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someone should really write a book about this race. john heilemann is in ambridge, pennsylvania, where donald trump, billionaire, held a campaign rally today, the first event after yesterday's outlandish and peculiar presidential debate. mike pence is speaking there later tonight. i'm holding down the fort here. for the past 72 hours, the political world has been speculating wildly about how voters will react to the tapes about trump talking about sexual assault that were published on friday, setting off a firestorm. today we got an answer. a new nbc news/"wall street journal" national poll shows hillary clinton leading the digits by double digits. clinton was up by just six points in this poll just last month. in a two-way race, clinton's lead extends to 14 percentage points. 52% to 38%. once again, a cnn/orc poll of

debate watchers named clinton the clear victor last night in st. louis. trump took his own trumpian version of a victory lap, continuing his line of attack on bill clinton's history with women and hillary clinton's alleged complicity in it. >> bill clinton was the worst abuser of women ever to sit in the oval office. he was a predator. hillary clinton systemically attacked and discredited the victims of bill clinton's sexual harassment and assault. these things aren't written by the media, but they're true. written by many books. these victims include names like kathleen willy, juanita broderick, connie hamsly, eileen wellstone, sandra allen james, and christie zirtya and there are many, many more. >> reporter: here in north carolina, mike pence, after a weekend of wavering, or at least a wait-and-see attitude, he made

an affirmation of support for his running mate this afternoon at an event in charlotte. >> you know, it takes a big man to know when he's wrong and to admit it and to have the humility to apologize and be transparent and be vulnerable with people. and donald trump last night showed he's a big man. as i said last weekend, i don't condone what was said and i spoke out against it. but the other part of my faith is i believe in grace. i've received it. i believe in it. i believe in forgiveness. and we're called to forgive as we have been forgiven. and last night my running mate showed the american people what's in his heart. he showed humility to the american people. >> also today, hillary clinton shared her assessment of donald trump's debate performance with a crowd of supporters in detroit. >> last night, when he was pressed about how he behaves, he

just doubled down on his excuse that it's just locker room banter. well, i'll tell you what, women and men across america know that is just a really weak excuse for behaving badly and mistreating people. >> all right. so, mark, here i am in pennsylvania with donald trump. there you are in north carolina with mike pence. now that the debate is a little less than 24 hours in the rearview mirror, what do you think trump accomplished with his performance last night, politically? >> well, he stopped the talk completely for the time being, at least. of the notion that he should no longer be the republican nominee. he stopped as far as we can tell today, any republican saying they'd disendorse him, and they gave his own campaign team and core supporters some members of the republican national committee a shot in the arm, a feeling like they're back with

some momentum and with a chance to try to get back in this race. >> right. i agree with all that. i mean, watching trump here just now, he had a real spring in his step, and it was clearly very buoyant and feels he's on a bit of a high here. i'm not sure he did anything to help his cause of winning the presidency. and we're going to talk a little bit more about that with this performance. the other thing he did last night, it's clear from this speech that he just gave at this rally, was he gave himself -- he's gone now fully into the mode, as we heard in that sound, where bill clinton's past and hillary clinton's role in that past, when it comes to women, is going to be a big part of the campaign going forward, at least for the foreseeable future. he read that stuff off prompter here today. and i imagine we'll hear a lot more about it. he waited until the end of the speech and came in with it with relish.

he started out singing the praises of roethlisberger, sort of an odd thing to do when you spent the last three days being accused of condoning and in fact bragging about sexual assault, to mention ben roethlisberger in a praising way, a guy who himself been accused of sexual assault twice. donny, what do you think about the debate performance last night that trump turned in? >> i think this election, as i said last week, ended friday. i think what trump did do for himself is post-election, after he loses, his 25, his 30 million followers for the new now trump revolutionary network or the trump revolutionary party will be ginned up. he did not move one voter into his column, not possibly, and everything that is going to be happening in this election, i will talk about this a lot in the next segment, is going to be lens through gender and people are hearing that tape in their heads, and all he did was solidify his post-election business model, whether it be a network or a political party. >> yeah, i mean, there's going to have to be -- donald trump is going to need some luck and a win in the third debate to get

back within hailing distance. we'll wait to see more on national and key state polling. but right now that nbc news/"wall street journal" poll is the marker by which trump has to deal with the reality he faces. >> the conventional wisdom today, as we suggested before, is trump's performance last night just may be halted more runaway republicans from jilting their nominee at the altar. there have been, as we said, no new defections of people saying trump should no longer be the nominee or people disendorsing trump. but there was a key development today, along these lines. speaker of the house paul ryan held a conference call with congressional republicans this morning. ryan didn't rescind his endorsement of trump, but he did make it clear that he will no longer campaign with or defend his party's standard-bearer, emphasizing the importance of keeping the house in republican control, ryan urged down-ballot gop candidates to, quote, do what's best for you in your district. that caused the nominee, donald trump, to fire off this tweet.

quote, paul ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs, and illegal immigration and not waste his time on fighting republican nominee. so, john, how damaging do trump's chances, to the extent you think he has a chance still, is what ryan did, and the things we did over the weekend, of people disendorsing trump and saying that he should step down? >> look, i think that all of this, the sight of the republican party fleeing trump over the weekend, now the sight, even though he didn't disendorse trump, the sight of paul ryan telling -- basically telling his members, it's every man for himself now, is going to send a bad message to the kind of voters that trump would need if he were going to become competitive in the race. and let's be clear, on the basis of that nbc news/"wall street journal" poll, donald trump is not remotely close to competitive right now for the presidency. i'm not saying -- we've got another four weeks, anything could happen, i suppose. but right now, he's not even

close to being competitive. and so, i think that the ryan thing could have been worse, but it's not good. >> yeah, look, mike pence really did a lot for donald trump today, as far as it goes, by saying the clintons are morally flawed and their moral flaws involve public behavior, and elected office behavior, not private behavior, and emphasizing ideas. the problem with ryan's repudiation of trump is he's basically saying, i don't care about trump's ideas. i don't care that he agrees with me on some policy issues anymore. i only care about the hse republican agenda. that's dangerous, because trump and pence believe that they can simultaneously attack bill clinton, attack hillary clinton, and talk about ideas, talk about things like judges, et cetera. donny, how damaging do you think that paul ryan's statement today is for trump in terms of trying to get some momentum back? >> zero damage. you have two candidates with 100% brand awareness. very, very clear personalities. endorsements on either side are

almost irrelevant at this point. >> i want to be clear about one thing, just from here. donald trump spent a lot of this speech just now attacking free trade and attacking entitlement reform. you wonder why paul ryan doesn't want to have any part of donald trump on the question of ideas, mark. that's part of the reason. they don't agree about much of anything at this point. and i think he recognized that trump is almost certain to lose now, as donny suggested. a number of trump's attack lines last night at the debate came from hacked clinton campaign e-mails, that were published by wikileaks. the site posted another document dump today. it didn't contain any mortal threats to clinton, as far as we know at this point, but it did include campaign discussions about how to attack bernie sanders during the democratic nomination contest as well as e-mails from longtime clinton aide, doug band, saying some unflattering things about chelsea clinton. more than anything, the documents portend that more leaks may be in the offing in the days ahead. in st. louis last night, clinton chose to play it pretty safe when she was faced with accusations and attacks on the front of her e-mails.

she also didn't spend much time hammering away at trump. she sort of resisted rising to the bait. she was basically doing the four corners offense or the prevent defense. so given the prospect of more october surprises ahead, mark, especially in relation to this e-mail stuff, do you think this is a winning strategy for clinton clinton? >> well, the bar is really high. because clinton herself, and her team, work in a coordinated well-trained practice, in responding to disclosures and to october surprises. they're not in as much danger as trump. trump is susceptible to these things. the clinton team knows how to deal with them. hillary clinton herself does. so i think -- i think playing it safe is probably the right thing for her food, when she takes risks, she's not always the best perform. and like i said, i think it's going to take a big disclosure to be a problem. donny, do you think all these forced metaphors come into politics all the time. do you think four corners offense, i say proudly here in the tar heel state, is the right move for hillary clinton? or does she need to keep taking

chances to make sure she doesn't blow it? >> we're going to talk about this in the next segment. let's say she fired back at trump and what he was saying about her husband. the story today would have been about that. the story needs to continue to be about donald trump and donald trump and women. so what she needs to do is continue this rope-a-dope strategy. i think it was very deliberate that she did not respond, and i think they want to run out the clock without seeming defensive. let donald trump continue to define this election. he's unelectable in his current form. >> i can tell you what's going to happen, the closer we get to election day -- the closer -- go ahead. >> no, no, no. d go ahead. finish your statement. go ahead. >> the closer we get to election day, the more we're going to hear right from the old clinton classic facebook, this stuff's coming out because they're trying to steal the election or take the election away from you. they want the election to be about my yesterdays, i want it to be about your tomorrows. we heard it in 1992. the clinton people will trot that out for sure the closer we get to election day.

>> and trump three times here today, three times, said, we don't want to let this election get stolen from us. you'll hear a lot of very similar kinds of claims going in both directions. right now donald trump's in the 30s. he's in the 30s. and the performance he gave here now and the performance he gave on the debate stage last night were performances designed to rows his base. and his base can be as roused as all get out, but if he's in the 30s, he's not -- as you put it, mark -- inhaling distance of being able to win this election. so this is a great strategy to make the base feel great about him, but it's not a strategy to win. >> yeah. it's going to be interesting to see when the campaign itself gets their own polling data back during this week and republican groups who they share data, sometimes, properly, sometimes not. it's going to be interesting to see how they react if they see they need to change course. all right, up next, we're going to do more to break down last night's debate with the great donny deutsch after these words from our sponsors.

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welcome back. we've been going over tape from last night's debate with our in-house war branding and imaging analyst. of course, the great donny deutsch, he's still with us from our new york studio to break down some of the most memorable, powerful, and the outright bizarre moments from last night's debate. donny, start taking us through it. >> tii want to start with the times trump launched direct attacks, interrupting her at times, and a few off the cuff snipes that oozed with vitriol. >> if i win, i am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. >> it's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. >> because you'd be in jail. and believe me, she has tremendous hate in her heart. >> okay, let me frame everything.

this is now about gender. this is not about politics, this is about gender. what people saw about donald trump on friday informs everything. now, they saw a man -- they heard a man as a sexual predator, as a sexual assault, or whatever it is, and now on stage, telling hillary clinton i'm going to put her in jail, attack mode. and i think that continues a narrative, that is just going to take him down the drain. it couldn't be any -- every woman -- not every woman -- women in america were sitting there like this. those things that they heard friday did not go away at the debate. mark, thoughts? >> my intuition is the same as yours. i want to wait for data and see. these are all obviously really complicated issues. i thought the fact that he denied the behavior and claimed it was basically just blustery talk, only under repeated questions from anderson cooper, and hadn't done it previously, i think a lot of women will look at that and say, come on.

>> this is year 60 of the feminist movement. they're not going backwards. okay, moving on. the next thing i want to highlight is how clinton for the most part chose not to take the bait, defecting conflict, instead of getting down in the mud. >> so much of what he's said is not right. but he gets to run his campaign any way he chooses. he gets to decide what he wants to talk about. instead of answering people's questions, talking about his agenda. when i hear something like that, i'm reminded of something our friend michelle obama advised us. when they go low, you go high. >> what about the other 15,000. >> please allow her to respond. she didn't talk while you talked. >> because you have nothing to say. >> i didn't in the first debate and i'll try not tonight. donald, i know you're into big diversion tonight. anything to avoid talking about your campaign and the way it's exploding and the way republicans are leaving you -- >> let's see what happens --

>> allow her to respond. >> let's see what happens. >> -- the issues that people care about tonight. >> once again, lensed against friday, i think hillary clinton made the very wise decision, i'm not going to be punching back. i actually want to appear almost like a victim on stage. i think these things are related. the viewers do not take in, here's the debate and here's the billy bush thing and here's this. it's all percolating at the same time. i think hillary clinton actually looked more empathetic than she ever did before. i think that was very deliberate for her to not be feisty, but almost have this man hovering at her, and kind of just laying back. john, thoughts? well, you know, i thought, donny, i thought there were a couple of moments, the abraham lincoln thing, some small missteps. i think by and large, you're right, the sense that if you're watching self-immolate or watching someone dig a hole, the right strategy is to let them keep digging. and i think she felt like -- the

first debate it really worked to bait donald trump. in this debate, he'd already kind of baited himself, you know, in some ways, ten years ago, when he made the comments that became so damaging to him over the weekend. she didn't need to do a lot more than just let him play out the string. >> okay. there were also some unforgettable visuals from the debate. trump didn't seem to know what to do when he wasn't speaking and there were times he just hovered, i would say, creepily behind clinton while she answered audience questions. and everyone was watching bill clinton's reaction as trump rehashed decades-old claim of sexual misconduct against him as his accusers sat inside the debate hall. >> i thought the gymnastics of trump were stunning, given the things i just mentioned. the fact that he was literally on her, you almost felt uncomfortable at home, so both from a verbal, strategic, and physical hovering -- i'm going to use the word, predatory,

again. i think women in america were going like this. i could not believe what i was seeing. did either of you guys feel what i was feeling? mark? >> well, with i think the director didn't do him any favors with, the way they took that shot, i think, highlighted the kind of spatial relations way that was slightly distorted. i also think, i may be wrong about this, but my impression was, most of the time when he was quote/unquote hovering behind her, she had walked over basically into his space, and he just didn't walk away and clear the shot. but he didn't initiate that spatial relationship. he just ended up there because she walked over. >> i mean, john, i'm watching -- >> as for the bill clinton reactions, they belong in the smithsonian. >> john, i'm watching this literally as he's following her around. i mean, we all know women -- i had a daughter watching with me, and she was getting a little creeped out. am i overstating this? john? >> the thing it showed here is donald trump did more debate prep for this debate than he did for the first one, but the kind of debate prep he didn't do was the kind of that revolved around this choreographer.

and it's one of the things i did for a week before this debate, this might be a problem for him. and it turned out to be a problem for him, for sure. it jus -- it was not a good look. and i don't -- there were other more damaging things than that, but i did not think it was well executed on that front. >> all right. donny, thank you for taking us through all that. we'll have more out here from me in north carolina, john up in pennsylvania out with trump and pence the day after the debate when we come back. what powers the digital world. communication. that's why a cutting edge university counts on centurylink

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would you prefer if mike pence were at the top of the ticket instead of donald trump? >> no. >> no. >> no chance. >> absolutely not. >> no. >> no way. >> i think mike pence is right where he needs to be. >> he's not a career politician. he hasn't been in the white house. he hasn't even been in congress. he's not even a senator. he's fresh and clean. >> do you think donald trump won the debate? >> yes, i think he did. >> i really feel that he did. >> absolutely. >> donald trump destroyed her. >> he body slammed her. >> i think he landed a lot of good punches where they needed to be landed. >> it weren't even close. he called her the devil and we all know that's true. >> thumbs up. he gave us the opportunity to possibly get justice for hillary's criminal activity. >> trump's the only man with the backbone enough to stand up and tell america the truth. >> so those were some donald trump/mike pence supporters down in fletcher, north carolina, where the vice presidential candidate is expected to speak later this evening and where mark is hanging out. mark, last night, there was a

lot of mixed reporting about how the pence camp was feeling about how donald trump treated mike pence on stage last night. he kind of threw him under the bus a little bit. and certainly distanced himself on policy with respect to syria. so, just give me your sense, both, of what it's like on the ground down there, and what the attitude is towards the ticket in pence world. >> if you look at mike pence's three cable news interviews this morning and look at the event he did in charlotte today, he gave a speech and took a few town hall-style questions, he could not have done more of what the donald trump team would have wanted than he did. and, again, this is after a weekend of public anguish. forget the mixed reporting of what was going on behind the scenes. publicly he put out a statement saying, let's see what donald trump says about the video, you know, the "access hollywood" stuff at the debate. he satisfied him completely. mike pence basically said, donald trump's a flawed human and hillary clinton is too. her flaws relate to public life.

donald trump's private behavior. and then he ran through a litany of issue positions, where he said donald trump would be better for america. in some ways, i think in the end, pence's anguishing publicly over the weekend allowed him to be a stronger surrogate, testifying on behalf of donald trump. he rated trump's performance in the debate probably more than either of us would in saying that he was contrite and that was a clean bill of health for mike pence from donald trump. >> i find it -- >> up next, we'll talk to paul ryan adviser -- >> up next, we'll be with dan seenor, after this. doesn't treat a runny nose. it doesn't? alka-seltzer plus cold and cough liquid gels fight your worst cold symptoms including your runny nose. oh, what a relief it is! with toothpaste or plain water.an their dentures and even though their dentures look clean, in reality they're not. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we can see all the bacteria that still exists on the denture, and that bacteria multiplies very rapidly. that's why dentists recommend cleaning with polident everyday.

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what do you think was trump's best moment in the debate last night? >> when he said she'd be in jail when he became president. >> that she'd be in jail was pretty fun. >> "you'd be in jail." >> that hillary clinton has been in washington for 30 years. >> 30 years and didn't do anything. >> reporter: and what do you

think was clinton's last moment. >> that giant lie about abraham lincoln. >> that abe lincoln did the same thing. >> she seemed real flustered when he brought up the rape allegations. >> the way she handled the last question. she didn't give mr. trump a compliment. >> are you satisfied with the way that trump has handled the video? >> it's not right what he said, but people make mistakes and it's good that people are asking for forgiveness. >> i've said word. >> i think male talk like that, period. >> alpha male guy talk. >> doesn't bother me. i just worry what he's going to do for the united states. >> so those were some trump supporters here in ambridge, pennsylvania, for the rally they just attended, expressing a pretty clear consensus about the highlights and low lights from the debate last night. joining us from our new york studio, the one and only dan senor, former adviser to mitt romney and current adviser to paul ryan. dan -- >> informal, informal. >> given that the speaker -- informal, but nevertheless, an adviser. given that the speaker was in the news today, so paul ryan

says to his members, he says, number one, i'm not going to retract my endorsement from donald trump, but i'm not going to defend him, not going to argue for him, not going to campaign for him, y'all should do whatever you need to do to save your skins. tell us about the thinking that went into him coming to that place. >> well, like many republican leaders, the speaker was pretty repulsed by what he heard from that audio recording over the weekend. and he felt that this was different than a lot of the things we've heard in the past and so he had that reaction, that very strong reaction, basically saying, i don't want to be a part of the trump presidential campaign. and that's sort of one equity. and he's going to balance that with another equity, which is that he's responsible for keeping the house republican majority in majority position. in fact, it's the last check against, if hillary wins and wins big, which looks

increasingly likely, than she's probably going to take the senate with her. and the only thing standing between a clinton presidency and clinton overreach and some hope for normalcy is the house majority. and so he's telling his members, do what you got to do to help us preserve this majority. and that's -- those are the two equities he's balancing. >> so, dan, if you're going to go that far. if you're going to say, i don't want to be part of the trump campaign, i'm appalled by what happened, i don't want a campaign forum, why not go the last mile and say, i withdraw my endorsement. what's possibly holding speaker ryan back from going all the way? >> well, this is my view. there are a lot of republican voters in a lot of districts who are trump die-hards. they're going to be with trump, you know, through thick and thin. and i think there's a sense among some in the republican leadership that if they are at war with trump, along the lines

that you just articulated, they are at war, then, with those republican voters, those trump voters. and in some cases, that could be -- mean the difference between certain republican members hanging on to their seats and not. and so i think speaker ryan felt like he made his point, all right? he's done with trump. he's done campaigning with him, he's done defending him, he's not going to appear with him. he's done. but he's not going to get into sort of an open warfare situation with trump if it means risking republicans being able to hang on to their majority, because it's the on thing they have to protect against the clinton agenda. >> dan, i want to try to understand what's going on, from a sociological point of view. and i've asked you questions like this before in the context of, people who have been never trump and those who haven't. this weekend, you had a number of elected officials who were in tough races, who repudiated trump, either said he shouldn't be the nominee or took back their endorsements. then you had a few people like john thune, number three senate

republican, not up for re-election, who also said, you know, trump shouldn't be our nominee. what's causing some people to say that and many other people who may be repulsed, but aren't withdrawing their endorsement or questioning whether trump should be the people? >> look, i think that some people are just making that gut reaction. i haven't spoken to john thune. i haven't spoken to rob portman over the weekend. i spoke to some other members, but have not been in touch with either of them. i think in those cases, it was probably just a gut reaction. this just didn't feel right. this felt different and they had to do something different. i think other members are just making the following calculation. there are some republican voters in my district or my state who are so repulsed my trump and this election that there's a good chance they'll stay home. and they stay home, that hurts the down-ballot. there are another group of republican voters that are so energized and loyal to trump that if we go to war with trump, they will take it out on us. so which pool is bigger? which pool is more important?

i think certain members of congress are making that decision. as to what it means for the republican parties, all these folks are thinking it through, to the conservative movement, just consider this. today, a couple of senior republican political leaders were asked the question, is what donald trump said in that video, in that recording, on the hot mike, talking about, you know, forcibly grabbing a woman's genitals against her will, does that consider -- does that qualify as sexual assault? and you had actual republican politicians saying, they didn't know or they couldn't comment on that. i mean, to me this is like a todd akin moment from 2012, where this is what our party has been reduced to. we've been reduced to senior leaders of our party actually not be able to say, yes, regardless of whether or not trump did those things, what he said he did, the description of that act, that act is sexual assault. and so, i -- it's just disheartening to watch

republican leaders from across the board here, you know, being put in that situation. i mean, this is the carnage that trump has left behind or will leave behind. >> dan, real quick, just a few moments, does donald trump have a chance to get over 45% of the popular vote? or do you think he's now got a ceiling because of the last couple of weeks. >> i think he's got a ceiling, mark. look, i saw one poll that one in four republicans think that trump should not be the nominee. if you're three to four weeks out from election day and one in four of your voters don't even believe you should be the nominee, that's the new standard. the new standard heading into this debate was not can trump win the election, the new standard was, could he do well enough in the debate that he can still continue as nominee, that he won't be dislodged? so i think last night for him was all about reassuring his base and his voters and that's what next three weeks are going to be about. they're not going to be about building any kind of coalition that can win, not even getting you to 45 to 48%.

>> dan, it looks to me like donald trump is doing exactly what you said and also is going to be perfectly happy trying to take a lot of republicans down with him, including on the base of his tweets today, maybe attempting trying to take paul ryan down as well. we'll see what happens with that. thank you for coming on the show and we'll be back with some campaign strategery talk after these words from our sponsors. uniquely designed for t. ♪ introducing the first-ever infiniti qx30 crossover. infiniti. empower the drive.

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we are joined now in our new york studio by democratic strategist, liz smith, campaign manager for martin o'malley's run for president this cycle. and also with us from cambridge, massachusetts, republican strategist and former deputy campaign manager for carly fiorina this cycle, sarah isger flores. ladies, great to be with you. sarah, i want to start with you. tell me what your topline impressions were of the debate last night. >> so, i do think that trump stopped the bleeding. i think the problem is, he had already lost six pints of blood before the debate even started. the first 20 minutes were rough. it was kind of the flip of last time. i thought he won the first 20 minutes last time, but lost the rest of the debate. this time, i think he lost the first 20 minutes, but won the rest of the debate, but it doesn't matter. he left without not changing the map and that's the only goal he really had.

>> sarah, you're saying it doesn't matter because he's dead, politically. is that your view? a lot of republican strategists said he was dead when -- he was a dead man walking when he came on to the debate stage last night and, you know, he's still that dead man walking, but he's a dead man. is that right? is that your view? >> i think that's right. and i think the trump campaign must agree, because this "light it on fire" strategy, it's certainly untested. >> right. okay, liz, as you watched today and read about today, paul ryan talking to his members and saying the things that he said, no longer in the campaign with donald trump, not going to defend him, doing everything negative he could do shy of disendorsing him, and telling all his members that they can do whatever they want, they should save their skins. you looked at that and thought what with regard to prospects in the house and senate? >> i thought a lot of things. i thought it's a very good sign

for democrats, because it shows they are concerned that he's going to be a big drag on the ticket. and to continue sarah's metaphor, you know, i think at the end of the debate last night, he put on a tourniquet, stopped the eeding. but donald trump ripped off that tourniquet today by starting this civil war with paul ryan. and i think we could see some of the bleeding and some of the loss of support start again, now that he's started this divisive campaign. you know, it's almost like donald trump has decided, look, if i'm going to go down, i'm taking the rest of the party with me. and look, as a democrat, i'm fine with that. and i think that the clinton campaign should take advantage of that situation. turn their focus away from donald trump, and start campaigning with democrats in close races, where she can be a help. and make sure that they tie the republican candidates to donald trump. and, you know, if she does that, there'll be more democrats supporting her. there'll be more democrats in

congress, more democrats in the senate. and more democratic governors. and governors help determine the makeup of the congressional lines in 2022. >> i actually disagree with that. i think this is actually extremely bad for hillary clinton. you know, if you're a president who wants a mandate going into the white house, you want a strong opponent that you overcome and still win. what's going to happen here is her negatives are going to continue to tick up. two-thirds of the voters don't think she's trustworthy to begin with. and then she's going to win an election that everyone assumes she had to win by default anyone. so she's going to go into the white house without a mandate. it doesn't look like she'll have particularly longcoattails heading in there. a lot of these republican senate candidates are running, seven, nine points ahead of donald trump. so that means hillary's not helping her down-ballots. she's going to go in as potentially the least-favorable, least-trusted president on inauguration day in the history of american politics, since we've been running the data. so that makes her a very weak

incoming president and very likely a one-term president. >> well, you could say that today, but, remember mark foley in 2006? things can turn on a dime. and so, i'd say, you know, wait and see. >> so i want to ask you guys both a question as both as political strategists and both as women. this is a question i think you're going to agree on. sarah first. putting aside the politics of it, were you offended by the tape that came out of donald trump, the of mike tape that came out on friday and the things that he said? do you find that offensive personally beyond the political implications of it? >> yes. >> liz? >> liz? >> liz, do you find it offensive personally as well as politically problematic? >> i find it deeply, viscerally offensive. and i think any woman who watched it did. and this is the thing. because any guy that brags about committing sexual assault probably has committed sexual assault. >> right.

okay, so you guys are in agreement about this, right? i assumed you would be. so donald trump in this building right next to where i'm sitting right now in ambridge, pennsylvania, went further even than he did yesterday in laying out the case he's been dieing to make for months, which is that bill clinton was guilty of serial abuse of women for years and years and years. there are many, many instances of it. and that hillary clinton is complicit in having intimated those women, in having shamed them and dismissed them, behaving in a kind of complicit with her husband. so what do you think about that? >> first of all, it's absolutely true. it turns out, we can have two horrible people running for office for the presidency at the same time and we're running that experiment right now. i absolutely think that both sides of this ticket have enormous amounts of shared blame on this issue.

that being said, two wrongs don't make a right. just because bill clinton did it doesn't excuse donald trump from doing it. just because hillary clinton went after his accusers doesn't excuse donald trump from bragging about it. do i think politically it works? we could have run that experiment with a different situation. donald trump already went into this video losing and he needed to gain ground. he needed to change the conversation to do that. so i don't think we can know whether it would have been effective. it won't be effective now. >> yeah, i got to agree. i don't think it's an effective -- it's not an effective strategy at all. it's just going to make her seem more sympathetic. and rally women of all political stripes to her side. and the only people i can see this appealing to are -- is the clinton derangement syndrome wing of the republican party. and it is offensive to women that this idea that she should have to pay for her husband's sins -- so i think it's a big tactical error on his part. >> but, liz, you would agree

that if you found the video offensive from donald trump, you also found bill clinton's history offensive as well. >> yes, but again, that's something we dealt with 20 years ago. and i'm not sitting here to -- i just referred to bill clinton's sins, but that was something we litigated 20 years ago. it was -- we've played it all out. we've had this discussion. and it has nothing to do with hillary clinton. hillary clinton is running. bill clinton is not on the ticket. >> okay. liz, sarah, you guys are both fantastic and we're really grateful for you being on the show. i really want to set up a block where i get the two of you on our set with kellyanne conway and i want to hear you guys all discuss this same matter, because i think it would be a fascinating discussion. she clearly disagrees with you guys and so does donald trump, obviously. thank you for doing the show. we'll check in next with a reporter who's covering hillary clinton herself on the campaign trail today, when we come back. people would ask me in different countries that we traveled, what is your nationality and i would always answer hispanic.

so when i got my ancestry dna results it was a shocker. i'm everything. i'm from all nations. i would look at forms now and wonder what do mark? becausm everything. and i marked other. discover the sry only your dna can tl. order your kit now ancestrydna.com. i spent many years as a nuclear missile launch officer. if the president gave the order we had to launch the missiles, that would be it. i prayed that call would never come. [ radio chatter ] self control may be all that keeps these missiles from firing. [ sirens blearing ] i would bomb the [ beep] out of them. i want to be unpredictable. i love war. the thought of donald trp with nuclear weapons scares me to death. should scare everyone. i'm hiary clinn and i approve this message. ♪

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hillary clinton was today in detroit, michigan, where she spoke at a voter registration event. msnbc political correspondent ca kasie hunt was there and joins us. we had one hillary clinton on stage last night at the debate and a slightly different hillary clinton on stage today in detroit. tell us the difference about those hillary clintons. >> reporter: hey, john, yeah, if you saw last night the hillary clinton who was determined to come across as not rattled by what donald trump had done and who was sober and careful in tone, a little bit subdued, you got the angrier, more in your face, he should have spent last night apologizing hillary clinton here today on stage. i think, to a certain extent, there are some democrats who wanted to see a little bit more of what we saw today in detroit from her on the debate stage last night. but, i do think that her campaign has been very focused

from, you know, basically, from the point that those women walked out with donald trump in the press conference to this morning on the plane and to even, you know, as jen palmieri and others were talking to reporters here in detroit, that hillary clinton was not rattled by what happened. they were trying very aggressively to send that message. i think there was a point this morning when they thought, okay, donald, it's clear that the consensus is emerging that donald trump did stop the bleeding with the second half of his debate performance. but then, of course, paul ryan came out, talked about this. so the clinton's campaign is kind of back to feeling like they're in a good place in the news cycle. >> right. so -- right, so there's kind of two pieces of good news for them today, right? one of them is all the stuff going on with paul ryan and him sort of cutting trump loose, even if he didn't disendorse him. the other thing, of course, is the nbc/"wall street journal" poll, which puts trump in the mid-30s. they must be feeling pretty good about those two developments in the wake of the debate?

>> reporter: i think that there's no question about that. there was a period of time before this tape came out when the clinton campaign was enjoying their post-debate pump in the polls, and when you talked to them privately said, if you talk to their comes team, they would say, now we have to set pexpectations for another dip, another cycle before election day where it seems like trump is getting it back together. i think it's clear with this polling, things are very closely moving in their direction, to the point where i don't think they feel like that's going to happen again. of course, there is always a level of risk when the expectations and the gap in the polling is as high as it is. i think, you know, they believe that one source i talked to today believes that that gap is not going to materialize to that degree on election day or that's not where they expected to land. but i do think you were talking a little bit earlier with liz smith about down-ballot races. i think they are at the point where they're going to get some

pressure potentially from democrats to do a little bit more than they're doing to help those candidates. i think they're going to resist that pressure. i think they believe the best thing they can do for their down-ballot candidates is move those national numbers as far away as possible and try to turn it into a wave. i think they might get some pressure to act otherwise. >> so there's two other things that happened today that i think they might find a little daunting. one is, here at ambridge, donald trump really, like, lay heavily into the notion that he's going to keep talking about clinton's sexual misconduct 20 years ago and hillary clinton's complicitly in it. and the wikileaks, another set of john podesta e-mails get dropped. which of those two are they more concerned about, having to be fighting on the sexual front, or the possibility of some real surprise in the e-mail document dumps? >> reporter: i think that the e-mails probably make them more nervous, with simply because, you know, you can't control what you don't know. and so it's unclear, you know, what might be coming in those documents. i do think they feel like

they've gotten some back up from the u.s. government and, you know, this idea that donald trump has been told by the intelligence community that russian hacking is behind some of this. so they can take some comfort in that. but i do think that that is probably the more stressful thing. i think she has been dealing with bill's -- bill clinton's sexual past for the entirety of her time in public life. and i also think that they feel like it generated -- you saw this in the polling around her popularity numbers when she was first lady, that when this was at the forefront, people were more sympathetic to her. and i'm not sure that that's how it's going to play out, necessarily, with her as the person on the top of the ticket, but it's certainly possible. >> all right. kasie, you're great. thank you for doing the show today. we'll have you back real soon. and we'll also have all of you back real soon. whether it's connecting one of the world's most innovative campuses. or bringing wifi to 65,000 fans.

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you can find more coverage of donald trump and hillary clinton in this entire whack-a-doodle campaign online. so on behalf of myself and donny deutsch, sayonara. "hardball" with chris matthews is next. . to the bitter end. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. with 29 days to go, donald trump is clearly going to tough it out, facing a lot of defections and calls to drop out over the weekend. trump's campaign took an aggressive turn sunday night, holding a surprise press avail, just an hour before the debate with former president clinton's accusers. there they are. they also tried to stage a televised confrontation with the former president, which was averted by the commission on presidential debates itself at