. in fact, once roger ailes' future at fox news started to look like that was in doubt, that he might be out of that network, a lot of people instantly connected those two dots and thought where he might land, if he got pushed out of fox news, would be with donald trump. >> roger ailes, is he helping you, is he advising you? >> i don't want to comment, but he's a friend of mine for a long time. i've always found him to be just a very, very good person and a very talented person. look what he's done. but a lot of people think he's going to run my campaign. my campaign's doing well. >> that was right after the republican convention on "meet the press." even then the trump campaign wasn't doing all that well. in the month since then, it's

become clear the trump campaign is doing not well at all. but we do have news tonight from the trump campaign, that they're about to start, finally, running their first tv ads of the general election. apparently by friday of this week. in florida, north carolina, ohio, and pennsylvania. and also this news today from "the new york times" that at least debate prep, if not more of the trump campaign is going to be shaped from here on out by fox news guru and republican strategist roger ailes. so these are both a big deal, right, for this campaign. and i think there are two things to watch from here on out. number one, does roger ailes get involved, not just in debate prep, but in donald trump's media, in donald trump's ads? now that the trump campaign is going to be running ads, are they going to put one of the

greatest republican ad makers of all time in charge of trying to change the way america sees donald trump on television? ailes' track record on that kind of work is legendary. he's been involved in everything from the ronald reagan in the morning ad, to the ad that seemed like dukakis would let all the rapists out all over the country, told papi bush to stop wearing button-up short sleeve shirts in public so he wouldn't look like a dweeb. and he let the country know they could get their republican television on this one cable news channel, while slamming all other sources of news as being unbalanced because they weren't right-wing like fox. love it or hate it, it worked. so that's one thing to watch. that's a potentially game-changing thing to watch. does roger ailes really get in there and take over trump's whole media strategy?

the whole presentation of trump to the world? that's one thing to watch. the other thing to watch is the debates. supposedly he's working with him on debate prep, right? well, one sort of forgotten hallmark of the papi bush presidential era and his role in 1988 and also in 1992 to a lesser extent, those were years where the campaigns were really nasty, really negative. on the republican side in particular, they told voters to hate the process. to, in particular, resent the media for being stacked against the republican candidate and they used those dynamics they created in the campaign. in those roger ailes' campaigns. they used it to try to get their candidate out of participating in too many presidential debates. >> mr. vice president, jimmy carter has called this the worst campaign ever. richard nixon has called it

trivial, superficial, and inane. whoever started down this road first, of negative campaigning, the american people from all reports coming to us, are completely fed up. do you have any solutions to suggest, is there time left to fix it? there are 26 days left. for instance, would you agree to another debate before it's all over, so that the american people -- so that the american people would have another chance before election day to compare you two? >> no, i will not agree to another debate. the american people are up to here with debates. they had 30. we had seven. now we got three of them. i am going to carry this election debate all across this country in the last whatever remains of the last three and a half weeks or whatever we have. and the answer is no, i am not going to have any more debates. we don't need any more debates. >> the dukakis campaign wanted

there to be four in '88. bush agreed to two, and there were only two that year. four years later, george h.w. bush tried to get out of debating bill clinton altogether. even though they had the commission on presidential debates set up the schedule and everything, they had to skip the first scheduled presidential debate in 1992, because george h.w. bush wouldn't agree to it, didn't want to debate. that was part of the ailes strategy, the roger ailes' strategy, the last time he was doing communications strategy for a republican presidential campaign. this year, donald trump has already sewn the seeds that he might not participate in the presidential debates against hillary clinton. that was before we learned that roger ailes is reportedly advising the trump campaign on the debates and maybe other communications strategy. i've said it from the beginning, i think it's been 50/50, whether or not trump shows up for the debates against clinton.

with this news that we just got today, i would definitely say the odds are not getting any better. this stuff is amazing. but doesn't mean we haven't seen it before. y-proof, stay-proof look? neutrogena® makeup remover does. it erases 99% of your most stubborn makeup with one towelette. need any more proof than that? neutrogena.

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>> we've also just found out today that donald trump, republican presidential candidate is about to get his first official cia briefing tomorrow. that means presumably that democratic candidate hillary clinton is about to get her first official cia briefing as a presidential candidate as well. although presumably she's had them before because of her time as secretary of state. candidates for president all get these intelligence briefings from the intelligence community. this is one of the first years anybody has ever freaked out about it. but the reason candidates get these briefings at all, turns out to be stunning and kind of funny and it involves a u.s. president using the word screwballs, in not a nice way. that screwball story and much more, straight ahead, stay with us. fdr, president franklin dell no roosevelt was sworn into his

fourth term as president in january 1445, world war ii still in full swing. by april of that year, the 12th, 1945, fdr was dead. he died in office while we were still at war. his vice president was, of course harry truman. truman became president the day fdr died on april 12th. truman had been vice president for a while, and a u.s. senator for ten years, including key roles on important committee, overseeing the military. he wasn't an understudy, he

fdr, president franklin dell no roosevelt was sworn into his fourth term as president in january 1445, world war ii still in full swing. by april of that year, the 12th, 1945, fdr was dead. he died in office while we were still at war. his vice president was, of course harry truman. truman became president the day fdr died on april 12th. truman had been vice president for a while, and a u.s. senator for ten years, including key roles on important committee, overseeing the military. he wasn't an understudy, he wasn't out of the loop.

he was involved in u.s. government at a high level for a long time. even so, once he got sworn in as president, they let him be president for 12 days before anybody bothered to tell him that the united states had this little project it was working on, called the atomic bomb. 12 days into his presidency before anybody told truman that was going on. he had no idea. truman as president went on to use the bomb, twice, against japan at the end of world war ii. he served as president for the duration of what would have been fdr's term. was elected in his own right in 1948. he knew he couldn't serve again, two terms maximum. so in 1952, truman knew his time was up, he was out, his successor would be republican dwight eisenhower, or the democratic who was running against ike, it would be atly

stevenson, the governor of illinois. so that year, 1952, looking at the end of his presidency, thinking about the shock of what he went through when he first became president, not just the shock of becoming president, but the shock of learning what he didn't know, what nobody felt they needed to tell him until long after he was already commander in chief. truman decided that he wanted that to not happen to his successor. he didn't want his successor to have that same shock. so in 1952, after the political conventions ended and each party had their candidate, president truman sent an invitation to both candidates, inviting them to come to the white house on august 19th, 1952. invited both candidates to come see him, come see the cabinet, but he also wanted them to get the first of what he wanted to be weekly, intelligence briefings, for them as candidates, from the cia.

here's the thing. stevenson was apparently into it, but eisenhower said no. eisenhower wrote back to president truman and said, he thought he should receive, quote, only those communications from the outgoing administration that could be known to all of the american people. ike said no, he didn't want to be briefed. and truman was reportedly astonished. and president truman wrote eisenhower back and he used the term screwballs when he did it. he wrote -- since you won't let the cia help. so this response from truman, it

had this generous, sort of helpful, patriotic ending, but it did make a very strong point, and he did start with screwballs, because he was harry truman, and after the famous screwballs letter, eisenhower relented and he got his first briefing on august 30th of that year. and that's how the whole thing started, in 1952. presidential candidates getting intelligence briefings, even before the election happens, so they'll know the basics as candidates, and so they won't be totally blindsided upon taking over the top job. that whole gig started in 1952, and those briefings have been going on without much controversy ever since. now, we had thought previously that this year's presidential candidates were already getting their intelligence briefings. those earlier reports were not true. they haven't had their briefings

yet. donald trump hasn't had his briefing yet. today it's reported that donald trump is expected to get his first briefing tomorrow. the briefings are no longer carried out by the cia. they're carried out by somebody from the office of the director of national intelligence. now, it's reported that trump's getting his tomorrow. we don't know if or when secretary hillary clinton is getting her first briefing as a candidate. we do know that the candidates are usually briefed one after the other, within a few days of each other, within a week of each other. so if trump is getting his tomorrow, we could extrapolate and say hillary clinton will likely have her first briefing soon, if she hasn't already. we pressed hard to get any information out of the clinton campaign on this issue. high told us precisely nothing. not a peep. just no comment and that was it. not even any sort of instruction or anything on background. so it's interesting. it's reported that trump gets his tomorrow. clinton, we're guessing. but this is the first year i can

remember where there's been even remotely widespread freaking out about whether or not these briefings are a good idea this year. whether maybe it's somehow dangerous to do these briefings this year. someone who knows whether that freak-out might be justified joins us next. e it used to? neutrogena hydro boost water gel. with hyaluronic acid it plumps skin cells with intense hydration and locks it in. for supple, hydrated skin. hydro boost. from neutrogena

>> if somebody's the nominee, the republican nominee for president, they need to get security briefings so that if

they were to win, they are not starting from scratch. they have been told, these are classified briefings. and if they wanna be president, they gotta start acting like president. and that means being able to, you know, receive these briefings and not spread them around. >> joining us now is david priest. he was an intelligence briefer in both the george w. bush and bill clinton administrations. he's an expert on the daily intelligence briefings that presidents get once they're sworn in. he's the author of "the president's book of secrets: the untold story of intelligence briefings to america's presidents." thanks for being here. >> it's great to be here. but screwballs, aren't you glad we don't have that political rhetoric today? >> e-gads, really curled my hair. there's concern this year, mostly about donald trump, although they've tried to return

fire on this too. there's been a lot of concern expressed this year that it might be dangerous to do these intelligence briefings for the presidential candidates. we have been doing this kind of thing since 1952. hait ever been a problem? has anything bad ever happened because of this briefing process? >> never. the most interesting thing we've seen happen is a candidate decide they don't need to take the briefing or asking for many briefings instead of just one or a few. we've never seen this level of attention to these briefings before. it's a crazy year. you have one candidate who the fbi director said was reckless with classified information. you have another candidate who can't appear to control what he says publicly. when that combines with intelligence briefings, we've got one hell of a party to watch. >> we keep hearing this shouldn't be conflated with the presidential daily brief, that this is not the same level of information or as sensitive

information as somebody who is actually president is going to get. but what does go into preparing one of these briefings? are they going to be learning a lot of stuff they can't get from open-source news? >> don't fool yourself. it will have assessments from the intelligence agencies on the hot spots around the world, where sometimes you don't get a lot of information from open sources and you rely on classified information from the cia spies, from the national security agency's listening post, from satellite imagery. so these are going to take several stories forward a few steps for the candidates. but you're right, it's not the same as the president's daily brief. what i wrote my book about, where all of the sources and methods of the intelligence are in there, the candidates are not getting that level of information. >> and hillary clinton obviously has been a secretary of state, so she's had access not to this exact kind of information, but

presumably she's been briefed before on aspects of her work in the cabinet. do we expect the briefing would be tailored to each candidate? or do they both get the same thing? >> it's really both. on the one hand, they get the same material. the officers are extremely neutral, making sure there's no political bias they put into the system. on the other hand, you're briefing two different people. somebody can receive the information and ask a lot of questions, ask about the information behind the assessments. on the other hand, somebody might just sit back, receive the briefings and not say a word until thank you at the end. so they could evolve differently. the way the intelligence officers try to keep it neutral, given that dynamic. they make sure questions asked in one briefing are answered not just to the candidate asking that, but to the other candidate as well.

that makes sure there's no political bias inserted into the briefings. >> that's interesting. that may explain some of the dynamic around why they want to brief them in a relatively close time frame. one last quick question, we've had it reported today, it's not confirmed, that donald trump may be bringing chris christie and retired lieutenant general michael flin with him to his briefing. do the candidates get to bring people? >> yes, they do. traditionally the presidential candidates and the vice presidential candidates get these briefings because they've been nominated. but if the presidential candidate wants to bring somebody, they do get some vetting, and they get to bring a few people. typically it's been people like former heads of the intelligence committees of congress who are senior advisers or other national security aides at a senior level. this is not unusual. but it will be fun to see what they do with this information that they receive. >> right, and how they handle it. fascinating. david priest, expert on this stuff, who briefed the attorney

general, the fbi director, the national security adviser over two administrations, george w. bush and bill clinton. it's a pleasure to have here. thanks for being with us. >> thank you, rachel. still ahead, what might be the diciest most nervous making political event of the day, going on right now. stay with us. footage from that ahead. we are waiting tonight on to win at the olympic games, allyson felix needs to be quicker than everybody. to win at home, she needs to be quicker than... allyson: chloe! that's why allyson felix uses bounty. the quicker picker upper. bounty is faster and 2x more absorbent.

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wiback like it could used to? neutrogena hydro boost water gel. with hyaluronic acid it plumps skin cells with intense hydration and locks it in. for supple, hydrated skin. hydro boost. from neutrogena we are waiting tonight on some news that took an unexpected turn late in the day today. we've known for a few days now that republican candidate donald trump was scheduled to appear at a rally tonight in wisconsin. about 45 minutes north of milwaukee, in the town of west bend, wisconsin. west bend is a mostly white, somewhat distant suburb of milwaukee. this event has been on the books for a while. but now it's sort of newly news worthy. there's a couple factors here tonight now about this that make this particular trump event kind of a live wire. first, wisconsin is a little sensitive right now.

milwaukee is still totaling up the damages to property and public trust after riots over a couple of nights this past weekend. with burning and violence in milwaukee, starting after a police officer shot and killed a fleeing suspect. that's been going on in milwaukee over the last few days. that's what donald trump is walking into in the milwaukee suburbs. the other factor that's interesting and a little mysterious tonight, this trump event, just outside on-edge milwaukee tonight, it was originally scheduled to be jus another donald trump rally, which is not the kind of thing we would usually cover. instead, they made a late change. the campaign late tonight or late today, announced they would not be doing this as a rally, which they had previously announced. instead, they will be putting their candidate on a teleprompter and having him give what's now being billed as a policy speech on law and order issues. so is this, in fact, a late change?

if so, why? are we about to get something substantively new in terms of policy from the candidate? and not to be too picky, but why are they also now running really, really, really late with this event? what is going on here? joining us now, hallie jackson who is in wisconsin at this now belated trump event tonight. hallie, thanks so much for being here. >> very belated. of course, good to be with you. >> correct me if i'm wrong, they don't usually run more than an hour late when they have other television things that now the candidate is going to step on and other networks and stuff. what's going on? >> reporter: yeah, it is unusually late for trump. sort of a confluence of events of just how the day unfolded here in wisconsin. he had some otrs, some meetings, a roundtable this afternoon and other media events as well. the crowd, it's a pretty packed house, it's also about 85 degrees in here, it feels like. so you've got people that are waiting to see donald trump and

i'll tell you, they're getting something unusual tonight as you notice. look at what's behind me here. that's teleprompters, which we almost never see at trump rallies. in fact, at trump rallies, we never see them. we see them typically at policy speeches. so, yes, this is a late change, it's now a law and order speech, presumably discussing some of the events that unfolded over the weekend in milwaukee. he was in florida, he didn't talk about zika. so the fact that he's engaging on these local issues could potentially be significant. it's also a way for him, for the second day in a row, to go after hillary clinton. as his campaign did this afternoon, blasting with an e-mail attacking clinton for her policies on law enforcement. it's a way for him to go after her and kind of prove that he can stay to topic. even though he said, i am not going to pivot. so any more chatter about that, that suld be t final nail in the coffin there. >> with the teleprompters there, with hearing that the speech has a topic, are they telling us to

expect something new, some substantive policy thing we haven't heard before? >> reporter: i think it's going to be more substantive than what we would typically see from a policy perspective at one of donald trump's rallies. you're right, it is unusual for a rally. he gives these economic speeches or policy speeches, he's been doing roughly one of those a week or so for the last couple of months, since he became the presumptive republican nominee. but the big question for trump, when he does one of those speeches, often times what we'll see, the next night at a rally like this, he says something inflammatory. last week, he came out to give the economic speech. at the rally the next night, he made the comments about the second amendment people taking action if hillary clinton were to get elected.

tonight, he won't have the opportunity to go off script, following up on that foreign policy speech on isis yesterday. so it could be an interesting potential strategic turn. and we will see what kind of policies he lays out here, particularly -- i can't emphasize this enough -- in light of what's been happening in milwaukee. you walk around, people are talking about it. this is fresh for people here, even though the situation has settled down some. >> hallie jackson at the trump event in west bend, wisconsin tonight. hallie, i would say enjoy yourself, but i'm instead just going to say thank you for your time. and we appreciate having you here tonight. >> reporter: thanks, rachel. >> we'll be right back. lots ahead tonight, stay with us.

so again, we're watching what is turning out to be an unexpected late-night event tonight in wisconsin. donald trump is just north of milwaukee, wisconsin. this had been booked as a plain old trump rally.

but now, more than an hour later than expected, trump is, we're told, going to give a speech, a teleprompter speech on law and order issues. one of the dynamics at work with this tonight is the rioting that happened over the weekend in milwaukee, after a police officer shot and killed a suspect who police said was wielding a gun. that is one factor in play. this is a tinderbox he's walking into. the other factor is questions of broader electoral politics. donald trump has been competing in some weird places recently. he's been campaigning in maine, in connecticut. places where even if he were doing great, he wouldn't be expected to win, let alone how terribly he's doing right now. but that's the other factor that i have questions about tonight. does it make sense for him to be in wisconsin? wisconsin gets talked about as a swing state, but a respected poll respected poll had him trailing by 15. reasonably speaking should

donald trump be in wisconsin tonight? whether or not he ends up stoking the powder keg in milwaukee doesn't make sense electoral, is it in reach for him. is it even a battleground state. joining us now is the great political correspondent, our go-to person for helping us understand this. thank you. >> sure. >> thank you for doing a good job with my tv show. >> it makes me feel like i can go away all the time. is wisconsin a battleground state? >> at this moment, no. there are two things that are going wrong for donald trump. number one the reason he sees it as an opportunity, one of them there are a lot of those we talk about the working class white voters, white voters without a college degree, 12 points higher than the national average there. it's potentially fertile ground. those voters, though, are staying more loyal to democratic party, more loyal in wisconsin than they have nationally.

he's not making the enrods there he needs to. you have a large population of college educated republican voters in suburb. >> like where he is tonight. >> and the struggle that trump has had, we've seen this nationally with college-educated whites and college-educated republicans that is being replicated in the suburbs of milwaukee. the big number that republican relies on is he's not getting. you get those numbers at the milwaukee suburbs, he's not getting those numbers and he's not making the end roads. >> why is it that in wisconsin you get republican controlled legislature, you get all of these state-wide dynamics or state-wide elected who are republicans but -- it's not donald trump, right? >> the statistic is, not sense '84 has a republican won it.

bush came within .2 in 2000. they've been on the cusp a couple of times. i was surprised in fact in '04 when he didn't win it. he was making, we saw nationally, end roads with blue collar voters. he had big jumps in other states. wisconsin is normally a it's a polarized state. in presidential years the rule has been it does vote democratic, sometimes very close. in the midterm elections that's when the republican win senate seats that's when scott walker won. it's sort of a split personality state depending on which electorate shows up. >> i continue to be flum exed. >> it's one of those, if he was looking -- if he wasn't down ten points nationally and he's looking at a rust belt, wisconsin and michigan are the two tests?

>> even if you were up it wouldn't make sense for him to go to connecticut and maine. >> he could get the one. >> if you went to that district. >> steve, thanks for being here. >> correspondent, we're going to bring the trump speech to you because it's apparently a policy speech when it starts. there's other news to get to tonight as well, that's ahead, stay with us.

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to change things up a little bit tonight because we're now still waiting for what is a late announced policy speech that we're told is going to be given by donald trump in wisconsin tonight. you can look and see how late it is. the speech still hasn't happened. this was initially announced as plain old donald trump rally. that was interesting, any way, after a police -- now they say it's not going to be a trump rally, it's going to be a law and order policy speech on teleprompter. we'll see. it's pushing into the 10:00 hour on the east coast -- 9:00 hour locally where he is. rudy guiliani is there but trump hasn't taken the podium. it's turning into a weird trump campaign tonight.

we'll keep of that on going story here. i'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for the "last word" with lawrence o'donnel. the police have been running up and down the street and telling us that we need to get out, and i guess it's really moving fast. we just got told like probably about 15 minutes ago, you have to get out now. >> a state of emergency in california. more than 80,000 people have been forced from their homes, as the fast moving blue cut fire tears through southern california. >> plus a major overhaul for the trump campaign this morning. with just 83 days to go until the election the republican nominee is shaking things up in his campaign's leadership. >> and hillary clinton is hitting back over questions about her health. with her campaign claiming donald trump is pedaling conspiracy stories. it is 5:00 a.m. on the east coast. 2:00 a.m. out west.