edition from washington university in st. louis with all these lovely fresh faced idealistic yupg people. we'll be back at our normal time tomorrow, tune in 8:00 p&l eastern msnbc's coverage of second presidential debate starts now. tonight, a campaign in crisis. >> i said it, i was wrong, and i apologize. >> republicans jumping ship. >> mr. trump needs to step aside. >> i cannot vote for donald trump. >> what can donald trump do to save his candidacy. hillary clinton makes her first public comments tonight in the debate. tonight on msnbc, the place for politics, the second presidential debate. >> good evening and welcome. this is now the most critical moment in the race for the white

house. the time has arrived for, as the nice announcer said, the second presidential debate, the first town hall-style debate. it begins just two hours from now, live from the campus of washington university in st. louis, missouri. to quote eleanor roosevelt, this is no ordinary time nor has this been an ordinary weekend in america. for starters, parents have been cautioned against having children in the room during coverage and discussion of the latest development in this race. the bombshell videotape that dropped friday afternoon that has profoundly changed the campaign and tonight's debate. good evening to you all from our headquarters in new york. brian williams along with rachel maddow, of course. chris matthews leading our coverage from st. louis and friends and family, the best team in political coverage tonight. rachel we say this before every live event and it's obviously true. we have no idea what's going to happen tonight. it has never been more true than

tonight. from the handshake, we have no way of guessing the tone, tenor or content. >> if there's a handshake. we don't know if there will be. i was happy to have a shot of the empty room there, just a reminder this is set up as normal town hall presidential debate. >> patina of normalcy. >> something we should recognize here, everything surrounding it is different. remember when it became clear it would be donald trump and hillary clinton as nominees, we got the schedule on commission on presidential debates, the trump campaign complained nobody would watch. that first one was opposite monday night football, second one sunday night of a three-day weekend. the distance between even those expectations and where we are now, heading into tonight, the last hour, the last hour before we start a reasonably open question as to whether or not both nominees show up.

a reasonable question whether they will shake hands at the beginning. even if those things happen, a reasonable question as to whether or not the republican party will still have this same nominee by the time we start voting in less than a month. this sort of uncertainty is -- an overused word, unprecedented. >> measures went to bed friday night really sure if there would be, to your point, a debate at all. everything seemed unsure. friday night/saturday morning, i want to say 1:25, we were all up working. chris matthews was on the air. chris can hear this from st. louis. chris, i heard you say really the first member of our team to say this was disqualifying, this race, in effect, had come to an end on friday. >> well, yeah, by all the usual standards it is. i think we've been saying for days now that donald trump's dancing on a cliff, a couple of feet from the edge.

i think he went over it. it's obviously past history but it's on tape. it will be used by hillary clinton's people right to the end. we don't know if it had any role in getting this story out. we don't know. that's pretty murky right now. clearly she benefits from it. i think there's certainties tonight. donald trump has been telegraphing his punch for days, since friday. he's going after the clintons, after bill clinton's behavior, his presidency and before that. he's going to go back maybe 30, 40 years, juanita broaddrick, paula jones, hit all those buttons and he's going to do it in front of bill clinton and chelsea. last time around we heard he wasn't going to go after clinton because his daughter was there, that's not going to be this time. i do hope cameras and pool able to capture this. when he goes after bill clinton, bill clinton will have to show some kind of response of he's

not going to sit there mummy like, if they go after his behavior over the years. certainly chelsea will have a response. i think this is going to be very personal drama in the very early questioning tonight. i think that's a certainty tonight, guys. i think it's going to be just that we're all going to react differently to it. >> five minutes into our coverage here, two hours before the start. for those that may have just returned from a three-day research trip to antartica and haven't seen it, here now the portion in chief that has been driving the conversation of the tape that fell into our lap on friday. this was a behind the scenes interview 11 years ago for taping of "access hollywood," billy bush and donald trump actually. you know, she was down on palm beach.

>> she used to be great. she's still very beautiful. >> i move on her and i failed. i'll admit it. i did try and -- her. she was married. >> that's huge news. >> no, no. nancy. no, this was -- >> and i moved on her very heavily. in fact, i took her out furniture shopping. she wanted to get some furniture. i said, "i'll show you where they have some nice furniture." >> i moved on her like a bitch but i couldn't get there. and she was married. that's her in the gold. i'll use some tic tacs in case i start kissing her. i'm automatically attracted to beautiful. when you're a star you can do whatever you want. grab them by the -- you can do anything. >> there you have it, the points in the tape, obscene as they are, that drove the conversation over the weekend. friday afternoon became friday evening inside a conference room at trump tower where what passes for infrastructure, super structure of the trump campaign was huddling in emergency session. it was decided that rather than submit to a one-on-one interview

with a journalist, donald trump would do a tape of just him, a video that would be released. they missed the 11:00 eastern time release time. so quite late at night, this message came out from donald trump. >> i've never said i'm a perfect person nor pretended to be someone i'm not. i've said and done things i regret and the records released today on this decade old video are one of them. anyone who knows me knows these words don't reflect who i am. i said it, i was wrong and i apologize. i've said some foolish things but there's a big difference between the words and actions of other people. bill clinton has actually abused women and hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims. we will discuss this more in the coming days. see you at the debate on sunday. >> that was it. the release of the video from

trump tower, other than a visit with fans at ground level in the lobby of his building and the flight to st. louis. that's all we have seen of donald trump. our family joins us here at the table, nicolle wallace former white house communications director for president bush 43, a veteran of the mccain/palin campaign and chuck todd veteran of all campaigns, political director and moderator of "meet the press." if that was an apology, if that was a trump brand apology, what do you think we can expect tonight? >> i assume something that's going to be pretty bad. i think this is going to be an uncomfortable debate to watch. he's in a defiant mood. if that's the attitude he has, i think the folks that have remained with him are the ones telling him to fight. so i think this is -- it is going to be the defiant version

of trump. i can tell you this, there are a whole bunch of republicans still hanging with him barely, publicly. i've talked to two of them privately who said they want real contrition. you said that is his version of an apology, they said it is very important to them it's real contrition. you know who else it's important real contrition, mike pence. he's watching like richard burr, marco rubio, all these guys that still haven't pulled the plug and thinking about it but giving him one last chance for real contrition. >> because they think contrition would show he's not who they think he is. if he acts out the apology better that changes anything? >> this the trump pushback because he'll say this is what -- funny you put it that way. i've heard, like yes, i am who i am. >> it's hard for me. i've been trying to think through the mike pence side of

this since this pro through. i don't know mike pence's heart, i know what he's portrayed himself to be in the public eye, what he could possibly get from donald trump at this point he would stay on the ticket. >> there's a reason he's not on the campaign trail today. he took himself off. >> he went to the colts game. he went to an nfl game. >> yes. >> nicole, all of this brings us to you. >> fix it, nicole. >> i don't want to dampen anyone's excitement about what they are going to see tonight because it will be riveting for all the reasons we discussed. this is town hall, not just moderator negotiating between two politicians. i know moderators have been working on how to handle the moment they find themselves in, they have to share the questioning of these candidates with voters. >> half and half. >> so i would question everyone who thinks we're going to turn it on and see fireworks in the first five minutes.

it could take a while to get to the questions that evoke. >> it's my understanding the moderators plan -- >> the news. >> as paul ryan says, the elephant in the room. >> here is a few more insights about this idea of contrition. from folks in robert costa's reporting reflected this and kelly and yours, things broke down in trump tower along the lines of contrition. this was the case being made to donald trump, and it was laid out to him that his apology, i think it came out at about 11:45 friday night was inadequate because he did not display genuine contrition. there's different theories about why that's the case. there's lots and lots and lots of tape with donald trump saying lots and lots of things like this on it. so one of the theories goes like this. he was afraid if he showed genuine remorse, that it would

be undermined by a new revelation that came out. it seems ben carson is trying to articulate that this weekend. one of the other theories is that he just doesn't do that. at the end of the day, the conversations inside trump tower broke down along very familiar lines with the family arguing to let trump be trump. he was more evita than trump going out and greeting the masses outside trump tower. >> love me. >> don't play with evita. >> in a place he didn't want to be. they had him prepping. he spent a lot of last week while you were covering the storm prepping. after his dismal performance. >> and tweeting. >> i'm saying when the news broke, it broke friday. they got the call from the "washington post" and they are in debate prep having a real prep session, the kind of which a lot of republicans you're talking about demanded of him after his terrible performance.

so this all came down amid something aaron sorkin's darkest mood couldn't have created in a screen play. >> it would be rejected because it's too ridiculous. >> chuck, when you say this is going to be hard to watch, going to a very dark place, obviously the thing everybody is expecting from trump, he's been telegraphing since the end of the first database he wants to talk about bill clinton's sexual behavior and use that as some sort of politically nuclear attack on bill clinton's wife. i've never -- i'm not being deliberately obtuse. >> he said he wants to talk about hillary's treatment of the women -- >> what giuliani outlined to me, he said, no, he's not going to bring up bill clinton. i said but -- he said but he'll deal with the hillary clinton situation. and i asked him, what's the situation? he said what she did and what she said about accusers. >> how she responded to her husband's infidelities.

>> and what she said that she called monica lewinsky to a friend a looney tune and stuff like that. it's about that. i think that's a tough -- i think it's not an equivalent, to attack a woman. >> yeah. >> who for their husband's infidelities. everyone can try to put motivation behind why hillary clinton would fight for her husband but there are a lot of women who have stayed in marriages with their husbands who have done infidelity. >> political analysis, is there any reason to believe that the trump folks clearly believe that just mentioning these things, all of which are known, it's not like they have done investigative reporting, is there any reason to believe it will hurt hillary clinton at all. seems skracrazy to me. >> they think there's a group of voters who didn't live through it, millennials, bernie bros.

while it won't add to trump it dampens the vote for her. >> if anything, hillary clinton was a wronged woman and her husband didn't have fidelity -- >> can we talk about something in the eleventh hour, the attack is at the dunham woman's vote about hillary not being generous -- i'm not defending the line of attack. the strategy goes you highlight hillary clinton's treatment of the women who became entangled with bill clinton. >> this the equivalent of like responding to an earthquake by attacking that city for its terrible building codes. you know what i mean. >> i wasn't recommending, i'm just telling you -- >> what they are expecting, what makes sense for political strategy is not the way humans react to this news. if they think this is going nuclear -- >> there's a whole history here. hillary clinton has a political career thanks to misguided

attacks on her. >> bring another human into this conversation, hallie jackson covering on the road in st. louis. hallie, what can you add as far as strategy. >> reporter: human and ready. i had a conversation with one of trump's advisers. i pressed bill clinton, hillary clinton attacks how it will unfold. i'll tell you this, why not definitive how he'll go after clintons, he will, i'm told, go after leaked e-mails in which hillary clinton suggested privately support for open borders. this is something her campaign, according to our democratic teams reporting hasn't directly addressed and pivoting to pin the blame on russia for attacks. even if the moderators don't bring this up, then this is something you should expect to see trump pivot to, i am told. remember, the first debate trump had real problems pivoting and trying to get on offense when he was on defense back on his heels

for most of the evening. presumably he's been prepped to try to avoid that this time around specifically when it comes to this topic and news. as is traditional engaging in predebate attacking of moderators and media, which is something we've seen from the trump team before suggesting they should absolutely be asking about this particular question, acknowledging, though, the first question out of the gate is likely going to be on the sort of -- i wouldn't call it a grenade, nuclear bomb that went offer in this campaign friday at 4:00 p.m. i expect that will come up. >> hallie jackson at washu at the scene of the debate. couple things before we head into our first break. number one, to perhaps mirror conversations around the country, what's this all doing to our country. presidential historian and author michael beshloss standing by to talk to us. number two, what if this ticket is forced to change. ben ginsburg, perhaps the most learned attorney on gop side on things elections.

and number three, don't move from where you are. what an evening we're heading into. first break, we'll be right back after this.

. we are back. that's the stage. donald trump in the left-hand stool position, hillary clinton the right-hand on the walkthrough. anderson cooper, martha raddatz of abc news. this is the black and white shot that came from the venue of donald trump sitting in the stool during his walkthrough. >> two experienced moderators tonight but they do have unusual format, half questions from them, half questions from other people there in the room. hard for moderators to prepare for, also candidates, even under best of circumstances which these are not, particularly on

the republican side. joining us now is a.j. delgado, senior adviser for donald trump and his campaign. a.j., thanks for being with us tonight, nice to see you. >> thank you for having me. >> i want to ask you about "associated press" report that came out last week. days before they dropped this bombshell with "access hollywood" tape. ap reported donald trump had sexually harassed cast members on the set of "the apprentice" multiple tiles while cameras were rolling. your campaign said outlandish, unsubstantiated and false. here is the question. the production company that makes "the apprentice" won't release those tapes to see whether it's true or false. if you guys are insisting those allegations are definitely false, is donald trump going to call for those tapes to be released in order to prove it? >> i don't see how releasing tapes proves a negative. how does releasing tapes prove

mr. trump didn't bother anyone on the set of "the apprentice." i think releasing tapes to prove something didn't happen is frankly a little outlandish and bizarre. as for the ap report, a colleague, omarosa has spoken extremely high about mr. trump for years. myself, latina, mr. trump has been respectful to me in every interaction. it's an honor for me as a woman to stand behind him. i found ap reports lacking substance and credibility. >> the way to prove a negative is to call to release the tapes. if production tapes were released, everybody could review them and find out whether this behavior happened. the thing that's striking about this ap report, they have more than 20 people cast members, crew members, former contestants, crew members corroborating this. then additional from "access hollywood" at least in some other context he did behave that

way about women or at least talk that way about women. calling tore those tapes to be released would settle the matter. will the campaign do that? >> no, as i said, the tapes will not prove a negative. it's silly. eastbound the woman at issue, main person, camera person, in the ap report herself is quoted as saying, listen, that's not accurate. i think, rampell, american public concerned, especially women, especially working women with heading back to the issues here. i don't think your average voter is sitting there thinking donald trump is going to help me on jobs, strong trade deal killing jobs but, heck, i'm not going to vote for him because he said something in a tape years ago. let's vote for the candidate even if he said something you don't agree with if it's going to make your lives better, your families lives better. that's the way the american public thinks.

that's how old i think. >> you stressed how old the tape was. that was mentioned by mr. trump in his apology, talking about it being a decade old. are you suggesting he used to behave that way towards women but doesn't anymore? is there a time he stopped behaving that way and talking that way? is there a dividing line we should be aware of? >> no, i don't think it's necessarily relevant the timeframe. i think my main point there is, listen, what somebody said when they aren't behaving like themselves, we're all guilty of that should have 0 relevance when you cast your ballot who that should be for. cast it in a manner, a person change your life for the better. that's donald trump when it comes to most americans, especially working class. when we see hillary clinton in transcripts that she has told wall street millionaires she does believe in open borders, she believes a publicings on an issue and another one that's a private position on an issue, no voter concerned about their bottom line should or will trust

that individual in the oval office. >> a.j., when donald trump said when you're a star they let you do it. you can do anything. grab them by the genitals. can you do anything. when he said you're a star they let you do it. when people are considering whether or not they want him to be president, don't you think it's relevant people consider what he thought he could get away with as president. >> rachel, bill clinton got away with doing quite a bit of immoral behavior. >> what's your argument there? >> here is my argument. you would agree you may not like somebody's character, we can agree bill clinton was not man of character, neither was jfk, democrats say they made great presidents. you don't have to like what mr. trump said. >> why are you running against bill clinton and jfk. >> my point is you can personally have an objection to the way somebody might behave or things they might say and still think this would be the right president for the country.

i think most democrats believe bill clinton doesn't have great character but a great president. i think donald trump does have great character. what he said in one moment when he was using hyperbole with one guy, shooting his mouth off a little bit does not indicate who he is as a man. the fact he was elevating women to chief contractor of trump tower in 1980s, that's trump's character. the fact he's raised two wonderful daughters, the fact he treats me and my colleagues with respect that's donald trump's character. his character is impressive. >> are you at all concerned that if he is elected president, more tapes would continue to emerge like this? i mean, obviously this is a little bit of a nightmare for your campaign trying to convince people to vote for him when they have got these words ringing in their ears in thinking about his character and how he would behave against women if he was president. if there were tapes like this, that would become a nightmare, not just for your campaign, that would become a nightmare for the

country. the president of the united states was continually being revealed to have behaved that way. are you at all concerned about the fact that we keep hearing that there's more tapes like this out there and not everything has been released? >> no, i'm not. what i'm concerned about and the campaign i think is really undergoing a nightmare and what the real bombshell has been this week what hillary clinton said and the back stab she gave to millions of working class americans in those wall street speeches, no wonder she doesn't want them disclosed after months and months of sanders supporters calling object him to. i get it. i would want those transcripts hidden too. that's a bigger bombshell. i feel bad having to defend what those transcripts contain. they have the nightmare, we don't. >> that is admirably ambitious spin they have the nightmare now and you don't. >> it's true, rachel. >> sunny side is part of what you need to do. this is a big night, millions of people watching. thanks for being with us.

>> thank you. >> a quick break for us. we are back with more including our own steve schmidt right after this.

we are back. that is the arena. we're an hour and a half away from the start. washu in st. louis, missouri, when we have time sometime we'll talk about their hookup and why

it is that our cameras this time every four years always end up at washu. great college in a great town. >> danforth. look up the worth danforth and you'll figure it out. >> that's a great debate. >> they do. that's a fantastic campus as well. we are back. steve schmidt is standing by to talk to us. steve's words have carried great weight these last three days as they have this entire campaign season. he's most notably and most recently a veteran of the mccain/palin effort. steve, what will tonight prove or disprove? in your view, should tonight be happening at all? >> look, i think donald trump's campaign for presidency effectively ended on friday. there are moments in campaigns of stability and fluidity. since the first debate we've seen donald trump's poll numbers collapsing and we see the private poll numbers taking

place in senate races, for example, all across the country. numbers really in free fall. so the question now is for the republican party, how much collateral damage will there be. that's very much an open question. here is what the problem is, brian. if you go back to the first debate and its aftermath, most every republican elected official believe is this. they believe that donald trump is mentally unfit, that somebody who is having a tweet war at 3:00, 4:00, 5:00 in the morning, some angry 70-year-old man that can't sleep, tweeting at mismatchmis mismatch mismatchmis machado, that's disqualifying, he's intellectually unfit. he knows nothing of public policy. he doesn't understand history, doesn't understand the history of this country or any other,

that he is manifestly uninformed when it comes to the geopolitical crisis and that his talk with regard to nuclear weapons was scary. and they believe he's morally unfit, that he lacks the requisite dignity to be the american head of state. he lacks the moral authority to make life and death decisions regarding sending american men and women into mortal combat in the wars this this cub has fought for the last 15 years. yet in almost every instance these republican elected officials believing these things have said, i support the nominee of my party. and historically elected officials of both parties have always put the country ahead of party and that so obviously hasn't happened. they turned a blind eye and they refused to acknowledge the obvious. now the bill is coming due a

month out from the election. so two weeks ago republicans would likely have retained control of the united states senate. tonight it's exceedingly likely that the next majority leader will be chuck schumer. before very long i suspect you will see erosion in the down ballot house races. before we get to november the question of control of the house of representatives will very much be up in play. >> steve, i want you to watch something with us, a video that we are just getting in that has done nothing to lighten the dark mood heading into tonight. the traveling press pool was called into a photo-op with donald trump billed as debate prep. this is what they encountered. chuck, you want to narrate what you can see here. >> it is donald trump working with three accusers, it appears,

only two we've seen footage of, two people that brought allegations against bill clinton at the time and i think that's paula jones on the right. paula jones, juanita broaddrick and the far left of your tv screen cropped up was kathleen willie. i believe only the paula jones video has been confirmed. there's never been agreement on what the nature of their relationship was. >> hallie jackson was part of this. hallie, what were you guys told? >> not much. we're reaching out to the campaign to get background how this event came out, how this unfolded essentially. we saw about as much as you saw, that chuck described. these women lined up with donald trump. it was a chance to look at debate prep but obviously quite

different, clearly a signal of where donald trump's head it at an hour or less before the event. tell you this we have pool and print reporters there, this is a group of journalists that travel with the campaign and documenting this and they began to ask questions about trump's tapes, that hot mic moment, the "access hollywood" tape. i'm going to read you what this pool report said, reporters asked trump why his celebrity star power gave him license to touch women without consent. the pool reporter wrote we were escorted out. ask bill clinton. testy moment, perhaps, at the end of whatever this photo-op was. we know trump here in st. louis. we know he has seen the debate hall not far from the spin room where we are. we're working to find out more from the campaign how this came about, how it unfolded and what it means for this crucial debate for donald trump tonight. >> wow, we're just taking this

in. >> we had one other camera angle showing reporters being brought into the room, showing the pool camera. right in the center of that you could see donald trump's campaign ceo, which, again, an unprecedented title, steve bannon, publisher of right wing website that has baseball very, very, very aggressive on this particular side of anti-clinton conspiracy theorizing. >> a little bit of insight into how i believe this moment came to be and we'll learn more as the night goes on. the diagnosis of most rational people after the first debate it was a failure because of lack of preparation. the psychotic break may have happened in donald trump's diagnosis of what went wrong was he didn't hit hard enough against hillary clinton. when the tape came out, i think all of his impulses were indulged by enablers around him who said defense against the tape is to throw it back in the clintons' face, en masse. in our last we dismissed this as

a defense. i agree with you. i'm saying donald trump believes this is the strategy, not just to defend himself against being a groper of a word i can't say but against hillary clinton's moral lapses in his view against the women who became entangled with donald trump. this is the strategy he's wanted to roll with for a long time. >> the flaw in this is -- >> the flaws are endless. i'm not defending it. >> let's go with simple logic of i guess the moral or immoral equivalency here. if donald trump wants his behavior ignored, then he should ignore this behavior. >> precisely. >> more importantly the reason why donald trump -- again, lena dunham has raised this issue. she said there is some women who have criticized hillary clinton for being too aggressive with bill clinton's accusers.

now, let's "the herd" stop. you know who is probably as harsh against bill clinton's accusers than anybody? donald trump. donald trump attacked monica lewinsky's look. donald trump attacked paula jones personally. donald trump attacked ken starr, thought the whole thing -- the best spinner, if you're the clinton campaign was donald trump circa 1999. when you say he's the wrong messenger, on a number of levels he's the wrong messenger to effectively try to orchestrate this strategy. >> chris matthews is in st. louis. chris, when you hear that a candidate has summoned approvaling press pool to hotel room or conference room, it is the politics all of us on this desk grew up with. it usually means they are watching rushes with their family. it usually means perhaps maybe with their jacket off, shirt and tie, on a couch with trusted aides and family. >> flash cards. >> this is a first in terms of

cameras being summoned anywhere within two hours of the start of the second presidential debate at the most gripping moment of this campaign. >> yeah, an i think it's -- whoever made the decision to put out the story, the tape we've been watching all weekend starting friday must have known if you put any thought into it that this would escalate. there's only one way donald trump can win this lec, if there's any way to win it, that's go nuclear. he's angry. he looks like anybody would look who has been exposed for who they really are. what are you going to do when you're exposed for who you really are. contrition is phony. you can't apologize for being who you are. it's who trump is. what do you do? you escalate. i knew this was coming. he has to fight the fire with the fire and a bigger fire. it may not work but it's what he's got to do. i think we're going to see this tonight. he's tell graphed this.

i've got robert costa. what do you know about donald trump. what is his emotion after having that thing exposed friday night, himself exposed? >> the inner circle becomes more narrow by the day. who is around him, kellyanne conway, clinton wars for years, david bossy investigating clintons in the '90s. standing in the background of that footage stephen bannon, former head of breitbart orchestrating the whole thing. >> what do they say as the story if they do that tonight. that it rattles the base and secretary clinton. do they have enough on secretary clinton herself, not bill clinton, he's notoriously connected. do they have something new in the coverups. >> what they have to do in her mind is take her temperament down, her standing.

>> what if she does what she did in '98 so effectively, not defend her husband's behavior, dvdrs the marriage. when she defends the marriage she wins. >> her popularity soared in '98. i spoke to former speaker gingrich a few minutes ago. trump should not go in this direction, didn't work in '98, should go after populism, try to talk about him as an outsider. >> seems to me, rachel and brian, if hillary clinton does what she's done before, defend the marriage, defend the fact they have been together all the years, recognize that marriages don't normally work these days in that long a duration, they managed to keep together. there's going to be a sympathy factor and outrage factor that hillary can exploit fairly enough against what looks to be an escalation from the other side. >> taking a darker turn. >> we've been talking about anticipating what this might look like, now we know exactly what it's going to look like, how it's going to play in the debate it's self and colloquy between the two of them remains

to be seen. the the thing that's imbalanced about this is that one of these things is something that just emerged that nobody knew ever before about donald trump in terms of those comments captured on tape which were aired for the first time at 4:00 on friday, that is a bombshell that continues to go off. this is the -- the other side of this is trump campaign deciding to use material that's not new. anybody who has been around forever deciding to troll that political part of the underclass and put this stuff on tv. this has always existed on the fringe of what counts as political attacks in the world, it just doesn't usually rise to the level of national politics or somebody that's a household name, it's been political underclass thing, breitbart, alex jones, that part of the world, david bossys of the world, brought back from nowhere to be part of the trump

campaign. it's been obscure stuff, is now presidential politics. >> nicole and i have been whispering about this, we don't know what the republican party will look like tomorrow. >> we don't know the next 10 minutes. >> if this is a hypothetical 9:00 to 10:30, what happens tomorrow will be of historic proportions inside gop. >> on that note we'll run quickly to a break. when we come back chrkristen we will ter on her way back talking to aides for hillary clinton for her reaction.

we are back. there is darkness in the hall only because the audience has not been loaded in. the guest lights, the audience lights have not been brought up. there is darkness in st. louis and surrounding this debate for another reason. more than we thought coming into this evening, donald trump within the past 60 minutes has

asked for members of the traveling press pool to come up to a conference room. when they rounded the corner into the room they saw donald trump at a conference table flanked by several women. i'm told rudolph told rue ddolp to the side of the room out of our camera range. we're going to play for you some of what the camera crews encountered when they entered the room. >> so, thank you very much for coming. and these four courageous women have asked to be here and it was an honor to help them. i think they're going to make a short statement. and we'll see you at the debate. start with with paula. >> i'm here to support mr. trump. he's going to make america great again and i think everybody else should vote for him and i think they should all look at the fact

that he is a good person. he's not what other people have been saying he's been like hillary. so, think about that. >> kathy shelton. >> support trump. i at 12 years old, put me through something that you've never put a 12-year-old through. and she said she's for women and children. she was asked last year on what happened and she said she's supposed to depend -- now she's laughing on tape saying she -- >> you went through a lot? >> yes, sir, i did. >> okay. >> hi, i'm wendy broderick and i'm here to support donald trump. i tweeted recently, mr. trump retweeted it, that actions speak

louder than words. mr. trump may have said some bad words, but bill clinton rrk aped me and hillary clinton threatened me. i don't think there's any comparison. >> i'm kathleen willie and i am here to support donald trump. believe the reason for that is that the first day that he announced for president, he said i love this country. and i want america to be great again. and i cried when he said that. i think this is the greatest country in the world. i think we can do anything. i think we can accomplish anything. i think we can bring peace to this world. and i think donald trump can do that. >> thank you very much.

okay, thank you all very much. we appreciate it. >> debate prep. for donald trump. >> that's, i mean, that's how they build this. that's how they got the press pool to come in to this event. you saw the as you mentioned before, the trump campaign's ceo kind of grinning, smirking in the corner throughout that event. obviously, he's the guy who orchestrated it. and that's been sort of i think the bannon approach to the clintons in terms of running against them in this campaign thus far. now, obviously, the trump calculus is that they're going to somehow rattle hillary clinton. that they're going to not om change the subject from what has been the overwhelming point of discussion since friday afternoon, which is that tape that emerged of donald trump talking about forcing himself on women an how he can do that because he's a star. talking about trying to have sex with married women. and other further details as

we've heard ad nauseam. they're hoping to change the subject and make this the subject of the debate tonight and of discussion around it. >> kristen welker has checked in with the traveling clinton campaign. kristen, two thing, number one, starting this weekend, there were reports circulating that one or more of those women would be in some of the allotted guest seats in that arena tonight. perhaps as close as the front row. secondly, is there any indication from anyone that this means this is is how he's going to handle that topic or is he going to go there again? >> well, i can tell you that the clinton campaign says they have been bracing for an all outassault. secretary clinton bracing in her mock debate preparations and i think they are absolutely prepared for him to bring this up and for some of those women to be in the audience. let me paint the picture of what has just unravel here in the

minutes. a number of of campaign officials went gquickly into their makeshift war room here and they are huddling right now. i am told, they're watching this tape. trying to determine exactly how to respond, whether it with in a statement or if they're going to have one of her top aides come out and speak to the press. they are digesting this piece of video as we are. and again, i can just tell you, that they have been bracing for this. and she's prepared to respond. one official telling me when i asked what her response is going to be. he can run whatever type of campaign he wants to run. she's going to run her campaign. so, what does that mean? i think you're going to hear her talk a lot about her record. when it comes to fighting for women and children and families. that's how she will cast it. at least and if donald trump does in fact raise these individual cases, i think she will likely argue that some of them are unstanuated. some of the charges are and

she's going to try to pivot pretty quickly back to the irks she wants to be talking about. i have been out on the campaign trail for the past 16 months talking to a nuchl women voters and i can just tell you anecdotely this is the type of thing that has the real risk of backfiring. this is the type of issue that women voters really get frus trayed with was what matters to them, if you talk to them, they'll say the economy. jobs. criminal justice reform. so i think that's a little bit of what you might hear secretary clinton say tonight when she takes the stage. >> kristen welker, backstage with some members of the clinton campaign. quick break here in our coverage as we near the top of the next hour, the final hour before this debate. our discussion on all of this will continue.

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it is as they say, an otherwise beautiful night on an otherwise beautiful campus. wash u in the beautiful city. the gateway city of st. louis. inside, however, within the basic campus confines of this debate as you see the first guest seats have opened up. we're an hour away now, it has taken a darker turn when donald trump summoned the press corps into the room. >>