y -- i thought the first one would be the one that he'd bow out of. i don't know. i feel like we'll see -- the immediate wants to leave his last be impression. i think he has to make up some ground even if on the temperament and out of control nature of his performance. i don't think this is what he wants on people's minds. >> there's nothing mandatory, signed to by anyone that there will be three of these and one vp. hillary clinton's comments to america's anxious allies, it had weight. >> she basically paused before she said it and turned to the camera and made meaningful eye contact like what you just heard, let me distinguish american promises from that.

>> all week, all the world's leaders were all here all week last week. >> across the street. >> we all got our steps in last week. but she needed to do that. there's a lot of alarm. and granted they don't vote, and this is part of what animates the trump voters. it's our race, our choice. but i think she was very aware of that, having been secretary of state. i think she wasn't addressing them without their wanting to be addressed and reassured. >> it also goes to a larger point as to what they are offering. trump is basically saying, take a leap with me, let a's break this. the system that we've got, it doesn't work. he really says, like i'm going to go fishing with dynamite. and she's saying, you know what? some things need to be changed,

but there are certain things about this system which we've got which we need to preserve and things about america's role in the world which are not only worth preserving but worth defending from the threat offered by this guy on the stage with me lass being a major candidate. >> one thing to point out, trump in the spin room already, the candidate in the spin room tends to suggest that that candidate doesn't think he did that well and that the verdict is that -- >> although he might have just heard our cameras there and couldn't resist. >> when the candidate himself comes out. >> one thing that will be very interesting to see is what happens with the fact check stuff. we talked about this ahead of the debate, that there has been a renewed resurgence to say that donald trump is not telling the truth. donald trump is lying about these things we saw the "new york times," the washington times and politico do in depth

features on trump doing lies in his public pronouncements in the days leading up to this debate. tonight he said a lot of things that were not true, big and small. everything from the number of times he's declared bankruptcy to how much of a start he got from his father, to stop and frisk, to hillary clinton starti starting birtherism. he told a lot of very easily fact checked lies. and the presumably he's doing that because he thinks it doesn't hurt him. the question is whether that's right. we'll see. >> we are. >> jeff:ed by john podesta of the clinton campaign and the sitting governor of the state of new jersey, a senior adviser to donald trump and a surrogate for donald trump, chris christie. governor, how do you think your guy did? >> listen, brian, tonight what you saw was, if the american

people want the same thing they've had for the last eight years, if they want a pr preprogrammed, professional politician who can memorize sound bites, then they've got their candidate. they should vote for hillary clinton. you saw something very different versus the same old thing. >> i guess the problem people are having with it is the stakes here. as steve schmid said, not given to hyperbole, he called the second half of it absolute incoherence, especially the part on national security. would you advise donald trump to change his narrative, his approach on things like his birtherism answer, on things like his tax returns. the areas where he showed the most vulnerability tonight? >> well, first of all, you know, brian, i think he was very clear as he has been all along on the tax returns, mrs. clinton may not like the answer, but the

answer is he's followed the advice of his lawyers and accountants, and when the audit is done, he will release the tax returns. she doesn't like that answer and likes to make hay out of it, but when he talked about deleting 33,000 e-mails, she didn't answer and lester holt didn't hold her accountable. there's lots of things mrs. clinton didn't want to talk about either. so as far as incoherence in the second half of the debate, the only thing i suggest is that he doesn't call steve schmid, because steve doesn't like what we said. >> you would change nothing about your guy's delivery, tone, tenne e tenor, content, behavior? >> you can always improve. nobody liked president obama's performance four years ago in the first debate, i remember. and he was getting knocked all over the place by his own party for his performance in the first debate. and the second debate you saw a difference. i would always go back and look

at these debates as a candidate and an adviser to a candidate and say how can we improve? how can we do better? that's why they don't have just one of these, they have three of them. the fact is, john podesta, sitting here in the camp of wishful thinking that donald trump won't show up for the next two debating, if donald trump didn't show up, hillary clinton still wouldn't win. >> the people who had problems with previous presidential deebs at this level of play didn't have problems with lies being told and didn't have -- we've got fact checking memos we will get around to reading on the air, but page after page after page the likes of which we haven't seen, and our immediate reaction was, that was two wholly different conversations taking place, both on live television and a split screen. >> well, brian, listen. if we are going to rely all the time on the fact checkers, who also have an agenda, then we can

discuss that as well, but we also know is that mrs. clinton wasn't answering all the questions that she was uncomfortable with tonight. she wasn't addressing some of them. i sat there and listened. there were some questions that she answered, many that she didn't answer. i don't know whether that's a fact check problem or an honesty problem. the american people can make a decision here. the dedecision's going to be, whether donald trump got one or two facts wrong but i'm sure mrs. clinton got a few wrong herself. but when she's made those mistakes, she's made those mistakes in office which have cost the united states people dearly. when she had the reins of power in her hands. and i think that's something people will consider much more. >> thank you, governor, very much for joining us in these first minutes after the debates. >> thank you for having me, very

much. we're going to bring in chuck todd. what's your impression? >> well, look, i think we have to step back and realize, that was a very surreal event that we witnessed. that was not a normal political debate. this was not something that looked like any other presidential debate that we've witnessed in the modern era. so i feel like before we talk about the substance of the debate and what happened between the two candidates, let's not pretend this was normal, a normal way a presidential debate is supposed to go. look, it was, donald trump was all emotion. hillary clinton was all about preparation. you could tell, neither campaign lied to us. hillary clinton, you could tell, spent a lot of time preparing for this debate. and to technically by the end of the debate, you could tell that donald trump did not. he was very reactive. i thought he was strong in the first 20 or30 minutes, especially on trade, put her on the defensive. but then after that, he took the bait every single time she threw

it out there. he would get, he would defend his record. he would then go on to try to defend it more, and then there were times where when he was talking about cyber security, you didn't quite know what point he was making. he almost lost track of the point he was making there. so, look, i'm not going to sit here and tell you i know for sure how the american public's going to react. his pugilistic way has connected before, but if people are judging on temperament and preparation for the job, if the swing voter here is this moderate republican living in the suburbs who has never been a trump supporter and can't sit there and stomach voting for hillary clinton, i don't know what donald trump did tonight to win over that voter. >> chuck, do fact checkers have a political agenda as the governor of new jersey just alleged? >> not the fact checkers that i've ever -- no, most fact checkers i know are simply looking for the facts. i think that this, the gaming

and the working of the refs, whether it's what the trump campaign's been doing with the media or frankly what the clinton campaign's been doing with the media technical particy with the moderating aspect, i feel like we're being poked and prodded. but to say that a fact checker has an agenda, there's only an agenda if the fact checking is incorrect. >> chuck todd, political moderator of "meet the press." we were waiting to hear from you after this event, as we waiting to go to andrea mitchell in the spin room. >> we saw a number of people going by from the clinton campaign, obviously, donald trump going the other direction. you interviewing chris christie, but i have to tell you, i've never seen anything like this.

this isn't my first rodeo, but this debate was one candidate just talking over the other. and, you know, absolutely pounding away at her on trade, on the economy, on jobs. talking about ohio, talking about michigan. that is his path to an electoral victory. clearly speaking to his voters. he talked about coal and energy where she has been very vulnerable on the whole debate over what she had said in appalachia. that said, hillary clinton went after him relentlessly on taxes, his racist behavior going back to 1973 when he was sued by the federal government for refusing to permit african-americans into his father's rental apartments of so, and of course the betterbetter -- the birther question which you all discussed. and the reason he haepsn't released his tax records do not stand up to the scrutiny of fact

checkers. if he was looking for the swing voters, the republicans in the suburbs of philadelphia, they had to be looking at the way he talked over her, at the demeanor and also at her suggesting that she didn't have the stamina, of course she didn't have the appearance to be presidential. those were not good moments for donald trump. >> andrea mitchell, thank you. we're going to go now to hali jack s jackson in the spin room. >> along the spin room line here, you can see behind me, his children are out here. i spoke with his campaign manage kellyanne conw. donald trump thinks he did well. i asked if he had any regrets tonight, he in essence said he held back mentioning bill clinton's indiscretions because chelsea clinton was in the room. he praised her quite heartily. he committed to doing the next

debate when we asked if he would in fact commit to that. and he followed up on another question, will he, does he believe in the outcome of the election. will he accept the outcome of the election in november. the headline there, something he didn't answer at the debate. he said yes. the birther moment was something that was getting a lot of buzz online, on social media. trump didn't answer the question when he was asked if he would apologize for his birther past yet again. when i talked with kellyanne conway, she said a lot of talk has been made about donald trump's preparation, hillary clinton had a different preparation, all those mock debates, trump didn't do that. i said are you rethinking that? are you changing it up? she said yeah, i would advise him to be tougher on hillary clinton when she asks, in conway's words, smug, she says she believed her candidate showed tremendous restraint on that debate stage. >> wow. >> as we talked about does he have the temperament to be

commander in chief, and you can see the reaction on stage. i asked him if he was angry, donald trump, that is, given that there was criticism that he was interrupting clinton often. he said he wasn't angry, when we followed up on polling he reiterates he believes he is doing well in the polls. we will find out in the coming days. >> the first thing that he told you is that his regret was that he wishes he had brought up bill clinton's marital infidelities? he described that as a regret? >> we were down further along on the spin room. the first question we asked was on the birther topic. the second question was something along the lines of forgive me, we've been running around for the last couple minutes, what he might have done differently or if he had any regrets, and he sai well, in essence, and i'm paraphrasing, he held back on mentioning the indiscretions. he brought it up again when i asked about other debate moments on this side of the spin room.

and, again, both times he said he didn't bring it up because of chelsea clinton. i said is that out-of-bounds, might we see you bring it up at the next debate, and he said he didn't think it was out-of-bounds. >> and as she's clarifying those remarks from donald trump, we see hillary clinton and her husband former president bill clinton walking out together to leave the venue. this is the vehicle they arrived in, and we're now seeing them get back in. >> assuming they'll go up through the city and to chappaqua. i think it's probably a case of hali's audio dropping out at the end of the debate. donald trump did finish by saying he would support hillary clinton if she were -- >> he would agree with the. >> the outcome. >> he said i will support her. he said those words. >> the control room was just telling me, mike murphy is with us. hey, mike murphy, republican campaign veteran, all around

nice guy. can't wait to get your review of what we just witnessed. >> well, hello, everybody. it was quite a night. i never heard the phrase "love me" in a presidential debate. >> nor rosie o'donnell. >> a lot of new ground was broken. these megadebates like this, these spectaculars are the test if somebody's ready for prime time, and donald trump failed that test. he pretty much collapsed in the second half. trump's problem is he's a one-trick pony, and in a 90-minute debate, the trick runs thin. trump has one thing that's very powerful. the main spring is that people want to fire politicians. so trump was effective at the beginning of the debate at taking almost every answer back to you've had your chance. hillary never had an effective answer for that. that will cure some of trump's

sins. that has so much raw power in the election. that covers for some things. i don't think trump lost any votes of the problem is, he doesn't have enough to win. he's the guy who needs to move the needle. and in every way you'd want to move the needle in one of these things from demeanor, content, to showing depth, he failed utterly. while hillary did a good job at the big question we all had. how will she handle trump's antics, and she was quite unflappable. so i think she had an a-minus performance and drum's was a gentlemen's d-minus. >> we would kill to have audio. donald trump was making an emphatic point and having a conversation with his son-in-law, jerry kushner. and now talking to an aide. the entire trump entourage, including family, are making their way to the vehicles. he's now talking to hope hicks,

his press secretary. >> we're not sure what the hangup is. if we can keep our camera on this for a second. donald trump is here with his children and also with some of his staffers. i don't know if something is going wrong here. >> i think they're figuring out where to go get takeout. i think we're making too much of this. this looks like a -- >> well, we'll see. they're leaving in an interestingly disordered way in terms of the trump camp. we're going to bring in a very interesting other group of people into this discussion. our own jacob soberoff has been watching the proceedings in columbus, ohio with a group of voters, and we're going to go to jake up in ohio. >> reporter: hey, rachel. no republican has ever won the white house without winning here in the great state of ohio. only two democrats have managed to pull off that feat. so by definition, these are very swingy voters here in columbus,

ohio, and they like the term spend the evening with them. i would like to introduce you to some of them, but there hasn't been a lot of shift in coming in and going out after watching the debate. coming into this debate, who was supporting donald trump? we got one, two, three, four, how about hillary clinton? one for sure, two, three. anybody change their mind coming out of this debate after watching the debate? zero people. i want to, particularly talk to you, tom, because you're a republican. and almost every time you and i talk over the course of the debate about donald trump you express some sort of frustration. that said, you said you'd still never vote for hillary clinton. why is that? >> because of her actions and because of the actions of the democratic party. and the policies that they support. but it's her actions, benghazi. everything else. i don't care about her health. but -- >> at one point you said donald

trump embarrasses you. >> he does. the way he acts. the way he talks. you know. we're not fifth graders. >> let me get carlton in here. carlton, donald trump made it a point tonight yet again to try to appeal to african-american voters. i asked you earlier if he made any impact on you. why don't you tell me what you said again. >> try again. >> try again. >> i don't think he made, i think his effort was, no, he didn't do a good job. >> what did you think from hillary clinton tonight, did it effect you one way or another? >> didn't change my vote. >> let me come over here to anita. you're registered democrat, but you are an anyone but clinton. so did donald trump speak to you tonight? >> he was typical. there were absolutely no surprises from him. kind of disappointed that he went into the late in the debate campaign, the seam oame old slo. >> you had said a very

interesting phrase i had never heard about donald trump. >> you asked me who i was voting for, and i said i am voting for the conservative party. and if this jack ass just happens to be leading this mule train, so be it. >> that's another phrase i learned for the first time on the campaign trail, going to send it back to you. >> well, i might as well learn it now. it's as good a team as any. [ laughter ] >> our thanks to the good people of the great state of ohio and jacob soberoff. wow. >> well? >> james carville's standing by in arizona. >> oh, god. >> wow. >> nicole wallace said thank god. so now the universe has mashed together, and the star at the center has exploded. james, what did you make of tonight? >> well, first of all, i think r rachel made the selling point. the whole time the camera was on him, he came across as rude and

petulant. you may talk for half of the time, but the camera's on you the whole time. i think we can say, was hillary clinton very good, was she solid? was she good? we could argue that degree, but i think pretty much everybody agrees that trump was just awful. it's a variation of awful. and everything that i saw and everything i heard from my panel and the entire discussion, even chris christie, who i think had a really tough job said well, yeah, if you want somebody who can put together coherent thought, you know, hillary clinton. but -- [ laughter ] >> if that's what you're looking for. >> but you have a second option. >> i've been in tough spin spots myself. i feel kind of sorry for the governor there, slightly. but i can't imagine that after what we saw tonight that the needle doesn't move some. it was, he was just bad. and i've talked to a lot of people who've done a lot of research and saw the instant

things. these dial groups, and i think that you're hearing around this panel it's sheared by the research thus far that i've seen tonight. i really do. and i thought she was, yeah, swhees prepareshe was prepared. she was solid. as he went further into it, the sarge is right. the further he went the worse it got. you almost wanted to throw the towel in, that's enough. >> james, you made the point when we first spoke before the debate that you're on camera the entire time. it looked to me during the first volley of questions and answers like he was trying to exhibit facial control. and then that went away. the corollary to him having an awful night is the $64,000 question to you, was that a future president on stage next to him tonight? >> well, i mean, honestly, i'm crazy about it. but i think she was. she was certainly the, her

detractor would say yes, she was good. somebody like me would say she was very good. i don't think there's any doubt she was solid. she came across as knowledgeable, she was well-spoken. delivered her lines. delivered the attacks very well. i think more stunning than her being good was just how, how awful he was. and, you know, going back to the point i made earlier and rachel just made, television, that's a 90-minute business. and he don't even, i don't know if someone told him to watch his reaction shots. did he realize that he was going to be on television the whole time? but, you know, parents are sitting there watching, teach their kids to be polite or anything that happens around the country, i mean, watching him, it was really remarkable to see, and he kept grimacing and shaking his head around and, i mean, it was really like almost a third grader. it was a remarkable thing to

see. and nicole, you know, just raised it on a pretty thick axis, but i would be disappointed and mildly surprised if you didn't see some change as a result of 100 million people watching this. i think it has to have some effect, i really do. and there were a lot of people that saw the same thing that we saw tonight. and i can't believe that their conclusions are not going to be similar. >> james, if you were trying to make the most political hay out of this evening, ago you say, a lot of people are scoring this well for clinton and poorly for trump in broad strokes. >> right. >> but that temperament, facial tick, sighing and making those outbursts and stuff, it's kind of, it's hard for me to imagine how you make, how you make hay with that, how you make an ad out of that, i mean, other options for clinton, he was thinking about that moment with she said i feel like i'm going to be blamed for everything that's going to be happened this

evening and trump said why not, and there was the moment where he said he bragged about not paying taxing. do you run with one of those things or the fact check stuff or what do you do? >> you know, rachel, 100 million people saw this, and i think there are a lot of conclusions that are going to be drawn here all around living rooms and dining rooms and all around the country tonight and tomorrow morning and conversation, and what we're saying tonight is being repeated everywhere else. i don't know that you want to go out and make an ad about the whole thing. because i think the impressions are set in on trump, and i think tonight just reinforced those. but i don't know if she needs to overly spike the ball. i mean two more debates to come. he's got to get better, literally chris christie and everybody said they're going to kind of retool the thing, they can't have another one this bad. it just can't happen. and i guess you got to repeat that romney, you know, won the first debate and lost the

election, so you want to be careful not to gloat too much here. you want to be careful to prepare just as hard for the second debate and the third debate as you did for the first debate. i think that's important thing to keep focussed on. >> james carville, thank you. i hope it has stopped raining in scottsdale. >> it's fine now. it's a nice cool night out here in the desert in september. thank you. >> awful good to see you and to be able to demand on your advice and council. hugh hewitt among those watching and listening with us. i can't wait to hear what you're going to say, but what are you going to say? >> i'm going to say, i'm with nicole and chuck. i've been to this movie so many times, an extra in the movie so many times, and when the numbers don't move tomorrow, the inner ring of the inner ring is going to bang their head on the table and say how can they not move? donald trump won the first, i clocked it at 39 minutes when birtherism came up. i blew that badly.

and it turned the debate around. she then delivered a knockout blow on speaking to our strategic allies. it was about a minute five. i want to see where the audience stayed fort entire five minutes that it went. but i will not be surprised in the least if the needle doesn't move. i was with james and mary madeline the day after the first debate moderating a conversation between those two in which carville said then, and i'm sure he remembers it, the phones are lighting up in president obama's office with all the different advice on how to improve his performance. doesn't mean a thing, doesn't mean a thing. in four weeks, it's all different. now i don't do a very good carville, but i remember him very well. but i think tomorrow the needle days the same, except for the people in pennsylvania, michigan and ohio, which were name checked. and i realize that the pundit class all thinks donald trump lost. i thought he lohsest a lot of

debates i was on the stage for, and he won them. so let's go with chuck todd that we're in the surreal zone that we have not been before and nicole's caution. i think that's the better nix rather than john podesta. it was just lunatic for him to say donald trump wasn't coming for the next two debate egs. >> hugh, i turned to rachel maddow when you said you agreed with me. i feel like we haven't been on the same page this year. which troubles me. i want to know if you think the never trump people, many are mutual friends, do you think any of them might become hillary clinton supporters after they saw tonight on the narrow question of foreign policy and national security? he gave a lot of reasons for a lot of sober, loyal conservatives to have legitimate

concerns about just, just his lack of interest in the granularity of america's foreign policy. >> you know, i don't think so, nicole. >> here we go again. i thought i gave him plenty of fodder. >> when he was hammering her on 30 years, the regulatory state, the economic policies, the fact that nothing would change and everything would expand. i was making notes, and frank luntz's group was going up, and i was thinking he's got theis. he's got their nais nailed for minutes. this is hillary clinton at a watch event. >> equal pay for women's work. and we're going to deal with a lot of the pressures, the cost pressures, the stress pressures that families are under. we're going to get paid family leave, earned sick days, affordable child care and debt-free college! [cheers and applause]

well, it was an amazing experience. and i am so happy we've had this opportunity for the first presidential debate right here in new york at hofstra university. [cheers and applause] well, we've got two more debates, and wve got more time before the election. and we can't take anybody anywhere for granted. so i came to thank you, thank you for everything you've done. thank you. but i want to ask you, please, keep working with us. work right here in new york. i know the governor was up here. i'm so glad the governor is here. thank you. and our wonderful lieutenant

governor too, thank you! but we need to turn out a big vote here in new york. and those of you who can, we need your help in some of the other nearby states like pennsylvania, like ohio, like new hampshire. but we're going to work our h r hearts out, because you saw tonight how high the stakes ar , didn't you? and we've got to do everything we can to reach as many as as possible. >> this is hillary clinton telling a watch party in west bury new york. we're going to back to our friend hugh hewitt who i so rudely interrupted. sorry to make you stop mid-thought there. >> i think she's happy and legitimately energized, because she finished the debate strong. however, there are undercurrents in this election, i said it

before the show, that i believe have divided the country in two deeply divided camps. i regret that donald trump did not hammer the 33,000 e-mails home, the supreme court, and i go back to what carville said, just in the last segment, and four years ago. watch that space. i just can't believe that anyone thinks he's not going to show up. that's just silly. >> hugh hewitt, thank you so much for joining us from washington, d.c. and we'll work on your relationship with nicole. [ laughter ] >> we've been talking tonight about the role of the truth and the role of fact checking and whose job it is to get stuff right when the candidates or candidates get it wrong. one of the people who has been watchdogging these substantive issues for us is pete williams who's been looking at some of the claims made tonight, specifically on the issue of stop and frisk.

what have you got, pete? >> let's look at what the candidates said about stop and frisk. a controversial program that was widely used by new york police but then was stopped by a federal judge in 2013. and the question is, what kind of effect did it have on the new york city crime rate. let's just review what was said during the debate. >> in new york city, stop and frisk, we had 2,200 murders and stop and frisk brought it down to 5 ha00 murders. 500 is a lot of murders, but we went from 2,200 to 500. and it was continued on by mayor bloomberg and terminated by the current mayor, but stop and frisk had a tremendous impact on the safety of new york city. tremendous beyond belief. so when you say it has no yes, ma'am pan-- impact, it really d. >> it's also fair to say, if we're going to talk about mayors, under the current mayor, crime has continued to drop,

including murders. >> you're wrong. >> no i'm not. >> murders are up. >> the latest figures don't show, however, that murders are up in new york. here's a look at some of the data. so the murder rate went, in 2013, it was 333. 2012, down from 2012, 419. then in aufg 2013 is when a federal judge put a stop to the stop and frisk program, declaring it was unconstitutional because it improperly focussed too much on racial minorities. the following year and a half after that ruling, year and a quarter, murders were down by five, back up to 352 in 2015, but so far this year at 246, compared to 257 at this same time last year. the spokesman for the new york city police department said the stop question and frisk is down nearly 97% and crime murder and shootings have decreased

significantly during that same period. so murders are down in new york, but, of course, it's also true that they started to drop at the time the city started to use the stop and frefbs pisk program, b unknowable is what is the cause and effect. >> to be clear, in the multiple assertions, when donald trump said, interrupting lester holt, going back to hem at the premise of the question saying no, it wasn't ruled unconstitutional, you're saying that very clearly, that federal judge ruled that it was unconstitutional, so you've also been wrong on that point? >> there's no question it was declared unconstitutional. that is unambiguous. i thought i heard trump later say he agreed it was declared unconstitutional but the city abandoned the appeal. that's also correct as you heard him say, mayor de blasio stopped the program that was under the bloomberg program and decided

not to pursue the appeal. in other words, to let the ruling declaring it unconstitutional stand. >> thank you. super helpful to have you with us on that tonight. tonight saw among other things, chris christie assert that fact checkers have a political agenda. >> i'm sure they do. but the facts themselves do not. >> been a tough time for facts. chris matthews is down at the campus. i keep saying down, he's to the east of us at long island. >> i'm here with donna brazile. you know, i assume trump will probably show up the next two, would you? >> yeah. >> let's talk about a couple problems he had which i think are permanent problems for him, no matter how many debates he facial. one is the birther issue. and he didn't seem to have any way, he was invoking the name sydney blumenthal whom i've known forever, and it means nothing. is that going to be an original sin for him? >> look, donald trump led a

campaign to smear the president of the united states, a president who was ledelected no once but twice with over 50% of the vote. the fact that he cannot bring himself to apologize to the nation for basically putting out misleading information after the president showed his birth certificate, which, by the way was an embarrassment, i mean, as an american, as someone who, i have a birth certificate, my parents have birth certificates, but my grand parents and other grandparents had no birth certificates, and i don't want to take it back to the ancestors who came here in shackles and chains, so for a leading candidate to put this out front and center and to be unable to tell the country he made a mistake, it's wrong. he should have stopped it. >> is there any way he can stop this from being an issue in each of the next two debates? >> racial reconciliation is a process we all want to achieve. unless you're able to believe in that as a nominee for a party i

think disqualifies donald trump. >> the other issue that seems to be, he was entangled with tonight and didn't seem to have any way to get out of was his tax returns, and hillary very brilliantly went through all the possible reasons why he's hiding them. >> as you well know, lester holt, who i thought did a fabulous job, he didn't interfere. he allowed hem to go back and forth. hillary said maybe you're evading something. maybe you didn't pay enough. maybe you have connections. again, donald trump does not want to put out those tax returns. in addition to evading, it's another form of disrespect to the american people. every candidate has put out their tax returns. >> we haven't seen the numbers, but we'll see them by tomorrow morning. say it's 100 million people, a great opportunity to grab voters and get them to the polls. now there are three targets.

i think your party are reaching for, suburban white women, because they're moderate republicans, millennials, and african-american voters who loved obama but may not vote this time. >> look, look, look. the obama coalition is a very important coalition for the democratic party and for the country, by the way, because it is a demographic coalition, a coalition of americans that continues to grow. as you know, chris, several states are already voting, michigan, minnesota. >> what did hillary clinton do tonight to bring in the suburban white woman. >> she made every woman proud, because she came prepared. she knew her homework. and she spoke directly to the american people on the issues facing this country. but more importantly, her message tonight was about the future of the country, how we grow the economy, how we protect our homeland. i think suburban women as well

as urban women, all americans should be proud of the job she did tonight. >> you think she's going to stir enough from in this election that young people won't say, i was too busy, i had a big class load. did she create that kind of urgency tonight? >> i think what she created tonight was a lot of enthusiasm for her candidacy. she has been trying to break through some of the negative press she receives. the woman cannot wake up and put on her clothes without somebody kom commenting on her hair. young people know that hillary clinton is going to make this about their future. >> did she look like a president tonight? >> she looked like a fabulous president. she doesn't look like the last 44. but the 45th will be very special. >> nice way to put that. >> donna brazile who's happy tonight, i think is fair to say. very happy. >> it's interesting to see these

folks talking with chris in the room. if you want to know who won the debate, one of the ways is whether their folks seem happy or bummed. >> or if they're still in the room. >> or if they're saying, please, put me on tv. i got stuff to say. >> it's also good to see donna brazile praising lester holt. we saw -- >> we saw donald trump praised lester holt. and he said, quote, the questions were fair. >> but people spinning on trump's behalf are trying to blame it on lester. >> there is official word from both sides. >> that he did a good job. the other thing we saw, just in silent pictures, we saw, and le's not make too much of it. we saw the clintons leaving, and they looked very happy, and they're all smiling and, you know, the body language was great. and we saw the trumps gathering to leave, and i didn't see

anybody smiling. >> what happens if you're working on the trump campaign right now? do you say you can't say again, you've been fighting isis your whole adult life, like that doesn't make any sense. do you say your own stance on iraq in terms of when you wanted troops to leave iraq? you can't say that you're wanted -- you're on the record saying you think all the troops should leave iraq. you can't say what you're saying about the murder rate in new york city. when he says this stuff that is wrong and that everybody and their mother will easily fact check and prove it's wrong, do you try to counsel him to change those things or do you hope there's an alternative trump reality. >> they worked to get him off this hannity. we didn't talk about that much. >> yeah. >> talk to hannity. >> he'll be on this week. >> they worked to get him off some of the things that, you know, sticks in, some of the ways he wants to communicate different things, and they have more success on some fronts than

others. >> so he wanted to say the hannity thing. his campaign did not want him to say that? and he won? >> he wants to explain his position on iraq in a certain way, and they have varying degrease d degrees of success in doing so. when he is doing well, it is harder to convince him to change. when he has a setback, and i think it's fair to say. that's what my family looks like. we're all a bunch of angry, yelling greeks when we're fighting about where to go to eat. so i have a hard time coming down on him for looking chaotic. >> are you talking about my stomach? >> tonight was not a good performance, and i think rudy giuliani and chris christie have acknowledged that. so when he has a setback. after he lost wisconsin, he went to war with the gold star family, the khans. will he take advice about these things i think in this moment there is an opening.

>> to james carville's question, is there a chance no one counseled him on his resting face and facial control when he wasn't doing the speaking to make sure he knew it would be an event in split screen? >> no. >> he was counseled. >> roger ailes is one of his visc advisors. >> that's yes think it -- that's why i think it's important. the one thing you're talking about is a television personality. he has a lot of top tier television talent. he supposedly has won this thing against all these professional politicians because he's so good at tv. he has to know. and if he knows and doesn't have the self-control to be able to stop himself from behaving that way and twitching and grunting syllables into the microphone and the gasping and sniffing, if he knew and couldn't stop

himself, that's not a temperament issue, that's a self-control issue that becomes a salient thing for people assessing his temperament for president. >> i have a thought, you know, i always ask people, when i remember it, to ask when i interview them, what can't you see on television that's going on where you're at. and what you can't see here, we're on a riser in the spin room. everyone that walks by, the republican faces we all know, very familiar people we all work with, may disagree with occasion lay, b occasionly. this is a shutout. this isn't the nuanced presentation. i know everybody has their job to do like governor christie and everybody do everybody comes up here. this is a shutout. the republicans know what happened. it was a disaster for them.

their candidate didn't have the temperament to disdisplay. a lot of people saw the guy for the first time. maybe half the audience, for the first time. got a really good look at the guy who they heard good or bad things about. now they look and go wait a minute, he doesn't seem steady. hillary looked like the healthy one, the one with stamina and intellectual coherence. and i know carville's being cage eye y. i think there's going to be a shift. i think the suburban woman watching tonight is going to say, my god, i'm so proud of hillary. she may be to the left of me, but damn, i it, i was proud to a woman. i think she had a very strong strategy of keeping him on the defensive. and i think it worked one home run after another.

and it showed down here, when they're not talking on television, you can see it in their faces. >> we heard from ben ginsberg. he's in the witness protection program, he's fine. we'll take another break. we love ben, we miss ben. when we come back, steve leaseman on our team of fact checkers and what came up in his le line of work that he wants to talk about as our coverage continues

i think donald just criticized me for preparing for this debate, and yes, i did. and you know what else i prepared for? i prepared to be president. and i think that's a good thing. >> one of the few moments of audience interaction tonight. >> way too many moments of audience interaction, and it was on both sides, and they

misbehaved. it started early. >> tonight madon't make me stop. they were warned. >> steve leaseman is our chief correspondent at cnbc. and i'm curious, in your world, watching through your eyes, listening with your ears, what stood out to you on the economics front where fact checking is concerned. >> i want to start first with a developing story we have between ford motor company and donald trump. listen to what donald trump said about ford's move of its small compact car manufacturing to mexico. >> ford is leaving. you see that, their small cardiff ica car division, thousands of jobs, leaving michigan, leaving ohio, they're all leaving. >> that is accurate. ford is leaving, but about losing thousands of jobs, we got a tweet tonight from ford. here's what they said.

there is no impact on u.s. jobs. ford's american workers will build two new vehicles at the u.s. plant where small cars are made today. that is from ford to one of our crack producers here, and what's also interesting, we also found out, the ford ceo said this two weeks ago in response to what donald trump said, so this thing keeps going on and on. now i want to go to one thing that hillary clinton said that is suspect at best you would say. here's what she said about trickle down economics in the financial crisis. >> as i said, trumped up, trickle down. trickle down did not work. it got us into the mess we were in in 2008 and '09. >> you can say a lot of things about trickle down, but i'm not sure that the recession can be

blamed on that. the financial crisis is not one the things most people say when itomes to trickle down economics. and one more thing, which was one of the biggest things to me through my eyes here. dr donald trump said, quote, we've become a third world country, no exact definition of a third world country, looked it up. we have the third highest gdp per capita in the world, right after switzerland and luxembourg. so we keep pretty good company. america is a very, very, very wealthy nation, brian? >> steve leaseman, chief economics correspondent. somewhere janet yellen has her own reaction being name checked. lawrence o'donnell among those listening and watching. lawrence? >> i think there were three key moments for donald trump. and one was when he said that makes me smart. that was his quote. it was an interjection while hillary clinton was speaking

about his taxes and his missing tax returns, and using the evidence we have, of the only tax returns that have ever been seen of donald trumps that indicates he pays no taxes whatsoever. and that was the point hillary clinton was making. donald trump could have said, i pay a lot in taxes. he could have said i pay millions in taxes, could have easily said that. instead, he said, that makes me smart when hillary clinton suggested he pays no taxes whatsoever. that lean we migine we might se hillary clinton commercial down the road. another came at 10:33. lester holt created a moment by asking donald trump very simple and what should have been a predictable question to donald trump's debate prep team. and that was donald trump having said that hillary clinton doesn't have the look to be president. those were the words presented to donald trump. the first words out of his mouth were she doesn't have the look.

that is exactly what he said. he confirmed what he was asked about having, him having said before. he went on to her stamina. but he insisted right off the bat she tonight have the look. he didn't retract that. i don't know what he thinks the look of margaret thatcher is or what he thinks the look is but he insisted that. then we come to the rosie o'donnell moment, her first time in a presidential debate at the general election level. and donald trump said about all the ugly words that will not be repeated here, that he has used over the years to describe rosie o'donnell that everyone agrees that she deserves it. and that is the sick bubble that donald trump lives in, and no one working in his campaign has said to him, no, donald, no one deserves those words under any circumstances. that's the problem with that campaign. no one can talk him out of his

sickness. >> lawrence o'donnell, going back through what we witnessed tonight from, specifically, mr. trump. >> i mean, the point he was just making right there about rosie o'donnell. that is weird that that came up that he decided to revis its his ad hominem attack. he also emphasized his d.c. hotel. >> another break for us. our coverage will continue right after this. i love you so much. that's why i bought six of you... for when you stretch out. i want you to stay this bright blue forever... that's why you will stay in this drawer... forever. i can't live without you. and that's why i will never, ever wash you. protect your clothes from the damage of the wash

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in all fairness to secretary clinton -- yes? is that okay? good. i want you to be very happy. it's very important to me. >> donald, i know you live in your own reality, but that is not the fact. >> i think my strongest asset maybe by far is my term permanent. i have a winning temperament. i know how to win. she does not -- >> i think donald just criticized me for preparing for this bate. and yes, i did. and you know what else i prepared for? i prepared to be president. and i think that's a good thing.