to be made about president obama, and secretary clinton's foreign policy records. donald trump for whatever reason chose not do that in the first debate. i think as we listen to all the commentary tonight, i think mike pence did a fine job in the debate.

>> than it was before this debate because of the stylistic points that mike pence scored, i think in the republican base there will be some excitement, but in the big picture i don't think the single needle move tonight and that's not surprising. it was a vp sidekick debate, not maine event. >> nicole wallace, when this family gathers for the next presidential, afterwards, yes or no, will we be talking about facial discipline, things like that? >> we probably will because there's so much distance to travel, but i -- pence didn't answer or defend trump's comments because they're indefensible, so i eye ju-- i t pence did the best he could with what he had to work with. there is no defense about trump's comments about mexicans and a fat miss universe. there is no defense of trump's comments and that is the story of this campaign and that is --

that will be our conversation sunday night. >> so he wins for himself as mike was saying by avoiding even trying. it's easier in the moment to deny it happen. >> it can't be separated and if you're just tuning into this campaign -- not everybody engages in primary politics, you saw an elegant and statesman like figure, trying to defend his ticket if you watch lawrence tomorrow, you may learn a lot of it was bologna. if you're just picking in and tuning in, i think pence handled himself well tonight. >> i think perhaps it was in part aimed at an audience four years from now if you believe it was chris matthews who covered it all from virginia. that's as good a conversation starter as we've gotten. >> thank you bryan and thank you rachel. great show tonight kbmpt w. any way, tim kaine tried to launch attacks on the miss

universe, and birther itisbirth half the trump supporters are a basket of deplorables. >> he says ours is an insult dri driven campaign. if donald trump said all the things you said he said in the way you said them, he still wouldn't have a fraction of the insults that hillary clinton leveled when she said that half of our supporters were a basket of deplorables. it's -- she said they were irredeemable. they were not america. it'sweight? did he apologize for saying african-americans were living in hell? did he apologize for saying president obama was not a citizen in the united states. you will live in vein for seeing donald trump apologizing. throughout tonight's debate pence, governor pence, kept his

composure deflecting kaine's charges and kept his sights set on donald trump. >> the thought of donald trump as commander in chief scares us to death. donald trump has praised vladimir putin and it's clear he has business dealings. he loves dictators. he has a personal mt. rushmore, ronald regan said something interesting about nuclear proliferation pac in the 1980s. he said the problem with nuclear proliferation is that some fool or maniac could cause it. i think that's who governor pence's running mate is. >> that's pretty low. >> kaine attacked him as too dangerous to serve as commander in chief. >> there's a reason why people

question the trustworthiness of hillary clinton and that's because they're paying attention. i want to give this president credit for bringing osama bin laden to justice, but the truth is osama bin laden led al qaeda. th primary thread is isis. what you heard is they have a plan for open borders, amnesty. >> our plan is like ronald regan's plan from 1986. >> they call it comprehensive immigration reform on capitol hill. we all know the routine. it's amnesty. >> 250,000 people. 100,000 of them children. governor -- >> that is absolutely false and you know it. and you know that. >> did you work on that one a long time because that had a lot of really creative lines in it? >> i'm joined now by msnbc's joy reid, radio host hugh hewett and chris hayes. i want to know everybody has been giving this a hard time. that seems to be the cute thing.

that was a lousy debate. i thought i could keep up with it. i didn't think it was too hard to keep up with. did you have the hard time everybody else seemed to have? >> i thought it was back and forth but i thought it was -- i've got to be honest, i thought it was a clear thing that mike pence was the winner. i think if this was a fight you probably would have called it after the third question. >> not a hard call. >> yeah, no, i thought he did very well. look, they both came in there with completely different strategies and the truth of the matter is, mike pence's strategy worked and kaine went too far with his strategy and i think it probably backfired. >> we don't know yet, right? because one thing we've learned, particularly learned from last debate, is how will donald trump react to it? as far as what i can tell a lot of what tonight was was trying to debate donald trump. one of the ways they wanted to bait him was your guy won't defend you. does he do the sensible thing and say, mike was great, he's

great or does he come out the next few days flailing away that he's been upstaged or that mike pence did a better job. >> i hope that donald trump takes the lesson book that was provided to him. stay calm, stay focused. we had this conversation before the debate that's why i think mike pence won. i hope he talks about russia, syria, our record and i hope they fact check that one clip. i think it's the most important fence for my team, i want trump to win, which is that if my son or your son had handled classified information the way that she did, they'd be court martialed. tim kaine said that's absolutely false. one of them is correct. i believe he, mike pence, is correct. i used to have those clearances. leave it on your desk, you'd be disciplined. take it home, you'd be fired. i hope all the polite at this facts -- >> if politifacts would be

correct. one human being has been prosecuted under the statute. one. it was for espy owe naming. i thought tim kaine was correct. the fbi investigated this. what hugh said is true but true in the opposite way that you meant it is i think mike pence did a good job of defending the mike pence brand but i think he maed headlines that actually could wind up resounding to the side of kaine. he said that the clinton foundation spends 90% of the money not on the charity work. it's the opposite. he said the trump foundation spends the overwhelming majority of the money it takes in on charity. there is no proof of that whatsoever. i think that might come back to haunt them. on the tax return issue, i thought tim kaine had one of the better moments when he said you had to show donald trump your tax returns so i think that tim kaine went into like a pit bull. he was kind of at times sort of difficult to pay attention and

follow it but i think his job was to do that. >> yes. >> and to create so many points of contact that he could wind up -- >> it's all in that question. tonight what do you think the estimate audience was, 40? >> 40. >> yeah. >> 40 million people watched. of that based upon our numbers you and i share every night, say 10 million people watched cable altogether every night, us, fox, cnn, and so it's 30 million people trying to keep up with this. for the first time in their lives will get a good look at the candidates. what will be your impression? >> performance? >> a lot of them will say i wish they were at the top of the ticket. that is going to happen particularly more for mike pence than -- >> i agree with that. i also think what -- >> he'll be the lloyd benson of this campaign. what they looked to say about dukakis. >> i think if you are a democrat -- >> if you are watching for the first time. >> and you haven't been paying attention but your orientation

is to the left, you're going to say i like tim kaine is a fighter. they like that he was a pit bull and went in. if you are a republican you're going to be wishing that he was at the top of the ticket because by the way, by the way, hugh, while this debate was going on donald trump has to watch it back because he was tweeting in all caps throughout the debate. he wasn't even watching. >> behave like tim kaine tonight. was the twitter feeder -- what would your twitter people say? >> if it was a republican jumping in ignoring the moderator, jumping in again and again as if there was a frisky need to speak. it seems to me that's what the -- >> i think the democrats watched the debate, were satisfied with tim kaine. >> if he would have stood on his head -- >> i don't agree with that. i don't want to say everything here. i watch these things and i think

that pence had this -- it maddens me how you can ignore the truth. >> yes. >> i watched the first debate last time around and i watched mitt romney destroy barack obama. i thought it was arrow against on his part, ethnic class, every basis of wrong kind of arrogance. and he won, dam mitt. i don't have to like it but i can see it. i thought pence sat there like a rock and he didn't shake his head too much but the jumping in i really think hurt -- hurt kaine. >> before the debate we talked on this set and i said i wanted to appeal to catholics, which he did especially strong on partial birth abortion. nobody likes. nobody likes to defend it. >> are they -- has kaine voted for pba? >> it certainly sounded like it. >> i never heard the answer. >> it certainly was an appeal to the catholic vote that i wanted made. and it was an appeal to attack her on her record and especially on changing the momentum. you brought this up after the

debate. you had to change the momentum back because we were wiped out. you missed the kill. it could have been over. if he could have put pence down it would have been over. >> you're looking at mike pence, he's good at this. he's a good politician. steady, knows his brief, he has command, he can cover the waterfront in sort of policy. there were like 16 mike pences who got their butts kicked left and right. you sit there and think, why is this guy not there? if he had been there in the primary he would have been discarded on the ash heap of carcasses that donald trump walked through in the primary. >> in the same way that hillary has the biointo all the bernie people because she needs that harder left view. >> the false premise bernie zbleem well, she needs them. just like trump needs the hard right people now. so he's including them thanks to this guy. >> i thought -- and i thought what was fascinating to me was one of the strangest things about watching the debate at the top of the ticket has been

figuring out what the foreign policy of donald trump is and where it stands in sort of relation to reagan tradition and the party that was dominated by -- >> do you like that? >> it's fascinating. >> you want the neoconservatives to run the country. >> russia is good, i'm going to be good. he complements me, i like russia. all of a sudden mike pence comes in from a different universe where he was extremely hawkish on russia and i think flirted on the idea of firing at russian planes in syrian air space. now that represents, i think, a significant portion of the republican base but it's totally -- >> the north korea question that was asked, what do you do about north korea? what do you do? rebuild the american military. donald trump said that. >> and bill clinton said obamacare sucks. what was he doing today, bill clinton? >> i liked it more. >> let's get to a practical sense. you said something earlier. >> you or hugh? >> not you, hugh. >> good.

>> i'm sure the trump advisors were pulling their hair out before the first debate because i'm sure in trump land he decided he's going to do whatever he's going to do for that first debate. this gave them really important ammunition to sit him down and say, look, mike pence prepared. he did mock debates we know with scott walker, multiple ones. we know that he read his material. here's how you do pivot all these. if you will take some time and learn this, that might be the most valuable thing out of this debate. >> if we learned anything about donald trump, comparing him negatively to someone else who he sees as his underlink is not going to inspire him to better performance. it's going to make him hate mike pence. mike pence contradicted donald trump several times including on russia and trump was tweeting in real time trying to gain the attention backlit rally in all caps. so if he was the type of person who would sit down and say, mike pence, you did a great job, i'm going to emulate you.

he's not that guy. when has he been that guy? >> it's the weirdest thing of having running mates, you look weak and crazy like you just got off the boat. and if you have a light weight like dan quayle, great golfer, it makes george c. look much better. maybe tonight pence's strong performance in some weird way will undermine trump. anyway, it's weird, this business. the panel staying with us. we have much more coming up. this is, by the way, as you can tell, a special edition of "hard ball." we're here in longwood university. >> the diehards. the diehards. >> senator -- >> yes, i need to ask you about social security. >> the audit is over. >> richard nixon released tax returns when he was under audit. >> if you can't meet the nixon standard -- >> the people at home cannot understand either one of you

when you speak over each other.

his tax return showed he went through a very difficult time but he used the tax code just the way it's supposed to be used and he did it brilliantly. >> how do you know that because you haven't seen his tax return. >> because he's created a business that's worth a billion dollars. >> how do you know that? governor pence had to give donald trump his tax returns to show he was qualified to be vice president. donald trump must give the american public his tax returns to show that he's qualified to be president and is breaking his promise. >> well, tim kaine was ready for that. anyway, welcome back to a special edition of "hardball" live from longwood university in farmville. i want to show you something. take a look at this great illustration we have out here. the crowd here. that's talking about the guy to

his left, that's jeremiah jones. these are great likenesses, i think, of these guys. great work, jeremiah. thank you. i think tonight was a great example of pugilism. i kept wondering how they could ignore the moderator. you're the woman here. didn't that bother you? middle weight boxers just ignored the ref completely? >> yes. yes. it was very irritating. i felt at a certain point the moderator sort of disappeared. on the one hand i wanted her so badly as a woman -- >> what would you have done, blown a whistle? >> no one can hear you, no one can hear you you're both going to stop talking and answer my question. also put questions on the table that were not only not answered, they were ignored. people pivoted right to whatever they wanted to say. just as a woman i wanted her to get in there. >> an nba game, a college game in basketball, you can sort of tell from the beginning of the

game are the refs going to ref or are they going to skip all traveling calls completely. >> let them go. >> by lebron? >> i thought -- >> they all travel. >> tim kaine tried to do a checkers move from north korea to the military to the tax returns. as he was going through the move she was like, i asked about north korea. here's the thing about tim kaine i thought was interesting. i agree, i found the interrupting annoying. if you said to me afterwards, who do you like more? i don't think tim kaine cared. like -- and whether it helps or hurts -- >> i don't agree with that. unless you were watching, you don't know what's going on. this is why you do mock debates. i've done this with a million candidates. you show them the tape. i don't think he knew that. >> that may be true, but i also think he was definitely -- there were a bunch of things that he wanted -- >> i think you're agreeing. you're fighting. >> i agree. >> i think that the priority there was so just clearly like

dump the apple. dump the apple. >> in sort of defense of the moderator, too. it is a difficult job. >> extremely. >> when people are determined to do what they're doing and ignore you. one of those two would have benefitted from backing off. there's a certain point where you're cross talking, where the right move is to back down. >> i think pence did. >> i think pence did that. >> the problem kaine said is twice you could hear the moderator say, senator, this is the governor. >> the places where they did back off, some of the best exchanges happened like the death penalty, abortion. >> what about the police? i watched it on the set. i was watching it in there by myself thinking this is very important conversation. mike pence has handled it better than anyone has thus far? what did you think? i thought it played to his benefit. >> i thought it was bizarre, obviously they are two white men talking. a, it bothers me that race conversation is only about policing, that's annoying. there's more to the

african-american sort of life, right, and the body poll particular than policing. i thought pence stayed on this law and order theme. he looked uncomfortable mouthing the words law and order. he didn't really engage the idea of black people dying at the hands of police. he didn't engage that idea. >> i was chatting with you before. i didn't think senator kaine gave the black lives matter argument very strong. >> yes. >> he didn't. >> let's talk about abortion rights. tim kaine attacked trump for saying last spring with me that he wanted to punish women who sought an abortion. here's that exchange by the way. take a look. >> i think you should live your moral values but the last thing, the very last thing that government should do is have laws that would punish women who make reproductive choices and that is the fundamental difference between a clinton/kaine ticket and a trump/pence ticket. >> it's really not. donald trump and i would never support legislation that

punished women who made the heartbreaking choice to end a pregnancy. >> then why did donald trump say that? >> never would. >> why did he say that? >> well, to quote the great candy crowley, he did say that. >> he said it to you. >> here's what i said if people needed punishment for abortion in our interview this past march. >> do you believe in punishment for abortion, yes or no? as a principle. >> the answer is that there has to be some form of punishment. >> for the woman? >> yeah, there has to be some form. >> well, that's complicated. i mean, this is a problem of -- you were saying earlier, rachel was saying that the after glow of this debate tonight, the fallout is going to be the failure of pence's arguments to shape up as being the truth. >> it did not fail. it did not fail. i'll speak as the pro lifer. >> i'm the pro lifer. >> you trapped him. >> i trapped him? i offered a simple question. what was my trap based on? tease? >> you never answered a question

about the pro life dynamic. answer a complicated question. >> he said if there was a male involved, no problem. he was totally up with that one. >> if you were a pro life voter you were not with trump tonight. after tonight you were with him. the judges will be pro life. >> the vice president will pick the supreme court justice? >> he's already told many people that he's involved in the list of consultation from the list of 21. >> you had roe v. wade. tim kaine wants to overturn roe v. wade which is the stated position if you're pro life. >> not tim kaine. >> tim kaine said mike pence and donald trump wants to overturn it. >> sounds it. >> they do. >> you have a supreme court seat open so they can appoint someone. it was interesting to me that kaine didn't go there because he said this. and there's a seat that's being open right now that is on the line. >> because that works for my team. >> that works for both. >> the conservatives. conservatives think it works for

them. how can they be wrong? they think they win on the supreme court issue? >> i think pro choice voters don't want roe overturned. >> women will give pause as i was by mike pence's answer. i thought he was thoughtful in explaining his faith. when he was explaining his personal faith, i thought that was the best personal moment for him, the last five minutes. the one thing planned parenthood can use is when they said a woman should be forced to bring a child to term so they can adopt. >> the life philosophy, the value wins. it's the law issue that the choice people -- >> always the law because that's what it's about. when he says -- he's convinced everybody likes adoption. >> it's forcing them. >> he didn't quite say -- he didn't quite voice the pro life position which is we're going to outlaw abortion. we're going to find some way to sanction somebody. >> he brought up two other

areas, partial birth abortion, taxpayer funded abortion. >> the second one -- >> the reason i was smirking. a lot of pro choice liberals do not like partial birth and they don't like the fact -- >> even partial birth does not win. getting rid of hyde is very -- >> one small fact check. he said we would never want women to be punished for this. mike pence did -- >> is that a punishment? >> i think for a woman that had an abortion or a miscarriage and for the state to mandate that they seek a funeral, that's a punishment. >> our coverage of tonight's vice presidential debate will continue after this. >> is that right? >> he does have dangerous ideas. here's four. he trash talks the military. the military is a disaster. john cain is no hero. the generals need to be fired. i know more than them.

he wants to tear up alliances. nato is obsolete. we'll only work with israel if they pay bigly. third, he likes dictators. he has a personal mt. rushmore, vladimir putin, kim jong-un, moammar gadhafi and saddam hussein and -- >> oh, come on. >> and last -- mr. clean gets tough on dirt and grime

and mr. clean will cleanute ur whole house and every room that's in it floors, doors, walls, halls he's so toug he cleans 'em all mr. cln! campaign, that's small potatoes compared to hillary clinton calling half of donald trump's supporters a basket of

deplorables. >> hillary clinton said something on the campaign trail and the very next day she said, you know what, i shouldn't have said that. >> senator kaine's two minutes. >> yeah, that's right, so now we're even. >> now we're even. welcome back to this special edition of "hardball." our panel is still with us. tim kaine attempted to put mike pence on the defensive throughout the evening asking him multiple times to defend the position donald trump has defended so flagrantly. let's take a look. >> i can't imagine how governor pence can defend the insult driven selfish me style of donald trump. >> governor. >> i am interested in seeing how he'll defend his running mate's not releasing taxes. i can't believe governor pence will defend the insult driven campaign. i can't believe governor pence would sit here and defend his running mate's claim that we should have a deportation force. i can't imagine how you should

defend that. six times tonight i have said to governor pence i can't imagine how you can defend your running mate's position on one issue after the next and in all six cases he's refused to defend. >> don't put words in my mouth. >> yet he is asking everybody to vote for somebody he cannot defend. >> you know, the issues is that trump put into a perfect storm, illegal immigration, loss of jobs through trade deals and stupid wars is still a perfect storm except for trump and tonight was a defense of what he said in addition to that. the extreme statements about deportation, about walls and everything. the trump argument is still of a hell of a revolutionary argument. tonight i think we'll argue with the overkill. trump said things he shouldn't have said. mexicans aren't rapists. that has nothing to do with the uncontrolled immigration policy. nobody thinks the reason we have to have immigration policy more

effectively controlled is the rapists. nobody believes that. a lot of his stuff is not only extraordinary, awful, it's not even conservative doctrine. it's crazy. here's the guy who had to bring rationality at this to it. >> stability to t. i think two things happened tonight. first of all, there's a lot of people who aren't voting for trump but they don't like hillary clinton. they would like to vote for trump but can't get there. with mike pence there, maybe i'm a little bit more comfortable voting for trump because i know he's there. number two is almost every candidate is a paradox. what makes them viable is what keeps them from being viable. donald trump is that way and hillary clinton is that way. what makes donald trump interesting is this provocative guy that will get up there and lead america. he says things that are too provocative. >> what's hillary's problem? i never heard you say it. >> she's been there forever. >> too controlled.

very controlled. he's not. >> so her experience is her strength, but the fact that she benefitted from it and people think she gained the system is also what her achille's heel is. >> who do you think got moved tonight? >> i don't. no. >> you don't think anything happened tonight? >> i'm not saying nothing happened. mike pence very effective for mike pence 2020. >> i agree for that. >> in order to help it move people to donald trump, donald trump has to follow this up by being more like pence. he has to learn from it. >> well said. let me ask you, chris. if you have to measure if there's any movement on the seismograph here, anything happen tonight? >> polling movement i would be surprised if there was much major polling movement. partly because we have a hurricane bearing down on us, we have donald trump's reactions, we don't know what those will be those will be the news cycle if he chooses to make them. >> trump/pence. >> he opened the door for trump to come back. al gore in 1996 said risky plan

1,000 times and put bob dole's campaign in the ground. i was afraid that might happen tonight if something happened. i'd say it's a missed opportunity for kaine. every time you don't score, they missed the opportunity to close out. a hurricane is coming. donald trump can study the tape. maybe he won't. if he does, whole different ball game on sunday night. >> thank you. i think the conservatives were solidified. i've never heard anymore pro life case made and i thought he made the case. i thought the other side i agree with more but i thought they both made their case. they both did good at the end. i wish the debate began the way it ended. >> i also thought we got a really interesting glimpse of the post trump republican party because there was -- it was mike pence shaking his head at all the comments that donald trump has made and there was no discussion of the muslim ban. a little attacking to the right on immigration. attacking towards the more sort of skeptical position but much more of the mike pence/paul ryan

party that preceded donald trump than the one that we have right now. you can tell everybody in that party is ready to men in black and clip the frame and go back to the republican party -- >> especially paul ryan. >> that was what we saw tonight. when this is done we're going to go back to opposing hillary and the whole catechism we built. >> where are you going to put trump, on elba. >> that's available. >> he's not going away for four months. >> he's not lost. he can still win this. >> i have to steal from you real quick. big loser tonight, ted cruz. he is a nonentity. >> the hard right is saying the new leader of the far right is a guy named mike pence. >> thank you, hugh. >> you're a long way from a big city, all right? >> we are. >> thank you. chris, my buddy chris hayes is here. julie and john are coming in. we have subs coming in for these guys are great.

you're watching a special edition of "hardball." these hardy guys. >> we need subs who aren't as good. the die hards, yes!

this is a fundamental question, a fundamental question. hillary and i are both people out of religious backgrounds. her methodist church experience was formative for her as a public ser vapvant but we feel you should live fully and with enthusiasm with command of your faith but it's not the role of the public servant to mandate that for everybody else. >> welcome back to "hardball" and our live coverage of the presidential debate. we have joy and ray. we have heidi presba and jeff shapiro of the "richmond times

dispatch." we're in one of the nine commonwealths. what did you think of tim kaine? you've been covering him. was he tim kaine tonight? >> this is not the tim kaine to which virginia grew accustomed over 20 odd years. he was the model of racial reconciliation broke into elected politics as a member of the richmond city council. where we are tonight is important in that prince edward county where schools were closed in defiance of the brown decision, that's how kaine opened the evening. it was probably one of the few homey moments of the entire evening. and i would suspect sadly that's not a theme that is important to kaine but one he was able to advance tonight. he certainly played the attack dog. he is fully subsumed to the clinton campaign and this is a guy who as governor took a real

beating from a republican dominated legislature but, you know, always smiled. always went back to the table. always was looking for common ground. you know, you're a product of the cross. you can understand the jesuits and those orders. this has had a big effect on kaine, his thinking and his approach to government. always looking for common ground, often coming up with some fairly tortured results but -- >> you felt tonight he was just partisan? >> partisan and -- and edgy. >> what about the jumping up and down? he couldn't wait for his turn. why was he so antsy to get his voice heard? it seemed to bother him when pence was saying, personally bother him. why didn't he just wait and exchange his remarks afterwards? that was what they said against trump. in a two person debate you get your turn. relax. >> don't you know that, again, having subordinated himself to

hillary clinton, his job tonight was not to sharpen the distinction between himself and pence but to sharpen the distinctions between trump and clinton. >> this wasn't a kaine coming out event. we thought that there might be some moments where he tried to present himself and his record but he didn't even do that in the opening moments of the campaign. at least mike pence tried to share about his biography. tim kaine didn't do that. he was on the attack, attack, attack. every chance it came back to taxes which we knew going in, yes, taxes was going to be the main thing. >> somebody told him to do that. >> he seemed to find in a very forced way to bring everything kind of back to that taxes issue. but at the same time i think, you know, mike pence, he's being declared the winner,y, by the cnn/orc polls but when journal lists do their job and they go through what was actually said in this debate and do some of the fact checking and show how,

yes, actually tim kaine was right. he did deflect on almost all of the key points in terms of defending his candidate, it was a win for mike pence not necessarily a win for trump. >> have you seen the headline for your paper yet for tomorrow? >> i'll be working on it right after we get off the set. >> you don't know what it is yet? >> it will be to that effect, you know, that pence won but -- but he distanced himself from trump on these matters and he didn't necessarily think the out of the park for the top of the ticket. >> you think he's acting like another inhabitant of hillary land? that sounds like what you're saying. he's lost his personal identity. he's become part of that world of huma and the rest of them. he has a job and he's doing that. >> i'm not going to read that much into it. he had a mission on this one particular night. he had a mission on one night. >> which was to hit them on a number of things. >> which was, yeah, to be the attack dog in a more aggressive

way than his counterpart can do, than hillary clinton can do. if you notice in her debate she spent a lot of time trying to give an affirmative case on the economy. >> do you think the purpose of tonight for someone like kaine was really to establish the agenda for next sunday night? the moderator was watching tonight, the moderator for next week. they'ring this, h'm, this is a topic i have to do. this is a mandatory. this is a man do tori. trump's taxes gets to the mandatory. life versus choice becomes a mandatory. >> yeah. >> in a way they're assigning the moderator what to talk about tonight. the candidates are. >> kaine went in clearly determined to put the trump camp on notice that they're not going to let go on taxes, on the trump foundation i thought the rip he had when he said after 9/11, you weren't paying. you weren't paying for our troops. it was sort of putting the trump team on notice. >> giuliani number. everything goes to 9/11.

>> it literally put them on notice. but i do think and i expected, we had thi conversation before, i was surprised that kaine didn't use some of the time to try to take down mike pence a little bit. mike pence's own history is so litigatable. if you're a woman, even if you're not a democrat -- >> why department he do it? >> i'm not sure. i think his mission was get trump. he was dogged in his mission but he missed an opportunity to bring mike pence's history out. they had to have a funeral for the fetus. >> do you think that's true? is that true? >> the story now that he says it, yeah, that's why they sort of joked. >> in a way as a quarterback they can make all the passes but nobody red dogging him. i thought that was interesting. he was really -- he had a lot of clear out there to attack. he did it. >> here's the problem. somebody, again, does training on this stuff. number one, tim kaine is actually a decent, nice human being. that didn't come across tonight.

what came across is that he was really anxious to please the hillary clinton campaign that he's going to go and pull one off for the team. >> you will agree i've got three people that he was an unleashed dog. >> if you watch his facial expressions, he's almost giddy as he's trying to throw one after the other. >> giddy is the word. >> like he had a checklist. >> giddy is not one of the job descriptions we have for the president of the united states. it comes down. it's unfair. mitt romney was arrogant as hell against barack obama and it worked. arrogance worked. this guy, pence, is so basic and so grounded in who he is -- >> i'll get it back to these folks. they're getting shorthanded here. sir, are you going to -- who's going to replace tim kaine down here if he gets the vice presidency? >> right now bobby scott is pretty much running for that seat. >> yeah. >> it's taken on sort of the amusing characteristics. so bobby scott is from the city of newport news on the peninsula

of the east side of -- >> african-american? >> african-american. >> we might have an african-american from south carolina and virginia? >> yes, first african-american senator if he is appointed by governor mccally. >> he's not related to bobby skotd who played for unc, remember him? >> nice try. >> he integrated the acc once he got in there. >> bobby scott has started a pact -- >> i've got to go. i'm being yelled at. we'll be back. this is special edition of "hardball." i'm talking like tim kaine. live from the site of tonight's presidential debate. the first rule of being a viking. is that teamwork is important. remember to do the little things. help each other out. and the second rule of being a viking. there's more than one way to win.

vikings: war of clans play free now.

first and foremost, donald trump supports our troops. donald trump supports our vaents zpl he won't pay taxes. >> donald trump has paid all the talks that he's -- do you not take -- >> gentleman, this is about syria. i'd like to -- >> it is about syria. >> senator -- >> it is about our troops. >> i understand why you want to change the subject. >> he won't pay taxes. >> i understand why i want to change the subject. let me be clear on the russian thing. the larger question. >> gentlemen, we'll have time to get to russia. >> it's almost like they didn't have a referee tonight. they ignored her. we're back from longwood university with joy, john, heidi, and jeff. in that order tell me what the headline is going in the paper tomorrow? >> pence consensus winner

interruptus on stage with him. >> debateus interruptus. >> i would say pence goes his own way. my sub head would be declines to defend trump. loses some facts in the process. >> that's a great headline. >> the nation. >> who won tonight? i won't push you. >> depends who the audience is. >> she answered it. >> depends who your audience is. >> i'm not pushing. i'm not a pushy guy. >> variation of that. pence prevails but refuses to defend him. >> pence won on his own. >> pence win for pence. >> kaine channels trump. >> ooohhh. >> the closer. >> wow? >> in terms of interrupting, in terms of a little giddy, whatever, out of control. thank you. >> always the quiet one with the bow tie. >> "times dispatch" has been

spoken. thank you. rather than an addendum, that was pushy. i don't like being pushy. >> pence goes his own way. refuses to endorse -- declines to defend trump. loses facts. >> i would say pence 10, ted cruz 0. joy, thank you. >> i agree. >> my new panel here. that does it all for our live post game coverage of tonight's vice debate. vice presidential debate. i'll be right back tomorrow at 7:00 eastern for "hardball." the second presidential debate is coming on strong. hillary clinton versus donald trump, the heavy weights. all day coverage on that coming up on sunday. will not be a day of rest.

i was listening to the avalanche of insults coming out of senator kaine. >> hold on a second. >> it's my turn, senator. >> i apologize. >> i forgive you. >> pardon the interruption the spotlight might have been on vice presidential candidates the tim kaine and mike pence. hurricane matthew has left a trail of destruction in haiti. and now it's heading for the bahamas and the united states. bill clinton called president obama's health care crazy. obama launched his own attack and may have overshot the