these folks out there who prey on our children and young girls and traffic them in sex trafficking. what did she do? she changed her law so now they go to jail when they are nailed. think of what she's done with everything about her that's totally different than these other guys. ladies and gentlemen, look. you have a situation here where -- did you ever ask yourself the question why? why would the trump brothers pour $30 million in this state to defeat this woman? the koch brothers. what would i say? >> joe biden there speaking in las vegas. he was joined on that stage by

katherine cortez. you heard him refer to katherine. she's the attorney general in nevada running for that senate seat vacanted by harry reid. for now i'm kate snow and that's going to wrap up my hour here. i'll turn it over to steve kornacki. >> kate, thanks for that. good afternoon, everybody. i'm steve kornacki here in new york. let's get right to it. we usually start this show with an agenda. instead we have brand new poll numbers. they are hot off the presses from two of the most important battleground states, north carolina and ohio, and the significance of these polls, these are nbc news wall street journal polls conducted by people of significance. both of these polls were conducted after sunday night's debate. so any fallout from the audiotape which was released last friday, any fallout of that debate, these polls capture both of those things. all of the surveys conducted after the debate.

with no further ado, let's take you to the numbers. north carolina. hillary clinton right now leading donald trump in our poll, 45 to 41% in north carolina. remember, north carolina is a red state from 2012. this state voted for mitt romney. if you are a republican running for president, your first task is to hold those romney states. hillary clinton now a four-point lead in our nbc news wall street journal maris poll. nbc news, 42 for trump, 34 for clinton. that has seemed to tight nn ten the last week or so, certainly. the allegations against him last friday, that could be affecting in ohio. donald trump barely clinging to a lead in ohio.

there is a senate race in ohio, although it doesn't look like much of a race anymore. rob portman, the incumbent leads ted strickland by 18 points. how about north carolina? look at this. richard burr, the incumbent republican, very near the top of the democratic target list nationally. if they want to take back the senate, it would help them a lot if they could beat richard burr. debra ross, there is a governor's race taking place in north carolina getting attention because of that bathroom bill. check this out. incumbent governor pat mccrory. he is behind his opponent roy cooper. what the numbers i just showed you mean in terms of that race for 270 electoral votes. we say ohio is a big state. it's a state that no republican in a long time has won the white

house without carrying. this is pretty much a must win state for trump. he is up a point. if he were to get ohio, that would put him up over 200. he would still have a ways to go. but what we showed you in north carolina. hillary clinton with a lead right now in north carolina, a romney state. if hillary clinton were able to hold onto that and make north carolina blue, look what that would do to the electoral count. that would put her over 270. again, that's with a number of toss-up states left here. even if donald trump then won florida and nevada and iowa and new hampshire, he would be short of 270. that is what hillary clinton can do by winning north carolina. think of that as a potential showstopper, a potential election ender if hillary clinton can flip north carolina blue, and our poll right now says it's a small margin but it says hillary clinton after that debate has the lead in north carolina. so those are brand new poll numbers. we wanted to bring them to you right away this hour. obviously this is a busy day.

this is a busy week. this is a fast-moving day. we are juggling a lot. our top story right now, of course, is continuing those flury flu flurry of accusations that came out overnight from women who say he made unwanted advances toward them. in people magazine, in palm beach post, women encounter four different claims of being groped to fondled to being forcibly kissed on the lips, experiences these women describe as alarming, and their accusations come, of course, on the heels of that audiotape we were talking about a minute ago that surfaced last friday, that tape catching trump boasting about grabbing and kissing women without warning. donald trump has fervently denied each of these accusations. he did so by twitter, did so by his campaign. we should say nbc news has not officially confirmed these allegations against him. now donald trump in the last few

hours has made his first public comments on nethe new flurry of accusations. those comments were blunt and they were emphatic. donald trump saying the accusations were part of a conspiracy against his campaign. >> now we address the slander and libels that was just last night thrown at me by the clinton machine and the "new york times" and other media outlets as part of a concerted, coordinated and vicious attack. it's not coincidence that these attacks come at the exact same moment and all together at the same time as wikileaks releases documents exposing the massive international corruption of the clinton machine. these vicious claims about me of inappropriate conduct with women

are totally and absolutely false! [ cheers ] >> and the clintons know it. >> nbc's katy tur is covering the trump campaign. katy, what can you tell us about what is playing out behind the scenes in the trump campaign in terms of their strategy of dealing with this? >> reporter: the trump campaign says they're ready to fight. they can fight anyone they need to fight in order to win this election, and that includes the establishment, the media, the democrats. potentially even fellow republicans who come out against donald trump who is going nuclear, is what they're describe ing as today. in the last 24 hours, four women coming on saying donald trump kissed, attacked or forced himself upon them in some way. donald trump vehemently denied this, but it does show there is

a level in the campaign about what could come next? kellyanne conley even admitting she doesn't know what could come next the other day on a talk show. this is part of the problem that happens when your candidate refuses to allow a self-research file to find out what could be out there, find out what reporters could dig up, who could come out to say something negative about their candidate. they were not able to do that because donald trump did not let them. what you're seeing is in the last 24 hours, since the 2005 audio leaks and since donald trump's performance, more and more women are coming out saying he acted inappropriately against them. now they're trying to blame absolutely everybody not named

trump. they're saying the establishment is out to get them and there is a conspiracy in place trying to take donald trump down. ask while they take donald trump down, they want to take the american people down with them, that it's a vision of social apocalypse that starts with hillary clinton in the white house where anyone who challenges their control is deemed disgusting, racist, morally deformed. donald trump says they'll attack you, they'll slander you, they'll seek so destroy your career and your family. what's interesting, steve, this trump campaign has seemed to pivot in the last 24 hours. they're no longer talking about clinton's accusers, they're instead focused on the system in general. therefore, girding themselves for any future accuser to come out saying this is all part of the clinton machine that's trying to take me down. >> all right. katy tur covering trump.

katy, thank you for that. going to bring in michael steele, public chairman for the national committee and msnbc political analyst. michael, i want to just play a little bit more -- we played a long cut there of donald trump, what he had to say. it was striking -- i think even a lot of people might have been surprised the extent that he went to in this thing today. here he was going after the media for all this. take a listen. >> let me state this as clearly as i can. these attacks are orchestrated by clintons and their media allies. the only thing hillary clinton has going for herself is the press. without the press, she is absolutely zero. >> so that's a big part of this strategy. he's saying all of these reports, he's telling his supporters, the voters out there, all these accusations popping up in different publications, they are part of a media smear, the media being in

cahoots with the clinton campaign. h how credible is that message with his base? >> it's very credible because that's something donald trump and his supporters have been suspicious of. what i've heard from folks on the phone and i've talked to in person, wow, this time sg veingy interesting. you mean you're just now discovering this three weeks before the general election? where was this information before the convention? where was this information during the primary if the media was so hell bent on exposing donald trump? why wait till now, why didn't you do it then? that's kind of the conspiratorial mindset that's forming out there, and donald trump is framing that mindset in his own way. >> so the question, then, if it works with his base, if it works in shoring up his base, his base isn't enough to win the election. he's got to win some other people over. is the message credible outside of the base? >> well, i think that remains to

be seen. i think a lot of it will speak to the credibility of the women who come forward, the way in which they come forward, if there's any information that says, you know, this campaign, the clinton campaign or someone close to clinton contacted these women. if that comes out, yeah, then that tears down the credibility argument that the clintons or others are saying these folks have and bolsters donald trump's argument that this is a conspiracy to take him out. >> i was trying to think of a parallel precedent for this today, but this campaign, you should probably throw your hands up and give up. i do remember arnold schwarzenegger out in california, the final days of his campaign back in 2003 and you had multiple women stepping forward and you had them accusing him of groping and aggressive behavior. as i recall, he didn't admit it, but he acknowledged that hey, maybe -- i think the way he said it was maybe i was

misunderstood. his wife came out. were you surprised that donald trump was as absolute and str e strident in this and didn't leave out like, hey, maybe somebody took me wrong here or anything like that? >> no, not at all. i expect donald trump to triple down on this. this is a defiant and defining moment for him. he's betting the house, meaning the white house, on this strategy that will get him through this -- the rest of this campaign and to victory in november. i don't know how they're going to craft the argument to independent women, for example, that, you know, ignore this or this is somehow part of an ongoing or larger conspiracy. but yeah, i think that that's going to be something you'll see donald trump do in a very defiant tone. as one person said to me, there's something almost as mirrorable abo -- admirable about the way he's holding his guns here. if that catches hold, who knows

where this thing goes after that. >> what would your advice be to -- we just put some polls up. in north carolina, richard burr is an incumbent down there, he's in a tough race. what's your advice to an incumbent in a tough race, are you with donald trump, do you defend donald trump? what should they say? >> i think everyone should assess that on their own at this point. it's very much in line with what paul ryan said, every campaign is different. the dynamics in north carolina not the same as the dynamics in wisconsin or pennsylvania. those senate candidates and gubernatorial candidates and down ballot candidates are going to have to assess just how much damage or drag the national campaign has on their campaign. there is separation that a lot of voters are making between donald trump and incumbents or challengers for this fall, so maybe that will be the sweet spot for those guys like burr and others who don't necessarily have to get close to donald

trump to survive. >> all right. former rnc chair and msnbc contribute tore michael steele. thanks as always for the time. >> you got it, buddy. now, in that "new york times" report accusing donald trump of groping them first appeared last night, donald trump threatened to sue them for libel. now the paper is responding to that threat, saying it will not issue a retraction, the editor saying, the essence of a libel claim, of course, is the effort of our protection. nothing in that article has had the slightest effect on the reputation that master trump, through his own words and actions, has already created for himself. after this break, the clinton campaign's response to donald trump's latest attacks against bill clinton's past. first lady michelle obama hitting the campaign trail herself with a very personal and spirited speech, a speech the clinton campaign said the first lady wrote herself. >> this is not something that we can ignore. it's not something we can just

sweep under the rug as just another disturbing footnote in a sad election season. ♪ ♪ ♪ geico motorcycle, great rates for great rides.

it doesn't matter what party you belong to, democrat, republican, independent, none of us deserve

to be treated this way. nobody deserves this kind of abuse. >> michelle obama didn't call mr. trump by name today, that has become her pattern. these allegations are something donald trump clearly denies. to reach back decades in an attempt to smear mr. trump trivializes this campaign. he works to direct the campaign over bill clinton with sex is wal assault. casey, what is the tra teej i can thinking of the clinton campaign on a day like today? is it to sit as far back from this as possible, or is it to get involved? >> reporter: i think they're erring on the side of stepping back here, steve. you've seen hillary clinton touch on this a little bit. obviously the campaign had a

statement talking about this. she made a reference to it in las vegas last night at a rally. but at the same time, they let michelle obama do the talking today, and clinton campaign aides tell us that this is something michelle obama wanted to do. it isn't as though the clint on campaign wrote the speech for her. you could hear strains of the stranded speech she started to give later to hillary later on in her address, but it was quite a sharp and passionate speech from michelle obama that the clinton campaign was very much viewed as something of a gift. you can see in that speech that michelle obama was willing to go places and say things that hillary clinton has so far been too cautious to say. you know, the tone that she took on the debate stage in that second debate when she was talking about the tape that surfaced in 2005 was one that was very sober, she was clearly

very careful. they were very focused on making sure she did not appear to be rattled by these accusers that donald trump has focused on that have accused bill clinton of sexual indiscretions or harassment or abuse. they wanted to make sure she didn't seem that way. she broadened out her conversation to include others that her campaign believes donald trump has insulted, immigrants, muslims, others over the course of this campaign. hillary clinton has wrestled for many, many years about how to be a woman in public life, how much her campaign has embraced the historic nature much more this time than they did when she ran in 2008 against then-senator barack obama. but at the same time we haven't heard her make this kind of argument in such a personal way as michelle obama did today. so i think focusing on that is likely to be the strategy that they're going to have going forward. i think the polling democrats are seeing is pretty dramatic, some of the shifts. i know that several democratic organizations are seeing leads

in georgia in internal polling which is new that we haven't seen before. it's unlikely they'll spend money there, but a sign that this is actually something that's having impact. you also see it in the nitty-gritty. bloomberg did a poll that showed donald trump down 20 points. just not going for it in terms of the polling. >> casey out there in los angeles. casey, thank you. now a supporter of hillary clinton. thank you for joining us. >> good to see you. >> let me ask you about the politics of this, first of all. we have the response from donald trump and his campaign is to go hard after the media, to go hard after the idea that donald trump is being targeted as part of a smear campaign here, and we put those new polls up which come from after the debate, which come from after the release of that audiotape from 2005. it does seem he's behind in this race, clearly, but it does seem there is a large segment of this country that does buy into that

notion here. >> well, actually, i think what we're seeing is a trend the other way. in fact, i just got off the road. i've been in north carolina, florida, nevada. women, men, republicans, democrats are horrified at not only the comments he's made about women, obviously his bragging in the tape about sexually assaulting women. >> do you think republicans are? because we saw after the weekend the republicans were rallying around him once again. >> that's not what i'm seeing with republican women. i think these issues, i was very glad, i think the first lady put it very well today. the issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment is not a light issue. these are problems women face no matter what walk of life they're in. what we've seen over the last few days as millions of women coming forward and sharing their stories, and sharing their stories about how these issues have affected their lives, actually, i feel like what's happened here is in some ways, donald trump has, in his own

backhanded way, now energized an entire movement of women and men around the country saying, we're better than this. this is not the culture that we want to have, and it's certainly not the role model we want to display for our children. >> kasie hunt in the report you just heard, the strategy for hillary clinton and her campaign seems to be to step back a little bit on this. you had the first lady michelle obama out there kacie mentioned, of course, there is that history of bill clinton, allegations made against bill clinton. how much does that history affect hillary clinton's sort of strategy in a moment like this on how outspoken to be when her opponent is like this? >> donald trump has made it an issue. if i had the history that is obviously not only we've seen over the last several years of bullying women, harassing them, things we already knew. calling women pigs and dogs. this is a long history.

this isn't just an october surprise. i think what we're seeing now is just confirmation that he has a long history of bullying women, of treating them disrespectfully, of harassing them and now alleged abuse. he needs to talk about things he's going to do for our country. he's now raised these issues and it's going to be very difficult to convince women in america that he's ready to be president of the united states. >> cecile richards, thank you for the time. >> thank you. we're going to hear from an evangelical voter in that key swing state of ohio where you just saw that poll. she says she can't vote for the republican nominee this time. and ivanka trump, polls are

showing the bottom dropping out on her father. here's ivanka weighing in on her experiences this election. >> nothing prepares you for having your parent run for president of the united states, but especially if you've never been in politics before, so the whole thing is bizarre and vicious. vicious! i thought that i was, you know, had sort of cut my teeth in new york real estate and could take some punches, but this is blood sport politics. [ gears stopping ] when your pain reliever stops working, your whole day stops. try this. but just one aleve has the strength to stop pain for 12 hours. tylenol and advil can quit after 6. so live your whole day, not part... with 12 hour aleve.

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welcome back. time now for your headlines at the haft hour. donald trump says new reports about his behavior toward several women are totally false. during a rally in florida this afternoon, trump says the allegations are part of a concerted attack by the media skpli and the clinton campaign. he says he has evidence to

dispute these lies. msnbc has not been able to confirm the allegations independently. donald trump said the alleges made against women in 2005 should not be seen as politics as usual. the first lady called the language that trump used, quote, disgrace ful and intolerable. hillary clinton herself is off the campaign trail today. she is holding fundraisers in california. the united states has carried out its first strikes on iranian-backed rebels in yemen. they have three radar facilities and the strikes are against two navy ships earlier this week. hurricane nicole is now moving away from bermuda after pumm pummeling the british island territory with rain and winds at 150 miles an hour. it knocked down trees, flooded homes, knocked down power to thousands of homes and businesses. there have not been any reports, though, of deaths and injuries.

and how about this one. bob dylan is being awarded the nobel prize in literature. the legendary singer/song writer is receiving the prestigious award for, quote, having created new poetic expressions within the great american song tradition. back now to politics to the swing state of ohio. the race between donald trump and hillary clinton there is very tight. we showed you at the top of the hour brand new msnbc marist journal shows donald trump with a one-point lead in ohio. this comes one day after early voting actually got underway in ohio. ballots are actually being cast. it's not academic anymore. we're seeing a gender gap out there in ohio. men and women going in very different directions on this. when it comes to women, hillary clinton now opening up a double-digit lead in ohio over donald trump. nbc's chris jansing joins us now from westerville, ohio.

that is just north of the capitol of columbus. chris, we are talking about the impact from that videotape that came out last friday from these new allegations that have been reported in the last 24 hours on the ground in ohio. what are you picking up on? >> well, i just talked to the leaders of both parties, head of the republican, head of the democratic party. i was fascinated to see what our poll found out, steve, because they both said their internals were showing, that this race was too close to call, exactly what we're seeing here. where i'm standing is key to what happens in ohio. as you well know, suburban columbus is where a lot of these swing voters live. this is westerville. by the way, the governor john kasich lives here. for years he lived just a few blocks from where i'm standing. we've been looking at women voters, particularly what both heads of the party are looking at. what will the reaction be of republican women when they hear some of the allegations against donald trump? will it sway them? we spoke to three very

passionate republicans. two decided already they're going to vote for hillary. one voted for her yesterday, one said she's sticking with trump. the one i want you to hear from is an sevangelical woman who sad her decision to vote for clinton. >> god, i believe, cares about people first, and donald trump clearly doesn't care about anybody but himself. he's clearly a narcissist and he has no value for women, no value for immigrants, no value for minorities, and not even value for people in his own party, the way that he's treating republicans who he expects to lead once he's in the white house is just a mystery to me, because that's not leadership that you burn bridges everywhere ask then get in the white house and have no friends. but particularly his treatment of women is what's so upsetting to me, and the debate sunday night was probably a tipping point for me because he -- to me was an abuser on that stage,

bullying hillary clinton, using abusive language to women, but literally, physically getting in her space. >> reporter: fascinating conversations. also the one with mat borgis who is the head of the republican party. he's meeting with me this afternoon because i asked him point blank, do you believe him? did these things happen, do you believe him? he said i was going to find out this afternoon. he said he was going to confront him on these new allegations that came out over the last 12 hours or so. i really want to hear what he has to say. he's been very publicly struggling with donald trump as we saw with the governor here who, as we all know, didn't even show up at the convention in cleveland. steve? >> a dilemma that so many republican leaders are finding palpable. chris jansing out there in

westerville, ohio. thanks for that, chris. next, back to those accusations against donald trump. a trump supporter, a trump adviser, former georgia congressman jack kingston. he is going to join me next. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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or any symptoms of an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. why pause the moment? ask your doctor about cialis for daily use. and for a $200 savings card, go to cialis.com all right, we're back here. we wanted to dig in a little deeper on those wall street journal marist polls from the two key swing states, show you a little about what's going on inside the numbers. let's start in ohio. we showed you already, donald trump our new poll out there, a one-point lead for donald trump over hillary clinton in ohio. where is that coming from? check out this divide. we talk about it a lot. but that college-noncollege divide among voters. hillary clinton in ohio, seven points ahead. think about the suburbs of columbus here. hillary clinton with a 7-point lead. this is a group democrats do not typically win, so why is donald

trump still winning the state? because he's up 2-1 with blue collar white voters, non-college whites. donald trump is rupi inrunning score there. he's unusually strong in that part of the state. she's unusually strong in the suburbs. add it together, you have a donald trump one-point lead in ohio. and this is very significant if it were to hold up. a four-point lead over donald trump in a state mitt romney carried over four years ago. what is powering that? again, white college grads. think about the suburbs around raleigh, inconorth carolina, ma hillary clinton with a lead there. getting absolutely pummeled, though, with blue collar whites. this advantage for hillary clinton is outweighing this one for donald trump in that poll. you see a very stark racial divide. north carolina state where nearly one out of every four voters is african-american, and you see hillary clinton with a 79-point lead among black

voters, donald trump with nearly a 20-point advantage among white voters. but again, the headline out there in north carolina, hillary clinton with a lead right now in our poll less than a month before election day. for more on where this race stands, where it is going, joined now by political reporters kaitlyn huey burns and corrine swadiki of "the guardian." kaitlyn, i'll start with you. we had the tape that came out last week, we had the debates. now we have more allegations against donald trump. this is a dangerous question to ask, but if we hit the fast-forward button, how much long-term damage does this weekend end up costing donald trump? >> i think you can look at what his strategy has been after the first debate, through the second debate and now has been really appealing to his core base of support. he's been attacking his own republicans, going after paul ryan. he's been attacking today the clintons, kind of blaming everything that's going on as a

drop in the polls on various different people besides his own campaign, and that signals to me he's really playing to that group. but as we know, that group is not enough to get him through the finish line, especially in a lot of these key battlegrounds. we've seen in polling that he has not been able to come above the low 40s. so we know for a fact that right now as the math adds up that he does not have the support he needs to reach across and has not made significant moves to expand his support in any way. that's particularly relevant because he's been lashing out against republicans, which he needs as well. >> and sabrina, speaking of those republicans, that's one of the questions here. all these elected republican officials, republican candidates this year especially have to make that decision. how are they going to treat donald trump for the rest of this campaign? are they going to run with him? are they going to renounce him? you're up there in new hampshire

where kelly ayotte, the senate candidate, had to make that decision. are there going to be more things like this before election day? >> right, and this is the challenge elected republican officials are facing. on the one hand, they need donald trump's base of supporters, they need those republican voters to turn out for them in november. at the same time they're facing increasing pressure to reject him entirely, to withdraw those endorsements the more you see these comments and accusations come out. and i think you're fully aware there will be more tapes, there will be more women who will come forward. we're now reaching the point where you have to reach those independent swing voters or those republican-minded independents. you were talking about the suburban voters and the impact these tapes can have on how they see the republican ticket. kelly ayotte, in fact, did drop her endorsement. hillary clinton is leading here in new hampshire. rob portman is comfortable

enough in new hampshire where donald trump has a comfortable lead. he was able to rescind his support as well. if you are a marco rubio, if you're a richard burr, for example, you have to make that decision taking the temperature of the electorate there and trying not to gain too much backlash against those supporters who you may need one day to win. >> and we were talking about this a minute ago, it looks like the strategy for hillary clinton is to step back on this a little bit. is one of the factors in that strategy the history with bill clinton in terms of the accusations that have been made against him? does that complicate the moral weight of the message from a hillary clinton as compared to michelle obama? >> we saw that she quickly went over that question and focused on her own message. i also think with more of these revelations coming out, the clinton campaign can look at what's happening with the trump campaign and let that speak for

itself. we saw over the past weekend when all republicans were fleeing the campaign that they had to be kind of cautious about weighing in too much, overplaying their hands on this. i think the trump campaign is doing enough to damage itself with the voters that it needs. and you're also seeing the clinton campaign sort of focus on other races as well. she was in florida yesterday talking about senate races there and congressional races. so focusing down the ballot for democrats is also a big goal here as well. >> all right. kaitlyn huey burns, sabrina sadiki, thank you so much for joining us. new trouble maybe for chris christie. the complaint this morning in court against the new jersey governor. he got a summons in court today. it has to do with bridgegate. we're going to dive into that and a lot more. stay with us.

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haven't sa having said that, though, i would say it's odd to me in the case of the people reporter that for 12 years, somebody who is a reporter, particularly "people" magazine, very high profile, very connected, it's odd that she would sit on it for 12 years. >> but could you see the argument -- let's take the "people" magazine as an example. profiling donald trump about a decade ago when donald trump was one of the top celebrity figures in the country hosting one of the top shows in the country, and the pressure there is to

produce sort of a puffy celebrity piece professionally. >> yes, but on the same hand, and i know this is a powerful person, i don't want to go after him, but on the other hand, this is a powerful person, that would be a heck of a story, a heck of a trophy to bring somebody like that down. but also, steven, very importantly, we do know that 43% of his employees and his business endeavors are women, yet the majority of his executive officers are women. so the minority of the employees are -- just a narrow minority, 43%, but still most of his people. recently we've had statements by his executive vp, a woman named miss sunshine, i can't remember the last name. one named rosen, his hr director, one of his deputy attorneys all say he's been great. >> so maybe he doesn't do it to everybody, but you've got multiple women out there now, multiple women out there putting their names on this and saying he did it to me. >> i think if he really had the

strong tendency, over the years you would have had people complaining over the years, which they have not. and a year ago, even the "washington post" was writing articles about how he has been very pro-women and promoting them and bringing them up into management. >> this is interesting because the trump campaign has raised this issue of bill clinton, and i remember that was one of the things that would drive republicans nuts about bill clinton. they would either hear from people on the left saying bill clinton has a wonderful record on women's issues. doesn't mean he can't behave terribly with women. it sounds like you're making the same claim about trump now. >> politically and strategically if trump steals a page right out of the clinton handbook, it's there for the taking. here's hillary clinton. what do you do? you destroy the character of these women. we are not doing that, but that was hillary clinton. she called them bimbos, she said these are women without resumes. we're going to go after them and

destroy them personally. >> trump is saying flatly these women are liars. >> he's denying the story but he's not attacking them as being worthless and bad witnesses and so forth. but i do say that it was hillary and bill clinton who wrote the handbook on how to defend yourself, and as you know, they termed the phrase bimbo eruptions. i still think as things come out on wikileaks, taking a step back, does this hurt us with the base? yes, it does. but the base still has a choice between hillary clinton and bill clinton -- or hillary clinton and donald trump. they're going to stay with donald trump. does it hurt swing voters? certainly, it sdrdoes, but as t see the media and clinton feeding frenzy, there is going to be a certain victimization of the trump campaign and he'll say, look, i'm still the guy that wants change. and i'm still the guy that's not going to give you a third term

of barack obama. i want jobs, i want immigration security, i want national security. this has not been a great 10 days, but i think at the same time the criticism of his has bottomed out and we're going to be coming up. we're only down four and a half points. that's not bad. >> we went through the new polls. he's competitive in ohio. down in north carolina, though, jack kingston, thanks for joining us. here's hampton pearson. he's got the cnbc market wran. >> we saw markets closing lower today, the dow tumbling by 45 points. the s&p off by 6, the nasdaq dropping by 25 points. that's it for cnbc first in business worldwide. ♪

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well, a surprising twist today in the bridgegate scandal in new jersey, a judge issuing a cred critical summons for governor chris christie. this stems from the delays on closing of the lanes of the george washington bridge. we're in newark, new jersey. that is where the trial is now in its fourth week. brian, this headline, though, has nothing to do with the federal trial taking place where you are. take us through what happened today. >> reporter: it is based on some of the testimony by a star witness or the government in this trial over those lane closures and this activist from bergen county took that testimony, went to a municipal judge in bergen county, the most populist in new jersey and said, hey, i've got this sworn

testimony. the governor knew about the closings in the middle of the week. you can do this in new jersey, so the judge looked at this transcript from the trial. said, well, yeah, this star witness is saying that? okay. there is probable cause to issue a criminal summons and that's exactly what he did. what does this mean for the governor? well, it means that this probable cause finding, which is not an indictment, certainly not a guilty finding, goes to the county prosecutor. the county prosecutor must decide, do i go ahead and prosecute it based on a judge finding probable cause? do i put it in the file 13? do i take it to the grand jury? what do i do? that's where we are right now. so, yes, the governor is in some jeopardy. after all, he had three new york city lawyers here trying to stop it, but he didn't succeed, steve. >> certainly a headline when it came across the wire today that i think caught everybody's attention today.

brian thompson in newark, new jersey at the bridgegate trial. brian, thank you, appreciate it. that's going to do it for this hour. i'm steve kornacki. "mtp daily" starts right now. if it's thursday as the presidential race takes yet another ugly turn, voters are left wondering, where do we go from here? tonight donald trump promises vindication from a list of disturbing new allegations. >> they're pure fiction and they're outright lies. >> plus the one word michelle obama would not use as she took on trump's taped comments. >> it has shaken me to my core in a way i couldn't have predicted. >> and how the clinton campaign is handling the latest round of wikileaks revelations. this is "mtp daily" and it starts