event in wisconsin, before heading over to michigan for another event later in the day. that's it for us, i'm alex witt alongside louis burgdorf. "morning joe" starts right now. say this is the thing i learned. this is the thing i learned. i learned a lot of things in life. say less, right? talk less. listen more? >> less is more. >> that's why i suspect donald trump so much when he said yesterday, i know a lot of stuff about this woman, but i'm not going to say anything, right? brevity. my statue when i go. joe scarborough. i don't talk much, right? right? other people say it, not me. >> something is going on. >> actually, many people were saying that's not exactly true. >> so hold on, so donald trump says i'm not going to talk about

this. ladies and gentlemen of america, we are in the midst -- we need to go to bill karins. there is a tweet storm that is rising over trump tower right now this morning. it is exploding all over the place, mika. >> good morning, everyone. it's friday, september 30th. you all are scaring me. i have no idea what you're talking about. with us on set in washington, senior political editor and white house correspondent for "the washington post" sam stein. >> i'm not into it. >> my wife likes it. that's all that matters. >> political reporter for "the washington post" and msnbc analyst robert costa who i tried to get a scruffy beard. >> he's all cleaned up. >> pulitzer prize winner eugene robinson and "the new york times," jeremy peters.

so, alex, how are you doing this morning up in the mother ship? are you doing all right? >> doing good. >> are you following these trump tweets? he woke up earlier and there's a tweet storming if on. >> he's busy. it's interesting. we'll have it in a couple minutes. >> bob costa, you're "the washington post's" tweet reporter. that's why they hired you. senior tweet reporter. i didn't know about this. i don't follow twitter this early in the morning. what's he saying on the twitter machine? >> any time you see a story about me or my campaign saying sources said. do not believe it. there are no sources. they are just made up lies. he's going to a different subject. crooked hillary was duped and used by my worse miss universe.

hillary floated her as an angel when she's terrible. this goes on and on. >> keep going. >> okay. u suffers from bad judgment. hillary was set up by a con. this is to 11.9 million people. did crooked hillary help disgusting check out sex tape in past alicia m. become a u.s. citizen so she could use her in the debate. >> what time was that tweeted? >> 32 minutes. 5:30 a.m. >> to he's had a tweet storm early this morning, which is fascinating. gene robinson, i guess they have tried to bring discipline to the campaign. i wonder what does this, again, just trying to get into his

head. does this mean that he now knows he lost the debate. the day before he told o'reilly, what else you got on this miss universe. he said i'm not going to talk about all of the bad things i know about her. this morning it is spilling out from the 87th floor of trump towers. >> it means two things. number one, the staffer assigned to sneak into his bedroom in the middle of the night and take the phone, apparently was off today and so he has the phone. second thing it means, it's like flailing. >> i don't understand. >> he can't deal with the fact that he got creamed in that debate. earlier in the week he was apparently raging at the surrogates to go out and say he won the debate rather than he lost the debate which was everyone to everyone who watched

it and now because the -- you know, miss universe thing is hurting him with women, it's going to hurt him more with women, he's decided this very bizarre way to try to -- >> the debate was monday night. this is friday morning. what he's doing is breathing additional life into this topic that i can't for the life of me think is -- >> this is con material here. >> i think -- >> this is con material. >> he can't get over the slight that he feels was handed to him during the debate. another part of it is just this is who he is. i know people think there's this three dimensional chess happening try to distract from the story, it's not that. i think he's just personally aggrieved by what's happening with this thing. there was a lot of alicia mo machado happening in right-wing media.

>> i haven't seen, jeremy, any poll data that suggests donald trump has lost much of anything based on the debate so why blow up three or four days later? >> he's utterly unable to process anything critical about his performance. this has become a problem for the people who are supposed to be advising him. the advice he will not take. when he goes and lambastes these unanimous sources, part of the reason they say what they're saying and why you hear his aides go on tv is because this is the only way they can talk to him. they can't get through to him unless he sees them on the television or reads them in the newspaper so when kellyanne conway says trump is the babe ruth of debating, it will lift him up. >> that sounds kind of like, robert costa, almost like they're dealing with someone who doesn't -- how do i say this

carefully? is very troubled. >> it comes back to what sam was saying. trump's life before this presidential campaign has been full of drama. played out in public with private citizens. whether it's rosie o'donnell or others, this has been who he is as a celebrity, these kind of clashes. he's only been taking political advice for over a year. the other way he's been operating which is fight, fight, fight on social media and through the tabloids. that's who he is. >> let's just stop for one second here and, gene, we've had people who realized for a long time, we need a ceo that will run america like their business and yet people that have followed politics for a very long time know that for the most part, people that go straight from running their own corporation to being in politics suck. they are just as bad as generals because you don't get -- in

politics, you get stripped down. the bark gets stripped off of your tree. you can pick 30 people you hate the most in congress and you have to work with them and deal with them. if you're going to be successful. i mean, i hate to bring up barack obama, but democrats were talking very early on about this guy did not care to figure out how d.c. worked. a ceo is even worse. it's not like donald trump is just the exception to the rule in this case. business people that have had their whole way their entire lives that have had a huge office in the corner of the 87th and go in and take a shower at lunchtime, a shower with 87 shower heads on it and these are not the type of people that can take the punch in the face from some snot nosed kid on a blog. >> they're using to getting

their way period because they're the final authority. this is the way it's going to be and the way it is. and ever salutes. everyone says, yes, boss, you're smart. that's right. we'll do it that way. that's not the case in politics as you well know. but there's also an element of just donald trump. >> no doubt about it. >> donald trump's personality. a lot of ceos wouldn't be tweeting this. >> we can't lose sight of something here. this is a 70-year-old man running for presidency who is tweeting about a sex tape. let's step back and realize how unnatural and weird this all is. >> it's unnatural and weird unless you have followed donald trump's not only campaign but followed his career. he is the central figure in our bonfire of the vanities. this is how he's operated. nobody should be shocked this morning. this is how he's operated for 40

years. it's how he's going to operate for the rest of his life. >> he's selling himself and sell himself -- >> in a reality tv show world. >> someone pointed out the other day when he was talking about these junk online polls. look at the drudge report poll and other various online polls with zero scientific merit. that's another thing advisers cannot get through to him. the polls mean nothing. he does not distinguish between a scientific poll and a drudge report. it's like a movie review from an online publication that has no reputation, five stars. >> you're so right, jeremy. there's a culture inside of the trump campaign that the candidate says snap polls are the truth and that they are reflective of reality. that's the reality of the trump campaign. that's what we see right now.

>> here's the deal, mika, in the primaries, he cited junk polls. he ended up winning anyone. everyone that signed onto the trump campaign know what they've signed onto. bannon and kellyanne are doing the best to bring order and discipline to this organization, but at the end it comes down to donald trump. >> yes, it does. and his own self-destructive narcissism. we're going to move to the next version of that. as far as this miss universe thing, all of these other bad things that he never said about her that may have happened, if he had maybe alluded to that and then put it away at the debate, that would be great. instead he weight shamed her and then showed america how he still hasn't changed after 20 or 30 years and that women need to be thin in order to be beautiful. that's incredibly insulting. it might be pretty basic but that's where we are. that's where we are.

he is limited in the ability to view anything outside of the pr prism of the way he thinks things should be. >> we don't know if -- will it be politically self-destructive? this is an important point. moralize all you want to le we have all moralized right now go to real clear politics. it's tied. >> if you want change, do you go for trump? >> it's friday. enough time has passed since the debate so now we can start looking at the polls and start looking for whatever potential impact there is from monday night. i agree with mika. i think it will be there. >> i'm going out on a limb. >> you know who i think probably agrees with us is kellyanne conway. she's a pollster and done a lot of work over the years on women and how women react. kellyanne is not happy with this

whole thing. >> i spoke with a room full of fantastic women yesterday and they look sickened when i brought up this topic. >> there have been a few polls that show a slight bounce. it's tilting a little back in clinton's direction. secondly, not only is the weight shaming and the machado stuff problematic, if they go down after going after bill clinton, that's high risk. >> let's talk about that. donald trump says that he could have said something but he didn't say something. which is in a way of saying something. >> i'll put a period on the end of the sentence and say weight shaping of that woman and fact he still did it today is disgusting and perverted and makes women really angry and pulls us back. >> do you think it will have an impact on the race? >> i do. i was concerned the day after the debate that the actual

debate performance would not move the meter that much even though hillary won. i think this will. >> if he does not win this election, people are going to look, i think, to this episode if this does bring him down. >> and there's a lot of other things we could say about his entire team and it backs up the weight shaming. i'm not going to say much more than that. >> engage with joe's question here of look at the republican party. no one is distancing themselves from trump. in spite of the machado comments and everything that's happened since the debate, the republican party has not drifted away from him. urging not to go in the direction of monica. that sort of thing. he's up in ohio. >> jim martin has -- this is what i'm warning. i'm warning everybody on shows like this out of washington and new york and l.a., warning

everybody, we can be disgusted by what he's saying. do not for a second think it's going to spell an end to this race because we predicted around this set for six months that dunn was going to ravage the republican party. i have. you have. jim martin -- john martin has an incredible piece this morning in the "times" talking about ohio. it's gone. it looks like trump is winning it going away. there's not a single democrat that is going to challenge a republican incumbent and that they've already abandoned ted strickland in ohio. the bellwether. why? >> i understand that. >> who knows? >> i understand that. that's why the day after the debate i still wasn't sure the debate was going to do it even though hillary clinton seemed to win. i thought he said things that

really connected. believe it or not. but this issue, i promise you, is one that will leave a mark. also, let's move onto this. apparently trump is leaving it to his surrogates to doing the job of bringing up bill clinton's past scandals with women. >> i'm very proud that at the very end, when she attacked him and went off on this whole rant about women, and you could see his face. in the republican primaries, he would have just smashed her. instead he came off looking like a gentleman and she came off looking pretty mean and miserable. >> every time a woman would come along and say that bill clinton did something to her, who was the biggest attacker of that woman? and she's a feminist? >> it's amazing when you hear her talk about sexism and these various claims, which are ridiculous, aside from

obviously, bill, her husband, being maybe the worst that's ever lived. >> i thought he was a complete gentleman to her, and he hasn't gotten a lot of credit for that. at the beginning he said graciously secretary clinton and then he said may i call you secretary clinton? she sort of looked. he said i want you to be happy. it's very important to me. at the end of the night after she hit him with some negative attacks, he said to her, i came here ready to play rough and say some things about you, but i won't do it because your family is here. i'm not advising him to go there. it's fair game to think about how hillary clinton treated those women after the fact. >> and in an interview with new england cable news, donald trump also said that bill clinton is fair game but continued to hold back on what he said was hillary clinton's role. >> i would have it the right to have done it, and he's a member of the campaign. it's not like he's not campaign ing. i didn't want to do anything like that in front of chelsea, the daughter, who i happen to think is a very nice young

woman. >> why would that reflect on hillary clinton anyway? >> i think it's simple to figure that out. >> he can run his campaign however he chooses. that's up to him. i'm going to keep talking about the stakes in this election. i'm going to keep talking about my agenda. >> that was the right tone by the way. i like the way she's handling that. i'm going to be careful here because it shouldn't be personal, but i'm so disappointed that sometimes it's hard for it not to be personal because he could do so much with this. if they're going to go into this gutter, just keep in mind this is a guy who wrote in his book, if he wrote it, about all of the women that he -- i don't even want to use the word -- he used it in the book. it's just kind of pathetic actually. >> can we also just push the

pause button for a second and look at the accusers in those news clips. giuliani, newt gingrich, donald trump, nine wives among the three of them. >> no one is in the judging business, but i just think that -- i think that at this point all i can hope is that women take a look at this situation. >> we pull and push here because i was watching newt gingrich's interview on sean hannity last night. he wants them to go after this and newt even though he was in that clip, you could see he was much to sean hannity's dismay saying this probably isn't the best route to go down. newt gingrich said let's try to keep it on trade and keep it on past versus future, and -- politically newt is right. >> newt is right.

there is actual data that republican pollster that put out if you do this, even if you say i'm attacking not bill but hillary for treating the people in bill's life that way, it will engender sympathy for hillary. >> you said hillary clinton never more popular than in '98. >> we have a piece in today's "post" i spoke to rudy giuliani, former new york mayor, newt gingrich, and karen said when she spoke to gingrich, he said don't do this. we lost in '98. we thought we would make it an issue. it did not work. but when i spoke to giuliani, giuliani has a whole prosecutorial case in his mind that he laid out for me about what secretary clinton did, how she handled certain women who have accused president clinton of certain things. he's the one right now i would argue who is closest to trump. giuliani. >> i tell you what, newt gingrich lost his speakership.

i was there. in 1998, when he and others were in the middle of impeachment and everybody was predicting a massive mudslide and republicans came within four seats of losing the house. the further it went on, i was there, bill clinton's approval rating soared over 60. hillary clinton's approval rating higher than it ever was. it was a colossal nightmare and political mistake for the republican party and then gene robinson, 20 years later it will be worse because millennials will go what are you talking about? really. >> the staff member who was assigned to steal donald trump's phone-to-should should be assip rudy giuliani away from

microphones. he's gone off the ranch. don't quite know what he's playing. >> don't get that. >> great first section of the show, guys. i think we did well. >> do you have those tweets full screen yet for us to read next block. >> we put them up on air, but we'll put them up again. >> snarky, alex. golly. >> still ahead, could new reports about trump and his business ties to cuba hurt him with voters? marco rubio think it may. >> an exclusive interview with the secretary of homeland security jeh johnson. but first, bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> gloomy in the northeast and all eyes on hurricane matthew. rainy weather in philadelphia and new york. the rain will head your way during the morning. expect airport delays on the roads. rest of the forecast looks pretty good across the country. afternoon storms. let's get into matthew. this rapidly intensified last

night into a category 2 hurricane. it's now just south of the dominican republic looking like a beast on satellite imagery. winds up to 100 miles per hour heading west. the updated forecast path from the hurricane center takes it to a major hurricane today and brings it into jamaica. jamaica has 48 hours to prepare for a major hurricane headed their way as they go throughout sunday afternoon, sunday night and impact toward midnight and then eastern cuba gets hit and then the storm heads toward the bahamas. it looks like florida is on the safer side of the storm. computer models are dangerously close to florida and extended computer models european and american models, usa model brings it close to eastern north carolina where the european model keeps it safely out to sea. we have to figure out those differences in the days ahead. on the east coast, pay attention this upcoming weekend to the forecast of hurricane matthew. washington, d.c. heavy rain yesterday. just gloomy type weather during

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>> i think most of the -- all of

the online polls show debate. a lot of people thought i won the debate. i did a good job setting the all-time record in terms of people watching. i think i did a good job. >> will you change the strategy going forward? >> i don't know. i will work hard. i don't know in terms of strategy. certainly i'm going to work hard. >> coming up, have you picked up today's "usa today"? donald trump is ready to lead and the other from the editorial board, don't vote for trump. first time the paper has taken a side in the election. "morning joe" from washington is back in a moment.

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>> this is the tweet storm. >> we're covering a presidential election and the republican nominee keeps tweeting stupidity and sex tape stuff literally. this is happening. >> the politics of the shallows. >> when you were a politician leaving the debate stage, you always know if you won. you can feel it. what you get after such a victory is the whoosh.

your laugh is real. a real laugh and not an enactment and all this makes you better at the next stop. which makes the crowd cheer louder and then you really know you've got the whoosh. right now mrs. clinton has it. she'll probably overplay her hand, that's what she does, her sense of her own destiny blinds her to her tendency toward misjudgment. since the debate mr. trump is angry and is going straight into junkyard dog mode which won't work well. this tells me the next week or so she's up and he's down and after that we'll see. she's looking great. she's sounding great. >> perfect peggy noonan column right there. >> how great. >> whoosh. i don't understand it. it makes sense. >> she's got wind at her back and she'll overplay her hand because that's what the clintons do. they never we're ahead, we'll keep our head down. something happens.

>> this is the game -- >> there's nothing else to add. it will happen. second debate she'll overplay her hand. >> do we think he goes to the second debate? >> yes. >> there were people close to his campaign making the case that maybe he skips it. >> donald trump, guys, donald trump is all about eyes, okay. he had 80 million people watching him the other night. he's never, ever -- could be his own execution. if he thought he could get 100 million people watching him being tortured to death, he would go. he would be there. >> he's not like chris christie who knows how to walk around in a town hall who does hundreds of them. trump works the lectern. this is a town hall. live questions. stools. microphones. body language. >> the topic of bill's

infidelities will come up at a town hall event. that's tough. >> only town halls he's ever done as far as i can remember, correct me if i'm wrong, sean hannity town halls. >> one in new hampshire. >> we did one with him. we asked him tough questions. >> there's been a few. it's not like he's done a lot. >> he's not going to pass up 80 million people watching. >> i guess not. look, this reaction, all of the tweeting this morning, he's deeply affected by what happened in this debate. i think it's kind of unpredictable. i how can donald trump give up an audience that big? that's not in his nature. i wonder what his state of mind will be going into the next debate. >> remarkable about donald trump that there is no slight that he can let go past. of all of the traits this campaign season that surprises

me the most, he can't let any slight pass him by. >> it's just like a guy with a big car. okay. the race car or whatever. >> mike pence writes this in "usa today." okay. he was doing that when he was in his 30s, okay? >> right. >> all right. >> so interesting duelling op-eds in "usa today." by electing donald trump, the american people have an opportunity to choose a bold leader in a political world reserved for talkers, donald trump is a doer. i've come to know the man whose invited me to join him on the republican ticket as thoughtful, compassionate and steady. above all, i know he is ready to lead the united states as our next president and commander in chief. >> then you go on the other side of the very same page in "usa today" editorial board writes

something different. >> in the 44-year history of the "usa today," we've never taken side in the presidential race. we have never seen reason to all the -- alter our approach until now. the editorial does not have consensus for clinton endorsement. our bottom line advice for voters is this. stay true to your convictions. that might mean a vote for clinton or a third-party candidate, resist the siren song of a dangerous demagogue. by all means, vote, just not for donald trump. >> gene robinson, we see a lot of firsts this year. there are several newspapers that always endorsed republicans aren't doing it this year. arizona republic, one of them endorsed hillary clinton, and they're getting besieged by

phone calls to cancel their subscriptions. >> there will be more. "dallas morning news" hasn't endorsed democrats. maybe they endorsed lyndon johnson. it's been that long. wrote two editorials, one de-endorsing donald trump and another editorial endorsing hillary clinton saying she's okay. vote for her. it's just extraordinary. and i actually think this matters. you know, in texas, i don't think hillary clinton is going to win texas. i don't think "the dallas morning news" will bring that state over for her. i think cumulative impact of the staunch republican newspapers and people who criticize the media as being too liberal don't realize of course that historically most newspaper owners and editorial stances

have been republican. i think it just has an impact on the race and people's perception of the race when these papers say do not vote for this republican candidate. >> jeremy what do you think? >> i think one thing that's interesting and quite problematic for hillary clinton in all of these nonendorsements of trump, it's more of a nonendorsement of her. they can't bring themselves to say vote for hillary clinton instead. and they're saying, well, okay, maybe vote for her. maybe vote third party. third party thing is a real problem. we have a story in yesterday's "new york times" on how high the level of support for third-party candidates are among millennials. >> even though gary johnson doesn't know his middle name? >> that could change. who knows. i don't know how millennials are observing this bad information about johnson. we asked them who's ralph nader.

most americans can answer. millennials, ralph who? they don't understand the consequences of a third-party protest vote. that's a real problem for hillary. >> they kept it close enough for george bush to be president. >> up next, the nation's highest official on homeland security, cabinet secretary jeh johnson wears in on terror threats, cyberattacks and whether our rail systems are more vulnerable than she should be. he joins us exclusively next on "morning joe."

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of the track team, and if i'm late... she doesn't really think she's going to get out of here, does she? be nice. she's new. hello! is anyone there? rrr! wow. even from our standards, you look awful. oh, sweetie, what happened? girl: me? friend becky got to talk to this super-cute boy, and i tried to act like i wasn't jealous, but i so totally was, and then, out of nowhere, this concrete barrier just popped up. maybe it was a semi. you mean you were driving? yeah. i mean, i know the whole "eyes on the road" thing. but this was a super important text. maybe you have to know becky. texting? great. but it was only, like, 5 seconds, and i'm a really, really fast texter, so it wasn't even a big deal. actually, has she texted me back yet? [squishing sound] wow, i get, like, no bars in this place. i wonder if they have wi-fi here.

bp drilling teams train in virtual reality simulators in here, so we're better prepared for any situation out there. because safety is never being satisfied. and always working to be better. investigators are back on the scene in hoboken, new jersey, this morning at the site of the horrific train crash that left one person dead and more than 100 injured. just in, they recovered the black box from the locomotive. that accident happened yesterday morning just before 9:00 a.m. during the busy rush hour commute. new jersey governor chris christie said the train was traveling at a high rate of speed crashing thrgh a series

of barriers before slamming into a station wall. at this point, investigators say it is still too early to say what caused the train to barrel into the station. joining us now, secretary of homeland security, jeh johnson. we could talk about a number of issues. you're looking at that, are you not? >> the ntsb is all over the crash at hoboken. as a private citizen, i go through that station all the time when i did my morning commute into midtown manhattan. i suspect it won't be long until we have some answers. the motorman is alive. presumably he'll be interviewed at some point soon. and ntsb, other authorities, are all over it. i suspect we'll have answers soon. >> no suspicions of foul play? >> at this point no suspicions of terrorism or foul play or anything of that nature. >> let's talk about security though just generally on trains from terrorism. we've seen some attacks in

europe. the united states, we've taken extraordinary measures to protect those that travel by air. is there a weak spot in our defense when we talk about trains? >> we have to be concerned about trains, public transportation, public place, public events. tsa actually has as part of its mission rail safety as well but in addition to tsa, you have amtrak police, you have new jersey transit police, and tsa itself has been stepping up its rail safety efforts. but their principle focus right now is and should be aviation security. that's the reason they were created. and they do have this rail safety mission. >> as someone who lives on the rails, you see sniffer dogs. increased presence on trains.

>> talk then moving on about different threats as we look toward the election, we're a little bit worried as we've been hearing reports coming in. >> a couple things. first, there's an open investigation about the exact source of the hacks of the dnc, general powell's e-mails and others. we are seeing also and it's important to make this distinction, we are seeing also efforts at hacks into the systems of state and local election officials. one of two of those have been successful into the online presence of state and local election officials. exactly who did it is also still

under investigation. in the face of that, i've been out there publicly engaging with state and local election officials encouraging them to come to us for our cybersecurity expertise to help secure their own systems. i'm pleased that yesterday speaker ryan, leader pelosi, sent a letter for encouragement to come to us for help in this area. we have to be concerned about sophistication of cyber actors. and do our utmost to protect the election systems. >> the fact that one has already been successful, are people going to show up on election day and potentially find their name is not there or the integrity of their ballot is not guaranteed? could it be an administrative disaster? >> there are established best practices for having backups for

how you tally votes that are out there. one of the reasons i suspect the system is secure is because it's so decentralized. there are 9,000 jurisdictions responsible for vote counting across this country. the way our elections work in this country, there's no one single point of failure. >> if you destabilize one point, that's enough, right? you end up affecting one municipalities vote. >> that's why there are best practices and why we need backups and why we encourage state officials local officials, do the utmost to secure your system. >> can you 100% guarantee we'll have a clean electoral process? >> when have we ever had -- >> from a cyber standpoint. can you say going into november 8 that these voter data bases can be protected.

>> there are cyberintrusions in this country every day and every hour. >> sam, you're not going to get an answer. >> i want an answer. in a national election in the united states with all those millions of votes cast, there's just no way you can do that with 100% clean under any circumstance because there are always -- >> there's always voter fraud on both sides. there's always, you know, a small margin of it, in every single election. >> someone comes in and expects their name will be on the list and it isn't there. i wonder if you're concerned that every ordinary hiccup in the process that we see in elections becomes attributed to this hacking and what you do about that. >> if you go to a poll and the people there don't have a record of your name, you can fill out a provisional ballot.

it happened to me once. and that's a reason why we need to have these kinds of backups. it's important now for state officials to look for vulnerabilities in their systems. it's important for anybody with a system online to protect against spearfishing. the most sophisticated devastating attacks othccur because on employee opens an e-mail they shouldn't have. >> what does it say about where we've come as a nation that the reason we can rest better at night knowing the russians can't completely come in and hack and change the results of the election is because it's decentralized. because it's not on one computer system. because it's not run like our banks are run. because it's not run like our academic institutions are run.

it's not run the way our government files a run. it seems to me that perhaps we need to decentralize and perhaps bank of america and jpmorgan and maybe even some of our federal bureaucracies need to decentralize so -- de-decentralize their information, their computer system, so if someone hacks into one part of it, it doesn't wipe out an entire part of it. >> i think that that is a broader conversation that goes beyond just the cybersecurity context. i think we can develop a set of best practices that can be adopted across the board, whether you're a county official, a state official, and the like. state officials are -- this is the way our system is set up and their province. it's their jurisdiction. it's how we do elections in this country. you can develop a consistent set

of best practices that we should follow. >> jeh johnson, thank you very much for coming on this morning. >> appreciate you walking over. >> "hardball's" chris matthews is here on set and nbc news political director chuck todd and hallie jackson covering donald trump in michigan where a new poll just out shows how debate audiences are reacting to his performance. we'll have that coming up on "morning joe." for a 100% fresh mouth. just ask listerine® users. the very people we studied in the study of bold. people who are statistically more likely to stand up to a bully. do a yoga handstand. and be in a magician's act. listerine® kills 99% of bad breath germs so you can feel 100% in life. bring out the bold™. go to boldpercent.com to join the bold percent for the chance to win a trip of a lifetime.

>> still ahead on "morning joe" -- >> pop quizzes is not his forte. he needs time to expound what he's thinking. >> you don't think he didn't know the answer, he just don't do well in that pop quiz format. >> that's an understatement. >> what color is the sky? >> what color is my sweater. >> bill weld tries to do damage control who tweeted it's been almost 24 hours and i still can't come up with a foreign leader i look up to. that's now pop quiz turned into essay like you have three days to answer the question and you still can't. we'll bring in a claimed gotcha journalist, chris matthews, who had the audacity to ask a presidential candidate to name his favorite foreign leader. >> just one. that's all. >> we're back in a moment.

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welcome back. how are you feeling this morning? are you doing okay? >> i'm feeling good. all good. >> we have some polls out, some new polls that have just come out. >> what do they show? >> i don't know. >> they show i was wrong. >> about what? >> about being worried that trump actually might have

connected with people and got a bump out of the debate or at least stayed the same. >> i think it's a little early. friday, september 30th. last day of september. >> with us on set in washington, political editor sam stein. political reporter for "the washington post" robert costa. msnbc political analyst eugene robinson and "new york times" jeremy peters. >> trump goes into michigan today that shows hillary clinton with a seven-point lead. clinton at 42%. donald trump up three since the last poll on august 1st at 35%. gary johnson up one. why? nobody knows. 9%. and jill stein holding steady at 3. >> one more note. the poll found that 52% michigan voters believe clinton won the

debate. 23% said neither. 20% say trump. >> that's about the same as the national polls we've seen. there also is a new mason dixon report out of florida showing that hillary clinton has a four-point lead. >> i was so wrong. >> she's ahead. 46-42. that's a 2% improvement from the last time and in new hampshire, a race that has been tight of late, new hampshire has hillary clinton up by seven points. that's a wbur poll. gene, what can you pull from those three polls? >> that she won the debate. >> not so fast. >> that's probably right. that's probably right. and again, let's see what the polls say and what comes out tomorrow and what comes out sunday before sunday shows. certainly suggest to me that they won the debate. she lost the debate. >> you have michigan seven points and you have donald trump gaining three points since

august 1st. >> still 35%. that's pretty bad. >> i understand. hillary is at 42%. it's not quite so bad. can you read anything with these new hampshire up seven, michigan up seven, florida plus four for hillary clinton. >> you have to be able to take the average. if hillary clinton holds colorado, virginia, pennsylvania, and new hampshire, those four states, along with the states that everyone assumes she's going to win, she's going to be president. that's it. so trump needs to basically pull off one of those states away from her in order to even have a chance. that florida poll why she's up, that's gravy for her. if she wins florida, this thing is over. trump really -- even before the debate, all that stuff he was facing a really tough map. i think the debate just made the map worse. >> the poll i saw last week that

made me stop and say trump can win this things. we've convinced ourselves he can't but trump pulling close in colorado is the one i said donald trump could be the next president of the united states and everybody in brooklyn were gasping. that's going to be fascinating to see. what's the next colorado poll say? what's the next virginia poll say? wisconsin? >> you have to assume like rest of the polls have shown that it tightens up. i don't know. the clinton people are very comfortable about colorado from what i'm told and i've spoken to them. they are not planning to go back up on the air yet. they reserve the right to do that. >> the super pac is going back on. >> they think they have that locked down. what's going on is interesting. large hispanic outreach going on. one thing that polls have in common that should concern donald trump, these are places he's been heavy campaigning in.

these are keys to the white house for him. her path -- she needs to hit a home run on election night, right? she has a lot of different paths and it's relatively straightforward. he needs a grand slam. he needs to pick up an awful lot of states right now that he's not doing well in. >> whether he brings her down or elevates himself which we have all lost hope on that. he says -- >> i think you may be speaking prematurely, mika. i think right now i think the campaign is trying to figure out -- here's the thing about the campaign that everybody has to remember. i know, bob, you know this. you've been following it very closely. they have a ton of money. they have been raising a lot of money and they haven't been spending it. hillary has been spending money. they've been raising it. they've been holding it. right now they're trying to figure out is their message a positive message for donald trump or do they go in with all negative ads? online they've been focusing more on the positive message that they've had good reaction

to. this is donald trump's plan in this area or that area. >> that's part of the strategy coming out of the republican national committee and party leaders. they say if trump can sell himself as a businessman and sell his populism, that's how you can maybe put a state like pennsylvania in play. i think pennsylvania is another state you have to keep an eye on. mike pence was there yesterday. donald trump will be in the same area. the center of the state that center of the state full of white working class voters. that who party leadership thinks he has to turn on whether its in ohio, iowa, colorado, virginia, north carolina, florida. those working class voters have to get engaged. >> i also just think we possibly could be underestimating just how many women he has turned off this week. that is it. i think a lot of people were willing to put the stuff he said in the past as in the past. he's brought it front and center.

he's done a knockout punch to women in a deeply personal way. >> he's not backing off. >> we're angry and don't like him for the things he has said because they are deeply personal. they're wrong and they set us back in so many ways. i don't think we c really figure that out yet until they poll women. we'll see. maybe i'm wrong. we'll vote for a woman at this point given what's happened. >> especially educated modern women in the suburbs. >> and men with daughters. okay. so here's trump saying he won the debate. >> i think most of the -- in fact all of the online polls said that i won the debate. a lot of people thought i won the debate. i think i did a good job. i think it was an amazing experience for me especially setting the all-time record in terms of people watching, but i think i did a very good job. >> will you change the strategy going forward? >> i don't know. i will work hard. i don't know in terms of strategy but certainly i'm going

work hard. >> multiple polls, scientific polls, have said hillary clinton won that debate by a two to one margin. not even close. >> i got to set you straight on that one. the polls that happened that night, the night of the debate, the snap polls, the ones that happen online, those showed mr. trump winning in a huge way. >> what scientific poll had donald trump winning? those are fan polls. >> people watching thought that mr. trump won that debate. >> where is the evidence that -- >> there was time. there was variety. >> those are all robot polling. it's not real polling. they're not. jason, you have been doing this a while. you know those are bogus. you know these are bogus. they are beyond nonskicientific. there are computer programs that help refresh. all you have to do is empty your history and you get to vote again.

they're not real. >> energy and enthusiasm in this race is with donald trump. >> i don't understand why we're creating reality that doesn't exist. >> i might be in the minority. i thought jason did a fantastic job. he was handed a bunch of really bad lemons and made it into serviceable lemonade. i wouldn't want to drink the lemonade but he did a good job. >> it's understandable within the context of the trump campaign. you have a candidate who almost every day tweets out these snap polls. that's the company line from the trump campaign. he stayed with it. >> trump was 100% right there. no debate, even jason knows that. >> if the campaign is forced to fall in line and believe the snap polls and believe the big crowds mean you're going to take a state, if you get a big crowd, you're going to take the state, if the campaign has to act accordingly, that's bad for donald trump. because they are campaign

professionals that know none of that is true. >> i don't think the staff believes it. i know that the staff knows that these polls are junk and tried to tell donald trump that the polls are junk. he doesn't want to hear it. they're in a position to go on television to say what their boss wants to hear. >> i have to ask, how different is this from four years ago when mitt romney's campaign wadded itself up into a little bubble, and they put themselves in the middle of the fox news newsroom. never read anything they didn't want to believe. i mean, they talked about the drudge report. they talked about gallop. and they -- >> unskewed the polls. talked about crowd sizing. calling me election weekend saying they're going to win. they're doing the same thing that trump people are making the same mistake the romney people

made four years ago when they still believed it election night that they were going to go win. karl rove still believed election night they were going to win. >> the other comparison to the trump campaign and obama campaign so both of them objectively lost the first debate. what did obama do? obama went out there and said i took one on the chin. i didn't bring my best game. we lost. he went about and tried to fix it. the danger not creating your own reality but believing it and not learning from it. this is where trump gets in trouble. >> i live in a neighborhood where there are republicans and democrats in a swing state. the clinton campaign has been to my neighborhood, i think, five times. people walking through. door to door. five times. we have not seen the trump campaign. >> so donald trump is taking on the former miss universe who called attention to criticism of her weight that he doubled down.

anyhow, he tweeted, wow, crooked hillary was duped. >> this is before 6:00 a.m. this morning. >> before 6:00 this morning. so from his bed he was tweeting this. just think of that image everybody, all right. by my worst miss u hillary floated her as an angel without checking her past which is terrible! using alicia m. in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that crooked hillary suffers from bad judgment. hillary was set up by a con. again, these tweets sent shortly after 5:00 a.m. on the east coast. two hours after a tweet at 3:20 this morning in which he wrote, any time you see a story about me or my campaign saying sources said, do not believe it. there are no sources.

they are just made up lies. according to msnbc's embed, trump's schedule ended after a 3:00 p.m. rally and early evening fund-raiser upon arriving back in new york city. >> bob costa, talk about -- you spent an awful lot of time trying to cover trump and what's going on in the campaign. a lot of people said get the phone away from him. don't let him tweet. everybody has tried. viouslev the best team they have in there still just can't do it. it's impossible because trump is trump, right? talk about the continued efforts to reign him in. >> so when you think about this new team that came in, kellyanne conway and steve bannon, they were brought in in part because they told trump they would let

trump be trump and not overly control his tweets or his public message. at times they have tempering advice. they say pullback. they say use different kind of rhetoric on the campaign trail. >> apparently trump listens to bannon. trump and bannon have a good working relationship. >> they have a connection where bannon talks about populism and puts things in broad terms even though trump doesn't come out of this ideological school. he knows conway from new york. she's been in politics for a while. they have a rapport. trump has a rapport with these two people. that reflects. you have to remember with everything you see on twitter, with trump and his campaign, you have trump at the center. he's running the campaign. >> i'm just amazed that a 70-year-old guy, 39 days from the presidency, or the election, sorry, is tweeting about a sex tape with shimon peres' funeral

happening. you have to step back in this campaign at times and say this is actually happening. >> the degradation of our politician throughout the course of this whole year has been extraordinary. you have a candidate who is not just tweeting about a sex tape, he's encouraging his followers to watch it and he has boasted about the size of his manhood on national television during a primary debate. this is the level of our politics. >> when you talk to trump, he thinks the country responds to this kind of behavior. he thinks the country likes public figures who are out there who are authentic as the way he would put it who are themselves so this combative offensive way of speaking about women and other issues, he thinks it's part of his public flare. that's just based on my reporting. >> but the dividing line between politically incorrect and grossly offensive, he doesn't seem to be able to get that

quite right. >> he doesn't understand that he told the women of this country that they're not beautiful unless they are certain weight that's almost impossible unless you starve yourself. one thing to think that way and maybe 30 years ago when you're running pageants but to double down on it today, that's what he's telling women is that there is a line of what is beautiful that he determines that he and other men who are quite retongued determined and you're not a ten if you're shot a shirt. you need to be hungry. skinny to the point of hungry and worried about this because of him. it's so sick. it's beyond personal. it's really like where are we? do we really want this guy as sort of the head of our country and speaking to our children about the future with that outlook on women? that outlook, which by the way

now in realtime, he's confirmed is him today. not him 30 years ago. today. >> all right. so still ahead on "morning joe," we'll be joined by chris matthews who we saw elicit gary johnson's latest aleppo moment. >> it's not hard. >> plus, the moderator of "meet the press," chuck todd. i'm going to ask him about a new online poll that says my jacket is better than his. also, nbc's peter alexander and "the washington post's" chris cillizza. we shall return. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

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>> previously on game shows with gary johnson. >> geography 16. >> this city had been its nation's business capital and was once the end of the silk road. ga gary? >> what is aleppo? >> you're kidding. >> it's time for celebrity "family feud." >> name one former leader that

you look up to. >> shimon peres. >> i'm talking about any living leader. >> former leader of mexico. >> which one? >> i'm having a hard time. >> name a foreign leader. any foreign leader. >> merkel. >> can't argue with that. >> joining us the host of msnbc's "hardball." that was not a hardball. >> we don't have the bells and whistles. >> nbc's news national correspondent pete nagarir alexs with us and chris cillizza. >> he said what is aleppo? i was more dumbed founded when asked him to name one leader.

it was so obvious he couldn't answer the question that even the students in the background were laughing. how does he get to this stage in his life and not be able to name a single leader on the international stage. >> we all have areas of vast ignorance. fashion for me. maybe hockey. >> physics for me. but guess what? i'm not trying to be dean of m.i.t. >> you're not running to be the greatest world leader and not knowing the other ones. i thought funny part if he was elec elected and gets a call from someone saying who the hell are you? >> ignorance of it. >> i have to tell you one point. compared to trump in terms of character and behavior with people like us, asking questions, the minute the interview was over, the program was over, he which spered to me that was fair and weld was a perfect gentleman. he was his life line and weld

said something totally generous. i got on the air last night. he ran against john kerry in the race for the senate up there. i said how do you think kerry is doing? he said i think he deserves the nobel peace prize for what he did in the iran nuclear deal. nice character there. he will be known for this. >> he's 13% in new hampshire. >> yeah. >> how can he be? >> there are states where they are very strong. >> people are sitting on him because they don't remember always with third party in this election two people -- >> let's put that poll up quickly. hold on one second, chris. we were talking about how hillary clinton was up post-debate but hillary is minus five since august 1st. trump plus three. there's an eight-point swing there even though hillary is seven points up. >> that poll is telling of the point i was going to make. these are the two least popular nominees in history. never forget that as a function

of all of this gary johnson and jill stein. people are waiting in the bus terminal that is gary johnson or jill stein to see if one of the buses will get to the destination is leaving. >> it's like the third matrix. you know, he's just sitting down there waiting for subway to come. >> specifically among millennials, the number is even higher. what they say is it's not even about gary johnson but in the course of their lifetime for a lot of them it's their first election, they give hillary clinton or donald trump, they want the system changed going forward. so ralph nader, they would have been two or four years old in the year 2000. they have no experience with what stuff like that means. >> that's why you see hillary,

michelle obama, every clinton surrogate saying if you vote for gary johnson or jill stein, you're voting for donald trump. a generation before of course ralph nader was on their mind. not so much anymore. >> let's go to new york and nbc news political director moderator of "meet the press," chuck todd. you get to pick. we can talk about gary johnson's ignorance on "hardball," new polls that have come out this morning, or you can talk about donald trump's tweet storm since 3:20 a.m. >> it's a great buffet. you mean gary johnson, the guy with more newspaper endorsements than donald trump? think about that for a minute. >> what the? >> some endorsements have most of the gary johnson endorsements have come after there's evidence he has some homework to do. >> some homework to do? >> that's very polite way to say

that. >> let's go back to the trump tweet storm this morning. this is a pattern with him as we know when he is in a -- it seems as if when things are not going well with his campaign, he makes it clear he's not happy, and i think makes it look like it's even worse than it is. >> you think this is calculated? >> i don't know if it's calculated. this is him not happy. he can't let go of machado in the same way he couldn't let go of khan. i feel like we're having almost the exact same moment we had in the first week ofugust where everyone around him is almost begging him to stop and he won't stop. >> chris matthews, and yet he's still close in polls. can you explain to viewers like you do every night, but can you explain to our viewers what's happening with working class voters? let's say in ohio. jonathan martin this morning writes a great article in "the

new york times" saying basically ohio, this bellwether, not a challenge in the house that will come close. exactly opposite of what we predicted six months ago. what's happening out there? >> a lot of this support for trump with all his flaws which he displays regularly is about the country. patriotic feelings people have. they feel the country has been let down. they feel that our elite leaders on issues like immigration, they don't regulate any immigration it seems or regulate trade to our advantage, they take us into stupid wars. their kids don't fight but our kids do. it's patriotic. they believe in their country. when i was a capitol policeman, i worked with a guy that was a mp. he goes, let me tell you why the little man loves this country.

there's a deep sense of the country that's been taken away and betrayed. they look at a guy flawed like trump but angry the way the elite has treated my country. it's a strong force win of anger about the way the country has been betrayed. >> they think he's going to fight to get it back. >> he has a great sensory nerve that knows what works with people. he may not care for a second when he goes to bed at night, if he does go to bed at night, about immigration. he may not care about trade at all. he may not care about the stupid wars but he knows that the average guy out there, the average joe, the regular guy and woman, is very angry about the way -- hillary is the symbol of the establishment. the symbol of the way things are headed. they don't like that. they are trying to ring the bell and say, no. trump is the only way to ring it. >> so what if -- i think it's

safe to say -- >> if trump was smart enough to understand this, he would be dangerous. >> what if he continues to double down? >> irrelevancy. matched machado has nothing to do with this. do you like the leadership of this country or don't you? that should be the question that rings through the election booths. it's not going to. women in suburbs are going to say my daughte we talk about eating questions. men and women, boys and girls, everybody talks about it. they go pound somebody is like saying women should be punished for abortion. stop punishing people and start fixing things. >> it's the debate all over again. he has a good message that chris matthews just outlined. she's been there for 30 years. he stopped saying 30 years. she's a career politician about ten minutes into the debate. the problem is the debate went for 90 more minutes. >> the fund-raising of the data operation within trump land right now. they send e-mails out. i got one a couple days ago

saying we want to know what you want me to talk about. send me your ideas. that's how they gather information about people that support them. i reached out yesterday. what do you make of this? just say you've had 30 years, secretary clinton. this is about the future. we got to change it up. give me a try. only thing we resolved is we know who is up for the 3:00 a.m. phone call, other than that we're not sure what -- >> why is he telling people to do this? >> it's not what they want to hear even people that like him don't want to hear that. >> why is he encouraging people to watch pornography? a nominee for president of the united states is doing this. >> by the way, and he's trying to deflect from the fact that he mentioned and felt in realtime this woman was overweight. it caused probl because he runs beauty contests and you know it's a beauty contest. so the rest of that sentence is if you want to be beautiful, you

have to be 117 pounds. >> again, mika -- si >> sick to your stomach hungry. >> we've heard you say it this morning. i also heard what chris matthews said this morning. i agree with you as a daughter of a 13-year-old daughter, i agree with you. but if we're talking about what's going to impact a race, and you look at past being prolog after khan, after khan, look at colorado. trump drew even in colorado. he drew close to being even in virginia. which means there is a constant reset, chris matthews. a constant reset to make people say we're offended by him. we can't vote for him. there's no way. it's just never going to happen and then they go back to the reset, which is what you're talking about. change, change, change. >> the force is so strong. >> the call for change. obviously is more powerful than everybody being offended.

>> it is america first. it's looking out for our country instead of getting involved in stupid middle east wars that never made us stronger. trade deals that seem to have hallowed out most of the midwest and northeast. you go to scranton. i want my kids to stay here. i don't want them to travel away beyond driving distance to get a job. they want their kids to come home for weekends. they lose what they had. they like social security. they're not right wingers. they like the america they had and want to hold onto that. trump says i can give it back. >> they don't want to fight other wars so when washington, d.c. and the entire foreign policy apparatus is offended by him going let russia take care of syria. he wants to fight syria. great our boys and girls don't die over there. you know what they say in youngstown, ohio, damn straight. >> the other thing, too, chris touched on this. we have tried to understand trump through intellectualism. what he says there's not facts

there. it's emotional. it's gut. it's what chris is talking about. >> nothing wrong with emotional. >> that's the thing. >> you better have a gut feeling about your country. >> what's more powerful? what's more powerful your emotions or your brain? >> i won't go that far. i think people have a right to object to the direction of the country the last 40 or 50 years. economic cycle is up this month. the trend line for actual income for middle class people has been going down. >> his appeal is rooted in emotion. her appeal is rooted in head. he's a heart candidate. that's why it comes back because the heart is very powerful in politics. >> chuck, i'll tell you at least in my experiences when i watched people walking toward the voting booth when my name was on the ballot, i would turn around and walk away. get in my car and fly because i just looked at them and i just had a sixth sense they weren't going to be thinking about all of the facts. they weren't going to be thinking about all of my

arguments. they were going to go in and they're going to make a gut decision and it was simple. who is going to fight for me? not who is a racist. not who is terrible for women. it's going to be who is going to fight for me. >> i think that this week donald trump galvanized america's women for hillary clinton. >> i think you may be right. but, chuck, it's head versus gut. >> that's the other part of this. >> if you're a man, you're allowed to have a gut. go ahead. >> let's assume trump comes up short and everything he's doing is preventing him from adding to his coalition. that doesn't mean this coalition, the noise that they've been making this cycle isn't something that the next president has to deal with. president hillary clinton, if that's what happens, she's going to have to deal with this. one of the things we're looking at on sunday, it's remarkable how the collection of america, every fortune 100 ceo, every member of the bush family, no

living republican president, you can go on and on and on, there's every supposed leader in america is saying don't vote for trump. and you know what kind of impact it has? it's moved the polls maybe a point. maybe a point. it's amazing. it's a lack of influence from america's collective leadership that should scare the living daylights out of america's leadership. >> on that note, chuck todd, we'll be watching "meet the press" on sunday. >> you got it. >> frightened. before that, tonight at 5:00 on mtp daily. chris matthews, we'll watch "hardball." it's what i do. it's part of my routine. 7:00 eastern time. >> we're going to go over the events of the week. it's early in the morning, joe. this show is yet to be put together. we follow the news. you know what best stories are at 3:00 in the morning? you like a story that breaks about ten minutes before you go on air because then you're news. you want to get that story. you want the breaking

information. >> all right. >> we'll watch tonight. >> 3:20 a.m. tweets good for "morning joe." >> joe, he's working for you. >> coming up, one person dead, 108 injured after a computer train plows through a bustling hub during rush hour in new jersey. we'll talk to former ntsb chair deborah hersman and sean patrick maloney who spent time trying to improve rail safety. we'll be right back. [baby talk]

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investigators back on the scene in hoboken, new jersey, this morning at the site of yesterday's major train crash that left one person dead and more than 100 injured. we learned they recovered the black box from the locomotive. that accident happened yesterday morning just before 9:00 a.m. during the busy rush hour commute. new jersey governor chris christie said the train was traveling at a high rate of speed crashing through a series of barriers before slamming into a station wall. at this point investigators say it is still too early to say what caused the train to barrel into the station. officials have identified the woman who was killed. 34-year-old faboiol bitta faboiol bittar dekroon. she was the mother of a young baby. the train's engineer has been identified. thomas gallagher who was injured spoke to police within hours of

the wreck. officials say this train in hoboken was not equipped with the positive train control technology that could have prevented it from racing off the rails and this crash has some calling for more action to keep commuters safe. joining us now, former chair of the national transportation safety board and now president and ceo of the national safety council david hersman and member of the transportation and infrastructure committee democratic congressman sean patrick maloney of new york. congressman, i'll start with you. was this train ever supposed to have positive train control installed? >> new jersey committed in 2011 to have 25% of the system equipped with this technology by the end of 2014. now, two years later, they have zero percent. new jersey transit has a lot to explain about why this technology is not in place. compare that to new york, by the way, which under legislation i wrote has accessed $35 billion of federal financing authority available to states all over the country for this kind of

technology and a billion dollars is now in the hands of the nta and will have this technology in place on metro north and long island railroad within 18 months. new jersey has done nothing. we keep seeing these accidents. the federal financing authority at long-term low interest rates is available. state authorities need to get their act together. >> first of all, so many things change over the course of the time when nothing happened in new jersey and the plans that they did make, which was only 25% to have ptc, so many different options and things that can be put in place to make train travel safer and yet nothing is happening on the federal level overseeing all of this. what needs to change to get stuff out of the way so changes are made on the tracks? >> well, i would say during my

time at the ntsb, one of the things that was really frustrating is that this technology has been around and it's been available for decades. but it has not yet been installed. a lot of it has to do with some of the things that the congressman talked about. prioritization and money. >> well, i got a question. this technology seems to simple. wireless and gps comboed so that trains can be slowed down if they're not being slowed down by the conductor. you say it's an issue of money and prioritization. maybe to the congressman what can we do to create more money because we're at a point where you can borrow money relatively cheaply. seems like a smart time to invest in infrastructure. how do you compel states to do this if they're not doing like they suggest new jersey officials aren't? >> we learned this the hard way in 2013 when a neighbor of mine lost his life in the crash. deborah hersman remembers that

crash well. they do great work. we found out that there is federal funding authority available through a program called the railroad rehabilitation and improvement financing program. it's $35 billion of authority. it's just sitting there. long-term very low rates as you point out. 35-year payback. basically free money for authorities like new jersey transit. new york has done this under our urging and my legislation. >> i mean, should we start requiring states to do stuff like this because if they don't take action into their own hands, you end up like situations in hoboken. how do we compel states to pass? >> we passed legislation. all states missed it except amtrak which is doing a good job. on the state level, it's a disaster. we need to do more. we have. there are real deadlines and real penalties and real reporting now and a new deadline of 2018. in california, they're doing a pretty good job. in new york, governor cuomo to

his credit has stepped up on this. we're going to have this technology within 18 months and make the new deadline. states like new jersey have done nothing and we'll keep losing young mothers like we did yesterday if we don't take basic steps to invest in our infrastructure and use technology. >> deborah hersman, final word. >> i would say that we're going to continue to see deaths and injuries if we don't install this technology. every year we see crashes that could have been prevented by ptc. >> congressman sean patrick malomal malon maloney, deborah hersman, thank you so much. a new poll out but could a story about trump's business dealings in cuba widen the gap? more "morning joe" just ahead.

>> still ahead, kate mckinnon does a great hillary clinton impression. even hillary clinton tweeted congratulations on your emmy,

kate. big fan of yours too. our conversation with the "snl" star ahead in our next hour and we're back with much more this hour in just one minute. how can good paying jobs disappear? it's what the national debt could do to our economy. if we don't solve our debt problem 19 trillion and growing money for programs like education will shrink. in just 8 years, interest on the debt will be our third largest federal program. bad news for small businesses. the good news? there's still time for a solution. ask the candidates for a plan to secure our future. ♪

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a report in newsweek alleges a company controlled by donald trump violated american trade bans by sending tens of

thousands of dollars in cuba in 1998. company documents and interviews with former trump executives suggested it funneled money through a consulting firm while exploring the possibility of building a hotel casino there. while the trump organization has not responded, trump was asked about the report in an interview yesterday. while clinton went on the attack. >> i never went to cuba. i never did business with cuba. there's nothing else to say. i never did business in cuba. i would tell you very openly if i did. >> we have laws in our country. and the efforts that trump was making to get into the cuban market, putting his business interests ahead of the laws of the united states and the requirements that businesses were operating under because of the sanctions shows that he puts his personal and business

interests ahead of the laws and the values and the policies of the united states of america. >> you know, there could be some political fallout from this as well. some cuban voters obviously in the battleground state of florida matter, and republican senator marco rubio had this to say yesterday about the cuban news. quote, this is something they're going to have to give a response to. i mean, it was a violation of american law if that's how it happened. i hope the trump campaign is going to come forward and answer some questions about this. in a close race, gene, it could matter. >> it could matter. as you know, attitudes in florida among cuban americans have been shifting about ties with cuba, about dealing with cuba. however, this is still kind of an electrified third rail down there. and it will definitely lose him some support, especiay older cuban americans whose view on the castro regime is not now,

not ever. and you know, who won't forget that. >> well, we'll be looking into that. hillary clinton definitely has confidence, you can really see it, every time she shows up on the air in a rally since the debate. >> peggy noonan called it a whoosh. >> still ahead, maybe it's the post-debate polls keeping donald trump up at night. the republican nominee went on an early morning twitter tirade. renewing his criticism of crooking hillary clinton and also a former miss universe alicia machado, the trump campaigning is hinting that bill clinton may be the next target. "morning joe" will be right back. in no hurry to make anything happen. neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works... ...in one week. with the... fastest retinol formula available. it's clinically proven to work on fine lines and...

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you know, mika, here's the thing i learned, okay. say less, right? talk less, listen more. right? >> less is more. >> that's why i respect donald trump so much when he said yesterday, hey y can talk about -- i know a lot of stuff about this woman, but i'm not going to say anything, right? brevity, i'm -- they're going to have a stooatue. i don't talk much. right? >> other people are saying -- >> other people are saying it, t me. >> something is going on. >> something's going on. >> many people are saying that's not exactly true. >> all right, good morning, everyone. >> so hold on. so donald trump, he says i'm not going to talk about this. ladies and gentlemen of america, we are in the midst, we need to

go to bill karins. there is a tweet storm that is rising over trump tower right now this morning. and it is exploding all over the place, mika. >> okay. good morning, everyone. friday, september 30th. you are scaring me. i have no idea what you're talking about. with us on set, white house editor for the "washington post," sam stein. >> he's playing surp co. >> i'm not into it. >> doesn't matter if you're into it. my wife likes it. that's all that matters. >> let me tell you something. >> reporter for the "washington post" and msnbc analyst, robert costa. trying to get a little scruffy beard. editor for the "washington post," political analyst, eugene robinson, and the "new york times" -- >> jeremy peters. >> bob costa, you're the "washington post's" tweet reporter. >> i am. >> that's why they hired you. >> senior tweeter.

>> senior. remember the senior. >> so donald trump, so we just said, i didn't know about this. because i don't follow twitter this early in the morning. what's he saying on the twitter machine? >> okay. so he's saying anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying sources said, do not believe it. there are no sources. they are just made up lies. now he's going on to a different subject. wow, crooked hillary was duped and used by my worst ms. universe. hillary floated her as an angel without checking her past. >> good god. she gained weight. >> this goes on. >> keep going. >> okay. alicia m. in the debate as a paragon of virtue shows crooked hillary suffers from, all caps, bad judgment. one more. this is to 11.9 million people. did crooked hillary help disgusting parenthesis check out sex tape in past, end

parenthesis, alicia m., become a u.s. citizen so she could use her in the debate. >> what time was this tweeted? >> 5:30 a.m. >> early this morning, which is fascinating. gene robinson, um, i guess they have tried to bring discipline to the campaign. >> yeah. >> i wonder what does this -- again, just trying to get into his head. >> he can't sleep with his phone next to him. >> does this mean that he now knows that he lost the debate? what -- why would he be -- because yesterday, or the day before, he told o'reilly, o'reilly asks him, it was almost like edward r. murrow, why don't you get on this ms. universe. and then he said, i'm not going to talk about all the bad things i know about her. this morning, it is spilling out from the 87th floor of trump towers. >> it means two things. number one, it means that the staffer assigned to sneak into his bedroom, you know, in the middle of the night and take the

phone, apparently was off today, and so he has the phone. the second thing it means, it's flailing, right? >> i don't understand. >> he is -- he can't deal with the fact that he got creamed in that debate. earlier in the week, he was apparently raging at the surrogates to go out and say he won the debate rather than he lost the debate, which was obvious to everyone who watched it. and now, because, you know, the miss universe thing is hurting him with women, it's going to hurt him more with women, he's decided in this very bizarre way to try to -- >> debate was monday night. this is friday morning. what he's doing is he's breathing an additional life into this topic that i can't for the life of me think is advantageous to him. >> this is khan material here. this is khan. >> khan level. >> he can't get over the slight

he feels was handed to him during the debate. and another part of it is just this is who he is. i know people think there's this three-dimensional chess happening that he's trying to distract from another story. it's not that. i think he's personally aggrieved by what is happening with this thing. you know, there was a lot of alicia machado pushback happening in far right media. >> and will ron wrote a piece for cbs news, but i haven't seen, jeremy, i haven't seen any poll data that suggests donald trump has lost much of anything based on the debate. so why blow up three or four days later? >> that's what sam's saying, he's utterly unable to process anything critical about his performance. this has become a problem for the people who are supposed to be advising him. the advice he will not take. so when he goes and lambastes these anonymous sources, part of the reason why these anonymous sources are saying what they're saying and part of the reason you hear his aides go on tv is because this is the only way

they can talk to him. they can't get through to him unless he sees them on the television or reads them in the newspaper. when kellyanne conway is saying donald trump is the babe ruth of debating, she's saying that because she knows trump will be listening and it will prop up his ego. when aides are leaking things to prop up his performance, that's because he won't hear it any other way. >> that sounds sick, kind of like, robert costa, almost sounds like they're dealing with someone who is -- doesn't -- how do i say this carefully? is very troubled. very disturbed. >> it comes back to what sam was say aing. trump's life before this presidential campaign has been full of drama. played out in public, with private citizens. whether it's rosie o'donnell or others, this has been who he is as a celebrity. these kind of clashes. he's only been taking political advice for a little over a year. the other way he's been operating, which is fight, fight, fight, on social media and through the tabloids, that's who he is.

>> let's just stop for one second here and, gene, we had people who have realized for a long time, everybody says, oh, we need a ceo who will run america like their business. yet, people who have followed politics for a very long time know for the most part, people who go straight from running their own corporation to being in politics suck. they're just as bad as generals, because you don't get -- in politics, you get stripped down. the bark gets stripped off of your tree, and you can pick the 30 people you hate the most in congress, and you've got to work with them and deal with them. if you're going to be successful. i mean, i hate to bring up barack obama, but democrats were talking very early on about this guy did not care to figure out how d.c. worked. but a ceo is even worse. it's not like donald trump is just the exception to the rule in this case. business people that have had

their whole way their entire lives that have had a huge office in the corner of, you know, the 87th floor and go in and, you know, take a shower at lunch time, a shower that has 87 like shower heads on it, and then has a masseuse. these are not the type of people that can take the punch in the face from some snot-nosed kid on a blog. >> no, they're not used to that. they're used to getting their way, period. right? because they're the final authority. >> exactly. >> they say this is the way it's going to be and the way it is. and everybody says yes, yes, boss. you're so smart. that's absolutely right. we'll do it that way. you know, that's not the case in politics, as you well know. >> right. >> but there's also an element of just donald trump. >> no doubt about it. >> donald trump's personality. a lot of ceos who wouldn't be tweeting this. >> right. that is also -- >> we can lose sight of

something here. this is a 70-year-old man, 39 days before the election, running for the presidency, who is tweeting about a sex tape. let's step back and realize how -- >> sad. >> unnatch and weird it is. >> unnatural and weird unless you have followed donald trump's not only campaign but followed his career. he is the central figure in our bonfire of the vanities. this is how he's operated. no one should be shocked this morning. this is how he's operated for 40 years. how he's going to operate for the st of his life. >> could have done so much more with this. >> he's selling himself, and he will sell himself. >> at a reality television show world. >> someone pointed out the other day when he's talking about the junk online polls. look at the drudge report poll, the various online polls that have zero scientific merit, and that's another thing his advisers cannot get through to him, these polls mean nothing. he does not distinguish between a scientifically conducted poll and a junk drudge report poll. he does not --

>> you know why? >> he sells them. it's like the movie review from some third-rate movie critic that has no readership saying five stars, right? that's the equivalent. >> no one is making that case inside of the trump campaign. you're so right, jeremy. there's a culture inside of the trump campaign. if the candidate says snap polls are the truth and they're reflective of reality, well then, that's the reality of the trump campaign. that's what we see right now. >> but here's the deal, mika, in the primaries, he cited the junk polls. he ended up winning anyway. everyone who signed on to the trump campaign know what they have signed on to. bannon and kellyanne are doing their best to bring discipline and order to this organization, but at the end, it comes down to donald trump. >> yes, it does. and his own self-destructive narcissism, because we're going to move on to the next version of that, but as far as this miss universe thing, whatever, all these other bad things that he

never said about her that may have happened. if he had maybe alluded to that and then put it away at the debate, that would be great, but instead, he weight shamed her and then showed america how he still hasn't changed after 20 or 30 years, and that women need to be thin in order to be beautiful. and that's incredibly insulting, and it might be pretty basic, but that's where we are. that's where we are. he's that unbelievably limited in his ability to view anything outside the prism of what he thinks is the way things should be. especially as it pertained to a woman's looks. >> you talked about self-destruction. it can be abhorrent. will it be politically destructive? will it be politically self-destructive? this is an important point. moralize all you want to, like we have all moralized, right now, go to real clear politics. >> will the election tell on temperament. >> it's tied. >> if you're in south carolina, and you want change, do you go

for trump? >> it's friday, so, you know, enough time has passed since the debates, so now we can start looking at the polls. start looking for the whatever intentional impact there is from monday night. i agree with mika. i think it will be there. >> i'm going to go on a limb. >> you think it will. >> you know who i think probably agrees with us is kellyanne conway. she's a pollster. she's done a lot of work over the years on women and how women react. and kellyanne is not happy. >> i spoke to a room full of fantastic women yesterday, and they all looked sickened when i brought up this topic. >> the very limited data from the debate, there have been a few polls, they do show a slight bounce so far, so it is tilting back in clinton's direction. we need more data. secondly, not only is the weight shaming and the machado stuff problematic, if they do go down the route of going after bill clinton on his infidelities, that's a high risk situation. >>et's talk about that right now. dold trump says he could have said something, but he didn't

say something, which is in a way saying something extremely rough. >> okay, so i'm going to put a period on the end of the sentence of this topic and just say the weight shaming of that woman and the fact that he still did it today is disgusting and perverted, and makes women really angry. and pulls us back. now he's -- >> you think it's going to have an impact on the race? >> i do. i was concerned the day after the debate that the actual debate performance would not move the meter that much, even though hillary won. but i think this will. >> you know, if he does not win this election, people are going to look, i think, to khan and to this episode if this does bring him down. >> god know s what else is coming. >> there's a lot of other things we could say about his entire, sort of team, and -- it backs up the weight shaming. not going to say much moyer than that. >> engage with joe's question of

look at the republican party. no one is distancing themselves from trump, in spite of the machado comments and everything that has happened since the debate, the republican party is not drifting away from him, not calling him out. urging him not to go in the direction of monica, but he's up in ohio. he's up in states. >> this is -- mika, this is what i'm warning. i'm warning everybody there are shows like this out of washington and new york and l.a., warning everybody, we can be disgusting by what he's saying. do not for a second think that it is somehow going to spell an end to this race, because we have predicted around this set for six months that donald trump was going to ravage the republican party. >> i understand that. >> i have, you have. jim martin has an incredible piece -- >> what? >> john martin. >> john martin has an incredible piece this morning in the "times" talking about ohio. it's gone. it looks like trump's winning it

going away. >> i understand that. >> there's not a single democrat that is going to challenge a republican incumbent, and that they have already abandoned ted strickland in ohio. the bell weather so why, who knows? we don't know. >> after the debate, i still wasn't sure the debate was going to do it, even though hillary clinton seemed to win. i thought he said things that really connected, believe it or not. >> okay. >> but this issue, i promise you, is one that will -- >> you think this will have an impact? >> yes, also, let's move on to this. apparently, trump is leaving it to his surrogates to doing the job of bringing up bill clinton's past scandals with women. >> i'm very proud that at the very end, when she attacked him and went off on this rant about women, and you could see his face. in the republican primaries, he

would have just smashed her. instead, he came off looking like a gentleman and she came off looking pretty mean and miserable. >> every time a woman would come along and say that bill clinton did something to her, who was the biggest attacker of that woman? and she's a feminist? >> it's amazing when you hear her talk about sexism and these various claims which are ridiculous, aside from obviously bill, her husband, being maybe the worst that's ever lived. >> i thought he was a complete gentleman to her and he hasn't gotten a lot of credit for that. at the beginning, he said secretary clinton, and then he said, may i call you secretary clinton? and she sort of looked. he said i want you to be happy. its very important to me. at the end of the night, after she hit him with really negative attacks. he said to her, i came here ready to play rough and say some things about you but i won't do it because your family is here. i'm not advising him to go there. it's fair game to think about

how hillary clinton treated those women after the fact. >> and in an interview with new england cable news, donald trump also said that bill clinton is fair game, but continued to hold back on what he says was hillary clinton's role. >> i would have had the right to have done it, and he's a member of the campaign. it's not like he's not campaigning. he's campaigning, and i would have been able to do it. i didn't want to do anything like that in front of chelsea who i think is a nice young woman. >> why would that reflect on hillary clinton anyway? >> you have to figure that out. i think it's pretty simple to figure that out. >> he can run his campaign however he chooses. that's up to him. i'm going to keep talking about the stakes in this election. i'm going to keep talking about my agenda. >> that was the right tone, by the way. i like the way she's handling that. i'm going to be careful here.

because it shouldn't be personal, but i'm so disappointed that sometimes it's hard for it not to be personal because he could do so much with this. but if they're going to go into this gutter, just keep in mind this is a guy who wrote in his book, i mean, if he wrote it, about all the women that he i don't even want to use the word, but he uses it in the book, and it's just kind of pathetic, actually. still ahead on "morning joe," hillary clinton continues to go full court press on millennials. we'll talk to kristen soltis-anderson, author of the book "the selfie vote on how they'll respond to her. >> and later, she just won an emmy for her role on "snl" and playing hillary clinton. our interview with the great kate mckinnon. but first, here's bill karins. >> he's funny, too. >> all right, let's talk about matthew and a very dreary forecast into the weekend for the northeast. it was spoiled by the way with a fantastic summer, so hard to complain, but the rain is coming

down. already 2 1/2 hour delays at laguardia. hour and a half at philadelphia airport. you get windy conditions with rain like this. that's just a nightmare for those airports. today's forecast will call for great weather in the middle of the country. enjoy this, dallas, through the southeast, afternoon showers and storms in florida. shouldn't be too bad. west coast, looking great this weekend. for the major headline, rapidly intensifying hurricane matthew now up to 105 miles per hour. could become a major category-3 hurricane this afternoon. the hurricane scale goes from 1 up to 5. when we talk to majors, 3, 4, 5, they can do significant damage, and that's the potential this upcoming weekend. the timing, jamaica, best be prepared for direct landfall as we go sunday night into monday morning. cuba, looks like during the day on monday. in the bahamas, tuesday or wednesday. florida is on the left side of the forecast cone. it's a close call, and definitely for the southeast coast, we need to watch it this weekend. none of our extended long range model have a direct impact in

the u.s., but right tlhere alon the shore, and hopefully it won't shift our way. i mentioned new york city and the horrendous 2 1/2 hour airport delays at laguardia. here's why. bad visibility, windy conditions, and rabe. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. ♪ using 60,000 points from my chase ink card i bought all the framework... wire... and plants needed to give my shop... a face... no one will forget. see what the powerf points can do for your business. learn more at chase.com/ink [music] see what thjess:erf points hey look, it's those guys.. shawn: look at those pearly whites, man.

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time now for the most read opinion pages. we're covering a presidential election where the republican candidates keeps tweeting stupidity. this is happen. >> peggy noonan writes the politics of the shallows. >> when you're a politician leaving the debate stage, you always know if you won. you can feel it. what you get after such a victory is the whoosh. the whoosh is the wind at the back that gives the spring to your step. you det the jolly look and your

laugh is real. a real laugh and not an enactment. all this makes you better a the next stop, which makes the crowd cheer louder and then you really know you've got the whoosh. right now, mrs. clinton has it. she'll probably overplay her hand, that's what she does. her sense of her own destiny blind her to her tendency toward misjudgment. since the debate, mr. trump is angry and is going straight into junk yard dog mode, which won't work well. this tells me the next week or so, she's upalato and he's on the downalator. she's looking great, sounding great. she's fantastic. >> the whoosh, i don't understand it, but it makes sense. >> she says, she's got the wind at her back, and she's going to overplay her hand. that's what the clintons do. they're never like, we're ahead. we're going to keep our head down. something happens.

>> yes. >> nothing else to add there. the second debate, she'll probably overplay her hand. the. >> do we think he goes to the third debate? >> yes. >> there are people inside who are close to his campaign who were making the case that maybe he skips it. >> donald trump -- donald trump -- >> guys, donald trump is all about is. he had 80 million people watching him the other night. he's never, ever -- it could be his own execution. if he thought he could get 100 million people watching him being tortured to death, he would go. he would be there. >> he's not like chris christie who knows how to walk around in a town hall, who has done hundreds of them. trump has an act. he comes up, he goes to the lectern. he works the lectern. this is a town hall, live crowd, question, stools, microphone. body language. >> very likely the topic of bill's infidelities will come up

where he has to talk about it around people he doesn't know. >> the only town halls he's ever done, correct me if i'm wrong, the sean hannity town hall. >> a few in new hampshire. >> one with anderson had one. >> we did one with him. we asked him tough questions. >> there's been a few, but it's not like he's done a lot. >> not done a lot. >> but gene robinson, he's not going to pass up 80 million. >> i guess not. look, this reaction, all the tweeting this morning, he's deeply affected by what happened in this debate. >> clearly. >> i think it's kind of unpredictable. i agree with you, how can donald trump give up an audience that big. that's not in his nature, but i wonder what his state of mind will be going into the next debate. >> i think it's remarkable about donald trump that there's no slight that he can let go past. i think of all the traits this campaign season that surprises

me the most, he can't let any slight pass him by. >> coming up on "morning joe," as we showed you, donald trump was up early, very early, and tweeting. quote, anytime you see a story about me or my campaign saying sources said, do not believe it. there are no sources. they just made up lies. we'll see what hallie jackson's sources have to say about that. she joins us next.

we got 24 members up. they have only got ten. it's pretty obvious this is going to be a really challenging cycle for us. we've got knock down drag out sort of like a knife fight in a phone booth. new hampshire, pennsylvania, ohio, wisconsin, illinois, nevada, indiana, florida. we seem to have gotten some distance in ohio. but you know, everywhere else, it's -- it could go either way. and honestly, that was entirely anticipated all along, no matter what the presidential nominee was. >> knife fight in a phone booth. happens all the time. >> yeah. do they still have phone booths? >> they certainly do, yeah, in the cloak rooms. i didn't know they had the knife fights. >> joining us, nbc news correspondent hallie jackson. what's on tap for trump today? >> a couple stops here in michigan, guys.

this is a state where trump's team thinks they can try to get it back from hillary clinton, but if you look at the latest pollin tru is trailing her by seven points here. this is from a new detroit news/wdiv poll showing he's behind her 42% to 35%. far more people here thought hillary clinton won the debate and more people in the state believe trump is unqualified and unfit to be president compared to hillary clinton. 62.5% who say trump is not qualified. so trump is going to be down in grand rapids and then here in detroit, outside detroit, rather, in suburban detroit for a rally. interestingly, one of the thi s thingses you often hear trump talk about on the trail is ford, moving jobs to mexico. ford coming out instantly online with a bit of a fact check. 400 miles south of where we are in louisville, ford is rolling out a new truck and celebrating the hiring of some 2,000 workers. kind of like a dueling rally, you could say, while trump will be in michigan in and around motor city.

lots of michigan talk, and as the clock tower goes off behind us, a lot of talk about his tweet storm this morning. eyebrows raised. i know you talked about this earlier, but it was amazing to wake up to see, i think it was six or seven or however many tweets from trump in the wey hours of the morning, go after alicia machado. we talked about her on monday. it's now friday. the campaign, one would imagine, wanted to change the subject now off of this considering damage it has done to trump with women. >> hallie, thank you so much. the campaign, yes, they would like very much, i think, to get off an issue. like the khans. >> but the candidate does not. he thinks it's important. let's bring into the conversation columnist at the washington examiner, kristen soltis-anderson. senior writer at the daily caller, jamie weinstein, and senior writer at the weekly standard, john mccormack. >> kristen, how does this impact the polls, you think, going forward in the battle for women? >> i think it continues to underscore the fact that donald

trump is not really interested in i think winning women. i think donald trump views his path to victory as running up the score as much as he can with white men without a college degree. if you look at how donald trump is performing in the polls in these cross tabs, compared to how mitt romney performed with these groups in 2012, mitt romney won white women, white women with and without college degrees. right now, donald trump is losing white women with college degrees by such huge numbers. and if he can't run up the score enough with those white men, it really makes the math hard considering his poor performance with minorities. >> jamie, we still really don't know what impact the poll, the debates had on the polls. we have a couple polls out here that show us a few different things. >> yeah. >> but you think donald trump would at least wait until the first round of polls came out to start having this kind of reaction to a debate. >> yeah. >> isn't this the khans all over again? >> he's an emotional person.

>> an understatement. >> you mention his goal is to win with the white working men. i think his campaign goal is, i think donald trump's goal is to be donald trump and hope his personality is so effervescent and everyone comes to love them, whether they're women, white working men, and donald is going to be donald. maybe his campaign would wait until the polling comes out. maybe that's the smart move to make, but if he feels at 4:00 a.m. he has to go to his twitter and he has some thoughts the world needs to see, he's going to do that no matter what kellyanne conway thinks. >> john, is there a method to the madness? everybody always talks about the fights he had with rosie o'donnell. you know when he had those fights with her? >> he mentioned her in the debate. >> you know when he had those fights? it was always conveniently a week or two before the apprentice started. so of course, he was in the tabloids for a week in a half in this war with rosie as the new season began. did donald trump wake up and go i'm angry, or is he calculating

this? >> i don't know if he even woke up. it started at 3:20 a.m., continued to 5:00 a.m., i woke up at 6:00 and heard bob costas' dramatic reading on "morning joe." >> he's a senior tweet correspondent. >> trump can go about two months without doing something totally crazy. he had the heidi cruz attack, and then the judge curiel attack in june. made a couple other months. blew up over the khans and now machado, which is so stupid. this was planted by hillary at the end of the debate. she shoehorned it in there. they had this set, ready to go. this public relations campaign to roll out, and she worked it in, and it was so predictable. she was trying to bait him and he took the bait. >> he not only took the bait, he kept taking the bait, bob costa, for a week. and you know the campaign is just horrified like they were with the khans, going to him, saying shut up. in a round about way, because nobody ever would go up to donald trump and say shut up.

somebody needs to. >> my colleague and i have a story in today's "washington post." there's an active discussion within the campaign about how does trump really move forward. you have newt gingrich on one side saying don't go this direction of citing monica lewinsky and bringing up bill clinton's past, and others like rudy giuliani saying there's a whole list that trump should be prosecuting in the next debate and on the airwaves. we're watching in real time as the republican nominee thinks through this conflicting advice and his campaign advisers are only really one part of this discussion. it comes down to trump's decision, how does he want to close this campaign. >> everybody stay with us. more ahead. including the question, is jeb bush really going to vote for a guy -- >> oh, no. >> -- that can't name a single global leader. medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. so think about an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company.

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i thought it was a little inappropriate for a person to overhear a frail, 92-year-old

man in a private setting at a reception for the points of light foundation, which focuses on volunteerism, to hear this and then immediately go on facebook and put it on there and then go on national television, not even show up at the board meeting. that was inappropriate. >> that would be. that was jeb bush bristling over reports that his dad would vote for hillary clinton. as for who he will vote for, the new york daily news reports that the former florida governor suggested voting for gary johnson during a luncheon this week. bush responded to the report last week after delivering remarks to a group of students at harvard. >> i haven't made up my mind what i'm going to do. i'm going to vote. and i have made it clier i'm not going to vote for donald trump or hillary clinton. but there's nothing to the -- no. the presidency is a place where for whatever reason i'm not comfortable supporting either party nominee. >> what would happen to the average voter?

>> well, everybody didn't vote, that would be a pretty powerful political statement. >> all right, there you go. but gary johnson -- i mean, all the options are so bad. it's straight out of simon and garfunkel, mrs. robinson. every way you look at it you lose. and gary johnson this week, how does someone like jeb bush admit that he votes for a guy who doesn't know a single leader on the world stage? >> if you're voting for gary johnson, it's obviously a protest vote. why would you cast your protest vote for a guy who is not very serious, who can't even get people the impression he's not on drugs at any given moment, so i think if you're going to cast a protest vote, why not write somebody in? he could write in condi rice. i see what he's trying to do. >> talk about the selfie vote. and we understand that a lot of members of this selfie vote

generation like gary johnson. but millennials do care whether a guy is competent or not. >> they care whether somebody is competent or not. i think right now in a lot of the polls you're seeing gary johnson perform lalmost as well as donald trump with millennials because of the desire to cast a protest vote. he hasn't made it on the stage in quite the same way as donald trump and hillary clinton have. the message young people are getting isn't really robust. they may not know where aleppo is either. when these things happen and everybody is horrified, for a lot of young voters, they're thinking, it's not trump or clinton. it's just not trump or clinton and that's all that matters. >> imagine for a moment if mitt romney jumped in in may, early, and became that nondonald trump/hillary candidate. i know it was a crazy thought that a third party would have a chance. i'm not so sure if you come right now and it was mitt romney and there you have hillary clinton and donald trump.

>> hard to believe that mitt romney wouldn't be at least at 30%. >> could he have won a couple states? and would the republicans in the house then have to choose between trump and romney and say maybe romney might make a better president. >> who is gary johnson taking votes away from? trump or clinton? >> for the most part with younger voters, the big problem for hillary clinton. the fact in some polls hillary clinton is only getting about half of young voters. that's a terrible figure for a democratic candidate. absolutely terrible, which is why i think you heard rumblings earlier this week that perhaps the clinton team would begin airing ads against gary johnson because she needs to get her numbers way up among this group. >> so a question for you, because i have definitely had sort of a concern about the republicans who have backed donald trump, those in office now, the paul ryans, mitch mcconnells of the world. if trump continues on this trajectory of behavior, which we have no indication he will stop,

and loses, does that impact their standing? am i wrong and naive to think -- >> we have said all along, we thought it was going to hurt the republican party. we thought it was going to hurt down ballot. it is not. i mean, again, you go to ohio. you go -- y go to wisconsin. ron johnson is even within single digits again. you go all over the country, john, it does not look like donald trump is having much of an impact, at least through today. through september 30th. on down ballot republicans. in fact, even democrats are starting to think maybe we can't win the senate back. >> well, it actually gives republicans more of an argument. we need to be there to be the check on hillary clinton. if this continues, and we don't have a lot of polling. we don't know if trump is way down, but if it looks like that, it gives republicans a chance to say we need to check hillary clinton. >> kristen, john, jamie, thank you all. up next, a look at the third

actor to play donald trump on snl rr in just the past two years, plus our conversation with hillary clinton's alter ego on the show, the hilarious kate mckinnon. stay with us.

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sknloo you know it's about time. >> it is about time. just in the knick of time, saturday night live returns tomorrow night and has someone new playing donald trump.

>> yes, that's alec bauduoaudui play donald trump. he's going to take on kate mckinnon as the 42nd season premieres tomorrow night. >> wow, willie, mika, and i sat down with kate to talk ability her now award-winning impression, and it is incredible, of the democratic nominee. >> she's fantastic. >> i'm just so darn bumped. all anyone wants to talk about is donald trump. >> donald trump? isn't he the 1 that's like, uh, you're all losers? >> that's him. >> do you think he'll win the primaries? >> he must. i want to be the one to take him

down. i will destroy him and i will mount his hair in the oval office. >> i could watch her for hours. joining us now, cast member of "saturday night live" and as of last week, an emmy award winner, kate mckinnon. oh, my gosh. >> mika, mika, mika. >> so good to meet you. are you hillary right now or kate? >> i don't know. i can't tell. the lines are blurred. >> seriously, i love your characterization of her. >> thank you so much. >> it's like half real, half hysterical, but somewhere in the middle, you have really kind of captured something. >> thank you so much. that's what you have to do with an impression. you can't just do a carbon copy. you have to make like a real recreation. >> what is it that you find you're drawing on when you're -- you're owning hillary clinton's character? >> i think i'm drawing on -- i

mean, i watch a ton of youtube videos and i watched everything she does, basically. i watch everything she does. everything. i have been watching her. for a long time. and i usually work from, you know, a voice, how someone sounds. and then i add in what i think i have in common with them, and i feel like i have a lot in common with her. >> so, i mean, we need to follow up with that, but did they come to you and say we want you to do hillary clinton, or did you look in the mirror one day and go, you know, i could do that? >> it was, i was looking in my magic cauldron, and she appeared to me, and i knew. >> did she really? >> that would be my next -- >> i like that with your eyes. that's crazy. >> like a harry potter thing, right? >> no, no, they told me. >> they told you. >> and i don't know how that -- i don't know what happened behind the scenes, but they just did tell me. >> like an assignment. >> i always ask people when they come on the show, you know, at what point did you, like, cure

cancer? at what point did you build a rocket ship and go to mars. >> last week for both. >> did you say, hey, i'm pretty good at this. i think i have this hillary thing down. i'm going to key in on this. for you, what was the breakthrough? >> interesting. it's a constant evolution, as she evolves in the election and as a candidate. the impression evolves as well. it's certainly come a long way since i first did it. it's just fun to watch her grow and see, you know, where she goes and to follow that. >> the real crowd pleaser lately beside hillary clinton, though, has been ruth bader ginsburg. >> there is that. >> if my mind is shot, then donald trump's mind is shot, stabbed, strangled, put in a vat of wet cement and dumped in a canal. his mind is sleeping with the fishes, but it's waking up, up to a ginsburg.

>> yeah, get it. >> i did. >> she moves that way, actually, on the court. >> people don't know that. >> she's a hip-hop dancer by trade. >> why do you think they keep cameras out of the courtroom? they don't want people to see that. >> that's not -- i don't think anyone else on the planet would have come up with that characterization of ruth bader ginsburg. what does that even mean? >> well, you know, she is very outspoken. i mean, for me, the comic juxtaposition of her is that she happens to be the age that she is, but she's also like a very spry -- she does all these push-ups every day and she runs, and she does all these things that you wouldn't think. and she's very outspoken. so just, you know, i extrapolated that into hip-hop dancing and the writers and i.

>> so your movie "the master minds." you play a denim loving trailer park take on a stepford wife with rage threatening to bubble on the surface. let's take a look. >> so how did you all meet? i'm a sucker for courtship stories? >> well, if you must know, a couple years back, i was at a youth praise concert at church, and i saw the most handsome man that i had ever seen in the world. he was looking right at me. we went on a date, and then we fell very, very, very, very, very, very, very deeply in love. and then he died. snake bite. at his funeral, i was very, very distraught. i couldn't keep myself together. and i saw this other man, a distant cousin of the deceased. >> oh, my god. >> okay, i'm sorry.

when is this out? i have to see this. >> thank you. >> you're so good at deranged. >> out friday. >> yes, out friday. >> nobody does deranged like you. >> well, i don't know. jack nicholson was so good. >> thank you. i'll take it, and i can't explain it. >> oh, god. >> busy time for you. >> so great to meet you. masterminds hits theaters on friday in the 42nd season of "saturday night live" premieres saturday. >> friday, saturday. >> do them both. >> have a great weekend. >> we'll be right back. you're not a cook, if you don't cook. you're not a firefighter, if you don't fight fires. or a coach, if you don't coach. and you can't be our leader, if you don't lead. our next president needs to take action on social security, or future generations could lose up to $10,000 a year. we're working hard, what about you? hey candidates, do your jobs.

keep social security strong. announcer: are your children in the right car seat for their age and size? is the seat supposed to be forward-facing or rear-facing? did they move to a booster seat too soon? it may be too late to check when you're on the road. [blaring car horn and skidding] fortunately, you're on the couch.

she sees the subpoena. she then gets rid of 33,000 e-mails on top of a lot of other things. 13 phones missing. several destroyed with a hammer. who in this room has destroyed their phone with a hammer? anybody? anybody? oh, there's one person. what business is that person in, i want to find out. >> welcome back to "morning joe." time to talk about what we learned today, mika. i'm almost afraid to ask. >> yeah. >> what did you learn? >> if you're not a ten, you shouldn't vote for donald trump. only if you're a ten. the rest of you don't matter. >> sam, you're given a free pass. what did you learn today? >> i learned you can take the man away from twitter but you can't take the tweets out of the

man. >> robert costa, what did you learn today? >> we learned again that donald trump and his id, his campaign are reflected through his twitter account. >> what did you learn today, gene? >> i think i learned that weight shaming a young woman and going after her -- >> and telling people to watch pornography. >> right, and telling people -- i think i learned that's not a good idea if you're running for president. we'll see. we'll see if that's confirmed. >> we will see, and also, we have a couple new polls out, but really, while it's showing hillary clinton ahead, like for instance, new hampshire poll shows seven point swing in donald trump's direction, it's still way too early to see exactly how the debate impacted this race. we'll probably find out a lot more this weekend. expect a series of polls coming out sunday morning that will probably tell the tale. that does it for us for now. stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage. >> thanks, mika. i might not be a ten, but i'm

going to do my best here. hi, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. we have breaking news overnight. going there. a late-night trump tweet storm bringing up an alleged sex tape from the former miss universe as he hints he'll bring up bill clinton's infidelities. >> we had a president who was a disaster and ultimately impeached over it. we'll see whether we discuss it. >> hillary clinton firing back. >> he can say whatever he wants to say. we have seen it in real time over the last many months. >> plus, post-debate bounce. new battleground polls show hillary clinton is up. up in michigan, up in new hampshire, even up in the state of florida. we'll bake it down. >> what went wrong in hoboken? new details on the train crash that injured more than 100 people and killed this young mother. >> i just heard these horrifying, terrible screams. >> never really slowed down. i don't feel like we slowed down. >> the black box has just been found. the train engineer is out of the hospital. 'vgo