john mccain is not a hero -- >> senator, you whipped out the mexican thing again. >> can you defend it? >> look, there are criminals coming in the country -- >> you want to use a big tar brush against mexico. >> and he said many of them are good people. you keep leaving it out of your quote, if you want me to go there i'll go there. a choice on life, i could not be more proud to be standing with donald trump who is standing for the right to life. it's a principle, and i'm very gentle about the this. because i really do respect you. i appreciated the fact that you supported the hyde amendment that bans the use of public funding for abortion, but that is not hillary clinton's view. we can create a culture of life. more and more young people today

are embracing life because we know we are -- we're better for it. we can -- like mother teresa said at the national prayer breakfast, let's welcome the children into our world. there are so many families around the country who can't have children. if we could improve the adoptions so that families that can have children can adopt readily. >> governor, why don't you trust women to make this choice for themselves? we can encourage people to support life, of course we can. why don't you trust women? why doesn't donald trump trust women to make this choice for themselves? that is what we ought to be doing in public life. living our lives of faith or motivation with enthusiasm and excitement, convincing each other, dialoguing with each other about important issues of the day. but on fundamental issues of moral morality. >> because a society can be

judged how it deals with it's disabled, infirm, i believe it with all of my heart, and i do stand proudly with donald trump. >> it has been a divisive campaign, senator kaine if your ticket wins, what specifically are you going to do to unify the country and reassure the people who voted against you? >> that may be the most important question, hillary clinton is running a campaign about stronger together. and donald trump, this is not directed at this man except to the extend he can't defend donald trump. donald trump has run a campaign that has been about one insult or the next. we do have to bring the country together. hillary clinton was first senator, then secretary of state. i am amazed elaine as i talk to republican senators how well they regard and respect hillary clinton. she was on the armed services

committee. on other committees. she worked across the aisle when she was first lady to get the chip program passed so that eight million low income kids have insurance in this country, including in indiana, she worked across the aisle on 9/11 to get health benefits for the first responders who bravely went into the towers and pentagon. she worked to get benefits for national guard members, including hoosiers in virginia in the national guard. she has a track record of working across the aisle to make things happen. i have the same track record, i was a governor of virginia with two republican houses. i have good working relationships across the aisle. it's fine to be a republican or independent or democrat, but after the election day the developmental goal is to work together. hillary clinton will do just that in january. >> governor, how will you win

the country if you win? >> thank you for a great discussion, thank you, senator. this is a very challenging time in the life of our nation. we can -- america's place in the world, after the leadership of hillary clinton and barack obama on the world stage it's been to followed by an economy that is truly struggling, followed by more taxes, the war on coal, and trade deals that have put american workers in the back seat. and the best way that we can bring people together is through change in washington, d.c. you know, i served in washington, d.c. for 12 years in the congress of the united states. and i served with pane republic-- with many republicans and democrats. and the will is there to change.

americans want to see us standing tall and supporting our military. rebuilding the military, commanding the respect of our country around the world. they want to see an american comeback. and donald trump's entire career has been about building and going through hardship just like a business person does and finding a way through smarts and ingenuity. and to fight for it. and when donald trump becomes president of the united states we'll have a stronger america. when you hear him say he wants to make america great again, when we do that i truly believe the american people will stand taller and see that real change can happen after decades of just talking about it. when that happens, the american people are going to stand tall, and we'll have the kind of unity that has been missing too long. >> all right, gentlemen, thank you so much. this concludes the vice presidential debate. my thanks to the candidate and

commission for watching. please tune in this sunday for the second presidential debate at washington university in st. louis, and the final debate october 19th. at the university of los angeles. i'm elaine quijano. good night. >> two men who just met tonight approach each other after the debate, two versions on display tonight. pointed, contentious, as they greet their families and spouses, lots of umbrage. elaine quijano played quite a role in the conversation, sitting across from these two men so similar and yet so different. again, what i thought was a very contentious conversation. >> contentious, and at times, n

incomprehensib incomprehensible. i think unfortunately one of the things that will reflect, i think many of us had no idea what was being said, not only were both men speaking over each other, the moderator was speaking over the candidates so nobody was yielding to anybody else. so there were long stretches at a time when there were three voices at once, and i don't think you could point out a intelligible word. there were stretches were there were not any among them. i think they settled into pingpong, rather than multi ball, we saw mike pence do a lot of the clinton attacks that the campaign had regrets they were

not able to bring up last week. he kept going to things like the basket of deplorables. those were things that donald trump did for tnot get to in th debate. the thing that you could discern was tim kaine, basically the shorter version of the debate was tim kaine saying hey, you guys are running donald trump for president, here is this crazy thing he said. and then mike pence would respond by saying no way, that's not possible. come on, come on, you know that is not true. tim kaine spent a lot of the debate quoting donald trump directly, and mike pence spent a lot of the debate denying that those things had been said should our fact checkers are looking into this. they remain working after this. but let's head to the site. chris matthews. >> reporter: brian, i thought it was very illuminating.

mike pence did all the things right that donald trump did wrong. he was very good on reaction, he looked like a grown-up. of course he was playing with a couple of deuces. but he came across strong, very effective at being a conservative. but i really think he accomplished making himself the frontrunner for the republican nomination in 2020. he hit all the bases, he was pro-life. and you may not agree with him. but he was eloquent. he was very good on the policing issue for the conservative side, very strong on immigration on the conservative side. so he really didn't work the suburbs for trump, he worked his right wing plank. he was very effective at securing donald trump's right wing plank. that may be important in the next couple of days to stop the hemorrhaging. i thought at times, and i liked the guy, kaine, was a little desperate there, jumping in all

the time. always trying to get his points and didn't wait his turn. if he had just waited his turn the back and forth nature of this type of event he would have had his opportunity. i don't know why he kept interrupting. with two people debating, they get their chance to speak. he hit all ll the points. he hit illegal immigrants. so what he did was hit all the base of the democratic party coalition made them all feel like somebody was looking out for them. but overall, i think the winner in terms of the debate, what they're trying to accomplish, pence, pence had his head screwed on, it was very important for him to look like a grown-up. >> how do you think it will play

in days ahead? i was struck by donald trump, one of the things he kept saying, i didn't say that. that let the clinton campaign spend the next three or four days pointing out all the things he actually did say playing the tape sort of fact checking him on the easy to fact check that stuff. mike pence did his own version, saying trump didn't say that, didn't say that, on a lot of things that trump did say. does that mean they will be at risk the next few days for it not going as well as tonight may have had? >> well, i think you're right, fact checking, always a second and third day story. they will watch, not checking on the fact checking like you and i will. you know this campaign is not about particular facts. it's about attitude. and the trump attitude is not conservative exactly. almost revolutionary against the

establishment. on the other hand, i think that mr. kaine tonight was very much a regular democrat. like hillary clinton and walter mondale, and dukakis, he defended the coalition effectively tonight. very good on choice, made all the points we like to hear. i don't think he moved anybody. i would just say the effects, despite the facts, i know they're important to journalists, i think he gives some shoring up of what was definitely a strong shift towards hillary clinton. i think he shored it up tonight. and i think that trump will be very happy with his performance. and again, he was not so much running as a running mate, he was offering himself as a future leader of the the country, not the trump party, the conservative party. he is a lot of guy, he is their guy right now on the ticket. he is the conservative that they like. >> all right, chris matthews, thanks, i have a number of

all-stars waiting to get in this game. including, but not limited to steve schmidt. we also have james carville watching along with us out in arizona, james, your assessment of what you just witnessed. >> well, i think pence's objective was to attack hillary, which would have endeared him to the base. he was a very religious guy, almost meditative when he talked about abortion at the end. i thought senator kaine came for and wanted to keep the tax issue front and center. also we'll hear a lot about netwo nuclear weapons as campaign goes. that was clear it was pretty much his strategy. the debate was a little more acrimonious than i thought. kaine was very aggressive. you know, he jumped in a lot. i think the base of both parties, i think the democrats

saw things they would like out there. i think the religious people really saw stuff in pence that they liked that they did not see in trump. my guess is, it's not going to change very much. but it will give the religious people something to be excited about. and i think the democrats will be very satisfied with senator kaine's performance. >> put it this way, to rachel's point do you think the departmedemocrats are going to be as anxious to get sunday night here as fast as they can? >> you know, i think sunday night will come in due course but the democrats felt like they had a pretty good week. i didn't see anything tonight that would change the trajectory that much. it was a hard-hitting debate, kaine did a good job of defending and pushed the tax issue hard and pushed the nuclear issue hard. those are two things that democrats feel like and the

clinton campaign feels like are very good in their favor. pence gave the religious people something to cling to here that trump doesn't give them very much. and i think he gave the fundamentalists community will be excited about his performance tonight. >> james carville, thank you for joining us tonight. steve schmidt, a lot of people will see the biggest policy difference between pence and trump on syria, a real clear difference between the top of the ticket and number two. also interrupting is new in our lifetimes. you can watch 30 years of debates and not see what we witnessed tonight, saying nothing about the first presidential. >> i think when we look at this event it will soon be forgotten and not long remembered. it will not have an impact on a single person's vote in this country with the two main figures at the top of the ticket. that being said, i do think tim kaine was borderline rude,

interru interrupting, and i don't think he came through to people not following this race by way of interruption. however, he put mike pence in a difficult box, because the indelible image, mike pence saying no, no, no, donald trump didn't say that. in fact in almost every instance, donald trump did say that. and the choice to defend that stuff by pretending it did not happen, i don't think it as a political strategy is particularly effective, coming down the home stretch of this race. look, i think you saw some of the big policy differences. this has been a campaign where the ideological differences we talk about in a typical campaign have been blunted. we saw some of that that we haven't seen in the presidential

debates. but what i think is really telling is the foreshadowing of the attack which will be used by hillary clinton to close this thing out. which is that donald trump is temperamentally, psychologically unfit to be the commander in chief and to be commander of america's new arsenal. it's going to be that blunt, that stark coming down the very of the race. the attack, which will essentially be, he is nuts. mike pence was not able to move the needle on that in any way by denying that, in fact, trump has said what he said. >> just that quote from kaine talking about ronald reagan, he said something interesting about nuclear proliferation, saying some fool could trigger a catastrophic event. i think that is who pence's

runningmate is. a maniac. >> i found this to be a very frustrating debate, the debate was miles wide. they covered a lot of territory, issue after issue after issue but as soon as they got in to depth and they really got to an interesting place in the discussion it moved to another topic. it was actually only at the very end when they were talking about their faith that i thought i saw some of the real mike pence and some of the real tim kaine. the rest was kind of a battle between two very important surrogates between these two candidates who were not there. i think pence was more polished in a way. he actually did -- certainly during the second half of the debate and really probably the second or two thirds, he did probably as much interrupting as tim kaine did, but kaine started

it. and pence had that sort of avuncular way, a softer way of barging in. i do agree that -- just denying things that are on videotape, and that will be replayed endlessly again and again and again this the days leading up to sunday, in the long run it's not a good strategy too it's interesting to both of your point on that. it may help you in the room on the podium tonight to say, he never said that, he never said that, but it makes for an interesting story, the denial -- >> but it's not as if the american people don't know he said that stuff. everybody followed the midnight tweets at ms. universe. so when he went to the greatest hits of trump's comments here, these are all comments that are deeply socialized now into the

psyche, the consciousness of the american people. >> they played a commercial for every one of them. >> lawrence, what is your take on how this went tonight? >> well, rachel, normally in these debates i'm non-stop, note taking all the way through. i took my first note at 10:05 p.m., a lot of it was because of how unintelligle it was. the question was, how would safe zones wo s work? the question to mike pence, he had no answer for that. just moments later, tim kaine quoted reagan to mike pence and these were the exact words that ronald reagan actually spoke. he said he worried, and this is quote. that some day, some fool or some maniac or some accident triggering the kind of war that is the end of the line for all

of us. and so tim kaine was accurately quoting ronald reagan there, and accurately quoting donald trump and mike pence throughout. even though mike pence was the smoother debater up there with style, for the rest of the week you will see mike pence denying on the debate stage that he said something. in fact, these are his words, it is inarguable that vladimir putin has been a stronger leader in his country than barack obama has been in this country. mike pence reeatedly denied saying those words on the debate stage. so it will be shown that mike pence was not telling the truth about himself. and so the final question there about religion is always the one that i think will be the big softball that is easier for them to deal with, producing absolutely nothing interesting by way of governing policy.

but that turned out to be the most genuine policy exchange between the two of them. because it became the issue of abortion policy. and you saw these very clear differences. and it was the time when each of them was most comfortable discussing their policy position because these are policy positions that they hold at their core, that they have thought about a long time and thought about all the various responses to. and it actually became one of the most satisfying and illuminating sections of the debate. >> i think that is exactly right. part of to jean's point, they had a little time. the segments were very quick, the cross talk and the interruptions were maddening to the point of not being able to understand. and honestly, the series of topics almost seemed like they were organized alphabetically.

sometimes they were being interrupted to move on to a supposed new topic, that they had just covered. there was no relationship for what they just covered to what was being controlled. >> and kaine was interrupting so much he stepped on clearly the designated line. he said donald trump is his apprentice. one of lawrence's guests from last night's program is with us again today, that is gop nbc news analyst mike murphy, who served most recently for jeb bush's super pac. mike, i took you seriously when you said you opted to elective dental surgery this evening, rather than watching the debate. it looks like you watched the

debate. i want to get your take. >> i thought pence was clearly the stronger television performer. fundamentally kaine had the nervous speed talking, too much caffeine, which often happens to people who step on the stage for the first time. it is a vice presidential debate, i think pence did a better job for mike pence than he did for donald trump. pence had his eye on the nomination. if there was a big loser tonight it was probably ted cruz, because the traditional party has the leader. i think it could be, hypothetically, if donald trump can learn something watching mike pence, if it can any way affect mike pence's performance, because a debate would be so much more impactful, i give it to pence on points but i don't

think it was a race-shaking debate by think means. >> what some are saying at home, we can guess what phone call mike pence has chosen to take. i would love to rerack the video because there was a name on the front of the iphone when the call came as itpassed to him. but let's guess it's the nominee of the republican party. mike murphy, one of the myriad things viewers often hate with people in our roles, when we get four years ahead of ourselves and talk about mike pence with the next presidential election, but did you concur with the chris matthews point that that was part of what was being done on stage tonight? >> oh, completely, there is no doubt there are a lot of calcules being spun.

most are looking at their own interests because they think trump is going to lose. so pence has always had that aspiration. and on that note, i think he did a fairly good job of staying on offense about hillary clinton. >> i'm hearing -- >> mike, can i ask you what you thought about the strategic decision by the trump campaign to have donald trump live tweeting the debate alongside mike pence, live participating in the debate. in that first half hour when i was starting to get very frustrated about them talking over each other and not being able to tell what anybody was saying, there was donald trump tweeting that he thought that tim kaine was ugly, basically he thought he looked like a batman villain, kaine looks like an evil character out of a batman movie. is that just a trump-castit thing?

>> yes, trump is a genius at stepping on his own message. i don't think anybody can separate him from his ability to tweet. everybody has tried to take the smartphone away from him. so it will never happen. did it help? no, pence was doing fine, and trump just got in the way. i'm not a trump supporter. if they are smart they will use a little sense to stop trump, and help him debate. >> i think pence did well in terms of his conservative base, and therefore bolstering it up for trump. we were not talking about the future tonight, we were watching it. he gave up the governorship of indiana to get on a ticket that was probably not going to win. he did so because of a calculation he could leverage this experience and loyalty to

the party, where others were walking away, like john kasich walking away, he is walking toward. so he goes there with the sound of the guns but brings the real conservatism that is genuine. not this sort of napoleon thing with trump. as carville said, he is among the religious conservatives, and in the end he will look more like a president than a number of these people including his running mate after tonight. >> nicole wallace, you worked for some presidents before. what did you think? >> i saw this the way lawrence and chris matthews saw it, than steve schmidt and mike murphy. i couldn't pick a note, really, because it was impossible for them to talk long enough to take a note. when you're six points up, which is where hillary clinton stands today, i don't think you go out

there and act as annoying as tim kaine did. if you're just tuning into the debate you're not following the twists and turn the way we all had. you saw two men, one acting much more like a statesman than the other. i thought pence's presence was far superior to kaine. and kaine went in there, not just a little ahead. she is six points ahead tonight. he had an opportunity to do better tonight. people will find him scrappy. they're fighting over i'm, all 11 of them on the fence. i don't think kaine helped the clinton ticket. i don't think anybody will talk about this. i doubt you will talk about it tomorrow night at 11:00. but in terms of what we just watched 90 minutes of, pence was a statesman. and i thought that kaine interrupted the moderator tar more than he needed to with a

ticket with that much of a lead. >> with one of the things that happened as the night went on for pence is he started doing a lot of no, no, that is not true. rolling his eyes, oh, undercut at all for you? >> i don't ever like that. >> over the course of the 90 minutes. >> fair enough, and i don't like that from anyone. i didn't like that from trump last minute and i didn't like it from either man tonight. but just the atmosphere, the feeling that i got from both of them was pence eye liked calmness and the presentation unless you're joe biden and then i love it when you get excited. but a presentation like that, if you are behind and you are the calmer one, you are the -- like more of a statesman, i thought you've had a very nice night. i think pence had a nice night and he helped the image of his ticket. does he change anythi?