♪ >> we have no leadership. and honestly, that starts with secretary clinton. >> all right, you have two minutes on the same question, to defend tax increases of the wealthiest americans, secretary clinton. >> i have a feeling by the end of this evening i'm going to be blamed for everything that's ever happened. >> why not. >> yeah, why not. >> that's so weird. kind of how the evening went. welcome back, our coverage continues. >> that was so weird.

she's trying to basically make the point that he's doing this randomly, and he goes, i'm doing this randomly, and she goes, you're doing this randomly, and we all agree this is total insanity. so weird this is a presidential debate. so weird. >> a few minutes ago, chris matthews said, in effect, you can tell a lot from a spin room when there's been a slam dunk. when there's been a decisive victory and corollarily a loss. you can tell by the people in it. chris has a prominent person in that spin room right now that will tell a lot. hey, chris. >> kellyanne conway, i remember an earlier name. talking about being in ireland this weekend. look, donald trump, your candidate, must have known that hillary clinton was going to come at him with the birther issue. that probably lester holt would do it. that they would go after him on the tax returns thing. why wasn't he ready? >> he was ready for both. >> he was? >> yes, he repeated on the first

issue exactly what he had said ten days earlier. >> but nobody buys this audit thing. >> i'm sorry, i was talking about the birther issue. >> no one buys the audit thing on the income taxes. which taxes are being audited? >> i have no idea. >> are they federal or state? >> definitely federal. >> is it his company or personal taxes? >> i would assume it's both. i don't know. i've talked to his lawyers and accountants and i've asked them, what's the big deal, why can't you release them? they have said, we do not recommend that he release his taxes while he's under audit. the only time hillary clinton's e-mails were mentioned is when donald trump mentioned them on his answer about taxes. i'll go against the advice of my accountants and -- >> what's the connection?

>> the connection is, she's, you must release your taxes, you must release your taxes and he is saying, release your 33,000 e-mails. >> so they're negotiable? >> no, he said he would go against the advice of his -- >> he said, i will release my taxes if you release your e-mails. >> people want to know what their tax returns will look like. >> but he said, if you do this, i'll do that. >> good thing he mentioned her e-mails, 66% of americans say she's not honest or trustworthy. why is that? >> let's talk about this birther thing, as i mentioned. to bring up the name sid blumenthal, a name that nobody recognizes, why would that defend him? >> he was naming the person who went to mcclatchy. he gave a very specific example. he said this person, went to mcclatchy, respected news organization, is what mr. trump said tonight, and that mcclatchy folks actually sent a reporter to kenya. >> i know the story.

that sounds legitimate, but the question put to him by the moderator, lester holt, was, why did you persist for five years in hitting this point that the president wasn't legitimate? what did that have to do with sim blumenthal? >> what he said was, i'm just going to repeat what he said for you. he said it started with clinton campaign associates. >> i know. >> hold on. then he said, he was born in this country and i want to move on to creating jobs and defeating isis. and look at the top issues. >> back to the debate, hillary clinton had a very structured strategy tonight. point by point she hit him on personal matters, whether she said rightly or wrongly, perhaps wrongly, he inherited $14 million -- >> that's wrong. >> that he was going to blow apart the federal deficit by $5 trillion. >> wrong. >> that he wouldn't release his taxes, that he had stiffed his suppliers as a businessman, point by point to get him to

react. and in every case he reacted. was that a good strategy to respond to every charge? >> other people were saying he was restrained. so i guess folks will see it however they want to. >> she was setting the agenda. >> she has spent the last however many days and weeks deciding what she wanted to make sure people heard in the debate. >> isn't that smart? >> but why does she need to do that? here is the answer, chris, because she doesn't do what he does on the campaign trail. he'll leave again at 8:00 tomorrow to fly to florida and end up in chicago tomorrow night. he goes where the voters are. we have to wait to hear about what she thinks. do you think the voters deserve 90 minutes times three to find out what they think on the issues? >> will he prepare for the next debate? >> he was prepared for this debate. >> will he engage in mock debates? will he practice, in other words? >> he practiced.

>> no, practice answering tough questions back and forth. >> he did. i was there. for hillary clinton's campaign trying to shame the media into helping them prop up their candidate, you better have virtual fact-checking. >> they didn't shame me. >> that's right. i hope nobody took the bait. i thought it was terrible for them to say to the media, you ought to be doing your job and make sure he doesn't get away with x, y, and z. she had this really odd moment, and you can go on our website, we're changing our whole website into a fact checker for donald trump. but she was fact-checked tonight that she had called african american youth super predators. >> you can't find out evidence as to whether he came out against the iraq war beforehand? >> he did. >> a news clip, an interview, a tape, any kind of physical evidence? >> yes. the neil caputo interview, and

he said he used to argue with sean hannity on the phone. sean vifrd that. >> does he have the transcript? >> i don't know if sean has a transcript. >> i mean, not on the air? >> remember too, he was a private citizen. >> i know all that, but he's bragging about how he was right about the war. >> i want everybody to remember that hillary clinton was a united states senator who cast her vote in support of the iraq war. >> donald trump never can show any evidence -- >> she's not said that. did she say that. >> i'm not go to speak for her. but lester holt asked her -- asked him. he corrected him on the air and said, you do not have any evidence that you opposed the war before it started. do you? >> his evidence is the neil caputo interview. >> where is that? >> the esquire profile. and today somebody sent us a clip of him with wolf blitzer talking about what a disaster the war was. >> did he say it before the war? >> he said before he was against

it. while it was going on, he said -- >> okay, i can't find any evidence that he was opposed to the war before it started. if you would help me, it would be helpful. did you ask her why she voted for the iraq war? she was a united states senator. he wouldn't just answer somebody over there, if hillary clinton is going to tell barack obama he's wrong on tpp, used to be the gold standard, and now she's against it. >> you assert that donald trump is right in saying he has hard evidence, that he opposed the iraq war. >> he said he opposed it. he said he said it. >> you're like a lawyer defending a client. >> and here's why not. hold on. he's not on trial, and he wasn't in office then where people are asking him, how are you going to vote on the war? he was a private citizen. he was a businessman and he had conversations with people about the war. you know what everybody else is using? he does this radio interview with howard stern about a

million things. and howard stern says, so, should we invade iraq. donald trump answer, yeah, i guess so. not very emphatic. not like hillary clinton running down saying iraq war, yes. >> but it's a yes. it's yeah. does yeah mean no? that's a hell of an argument. anyway, are we going to have more debates with donald trump? >> of course. i wish there were more. >> no mock debates beforehand? >> chris, he prepares plenty. believe me. i'm there. thank you. >> thank you for coming on tonight, kellyanne conway. back to you guys. >> okay. they've got an audience in the spin room. >> i heard that. i heard vague applause. >> seeing chris matthews and he and kellyanne conway know each other very well. they've been on tv a lot together from long before she was his campaign manager. seeing them go back and forth on that point at that level and

never get there, and never get to the end of that very simple question, shows you how good she is at getting around those -- doing the slalom around those cones. while that was all happening, we did just get something new from the trump campaign, which mr. trump said himself in the spin room before he left the venue. >> which would explain some hand gestures we saw him use as he left. >> i think that's possible. a reporter, lester holt, seems like you were debating two people. trump, i thought he was fine. about lester holt. but i felt it was fine. and they also had -- they gave me a defective mike. did you notice that? my mike was defective within the room. then trump says, no, no, i wonder was that on purpose, was that on purpose, but i had a mike that wasn't working properly. but overall, i thought it was great. and if you look at your polls, they're through the roof.

he's saying he had a defective microsoft r microphone. >> yes, nicole would have us believe it was a conversation about take-out. but he was discussing a serious topic with his son-in-law and one aide and his press conference secretary and i thought someone miami the international symbol for a microphone. >> whoa at do you mean? you don't know what it is? come o nicole. >> it could have been the international symbol for calzone. [ laughter ] >> forget it. bread sticks or no? >> okay. >> we're going to rerack that. while we're having a moment, james carville would like in. james, critique the job you just heard kellyanne conway doing up against withering questioning from chris matthews. >> well, look, i thought i was back watching crossfire.

look, she talked a lot and she has a difficult job. one point i wanted to make is so much of the trump persona and so much of what he talks about is winning and how he's a winner and everybody's a loser. and i think a lot of his supporters take pride in the fact that he's such a winner and he was anything but that tonight. i wonder what the effect of this is going to be on the enthusiasm of his suorters, that he actually, and he got beat by hillary clinton who to a lot of his people is evil incarnate or a weak person or something like that. so this is kind of a unique thing where somebody whose whole branding is built around being a winner and he can win for the country really lost so bad tonight. just going to be curious to see how he carries that through. but i agree with you. we got two more debates to come. she's going to take each one of these things deadly serious. and nicole, i bet you tomorrow that roger ailes gets out that he didn't have very much to do

with preparation. i just bet you that the word comes out from roger. i didn't have anything to do with this. don't pin this on me. >> i wouldn't be surprised myself if that made its way into the media conversation. you know what, james, i have a question for you. i asked hugh hewitt and i'm surprised by his answer. the never trump people are men and women without an island, and i thought that his -- trump's complete incoherence on foreign policy might be the bridge that lets them sort of walk or crawl over to her. i was surprised to hear hugh shut that down as even a possibility. i think it's a distinctive possibility that some of those folks could say, never trump and i was never hillary, but this is about our nation's next commander in chief at a time of extraordinary international crisis. do you predict there are some republicans who make their way over to her after tonight's performance? >> yeah, i think there will be more. but i also think that what she had to do was keep a lot of

white college voters who normally vote republican, who are very skeptical of him. i think she did a good job of helping to win those voters over. i think he did a very poor job of convincing them. because democrats have never carried white college. romney lost them by 14. i was watching something on your network earlier of pointing out what it was. and i thought if any demographic was helped by hillary clinton and hurt by trump's performance, it's a key demographic. it is white college. and i can't imagine that not only his foreign policy answers, his gestures, his demeanor was impressive to those voters in the country when you have all the persuasion in this electorate. i think that is going to have a big effect. i agree with chris, it's hard for a hundred million people to watch this and not have some effect on the electorate.

it's just -- i think it will. >> i agree. i neglected to point out, chris is going to anchor or coverage in the hours to come from the campus of hofstra. james carville, proud son of louisiana, who for some reason tonight is in the desert tonight in arizona, and james, we could do a separate hour -- >> the saints lost. >> i've always avoided the topic of lsu football. we could do an hour. that's a tough one. >> we're coming back. >> okay, i know that. i knew you would say that. thank you, james. always a pleasure. >> thank y'all so much. enjoy tonight. you bet. thank you. >> another smart guy who joins us tonight, presidential historian and author, michael beschloss. i'll put it bluntly, if none of us in this room had seen anything like that tonight, you sure haven't ever seen anything like that tonight. >> oh, you live long enough in

life and you get to see everything, brian. i did not expect to see what i saw tonight. we were talking the last couple days, you know, historically, i figured what you'd probably see tonight was what john kennedy tried successfully to do in 1960 and jimmy carter did in '76 and ronald reagan in 1980, all of them running against incumbents, voters concerned they might not be up to presidential level. i figured he would prepare and be logical and steady and resolve doubts, yet this was not someone who was ready for primetime. the polls, many of them have been moving toward trump the last couple days. i was astounded at how unprepared he was, especially on national security. that discussion of nuclear policy was almost incoherent, how thin-skinned he was and

obsessed with defending elements of his personal history. if he had this enormous opportunity tonight. he could have put himself very much on the road to the white house. instead, he delivered this performance that was not presidential, kicked away the moment, and all blamed on, most of all, a defective microphone, that's something i've never seen or heard. >> michael, it's rachel here in new york. >> hi, rachel. >> so good to have you with us tonight. >> thank you. >> one of the things i've been thinking, regardless of who wins this election, whether or not trump's candidacy has broken some of the norms in terms of what we will expect from presidential candidates hence. one of the most overt ones of this is this fact that every major party candidate since nixon has released his tax returns. hillary clinton, maybe more than anything tonight, came loaded for bear against donald trump in terms of why he has not released his tax returns. but i wanted to get a sense from you, as to how you assessed his

answer. i, just as a citizen, have an interest in their continuing to be a norm in this country that our candidates release their tax returns. what's the status of that norm after tonight? >> well, i think the status of that norm, if he is elected president, a lot of things change and that's probably one of them. that's going to be a change in this political system most likely. if he's defeated and especially if it's a reasonable margin, i think republicans will look back and say, this is not a happy year for us and let's have nominees in the future who do not behave that way. >> and michael, what about the conversation rachel and i were having at the top of the evening, talking about nixon/kennedy. and all kinds of aspects of nixon/kennedy. nixon's tyne for television viewers. but radio listeners believing that he had won on substance. what was an audio-only listener on sirius xm or regular radio tonight to think about what was going on there? >> i think the listener would

say, why didn't he prepare about national security? you know, you think that, especially a republican candidate of all things, trying to sound and look like a president, the first thing you would do is make sure that you were absolutely air-tight on national security. and don't say things like maybe i wouldn't do first strike, but i wouldn't take something off the table. something like that is the first thing like nixon running in '72 or reagan in '84 would have gone after a democrat for. >> a lot of us feel it's not official until we've heard from michael beschloss. >> well, thank you. could i put in one more point? >> sure. >> the other thing that this night really demonstrated, we sometimes wonder about how useful presidential debates are. this night should convince us once and for all how important it is. because without a debate like this, or the debates that follow, we would not have seen this side of donald trump tonight. he could have read from the teleprompter between now and election day and voters could

have cast their ballots without getting some pretty important information about him. >> great point. as i said, these don't have force of law. but they should have force of public pressure. this is part of what we do. michael beschloss, as always, thank you very much. >> thank you all. >> thanks for your patience tonight. another break. our coverage will continue right after this. approve this message.

i'd look her right in that fat ugly face of hers. she's a slob. she ate like a pig. a person who's flat chested is very hard to be a 10. does she have a good body? no. does she have a fat [expletive]? absolutely. do you treat women with respect? i can't say that either. is it a professor who never stops being a student? is it a caregiver determined to take care of her own? or is it a lifetime of work that blazes the path to your passions? your personal success takes a financial partner who values it as much as you do. learn more at tiaa.org

>> my question was, why is your judgment any different than mrs. clinton's? >> well, i have much better judgment than she does. there's no question about that. i also have a much better temperament than she has. you know, i have a much better -- she spent, let me tell you -- >> again, you don't hear a lot of that, especially during presidential debates. this note just handed to me, that donald trump said to fox news in the spin room, i thought it was a very fair debate the polls are all saying we won. we have all evening long, collected from our family and friends, our nbc news family, people who are experts in their chosen fields. we've heard from pete williams, our long-time justice correspondent, we heard from steve liesman, senior economics correspondent, cnbc, we've asked richard engel to listen again and fact-check in his world. richard, thank you for staying up with us here in new york.

what jumped out at you? >> well, listening to it, a lot of the things that donald trump was proposing were frankly destabilizing, dangerous, dangerous to the united states, dangerous to the world order, if you will. the united states foreign policy is based on agreements, often long negotiated agreements. sometimes decades or longer in standing. and if you listen to the debate, he was basically saying he's a businessman, he's going to tear up those old agreements and negotiate better deals. if you're a foreign country and you're listening to this, and you're listening and you have an agreement with the united states regarding nato or a nuclear deal or a protection agreement or a sovereignty agreement or a trade agreement, and you suddenly think is the leading world power just going to tear up the agreement that we've had for decades? what is that going to mean for me? are my neighbors going to

invade? there was one thing he talked about, establishing a protection racket around the world. he mentioned saudi arabia. let's take a listen. >> can you imagine, we're defending saudi arabia, and with all of the money they have, we're defending them, and they're not paying? all you have to do is speak to them. >> so this is like, kind of a mafia protection system that he's talking about setting up, where the nations that we're defending have to pay up. he also talked about japan. they need to pay up. or else what? we're going to go and break their legs or something like that? that was just one part. the other one he talked about, and he's repeated this in the past, we should have gone to places where isis has found fertile ground and take their oil. that is frankly just science fiction. i don't even know what he's possibly talking about. does that mean putting a straw in the ground in libya and in iraq, and pulling out the oil before we left there? it has no grounding even in

reality let alone in foreign policy. the other one, he was ambiguous on nuclear weapons, which is frankly dangerous. and he talked about the hacking, the dnc hack. i've spoken to many experts that have no doubts at all that it was carried out by russia, that it was a state-monitored operation, and he said, well, we don't know who did that, perhaps it was some 400-pound person on a couch. of all the theories regarding this hack, i've never heard that one before. >> you're reminding me -- i don't want to speak for all of us, i have to watch it again, stem to stern, the 400-pounder, i had forgotten about that. >> literally i was going to ask you if that's a reference to something that we're just not briefed on. he said, i don't think anybody knows it was russia who broke into the dnc. it could be russia. it could be china. it could be a lot of other

people. it could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds opinion. >> we went to the german equivalent of the nsa, and he showed me evidence directly linking russian involvement to the dnc hack. this was the head of the top german cyber intelligence agency. we've spoken to numerous hackers, they said it was tied to russia. nobody talked about a 400-pound person on a couch. >> it's a very strange reference, that will go down of one of the weirder ones of this whole debate. >> except for the one where the u.s. tries to shake down those who have existing deals with it for money. that was one of the things that jumped out at me. >> richard, you've been our friend for years. i have no idea what clock you're ever on, wherever you are in the world. but i know you stayed up late

with us. >> we all stayed up late. it matters. it's interesting. it's exciting. and it matters not just for us. the u.s. is still the world's superpower. and to have someone say they're going to tear up the existing system, that has global implications. >> richard engel, thank you, pal. >> great to have you here. and the group we loosely came to know as our road warriors. kristen welker, katy tur, hallie jackson, they have assembled in the spin room. kristen welker, you can be ringleader for this round. >> thanks, brian. i will take it. we are talking in the ring here about how many extraordinary moments there were tonight and the implications for both of these candidates. katie, one of the things that struck me, the clinton campaign, all day long has been saying they were preparing for a donald trump who was going to be more restrained, someone who was going to be more gracious, even.

and within the first few moments of this debate, it was very clear, that was not the donald trump that she was going to be facing off against. the gloves were off immediately. >> i heard from aides over and over again, i know you did as well, hallie, that he was going to come out and be presidential. that they knew that the narrative would not be good for him if he was going on the attack against hillary clinton. thunnecessary attack. remember, he's a counterpuncher. that's not what happened tonight. he seemed anything but presidential. it was the most bombastic and antagonistic donald trump from the primary season. it was the let trump be trump trump, not the i'm gonna convince women and moderate republicans that i'm not a risky choice. so the campaign's spinning it right now, they're saying, you talk to them, they're saying he was presidential, that they're happy with how restrained he was. yeah, women are going to be happy because he didn't go after

hillary clinton's personal life and bill clinton's extra marital affairs. but i don't know how you watch that debate and see a restrained candidate. >> hallie, one of the moments, i think 20 minutes into the debate, you started to feel as though he was on defense at various points. what did you make of that, particularly when we spent so much time talking about his preparation versus her preparation, the fact that he didn't have mock debates. >> how different it was. yeah, couple of thoughts on that. i'm goi a couple things. number one, when you talk to his campaign, when you ask, what would you have done to prepare differently, that's when kellyanne conway said, i would have told him to go tougher on hillary clinton when she was acting smug. reince priebus said, he wouldn't tell him to do anything differently. so the spin is that donald trump did exactly what they want him to do. you talk about him being on defense, trump himself thought

his best moment was on trade, going after hillary clinton on trade policy. and i asked him about his struggles. twice he mentioned he restrained himself from bringing up bill clinton's infidelities. >> no matter what he said, they were going to say he was restrained and presidential. >> the birther movement struck people as something that was really damaging. i wonder how the clinton campaign sees that. >> i think in particular where he was asked, what do you have to say to people of color about the birther issue, and he said, i have nothing to say. that is something that is a moment that i've seen resonate that people have mentioned. i do think the point that you raised about trade, i think that was very clearly the strongest section for donald trump. >> she was really on defense in that one. >> she was. and i think legitimately so. he was talking about the tpp. it was something she worked hard to pass. then she decided because it was

becoming politically toxic to oppose it. that's what happened. that was the time when she was on the shakiest ground. and it's quite frankly the issue that is animating these places where the election is going to be decided. it's what matters in ohio. but from there, i felt like, you know, we just kind of watched unfold exactly what the clinton campaign was hoping was going to unfold. he was interrupting her, he was challenging her. >> absolutely. >> he was quibbling or misstating facts repeatedly. >> one point on trade that really struck me tonight, secretary clinton has struggled to explain her e-mails. and i thought, she might need to get a better explanation on trade. she certainly spent a lot of time talking about it during the primary, but now it's the general electorate and they haven't heard her walk through this evolution on this issue. the other striking moment, you talk about birtherism, came at the end of the night, when lester asked him about his comments that secretary clinton doesn't look presidential.

and you talk about, you know, how the birtherism conversation may have struck minority voters. i wonder how the conversation about her stamina sat with those critical women voters and independent voters. >> right. and look, to a certain extent this election is becoming all about suburban women, particularly independent voters, often in suburbs, places like philadelphia, columbus, cleveland, et cetera. and i think that very much is something that the clinton campaign feels like is a winner for them. >> listen, i think donald trump clearly needed to have a better debate than this. he needed to come out and look restrained. this is the trump that the hillary clinton campaign was hoping to see by the end of the debate. and they got it right at the beginning. so they feel good right now. and with that, i'm going to toss it back to you guys, brian and rachel in the studio. it was lovely to be here with you. >> thank you. >> for this time. >> lovely for us to have you, and we mean that. the four women who have no

business to be standing, let alone smart and gathered up and cogent and analytical, our road warriors who have flown so many thousands of miles covering their various candidates. you know, during the olympics, the relay, where they reach back and it's all about the pass, to the next runner. i raise this for a reason. the next runner up is chris matthews, who is going to take our night-time coverage over. and in doing so, just take that baton right into the shank of the evening. yeah, you got it. thank you. chris takes over from the campus -- >> that was a terrible metaphor. >> -- of hofstra. >> i think when he calls me brilliant, i'll take the compliment, okay? >> so, nicole covering her head. >> i have been obsessed with his putin love. >> it blows up the central tenet

of his candidacy which is make america great again, by picking putin over america, it doesn't add up. >> okay, you're the republican on this panel. just want to remind you of that. >> after 11:00, nobody's a republican or a democrat. ep it g by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. with it, i earn unlimited 2% cash back on all of my purchasing. and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... which adds fuel to my bottom line. what's in your wallet?

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>> welcome back to hofstra university.

hofstra university, the site of tonight's big event. msnbc's live coverage of the first presidential debate continues right now. it was a shut-out, i argue. donald trump and hillary clinton met and tonight the verdict is clear, clinton kept trump on the defensive for nearly 90 minutes. she hit home runs on his refusal to release his tax returns, on his business practices, stiffing of suppliers, on his past as a birther, probably his present as well, on his views on race, and on his attack on her stamina and looks. well, not her looks. well, maybe. we're covering it all here tonight. with me at the table, former chair of the republican national committee, michael steele. host of nbc's "all in," chris hayes. host of a.m. joy, joy reid, and from "the washington post," robert costa. let me posit this, talk about

hillary clinton's strategy. i think she had one. define it. >> well, there was a big debate going in. there are two schools of thought about how she should handle this. one was, you've got an opportunity to talk to a hundred million people. don't worry about baiting him. you don't need to get a rise out of of him. you need to talk to people about what you're going to do as president. the other school of thought, you've got an opportunity, we know what this guy's like, he can't let anything go, you got an opportunity to get under his skin. when it started, she was in the first camp, and very quickly, it became clear that she had prepared lots of different ways of doing the second thing. sure enough, as soon as she started down that road, soon as she started going after him, as one might predict -- >> got to his ego right away. you didn't build that, your daddy gave you $14 million. >> she did the donald, called him donald all the way through. >> i thought they agreed, it would be mr. trump and secretary clinton.

>> she called him donald. so what happens over the course, particularly after that first 20, 25 minutes, was, she realized, i think dynamically in the moment, whoa, every one of these that i prepped, he's going to go for. every one. because he took the bait first time, second time, third time. and then you saw her -- >> yeah, he did. blowing up the national debt, and going after him on the tax returns, stiffing suppliers. point by point. the strategy seemed to be taunt him, destroy him, show his bad temperament. >> it worked for the most part for two-thirds of it. but there was that first part of it where she was a little bit more on the defensive. and i think it was that transition that you just mentioned where she switched gears and in the process of switching gears, kind of got caught a little flat-footed on a lot of the tpp economic trade stuff, where he actually scored some points. >> they were facts.

she was for tpp. >> exactly. and she scored some points. he kind of left that hanging to then go down a rabbit hole that went absolutely nowhere. >> which way? which robabbit hole? because i kept thinking, he's going to argue how much he didn't borrow from his father. because $1 million is a lot of money. >> it it's a lot of money. >> and he had no answer on tax returns. >> that was the rabbit hole that he just lost it. >> and that was before the birther portion. >> let's watch the birther thing, but i want to get back to -- no, let's go to tax returns. i love the way that she did that leading, like for the jury. you may be doing it because you're not very charitable. >> or not very rich. >> back to the ego thing. >> she started with not very rich. and i think it was smart. you know the clinton campaign

worked up the psychological profile of donald trump and you can tell she read it and studied it, because she went for things that were about his wealth. if you talk to people about that donald trump or have kfrd him a long time, that is his achilles heel, that richer people are looking down on me, or people don't respect me for my wealth. her first punch was on the money that he got from his dad. he was on a good path on trade. took himself off. when she said maybe you're not that rich, maybe you're not that charitable. >> 14 million sound like a lot. here's secretary clinton going after trump on his refusal to release his tax returns. a very predictable shot. he didn't seem ready for it. >> for 40 years, everyone running for president has released their tax returns. you can see 39, 40 years of our tax returns. everyone has done it. we know the irs has made clear there's no prohibition on releasing it when you're under

audit. so you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? i think there may be a couple of reasons. first, maybe he's not as rich as he says he is. second, maybe he's not as charitable as he claims to be. third, we don't know all of his business dealings, but we have been told through investigative reporting that he owes about $650 million to wall street and foreign banks. or maybe he doesn't want the american people, all of you watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes. because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state authorities when he was trying to get a casino license. and they showed he didn't pay any federal income tax. >> that makes me smart. >> you know, she reminded me of a lawyer. it was the indictment. it was like the opening to a case. we don't know exactly how he killed the person, but -- >> yeah.

and then when trump finally interrupts her, he interrupts her to say something, that is actually not a good case to make for himself, that maybe i'm smart because i didn't pay any taxes. he essentially admitted that the prosecutor's case is correct, and he's guilty. >> and everyone out there that makes 40k and he's been paying nothing in federal taxes. i'm the chump paying for the bridge and the military, and this rich guy is paying nothing. >> there you go. >> there's another part of his argument that we gotta look at. she yanked him toward the republican party. you're just like george w. bush, trickle down economics like ronald reagan. you're supply side, trumped up. his real appeal is that he's non-ideological that he's not runninga as a mitt romney republican. >> okay, question. why did he go in there knowing he had a glass jaw on two issues, the birther issue, which

he's opened up a wound last week. and the tax return issue and he keeps talking about auditing. >> you want me to explain -- >> why wasn't he ready? >> both campaigns were honest about their level of preparation. i thought it was spin, i really did. i thought it was spin from both sides. i thought it was, here's hillary clinton, this is the image you have of her, she's hitting the books, got the binders, donald trump is just going to stroll in. that -- >> that's exactly what happens. >> it was -- you saw. i mean, one of the things that is so odd about him is, he wants to talk about anything that has to do with him, even if it isn't good for him. hillary clinton, the e-mails came up and lester says, do you want to talk about that? and she goes 60 seconds, maybe 45 seconds and she doesn't bring it up again, doesn't try to litigate it over and over again, because she recognizes the more time she talks about that, it's probably not best for her.

he cannot seemingly recognize that about these sorts of issues. >> he did about four minutes on the iraq war. he did about four minutes and tried to bring sean hannity up and demanded that people call sean hannity. he literally wasted four minutes of time -- >> so sean hannity has to replay in his mind a conversation they had off air. >> he's a buddy. >> it's his alibi. >> that was the alibi for his virulent attack on the iraq war. >> a lot of that has to do with trump's reality that he cannot be wrong. >> right. >> so that four minutes was to convince you that he was right. >> you did not convince the audience of voters that she's a hawk. >> that's what he needed to do. [ all speak at once ] >> it's not what he said to howard stern or sean hannity. >> hawkish, she said said you're as bad as i am. the two of us -- >> to get back to robert's point about her yanking him, she made

the case about you're basically republican on economics and taxes. i thought the first 20, 25 minutes was fascinating. it was a substantive exchange, terrain in which both of them were well prepared. he talks about trade enough, i think it's a little thin his understanding of trade. but -- >> i mean that friend that keeps talking about the buildings in mexico. it's a couple guys on the computer train. [ laughter ] anyway, the panel is sticking with us. we have more of hillary clinton's big hits coming up. and she hit some homers tonight. our coverage of the first presidential debate continues live from hofstra university after this. >> a man who can be provoked by a tweet should not have his fingers anywhere near the nuclear codes as far as i think anyone with any sense about this should be concerned. >> i think it's getting a little bit old. i must say. >> it's a good one, though. well describes the problem. >> it's not an accurate one at all. it's not an accurate one.

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good luck! so, it turns out buzzed driving and drunk driving, they're the same thing and it costs around $10,000. so not worth it. 80% try to eat healthy, yet up to 90% fall shorty to eah in getting key nutrients from food alone. let's do more. add one a day men's gummies. complete with key nutrients plus b vitamins to help convert food into fuel. one a day. >> that's true. actually, welcome back to msn msnbc's live coverage of the first presidential debate. we're back with michael steele, joy reid, chris hayes and robert costa. another home run for hillary clinton tonight was -- by the way, you always hit home runs out of the park. anyway, when trump went after her and her stamina, said she

doesn't have the stamina to be president, also talked about her looks, sort of. anyway, here's how hillary clinton struck back. >> she doesn't have the looks, she doesn't have the stamina. i said she doesn't have the stamina. and i don't believe she does have the stamina. to be president of this country, you need tremendous stamina. >> he tried to switch from looks to stamina. but this is a man who has called women pigs, slobs, and dogs. and someone who has said pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers. >> i never said that. >> who has said that women don't deserve equal pay unless they do as good a job as men. and one of the worse things he said was about a woman in a beauty contest. he loves beauty contests, supporting them and hanging around them. and he called this woman, miss piggy. then he called her miss

housekeeping because she was latino. donald, she has a name. >> where did you find this? >> her name is alicia matchardo and she has become a u.s. citizen, and you can bet she's going to vote this november. >> okay, good. >> your thoughts? >> you know that smile on hillary clinton's face, that was the smile of somebody who had prepared for that, was waiting to deliver that litany of abuse, and the clinton campaign has an ad out with alicia machado in it right now. that's the woman. so they knew they had that ad on deck. basically trump served her that slow pitch over home plate and she had been waiting to deliver those lines. so happy to do it. >> they come out with a video right away. so clearly this is prepared. the video, first of all, it's spanish language video. the actual footage is at one point the woman had gained some weight, and donald trump brings the press in to watch her work

out with the cameras. and then he also says, clearly this is a person who likes to eat. >> i mean, it's brutal. >> she won a miss universe pageant. >> machado. that's her last name. >> this is the example. there was a risk to hillary clinton on the preparation front that you over-prepare. and there were points during the evening, it was a tendency where you get real granular and you say the solution to race relations is these 19 different things and we're figure -- we're going to do that. the benefits of preparation, oh, here, i can play this trump card, boom, she put it on the table. >> do you think -- what does flax have to say tonight, chris christie and everybody else has to defend him. he knows what happened tonight. his kids will tell him. they'll say you did a good job, wasn't that bad, dad.

wasn't that bad. so is he going to now go back and say i need a murder board, i got to study, got to deal with the tax thing and the birther thing. i can't go in and have her pound me again. >> you have former new york mayor rudy guiliani saying trump may not participate in future debates. >> when had did he say that? >> in the spin room. >> everybody else was saying, oh, no -- how can you walk out when you've just been blown out. >> there's been disappointment in trump's circle. they're spinning publicly, they have their message, but privately they say, where was he on the clinton foundation? where was he going after the e-mails in a more concerted way? why didn't he have an answer on birtherism that was coherent and moved on. there was disappointment with people around trump. but of course most of them publicly and some of them privately are very defensive about tonight. they think the media's had it. they think they're at war now with the whole political establishment. so there's a mix of

disappointment and a war. >> how about the microphone, is there a serious argument with that? >> there's a pool report from inside the room that said his microphone from inside of the room was supposedly quieter for the audience. but inside of the media center, it sounded totally normal. there was no issue on our tv feed. >> but you could hear him sighing, sniffling, weezing, snorting his way through. he had sort of an -- >> i don't think it was that bad. >> well, he was sniffling a lot. >> snorting is worse. >> really loudly. but then he started har umping and going, he did the thing that he piled on al gore for. >> if you watch him every day on the stump, which we do, there's -- there are things that he knows. he's gotten to the point in the stump speech. he can do the wall, the immigration. he can do trade, right? a 90-minute debate, you got to talk about first strike policy, you're going to be president of the united states. that's the most powerful job in the world. so you gotta spend some time at

some point, a few hours with some nuclear experts about what your policy is on first strike and first use, and come up with your answer, because that's an important thing, and that's true on education -- >> i hope we don't have a first strike policy. a first use would be bad enough. i don't think we need that anymore. >> the point being, that to me, to robert's point, that to me is the bridge, the question of that bridge, which is, there's this performance thing about that he wasn't somewhere enough on certain -- >> let's go around. you can't do this, you're a reporter. but i want to do it. you guys can do it. i say -- kellyanne conway said he was going to be the babe ruth debate. i thought it was five home runs against him. i think it was a shut-out. >> i think the only case to be made is some of the trade stuff at the beginning landed and particularly on the tpp. because he's got her a bit on the facts.

she did seem to move in her opinion. she can explain that, think she did a decent job, but aside from that, yeah. >> i i was there when her husband, he came out for the trade deal in japan, right there. >> yeah, i think it was a are standard. it was a 4-1. he set it up nicely with the trade conversation and the economy argument. he kind of moved off of that and fell in the rabbit hole and figured he wanted to play there. >> any points he made in arguing about trade which was by far his strongest moments, he lost. he gave back. this is going on points. or home runs. she won many of the points. if this was a change election. change requires you to be an acceptable alternative. he had the lowest bar in