good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. did you catch president obama today? if you didn't you missed the start of what could be the wildest barn storming presidential campaign ever and certainly a campaign for someone else's. barack obama made it clear today it's personal. he's in the race to succeed him because he wants hillary clinton to win and fanatically wants donald trump to lose, lose humiliatingly, lose in such a way that he'll disappear from the country's public life and a clear sign the press knows how to do it he choose pennsylvania today as the place he would plant his stake in donald trump's heart knowing trump knows he needs pennsylvania. he went there today in the 80 degree heat to rouse philadelphians in the same way he did in getting himself elected in '08 and '12. he wants to his presidency to

demolish a man that he snuck into the country and assumed an identity and used affirmative to get through harvard law. donald trump should have been more careful in who he made as an enemy. this one is coming back for payback. for a second straight day hillary clinton was off the trail recovering from pneumonia but we got word she will resume campaigning on thursday. today the president showed many why he's the best surrogate out there for hillary clinton. the president called clinton tough, prepared and fit to be commander in chief. here he is in philly. >> can i just say i'm really in to electing hillary clinton. this is not me going through the motions here. i really, really, really want to elect hillary clinton. i believe there has never been a

man or a woman more qualified than hillary clinton to serve as our president. >> it was a gorgeous day in the city which is now the global heritage city of this country. president obama seemed fired up, more fired up going after donald trump. he said trump's vision of the country is dark and he called trump out for hiding his tax returns and he said trump isn't fit to be commander in chief. here he is. >> i keep on reading this analysis that trump's got support from like working folks. really? this guy who spent 70 years on this earth showing no concern for working people. i mean, he wasn't going to let you on his golf course. he wasn't going to let you in his condo and now suddenly this guy's gonna be your champion. one candidate's family

foundation has saved countless lives around the world. the other candidate's foundation took money other people gave to his charity and then bought a six-foot tall painting of himself. i mean, i -- he had the taste not to go for the ten-foot version. he's not offering policies or plans. he's offering division and fear. he's planning if he scares enough people he might scare up enough votes to win this election. >> there are words that are magically to the political ear, he's hiding his tax returns and this man of the people, donald trump, won't let you on his golf course. anyway, secretary clinton could benefit of course from the president's help today as polls show the race between her and trump tightening, president obama is enjoying some of his best approval ratings. in the new poll out this week

president obama sits at 58% approval. nobody's got numbers like that but him and the wall street poll last month he has the suort of 96% of african-americans and 90% of democrats and 60% of young people. can the president help clinton win this race? we'll see. joining me now is an nbc political analyst and susan page. so we've loaded up our ranks with pennsylvanians who know this state. we have a guy that is so exciting. he has an afterglow from the game last night. the steelers did play a hell of a game. there's no doubt about it. governor, republicans have this weird sense -- i don't know what you call it. heart break hill might be a good phrase for pennsylvania. they always think they can win it and they don't. why is their thinking so wrong

they think they can knock off this guy and win the presidency by winning pennsylvania. >> because in non-presidential years the democratic registration which is over 900,000, that edge dissipates because democrats don't turn out in non-presidential years. i was the exception because i was a hometown guy when i ran. but in presidential years the turnout is extraordinarily good and president obama can jack that up better than anybody. i want to refer you to 2010 when there was a senate election between pat toomey and joe sestak. the president came in to philadelphia two times and michelle came in once and their message was they're out to get me. and he took that message into the city into different areas of the city and even though it was a republican year and the turnout pat told me when he saw

the turnout in philadelphia he thought he lost. so no one can generate urban turnout like the president. he's the turn-outer in chief. >> i hope you agree with me, i think he wants to beat trump almost more than he wants hillary clinton to be his successor. he wants him out of there after what he did to him. >> i've been covering this a long time covering presidential politics and i don't remember an outgoing sitting president campaigning this hard this early. i think it's almost unprecedented number one. number two the language that president obama used today in philly, that's tough political language and it's still only september and he's already got the pedal to the medal. philadelphia is the key to pennsylvania. because in part as the governor knows western pennsylvania has been trending more republican in the counties around pittsburgh have become more republican.

they're sort of part of appalachia. not the east coast. trump is going to get the votes out in the western part of the state and it's crucial for the president to turn out those people you talked about, african-americans, registered democrats and most important i think young people of all colors, white, african-american, hispanic, et cetera, they've got to turn out to make sure that pennsylvania remains heart break hill for the republicans. >> it's interesting. we have an incumbent democratic president right now. i can't think of a popular president, if you go back to eisenhower he campaigned hard for nixon at the very end. in new york he got big crowds. this time we have a popular president who seems to really like the person he's campaigning for. bill clinton and al gore had that weird conflict there. >> he can do the candidate some

good and the candidate likes him. john mccain, george w. bush was toxic. ronald reagan had a complicated relationship -- >> he got pennsylvania for george sr. >> he did campaigning for him but it's not the campaigning we saw today. >> obama was gleeful today. >> he was joyful. it's like it's like we don't see that on the campaign stump with either candidates we've got they don't seem happy to be there. he seemed happy to be there. >> governor, your the best mayor the city ever had. explain pennsylvania because the press doesn't get it. you can be in three quarters of the state but then you go to pittsburgh and philly and you're more in jersey or new york. you're in a different state. >> it's two separate and distinct states, urban and suburban versus rural and there's a lot of rural area.

pennsylvania is a big state, biggest state east of the mississippi in area and they have six different tv markets. howard is right about turnout in philadelphia but key number two for democrats to carry the state is to win the suburbs by significant numbers. barack obama in 2012 carried the four suburban counties. he carried it by a margin of 120,000. hillary clinton is on a pace to triple that if the polls are correct. if she carries the suburbs by 250 and the city anywhere near what barack obama carried it she's going to come out of the five counties three quarters of a million votes up. >> that's a third of the state. that's 11 and 22. howard, let's look at pennsylvania. my argument at the end of the show i might as well as give it away now, lee atwater, he said

the best way to win a campaign is to find a state that the other side knows they need to win and then early on yank it away from them. break their spirit. atwater did it in michigan with the democrats. if they take pennsylvania away from trump, doesn't he know he's going to lose. >> i think the mathematics don't work because pennsylvania has enough of appalachia in it, enough of the rural areas that the governor is talking about and enough of the counties around pittsburgh, washington county, fayette county, that are becoming more republican. >> i know that. >> trump has to win every one of those votes because he's basically maximizing white conservative rural turnout and ex-urban turnout. he has to get that maximum to have a chance at pennsylvania and the electoral college mathematics don't work out without pennsylvania.

i don't see how trump can win it without pennsylvania. >> president obama today mocked donald trump. his sarcasm today was so rich he knocked trump before his prepared romance with vladimir putin. it was rich stuff today from obama. let's watch. >> you got the man who just last week went on russian state television to talk down our military and to curry favor with vladimir putin. he loves this guy. he loves this guy. and when they interview and ask him why do you support this guy, he said he's a strong guy. look, he's got an 82% poll rating. well, hussein had a 98% poll rating.

if you control the media and you've taken away everybody's civil liberties and you jail dissidents, that's what happens. >> i watched all the faces like we all do in crowds. those people were having a great time and they completely got all his shots. there was no communication problem. they got the humiliation, the ridicule he was throwing at trump. >> you know what's the best way to make a point to put the knife with somebody, it's with a little bit of humor, which is what he was doing there by ridiculing the notion that you would have praise -- >> the irony. >> yeah. as you say everybody understood it. rather than a frontal assault about vladimir putin is a desperate, to talk about it that way it's just -- it engages the crowd. it makes the point. it's what makes politics fun. >> governor, you campaigned and this guy's ability to get the philadelphia attitude almost, come on, this is a joke.

this guy -- i mean their rich ridicule. your thoughts, is this gonna work with some of the republicans up there because he was saying today a lot of stuff like this isn't the party of lincoln. this isn't the party of reagan. this is outrageous. you should think about voting for hillary. >> yeah, i think so, chris. i think that's gonna work for suburban republicans. when he said that the iranian ships and made gestures towards our sailors and if he was president he would blow them out of the water, we're going to start a war because someone made gestures to us? good lord. he's unhinged. >> i think chris, i think that all the people in pennsylvania

who would be impressed by that threat and i know who those people are, they're already voting for donald trump. i think the governor's point is partly you've got these suburbanites that don't find that amazing. >> robert de niro in taxi saying you talking to me. coming up, donald trump's trying to make hillary clinton pay for her basket of deplorables comment but the clinton campaign says it's a win for them. this is "hardball," the place for politics.

while my opponent slanders you as deplorable and irredeemable, i call you hard-working american patriots

who love your country and want a better future for all our people. >> i love the gestures he gives. they're like jesus's gestures. that was donald trump today continuing his line of attack on hillary clinton for her remark this past friday that half his supporters are quote, a basket of deplorables. trump has called her remark the biggest mistake of the political season and clinton says she regrets saying it but some in the campaign say they welcome this debate. jessie ferguson said the trump campaign is seemingly inviting a debate to the extent in which their campaign has promoted a hate movement in this country that many americans do find deplorable as we saw monday night when the vp nominee refused to call david duke deplorable. that's according to the clinton campaign.

ever since secretary clinton expressed regret, trump has been fighting on our turf. as ferguson mentioned trump's running mate mike pence has declined to use the word deplorable even though he rejected david duke he wouldn't use the term deplorable. trump campaign manager said today on cnn that pence should have called duke deplorable if only to avoid negative headlines, however pence said later today he would not validate the language that clinton used, validate being his word. >> yesterday i was -- i was asked a question about that and i repeated that again. and the simple fact is that i'm not in the name-calling business, but i'm also not going to validate the language that hillary clinton used to describe the american people. hillary clinton wasn't talking about that bad man.

>> well, i'm joined by political analyst robert costa of the washington post. give us the reportage on this thing. what is it? who is going to win? my theory is topic decides who wins. no matter what the argument is if you're on certain topics it decides who wins. what's your view on this one? >> talking to clinton allies, clinton advisers, there's a sense that the more they can bring the alternative right into the national debate, clinton's on good foot and they want to have that conversation in the final weeks of the campaign, but when you talk to the trump people they think they reinforced trump's pitch as an anti-establishment force in politics. >> yeah. who's right? >> i think right now -- >> who's most convinced they're right. from talking to these people who is the most sure that talking

about the deplorables is evicted from which side? >> it depends on how the suburban voters swing. this is where you're all targeted. if you're in north carolina or ohio or pennsylvania, how do you hear this debate. when you hear deplorable does it scare you away from the trump campaign or does it make the secretary's campaign feel like something you can't be part of. >> thank you very much. great reporting. we're always watching you, sir. when we return my election diary on where this race stands right now and this is "hardball," the place for politics. third president?

male teacher: and the largest planet? someone we haven't heard from. female teacher: anyone else? through internet essentials, comcast has connected more than 3 million people in need to low-cost, high speed internet at home, helping to make sure that every hand in the classroom goes up. male teacher: okay, veronica. amphibian. male teacher: excellent. welcome to a brighter future. comcast. election diary tuesday, september 13, 2016, we're watching it. mark down today as the day president obama entered the 2016 election and showed his stuff. that stuff is his light joyous assault on the person of donald trump. obama wants this one. he wants it for hillary clinton because she'll protect his legacy personally, protect what he's for politically.

she'll do for him what any president needs once he's left the trappings of the white house and the presidency. president obama once said privately that the two things he'll miss when out of office is the plane air force one and the valet who sets out his clothes in the morning but one thing he won't be without is having a president in the white house speaking well of him and carrying on his policies. the last thing he wants is to be the president that the american people rejected with such gusto they were willing to replace him with donald trump. hillary clinton is unmatchable by the other side, one who knows where to strike at the opposition. lee atwater, a smart political operative for the republicans developed a method for breaking the other side's heart. find a state they know they need to win and then early on take it away from them. today we watched the president of the united states, a man from the other party, execute the

atwater tactic with glee. pennsylvania's mine he said today. that means you lose. that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. join me tomorrow night at 7:00 eastern. see you then.

tonight on "all in" -- >> do you mind if i just vent for a second? >> hillary clinton calls in backup. >> i really, really, really want to elect hillary clinton.

>> the president lets it fly in philly, dressing down donald trump. >> he won't let you on his golf course. he wasn't going to let you buy any of his condos. now suddenly this guy's going to be your champion? >> tonight barack obama's impassioned rallying cry, and why he was touting the single-biggest election headline of the week. >> republicans don't like to hear good news right now. >> plus "the washington post" on the latest explosive reporting on the foundation. did they flip the deplorable script. >> hillary clinton wasn't talking about that bad man. >> and new questions about donald trump's health to be answered by dr. oz? >> i'm not going to ask you a question she doesn't want to have answered. >> "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york. i'm chris hayes. keeping an eye on donald trump who is giving a speech on maternity leave, of all things,