weeks and are back this sunday and yes, every single sunday for the rest of the year. we'll have a lot to talk about. trump 3.0, to rnc chairman reince priebus on the broadcast, talk about the clinton foundation, can she figure out, hillary clinton, how to deal with that and not have it cost her votes. remember once again if it's sunday, it really is this sunday "meet the press." we'll be back monday with "mtp daily." "with all due respect" starts ten seconds late. i'm kasie hunt. >> i'm john heilemann. "with all due respect" to hillary clinton offering chocolate to the press -- >> we really prefer gin. and bourbon. if you want to know the truth. all right. as we wrap up another wild week in american presidential

politics, yesterday, maybe, just maybe, the nastiest day of the nastiest week of the weirdest presidential campaign in history. we talk about donald trump's contribution to that later but first, the past few days have been the tale of two dueling clinton campaigns. the democratic nominee, her battalion have been on defense for several days, amid swirling questions about the clinton foundation yet as of yesterday, clinton's scathing alt-right speech shifted much of the focus back on to donald j. trump billionaire. the democrats are calling a big league bigot or is that a bigly bigot? not sure. yesterday on this show we asked clinton's chief strategist joel benenson if the campaign would put major ad dollars behind that line of attack. today we got our answer. >> what do you have to lose? you're living in poverty. your schools are no good. you have no jobs. >> oh, look at my african-american over here. >> trump management was charged

with discriminating against african-americans and breaking federal law. >> i have a great relationship with the blacks. i have always had a great relationship with the blacks. >> what the hell do you have to lose? >> earlier in the day, hillary clinton called in to our friends at "morning joe" to take a few more pre-weekend shots at her general election foe. >> do you think donald trump is personally a bigot or a racist? because he said you are. >> all i can do is point to the evidence of what he has said and what he has done and from the start, he has built his campaign on prejudice and paranoia. a man with a long history of racial discrimination who traffics in dark conspiracy theories drawn from the pages of supermarket tabloids and these kind of white supremacist, white nationalist anti-semitic groups

should never run our government or command our military. this is not a normal choice between a republican and a democrat. we're not just discussing our differing views on tax policy or anything else of importance. we are facing a divisive candidate whose loose cannon temperament and his complete lack of preparation make him unqualified to be president and temperamentally unfit to be commander in chief. >> so kasie, welcome, first of all. >> thank you. >> we are going to take advantage of your expertise. you spent a lot of time covering the democratic side of the ieaie in this campaign. i don't think there's any doubt this was partly a tactic to turn the page to try to get away from the clinton foundation stories, yet it also felt to me like this speech has been a long time coming, like they have been waiting for the moment when they were going to go hard on donald trump on this. first of all, how much, to what extent do you think that's true and how much longer do you think they are going to keep running this, all the way to election

day? >> i do think that's true. i think that there were several lines in this speech and one note in her interview there with morning joe, she called this election not a normal choice. i think that is really the kind of distillation of this race that the clinton campaign is looking for, right? a lot of the speech she gave yesterday was aimed at moderate republicans and independents and basically trying to say you might have voted republican for your entire life and it's okay, if you come over here and vote for me, your neighbors aren't going to judge you because donald trump is not a normal republican. that's different from what democrats down ballot are saying about their opponents and i think it's the center piece of her strategy, any day where they are focus order that's a good one. >> it's not different from what democrats are saying down ballot. it's an interesting strategic choice to decide we are going to try to win this election, we will take on donald trump and win it partly by cleaving the republican party in half. a few months ago the campaign would say to you the problem donald trump has is he's basically mainstream of the republican party.

this is what his policy positions are the mainstream now. now they are saying no, republican party is different, donald trump is different and they are tying to rying to do t slightly different way. >> i think it's two-fold. not only is it the best way for her to get the votes she needs to win the white house. it also sets her up to be in a better governing position if she actually does win the white house, because she's giving mitch mcconnell, paul ryan, a way out. i think that one of the things they know they need to do is govern differently than president obama. they might not say that out loud but they need to have a different kind of relationship with capitol hill. i think giving them this space helps make that possible. >> and continuing to keep pressure, as trump has been relatively disciplined in this last week but no one expects that to continue. continuing to be in a posture where you put pressure on establishment republicans to constantly have to make a choice between what the normal republican party is and what donald trump is is also i think smart even just in the context

of the campaign. >> i think that's right. very quickly, republicans on the hill, they have been out, have not been in washington. as soon as they come back they are all going to be getting some version of this question. >> over and over again. right. okay. we will talk about how donald trump has been handling the fallout from the alt-right imbroglio and the clinton broadsides later in the show but it is easy, amazingly, to forget that just a couple days ago, hillary clinton and her team were getting buried alive by questions about her family's foundation which also came up during clinton's "morning joe" phoner. >> are you certain that there are no e-mails or foundation ties to foreign entities that will be revealed that could perhaps permanently impact your presidential prospects? >> mika, i am sure. i am sure because i have a very strong foundation of understanding about the foundation, not to have a play on words, that the kind of work that the foundation has done

which attracted donors from around the world is work that went right into providing services to people and my work as secretary of state was not influenced by any outside forces. i made policy decisions based on what i thought was right to keep americans safe and protect our interests abroad. >> so kasie, there's still a lot of people not satisfied with where the clintons are right now with respect to the foundation. i would say that's obviously true of many republicans. it's true of a lot of people in the press. how happy is the clinton campaign with where they are right now, the ground they have given and where they have drawn the line and how much more ground they might give on what happens to the foundation in the future? >> i think that they felt a lot better on wednesday than they did on monday and tuesday, when this a.p. story was breaking. it started with robby mook on the sunday shows not really seeming to have his feet under him necessarily on answering these questions about the foundation and i think it took

them a half a beat, i don't know if it's because they were used to donald trump being the one who was in trouble constantly but it took them a little while. then they came out of the gate very aggressively pushing back against this on all fronts. brian fallon of course was out in front of that. i think they got their feet under them a little bit and of course they changed the subject. >> it's fair to say that although i have been critical of the foundation and critical of a lot of things on this show, it's true that the a.p. story has enough glaring flaws in it that they were on some solid ground there. they could critique that story and say hey, this is only part of her time in office. she also met with all these other people. i don't want to use the word cherry pick, that's their word but it was selective in some sense. that gave them some, gave them a bone to sink their teeth into. >> one thing, too, that they have managed to kind of turn the corner on, you heard it from hillary clinton herself on "morning joe" is instead of seeming defensive about the foundation's work, highlighting with a positive tone and encouraging the work the

foundation does. so instead of answering negative questions by saying we do so much great work. instead they come to the table with facts. these are the people that we're helping with hiv drugs. that's pretty compelling. >> there are obviously now we know there will be more e-mails released between now and election day. on a scale of one to godzilla, how nervous is the campaign about the other shoes that might drop? >> well, i think on the one hand they are nervous about this drip drip drip of the new cases, the e-mails that will come out. i think one thing we are not focusing on that's hanging over them is whatever might come of that hack against the dnc and dccc. people forget that's still out there. >> julian assange talking about more bombshells. there are still 70 days until the election but already there's talk about a clinton potential la landslide, not just running the table in the battleground states but turning former republican strong holds blue. we have seen polling in four traditionally red states that suggest that they are conceivably in play in arizona,

trump leads clinton among likely voters by seven points in a cnn/orc survey. it is on the edge of the margin of error. another poll has trump up by four among registered voters in south carolina. things look even closer in missouri, where monmouth has trump leading by one point and in georgia, where a local fox affiliate poll has the race dead even. both of those surveys were among likely voters, the last two. so my question is, from the campaign's point of view as they look at those what you could call reach states, just talk about which one do they think they could win all of them, any of them and what are they going to do to the extent they are actually going to do something other than talk about it in terms of dollars, organizing offices, running ads? what's the plan? >> so let me rank them. i think the first one, the one they are most likely to play in, is arizona. that's the one where they feel they have the best chance, where they and their allies think if we spend money there it could potentially pay off. second is georgia.

i think there are clinton allies who view georgia as a potentially the next north carolina. there's a lot of white affluent voters in atlanta plus of course you have the growing minority population. one state that's not on this list that maybe should be is indiana. i would actually put that third. that's another one they are looking at. i think followed by missouri. south carolina, i don't think is really anywhere on the list. but one tidbit for you, priorities usa, democratic source tells me, is actually not going to go back up on the air in virginia at all for the rest of the election. that tells you that they have got some money -- >> as of now they are saying that for the rest of the election. we will see if the polls tighten. interesting to remember, indiana, a state that in 2008 was very much in play. arizona, a state that in 2012, the obama campaign, the one state they thought about spending money in and then decided not to. they decided we don't need that one, it would be a waste of resources. those states are states that could conceivably be -- they are not exactly purple but there's stuff in play there. the interesting thing in south carolina and georgia is just how

much not just the demographic changes but the geographic changes. there was a report about the percentage of northerners that live in southern states. georgia and south carolina have a lot of northerners have moved there. >> charleston in particular. >> very nice state. >> i would move there. >> very nice city. when we come back, your friday trump news and weather report. you named it brad. you loved brad. and then you totaled him. you two had been through everything together. two boyfriends, three jobs... you're like nothing can replace brad. then liberty mutual calls... and you break into your happy dance. if you sign up for better car replacement™, we'll pay for a car that's a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. hillary clinton: i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. vo: in times of crisis america depends on steady leadership. donald trump: "knock the crap out of them, would you?

seriously..."vo: clear thinking... donald tmp: "i know more about isis than the generals do, believe me." vo: and calm judgment. donald trump: "and you can tell them to go fu_k themselves." vo: because all it takes is one wrg move. donald trump audio onl "i would bomb the sh_t out of them." vo: just one. the oil companies pollute our air. putting their... ...profits ahead of our kids' health.

now they're trying to weaken california's clean air laws. i'm tom steyer. we've had a million kids get asthma. we need to send the oil companies a message. tell your legislator to stand up to the oil companies and protect our clean air laws. don't let the oil companies put their profits... ...ahead of our kids. how is she bigoted? >> because she's selling them down the tubes. because she's not doing anything for those communities. she talks a good game. >> so you're saying she has hatred? dislike of black people? >> policies are bigoted because she knows they're not going to work. >> you are saying she's personally bigoted. >> she is. of course she is. >> is there going to be a path to legalization? >> no. there is no path to legalization. unless people leave the country. well, when they come back in, if they come back in.

>> that was donald trump talking to cnn's anderson cooper in new hampshire yesterday. like hillary clinton, the republican nominee has been on both offense and defense this week as trump keeps making his pitch to minority voters and trying to explain just what is his policy on immigration and deportations. joining us from trump tower is nbc news correspondent katy tur, my fellow road warrior. nice to see you. thank you for being here. i actually want to start with, not with deportations but with this new hillary clinton ad. and the trump campaign has been so fast to respond to these accusations around this idea of racism and the alt-right when they put out that web video yesterday, the response was almost instantaneous. what's your sense of the trump campaign's take on this new tv ad from the clinton campaign today? >> reporter: well, they don't think it's fair or appropriate and they are calling these sorts of ads disgusting. i can tell you in covering this

campaign for the past 14 months there have been few occasions where they have come out and immediately pushed back on something, and this was the fastest push-back i have ever seen them come out with. once hillary clinton came out with that ad first linking him to white supremacists, the one with the man in the kkk costume and the one using donald trump's words, then also the imagery of these rallies, they said this is not fair, this is disgusting and we do not agree with it. they had a lot of their surrogates come out and do the same thing. they are very fearful that this is something that will resonate with voters. this idea that donald trump is a racist or somehow condones white supremacy. at the moment they trying to appeal to black and hispanic voters, trying to create some outreach, create some good will. there is even talk behind the scenes of going to more urban areas to try and speak directly with african-american and hispanic voters, but so far, they haven't been successful in

courting them. they are fearful of the idea of being, donald trump being painted in a racist way because it's going to further hamper their efforts to make inroads in those communities. >> one of the things that donald trump has done to try to fight back against this is calling hillary clinton a bigot. he calls her a bigot all the time. last night in that exchange with anderson cooper, i couldn't tell. does he know what the word bigot means or is he being kind of intentionally obtuse to use the word as just a defensive tactic? >> reporter: you know, i don't know. i can't tell you that donald trump knows what the word bigot means. i imagine he does. anderson cooper asked him a few times if he meant that her policies were bigoted or if he meant she was personally a bigot, and he said that he believes she is personally a bigot, then went on to explain he doesn't think her policies have been helpful for african-americans. so does donald trump know the webster dictionary definition of bigot, i don't know.

i mean, i don't know donald trump well enough to say that one way or another. but he has had a history of coming out and saying inflammatory things, outrageous things, extreme things, and this is no different. >> katy, clearly we have seen the fingerprints of trump's new campaign staff all over the events of the last couple of weeks. it's clearly made a real difference. i want to ask you about a little bit of news today the trump campaign hiring bill stepien, the former ousted christie aide. do you have any sense of what's driving this, why they're bringing him in, what he can accomplish inside the campaign? >> reporter: bill stepien is a political operative that does have experience behind him. when i spoke to people within the campaign today and asked them about this, when they found out about it, they called it ai bit of a dumb move because he is as we know embroiled in the bridgegate scandal. i think this is an indication that the trump campaign is having a hard time hiring qualified and well-respected republican operatives. we have known this for quite some time. they aren't getting the pick of

the litter because so few people respect donald trump's candidacy in republican leadership. this was something they didn't have much of a choice on in terms of they didn't have like a wide range of other options out there. but we are told, nbc news' kelly o'donnell reported from two sources that jared kushner was behind this push. that's interesting given the history between jared kushner and chris christie. is it great optics? no, especially since there's the trial for bridgegate is imminent. but when it comes to the everyday voter out there, this idea that bill stepien has come on board is something that will probably go over most people's heads. it's just in the weeds when it comes to politics. most people that will be voting for donald trump don't come from the tristate area. we only have 15 or 20 seconds. do we now have an actual trump immigration policy or is that still tbd? >> reporter: no. no. i think that's tbd. >> big speech next week, right? will we get it then, you think? >> reporter: that's what he

says. we will see what happens. >> all right. >> katy tur, thanks very much. up next, the definitions of the alt-right. many of them. we will ask an expert to explain which one is correct. start yours with philips sonicare, the no.1 choice of dentists. compared to oral-b 7000, philips sonicare flexcare platinum removes significantly more plaque. this is the sound of sonic technology cleaning deep between teeth. hear the difference? get healier gums in just 2 weeks vs a manual toothbrush and experience an amazing feel of clean. innovation and you. philips sonicare. save now when you buy philips sonicare.

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project director for the southern poverty law center, who comes to us from montgomery, alabama and bloomberg's washington, d.c. bureau business week's josh green, who is a big expert in steve bannon-ology. we will get to you in a little bit, josh. let me start, heidi, with you. alt-right, please, define. >> well, look, i mean, this is just basically the latest rebranding of white supremacy but with sort of a techie vibe to it. folks who are in the alt-right believe that white people should run the country, they want policies that are in favor of white interests. they are xenophobic, they don't like immigrants, they don't like muslims and in many ways it's the same kind of ideology that's been coming from white supremacists forever except they are very good at twitter and pushing memes and those kinds of things. that distinguishes these younger racial activists. >> heidi, the trump campaign,

the clinton campaign is accusing the trump campaign of essentially letting this go, of not saying anything when there are examples where this ideology is being encouraged. i'm wondering, is there anything coming out of the trump campaign that you can point to specifically that you identify as being a dog whistle to the alt-right? >> i mean, look, trump since the day he announced in june of 2015 has been saying things. he's not dog whistling. he's bull horning. saying things to white supremacists that they like to hear. mexicans are rapists, muslims shouldbanned, we are going to build a wall. there have been many, many things that he said including directly retweeting white supremacist material that speaks directly to these people. they feel that they have found their voice in politics with donald trump. >> so josh, i want to ask you the question in the context of republican party politics. there's been ever since hillary clinton's speech yesterday, there's been a little bit of internacine fight breaking out between conservatives over what

alt-right means. hugh hewitt has a much broader definition than the one heidi is putting forward, basically saying any antiimmigration reform of any sort, anti-paul ryan and mitch mcconnell club. talk a little bit about the debate now among republicans about the meaning and importance of alt-right. >> sure. part of the problem is there is no one agreed upon definition of alt-right. i tend to think of it as including everything from white supremacists and neo-nazis to 20-year-olds in their parent's basement tweeting offensive racist and anti-semitic things at reporters which has been another evolution we have seen this political cycle. the problem for republicans is that if you have a nominee who is tweeting and re-tweeting this stuff, and hiring as his campaign ceo the head of a website that is widely considered an alt-right platform, essentially you have brought that into the party. to me, the most striking thing about clinton's alt-right speech is that you did not have

republican party leaders like mitch mcconnell, like paul ryan, coming out and defending trump and attacking clinton saying no, no, this is unfair, this is not what we stand for. instead it's been crickets. everybody has been quiet and they left it to trump and his twitter feed toheidi, we have ss on the alt-right increase with this clinton speech and anyone who is trying to get a sense of it is probably trying to wrap their head around just how many people are there in the united states who subscribe to this ideology. is this still a small fringe or is it growing? how would you characterize it? >> it's hard to know exactly how many people are involved in these movements. first of all, they don't like to disclose it. in the past they have been very not public about their activities but i can give you a little bit of a sense. one of the largest hate forums on the web has 300,000 registered users, for example. we know that some of the websites like daily stormer, the really anti-semitic self-proclaimed alt-right site

has thousands and thousands of people who go on that site every day and in fact, is the most read of these kinds of racist websites. we are probably talking several hundred thousand, maybe a million, it's hard to know. but it's a lot of people. of course, the appeal for some of this stuff goes wider than just people who are involved in this hardcore politics. >> heidi and josh, we will take a little break, come back and talk to you. up next, we will be talking about one particular person. donald trump's campaign ceo. steve bannon. we'll be right back. with my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the possibility of a fla was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal. until i talked to my doctor. she told me that humira helps people like me get uc under control and keep it under control when certain medications haven't worked well enough. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis.

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donald trump's new campaign chief steve bannon has had his share of unflattering headlines over the last couple of days. he's the former head of breitbart news, which of course made him the centerpiece of hillary clinton's scathing alt-right speech yesterday. today it's a politico story that digs up an accusation of domestic violence from two

decades ago. and the guardian is also reporting that bannon may be in violation of election law because he's registered to vote at a house in florida that's abandoned and where he has never lived. we are back with the southern poverty law center's heidi byrick in montgomery, alabama and bloomberg business week's josh green in washington, d.c. josh, you are our resident b bannon-ologist. the clinton campaign would clearly like americans to believe that this guy is really running the ship over at the trump campaign. we have seen a lot more on tv of kellyanne conway, the campaign manager. i'm wondering where do you see bannon's fingerprints in the new version of the trump campaign? >> well, where i see his effect is when you guys are talking about earlier, this latest scandal where as soon as clinton was out with this ku klux klan ad, trump hit right back with the video. that i think was bannon. he was brought in to be much more aggressive, get the campaign to be a little more nimble, more adept at using social media beyond just donald trump's twitter feed.

so i think that's what he's been focused on in the week or so he's been there. >> heidi, let me ask this. the steve bannon has proudly said breitbart is a flagship media enterprise for the alt-right. do people who actually are part of the alt-right, for example, white supremacists, the kind of people you talked about earlier, do they look at breitbart as the main source of their news? how do they see this media enterprise that he built? >> they love breitbart. i mean, they are absolutely thrilled with the direction the site has taken in the last year. they are constantly retweeting and commenting on headlines there that they find attractive and for them, for the white supremacists in this movement, they feel like breitbart has finally validated them. they have finally broken into mainstream news through that website. >> josh, i'm curious what you see as we look past november. i realize we are getting down to the wire but if in fact donald trump does not win this election, do you see a future between donald trump and steve bannon in some way?

>> i do. you could even possibly fold in roger ailes. you have all three of them working at trump tower on behalf of the trump campaign and if you take a look at how conservatism has changed, where the energy is, what it is that bannon and breitbart have tapped into, they really represent i think and speak for a lot of the younger generation of conservatives, the ones who are more socially adept, whereas fox news as we all know tends to have a much older demographic. you could certainly see potentially if trump isn't elected president that the two of them could get together and invest more in breitbart and maybe expand to a tv station or expand to other countries which breitbart is already trying to do and really kind of tap into this energy and grow something beyond just the trump campaign. >> i will stick with you, josh. it's kind of ironic. paul manafort left the campaign, saying he had to leave because the various negative stories about him and his work abroad in ukraine, for example, have become a distraction. now steve bannon, domestic violence story, the other story that kasie mentioned about the

house in florida, those would seem to be distractions also. do you think those are the kind of things that will bother donald trump or will -- did he know what he was getting when he brought steve bannon in? >> i don't see a whole lot of evidence that donald trump cares about these sorts of things. that he's an outsider, what attracted him to bannon originally before he even started campaigning, he sought bannon out for advice, is the fact he was an outsider, outside the republican establishment. all along trump's brand and interest seems to be that he don't want to do things the normal way, he wants to be different in every facet. part of it also is he really can't attract the mainstream republican talent that you would ordinarily see a gop nominee being able to draw on. so he winds up with this motley group of advisers who when reporters take a look into their background don't always turn out to be the cleanest, most upstanding members of citizenry. >> understatement there. >> indeed. josh green, heidi byrick, thanks so much. up next, an interview with

hamilton's christopher jackson. you want to be in the room when it happens. we'll be right back.

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he is chris jackson who plays the first president of these united states, george washington. we covered a lot of ground with chris, starting with what it's like working on a show that in a politically divisive era has united people from all idealogical stripes from barack obama to dick cheney and pretty much everyone in between. >> i was talking to a friend of mine, we were talking about the show, said it kind of feels like church. you get in a fight in the schoolyard friday and you are sitting in sunday school on sunday morning and everybody's there because you're supposed to be there and you know you need to be there because you're going to get something from it or your parents drug you but either way, you walk out of church not so mad. you have made up, you kind of let things calm down a little bit. nobody wants to do that in this day and age because it seems like the kid who's in the middle of the schoolyard swinging on everybody and screaming is the one that gets all of the attention. so there's that. >> yeah. our show welcomes everybody to come in under the banner of american ain't perfect but

america's trying. they were trying back then and they had the same kind of fights and the same kind of divisiveness, if not more so, yet we're still here having the arguments. so that says something to a greater, i think the greater point which is it's a really good idea. we have to keep trying to find it. >> when people talk about how divisive this current election year is, having done this musical, do you feel like you have a greater sort of tolerance for division, knowing what you know about the founding fathers and the duels they used to get into? >> i think i at least have a little more patience for the process of it and just accept that this is where we are and try to find ways to, you know, part of doing, for me, doing the show is a means by which you can push against the ocean a little bit and say hey, there's a better way that we can do it. eventually everyone gets tired. eventually everyone gets exhausted from it. unfortunately, that usually is the voting public and once the election is over with,

everyone's exhausted so no one wants to be involved anymore. but my hope is that a show like "hamilton" keeps that interest piqued. keeps the 15 and 16-year-old kids saying hm, i'm going to go ahead and pay a little more attention in civics class, i will figure out a little more about what happened before i was born so i can understand the context, have a context for what's happening now. >> you are a wrestling fan, right? >> yes. >> big political junkies on the cast. >> yes. >> what's the talk? you guys follow what's going on. you are in a political musical about the presidency. how much have you followed the events of the last year? >> it's tricky because we have, you know, we have met almost over half of the sitting cabinet right now. they have all been to the show. >> some multiple times. >> yes. a few times. we spent a little time in washington which was kind of nice. >> at the white house. >> yes, we did. and we have been, we met supreme court judges, justices, we met

just such an incredible array of people who from the beltway and entertainment and everything. we have a lot -- we were putting the show together, there was a lot of conversation about it, just because it was easy to see the relevance of what was happening and what we were talking about and we were still sort of understanding, discovering what our show was. >> were you aghast when cabinet secretaries are coming to -- were you like oh, my god, there's john kerry in the audience? >> yes, a few times, yeah. absolutely. none of it is lost on us. we were in the east room of the white house performing for the president this last spring and it was all over and he stood up and thanked me and lynn and the cast and when he finished his remarks, we were taking pictures, about to take pictures, and i couldn't contain it anymore. i burst out crying. i found a shoulder so i could compose myself and i stood up thinking about it, like my grandmother who was so concerned

about us being citizens, being black, you know, active citizens in our community, in our country, she dreamt so many things for me but she never dreamt that moment. you know what i mean? but she gave me the rocket fuel to keep pushing forward and this opportunity arose and i would just like to think there were 100 or so kids in that audience that day and that's the thought that i have when i think about the effect of this show, that we keep being put in places where we can reach someone whose mind is still willing to hear and willing to learn and willing to not have the kinds of opinions that keep them on one side or the other but that just allow them to be curious and discover all of the ideas. they want, you know, to see all of the different stuff. when you can be in that position, life is good. the work is good. >> you have meditated a lot on the farewell address because you sing a song about it in the show, one last time.

to the extent you understand how washington thought about what he had to do with that speech, how do you think obama will be thinking about what he has to do and what do you hope to hear him talk about in his farewell address? >> i think a lot about that in terms of where he was, which was desperately seeking relief from the office that he held. he needed to be done, you know. and that's for me, every night, that's what the song really represents is an expression of the strength and hope that the office gives you but also the fact that it breaks you down until you have nothing left, until three words are all you can really say and that's what one last time really represents to me. and endeavoring to pass that sense of hope off to the american public and the american idea at large.

president obama filled i think a majority of the country with hope in 2008, and the campaign leading up to it. i was hopeful. not just the symbolism of seeing his face, you know, every time i looked at the president knowing that that man looks like me. more like me and knows my experience more than perhaps any other president in the history of our country. >> he's a big fan of the musical. but he also sort of takes credit a little bit. >> i know. absolutely. >> how real is that? i know he heard the mix tape and went to the white house. can he claim any part of the hamilton success? correct the record or don't. >> presidential prerogative, right? i would say he certainly helped. knowing lynn as well as i do, if he didn't have that moment to write for and to perform it and to find the spark and the words

that he -- that came to him early on, who can say whether or not it would have -- >> that sounds like credit is being given. >> i think lynn gives him a little bit of credit with a wink. look, the president has been so gracious and so kind to us and yeah, if i were in his shoes i would take credit for it, too. >> talk to us a little about the emotional energy of putting a show like this together in comparison to other shows you have done which are equally blockbuster huge shows. >> i'm older than i was when -- >> that's a cop-out. >> no, that's real. it is exhausting in a way that unlike any other show that i have ever done, in that there are more words in this show than almost every shakespeare play. and because the whole thing is sung through, once that first down beat happens, it doesn't stop. so you have got intermission but that's not really, that's sort of a five-minute recovery and start adding the layers of

velvet and things that you have to wear for the second act so it's different. it's two hours and 40 some odd minutes. it's a long show. we are performing an opera eight times a week. opera singers sing maybe three times a month. it's a different kind of, just from a technical performance aspect. and you know, life happens outside of -- >> it does? outside of work? >> yeah. you miss a lot. that's how it works. but you have to try to keep up with it. so you walk in the door, i always say you are never 100% when you do a broadway show. you are navigating whatever percentage of energy, health, strength you have and because this show, everyone in the show, we are climbing this mountain in the first act. in the second act we are all coming down the same mountain. emotionally, we have very much the same kind of experience the audience has in that where it ends up and where we are looking toward at the end of that show is, we are all awash with it.

that's why after the show the stage becomes a green room. i generally am not leaving the theater for an hour after the curtain goes down because it takes that much time to like come dunn. >> right. >> and to be able to have conversations and hang out with people that have come and you're taking pictures and signing stuff. you're just communing with folks because it becomes a very spiritual experience by the end of the show. everyone has sort of worshipped at the altar of america for awhile. we are all sort of hung over a little bit by it. people are trying to process what they have seen or what they felt, as are we. so it's a unique experience in that way. it's the hardest thing i have ever done and the best thing i will ever do. >> we will take a quick intermission. more from that interview coming up next.

welcome back. we have more of our exclusive interview with the first president of the united states or at least the guy who plays him in "hamilton." that would be chris jackson. we started off act two by asking chris what it was like after his friend, colleague, certified genius and creator of the legendary show left the stage in july. >> that's no slight to javy because javier took his place. we know each other's process and have a way of communicating really really well and are really tight. but you know, before every show i used to go kick lynn's chair and make sure he was cool because our dressing rooms are really close. i would check in with him before a show. that's just what we do. yeah, i miss that a little bit. but now i go bang on the same dressing room and you know, check in on javy before we start. each show, it's a different

teammate. you have to find out where he likes to get the ball on the court. you have to sort of figure out that new rhythm and then you just go. >> it still must be weird to have so much of the original cast now gone. like i know there are still a few people around but lynn's gone, liz is gone, debbie is gone. you are like among the big male leads, are you tyou are the las who's left. >> you are the elder statesman quite literally. >> you had to say that. >> yeah, i did. >> it's true. >> you're george washington, too. [ speaking simultaneously ] >> i will tell you a secret about the cast. first of all, the original company is like the '92 dream team. it will never happen again. it's not supposed to. it was supposed to happen then and it did and geez, was it amazing. they don't put anybody on that stage that is not really, really good. and the heartbeat of our show is not lynn, it's not me, it's not

leslie or david. it's our ensemble. they are the smartest, hardest working group of performers that have been assembled in a very long time on a stage. they are so good. their work is so hard. and the fact that no one knows it's that hard is even more tribute to how incredible they are. they are -- when we are running onstage or offstage, you're not looking at us. you are looking at them. they're the real story tellers on the show because they carry us from one thing to the next. from one scene to the next. from one era and movement to the next. at one moment you're one place and the next you're at another. it makes sense. there's no trickery. it's our company. it's our ensemble. they are spectacular. that's what makes the whole show, that's what elevates the show no matter who's performing.

>> so the first time i saw the show, the first thing i thought when i walked out was okay, i just saw something that's going to be around forever. like this will be, every high school in america will perform this show at some point. history will get taught this way for 12-year-olds, this is like the way they will come to first get account of this history. then the rockefeller foundation wrote a big check and said me a curriculum on this. i know you just said the cast is like, the company is like the '92, the original cast like the '92 dream team. you will also never be in anything like this again. you will never be in another thing that will live forever. long after you're gone this will be part of the fabric of american educational institution, cultural institutions of the country. how does that make you feel? it must be a hard thing to kind of reckon with. >> yeah. i guess so. i'm not -- i don't have to do that right now. i kind of feel like okay, well, i'll just let it settle on me as

time goes by. since i'm long in the tooth, when i get in my rocking chair. no, i think it's really great. i think that history was the one thing i was really interested in when i was if high school and the only thing i consistently got as in, that and music. so i'm hoping there's another lynn or chris or sue sitting in the classroom having memorized all the tunes on the cd, opens the page and reads the words of abraham lincoln in a slightly different way. not that the words have to change. not that they have to be in meter or rhyme. but that he was a very real person who woke up in the morning and brushed his teeth and went to work and faced down all of these incredible challenges and felt all the way through it while he was making decisions, while things were happening. i think that it's important.

i think if this show has any power, it reminds us that human beings are doing all of this. it's not just a date or name or event. human beings sort of moved through the world and made decisions and effected change and they should be picking up the mantle to do the same thing. >> i want to ask you one last question. you love hip-hop. >> love it. >> the show is delightful for anybody who enjoys the power of rhyme, right. of all the lines that you deliver, what's the one that like still as a couplet or a rhyme, every night you do it you're like this is the one you most enjoy. >> what's your personal hook? >> what do you most enjoy uncorking every night? >> it's in right hand man. the venerated virginian whose men are lining up to put me on a pedestal, writing letters to relatives, embellishing my eloquence but the elephant is in

the room, the truth is in your face when you hear the british cannons go boom. >> boom. boom, boom. thanks to the great chris jackson. just by looking in my eyes. they can tell when i'm really excited and thrilled. and they know when i'm not so excited and thrilled. but what they didn't know was that i had dry, itchy eyes. but i knew. so i finally decided to show my eyes some love. some eyelove. when is it chronic dry eye? to find out more, chat with your eye doctor and go to myeyelove.com. it's all about eyele, my friend ssoon, she'll be binge-studying. now she writes mostly in emoji. soon, she'll type the best essays in the entire 8th grade. today, the only spanish words he knows are burrito and enchilada. soon, he'll take notes en espanol. get back to great with the right gear.

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sayonara. "hardball with chris matthews" is next. i know you are but what am i? let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm joy reid. donald trump and hillary clinton continued to trade blows today over charges of racism and bigotry a day after clinton accused trump of encouraging and stoking racist voices. calling in to morning joe today, she said trump is taking hate groups and making them mainstream and helping a radical fringe take over the republican party.