you can watch live right here at 9:00 p.m. >> happy las vegas, my friend. don't abuse the time difference. >> oh, i won't. >> thanks, chris. may 21st, 2011, was a saturday. and that turned out to be awkward for a couple of reasons. first, there were 5,000 of these billboards that went up all over the country in the spring of 2011 telling us all that we needed to save the date for may 21st, 2011. at least make a note of may 21st, 2011. but this is exactly what the billboard looked like. you see there's a sort of handwritingly headline at the top, then the multiple fonts. they used clip art to show somebody actually making a note, actually saving that date in their date book, but that clip art shows that person penciling in that date on a monday.

that was very awkward from the start because that day he were askings to save is a saturday. why is that lady writing it down on monday? considerably more awkward, even though there were 5,000 plus of these billboards all across the country and 20 other big rvs and buses and other vehicles that were vinyl wrapped with this same message, save the date, may 21st, the return of christ. despite all of that nationwide advertising alerting us all that the end of the world was coming, despite that multimillion dollar very visible ad campaign in 2011, sure enough, saturday, may 21st, 2011 rolled around and the world did not end. it was not apparently that date on which we would experience the return of christ. >> chances are you heard this was predicted to be our last day on earth. a doomsday scenario from a

california minister who spent millions in contributions from his followers to advertise the end of days all over the world. nbc's george lewis reports now on what did and did not happen. >> times square, new york, at precisely 6:00 p.m. tonight. nothing out of the ordinary happened. the world did not end. that had been the prediction of oakland california pastor harold camping, spreading the doomsday word through billboards, pamphlets and radio, tv broadcast. >> it will begin with a huge earthquake and probably on the other side of the world where the day begins. >> but on the other side of the world in the philippines, camming's followers waited and nothing happened. >> pastor harold camping. his outfit called family radio out of california, near oakland. he emphatically promised and broadcast that on 6:00 p.m. may 21th, 2011, christ would return to earth, all the good people

would be raptured up to heaven. all of those of us who were left behind, the earth would immediately become a fatal hellscape. harold camping and his ministry were very successful in persuading people to go along with his prophecy. some of his followers spent their life savings paying for these billboards and these rvs and advertisements to spread the word about the end of the world. and the end of the world did not come. and so the next day, an sunday, may 22nd, 2011, reporters staked out the home of this apocalyptic preacher from family radio. they went to his house down by the airport in oakland, california, and for most of the day the preacher would not come out.

eventually had did open his front doors and he told the reporter standing on his doorstep, that he was, quote, flabbergasted, that the world had not come to an end. he told the san francisco chronicle, wrote, it has been a really tough weekend. yeah, but not as tough a weekend as you said it would be. so saturday was supposed to be the end of the world. sunday he was flabbergasted that it wasn't the end of the world. but monday, though, he had recovered. he got on the radio once again to do his regular radio show. bet they were surprised to have to do that one. he said on sunday after the world was supposed to have ended that weekend -- sorry, he said on monday that he had basically become unflabbergasted since sunday. he just needed a day to think about it and when he did think about it and he checked his notes, turned out he did his math wrong.

kind of a prophetic typo, what pastor harold camping explained the monday after the weekend the world was to end, the world had secretly invisibly started to end exactly on the day he said it was going to, but it turns out it was going to take a few more months for the whole thing to play out, it would take a few more months until we got to actual physical doomsday on earth, but he did have a new date for that, the new end of the world was going to be october 21st, 2011. "new york times" ran a story about it a t the time. an autumn date for the apocalypse. when october 21st rolled around and the world did not end then either, harold camping and his family radio ministry, they didn't talk about it at all for a very long time. it was not until the following spring, the following march when they discovered a little bit of humility on the subject.

they put out a statement that said, quote, we humbly acknowledge we were wrong about the timing. quote, we have no new evidence pointing to another date for the end of the world. so stop calling. it's one thing to come back from making a bad prediction about who is going to win an election or who will win a grammy award or something, coming back from predicting the end of the world twice, that's like the definition of humbling. and that experience five years ago with family radio in alameda, california, i mean, there's a reason that's the last anybody ever heard of family radio in alameda, california. if they ever wanted to gin up another swindle like this and get people to spend their life savings donating for advertisements and billboards

and rvs spreading the word, how would you ever persuade anybody to do that again after it happened the first time and the second time? and i think that humiliation principle holds. you would think, at least, the world over. one of the hallmarks in al qaeda's evolution as a terrorist organization was when they started publishing a fairly high quality english language online magazine. the al qaeda magazine included lots of al qaeda propaganda. it was used for official al qaeda positions and obituaries for leaders who had been skilled and scary things like bomb making recipes. it was meant to inspire al qaeda wannabes all over the world. and it was fittingly, therefore, titled "inspire." that's al qaeda. when isis decided they wanted to do something similar, they wanted to do a magazine with the same aim, they wanted to inspire isis wannabes all over the world, they wanted a venue to put out official statements and spread their propaganda, memorialize their fighters when they got killed, isis, interestingly, they did an english language magazine but

they did not pick an english language title for their magazine. when isis created its magazine they called it "dabiq." and dabiq was their isis equivalent of prof fessying the end of the world. shortly after isis started taking territory in the part of syria that included a small village called dabiq, its propagandists seized on an obscure islamic prophecy that declared not a specific date for the end of the world but a specific location where the end of the world would start. this little unassuming town of 3,000 people in syria called dabiq, nine miles from the border with turkey, that was supposed to be the site of an apocalyptic end times battle between the true believing muslims of the world and a crusader army of infidels. this is not a mainstream part of islamic theology.

this is as radio preachers proclaiming dates for the end of the world in christian theology. sure, you can kind of get there, but that's not where most people go with it. isis made it a central part of their theology and their propaganda. after they captured the actual city of dabiq in 2014, they started closing out propaganda videos with an isis fighter carrying the banner on a hillside overlooking dabiq. they brought their captives from other territory that they controlled. they brought them into dabiq so they can be executed in dabiq so they can make their freaking execution porn videos where they bragged about killing these people in dabiq. they named their english language magazine dabiq they even named their press agency amaq and that's the region in syria that includes dabiq.

now, raqqah, a city in syria called raqqah that's still reportedly the headquarters for isis. in iraq, the city of mosul is their biggest stronghold on that side of the iraqi/syrian border. but dabiq is also important. dabiq is the spiritual bull's-eye for isis' theology and isis' propaganda and who they say they are and why they say they matter and, not incidentally, how they say the world will end and how their followers worldwide can get on the right side before the apocalypse they're going to

bring about in dabiq with their final battle. they've been telling their followers for years that when they finally get to fight a battle in dabiq as isis, that will be the definitive battle of earth. that battle in dabiq, if they fight it as isis in dabiq, that will start the global apocalypse. well, on sunday this past weekend, did you save the date? because on sunday isis did actually have its battle in dabiq and now isis no longer controls dabiq. they lost it. turkish forces and a syrian rebel group took dabiq from isis control this weekend. and you know what? the world did not end. and so since then, it's been tholoically awkward. isis reportedly published a do not worry message to their followers in their arabic language newsletter telling their followers that the great battle of dabiq that will start the end of the world, they're still expecting that, that's

still going to happen, they're still promising it will kick off the end of the world when that battle happens but this just wasn't it yet. hmm, minor setback, but we promise dabiq will still be really important some day. so now there's this question of what this does to isis' whole propaganda message, right? people are angry when they're asked to sacrifice a lot on your promises. but one thing when you're promising them jobs or election win or the return you get in a ponzi scheme. another thing if you literally promise them the world, the end of the world and you go to the good place and everybody else burns, if that's what you're promising and then you can't deliver? if this were not election season in the united states, biggest story in this country right now would be what's happening to isis. the biggest city that isis controls, it's one of the

largest cities in iraq, mosul, is now facing an assault between 80 and 100,000 iraqi troops. the previous battles to take back big cities fallujah and ramadi and tikrit those involve 15,000 troops this one is 80,000 to 100,000. this is the biggest operation in iraq since years before u.s. forces left a war in iraq. it's the last major stronghold that isis has in the whole nation of iraq. it's the largest city they hold anywhere by far. iraqi and u.s. leaders have been telling us for months that this attack on mosul has been coming. they've been fleeing this and other places that isis was holding and they've now lost, places like, for example, dabiq in syria. they've been losing territory in iraq and syria ahead of this massive operation against mosul and there are lots of reports that isis has been basically been fleeing, been sending its fighters and its fighters' families to their last stronghold, the city of raqqah. there are reports that after

mosul is taken back, the next pras will likely be in the last major place isis is, raqqah because by that point they'll have nowhere else to go. there's nowhere left that they control that they can retreat to. there are about 5,000 american service members in iraq, about 500 of them are reportedly involved in this operation to take mosul back from isis. american involvement has been described as some imbedding by american special forces but also artillery support and importantly air strikes. and american air strikes in this battle for mosul, that means not just drone strikes but u.s. piloted aircraft attacking isis sites from the air in support of this iraqi ground operation. no matter how about the iraqi forces on the ground or the isis forces on the ground, no matter how good either force is on the ground, the fact that there's american air power in support, that's almost impossible to overstate in terms of the advantage it's going to give the iraqi side as they go to take back this huge city from isis.

so let's imagine this really big, really important military effort against isis goes well. let's say they get wiped out of their last stronghold. what remains of isis is a retreat back to one last power base they have in syria. let's say this goes well and isis gets consolidated inside syria in raqqah, what's going to happen then? and this was the part you're going to have to really listen to hard for at tomorrow night's debate because both of our american presidential candidates, both hillary clinton and donald trump, they both love to talk about fighting isis. they lub to talk about being tougher on isis than we've ever been before, but one of those two candidates lives inside an elaborate fantasy world where

his conceptions, where what he thinks about what's going on in the world about fighting isis is not just not true, it makes no sense. >> put opinion's going wild with bombing isis and that's a good thing, not a bad thing. who needs to take the credit? let him have some credit. russia is not a fan of isis. russia is bombing the hell out of them. if you look at syria, russia wants to get rid of isis. maybe let russia do it. what the hell do we care? >> what the hell do we care? in tomorrow night's debate watch, watch, watch for donald trump's answer when he inevitably starts talking about fighting isis. just watch for it. and then remember this. today "the washington post" reported that russia has completed its elaborate interconnected comprehensive anti-aircraft system in syria. it's a system of anti-aircraft missiles, an air defense system.

it's designed purely and only to shoot down airplanes. isis does not have any airplanes in syria where russia just set up this anti-aircraft missile defense system. isis does not have any airplanes. but we do. we're using american aircraft to help this big iraqi ground operation against isis right now right next door in mosul. donald trump believes that russia is our great ally against isis in syria, but what russia is doing in syria is setting up missiles that only shoot down planes, which isis does not have. donald trump does not appear in the mainstream media all that much anymore. you might have noticed. he doesn't really do normal cable or network tv shows or interviews anymore. he mostly on tv now he just does

the fox news channel and he pretty much does the late night show that's hosted by a guy that's explicitly a donald trump supporter. beyond that he's blacklisted so many that he's reduced to doing really out there conservative radio. he just did a show with radio host michael savage that after he wins the leaked on november 8th, he's planning to meet with vladimir putin personally one on one, even while barack obama is still president. that's how much he likes and trusts vladimir putin because trump either believes or at least he's prepared to say that russia is our great ally in fighting isis. while u.s. pilots right now tonight actually are fighting isis. and vladimir putin's russia has just finished electing a massive anti-aircraft missile defense system to shoot them down. this will come up at the debate

tomorrow unless the debate is completely insane. donald trump has previously been bizarre and sometimes impenetrable on isis and russia, but tomorrow night in the third and final presidential debate, this has got to be his last chance to start making sense on this issue. while american pilots are in the battle. i mean, i'm not going to say it's the end of the world if he doesn't start making sense on this issue, but it's the end of the world if he doesn't. save the date. usually the single-most

usually the single-most boring thing about covering any big election is endorsements because he all pretty much go the way you would expect them to, right? this year it's been fun and weird to cover endorsements for trump and clinton. because until recently donald trump was in the unenviable position of being a major party presidential candidate who had zero newspaper endorsements for

the general election. we were first to report that he had none. we were first to report when he got his first one on friday. we then reported yesterday that he got his second one this weekend and now he's gotten his third. and boy, are you going to like watching me try to pronounce the name of the third one. that story is ahead.

presidential election, an irish bookmaker called paddy power made just an incredibly bold, brash, cocky move. they started paying out on their

bets that barack obama was going to beat mitt romney in that election and they started paying out on those bets two days before the election was even held. and it got all sorts of headlines and resentment from republicans at the time. the election hasn't happened yet and you're already paying out the bets. they've done it again. they did not wait until two days before the election. this time they did it 21 days before the election. paddy power believes it's a done deal and hillary clinton is a nailed-on certainty to occupy the oval office. three weeks out. when it comes to forecasting elections, bookmakers and political prediction markets, they have grown steadily in stature and the amount of attention they get over the last few years. a lot of people see their crowd source wisdom as maybe more reliable than traditional polls.

well, for what it's worth, like the polls, the prediction markets right now believe that hillary clinton has a very high chance of winning. the bookmakers maybe even more so given that one of them is already paying out. that said, this year has been a god awful year for the prediction markets. they have two really bad failures this year. the first thing they were wrong about this year was donald trump. prediction markets absolutely failed to anticipate him marching to the nomination this year despite all the polls that consistently showed him ahead. prediction markets still in february had marco rubio with a 58% chance of winning the nomination. that was even after the iowa caucuses. prediction markets were wrong about brexit, about the uk vote to leave the european union. but the prediction market said there was next to no chance that britain would vote to leave the eu. hours before the results were announced prediction markets

pegged the probability of a vote to leave the eu at just a 12% probability. and then, in fact, britain voted to leave the eu. well now today in colorado donald trump is clinging to those failures saying that's what we should expect to happen next. >> now, even though we're doing pretty good in the polls, i don't believe the polls anymore. i don't believe them. i don't believe them. and if there's ten and if there's one or two bad ones, that's the only one they show. believe me, folks, we're doing great. if we keep our spirit and if we go out and win, this is another brexit, believe me. they're so worried. >> are they so worried? are you worried? either direction? who do you believe -- what do you believe your gut 21 days out from this election? what counts as good data for you? do you believe the latest polls which show hillary clinton with a healthy lead nationally and in most of the swing states? do you believe the election forecast models which boil the race down to a single odds of winning number? do you believe the experts who look at that same data and then

tell you what they think. today polling expert stu rothenberg declared the race definitively over. it would be a mistake to call trump's path to an electoral college victory narrow. it is nonexistent. maybe you go with that. maybe you go with the kids. the actually kids who can't vote. kid voters have taken part in the quadrennial scholastic poll saying who they think will win the election. they've correctly predicted the last 13 elections since 1940. the kids in the scholastic poll have predicted the presidential race wrongly only twice. they thought it was dewey over truman in 1948 and in 1960 they thought it was over jfk. maybe do you trust the kids? they have a pretty good track record. maybe you trust texas. we've now got two news

organizations in the last couple of days tilting texas from solid republican to lean republican. texas is pink? how do you guys feel about that in texas? first, nbc news, now fox news saying that texas, yes, texas is now lean republican. i don't know if texas is ever going to get to toss-up status with any news organization. but if it does, would that settle it for you in terms of what you expect? what do you believe? what is worth trusting at this point? joining us is a senior political writer at 538.com. thank you for being here.

>> my pleasure. >> you do this for a living? >> i try to. >> let me ask you first about the brexit thing that donald trump said today. he doesn't believe the polls and the polls were wrong when it came to brexit. anything we should be looking for to see if a brexit misfire is possible? this election? >> mr. trump is wrong in this case. when it comes to the polling, brexit, 17 had brexit passing, 14 had them remain winning, then 3 were caught. >> and it was in fact a close result. >> here we have the polls agreeing with the prediction markets and that's an overwhelming advantage for hillary clinton. >> what is your take on the prediction markets and the bookmakers which is sort of another way of aggregating people's predictions? is there any reason to believe those things are anything other than prejudice and common wisdom. is there actual wisdom there? >> not really. they're gathering the same data we are. i will say they understand the polling that there's probably going to be more allegations made against donald trump, whether it be sexual assault or

maybe perhaps something crazier and they take that into account. the markets may be a little ahead of our forecasts in this instance. >> when it comes to actual polls, if we want to be better consumers of polling information at this point, what do you look for in terms of the four-way race versus a two-way race, likely voters versus registered voters, what are the variables? >> i like to look at the four-way race. i also do look at the likely versus the registered numbers, but i will point out there's not much of a difference anymore. as you might expect democrats are really enthusiastic about that debate. and right now there's just not much of a difference. all of the numbers suggest that hillary clinton is a heavy favorite. >> with those texas numbers i think a lot of democrats are sort of chortling over those numbers. >> they love it. they love it! >> going pink if not blue. do you see that sort of thing, that sort of i guess what we call outlier states, do you see it predictive of a landslide or do we see that as specific as

what's happening in texas? >> it backs up what you see in utah. traditional red states are leaning a little pink, perhaps there's a chance that hillary clinton might win or a third party candidate might win, but the abc news poll that has hillary clinton up by 11, maybe they're not too far mark. >> it bolsters what you're hearing. >> exactly. >> harry enten, thank you. we asked and now we have received. as of friday we had this

we asked and now we have received. as of friday we had this remarkable phenomenon on our hands where for the first time in modern history, one of the two major party nominees for president found himself with zero newspaper endorsements. hillary clinton has a zillion newspaper endorsements but until friday donald trump had none. then on friday he got his first one. this is from a small paper in santa barbara, california. then last night our official tally of donald trump endorsements by daily newspapers in this country rose from one to two when we learned that, after getting the santa barbara news press endorsement on friday, he then got the st. joseph news-press endorsement out of

missouri on sunday. well now today we can report he just got number three. today a nice viewer named rob sent us a third donald trump endorsement which we otherwise would never have found. it's from a place that is 30 miles south of dallas, texas. it's the waxahachie daily light. and they say trump for potus. here in part is their argument. no candidate is perfect, but in mr. trump's case we believe his willingness to surround himself with nose that know what they're doing and reverse course from every direction down which we've been dragged is exactly what america needs at this point in her history, which is about as easy to trip off the tongue as the word "waxahachie." ip getting better. saying it all day. with this endorsement the waxahachie light moves donald trump's from two newspaper endorsements to three. i want to thank rob in harrison township, michigan, on this tip

on this one. if you, fair viewer, if you, my friend, if you see something out there that we ought to know about particularly for this campaign, please tell us. you can do to so via sendittorachel.com. we check it all the time, i swear. we'll be right back.

tonight we're going to play what might be my favorite interview i have ever done on camera on this show. it's one of those times when you go out to ask a simple question, what comes back at you from your simple question is a hydra-headed sea monster that you didn't know was possible. it was crazy. i hope i'm not sounding like a jerk when i say i think this was possibly the best interview i've ever done on camera, but tonight we have reason to go back to it. because tonight it ends up being back in the news for the presidential race for a reason i really, really, really did not see coming. that's next.

great tea party wave of leaked.

so many great congressional race to cover that year. at one point i took a crew all the way up to alaska. this was our video i shot from the plane. we got all the way to alaska in advance of that election to cover a weird turn in the senate race up there. a tea party pac called joe miller knocked out the incumbent senator lisa murkowski in the republican primary. joe miller just scrambled the entire race. that's me and joe miller on an escalator. and senator lisa murkowski was trying to hold on to her seat but she had to do it with a write-in campaign. it was wild. totally worth the trip. while we went up there to alaska to cover what was going on, i did what i thought would be run of the mill man on the street interviews with people explaining what they thought about this crazy election. but instead of having run of the mill interview answers, i got an earful about, woo, a lot.

>> the voter intimidation, with the black panthers. that's what i'm upset about and lisa murkowski supported him. when they had those people out there in their military uniforms and their night sticks and he refused to prosecute them because they were black and that's what's happening in our judicial system right now. >> you think the new black panther party made a difference in that election? >> in that precinct, you bet ya. people were there and they were intimidated by it. >> do you think black panthers are having an effect on this election? >> we haven't heard the results yet. it could, it could. we haven't heard yet. >> you think the black panthers are making a difference? >> you won't have them up here. it's the way the state is set up. it's not conducive for what they're trying to do. >> you think the black panthers are active in a lot of the lower

48? >> in major cities. because i doubt they'll have support in the suburbs and the counties outlying the cities. >> you can see my thought process evolving during that conversation, right? that was in alaska in october 2010. those were folks that wanted to oust lisa murkowski, republican senator, get her out of the senate, replace her with a tea party guy joe miller. and their main reason, what they were most upset about when it came to their home state senator was this video. it's about 80 seconds long taken on election day 2008 outside a polling place in philadelphia's 14th ward. and it became one of the great boogiemen of the american right. and the whole thing was pretty much what you see here, two kind of crazy looking half homeless guys who braid their beard hair standing outside this polling place in a black neighborhood on election day. they were there for maybe an hour. somebody called the cops and they went away. and when george w. bush's justice department looked into that video, they decided it was not worth pressing charges

against anyone. kind of a local thing. that weird thing happened for an hour at a precinct. but that's something nuts happened. that video, that little 80-second video taken in a philadelphia neighborhood 2008 became such a huge national issue not just in local voting issue resolved in an hour in philadelphia's 14th ward, it became such a huge issue people were talking to me about it 3400 miles away in alaska two years later in the 2010 leaked as evidence that barack obama's justice department was a monstrous plot under eric holder to have militant black people steal the election all over the lower 48. they couldn't probably pull it off in alaska! this video, this one squibb of video of the guys with the braided beard hair in philadelphia turned into the rallying cry of tea party supporters all across the country, including alaska.

it was a remarkable thing, a remarkable study in something called how the fox news channel works. because that tiny squibb of tape didn't look random and inconsequential on fox news. >> two members of the black panther party, one brandishing a night stick intimidating poll watchers, race and politics are driving doj decisions when it comes to enforcing the law. >> these men were accused of intimidating white voters but the state department dropped all charges against them despite the evidence. >> as i just mentioned 2008 in philly -- >> serious allegatios today that the decision to drop a voter intimidation case against members of the black panther party may have reached all the way to the white house. >> whole squads of the fox news channel were built on this story. for a while you could not avoid that tape on the fox news channel.

in 2010, the liberal watch dog media matters counted 95 different fox news channel segments in the span of just over two weeks all based on that 60-second, 80-second video. that video became a study in how fox news works. but it's also a study in the roots of the donald trump campaign because fox news got that video from a man named mike roman who describes himself as a veteran political consultant and private investigator. he shopped that video to fox news where they ran 90 seconds of it over a two-week period and beat that dead horse for years. mike roman wrote lots of articles how the new black panther party was undermining american elections, those two guys.

and the justice department was turning a blind eye because, well, you know why. we tend to think of the new black panther thing as a ridiculous fox news story and rightly so, but if you were looking for the root of this, how people in alaska were telling me that eric holder and barack obamap part of a black conspiracy to steal elections all over the country and black panthers are operating in every city of the country, how it gets its start with accusations of scary black nationalists and if you are looking for the root of all that, you are looking at this guy, mike roman. this merchant of doubt, this guy mike roman who started that whole thing. and mike roman is who the donald trump campaign has just hired to

run its nationwide election protection operation for the your old school dance moves might show your age, your skin never will olay. ageless.

they even want to try and rig the election at this polling booths where so many cities are corrupt and voter fraud is all too common. and then they say, there's no voter fraud in our country. no, no, there's no voter fraud. take a look at st. louis. take a look at philadelphia.

take a look at chicago, and then i have even the republicans saying oh, this is a wonderful -- look, look, if nothing else, people are going to be watching on november 8th. >> and now we know who's goal to be in charge of that watching for the trump campaign to oversee their election protection efforts they have hired a guy named mike roman best known as the conservative activist who promoted the fox news theory that the black panthers stole the election in 2008 along with voter fraud conspiracy theories. ben jacobs was the first to report this hire by the trump campaign. thanks very much for being here. >> thanks for having me. >> we reached out to the trump campaign for them to confirm the hiring. have you heard anything from the campaign about this? >> they haven't officially confirmed it. but this is something that has been reported from a number of sources confident that mike roman's been brought in, that he's, since the new black panthers worked for the koch

brothers putting together their now disbanded intelligence unit. but he is definitely overseeing their election protection efforts. with all trump's talk about philadelphia, mike roman is from the philadelphia area, which adds a new edge to that. >> what do we know about, or do we have any reason to have expectations in terms of what the trump campaign is going to do for its election protection operation? do we know what trump's version

will be? >> that's still a little unclear, that they've been actively recruiting people to be election watchers, this is a far more active effort than almost any other campaign has been doing, because normally on election day the priority is that people knock doors or do phone calls to turn people out, rather than showing up at a polling place and staring at the people who do show up and vote, that it's not necessarily a top priority and that normally its biggest use is for monitoring things, to get a sense of turnout earlier in the day so you can distribute resources. >> as far as the reporting of this and what you understand about his history, for those of us who weren't familiar with him. clearly i was familiar with how fox went hog-wild on that new black panther story. i didn't know much else about him before reading your reporting about it. is there anything about this hire that says to you about the

direction that the trump campaign is taking or what parts of the conservative movement in the republican party they're tapping for this last 21 days? >> well, it certainly says something with the level of the rhetoric that he's put out about voter fraud in the last week, two weeks, it's not something that we've seen in modern american history and this is something seriously being pursued. and mike roman is a writewriter, written for breitbart, that trump is appealing to this doubling down, tripling down, going for the most hard core message, and this is a campaign running solely on right wing id, and we're not going to see a softer trump, a moderate trump, a more responsible trump, this is one howling about voter fraud until the polls close and afterwards. >> ben jacobs, reporter with the guardian. congratulations on the scoop. thanks for being here tonight. >> thanks for having me. still ahead, something to keep your eyes on ahead of tomorrow night's final debate. stay with us.

couple weeks ago we hosted on this show a former united states marine special operator named peter kiernan. a very accomplished young man, an afghanistan veteran, back home in the united states pursuing a college degree. he put together a remarkable effort to try to persuade donald trump to release his tax returns. people from all over the

country, from all 50 states pledged as part of the effort, pledged more than $6 million that will be donated to american veterans organizations if donald trump chooses to release his ten most recent years of tax returns, just like mike pence released his returns. if trump releases those returns, more than $6 million will get released to veterans groups. there's a deadline, the deadline is tomorrow night, before tomorrow night's debate. the third and final debate of the election, you should plan to watch it here, commercial free, we kick off our coverage tomorrow at 6:00, followed by "hardball," then brian williams and i will take over at 8:00. we'll then bring you post debate coverage after the debate ends, probably starting around 10:30 eastern and going until we're all dead.

so that's your plan for tomorrow night, it will be very exciting. it's the last debate of the year, the last debate of this election. you must be there. see you tomorrow night. "first look" is up next. wednesday, witness the shocking finale, trump, clinton, the most dramatic debate yet. threats. >> you'd be in jail. >> portrayal. >> president obama was not born in the united states. >> a forbidden love. the return of an old friend. and the results of the pre-debate drug test. the 2016 presidential debate season finale. only on abc, cbs, fox, fox