commendations? >> i have almost 30 honorary degrees and i did get the nobel peace prize. >> really, what was that for? >> to be honest i still don't know. >> have you ever had to fire anyone? >> no, i usually let s.e.a.l. e anybody? >> i usually let seal team 6 handle that. >> do you have any experience with twitter? >> i have 77 million followers. >> how did you get so many? >> executive order. >> good morning. welcome to "morning joe." with us, we have veteran columnist, mike barnicle. oh, lord. managing bloomberg politics, and mark halperin, and willie, joe, and me. >> how are you doing? >> should i start with the big picture or small picture? >> i want to talk about barack

obama for a minute. the definition of self depos deprecating humor. mocking the noble peace price, and in search for the recent nobel prize winner, and we could have taken this -- it was rigged. it was rigged. we should have won the prize for nuclear -- >> bob dylan wins the nobel prize for literature, and the noble committee cannot find bob dylan, and they have left e-mails and called, and he is notorious hard to reach.

>> like bill murray. >> it's funny, because when meacham got his pulitzer, he was right there. >> stop it! meacham will bring up pictures of saddam hussein's palace. and then the polls are a toss up situation, in florida a quinnipiac poll puts donald trump within the margin of error, and ohio, the race is tied for trump and clinton at 45% each but with clinton on an upswing, and ohio, trump in the lead, 48% to 44%, and then 47 to

41 in pennsylvania, and then a one-point toss up for north carolina's votes, and then nevada has the race tied, and while in colorado clinton has taken a seven-point lead, 45% to trump's 37%, and gary johnson at double digits, and the trump campaign putting serious resources into a state they had given up on. in virginia, the final three weeks, last week the trump campaign parted ways with its state cochairman who said the campaign was shifting focus elsewhere. the swing state polls, battleground polls, they are tighter and the national polls show a much more clinton -- heavy clinton lead, and why are the battleground states important to look at right now?

>> i will ask that of mark halperin. mark, you look at the national polls and it looks like the "washington post" poll is the outlier this race is closer to seven or eight points natalie. the swing state polls, yesterday came out and much closer than a loft people expected and clinton, if she is not at 270 with two weeks left, she certainly is in a very strong commanding position electorately, but some of the swing states, trump and clinton still look like they have a race, and there is, as nate cone said with the new york times, still an outside shot for donald trump and the past couple of weeks has not been as disastrous for republicans as people might think, and sort through the numbers? >> he has a narrow path and the

republicans have always a narrow path, and if he wins five states that are tight, north carolina, ohio, florida, iowa and nevada, he's within five electoral votes of winning, and i think his chances of winning all five are not that great and even if he does, he still needs five electoral votes. >> i think, willie geist, looking at what some of the state polls might mean, and saying again so people don't freak out and pass out while watching our show, hillary clinton is still the heavy favorite, but i any most around this table, and most watchers of show would think that hillary clinton would be 30 points ahead by now given the press coverage in the last couple of weeks and donald trump's own explosive rhetoric on the campaign trail, but these polls are stubbornly

close in a lot of the states that mitt romney lost. >> you would think the coverage of the tape two weeks ago would have buried -- >> game over. >> and we know that hillary clinton is not a popular candidate for president of the united states, and she's more popular than donald trump at this point, and those states, florida, north carolina, ohio, all as close they are, they are tied or within the margin of error show this could swing one way. hillary clinton is obviously the favorite now and they smell blood in the water so much they are going in hard to arizona, and they have bernie sanders there today, and chelsea clinton, and the first lady of the united states, going to arizona, and bill clinton won arizona in 1996, and they believe they cut off any path they have if they can steal arizona as well. >> i think the question, mike

barnicle, is if you are the clinton campaign, do you go for the kill and for the 40-state victory? or do you say we are good winning by four or five points, and we are good with 320 electoral votes. do you nail down -- it looks like she is answering the question by going to arizona, do you try to tphoeul down, north carolina, nevada, these other states or spread it out strategically. >> you try to win the presidency, that's all you try to do if you are hillary clinton, and i don't think there's any disagreement at the table about this, those numbers are more about hillary clinton than donald trump. the reluctance to vote for hillary clinton, and it seems she is going to win with a fairly significant margin, and i think the real underlying story right now is what those numbers, the tenure of the campaign, and

the talk about the campaign within media circles and the coverage of the campaign in media circles is driving trump into such a rage he keeps falling back on the rigged election as a blanket for his rage. >> i think jim, just to take a counter view, i think the media coverage over the past two weeks have been so one-sided against donald trump that it's actually making a lot of people who loathe donald trump actually push away from supporting hillary clinton, and that's -- i know that's -- i -- i am hearing it wherever i go that this race, like mike said, this race is about hillary clinton. people are making their choices based on how they feel about hillary clinton, and it's almost like they have tuned donald trump out, but the press is weighing in so heavily here that

i don't know if the coverage actually might have a small affect backfiring -- backfiring, actual actually, in a way that feeds into donald trump's narrative. >> there's no doubt this election has been the middle finger to all of us, to government and media, and i will take the counter view to what you said, and i don't think the race is close, and i think he can lose missouri or texas than him winning the presidency, and there's nothing i have seen in the history of polling when you have an eight-point advantage for a candidate that this race is close. if i am hillary clinton and sitting on the money they are sitting on, i go for the big score, because this is a hell of a hard country to govern and the way to govern and get things done, give yourself a democratic house and senate. i guarantee you that's why all

the money is pouring in. they are not going to lose the house now. they couldn't. they are scared. >> if you are hillary clinton, you do, you go for the huge win, you campaign in arizona, you campaign in north carolina, and you campaign and you try to get the senate back, and you are saying right now you are hearing on the hill that republicans are concerned they may lose the house? >> yes, talk to any republican that looked at the polls that have come back for individual members since that last friday are showing big signs of concern, they went from thinking they are going to lose 10 to 15 to now somewhere in the 20-plus number of house seats and it's possible they lose up to 40, and there are 40 seats they are authentically worried about. and you have a lot of the states where you can put more money into, and so why not put a bunch of money into an arizona or

pennsylvania or new hampshire, because you have the overlap, and if they can get big margins, that makes a big difference. the thing that has house members most worried, they get caught in a pinch, and you have a bunch of trump voters ticked off because they are not trump enough so they don't vote and establishment members that hate trump and they don't vote, and that's why -- joe, you know this from your days on the hill, when things go they go at the end and they tend to go hard, and that's what has republicans most worried. >> mark halperin, i was just going to say, because we are all in a bubble, and face it, mark, we are in a bubble, and house members on the hill is in the double and the senate is in the bubble, and you get outside new york, washington, l.a., and it's

shocking, and the house is trying to figure it out, is there a big break in the final weekend that goes one way or the other? do we wake up wednesday morning after the election with a much closer -- like katie kay said, brexit, or it could be a reagan-type of landslide. >> we are in part because trump is such an unorthodoxed candidate. the polls show, not only did the race move towards hillary clinton, but overall in the national polls, people think hillary is going to win, and that could make her supporters

complacent, and if donald trump drives a message at the end, changing washington and the supreme court, and that could keep the race close and heould win narrowly. if that happens, he could be very low at the national number if he plays into what clinton wants him to. >> trump was in wisconsin in paul ryan's home turf after slamming him on twitter, and throughout the day on twitter he was critical of his party and concerns of voter fraud, tweeting, quote, of course there was large-scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. why do republican leaders deny what is going on. so naive. here he is and his running mate on the trail. >> the truth is, there's a lot

of talk about rigged elections out there today. and i have no doubt the national media is trying to rig this election with their biassed coverage in hillary clinton's favor, but in terms of the actual vote itself, and if you are here at the rally and not volunteered to provide accountability at a polling place come election day, you have not yet done all you can do. >> the media is an extension as the hillary clinton campaign, and they d't talk about wikileaks, they just talk about trump. trump. >> tell the truth! tell the truth! >> we do need truth. we do need truth. to make america great again, we

need truths from these people. they are poisoning the minds of voters. they even want to try to rig the election at the polling booths, and believe me, there's a lot going on. people that have died ten years ago and still voting, and illegal immigrants are voting. where are the street smarts of some of the politicians. you look at certain cities, and i won't -- >> you mentioned philadelphia that. >> philadelphia is one, and you look at what is going on in chicago, and what is going on in st. louis and many other cities and there's tremendous voter fraud and how republican leadership doesn't see that is beyond me. >> and the prospect of a rigged outcome in three weeks is exactly what is very real for the supporters of donald trump. a new poll taken late last week

shows 81% of trump supporters believe the election could be stolen as a result of widespread voter fraud, and this is 48 of trump supporters say they are not confident votes across the country will be accurately counted. joe, on sunday morning on the "today" ow, i interviewed ruly jewel yawna -- rudy guiliani. and an hour later, it was about polling places and echoed it again in the script and speech yesterday. he is stoking these fears and thoughts from the supporters are coming from him. >> yeah, it's -- i have always, always been -- it always made me really tired. i have seen democrats do it through the years and republicans do it through the years, not to this level and not the presidential candidate, but

everybody -- everybody always -- it's like playing the refs. and it's always -- it always comes from the losing side. you know, i found that candidates that complain about polls and complain about rigged elections know they are going to lose, and it's tiresome when it comes from democrats, and i think this is a unique situation here, mika, where we have the nominee himself talking about this. it's not helpful at all. >> joe, this is a little different, because he's basically using code language. >> it's really different. >> describing where the fraud is coming from, parts of philadelphia, st. louis, wink, wink, african-americans, that's what he's talking about. >> like i said, it's completely

different and completely different especially because it's coming from the top of the ticket. >> right. >> and it's discouraging, and i think, mika, the most important thing for americans to believe that their political system works and they have a reason to be involved in politics and they have a reason to get out and vote and this is not helpful in the long run at all. >> before we go to break. this from the "tampa bay times," 200 people walked out of median amy schumer's show when she started talking about donald trump. schumer brought a trump supporting audience member onstage and discussed her support for hillary clinton, why calling trump a orange sexually assaulting -- >> i am really scared with some

of the stuff -- >> okay, you can go and sit down. thank you. appreciate that. >> does anybody -- >> amy schumer released a statement, i loved my crowd and show last night. i want to thank the 8400 people who stayed. we had a great time. we have always depended on medians to make us laugh and tell the truth and i am proud to continue that tradition. she tweeted all love tampa. she did not get the greatest reception, and she mentioned, like donald trump, the size of her crowd. >> willie, probably not good to mock and ridicule people that pay a good chunk of their salary to go and see you, and then actually suggest that they don't know how to read. i don't know.

what do you think? >> i had not seen the clip until then. i agree, i don't like that kind of stuff, and amy schumer has been saying this stuff for years, and years, and it's no surprise she is a proud progressionive. >> and new accusations of a quid pro quo, state department spokesman john kirby joins us for an interview. >> ridiculously warm. we had 44 record highs and more record highs today. it feels more like the middle of september instead of the middle of october. and nashville predicting a record high today. and we even pushed that hot air to baltimore today, and albany,

new york, 82 degrees this time of year, unheard of. the leaves look beautiful, but it's dry. and tomorrow more record highs. we will see a little rain late today, and this will cool people off, all the way up to areas of upstate new york, and the rest of the country looking good. southeast, no problems whatsoever today, 80s for everybody, and still 90s in south texas, and the only cool weather in the pacific north west, and enjoy the warmth while we have it if you like it, and we will be back to jacket weather in many areas by the upcoming weekend. you are watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. 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.

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♪ ♪ 24 past the hour. donald trump is calling for a top state top official to resign immediately. as hillary clinton's private e-mail server continues to stir

controversy with her campaign. newly revealed notes show a federal agent accused a top state department official of discussing a quid pro quo to dissolve a dispute over whether a clinton e-mail should be classified, as part of the discussion of the classifications, patrick kennedy originally contacted the fbi about a single e-mail that was in dispute, and a discussion ensued that led to another fbi agent suggesting there was a transactional deal, and the notes say inexchange for marking the e-mail unclassified, state would reciprocate by allowing the fbi to place more agents in countries where they are forbidden with a focus on iraq, and yesterday the state department was emphatic that a

deal was made. >> great job. >> it's so unclear that it's kind of classic in a way that i am afraid to say, but here's what the new york times goes on to say. what remains unclear from the documents was whether it was mr. kennedy or an fbi official who purportedly offered the quid pro quo, and so the fbi has an interest, mark halperin, and they want more agents in certain places, and what, the clinton campaign or the clintons or who has -- >> the state department has a pwao bureaucratic interest, and in this case, mr. kennedy was doing

the bidding of hillary clinton, and we don't know very much in part because the fbi has done outrageous things, and they selectively put out documents they should not be putting out that creates justified suspicion. >> worst case scenario, what was the quid pro quo here? >> worse case -- we don't know this. >> we know there's a story. >> a state department official in an attempt to make hillary clinton look worse, said to the fbi, if you agree with us on how we classify this document, i will do you a favor. >> what do we know? hillary clinton would look loose with secrets going on? >> hillary clinton did not want more things to look classified. >> do we know there was an effort to make things look

qualified? >> we do know that. was it the state department doing its normal thing. >> we know it was to make things look less qualified to make her look better? >> we don't know if that was their motive, and it could be everybody over classified stuff, and we don't know if he brought up or engaged in a discussion of a quid pro quo. republicans are right, we need to look into this more. >> why did the fbi observely handle this? >> if you are not going to indict, don't selectively put out documents. you just don't. >> let me jump in here. mark is right. there's so many layers to this right now, and the fbi is agreeing with that, and there's this back and forth, but mark we have talked about this before,

and combey, his handling, and 55% of americans told washington nbc, they thought clinton should be indicted and james comey decided not to indict her, but i think you and i agree on this point, if you are not going to indict her, don't cover your ass, don't go out and hold a press conference and treat hillary clinton -- first of all, they treat hillary clinton differently than treating anybody else by not indicting her and then comey treats her differently by holding an absurd press conference, and i agree with you, the fbi releasing this two weeks before an election when they could have released it six months ago, or six months from now, it's absurd despite the fact i have no sympathy for anything hillary clinton has done with the handling of the e-mails, but i say it again,

combey's handling of the entire episode has been an embarrassment for fbi agents. >> i agree. and you refer to it as a press conference and did not take a single question from the media, and that was a statement and not a press conference, and they put the documents out with no explanation of why, and the retkabgtions are are unexchanged. documents that get redacted with no explanation as to why, and it's unfair to hillary clinton and kennedy, and i understand why republicans have concerns because fbi agents are quoted in these documents saying there was an attempt at a quid pro quo. >> we should add, if it was an attempt at the quid pro quo, it was a failed one, and in the end

it was a failed quid pro quo. >> and it's not the first time this has occurred, if this were a criminal case in open court, the judge would toss it based on the fbi's behavior. the conflicng stories that the fbi puts out -- >> you mean about hillary clinton aoer the alleged quid pro quo? >> all of it is lumped together. the document dump, that's what it is, 2 1/2 weeks before an election. it's incredible. >> the fbi needs to stop interfering with the election. combey has interfered with the election. >> guess why we are here? that's all i am going to say. the reason we are here and the reason we are having this unbelievable conversation starts somewhere. so it doesn't look good. >> what do you mean?

hillary's decision to have the private e-mail server? >> i have always -- it just doesn't make any sense. >> that's the thing, this story is a hot mess. you can hardly untangle it. it's setting up a server, and that to me is what people skwrpl th -- jumped on, and rightly ridiculed her for. with hillary clinton you know exactly what you are getting, there's so much plotting and scheming and calculation and that's what got her into trouble and then you have this story, and unless it comes out it's a nonstory. john kirby joins us at 8:00 to discuss this story. and then the grace of h.w. bush, a look at the former legacy of the president and how it relates

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the must-read opinion pages are next and we'll be right back wi with "morning joe." so should we go with the 467 horsepower? or is a 423 enough? good question. you ask a lot of good questions... i think we should move you into our new fund.

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sitting alone by myself like this, and then i went, wow. >> joining us -- >> it's amazing he gets away with that. every day. >> he gets away with a lot, joe. >> joining us now from nashville, tennessee, jon meacham, his best-selling book, the american odyssey of george w. bush is now out on paperback. donald trump's ambition for attention, for power, is defining his characteristic, and george h.w. bush, late in his

years as mr. reagan's price president he was shown into a children's leukemia ward, and 35 years before he and his wife, barbara, lost a child to the disease, and a 7-year-old boy wanted to greet the american vice president, and learned the child was sicking with cancer and mr. bush can to cry, and my eyes blooded with tears, he dictated to his audio diary, and behind me was a bank of television cameras and he told himself, i can't turn around and can't dissolve because of personal tragedy because of reporters, so i stood there, looking at this little guy tears running down my cheeks, hoping he didn't see, but if he did hoping he would feel that i loved him. mr. bush is a voice from a past at once distance and close at

hand, and we need that grace now in our own time. that's beautiful. what a beautiful story, jon meacham. >> it's one of the most extraordinary entries i found in the vice presidential diary. i can imagine very few people in public life that would not have taken that moment and turned around and connected with the public. and george bush was seen as a buttoned up politician that became an exacerbated politician in '92, and what that shows us, george bush felt our pain but he didn't feel it was his role as president to show it. >> joe? >> of course, john, the story we have all heard about george h.w.

bush that really summarized this, is when he comes home from a baseball game and he starts to tell his mother how he did, and first of all, you talk about that story and talk about how that defined george w. bush, and a surprisingly ambition man and driven by ambition more than we would have ever imagined before reading your book, and like you said, always tempered with a sense of service. >> it's one of the great complexities of his character, unquestionably. i asked him f. it were all about service, sir, you would have opened up a soup kitchen, but instead you saw an ultimate authority in a nuclear age, what was that about. several hours later, actually, he answered the question and he gestures with the big left hand, and he said it's b number one, b

captain of the team, whatever you are in, and i always have been motivated by goal and maybe there's something wrong with that but in another sense there isn't, so he was always driven. the story you elude to, his mother would always say nobody wants to hear about the great i am, and he would say i got two hits and she would say, how did the team do, george, and i think one of the reasons that english seemed like a second language when he was hearing speeches, he was hearing two voices, one was the voice of the political class whh was talk about yourself press ahead and the other was dorothy walker bush, saying don't brag, and the two comparatives conflicted and led to a lack of articulation. >> you know, john, not only that story but the man's life itself, george h.w. bush's life, it was

hard to compare his life in the era in which he grew up and served and today on the national stage of politics, but i wonder if you agree that george w.h. bush had a mission and a sense of loss, and he was surrounded in world war ii, and with men and partners and he lost a daughter, and that helped to form him and shape his view of the humanity, and his larger ambition, head of the cia and vice president and president. >> we don't think of him as somebody with a sense of tragedy, but he has exactly that. on the day he turned 18, june 12th, 1942, three things happened, it was his birthday and he graduated and drove to boston and took an oath as a

naval enlistee, and he was the youngest flyer, and he was shot down and lost two crew mates. imagine being 20 years old and having other lives in your hands, and it's something that is foreign in many ways, and i asked him in terms of the combat experience and losing robin in 1953 to leukemia, and it's the by graphical questions you have to ask and what did you learn and take away from that, and he said, first, in terms of combat, he always wondered why was i spared and that drove him to try to justify the loss of others, and with robin, what it was him, was as he put it, life was unpredictable and fragile. >> all this talk about a rigged campaign from the trump campaign, and the outcome of the

election will be respected by trump and the supporters, and i think it is worth pointing to a letter bush wrote to clinton, and the letter he left that ended with, i am rooting hard for you to succeed showed that peaceful transition of power. >> absolutely. bush always believed in the system, and all the way through his life. he believed that america was run by people of essentially goodwill, trying to do the best they could to leave the world a little bit better off. he was a conservative in the classical sense, and less a reagan sense interestingly, and as you know, as joe knows, reagan conservatism was about movement and action, and bush conservatism was about making

modest reforms and trying not to screw things up, and he used to say how can we make thinnot mak worse, and he got 37% in 1992, and it was a deeply inbittering election, and he was down about it unquestionably, and he accepted the verdict and mov forward and i think has been a model former president. >> jon meacham, thank you very much. jon's best-selling book, now out on paperback. coming up, the maverick himself, senator john mccain has to walk back comments about blocking justices, and "morning joe" will be right back.

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52 past the hour. senator john mccain is walking back a promise he made with a philadelphia radio station yesterday. here he is how the gop would handle any supreme court nominee. >> i promise you we will be united against any supreme court

nominee that hillary clinton, if she were president, would put up. i promise you. this is -- this is where we need the majority. >> a spokesman for the senator later clarified releasing a statement that reads, senator mccain believes you can only judge people by their record and hillary clinton has a clear record of supporting liberal judicial nominees, and that being said senator mccain will, of course, thoroughly examine the record of any supreme court nominee put forth. when asked if donald trump would be better at picking supreme court nominees, and he said, quote, i don't know, because i hear him saying a lot of different things. joe? >> it's depressing. >> it is depressing. >> yeah, it's an environment that unfortunately ted kennedy

started in 1987, and i think it was '87, with a shameful display, and it followed through with clarence thomas and republicans did the same, and have blocked so many of the president's choices for ambassador and it's happened now for 20, 30 years, and even barack obama was told he couldn't cast a vote from john roberts, the man that upheld his greatest legislative legacy because it would hurt him in the primaries. i wish republicans and democrats could read the constitution, and understand what advice and consent means, and then give the president actually great deference that the constitution suggested the president should have to pick the supreme court justice that he or she believes would serve the country best.

>> joe, that's the depressing aspect of the entire thing and you just referenced it, for longer than a quarter of a century, we have had one of the stamps removed from the toolbox in the senate and sometimes in the house with lesser things, and the idea that we had a supreme court operating at basically a mute tie now for nearly a year in a sitting federal judge waiting to get a hearing is just an incredible indictment of what has been going on for way too long. >> it's not that we have a four-court now, and think about politics, it's you did this to me and i will do it to you, and you don't have to have a hearing or vote on a supreme court justice and you don't think next time i will one-up you, it's going to be two, three years? >> it's awful.

willie, it's far beyond supreme court justices. it's lower court judges, and ambassadors, and people that are desperately needed to serve in our government and the republicans throw themselves in front of the train with barack obama, and democrats would do it if it were donald trump, and republicans will be moved to do it if it's hillary clinton, and it has to stop for the good of the country, and so our government can start working again. >> i think everybody agrees that supreme court justices should not be used at political bargaining chips, and the bigger picture on the supreme court is there will be two, perhaps three openings on the court, maybe, and we will see what happens before the next president of the united states, and for republicans that was a guiding reason to vote for donald trump, not because they love donald trump, but at the very least we hope we can manipulate

conservative justices and that's the last thread of hope if donald trump wins they will get that for him and i don't know if that's enough for people to vote for him. coming up at the top of the hour, a look at the top senate battle grounds with the founder of real politics. >> this election is not being rigged, and i will explain why he should stop saying that. we have 67 counties in the state, each of what conduct their own elections, and second the governor of the state of florida is a republican that appoints the people that run the elections, and third, there's no evidence of any of this, and this is a state that literally has millions of people that came here because they could not vote in the nation of their birth and it would be a tragedy if they gave up their vote here as well. >> wow. >> amen. amen and amen.

>> where did he come from? >> i will say something that i have yet to say -- >> i think you are about to say it. >> what i said before, thank god for marco rubio. that was good. that was really, really good. guess what? it was also right. >> yeah, an added value of being true. >> yes. >> republican senators run away from claims donald trump are making that the election may be rigged, plus, steve kornacki, hallie jackson, and steve schmitt join the political roundtable. "morning joe" will be right back. them on a rack. but the specialists at ford like to show off their strengths: 13 name brands. all backed by our low price tire guarantee. yeah, we're strong when it comes to tires. right now during the big tire event, get a $140 rebate by mail on four select tires.

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i say to mr. trump supporters, most of you understand the system is rigged in the favor of the wealthy and powerful, and think about vote for hillary clinton on this issue alone, and what donald trump said is yes, i am a multibillionaire, one of the wealthiest people in the country, yes, and i have mansions all over the world, yes, i live in the lap of luxury, and i, a multibillionaire don't have to pay a nickel in federal income tax because i got you to pay the taxes. so i say to mr. trump supporters, if you are out there today and i know you are, and you are hurting and making $9 or $10 an hour, ask yourself which candidate will raise the minimum wage and the answer is hillary

clinton and not donald trump. >> welcome back to "morning joe." mike barnicle is with us, and joining the conversation, contributor to "time" magazine, and a former mccain senior campaign strategist, steve schmitt at the table, and in washington, msnbc political contributor, chris aliza. joe, where do you want to begin? >> i want to begin with the bernie sanders' clip and go to steve schmitt to explain this better probably better than i ever could because he helped with schwarzenegger's campaign and studied voters that are not overly idealogical for a long time. i told the story before that i helped the kennedys, joe kennedy

in particular renaming the justice department for bobby kennedy, and talking about his father, one of two heroes that got me into politics, and the other was ronald reagan, and he norret nor ethel could understand, drawing upon the better angles within all of us could immediately go to supporting george wallace after bobby's assassination in june of 1968. it haunted them. i suppose it's something they still can't figure out. i saw bernie sanders out there, and what most of us can't figure out, but people outside of the beltway and outside of manhattan can figure out is how somebody could say i like that bernie

sanders guy, but if he is not there, i will vote for trump, and we have seen "new york times" articles, talking about communities ravaged by the affects of the changes over the last 30 years, either going for bernie sanders or donald trump, and "the times" laid it out there. can you explain what seems so foreign to all of us how most americans just aren't -- or at least the swing voters are not idealogical? >> we are conditioned to thinking about it like a contest down the middle of the field between the right and left, and now increasingly the divide in the electorate is a horizontal

line. and elyse is involved until a project fascinating and it's called ashcroft in america, and they are doing focus groups all over the country which are profoundly insightful, and it's a global phenomenon, and this will play out with the french presidential elections with the third of the four globally elections, and the german elections that will take place next september and the increasely divide, and the divide between a formerly solid wall that separates right from left and now there's a hole in it because a trump voter and sanders voter is united in the belief that the system is rigged and there's a set of rules for people at the top and a different set of rules for everybody else, and that defines

politics, and i was gratified to know that after he lost his election he bought his third home, which is a lot. >> every four years, i always know when i go to friend's houses or relative's houses and talk about elections, that republicans line up on one side of the room and say we are going to vote for the republican candidate because the democratic candidate is evil and my democratic friends line up on the other side of the room and say the republican candidate is evil, and i see a split for the first time, at least in the areas that i circulate in, where it's notetween republican and democrat, it's between haves and have nots, advanced degrees

versus high school graduates and the rich versus -- it's stunning how class distinction makes a huge difference in america, when we have long been, we think, more of a class free society than britain, france, and what steve schmitt talked about. >> to pick up on what steve was saying, there's one word that steve used a couple of times that is key, i think, to understanding where we are right now in terms of this split within the country, our country, and it's the word loss. too many people in the media, our business, close to elites where a lot of people live who are in our business don't understand the loss that has taken place in the country over the last 20 or 25 years. specifically, if you have a 20-year-old son today serving in iraq, or afghanistan, that child was 5 years old when this war

began. that is 15 or 16 years ago. and then along comes the winter of 2008 and 2009, and another loss occurs, and that shakes the foundations of the culture and country and people lose homes and incomes and jobs and they are unemployed, and lose their 401(k), and lose their life savings and what are they thinking along the course of the decades, they are thinking they have no voice in government, they are represented by a professional political class that keeps running for re-election to enhance their own status, and what do they read and hear now lately in the last year? if they go to a trump rally, they are not going to a trump rally to listen to a guy who they sort of like what he says without paying attention to who he is? they hear and read in the papers

they are probably racists for going to the trump rally, and they take great offense to this, and they ought to, and -- >> yes, they should. amen, amen, and amen. >> mika, you can question donald trump and whether donald trump is a racist or not and we have had that discussion, but the media's broad brush of trump and sander supporters have been offensive from the start, and claiming that sanders supporters were somehow young ignorant children that had no idea what was in their self interests, and that all trump supporters were racist, bigoted xenophobic -- >> deplorables. >> deplorables. what else was that, incurable -- what else did she say? >> irredeemable.

>> irredeemable. the fact is, willie, people that have been struggling for the last 30 years, what coastal elites have not figured out, this is an economy that has been on the decline for 30 years, 40 years, average wages for men in decline in real terms since 1973, and just look in this century, we were kept afloat by a tech bubble and then kept afloat by a housing bubble and the only reason we didn't sink into a recession was because of a government spending bubble. there's no growth industry out there, and as we were saying on the set yesterday, you take the goodles and microsofts and apples and yahoos and everythings, and combine the employees together that work with the employees and doesn't come close to matching how many people general motors employed

in 1964. >> instead of having that pain listened to and addressed by elites in washington and also in the media, those supporters of donald trump feel like that pain has been mocked throughout this campaign. there's a reason whenald trump says the media is stealing this election from us and they are rigging the election, and they watch the late-night shows make fun of them and the press make fun of them and they are put on display and called racist in many cases, and that doesn't mean the things donald trump is saying is the right solution to their pain, and every time they hear themselves mocked, that divide that steve is talking about grows larger and larger and we are pulled further apart. >> it appears to be being ignored. >> i don't think you can overstate the impact of the media and the anger against the

media in this election, and that's something that focus groups, yes, the anger is there against the government and officials and rigged system, and the media being biassed right and left, and 8 out of 10 people think there's no hope with what the media puts in front of you. >> that's why people hate chris -- >> oh, there's the fix. >> i have to say it and i will just say it, over the past couple of weeks, media coverage has been deplorable. it has been one-sided and it has been biassed, and it has been every bit as bad as media coverage of the bernie sanders' phenomenon at the beginning of the democratic process, and it was slanted and biassed against bernie sanders, and it was completely weighted for hillary clinton, and sanders was holding massive rallies that everybody ignored and everybody tried to

explain away and it's because -- and mike barnicle nailed it, chris aliza, and we are all at the end coastal elites that didn't get bernie sanders and don't get why people would ever vote for donald trump. >> i disagree with you, but i agree with you that i am a coastal elite. >> do you disagree or agree? >> i went to a prepare school for high school, and i went to georgetown and i lived in connecticut and d.c., so i fit -- and my house is inside the beltway. >> you are a man of the people. >> oh, yes. but let me say i disagree with you about the media coverage being unfair and let me tell you why in this last period. donald trump, every morning, gets on twitter, and he does something like he did yesterday. he injects something that is not true, that there is wide-spread voter fraud that drives news cycles. people say to me on twitter, why

don't you just ignore him? we can't. he's one of the two people that can be elected president. i don't know what is -- he is creating news that we, then, cover. am i biassed in favor of depending what we do? yes. absolutely. has some of the media coverage, whether it's bernie sanders or hillary clinton or donald trump been somewhat unfair at times? sure. because the media is made up of a bunch of humans that get stuff wrong. i don't think there's a concerted bias against donald trump. i think he is serving these things up? >> i completely disagree. >> tell me why. >> because, you know, look at the data after the election is over, and look at the number of stories that are overwhelming -- like donald trump can say something outrageous, which he says every day, and at some point that stops being news, and that will run the head of a newscast for 15 minutes, and

it's just like with bernie sanders, and when bernie sanders was running, it would be hillary clinton coverage, donald trump coverage, and then there would be nine seconds of bernie sanders with a rally with 15,000 people talking about the system being rigged. you know, it's like willie geist said, and i willie i think you said it a week or two ago, we are all offended by so many things donald trump says, and we don't carry a flag saying i want to be able to tell my grandchildren, i stood up to the man that was loathed by 73% of the american people. that what it seems like we have. >> no way in defense of donald trump, but it's clear it's right in front of us that many reporters decided several months ago that this had to be stopped and dropped their veil of fairness, khgs a decision some reporters made and decided he

had to be stopped. i think objectivity, and mika, we talked about it a lot, it's a false idea. human beings are not objective, but you can be fair. there's a difference. and you go out and judge stories on their merits. donald trump has deserved most of the coverage he has gotten, let's be clear about that, and i think the fact that he is accused by nine different women of doing these things is newsworthy, and he earned the coverage he has had over the last two weeks. >> just quickly, that's my point. i totally 100% agree that there's a disconnect between large numbers of the media who have backgrounds like mine, okay, and people who support donald trump, and i think the most offensive thing to do and republicans have long been covered like this, is cover republican candidates, including donald trump like animals in a zoo, oh, hey, look at this one, look what he is doing over here, and the idea that donald trump

supporters, until you went through xenophobic, and racist, and the most offensive one to me they are all stupid, and that's ridiculous, and i think there's a difference between a message is resonating, coverage a group that supports him is not condescending, and then to willie's point, how do we not cover when nine women come forward against one of the two people who is the nominee? >> that's a false -- >> of course you should cover those stories, but even if you take that coverage out of it, and mika and i have talked about this, not as much on the air as we are talking this morning, but mika i think there's a reason why elyse jordan is telling one of the telling things out of the focus groups has to be with the media bias, the disconnect between voters and the media

whether you are talking about donald trump i -- supporters or bernie sanders's supporters. >> and from the get go, why people were instantly following donald trump, the media missed the story and they have been behind the 8 ball every since, and that's where we are at. i am not saying they are trying to tilt the election or these dreadful allegations are not true or are true, but they are important. i think the tapes are horrific. i knew a lot of this stuff was baked in the cake with donald trump, and everybody else is fluttering around the concept of his candidacy because they just didn't get it. there's the donald trump that says incredible things, that stands for some things i can't even speak of, but then there's the people who see hope in his success, and see hope in his

candidacy, and that is something that reporters missed, that editors missed and people were so horrified by the concept of trump and stormed off the set that they missed the story, they missed the needs of the american people that have not been met by washington for decades. >> and let me go to elyse here really quickly, and from the focus groups you show, and this is why the media, instead of throwing tomatoes at their tv sets right now actually listened to what we are saying, because the losers at the end of the day, it's the mainstream media. people can go to facebook now and they do for their news, and people can go to other social media outlets and talk about the disconnect you are finding out there between the media and the voters? >> just in the earliest focus groups we did in wisconsin, people were concerned about hillary clinton's health, and it was not at a time when she was

not as well as she was saying she was and had a cold in public. and then those people are crazy for questioning maybe something is up with hillary's health, but then she has to leave the 9/11 event early, and then it leaves the question as maybe the media is not as hard on hillary clinton as donald trump. >> again, we have to move forward. everybody stay with us, and still ahead on "morning joe," we talk to john kirby and want him to explain the claims of the quid pro quo and the clinton private server. we will crunch the latest numbers in minutes. you are watching "morning joe," and we will be right back.

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the republican nominee still is, i am a republican, and i made an extraordinary decision

not to support my own party's nominee because i found his words that came out a week or so ago to be so wrong, and i supported kasich, and when donald trump won, i wanted to respect the voters, and his words were wrong and degrading to women and for me that was the final straw. >> he stood by as donald trump called women pigs and worse, and he said i disagree with that but i still think he ought to be president, and he mocked a disabled person, and he said i disagree with that, and i still think he ought to be president. when he said that mccain was not a hero because he was captured, and he said i disagree with that but still think he ought to be president, and for months he disagreed with him but didn't have the courage to break with him. i think he chose party over country. >> that was ohio republican senator rob portman playing

defense against his democratic kh challenger. joins us now, co-founder and publisher of real politics, and political correspondent steve kornacki. i want to start with some of the down ballot races since we are here, and josh reports, seven senate races enough to shift the balance of power are within the margin of error, though several republicans are running 10 to 15 republicans are running ahead of trump. in north carolina, incumbent republican richard burr is neck

and with ross, and in ohio, port man way ahead of strickland, 56 to 40%, despite that tough debate the other night. tom bevin, what do you make of these? this is where a lot of republicans are looking for some salvation in the presidential election season? >> it seems like voters have made a distinction between donald trump the candidate and republican incumbents in a lot of the states, and we have a map on our site that shows all of the senate races and if you click on it and according to the averages as they stand today, how those states will be allocated, it's 50/50, and it's that close in a lot of the states, and if the bottom continues to fall out for donald trump, and a guy like pat toomey, he was up four or five, and now he is trailing and trump is down in the state. those are the kinds of things that we have to keep an eye on

and see. joe heck was leading the race for a long time and now has fallen behind. >> let's check out some of the new battleground polling. in a quinnipiac poll, clinton is within the margin of error, and in ohio, the candidates are tied and clinton on the upswing, and then ohio, trump is in the lead, 48 to 44, and clinton's poll has strengthened, in colorado, clinton taking the lead at 45 to

37. steve, let's go back to ohio for a second. interesting split between the senate race where the republicans are up by 16 points and the presidential race where it's tied. how do you account for that divide? >> portman, a good campaign, and that's john kasich's state and kasich has been in the forefront of distancing himself, and the other one you put up earlier that jumps out at me, too, and we talked about republican senate candidates running ahead of donald trump in their states. look at nevada. the republican senate candidate there is running behind donald trump. and nevada and iowa, it was an obama state in 2012 and 2008, and it looks like there's a latent blue color vote in that state that trump has woken up and those voters do not like the idea of the republican senate candidate being uncomfortable with donald trump, and he's in a

terrible bind, and that trump base doesn't like any wiggling on the part of the republican when it comes to trump. >> and there was talk about donald trump costing the republicans the senate, and it doesn't look like that's always the case. >> we are two weeks out and it's hard to tell which way it's going to go. it's hard to tell if there is a hidden trump vote of two to 3% that could make a big difference in some of the states, and you look at all the polls that came out yesterday and i am listening to what you are saying right now, and this race, at least in the senate for senate control, it's really on a razor's edge. if there's a last-minute swing to hillary clinton and donald trump -- and away from donald trump, that will be devastating for republican candidates, and likewise, if at the end of 2016,

if it's really a changed election, and if trump loses by two or three points, that could make the difference between republicans being in control or losing the senate. >> absolutely. that's really the key. and republicans are, you know, they are looking for ticket splitters. they need folks to be able to vote for them even if they don't vote for trump at the top of the ticket. toomey is the classic case, the suburbs of philly, and those voters left donald trump over the past couple of weeks and toomey can't win without them. it's a delicate dance. two-thirds of the voters say they want congressional candidates, house and senate to back donald trump and they don't like it when they come out and pull their endorsements or get on him publicly in the media, so that's a tough place, because they need trump voters to come out and they can't alienate the

independents and swing voters and it is making it difficult, but right now it looks like they are threading the needle. >> and jim was here earlier and he was talking about talk in washington among house republicans who are becoming increasingly leery, some of them, about a sweep and losing the house and that would be cataclysmic if the house went down as well? >> yeah, in terms of the odds of that happening, it's much more likely the republicans will hold on to the house, and that's the doomsday scenario, not only does donald trump lose the presidency and the senate and the house. that would be a huge sort of comedown for them. you have the way that map is drawn in a lot of the states, and the way the population

districted and so much of the democratic vote is packed into metropolitan areas. what you need for that to happen is one, the nature of donald trump's rhetoric over the following few weeks, does it cause republican voters to stay home, and the republican voters that show up, did they do something that we have not seen them do, and ticket splitting is becoming a thing of the past in american politics where you vote for one party for president and the other party for congress, and republicans may need more, and they are uncomfortable for donald trump, and that's something we have not been seeing a lot of. >> i was going to say. steve kornacki is a smart dude. number two, that's the issue here, can you get a politics that has been tribal over the last decade at least, and can you find a way, can pat toomey say i am a republican but not

like donald trump to a philly suburban voter, and that's the issue here, we have become so tribal in our politics, i vote for the "r" only or the "d" only when the "r" candidate is not a traditnal republican nominee, but a donald trump who is the most untraditional of nominees, and can you win by convincing voters, yes, he is a republican and i am a republican, and that's not necessarily the same thing and i represent something different, and it's a hard thing to do. it's more difficult to do, i think, in the elections we are in now, where people really line up behind in their tribe and never the twain meet. we will see. >> i see a lot of antidotal, but when we do rooms, there's a lodge number of republicans voting for hillary, and it's not the opposite, though, at all.

>> and he is losing a lot of enthusiasm gap, and that's something he has led the entire time, the enthusiasm gap and it's gone now. >> mika, i just want to say quickly, you also have to look at the crowds we have been talking to. >> i know. >> most of the crowds we talked to are in new york city, and along the east coast. i suspect if we were talking to a union -- let's say union members in ohio, at caddie kay said, it may not be all voting for hillary. that's one of the great disconnects. again, it's who we are talking to. >> it's still a race. >> yeah, and i think hillary has an 85%, 90% -- nate cone puts it at 89% this morning in the new york times. steve kornacki, i am wondering,

quickly, the polls that show hillary clinton with a massive lead, and do you change what you said a week or two ago, there's an outside chance trump gets to 270. >> there's two ways to look at the election, two puzzle pieces donald trump has to deal with. one is he needs to shore up the romney states and win all the states that romney took in 2012. we have been talking about that in terms of north carolina being the challenge area, and the problem for trump is the challenge got bigger in the last week or two, and it's now arizona and utah and georgia and maybe a few others. he has to win all of those and that's a bigger problem than before. if he can do that, then you start talk about the obama states that have been out there for trump. ohio, florida, new hampshire, iowa, nevada, and he needs to put all of those together too. and the odds of them doing the big picture puzzle pieces

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are you troubled by the allegations made by a number of women now that he may have made unwarranted advanced? >> he assured me privately what he said publicly, which is that these are lies and fabrications and a number of allegations have been discredited and we will see what happens with the others and i can only take him at his word and i am. the important things in the election are not being discussed. >> that was part of kelly o'donnell's exclusive interview with trump surrogate, chris

christie. and kelly joins the table now. this is a tough couple of weeks for surrogates and trump himself >> i think it's difficult for him, and he did not think trump did not apologize -- >> he has legal background and has to look at this from different perspectives that are not good. >> it has been a troublesome time, and he was attending an event and i stopped him on the street and i fully expected he would walk by and he didn't, he stopped by and answered several minutes of questions, and they don't believe there has been equal coverage of the wikileaks and he mentioned several times a question being passed to hillary clinton's team to the primaries,

and lots of those things, where if you flip it to the republican side, that would have been coveraged rig hrus orourigorous. and he thinks the candidate and the public will accept the results of the election, and it's not a mechanical fraud that he is talking about, but an unfair playing field go into the election, and we had a little bit more of the conversation we can play. >> are you proud of the campaign he is running? >> listen. for me the person who needs most to be concerned about the kind of campaign they are run something the candidate because it's the candidate's campaign, and it's not my campaign or jeff sessions campaign, rudy guiliani's campaign, we're surrogates and i am proud of what i have said and that's all i can control and the rest of it

i can't control. >> that was smooth. >> no, that was not smooth. >> what is he supposed to say, mika? how can he possibly be proud of the campaign and the effort, and it's a debasement to our civics and a debasement to our democratic life in this country and we know everything we need to know about the women and the tapes, and by the way, donald trump admitted on tape 11 years ago to a pattern of a behavior that any prosecutor in america was assaultive towards women. >> i have been saying that. >> but let's talk about the two huge issues now in this campaign, and we're not talk enough about it, and we had the first battle in the first cyber war being waged on the united states by hostile country, russia, our number one geopolitical foe. and the republican party is celebrating it and the democratic party is one of the

most important institutions in our country, as is the republican party, and both of these institutions are essential to our national life and both institutions are among the greatest institutions in the history of the world for the advancement of human freedom and dignity, and the institution is under assault by a foreign power, and republicans are looking at this and saying, hey, no big deal because it's helping us in our fight against hillary clinton. what would ronald reagan's reaction be to an attack by russia on the democratic institutions in the sovereignty of the united states? number one. number two, i get what chris christie is saying about donald trump and the legitimacy of the election, and what he is saying, our democratic institutions,

this is an assault on profoundly important institutions to the country, and it is disgraceful. he must say in this debate that he will acknowledge the legitimacy of how we choose our leaders. >> he did in the first debate. >> he's moved on from that now. >> that's part of why he may not -- his chief surrogates who have been elected officials are much more sensitive to the point you are making. and republicans have seen a treasure trove in the hacked documents, things that reinforce what they believe good arguments against hillary clinn or filling a narrative that people thought there was no evidence for. but the issue of the undermining of the process has certainly been played out. >> i think your interview showed the awkward position chris christie is in. >> trying to be his own person, because this is not an easy place to be. if you are a chief surrogate,

you can't do things that under mind your candidacy. >> i am being told to rap, and we will talk. still ahead,harvard's top pollster. plus, did the state department try to strike a deal with the fbi to make the clinton e-mail scandal seem less severe? john kirby joins us in our next hour to talk about that. "morning joe" is back in a moment. u're not a cook, if you don't cook. you're not a firefighter, if you don't fight fires. or a coach, if you don't coach. and you can't be our leader, if you don't lead. our next president needs to take action on social security, or future generations could lose up to $10,000 a year. we're working hard, what about you? hey candidates, do your jobs. keep social security strong. you're at the top of your game.. at work or at play, you're unstoppable.

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a new survey shows the major split when it comes to how women voters see the presidential race. 59% of cosmo readers are backing hillary clinton in the race. while just 19% are going for donald trump. the survey was conducted in partnership with the john della volpe, ceo of social sphere and director of polling at harvard university's institute of politics and he joins us from boston. you guys have done this before. >> yeah. >> tt' not an incredibly surprising result. >> at this stage, it's not, mika. thanks for having me back again. but we have to put this in perspective. young women over the last eight years have been somewhere between a blind spot or the great achilles heel for the clinton campaign. so she's had tremendous progress in the last few weeks. and don't forget the first time that i actually talked about the survey of cosmopolitan readers

and voters, they preferred bernie sanders to be president, not hillary clinton. this doesn't seem surprising today. but when you look back at the last eight years she's come a long way. >> elise. >> your last poll was taken, when were these results? had the trump video come out yet? >> yeah, this was taken just on the hemes of that trump video. just over a couple days last week. >> what kind of measurable difference could you tell from, say, june? >> we did the last poll from june. her favorability, it's not just driven by trump. her favorability was a plus six back in june heading to the conventions. now it's a plus 26. so it's a combination really of trump losing a couple but i think the story around this is i have been talking for eight years now about hillary clinton needs to establish a relationship with young voters. generally, specifically, with young female voters. i think all of that is going to come to a head at this point. trump is helping, bernie sanders is helping by not being her

opponent right now, but aot of the credit is really deserved of the clinton campaign at this point. >> i'm going to point out my favorite question in your poll. and you're going to give me the respau responses. which word best describes your mood going into the election. >> can we say it on tv? >> yeah. we have that open ended but i wanted to clean it up a little bit. fe fearful. in fact, 4 out of 5 young educated women, 4 out of 5, say some combination of fearful and embarrassed in terms of what they're feeling about this election and some respeblths, the country. >> another number that jumped out at me is the answer to the question, is this candidate a role model for children in america. this is young women, 18 to 34, who are looking at perhaps the first woman president in the history of our country. only 7% say donald trump is a role model. still only 53% say hillary clinton is a role model. i would have thought among that group, because of what hillary clinton represents historically,

that number might be a little higher. >> i can see those clearly, clearly room to grow, and you're right, i think expectations are it should be higher for those reasons. you know, young women have never really thought about this election being about elected a woman just because they're a woman. we know about what her vulnerabilities are around trust and around kind of establishing a relationship with this skreneration. so that's a good number to watch. i think it's got room to grow, and it's probably kind of a second indicator to the leading indicator which is her favorability. at this point, i was frankly surprised that her favorability is up in the mid to high 60s now. it's been a tough group for her to crack, actually. >> john della volpe, thank you very much. up next, exactly three weeks until election day. >> thank ygod. >> that is if we get a result. and the clinton campaign moves on to the republican turf,

ramping up spending in traditionally red states. plus, hallie jackson joins us live from las vegas as the candidates get ready for tomorrow's third and final presidential debate. that should be fascinating. "morning joe" will be right back. you work at ge? yeah, i do. you guys are working on some pretty big stuff over there, right? like a new language for crazy-big, world-changing machines. well, not me specifically. i work on the industrial side. so i build the world-changing machines. i get it. you can't talk because it's super high-level. no, i actually do build the machines. blink if what you're doing involves encrypted data transfer. wait, what? wowwww... wow? what wow? there is no wow. [ala♪m beeping] ♪

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wire... and plants needed to give my shop... a face... no one will forget. see what the power of points can do for your business. learn more at chase.com/ink i say to mr. trump's supporters, most of you understand that the system is rigged in favor of the wealthy and the powerful. think about voting for hillary clinton on this issue alone.

what donald trump said is yes, i am a multibillionaire, one of the wealthiest people in the country. yes, i have mansions allover the world. yes, i live in the lap of luxury, and i, a multibillionaire, don't have to pay a nickel in federal income tax because i got you to pay the taxes. so i say to mr. trump's supporters, if you're out there today, and i know you are. and you're hurting, and you're making $9 or $10 an hour, ask yourself which candidate is going to raise the minimum wage and the answer is hillary clinton, not donald trump. >> welcome back to "morning joe." it is tuesday, october 18th. mike barnicle is still with us. and joining the conversation, we have contributor to "time" magazine and msnbc political analyst elise jordan with us. former mccain senior strategist and msnbc political analyst

steve schmidt at the table, and in washington, msnbc political contributor and editor at the "washington post," chris cillizza. joe, where do you want to begin? >> well, i want to begin with the bernie sanders clip and go to steve schmidt to explain this better than probably i ever could. because he helped with schwarzenegger's campaign and has studied voters that aren't overly idealogical for a long time. i have told the story before that i helped the kennedys, joe kennedy in particular, with the renaming of the justice department for bobby kennedy. and spent time talking to him about his father, who was one of the two heroes that gote into politics. the other was ronald reagan. and neither here nor ethel or anybody in the family could ever understand how so many people that supported bobby kennedy's

extraordinary 1968 campaign, it was about hopes and dreams and aspirations and drawing upon the better angels within all of us. could immediately go to supporting george wallace after bobby's assassination in june of 1968. and it haunted them. and i suppose it's something they still can't figure out. i saw bernie sanders up there, and what most of us can't figure out but people outside of the beltway and outside of manhattan can figure out is how somebody could say i like that bernie sanders guy, but if he's not there, i'll vote for trump. we have seen "new york times" articles that talk about communities ravaged by the effects of the changes over the last 30 years, either going for bernie sanders or donald trump. the "times" actually laid it out

there. can you explain what seems so foreign to all of us, how most americans just aren't -- at least the swing voters, just aren't idealogical. >> i'll try. if you look at politic in america, joe, over the last 30 years, we're conditioned to thinking about it as a contest down the middle of the field between right and left, between the 45 yard lines. that's where american politics takes place. now, increasingly the divide in the ectorate is a horizontal line. and it's between the elites who run institutions, who have lost credibility and trust and everybody else. elise is involved in a project that is fascinating. it's called ashcroft in america, ashcroft from the united kingdom, they're doing focus groups all over the country that are profoundly insightful to this question, but this is a global phenomenon. this manifested itself in the

brexit vote. it will play out with the french presidential elections which are the third of these four globally kaungs conventional elections and the german elections in september. increasingly, the divide is between the elites and everybody else. the permeability between a solid wall that runs idealogically down the middle of the field that separates right from left, now there's a hole in it because a trump voter and a sanders voter are united in the belief the system is rigs, that there's one set of rules for people at the top and a different set of rules for everybody else. that defines politics today. though i will say i was gratified to hear after he lost the election that bernie sanders was able to acquire his third home, which generally speaking, is a lot of houses for a socialist. >> okay. so mika, you know, something i found that's fascinating also this election cycle is every four years i always know when i

go to friends' houses or relatives-houses or just talk about elections that republicans line up on one side of the room and say we're going to vote for the republican candidate because the democratic candidate is evil, and my democratic friends line up on the other side of the room saying we're going to vote for the democratic candidate because the republican candidate is evil. i really see a split this year for the first time. again, at least in the areas that i circulate in, where it's not between republican and democrat. it's between haves and have nots. advanced degrees versus high school graduates. the rich versus the poor. it's pretty stunning how class distinction makes such a huge difference in america when we have long been -- we think, more of a class-free society than say britain or france or germany,

the other countries steve schmidt talked about. >> to pick up on what steve was saying, there's one word that steve used a couple of times that is key, i think, to understanding where we are now in terms of this split within the country, our country. it's the word "loss." too many people in the media, our business, coastal elites, where a lot of people live who are in our business, don't understand the loss that's taken place in this country over the last 20 to 25 years. specifically if you have a 20-year-old son today, serving in iraq or afghanistan, that child was 5 years old when this war began. that's 15, 16 years ago. then along comes the winter of 2008 and 2009. when another loss occurs that shakes the foundations of the culture in the country. people lose homes. they lose incomes. they lose jobs. they're unemployed.

they lose their 401(k). they lose their life savings. what are they thinking along the course of all these years? a couple decades, two and a half decades or 25 years. they're thinking this. they have no voice in government. that they are represented by a professional political class who just keep running for re-election and raising money to enhance their own futures and their own present status, but they don't talk about their lives. what do they read and hear now, lately, in the past year. if they go to a trump rally, they're not going to listen to a guy who they sort of like what he says without paying attention to who he is. they hear and read in the papers that they're probably racists for going to the trump rally. and they take great offense at this. and they ought to take great offense at this. >> yes, they do. yes, they should. >> you don't understand their lives and we don't cover their lives. >> amen. you know, mika, you can question donald trump and whether donald

trump is a racist or not. we've had that discussion. but the media's broad brush of trump supporters and sanders supporters have been offensive from the start. claiming that sanders supporters were somehow young, insolent, ignorant children who had no idea what was in their self-interest or all trump supporters were racist, bigoted, xenophobic, misogynist rednecks. deplorables. deplorables. and what else was that, incurable? >> irredeemable. >> irredeemable. the fact is, willie, people that have been struggling for the past 30 years know what coastal elites as mike barnicle said, haven't figured out. this is an economy that has been on the decline for 30 years, 40 years. average wages for men in decline, as jeffrey sachs says,

in real term since 1973. and just look in this century. we were kept afloat by a tech bubble. then we were kept afloat by a housing bubble. and then the only reason we didn't sink into a depression was because of a government spending bubble. there is no growth industry out there. as we were saying on the set yesterday, you take all the googles, all the microsofts, all the apples, all the yahoos, combine all those employees together that work for those companies, probably doesn't come close to matching how many people general motors employed in 1964. >> and instead of having that pain listened to, instead of having that pain addressed by elites in washington but also in the media, those supporters of donald trump feel like that pain has been mocked throughout this campaign. there's a reason when donald trump says the media is stealing this election from us and they have rigged the election that his supporters by 81% believe

that to be true. because they watch the media. they watch late night shows make fun of them. they watch the press make fun of them. they're put on display, as you said, called racists in many cases. that doesn't mean the things donald trump is saying are the right solution to the pain. a lot of us agree they have not been, but they feel like every time they're mocked on tv, in a newspaper, on a website, that divide grows larger and larger and more damage is done and we're pulled farther and farther apart. >> for the first time in generations kids aren't doing as well. that's the reality, that it appears to be being ignored. >> i don't think you can overstate the impact of the media in the anger against the media in this election. that's something that focus groups that, yes, the anger is there against our government, against our elected officials and the rigged system, but also the media being biased on right and left, 8 out of 10 people think there's no hope for what the media puts in front of you. >> history will look at this

election and the media coverage of it. >> that's why people hate chris cillizza, right? >> i have to say, and i'll just say it, over the past couple wie weeks, media coverage has been deplorable. it's been deplorable. it has been one-sided. it's been biased. it's been every bit as bad as media coverage of the bernie sanders phenomenon at the very beginning of the democratic process. it was slanted and biased against bernie sanders. it was completely weighted for hillary clinton. sanders was holding massive rallies that everybody ignored, that everybody tried to explain away. and it's because, and mike barnicle nailed it, cillizza, we're all at the end coastal elites. that didn't get bernie sanders and don't get why people would ever vote for donald trump. >> well, okay, let me say two things. i disagree with you, but i agree with you that i am a cstal

elite. i went to a prep school. >> do you disagree or agree? >> i went to a prep school for high school. i went to georgetown, and i lived in connecticut and lived in d.c. so i fit, and my house is inside the beltway. i filt all of those things. >> you're a man of the people. >> oh, yes. but let me say this. i disagree with you about the media coverage being unfair. let me tell you why, in this last period. donald trump every morning gets on twitter and does something like he did yesterday. he injects something that is not true, that there is widespread voter fraud that drives news cycles. people always say to me on twitter and all these things, why don't you ignore him? we can't ignore him. he's one of two people who can be elected president. i don't know what's unfair. he is creating news that we then cover. am i biased in favor of defending what we do? yes, absolutely. has some of the media coverage whether it's bernie sanders or

hillary clinton or donald trump been somewhat unfair? sure. because the media is made up of a bunch of humans who get stuff wrong, but i don't think there's a concerted bias against donald trump. i think he's serving these things up. >> i completely disagree. willie geist. >> tell me why. >> you know what, look at the data after this election is over. look at the number of stories that are overwhelming -- like donald trump can say something outrageous, which he says every day, at some point, that stops being news. and that will run the head of a newscast for 15 minute. it's just like with bernie sanders when bernie sanders was running, it would be hillary clinton coverage, hillary clinton coverage, donald trump coverage, donald trump coverage, and there would be nine seconds of bernie sanders with a rally with 15,000 people talking about the system being rigged. and you know, it's like willie geist said, and willie, i think

you said this a week or two ago, we're all offended by so many things that donald trump says, but we don't come to work every morning carrying a flag saying i want to be able to tell my grandchildren that when the time was -- required it, i stood up to the man who was loathed by 73% of the american people. >> yeah. >> that's what it seems like we have. >> and again, no way a defense of donald trump, but it's clear. >> no defense of donald trump. >> it's right in front of us that many reporters decided several months ago that this had to be stopped, and dropped their veil of fairness, which is a decision that some reporters made, and decided that he had to be stopped. now, i think objectivity, and we have talked about this a lot, is a false idea. human beings are not objective, but what you can be is fair. there's a difference between objectivity and fair, and you go out and judge the stories on their merit. again, donald trump has deserved most of the coverage he's gotten, let's be clear about

that. i think the fact that he is accused by nine different women of doing these things is newsworthy and something to be looked into. he's earned the coverage he had over the past two weeks. >> quickly, that's my point. i totally 100% agree that there is a disconnect between large numbers of the media who have backgrounds like mine, okay, and people who support donald trump. i think the most offensive thing to do, and republicans have long been covered like this, is cover a republican candidate like animals in the zoo. look at this one, look what he's doing over here. the idea that donald trump are -- and joe, you went through xenophobic, misogynistic, offensive. what is offensive to me is they're all stupid. which is ridiculous. i think there's a difference between saying look, the message is resonating. covering the group that supports him in a way that is not

condescending. if they knew better, they wouldn't support him, and then to willie's point, how do we not cover when nine women come forward -- >> you should. >> -- against one of the two people that is the nominee. >> that's a false choice. of course, you should. >> right. >> of course you should cover those stories. but even if you take that coverage out of it, and mika and i have talked about this, not as much on the air as we're talking this morning, but mika, i think there's a reason why elise jordan says one of the most telling things out of the focus groups have to do with the media bias, the disconnect between voters and the media, whether you're talking about donald trump supporters or bernie sanders supporters. >> look, i think from the get-go, donald trump and the whole concept of why people were instantly following him was rejected by the condescending liberal media. they missed the story, and they

have been behind the eight-ball ever since. that's where we're at. and i'm not saying that they're trying to tilt the election, that these really dreadful allegations aren't true or are true. but they're important. i think the tapes are horrific. i also knew a lot of this stuff was baked in the cake with donald trump. and everyone else has been sort of fluttering around the concept of his candidacy because they just didn't get it. there's the donald trump that says incredible things, that stands for some things i can't even speak of. but then there's the people who see hope in his success and see hope in his candidacy, and that is something that reporters missed. that editors missed, that people were so horrified by concept of trump and stormed off this set that they missed the story. they missed the needs of the american people that haven't been met by washington for decades. >> and let me go to elise here

really quickly. elise, from the focus groups you show, and this is why the media instead of throwing tomatoes at their tv sets right now should actually listen to what we're saying, because the losers at the end of the day, it's the mainstream media. people can go to facebook now, and they do for their news. people can go to other social media outlets. talk about the disconnect that you are finding out there across america between the media and the voters. >> you know, just in the earliest focus groups we did in wisconsin, people were really concerned about hillary clinton's health. it was at a time when it wasn't mainstream to discuss that she maybe wasn't as well as she was saying she was. and had a cold in public. then, those people were derided as crazy. they're crazy for questioning that maybe something is up with lik hik's health. then a couple weeks later, she has to leave the 9/11 memorial service early. it gives credence to these conspiracy theories when the

mainstream media perhaps isn't being as tough on hillary clinton as donald trump. >> still ahead on "morning joe," john kirby, spokesman for the state department, joins us live. >> plus, under pressure, republican senators across the country try to manage the message. we stand up to our nominee. why won't democrats stand up to theirs? >> but first, here's bill karins with a check on the forecast. >> this is kind of a wild swing we're on. we went from pretty chilly to record warmth across the country. yesterday was 100 in kansas. we see 90s today in southern texas and 80s are widespread through the southeast, up through areas of the mid-atlantic. expect maybe about another two or three dozen record highs at least today. we also have wet weather out there in the northwest. seattle has showers this morning. northern california has decent damp weather too. this is good. we wanted wet weather in the mountainous areas that were pretty dry over the summer. not a lot of excitement out there. this is just incredibly warm, from 91 in dallas to 83 in

st. louis. record high possible in new york city today at 81 degrees. as we look towards tomorrow, we start to get some of the cooler air into st. louis and chicago. but new york and d.c. and baltimore, looks like wednesday will be one of the last really warm spring-like days. so sometimes in october, i talk about snow. no signs of that right now. now we're going to show you a picture of skating at the ice crink. good timing. i was telling them how warm it is. more "morning joe" when we come back. one of millions of orders on this company's servers. accessible by thousands of suppliers and employees globally. but with cyber threats on the rise, mary's data could be under attack. with the help of at&t, and security that senses and mitigates cyber threats, their critical data is safer than ever. giving them the agility to be open & secure. because no one knows & like at&t.

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coming up on "morning joe," it's november 9th, imagine you're on a desert island. you have a cold drink in your hand. far away from all the noise of the election. what does america look like? anand giridharadas joins us. >> plus -- >> admiral kirby, you have to

stop coming on days like this. we always have such pleasant conversations but they chum up the waters and then they throw you in. so do i apologize at the beginning of the conversation or at the end? >> joe, these are the only days you invite me on. >> fair enough. okay, come on. this was a quid pro quo, admiral. >> yeah. it's going to be one of those days. that was john kirby responding in august. >> he's great. >> a good guy. but he was responding then to accusations of a quid pro quo with iran for american detainees. this morning, he joins us again to talk about the allegations of quid pro quos once again. he's next when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪ ♪

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in the fight against isis and the u.s. is assisting kurdish and iraqi troops in the offensive to retake the city of mosul. the islamic state's last major stronghold in iraq. between iraqi and peshmerga forces, approximately 20 villages have been secured in the outskirts of the city. here's nbc's chief foreign correspondent richard engel in iraq with more on how this massive operation is unfolding. >> reporter: good morning, mika. the offensive to push isis out of its iraqi stronghold, mosul, is continuing. we have pushed forward to a front line position held by iraqi troops. we're just outside a village

about 30 miles south of mosul. and this is an ongoing operation. iraqi troops think they have cleared most of this village from isis, which has been here for about two years. but there is still some isis presence, it is believed, that's why you're seeing people leaving the town. they're afraid that this operation is ongoing. but generally, they are happy. they say that they feel they have been liberated. people have been flashing us victory signs but there still could be snipers inside, suicide bombers waiting for a last stand. but in general, this is how the operation is unfolding. iraqi forces advance. they take a village like this one, which is still being cleared, then once they feel they have sufficiently cleared it, they leap frog to the next, to the next, until they reach mosul. iraqi commanders and american commanders believe that momentum is on their side. and that if this continues, they could reach the built-up center of mosul with a real fight could

begin in a matter of days or just a few weeks. mika. >> all right, nbc's richard eng engel, thank you very much. now to the new controversy surrounding hillary clinton's private e-mail server while she was secretary of state. newly revealed notes from the fbi's investigation into clinton show a federal agent accused a top state department official of discussing a quid pro quo to resolve a dispute over whether a clinton e-mail should be classified. as part of the interagency discussion over the classifications, the undersecretary of state for management, patrick kennedy, originally contacted the fbi about a single e-mail that was in dispute. a discussion ensued that led to another fbi agent suggesting there was a transactional deal. the note saying, in exchange for marking the e-mail unclassified, state would reciprocate by allowing the fbi to place more agents in countries where

they're presently forbidden, with a focus on iraq. but yesterday, the state department was emphatic that no quid pro quo was offered by the official and both agencies denied that a deal was ever made. let's bring in state department spokesman john kirby. joe, you want to start this off? >> yeah. admiral, come on. come on. we have to stop meeting this way. you saw the tease. it's always in times of controversy. can they not just have you come on to talk about something good happening at the state department? >> a long time ago, joe, you promised me that one day we would talk about football. ever since i have been coming on your show, my latin has been getting a lot better. >> quid pro quo, here we go again. let me read a line from the "times." the state department has pushed back pretty hard. let me read a line from the "times" and you clarify for us. what remains unclear from the documents is whether it was mr. kennedy or an fbi official who purportedly offered the quid pro quo. that's this morning, front page

"new york times." help clarify it for our viewers. >> our viewers, and we looked at this and so did the fbi, that there was no quid pro quo even suggested. i saw the "new york times" piece, but honestly, we looked at this. there was no suggestion of one. there were two conversations. one about the fact that we disagreed with the e-mail classified as secret. the fbi saw it a different way. they won that argument. we did have a conversation with the fbi over some slots they wanted in iraq. those conversations were happening at the same time, but they were not linked. there was no bargain suggested here. >> so what i'm going to do here, this will be a softball because we're usually pushing you against a wall. obviously, there are some that would believe, and i have at times believed, that the state department pressed a little harder because they were trying to protect hillary clinton. that's obviously something the state department is going to push back hard on. >> absolutely. >> i put that out there for people who are very wary of secretary clinton.

now, explain to me the history, though, for everybody else, of how the state department, willie was talking about this before, the state department and the fbi and other agencies have long had this give and take, this sort of institutional pull about classifying and the state department wanting things, less things classified. explain that, if you will. >> we are, by nature, an outward facing organization. the act of diplomacy is the act of dialogue and talking and discussion. and openness and transparency, to the degree we can, obviously. other agencies in the government, the defense department, the intelligence community and fbi and law enforcement organization have a different view in terms of the way they process and disseminate information. that's to be expected. you would also expect that agencies that have a different world view in terms of how we're looking at information with debate and discuss and argue over the degree of classification. when we went through that 55,000

pages of e-mails that former secretary clinton passed over to us, we processed them through the freedom of information act, but we wanted to take a different view on some of those e-mails than other agencies. that, again, is no surprise. and in this case, in this particular case, we didn't think it should be classified secret. we thought law enforcement redactions would be sufficient. the fbi had a different view, they won that argument. the e-mail remains classified and the redacted version you can see on the website. >> because of who we were talking ability, hillary clinton in the middle of a presidential campaign or about to be in the middle of one, was this case handled differently by the state department? did you give it more attention than you normally would? >> no. willie, actually, the process is very rigorous. the freedom of information act screening process, and again, we went through a lot of traffic and it took us a long time, and we got excoriated by people for taking so long. a very rigorous process by which we clean these things up for public release, but no political

agenda at play. not in terms of timing, not in terms of process, not in terms of what we redacted and didn't redact. woo went strictly by the freedom of information act, the law of the land, and we followed it. >> help me out here. i'm kind of slow today. but in the classification process, are you saying that there are multiple levels of classification certificates that the department of agriculture will say, you know, don't mention the asparagus and they classify it, and the department of state has another category. is there one sole agency, one sole authority in charge of saying that's classified. that ought to be classified. >> it's determined by the source agency. that's where the debate quite frankly, mike, got into, because some information we, our diplomats were talking back and forth on e-mail based on news articles, stuff that was in the public domain, which other agencies though it was in the public domain, still found to be

classified. that where that debate came in. who owns the information, who is the originator of it, often is a contentious discussion. it's an art, not a science. and many different agencies have a stake in a particular document. that's why we had this very rigorous interagency debate and discussion. on this one, we lost the argument, on others we won. but each agency is responsible for the classification of the documents. >> good morning, steve schmidt. i was wondering if you could be able to illuminate for us what would the consequence be for a u.s. navy e-6 petty officer if they handled classified information as loosely as the secretary of state did and is there any conceivable possibility should they avoid court-martial they would have maintained their security clearance? >> well, again, i don't want to compare the two. the fbi already spoke to former secretary clinton's e-mail practices. that's all on the record and they didn't feel there was a

need to take that forward in a legal way. i think i'm going to let them speak for that. to your other question, i think what you're getting at is the seriousness with which any federal agency considers classification. i certainly would put under strict guidelines on that and observe them and of course we expect that of everybody here at the state department, too. everybody is trained on how to handle classified information. there's rigorous retraining in place. >> that involves not having your own server, right? >> again, i think this has been talked about before. >> no, it really hasn't. it makes no sense. it really makes no sense. >> so admiral, what you're saying is there would be no consequences for a u.s. navy e-6 petty officer who handled classified information descriptively like the fbi director handled it. i'm not talking about the decision to prosecute. it's an apples and oranges thing. i'm talking about what the fbi director said about the handling of classified information. i'm curious, from a standard perspective, that would a navy

e-6 midlevel enlisted person in the navy, would there be any kwau consequences for handling information like that, as a former navy admiral, who can illuminate that for the viewers. >> i'm sor i didn't answer the question quite the way i should have. the answer is yes. the improper handling of classified information is something we take seriously, and people are held to account for that. it's the same here at the state department. people are still held to account for the proper handling of classified information. we take this very seriously. i'm not going to get into what the fbi determined or didn't determine in her case, but yes, whether you said, you said e-6, first class petty officer, whether it's a chief officer, a lieutenant, an admiral like i was, if you mishandle classified information and it comes to light, you would bile held to account, as you should be. >> john kirby, thank you very much. we appreciate it. >> great to be with you again. still ahead, donald trump

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is paul ryan hurting you or helping you? >> i don't want to be knocking paul ryan. i think he could be more supportive to the republican nominee. we're doing well. i think we're going to win the election. >> do you think he wants you to win? >> maybe not because maybe he wants to run in four years or maybe he doesn't know how to win. maybe he just doesn't know how to win. >> that was donald trump speaking about house speaker paul ryan's less than enthusiastic support. joining us from the site of tomorrow's third and final presidential debate in las vegas, nbc news correspondent hallie jackson. how are the candidates preparing for tomorrow night? >> hey, there, mika. we're seeing a lot of what we have seen in the prior debates which is hillary clinton getting off the campaign trail as she's doing right now, instead focusing on debate prep. donald trump instead doing the opposite, basically going to

these rallies. he's got two in colorado today, and frankly, trying to feed off the energy of his supporters. that seems to be what gets donald trump riled up and ready for these huge nights for him. tomorrow night is potentially very big. his last opportunity to get on this national stage after what has been a dramatic week of events, of news headlines for him. and he's really got some ground to make up if at this point, with just three weeks until election day, even possible. take a look at the last few national polls that have come out after monday. trump is trailing from four points on the low end to 12 points on the high end. i think that's from the monmouth poll. but in battleground states, this is something that insiders have pointed out, even though he's had a terrible week or two, even though he's trailing her nationally when you look at where the snapshot of the race is, in battleground states, he's not trailing by as much as you would think. they're pointing to places like here in nevada where he's down by two. ohio, where the new cnn/orc poll

shows he's up by four. a lot riding on tomorrow night and it's happening athis debate stage behind me in vegas. >> hallie jackson, thank you very much. that should be very interesting tomorrow night. >> letting bygones be bygones. can the american people louvre mon after the most toxic election in recent history. >> yes, yes, i can. >> yes? okay. >> short memories. short memories. i know a lot of people are angry. but i think we'll be fine. >> all right. so the question is, is the damage done? joe says maybe not. we'll talk about that straight ahead. keep it right here on "morning joe." yeah, a little. you're making money now, are you investing? well, i've been doing some research. let me introduce you to our broker. how much does he charge? i don't know. okay. uh, do you get your fees back if you're not happy? (dad laughs) wow, you're laughing. that's not the way the world works. well, the world's changing.

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california's schools. woman: vote yes on prop 55 to help our children thrive. this election is a disturbing choice between someone that i disagree with on many things and someone that i disagree with on virtually everything. >> are you voting for and encouraging others to vote for -- >> as i said, i have not reached a point where i can endorse donald trump. i feel like i'm in the same position as an awful lot of pennsylvanians. we have two badly flawed candidates. i can't believe in a country of 300 million this is what we got, but katie mcginty can't even begin to acknowledge the incredible flaws of the candidate of her party. >> one of the reasons i changed my mind and ran for re-election is i knew that no matter who wins, you're going to need people in the senate willing to stand up to the next president of the united states. i'm the only one running that will. i have repeatedly done so when it comes to the nominee of my

party. congressman murphy hasn't once broken with the nominee of his party. >> we'll dig into that charge when we come right back. stay here. americans are buying more and more of everything online. and so many businesses rely on the united states postal service to get it there. that's why we make more ecommerce deliveries to homes than anyone else in the country. the united states postal service. priority: you how do we measure greatness in america? it's measured by what we do for our children. it's why as president i'll invest in our schools.

in college that leads to opportunities... not debt. and an economy where every young american can find a job that lets them start a family of their own. i've spent my life fighting for kids and families. i want our success to be measured by theirs. i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message.

joining us now, columnist for bloomberg view, margaret carlson, and author and nbc ne s s contributor anand giridharadas. you have an interesting twitter soliloquy. can i call it that? you sought to answer the question, if hillary wins, how will the trumpests be tweeted?

what did you muse, anand? like 20 in a row. >> you know, it was the weekend, and my wife was away. >> wow. i guess there have been worse. >> we're focused on the finish line of the election and what's going to happen. how are trump voters going to behave at the polls. i'm more worried about november 9th in many ways than november 8th because what's going to happen if these polls you're talking about are trusted is hillary clinton will win. not much beloved but will win. and there will be millions and millions of people who made an attempt to elect a kind of race-baiting resentment oriented demagogue and who lost and who now -- trump will fly off in a helicopter. they're going to still have to live next to millions of people who that campaign belittled and threatened and made feel small. i worry about how we're going to

cope with that. i worry about thanksgiving a couple weeks after the election and a lot of families where this is actually a very hard issue, frankly, but i really worry about it. and i think hillary supporter will have to think about these people whose distress you talked about earlier today, who have felt left out, but what have also flirted with a pretty ugly, resentful, racially tinged politics, how are they treated. >> e, that's, i think, been a struggle for the clinton campaign, which is reaching out to people who feel left behind by washington. >> well, i don't think anand needs to worry so much about the trump voter. they'll be able to hold their own during thanksgiving dinner. and have to answer the question, margaret carlson, how the clinton -- will ask the question of people, their relatives around the table, how can you vote for a woman who should be in jail. which is what most trump voters believe of hillary clinton and

55% of americans believe of hillary clinton. i think it's going to be like as we said in the '80s, margaret, mad. mutually assured destruction if we don't learn how to get along. >> the mutually assured -- we're going to have mutually assured seduction to bring people on either side kind of back into the middle after the passions, after the passions have died down a little. there's a way to honor the trump voter without being for trump. which unfortunately, hillary clinton did not do. that deplorables thing is a lasting blot on her campaign. and she will have to live with that. but we don't have to live with it, and i do think you can honor what's drawn people to trump, which is -- >> has that been done yet? >> i don't think it's been done because in the press, we have tended to lump trump's voters with trump. instead of honoring what brought them to trump, which is elitism

and washington being broken and certainly mitch mcconnell was no more listening to those voters than harry reid. so it isn't as if either party was listening. >> it remains an open question whether or not donald trump goes away. he may still be around, but the frustrations of the people who gravitated to him aren't going anywhere. the question is, is there another person in the republican party, another conservative or independent who picks up on that energy and uses it maybe in a more constructive way? >> i don't want to wait for a leader to deal with this energy because i think how badly we went when we don't deal with each other as human beings. i think every institution needs to do this. i would say to your point, this needs to be a two-way reconciliation, and here's my suggestion for kind of each side. i think the elites we're talking about who relate to understanding this pain, who didn't see the roots of trumpism need to see it. need to re-engage with that american, needs to understand

what's doing on. i think the people who went that way and that trump movement and perhaps supported things about women they don't actually support or supported things about bashing muslims that they dont in their deepest of hearts support, need to think about the fact that globalization and all of that was hard on everybody. it wasn't just hard on white guys. for some reason, women lost their jobs in globalization, black and brown people lost their jobs in globalization, and managed not to lash out. i think there needs to be a reckoning, frankly, with white manhood in this country. >> interesting. >> they were more wounded by it because their expectations were so much higher. in an earlier age, they were in charge. and they were the daddies, and then they weren't. they lost some of their, you know, their standing. so that's why i think the backlash is there for them. >> truth and reconciliation after the election. >> and respect. >> what a conversation. >> wait, wait. there's reckoning, though.

you say reckoning. there needs to be a reckoning, anand. i suggest there needs to be a reconciliation. if abraham lincoln after the civil war can say with malice toward none, we can say it after this petty, petulant election. >> hear hear. >> that's a really good point. on that note, that does it for us this morning. and stephanie ruhle picks up the coverage right now. >> thanks so much. hey, there. i'm stephanie ruhle. this morning, doubling down. donald trump not backing off. blasting the election as rigged. >> more than 1.8 million deceased individuals right now are listed as voters. oh, that's wonderful. >> as he rips into hillary clinton for what he calls a quid pro quo. >> this is worse than watergate. >> so was there a deal? newly released fbi documents al