>> what, and suddenly the audit wouldn't be a problem. and donald trump would just release his tax returns, sure he would. donald trump gets the last word. the 111th hour with brian williams is up next. and good evening and welcome from our headquarters here in new york. where have we heard that music before? 20 days until the first presidential debate. 63 days or 62, depending on how you count. while it may not be the 11th hour where you are watching, it will be is 1th hour. we will be here until election day. roughly 6 in 10 americans telling pollsters they are already exhausted by this campaign.

this day after labor day is the traditional start after all, of this fall campaign, today was about national security for both candidates in preparation for this commander in chief forum here in new york, which will air on this network tomorrow night, more on that after this, and for which they appeared to be trotting out their talking points today. >> he's very loose in his talk about nukes. he says he doesn't care if other countries get them. doesn't know why they haven't been used already. he says he has a secret plan to defeat isis, but the secret is, he has no plan. after all this talk, the only thing that's clear is he has no clue what he's talking about. >> i think it was 88 generals and admirals endorsed donald trump today, and these are the fighters. these are the fighters, not the political hacks that endorsed

hillary clinton two or three weeks ago. >> also today, him clinton again attacked donald trump for not releasing his tax returns, it came while she was speaking with reporters on her campaign plane. >> he said that americans don't care about his tax returnings, and he has also said it's none of our business. i just think he's dead wrong. he clearly has something to hide. >> and appearing on fox news tonight, donald trump responded to that a short time ago. >> nobody cares about it except some of the folks in the media, but just so you understand, i'm under audit, and when the audit is complete, i'll release my returns. >> meanwhile the latest polls are at least con fusing, in the poll of likely voters puts trump back on top by two points, the national poll by the nbc news/survey monkey puts trump on top in a four candidate contest.

our political correspondent chuck todd, a much higher concentration of white voters without a college degree, not impossible, but would be a history making shift from four years ago. in just a few minutes, we'll be talking to the ohio governor, john kasich on this race. but pittsburgh some of your campaign warriors are in our studio, casey hunt, who covers the clinton campaign, halle jackson who covers the trump campaign. >> we know there's obviously our big commander in chief forum happening on the intrepid. you've got both candidates talking about national.

hillary clinton first, and donald trump has already previewed what he'll talk about tomorrow in philadelphia, prior to that forum in new york city. he'll be focusing on the military. we can share that donald trump will be sharing rebuilding the military and will be calling an end to the defense sequester. he wants to stop these automatic budget cuts that are happening. this is not a particularly new kind of policy description, this puts donald trump in line with roughly many other republicans who also want to see the end to this. the big question is going to be, what is his plan to offset that increase, basically military spending. there's a couple of ways that his aid says he'll try to do that, one is to reduce government inefficients and another is to get rid of unauthorized spending, the budget. we're told trump will talk about the dollar figure.

and there's still questions about what specifically he would do and whether it would be enough. and he'll be going after hillary clinton on foreign policy, hitting this theme in north carolina on adventurism as donald trump reveals more about how he plans to fight isis. let's play what he's now saying, this is a new line from him. about his plan to fight terror. >> so we're going to convene my top generals and give them a simple instruction, they will have 30 days to submit to the oval office, a plan for soundly and quickly defeating isis. we have no choice. >> so his generals will come up with a plan to defeat isis. remember what trump has been saying for months, that he has a plan, that he doesn't want to talk about it because he wants it to be unpredictable. >> and casey hunt, on the clinton side of the ledger, she is preparing for this tomorrow night, which we will watch live, but also down the road to the

debates. >> this is an attack she's been honing for months, this is where she first really found her comfort zone in going after donald trump. people in the clinton circle are nervous, they're worried about the first debate. they're also have a little bit of fun, they have chosen the person who's playing donald trump in this debate prep. it's one person, so far the reviews are pretty good, they won't give up who it is. but they tell me, it's not an actor, not a lawmaker, won't be somebody's name we even recognize. but donald trump has resisted this kind of forum debate prep. and this has been an intriguing secret that the clinton campaign is excited to let out of the bag at their leisure. >> this is not the kind of debate prep we're seeing on the other side? >> i think they're taking him on his word, but they're not going to not prepare for that.

you know how diligent hillary clinton is, someone who is a policy wonk just studies the debates. whatever policy opposition that she can. the problem is, the places where you can't easily prepare for something. how do you take a candidate whose main strength is preparing, preparing and someone who's unpredictable. >> to our other friend, robert costa at "the washington post," national political reporter, and robert, sadly for you, you have often broken the next day's news on the air. what do you like, what's on your radar for tomorrow? >> i think the speech halle brought up, the trump speech tomorrow in philly.

because trump's making an overture about these republican hawks, they have been wary about him for months, he's saying i'm going to increase defense spending, i'm going to get rid of the sequester, he's saying for the hawks, for this chapter, stick with me. it's in philly, tough city for republicans, but he's also giving a little nod to the philly suburbs and saying i'm a security candidate, and they vote rich. they voted for george bush eight years as. >> so many folks in politics because of how much it's changed over the years. >> it's not just philly, it's north carolina, it's ohio, it's virginia, and you have these two candidates right now, we're coming out of the holiday, they're shadow boxing, both going to the same states, both talking to the same kind of voters, in this age of isis, you

talk to the clinton insiders, they think the security minder voters, the swing voters, they're really interested in national security. >> thank you very much for being with us, we'll probably lean on you again tomorrow night. we're going to talk about polls a lot at this hour, and remember, there are national polls of likely voters and then there are the battleground states. they are still largely favoring the clinton campaign, possibly hurting trump's efforts in these states. his habit of picking fights with many of his republican critics, today the "new york times" reported on how trump's feud with ohio's republican governor john kasich could be costing the nominee ground game support from the loyal kasich gop network. speaking to abc news, trump said he was disappointed in kasich for not offering an endorsement. this evening i had a chance to sit down with the ohio governor

and i asked him whether he had any regrets about how he ran his congressional race or if he chose not to attend the gop convention in ohio. >> you can either operate on the dark side of the street, where everything is doom and gloom, or you can recognize the problems that people have and we can come together as a nation and we can overcome and solve those problems. and, look, the fact is that i kind of live on the sunny side of the street here, and i have no regrets at all. here's the thing, brian, in politics, first of all, people like you to stick to your principles until it's principles that they don't like. i have been around long enough to understand that. so that doesn't dissuade me. secondly, politics is not bean bag for me, it's a serious business, and when i talk about the things i talked about in the campaign and still talk about, i'm not going to change my position or walk away from them.

and had i seen something that was unifying, fine. but i'm not spending my time going around attacking donald trump, i'm spending my time like i'm here tonight, helping the united states senators, traveling the country, will continue to. doing political campaigning for republicans in the united states house and i'm helping governors, i was just in new hampshire for chris sununu. i think i should direct this party in a direction -- >> can donald trump win ohio? will donald trump win ohio? >> you know, the situation gets down to this. there are people, you takes youngstown, for example, where people feel that all the steel mills are going to come back, i don't think they are, we want manufacturing in ohio, but they are sort of yearning for yesterday, and we need to get

into thinking about today and tomorrow, in some of these regions in ohio, he'll do well. but the question is, what will the urban areas do for hillary clinton. i have always said if you're not a unifier, you have a hard time in ohio. we'll see if that holds to be true. we still have labor day to election day to watch. >> do you think if hillary clinton wins ohio, that will be ball game for her? >> the map has changed, but ohio's really critically important, but there are other places that are in play now, north carolina, virginia, that are in play now that weren't in the past. i don't spend my time studying all these maps and go do my job and be governor of ohio and make sure we can unify and lift it. >> will decency emerge from this campaign still alive and in style? >> as i always tell my friends

in both the jewish and christian community, there's two things we have to recapture, what did moses bring down? and what did jesus said. love your neighbor as yourself. we need to slow our lives down to live a life bigger than ourselves. the movie "sully" is coming out. the beauty of sully is he wouldn't get off that plan that landed in the hudson river until he got off that plane. it's in us, it's written in our hearts, i do think we can unify, but these are unsettling, fast moving times but there are a lot of people that find themselves in the ditch, and we have to help them get out. >> john kasich goes to his local polling place, who do you vote for? >> i'll let you know.

>> i'll let everyone know what i decide to do when i cast my vote. but up until now my words -- >> perhaps willing to say who it is. we'll have to wait and see along with everyone else. our first break, and then coming up, how this long hot summer of 2016 may have fundamentally changed both candidates, certainly the way they're campaigning tonight.

these are live pictures, this is the deck of the aircraft carrier "intrepid" the museum on the hudson river, doesn't look like an aircraft carrier, because the stage truly is set for tomorrow's candidate's forum, the commander in chief forum. more on that in a bit, but we wanted to show you what the production will look like tomorrow evening. if you have joined us by all our specials, we're here with our family, political analyst eugene robinson, who happens to be a journalist for "washington post," and nicole wallace, who served as communications director among other jobs for george w. bush. and our campaign veteran and strategist, steve schmidt,

welcome to you all. >> it's great to be here brian. >> i like to start with nicole. the changes you have noticed in these two candidates, what they did on their summer vacation? >> i think this long, hot summer changed our candidates in fundamental ways we would be remisto gloss over. she has for the last few day has held press gaggles on the plane, and she has traveled with them. they knew that would go a long way toward maybe addressing some of these questions about her being forthcoming. he on the other hand reads off a coup card every day.

he made a point, no, i will not, you will not seen anyone other than the unscripted straight talking rally speech giving guy and he's now reading off a teleprompter more often than not. they both want to win and they both have been convinced by some people around them, at least some parts of the day, that they have vulnerabilities they need to address. >> is this where you saw the campaign after labor day? because there's no one in the business that i know that saw this coming a year ago, but with the closing gavel from the dnc convention, we're now the day after labor day, is this kind of where you saw -- >> we had some of the best conventions in the democratic convention, and then you had the worst convention in the republican nomination. he was on the edge of going over

the cliff, she was on the edge of putting this race away, she was over 50%. chris wallace asked the question and she gives an inexpolitic kbl answer on her e-mails. and it's come to labor day, despite all the mistakes that donald trump has made, and they are too many to catalog here this night. she's ahead, she's ahead in the states that will decide the outcoming but he remains within striking distance and that's got to be worrisome to the clinton campaign. >> this strikes me as a kind of sneaky backdoor debate, this is more than an early dress rehearsal, i think people who have been in the fog of labor day, perhaps running from fake hurricanes, this may come up fast on people, and while it's

one before the other, it's hillary before donald trump. and it's going to be an event. >> you'll turn it on and they'll be talking. what each are trying to do is make the evening about the other. because when it's a referendum on donald trump, hillary clinton does very well, when it's a referendum on donald trump -- hillary clinton, donald trump does very well. it will be interesting to see if trump is able to bluff his way through that, or tries to bluff his way through that or just falls back on make america great. >> asked donald trump the difference between sunni and shiia. do you think it matters who goes first or second?

>> i think the expectations for donald trump are so low, because she's been so successful in creating a caricature of him. where she shows the kids watching some of his wacky remarks, if he goes up there and speaks in a low convincing tone, he will exceed expectations. >> there's an even tougher spot out tonight on veterans featuring among others max cleland and in the background is donald trump talking about sacrifice. >> donald trump is temp mentally unfit to have thousands of nuclear weapons under his command. we'll see tomorrow if she pulls that punch or if she drives it home. that's a unique argument in this day and age, when you get into

the contrast these candidates lay out. you have not had anybody in the nuclear age say this person is mentally unfit. and you'll be picking up on the arguments that michael bloomberg made on the debate stage. >> thank you for staying up late with us on this inaugural edition. proof that the final stretch of this campaign has indeed taken off.

our last thing here before we go tonight, has to do with the first sure sign of the fall campaign, proof that even this campaign will at least have something in common with years past, hillary clinton now has a campaign plane. it's a specially outfitted boeing 737 which means the media now right along in the back of the plane and prepare to hear the phrase, come back, as we hear she's going to come back to the plane to talk to the press while airborne. hearing that a president or a candidate is coming back during a flight has nothing to do with their standing in the polls and has everything to their access to them. while the press is not allowed

on trump's plane, except for special exceptions, team clinton is already learning that when the candidate comes back to chat and for how long can be an effective way to make her seem acceptable, even while she avoids a press conference for nine months or so so far. just today clinton talked about tax returns and her recurring cough which some websites will have you believe is fatal. and while she's tracting down the main air have sadly gone the way of the prop jet, another tradition made an appearance on the clinton plane today, that is rolling an orange down the aisle, an orange that contains a message the the press corps for the candidate on the plane. the message on the orange was dinner with trump or putin.

an aid circled putin and rolled the orange back into the waiting arms of the press corps, and on a presidential campaign, that defines presidential entertainment. that is our inaugural edition of our pop-up broadcast, we'll pop back up here at this very same time. "hardball" with chris matthews is next. lady and gentlemen, start your engines, let's play "hardball." we have an exciting show tonight. the negative stories now breaking on former president bill clinton and on donald trump. and the fear that the rush that,

meaning vladimir putin is playing mischief with his new campaign. but let's get started. here's how this presidential campaign looks right now back at any arrival. even though polls show the race getting tighter a bit. the facts staring at us and the two major candidates is that hillary clinton has a solid lead over donald trump where it matters most, where it will decide the election, nablg it shows her winning the election even if each one of the -- a brand new nbc news battleground map gives clinton 270 electoral votes, meaning if the election were held today, she would win 270 electoral votes.

another 72 electoral votes are counted as lean democratic and that means 133 that are likely for trump and another 42 are leaning trump. what all this means is that trump is at the bottom of a very steep mountain tonight. and one route for him to climb that mountain is an historic victory in the upcoming debate. obviously hillary clinton and her team were going to try to crush that hope, to paint her as a dangerous commander in chief, and that's what she did today in tampa, with a message geared to veterans. >> his companies, trump companies have fired veterans because they had to take time off to fulfill their military commitments. and when asked why he would insult a gold star family, he suggested that his sacrifices

are somehow comparable to theirs. he's talked about letting syria become a free zone for isis, look at the map, donald. he's talked about sending in american ground troops, not on my watch, that is not what we're going to do. he says he has a secret plan to defeat isis, but the secret is he has no plan. >> jason miller, the communications advise for for donald trump said, quote, hillary clinton's remarks today in tampa are exactly what you would hear from a candidate who makes up in november and has lost the election.

trump if he wins every one of the 92s to up states, he has to win all of them and even if he wins all of them, hillary still wins. >> arguably he's had a big lift in the past few weeks, because of hillary clinton getting when you look further into the polling group, you look into the demographic groups and i can't see evidence of him really expanding his base in any of these other demographic groups other than white males where he continues to be dominant, so it's in terms of the polling averages, it's in all the demographic groups. his rough state strategy that he said he would rely on from the

beginning, if you have states like michigan and pennsylvania going blue and then you're not making it up in some of these newer swinging states like colorado and virginia. >> a brand-new nbc news online poll shows clinton holding a four point lead, 31-37. but libertarian candidate jill stein are still a distant third and fourth. a new cnn poll, shows trump pulling ahead with a two point lead. in this poll johnson has less votes and he's 7%. they both do better, johnson and stein in our own poll. it seems to me trump has a mountain to climb right now, if he wins all the tossup states, he still loses. he needs to go on and win wisconsin and pennsylvania to win the election. does he throw the long ball? does he go for a hail mary? >> he's got to throw the long

ball, he's got to do the short game on the ground. not so much to win that constituency, but to pull those numbers down a bit, as opposed to losing 80 to 20, you're losing a little bit less than that, a lot less than that. but that's the realty for him. but look, chris, going to what heidi just said, this is no surprise, this blue wall so to speak has been here for quite some time, four out of the last six elections have landed for the democrats because of the way the states are set up nationally. this goes to a broader view of the party, a broader view of the presidential messaging by your candidate, et cetera. so this is going to be a long hail mary pass for the trump campaign starting right now. >> so the bunching of liberal voting generally in the big

cities, hurts the democrats in terms of redistricting, but it certainly wins more in the house. he said today that hillary clinton doesn't look presidential. let's catch this action by trump. >> let me ask you, you often talk about hillary clinton's stamina, you even said she doesn't look presidential. >> i really do believe that, yes. >> what do you mean by that? >> i don't think she has a presidential look and you need a presidential look, you have to get the job zone. i think if she went to mexico, she would have had a total failure, we had a big success. >> are you talking about aesthetics? >> she says things about me that are horrible, the single greatest thing people know me for me is my temperament. it's my single greest asset i have is my temperament.

>> this cycle, voters know all too well what's not presidential. donald trump in his narrow views and divisive rhetoric. you and i with the staff back and forth, is so boring, the back and forth of these lines, trump says he'll never take back anything, even when dave muir feeds him a line, you said she doesn't look presidential. >> he's all too happy to do it. every time you think that donald trump has been schooled by somebody like kellyanne conway, his pretty smart campaign manager, to cool it on this kind of thing, he does it again. that was muted by trump's standards. it was vaguely sexist, it was every uncouth type of remark in the book. but here's the thing. donald trump's problem is twofold right now.

over the weekend, he was advertising heavily on -- we're talking about football before, he was advertising heavily on college football games, who's watching that? the constituency that should already be his. and in terms of the republican party, right now it's about three-quarters of the republican party either enthusiastically or reluctantly supporting donald trump. he's going to detroit, not in expectation of getting huge numbers of african-american voters, he's going to detroit to try to get some unurban voters who think he's nothing but a flat out racist. >> the man to take the birther controversy on obama main stream. >> do you think it's time for trump to acknowledge all that birther stuff was bogus so that people who he might be reaching out to might be more apt to listen to his message?

>> he said that to casualty. he took away the guy's original sin and said confess. trump's not going to take back birthers. >> it's his stock and trade. >> he should, he cannot go and sit down in a roomf african-americans, i don't care what their political strich is, and not know that that hangs over that conversation. >> thank you michael steele, heidi fineman. coming up the academy award winner tom hanks is going to be here, who plays sully the commercial airline pilot who landed a plane safely in the sudden on river.

let's get into how you calculated all that. >> you're saying you didn't do any -- >> i eyeballed it. >> you eyeballed it? >> yes. >> that was a scene from the new film "sully" starring tom hanks as captain sullenberger who successfully landed flight 1549 on the hudson river. the movie is an untold story of the life or death split decision he had to make on his take off from laguardia. >> we have lost thrust on both engines. we're turning back toward laguardia. >> which engine did you lose. >> both engines.

>> ignition. >> ignition. >> confirm idle. >> flight 1549, do you want to try to land on run way 13? >> we're unable, we may end up in the hudson. >> run way traffic 81. >> unable. >> what do you need to land? >> confirm off. >> too low, terrain. too low, terrain. >> this is the captain. brace for impact. >> brace for impact. we all fear that. all the passengers and crew walked away with their lives, everybody got off that plane. but as the film shows the story did not end on that frigid day in january. joined by the star of the film,

legendary actor tom hanks. >> stop shouting at me, chris. stop shouting. i'm with you, baby. i'm right here. >> i got to sell. i think everybody when we heard about that event that we say well, things always go wrong, that went right. because of one guy. >> it was one guy and he had about -- the birds hit about minute 100 and he landed, excuse me. second 100 and he was in the water at second 208. i think he had about 35 seconds to decide what he was going to do and the remaining of that to actually do it safely. >> the choices would have been to try to fly over new york city, probably the most densely populated part of the country, risk the lives of all the people he could have crashed into and not made it. >> i think actually that would have been the standard operating procedure. if an engine had thrust, if he had had power, he would have done that. but he did not know what the status of anything was at that

point and so in talking to him, the physics of it. he felt his body go forward, he realized -- he processed all the information, all the years of experience, he said we have no engines, and if we have no engineses, i need a big flat space to put it down. >> isn't that what we all hope for when we're flying with a pilot, anybody can probably fly in nice weather, but when you're hit by shear or something, you want the pro in there, the guy who's been through it all. >> i think you want to see some gray hair and a paunch on those guys. >> i saw the film and the thing that grabbed me is how, when the plane was in the water, before it sank, he's walking down the aisle as captain, all the way to the end of the plane and back up through the plane, i'm watching every moment of this, making

absolutely sure there's nobody left on that plane. >> if anybody's crippled, if anybody dies or anybody drowns, it's on him. his decision would have meant the death of any number of people. after it was in the water, he had to rely on being saved. he had landed the plane, and he hoped that everybody was going to show up and pick people up out of the water. everything that happened was waiting for the official shoe to drop, that was going to determine the cause of the forced water landing, and if he had anything to do with that cause, he was toast. >> if you don't get excited about the thrill of watching that near-death experience of all these people, you're not alive. here's captain sully, with ntsb investigators. >> the best chance those

passengers had was on that river. and i would bet my life on it. in fact i did. and i would do it again. >> aviation engineers have to call late if you have enough to ends -- that's unprecedented. >> everything is unprecedented until it happens the first time. >> i have seen you in all your movies, including "splash." "sleepless in seattle." "saving private ryan" you come across as a guy just like everybody else. a guy, all of a sudden, a regular straight arrow is stuck in a situation he's not used to.

>> i got this voice and i got this body and there's nothing particularly dynamic, no one fears me. except my crack staff. >> you must not be in the news business. >> well, you know. but i think, look, when i go to see movies, i always wonder, well i could be in that position, except make james bond movies, what would i do if i was in the same circumstance? i'm a blank canvass, man, and this is all you get. >> this reminds me having gone to movies my whole life. "man who knew too much." >> he's a very accomplished guy, sully, but the question is, what do i do now? how do i get out of this? >> he wasn't ready for celebrity. >> no, he wanted to do his job perfectly and get blamed for baggage claim not returning the suitcases in time.

>> the movie's called "sully." it's out this friday and its an extraordinary movie about a guy with guts. when we return, my election diary, where this race for president stands.

as i said at the beginning of the show, it's great to be back. from now until election day, i want to do something special. i'm calling it "election diary." here it goes. tuesday, september 6th, nine weeks to go to the election day, and the situation for donald trump looms from dire to desperate. you can see the reason in the numbers. i'm using the nbc/"wall street journal" numbers here. looking at the states which are headed toward, leaning toward, likely to go to hillary clinton, she has already reached the 270

electoral votes needed to take the presidency. this means that even if, and that's a huge if, even if trump pulls a win in every one of the toss-up states -- nevada, nebraska, north carolina, eye, ohio, maine, georgia and florida, even if he gets every one of those, he is still short, still a loser. to repeat, if trump runs a very good campaign for the next nine weeks, does most things right, few things wrong, wins on points, in other words, he's still out of the money. still has to stand there election night, saluting the next president of the united states, hillary clinton. no, to win this election, it's now clear today, tuesday, september 6th, that trump cannot count on doing well this month and next. what he needs is a man-made miracle, a game-changer, the hail mary, the event that, to use the old language of superman, that changes the course of mighty rivers. well, to me, what comes to mind is the first debate, set for september 26th, when trump stands just a few feet away from the rival he calls crooked

hillary. what will he do that night that changes our perception of the choice between these two candidates? what will he say that stuns the voters, who are still listening, the ones still budgeable, that his central message is true. the voter faces one question, are they happy with the country's direction? are they ready to sign their name to one more underwriting of the country's establishment, or are they ready, given the chance, to take a choice on shaking up the american political system to its roots, to its foundations, to make the politicians of this country, of both parties, shutter? to take a chance at putting a man like donald trump in lincoln's chair? that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "the rachel mad doe show" starts right now.

>> i'm alex trebek. if you're age 50 to 85, i have an important message about security. write down the number on your screen, so you can call when i finish. the lock i want to talk to you about isn't the one on your door. this is a lock for your life insurance, a rate lock, that guarantees your rate can never go up at any time, for any reason. but be careful. many policies you see do not have one, but you can get a lifetime rate lock through the colonial penn program. call this number to learn more. this plan was designed with a rate lock for people on a fixed income who want affordable life insurance that's simple to get.

coverage options for just $9.95 a month, less than 35 cents a day. act now and your rate will be locked in for life. it will never increase, guaranteed. this is lifelong coverage that can never be cancelled as long as you pay your premiums, guaranteed. and your acceptance is guaranteed, with no health questions. you cannot be turned down because of your health. call for your information kit and read about this rate lock for yourself. you'lllso get a ee gift with great iormation both a free, with no obligation, so don't miss out. then decide.ormation, read about e 30 day, 100 percent money back guarantee. don't wait, call this number now. ♪all this number now.

tonight on "all in" -- >> the scams, the frauds, the questionable relationships -- >> labor day sprint is on, and hillary clinton, unloads. >> he clearly has something to hide. >> tonight, renewed controversy over the trump foundation and alleged pay for play. as team clinton thinks they've found the campaign's first real scandal. >> of course i asked donald trump for a contribution, that's not what this is about. >> plus, inside trump's big national security push today. >> a short number of years ago, wasn't even a word. now the cyber is so big. >> unpacking the new nbc news battleground map. reporter gabriel sherman on today's massive headlines from