good day, everyone. it's high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. out west. here is what's happening. new polls out today, there are telling numbers that give a sense of how the campaign may be turning in key battleground states. >> we're like athletes. right? so athletes, they are making them more and more -- but athletes, they make them take a drug test. >> donald trump comparing himself and hillary clinton to athletes. we will take a look at what exactly he means by that. plus new reaction to another

batch of wikileaks e-mails that offer possible insight into the clinton campaign operation. and "saturday night live" with new digs at the campaign and the last debate in particular. all that here on msnbc, the place for politics. we begin with the brand-new polls showing the state of the presidential race, a little more than three weeks before election day. hillary clinton has widened her lead among women in battleground states. the new cbs/yougov poll shows her with an edge, up foreign policy her five-point lead last month. the nbc/wall street journal poll shows her with an 11-point lead. the abc news/washington post poll shows her with a narrower lead. all of these polls were taken this week amid controversies for both candidates. wikileaks releasing e-mails from the clinton campaign and new

allegations of sexual my conduct against trump. new this morning, trump's key supporters, including his running mate, are clarifying what he means when he talks about the election being rigged. >> we will absolutely accept the results of the election. look, the american people will speak in an election that will culminate november 8. the american people are tired of the obvious bias in the national media. that's where the sense of a rigged election goes here. >> i think without the unending asaumesault of the news media, p would be leading. >> he's not talking about the fact that it's going to be rigged at the polls. what he is talking about is that 80% to 85% of the media is against him. >> why does he say if we lose pennsylvania, it will be because it's stolen? >> there are a few places, not many in the swing states, there are a few places where they have

been notorious for stealing votes, pennsylvania, chicago, places where cheating has gone on over the years. dead people generally vote for democrats rather than republicans. >> new reaction from vice-president joe biden on the obama administration's plans to send a message to putin after its alleged hacking. >> we're sending a message. we have the capacity to do it, and the message -- >> he will know it? >> he will know it. it will be at the time of our chooses and under the circumstances that have the greatest impact. >> a message is going to be sent? will the public know it? >> hope not. >> we have reporters covering both camps. chris tkristin welker has the l from the clinton campaign. we begin with hallie jackson on the trump campaign with a good day to you both. as trump doubling down on claims this election is rigged. is this going to be the message going forward? do you expect that it will be a message that would get him more

votes? >> reporter: you know, the second part of your question is trickier. to the first part, is this something he will continue to emphasize? yeah, i think so. based on his actions just this morning when he tweeted out that "saturday night live" is part of the rigged media conspiracy against him. if his actions over the last 24 hours are any indication, yes, i think when he gets back out on the campaign trail later this week, he is down today but resumes campaigning tomorrow, then i think we will see this message. here is why. because it plays to his base. it rallies his supporters. that is the strategy the trump campaign is deploying, play to the base, get trump supporters riled up. in turn, try to do things that will depress turnout on the democratic side according to one source close to the campaign. that's the strategy with which they are playing at this point. chuck todd talked with mike pence about this earlier this morning. listen to what they had to say. >> governor, you keep saying rigged election. are you concerned that the more you say it the more you actually undermine our democracy

unintentionally? >> look, one of the great, great traditions of america is the peaceful transfer of power. elections, you know, you are a student of history, elections get rough. i expect they're going to stay just as rough as they are right now going into november the 8th. the stakes are so high in this election. but as donald trump said in the first debate, and i will say to you again today, we will accept the will of the american people. >> reporter: as for the second part of your question, will this actually help him win over voters? if the strategy is to instead rile up and rally up trump supporters, then it will likely be afweffective in that regard given when you talk to supporters, almost uniformly they all attack the media just like donald trump has been doing. they talk about this being a rigged system or at least many of them do. will it grow his base of support? i think that's the trillion dollar question. >> but you are talking about firing up the base and the fact that they want to potentially

hope for a voter suppressed turnout. right? independents -- has the campaign given up trying to sway independents? >> reporter: it depends who you talk to. i have one source who tells me that the campaign is looking at the undecided voter, the swing voter, realizing the writing is on the wall here. that said, the strategy is to deploy mud. it's fighting mud with mud is the stated motto within the campaign. this idea that trump will continue to go after not just hillary clinton but bill clinton as well and continue deploying these attacks we have seen him deploy over last week. >> okay. hallie jackson in dc, thank you for that. let's get to kristin welker covering the clinton campaign. a good day to you. let's talk about the campaign and if they areongoing drip, drf wikileaks e-mails. >> reporter: the timing is not ideal from the speakperspective the clinton campaign. their strategy so far has been

to not authenticate any of the e-mails and to try to pivot to russia, to point to the fact that you have u.s. officials saying russia is likely behind the attacks. yesterday, the campaign started pushing forward this notion that this is like watergate. to try to essentially say, look, there's a criminal element to this. bottom line, when you look at these leaks, they reinforce what critics of clinton would say, which is that she's different in public than she is in private. fur if you are a supporter, there's not that much that's new. it's not clear that to date these wick i ckileaks hacks are to move the needle. we anticipate there will be more leaks through election day. it remains what the impact will be. >> what about the other big story, that being the latest accusations against trump on sexual misconduct? hillary clinton has been laying low on this. is she saving it for the debate? >> reporter: she could be. there's no doubt that she will have a pretty strong response to

this during the debate. we know that she has been preparing for the debate. she was last night for several hours. having said that, she has really left the response so far up to her top surrogates, to the first lady. first lady michelle obama who gave that impassioned speech last week as well as vice-president biden. take a listen to what he told chuck earlier today on "meet the press." >> what he said is a textbook definition of sexual assault. i mean, it's a textbook definition. and the thing that is -- makes it so believable that he engaged in that kind of activity is not just that he said it, but his sort of instinctive abuse of power. he acts in the private sector. he acts in the way he treats employees. >> reporter: the campaign also deploying other surrogates this weekend to try to energize women voters.

that's going to be the strategy moving forward. look at the numbers. they are just devastating if you are within the trump campaign. secretary clinton right now leading him by 20 points among women voters. we know that that is something that's going to be really difficult for him to overcome on election day, particularly in some of the key battleground states. >> kristin welker, thank you. joining me jay newton small. welcome to you. jay, we heard that sound bite earlier. trump supporters trying to clarify his claim the election is rigged. if this argument isn't buying him much among undecided voters, what's the point of pushing it? >> this is something donald trump has been pushing for a long time. if you look at his twitter history, every year at the emmy awards would tweet that the awards were rigged and somehow it was the judge -- the judges were rigged, the system was bought. yet the emmies are still

standing. we will see about the american democracy. in 2012 he actually -- he tweeted a huge storm saying calling for revolution, saying the election had been stolen from mitt romney. this is something that's not new for him. it's his go-to position when he is losing, it's way of explaining why he lost, it's not his fault, it's somebody else's fault. is it getting him voters? probably not. >> makes you wonder what a concession speech would be like were he to lose? we will wait and see. we heard that trump is now suggesting that he and hillary clinton should take drug tests. suggesting that hillary clinton may have been taking drugs before the last debate. what is he talking about? am i interpreting this wrong? >> i think donald trump is waging a campaign against whatever is left. he is running against hillary clinton but in many ways he is running against our political system, part and parcel of going after the media or this idea that the election will somehow

be rigged. his opponent -- if he was running for the presidency of a foreign country, our state department would be condemning this sort of rhetoric that's so core ro corrosive. >> what are your takeaways from the polls? >> they are brutal for the women's vote. this is something that kellyanne conway -- she has what she's done for the last 15 years for conservative candidates, she's really focused on trying to get him the women's vote and the idea that he is -- there's another recent poll this week that -- that shows him tied amongst non-college educated white women with hillary clinton 40 to 40. that's a group that usually goes by more than 20 points for republicans. romney won them by 20 points. the idea he is tied with that group is catastrophic for his campaign. you need to be winning by more than 20 points if you have a

shot at winning the white house. >> interesting. alex, your take and what you are reading into the new polls? >> yeah. i think that's right. the structural problems in the electioral college that any republican candidate would have needed to overcome in this election makes these poll numbers devastating for trump. i think it's tough to sort of separate where these polls are the result of one more scandal versus an overall trump fatigue, which is probably setting in. >> yeah. and news anchors. let's move from there. you have trump who has campaign events tomorrow and tuesday. is he doing any debate prep? >> that's a great question. his schedule does not seem to allow for debate prep. perhaps he thinks he doesn't need it. after the first debate, rudy's line when asked if he was going to prepare was, we won the first debate. why would we change anything up? in his nd, he has done really well in the last two debates. therefore, he might not need to prepare for the third.

gosh, he does that at his own pair peril. he needs to knock her out. or i think it's over. >> to that end, what are you hearing about his clinton is going to handle the wikileaks e-mail issue? >> i mean, i think for hillary clinton this gets to the thing you were talking about before of why isn't she responding more forcefully to the scandals that break about trump? in the debates, hillary clinton just was kind of content to let trump be trump in many ways and sort of let her own political pitfalls fall bit way side as people gawk at the next thing trump will do. putting him on display is a strategy. >> what's your expectation for wednesday's debate? you can go first, alex. >> for the debate? it will be interesting. i think it will be interesting to have somebody like a fox news anchor sort of running the proceedings and see how that resonates with trump's base. in the end, i can't see it

moving needle too far. >> what do you think? >> the last debate was one of the nastiest i have witnessed. this one i think is going to be no exception. my new title is fear and loathing in las vegas. >> i will attribute it to you. thank you so much. a woman who counsels survivors of sexual assault and is one herself. we will explain why she supports donald trump for president. gary, gary, gary... i am proud of you, my man. making simple, smart cash back choices... with quicksilver from capital one. you're earning unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. like on that new laptop. quicksilver keeps things simple, gary. and smart, like you! and i like that. i guess i am pretty smart. don't let that go to your head, gary. what's in your wallet?

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a ninth woman has stepped forward to accuse donald trump of sexual misconduct. she says it happened at a mother's day brunch in the late '90s. the campaign put out a statement denying the claim saying -- there is no way this would have

happened. nbc news is not able to verify this. let's bring in gina lowden. thank you for joining me. >> thank you for having me. >> i know that you have said that you counsel survivors of sexual assault and you have said that you are one yourself. i'm curious about your reaction to these allegations against your candidate. >> yeah. well i have counseled survivors of sexual assault in the past. i have also counseled people who are falsely accused. i think that we have to be careful to base our judgments on facts. and not on especially 11th hour campaign attacks. i'm not saying that i know conclusively, just as you don't know and no one knows except for the people involved, that none of this happened. so far, there's no evidence to these allegations. i just lhappen to think -- i tr

to put information together in the way i learned as a researcher. look for the evidence, not what people say but what is provable. so far, many of these allegations have already been discredited substantially. we'll see if the rest of them are. even if they're not, here is what concerns me. that is that hillary clinton piled on the victims of her husband's sexual exploits. i'm not talking about the infidelity. i'm talking about the women he violently attacks. she also defended a rape -- a child rapist against a 12-year-old little girl. said the 12-year-old little girl probably brought it on herself. these are the things that i know to be very damaging to victims of sexual assault. my blame i guess goes over in hillary's corner. >> i understand that. i understand you support mr. trump. i understand -- i can't say that hillary clinton said ver bayiba the way you say that. implication is maybe what you are repeating there.

i know you argue these women's stories are false or not provable. what would you say if one of them came to you with her story in a professional capacity or i'm curious in your own case, did you encounter disbelief about your story when you were assaulted? was anyone convicted for that crime? >> no. really frankly, the only person i told was my husband and closer friends. you know, i think each woman handles these things very differently. but i do think also, if you are going to be public, why not public 30 years ago, 10 years ago, one year ago, six months ago? in the last 30 days of a campaign, i think we have to be a little -- we just have to look at the facts really carefully before we're going to judge someone based on an allegation in the 11th hour of a campaign. >> timing is interesting certainly. you well know that trying to prove rape in a court of law is very, very difficult. it is an uphill battle. it's a he said she said.

so do you think it could be that these people are believing, wait a minute, somebody was bold enough to come forward and then, the floodgates open. people say there is strength in numbers. >> but let's be careful here. i don't think anyone has accused donald trump of rape. mr. clinton on the other hand has been massively accused. i find it interesting that so many who completely excused the things that mr. clinton did now seem to be so concerned with total sexual propriety in all things concerning the white house. what we have are facts that line up on the side that say that hillary clinton has shamed women who have been sexually assaulted, including a 12-year-old girl blaming the victim. this isn't someone who was with her husband. this is a 12-year-old little girl forever affected by what mrs. clinton did and says what she did was far more damaging than what the rapist did to her. i think again we just have to be careful to look at the evidence

that we have, who has harmed women the most. >> okay. let's -- >> it's easy to come down on the side of hillary clinton having done that. >> let's look at something. the number of false allegations of sexual assault, it's not more than 10% or so. many experts say -- it's less than that. as someone who counsels survivors of sexual assault, you must be familiar with the numbers. with nine accusations, statistically, isn't it likely that some of them are true? >> i can't comment on that. because i don't think that the number of -- frankly, to be honest with you, i have been surprised that more women didn't make accusations about this earlier. as soon as there's a video -- think about it. every event you go to, every building corner, every iphone in the room and there's no evidence that any of these things were caught on tape? that doesn't make any sense to me.

it's the 11th hour of a very, very nasty campaign. >> why would these be caught on tape? >> i mean, if it happened -- >> in the '90s? >> there are videotapes everywhere. it depends -- >> there weren't cell phones then. >> even in that particular incident, i believe it's that woman who the dates don't line up with the event she said happened. some of her own family members said it didn't happen. here is the thing. i think when you just line the two candidates up side by side and you decide where you feel the biggest threat as a woman, i feel a threat by a woman has who has taken hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign governments who stone women to death and throw gay people off of buildings. that upsets me to my core. >> but i'm asking you to defend your candidate and not deflect and turn the conversation to discussing hillary clinton.

just with your candidate, can you defend him against these allegations unequivocally? tapes -- the tape that we saw, the "access hollywood" tape, how did you feel about that? >> i didn't like that. i don't think he liked that. i don't think anybody liked that. but again, it isn't about -- you have to line up words and actions. i think actions speak a whole lot louder than words. when hillary clinton looks right at goldman -- >> can i just ask you about that tape? that tape, did that tape not dis -- you said you didn't like it. i'm curious if you didn't like it because what it shows is a man who talks about his celebrity, who talks about his star power and then indicates a level of abuse with it. doesn't that worry you if he jumps from that to the oval office? his capacity to abuse the power in this way? >> it's important to note that mr. trump did apologize for

that. it doesn't make it okay. i agree on that. i don't think it makes it okay in his mind or his supporters' minds at all. again, you look at evidence where real people die. and when i look at what hillary clinton has done going back to what happened in libya, going back to these governments that she's cutting deals with making money from, that kill women. we're talking about dead women. we're talking about raped women. with mr. trump, we're not talking about that. he apologized for it. i don't -- again, that doesn't make it okay what he said. but i'm looking at his actions. i'm looking at hillary clinton's actions. i can't support her knowing what she has done to women. >> all right. thank you very much for weighing in. appreciate it. donald trump's new claims of a rigged election. who he says is behind it and the fallout that could come from his claims. wer back pain sufferers, the search for relief often leads here. introducing drug-free aleve direct therapy. a high intensity tens device that uses technology once only in doctors' offices. for deep penetrating relief at the source.

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what can we expect from donald trump in these last few weeks of campaigning? i will ask a biographer of the

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welcome back, everyone. i'm alex witt. at 31 past the hour, here is what we're monitoring for you. with 23 days until the election, a new poll out today shows hillary clinton with an 11-point lead over trump. in a new poll, 79% say they are enthusiastic about trump but that's down from 91% a month ago. clinton's enthusiasm support has inched up to 83%. donald trump's message this week, the election is rigged and the media is out to get him, claiming it's all part of a conspiracy to keep him from the presidency. a new article looks at the strategy and talks to four biographers who have written about trump. the headline echos their sentiment. a dangerous man for the next three or four weeks.

joining me now is one of the biographers, michael dantonio. michael, with a big welcome to you. let's look at what you and the other biographers have suggested. that is that trump will be dangerous during the final stretch of the election. why? what makes you think that? >> he comes from a long line of flame throwers. this is a person who will reach for any clot of mud available to him and fling it if he feels threatened or like a loss is on the horizon. the idea of losing is so horrifying for donald trump, especially losing with a woman opponent and in this case a lot of women coming forward, people who he didn't respect, finally saying their truth, this has got to have him freaking out. so i would look for the worst kind of behavior to come out of him in the next three weeks. >> all this mud slinging, you

say it's dangerous. how is it dangerous? >> well, he is now challenging the la guilegitimacy of our demc institutions. he's trying to get people to think there's going to be a fraudulent election, there's going to be rampant false voting, going to be disruption at the polls. i don't think this is a light thing. i think that this is a dangerous thing that is undermining people's confidence in our very system of government. and in the fact that we actually peacefully elect people and have transitions of power without conflict. >> yeah. absolutely peaceful transition of power. again, there are those who have been calling for some sort of an uprising, a revolution, some supporters of his have said that. rudy giuliani, he said today this in response to the sexual allegations of misconduct against donald trump. here it is. >> do you believe every one of these women is lying? >> no.

i believe my friend donald trump when he tells me he didn't do it. i know donald. >> you are a trump biographer. do you find this argument convincing? >> not at all. ironically, the book i wrote write to this was a history of the sexual abuse crisis in the catholic church. what's happening with donald's case is exactly what happened in every one of those cases. people are silent. these crimes are not carried out in public. the fact that there's no videotape or witnesses is not surprising. i think what's occurred is that someone told the truth, came forward and it was donald trump. he is the guy who was caught on videotape expressing his values and expressing his belief about what he can get away with. so i don't know what decade the trump campaign people are living in, but if they have been aware of the dynamics of sexual abuse cases that have occurred in the last 30 years, this is exactly what happens.

i'm very confident some of these women, maybe all of them are telling the truth. >> when you were putting together your biography and doing the research, did you see any indications of any kind of behavior that resembles what he was talking about and admitting on that tape? >> i didn't witness it personally. but i knew of several cases. the people who are involved did not come forward. when they were contacted by me and my team, they declined. we didn't press them on it, because i understand the dynamics here. i understand the trauma that people experience. reporters have no place violating the trust of someone who has shared a story but in confidence. so i'm not at all surprised by what's going on. and this is not a political effort. none of these people have a connection with the clinton campaign. the effort to defend him is political but not the complaint themselves. >> do you have any indication,

michael michael, of what donald trump is plan doing? >> he has always wanted to be a media mogul. this is a guy who very early in his life was the producer of a broadway play and kind of explored the idea of being a movie producer, being in the entertainment business. he loves the spotlight. so i would expect him to go into the entertainment business or the press business. i would expect there to be a channel that donald trump is the star of. >> interesting. i'm not sure how much hollywood has open arms towards him. >> no. but there's a vast audience that's actually being left behind by fox news now that roger ailes is leaving, is gone. look at the ferocity of the attachment to him among his base. i want to make one last point. >> quickly. >> when pollsters tested donald's name in the 1980s, he

had 35% support, 65% of the people didn't like him. i think he is headed in the same direction now. >> all right. thank you very much for your thoughts. appreciate that. let's bring in charlie sykes. he is part of the never trump movement. let's get right to it. just yesterday, trump supporter -- this is a milwaukee sheriff david clark. it's incredible that our institutions of government, white house, congress, department of justice and big media are corrupt and all we do is b word there, pitchforks and torches time. what do you make of this rhetoric? >> i have known david clark a long time. he is known for throwi ining rhetorical bombs. sometimes inflammatory rhetoric can inflame. he knows this. because he has been very critical of the black lives matter movement and other

rhetoric about police violence. i have actually reached out to him to get a clarification. david, you are not talking about armed insurrection, are you? and if not, what exactly are you talking about? i completely agree, we are in a dangerous period right now. i think that people need to understand that the peaceful transfer of power is an essential element of our democracy. donald trump has made it clear he t does matter which institutions he damages. that may extend over the next three weeks to delegitimatize our democratic societysociety, could have long-term damage. i think that this is one of those moments where, donald trump is going to be donald trump. but the surrogates, the down ballot republicans, other conservatives, i think need to take a deep breath and a step back and understand how deep the damage could go in the next three weeks. >> you know, if sheriff david clark does not respond like you don't mean this, this is -- this is an official who is in charge

of maintaining law and order, who is potentially calling for disorder and unruliness. what does that say? >> yeah, what does it say? what do do you with pitchforks? what do do you with those tor torches? there's a long history of hyperbole of that kind of rhetoric. in this moment where you have people talking about revolution, where you have people doubting the legitimacy of the election, the legitimacy of the next president of the united states, we're playing with something dangerous. this is troubling about the trump campaign is the way he is corrupting the moral and ethical standards of his followers. you didn't ask me about it, but on the issue of sexual assault and his treatment of women, i think most troubling thing is not that many people doubt the women who are coming forward, the really troubling thing are the number of trump supporters, unfortunately, a number of republicans and congreservative who believe he might have

behaved this way but don't care. that's the real wind across that in fact this cult of personality or this tribal loyalty is so intense that you may think that donald trump in fact has treated women this way, that he has bragged about it and they are confirming he behaves this way and they find it acceptable or they don't have a problem then in vesting him with the power of the presidency. that's a real bright line that's going to have a tremendous impact on other republicans and on conservatives going forward if they don't make it clear that that's not acceptable. >> frankly, it's unconscionable. >> it is. >> new reporting is the trump campaign believes it might not win. it is looking to depress the turnout for undecided voters. how do you read that? what do you make of it? >> what a surprise that donald trump turns out to be a bad loser, that he's not a gracious loser. again, this is the pull the house down, i'm taking

everything down with me strategy. the reality is for them to leak out this is a strategy to suppress the vote reflects how deep the cynicism of this campaign has become. if they believed they were going to make america great again, why are they talking about actually talking about suppressing the vote? it's going to backfire badly on them. >> charlie, the gop has taken a real beating over the course of this election. how do you see the party framed? what's it going to look like after november 8? >> i will be honest with you, nobody knows. a lot depends what happens over the next three weeks, how closely do down ballot republicans and other republicans allow themselves to be associated with this meltdown that we're seeing? it's going to be extremely difficult to patch up the civil war. there's a lot of division. it's going to be very, very difficult for republicans to come back and say, you know, all those things that he said and did about women and minorities

and about young people, that's not us, because if you support him for president, it is who you are. i have been quoted as saying that i talked with republican leaders and i would describe their mood as one of absolute anguish. they have gone past panic to anguish. not only what's going to happen in november but what happens long-term? how do you put the pieces back together again? the one thing i disagree with your previous guest about about donald trump's future endeavors, he wouldn't be running bright bart tv. it will be trump tv. he will never allow somebody's name to go on that. he will be around. as a result of that, those voices and those forces that right now are breaking the republican party apart, they're not going away after the election. there's going to be a reckoning. what do do you with donald trump? what do you do with trump tv? what does that mean for the conservative media? no one has any idea. >> do you have an idea who will emerge as the leader of the gop if trump loses? >> well, i mean, my hope would

be it would be the anti-trump, the absolute polar opposite. a fundamentally descend, intelligent, policy driven conservative like paul ryan. i understand how difficult that will be. we don't know what will happen with the house of representatives. there's no shortage of intelligent, principaled conservatives who want nothing to do with this ugliness. but they're going to have to find a way somehow to emerge from this rubble. >> you know what? i'm so out of time. what about mike pence? does he potentially emerge as the leader? >> i don't know how mike pence is going to wipe the stink of this campaign off of him. i'm sure that there will be a lot of people that will think he has done himself well. but as you watch him defending the indefensible and carrying water in the last three weeks, i think he is going to damage his brand irredeembly. >> thank you for the conversation.

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it's a rigged system. and they take these lies and they put them on front pages. this is a rigged system, folks. but we're not going to let it happen. >> that is donald trump at a rally yesterday declaring the november 8 election fixed. a pre-emptive strike on what polls suggest will be a loss for the republican nominee. hillary clinton is up by 11 nationally.

joining me now, susan delpersio and howard dean. with a welcome to you both. ladies first. he is suggesting the election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing false allegations and outright lies. do you think there's anything to that accusation? secondly, is this trump just building an excuse as he anticipates losing? >> there's nothing to what he is saying. what's interesting is back in the primaries and even through the summer, donald trump was successful using the system is rigged. he pointed to bernie sanders. he pointed to taxes. when he stayed on issues, it worked. now he has gone completely off the rails to talk about some kind of global conspiracy theory that's out to get him. to answer your second question, yes, he is doing this because he knows -- it looks like he is going to lose. he is not going to lose gracefully. he probably wants to set himself up for the trump news network or

whatever it's going to be. that will be his starting point. >> i'm curious, because he is saying the media is among those rigging the election. would trump be where he is if it weren't for all the media attention throughout the primaries? >> that's a great point. donald trump's rise and through the nomination was because he knew how to play the media. he knew how to call in -- we had presidential candidates calling in to tv networks for interviews. he played the press beautifully. he got to where he is based on understanding how to reach out to people through especially television. yes, you are right. it's just working against him now. now he is just going to -- instead of using it to go on issues, he is really turning sour. i think that's going to really hurt him come november. >> howard, there's a "new york times" article, a new one headlining issues in hillary clinton's past leave her muted in furor over donald trump.

it's suggesting she can't attack him because of lingering questions over her role in her husband's alleged past misdeeds. what do you make of that? >> i think that's silly and it's bad analysis. the reason hillary clinton isn't saying anything is because when your opponent is digging a hole, you don't get in the way. i don't think this has anything to do with donald trump's improprieties except every day donald trump says something that makes him the center of attention and every day that gives hillary a pass. i don't think it -- that's silly reporting. >> what about former ohio state senator nina turner who spoke out about the wikileaks e-mails saying this? take a listen. >> i believe that the democratic party when all of this is said and done will have to deal in a very deep way with the healing process, because the fact of the matter is that the hackers didn't write the e-mails. we're dealing with people who talked about needy latinos. we're dealing with people who said things about

african-americans and others. i'm even in those e-mails as well. i can tell you from reading the ones that i have seen so far with my name in them, the russians didn't write those e-mails. they were written by the people within the clinton camp. >> how do you think, howard, the clinton campaign should respond to nina turner and many others? >> i think if something is said in the clinton campaign, this is where there's a lot of battle. if these are in the dnc e-mails, that's a big problem. i think there's a lot of reconstruction needed to be done, which is being done right now. donna brazile is trying to turn the dnc around. my former -- one of my former executives, todd mcman is doing that. that was the team that built the 50 state strategy. i don't blame nina turner at all. some of the rhetoric coming out of the e-mails is just, we're in a campaign, we're -- those e-mails are not a lot different

than jeff weaver's e-mails would be, i'm sure, going the other way. >> i'm curious, susan, how do you think donald trump is preparing for this debate? we know he's out campaigning tomorrow, tuesday. the debate is wednesday night. do you have any indication that he is preparing differently than he did for first two? >> no, not at all. i think he's going to go again on his gut. he is just going to go more viral. just to continue on something governor dean was saying, i think when you look at the e-mails and with hillary and the democrats, what the difference is the republicans are preparing to lose and hillary clinton, i think, is trying to prepare to govern. i think that's why she steps away from a lot of these fights. >> good point. >> i think that's where she's trying to go and get her numbers up without a question. donald trump in this debate though just to go back to your question is going to i think go all out and stalk her again on the stage. >> scorched earth.

>> exactly. >> what about the article suggesting hillary clinton has two challenges. the first to respond and explain what's been learned from the hacking of john podesta's e-mail account and secondly, make a strong, affirmative, compelling case for a possible clinton presidency. which is easier? >> dan is one of my favorite reporters. i don't have a lot of favorite reporters. he has always been terrific and very fair. let me just say that, i don't know charlie sykes. that was one of the most extraordinary interviews that you just had. it made me want to sit down with him and work something out. i don't think the country is in deep trouble because trump is saying the thing is rigged. we have a lot -- we're in trouble for a lot of other reasons. hillary's task, should she win, is to bring this country together. she's got to go to places like central ohio and west virginia and talk to folks about what can make this better. the problem is not donald trump.

he is an egotist who rode the wave. we have left people behind. there are people alienated. we have to do something about it. i hope the lesson is for the democrats and conservatives who have been incredibly difficult to deal with that we really do need to sit down and find a common ground. if we could do that with paul ryan, he will have to throw over the 30 i don't want to do anything members of his losi wi reasonable. this has been a really tough election. we're going to survive this. but we're not going to survive unless we start working together. >> howard dean and susan, i will talk to you again soon. is there time for donald trump to catch up to hillary clinton by election day? new word just in from arizona today. we will get answers from a trump campaign adviser. technology... ...doesn't go on your wrist. ♪ the highly advanced audi a4, with class-leading horsepower.