who do you bet's going to make the big shot, who will be calm and laugh at the other guy? i still don't know and neither do you. stick around. the final showdown, trump -- >> the clintons are criminals. remember that. she's the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency. >> clinton -- >> we all heard what he thinks of women. he's an equal opportunity insulter. >> the election is being rigged by corrupt media pushing outright lies. >> he is temperamentally unfit to be president and commander in chief. >> from msnbc, the place for politics, the third and final presidential debate. >> university of nevada las vegas the setting for tonight's final debate between hillary clinton and donald trump. when they take the stage in one hour's time, donald trump will be standing to the left on your

screen. hillary clinton on the right. she will get the first question of the debate. 90 minutes commercial free. the rules are slightly different from previous debates. more on that later. something else will be different tonight. the spouses, melania trump and former president clinton, will not be introduced, will not greet each other or shake hands. in fact, they will be seated before the debate gets under way as members of the audience. the political backdrop in las vegas veers between circus and prize fight. tonight, however, of course, is very serious business. good evening from our election headquarters. brian williams along with rachel maddow, chris matthews leading our coverage tonight from las vegas. our very best in the business political team here with us and across the country, really, as we get under way. we should probably make this point at the outset. this is not an even race going into tonight. one candidate enjoys a substantial lead in the polls. the other, among other things,

has spent a substantial amount of the last ten days defending himself against accusations of sexual assault. several of us are not expecting a great moment in american democracy tonight. i hope to be proven wrong. >> you and i have been talking about this off camera about our overall sort of mood expectations for tonight. you are worried that this is going to be dark. i was very worried that the decked se bait was going to be dark and i was right. >> you were proven right. >> but this one i feel like it's much -- i'm very interested -- i have a lot of excitement heading into this debate because i think it's very hard to tell what's going to happen, at least on one side of it. listen, in 1964, barry goldwater got thrashed in the presidential election and the republican party got thrash in congress as well. happened in 1980 when jimmy carter got beaten so bad by ronald reagan. the democrats died in congress as well. in 1986 when bob dole was on track to lose that badly, republicans saw the writing on the wall and they cut him loose.

they didn't hold a third presidential debate in 1996, but a week after the second one, it was actually 20 years ago this week, republicans cut bob dole loose. they basically told their house and senate candidates around the country, dole's toast, save yourselves. and it worked. bob dole got beaten really badly, only got 41% of the vote. but the republicans did fine. they held the house. they actually picked up seats in the senate. and i say that because i think that shows that there are more and less strategic ways to badly lose a presidential election, and donald trump is on track to badly lose a presidential election. his poll numbers are lower than bob dole's right now. they're down in barry goldwater territory. but in his case, the reason i don't know what's going to happen tonight is i don't think anybody believes he wants to save anything other than himself. he spent the ten days since the last debate excoriating the republican party all but openly wishing for them to lose their elections. i think we know what hillary clinton's going to do. she's on track to win so she's

going to keep her head down and hope this will end soon. but trump is in a different spot. everybody expects him to lash out crazily because he's so far behind and he needs to change this race. but i don't think we know. he's running desperate against hillary clinton and against his own party. he owes them nothing, he hates them. he's rooting for their failure even though they're his own party. we have no idea what that looks like in a presidential debate. i have absolutely no idea how he will act tonight. >> it's funny, senator dole is among those people i will be thinking about tonight because the nature of this campaign this year has made us so often think back and reflect on the giants, the greats who have run in years past. the people for whom party has spent everything, just slightly below that of country for those patriots who have served in government. so there's a lot of weight going into tonight as we look at reverend jackson and others going into the crowd. chris matthews, as i said, heading up our coverage from las vegas. and i heard a guest on your show

this evening say don't get this wrong, this is a subsidiary of breitbart news on the web that is now calling the shots in what passes for the trump-controlled republican party. >> yeah, that was robert constant, "the washington post," he's a great reporter. he sees all the signs here of a scorched earth policy. in other words, basically a campaign of hate and negativity and protest rather than a campaign to win the presidency. i mean, as rachel said, these odds are terrible for trump right now. you can get good money for that, you probably pay for your down payment on your house if you put a few hundred bucks up tonight because it's so against him. he gets 4-1. you got to bet $11 in engraland where you can actually make a legal bet, to get 2 for hillary she's such a strong favorite right now. you can all discuss this because i don't know the answer. if trump's smart, he's got to

hit the sweetspot tonight, land a sunday punch that resounds. my bet is go after the e-mail benghazi that so-called quid pro quo where you have that former fbi agent claiming that, he hasn't taken it back. you can have her playing this murky difficult defense keep her on the ropes doing that over and over again because it brings up the issue of trust which is the winner for him, brings up the e-mail which is the topic that brings the trust in question. it focuses on a news story that hasn't been resolved thoroughly yet. i would go to one, the blunderbuss approach of bringing in the half brother and the mother of the victim, the mother of the guy sean smith who was killed in benghazi bringing in the guy from lost survivor, last survivor. i think it's all so over. i don't see how you can get a headline out of that and he needs a headline. >> chris matthews for us in las vegas. i think that's exactly right. trump needing to change the trajectory right now is the one thing that all election observers on the left and right

and independent all agree now. but in terms of how much he needs a change, i want to bring into this conversation steve kornacki to keep us honest. we're saying it is not close, that hillary clinton is on track to win, that trump is on track not only to lose but to lose badly. can you give us a snapshot in terms of his path and her path at this point and what the maps look like? >> yeah, let's take a look here in terms of we keep seeing donald trump the path is narrow, it's narrowing, this is a very difficult situation. how difficult exactly, what precisely would it take? let me take you through this piece by piece. let's start with this. this is the 2012 map. this is obama versus romney last time around. if you're donald trump, you came into this race saying, first, i want to hold all those red states, those 206 electoral votes that romney had, that's my base. hold that and build on it, start picking off blue states. problem number one for donald trump, those red states, it may be eroding right now. what you're seeing there are red

states where we've gotten some evidence in polling in the last week or two certainly a traumatic week or two for donald trump's campaign that he could have to worry about these states. he is down in some polls in arizona right now. there's a poll in utah, today, believe it or not, that has the independent evan mcmullen winning out there. he's down in north carolina. he may be in trouble in georgia. some of the others are reaches. bottom line for trump, this is supposed to be your base. lose any single one of these states and you can forget it, the election ends on the spot. step number one, shore up the red wall you didn't think you had to worry about. run the table in every single one of those states. all that does is brings you back to where mitt romney finished four years ago when he lost. step two if you're donald trump, if you can shore up that red wall, you have to pick off the blue states. where is he in the game right now, what obama states, that obama carried in 2012, does it show that he's at least within

striking distance? you are looking at them right there, florida down, but striking distance. ohio, that looks even. iowa, he may be ahead in iowa right now, nevada. if you're trump, every single one of these is a must-win. if you do that, if you have shorn up all of those red states and you take those blue state targets, there's what you got. you're close, but guess what? you're still not there. trump would be at 266. he would need one more blue state, and it's very tough to look at that map right now, his campaign has been saying new hampshire, new hampshire, new hampshire. well, guess what? there's a poll out today that shows hillary clinton ahead in new hampshire by 15 points. if you're donald trump, you've got a heck of a lot of red states to worry about now. you have to win them all, you have to win all of those blue states where he's at least within range right now, and then you need to pull a rabbit out of the heaat. you need to win a blue state, a

new hampshire, colorado, pennsylvania, wisconsin. he's not only down in those states, he could be down big right now. >> steve kornacki with a couple hundred of his closest friends tonight. thank you for that look at the numbers. let's bring our political director into this conversation. moderator of "meet the press," that would be chuck todd. any reason to disagree with anything that's been said thus far in this broadcast by any of us? >> look, tonight, i don't disagree with any of it on the stakes here tonight. but let me just put it in some personality terms. there may be nobody that needs donald trump to have a good night more than paul ryan, and that may seem ironic given how little paul ryan wants to do with donald trump, how much he wishes he could find a way to separate himself from donald trump, but why do i say that? because with the republican party desperately needs tonight is for donald trump to get off the mat. he is essentially on the verge of this thing collapsing.

the party is worried. i talked to multiple republican strategists over the last few days. they're all essentially saying the floorboards are creaking. it's about ready to snap. the bottom's going to fall out if trump doesn't have a good night tonight. this may be less about him just trying to get competitive on the battleground and more trying to keep the republican party from having a house disaster. you know, this is less -- this may be less about trying to win the presidency and more about saving the house and keeping the battle for control of the senate competitive. that to me is what is realistically at stake tonight and what is realistic at this point for success for the republican party, which is, if trump stabilizes, just gets off the mat, it might be enough to at least salvage at least one of the two houses of congress. look at 2012. he essentially an electoral landslide, general election,

four-point spread. that was while that gave democrats some senate seats, it kept the house in republican hands. so anything he can do to make this more competitive saves the house. i just think it's ironic, of all people tonight, nobody's job is more on the line than paul ryan's. and his future rests in donald trump's hands. how uncomfortable is that? >> it could also be reduced to saying that both of them need to look presidential tonight. the stakes are just higher, i guess, for donald trump. >> yes, we go through this presidential. look, i think the perceptions of these candidates are baked in. i don't know if there's new information tonight that will somehow dramatically change things. i think it is more on how they handle this moment, how they handle the tumult tonight. how hillary -- i mean, i think it is important probably to some skeptical potential clinton voters. how does she answer the

wikileaks questions. how does she answer some of these controversies? and with trump, republicans that are just starting to get demoralized, does the guy that showed up for the first 20 minutes of that debate, can he show up for 90 minutes? then you'll have a wunsbunch of elected republicans down the ballot that will be more comfortable campaigning tomorrow. if he falls on his face and it's a repeat of that first debate, republicans tomorrow morning will be running for the hills. >> chuck todd, some weighty words from inside the venue tonight in las vegas. if you've been watching the screen on the right, you've seen luminaries from leon panetta to kareem abdul-jabbar, just saw ted danson, mary steenburgen, everyone, it looks like a prize fight. >> i think there was a fabio sighting. i think i might have seen a fabio, but i can't confirm. >> if not some lucky hair-gifted

person in that crowd. we'll take our very first break. and we'll be back with live coverage from las vegas and points east right after this.

we're back and there is the venue on the campus of the university of nevada las vegas where tonight's debate is within the coming hour and we're standistand i -- where standing by to talk to us is the number two man on this ticket, indiana governor mike pence. thank you very much for being with us tonight. >> you bet, brian. good to be with you. >> let's start with a topic i believe will come up tonight and that is wikileaks. is marco rubio wrong when he says to fellow republicans they shouldn't be using this wikileaks material that is, by all accounts, most likely stolen

by the russians? >> well, marco rubio's my friend. i was campaigning with him in florida over this weekend. we're grateful for his support, but look, the revelations that have come out about hillary clinton's years as secretary of state and the clinton foundation go far beyond the leaks from wikileaks. some come from networks freedom of information requests, fbi documents that were released last week were the source of information that the state department under hillary clinton had sought to reclassify information on her private server. so i understand his point. i think we should always look at the facts. certainly if the russians were involved in hacking our security and our privacy in this country, there should be serious consequences, but at the end of the day i think the facts matter, the truth matters. and the american people have an enormously important decision to make in the next 20 days, brian,

and having all the information they can have on both of these candidates i think is in the public interest. >> well, senator rubio's point is very specific. and his point is any given day it could be you, it could be the leader of our country that is held in effect for ransom based on what russia has electronically taken out of the system and trafficked in. >> well, first, we don't know who hacked into the system. there is increasing evidence that the russians may have been involved in a part of that, but i think it is enormously important to note that the vast amount of information that has come beyond wikileaks information and releases is also before the public domain. but i think at the end of the day it's important that we make it clear that if russia or any other sovereign interest was involved in compromising the privacy and security of the

united states that there would be severe consequences. but at the end of the day, i think the american people have a right to know. i think they have a right to know what policies hillary clinton was advancing. the fact that another network through a freedom of information request was able to find that the secretary of state and her aides were directing contracts for the haitian relief effort and the reconstruction to friends of the clintons, according to that release, i think it's important that the american people understand the way that, frankly, the clintons have operated, the pay to play politi politics, and it's the kind of politics the american people are tired of. dt made a ponald trump made a p drain the swamp in washington, d.c. and it's far beyond the wikileaks revelations, the information we have about the clinton years, the clinton foundation all cry out for real reform. >> i suspect we might be hearing

more of that from the stage tonight. will you right now tell your supporters to accept the will of the voters, whatever it is, on november 8th, and will you urge the man we just saw arriving at the venue, donald trump, at the top of your ticket, to do the same? >> well, of course. i made that point. and donald trump in the very first debate made that same point. >> that's before he said the election was rigged before election day. >> well, but look, the point he made is that, frankly, that i think there was a poll today that showed 55% of the american public believes that the national media has been overwhelmingly biased against my running mate. but there's many instance where the national media has just piled on donald trump in this campaign and the american people know it. it looks like a rigged system from a media perspective. make no mistake about it, voter fraud is real. and the antidote to that is to

be calling on our supporters, as we are across the country, to respectfully participate in the electoral process. the reality is that the right to vote has been bought at too high a price for all of us, republicans, democrats and independents, not to do all we can to protect the integrity of the vote, the one person, one vote principle. i'm confident the american people will do that, and i'm confident that when the polls all close on november 8th, the american people will have spoken. >> let's put a finer point on this because his point is not just about media coverage. he's calling out select american cities and urban areas and he thus becomes the first major party candidate in our history to declare an election rigged before the election. so that is different. >> well, i think what donald trump is pointing out is that there has been examples throughout our history of

instances of questionable outcomes and voter fraud. you can check in the state of indiana today we're currently investigating thousands of fraudulent voter registration applications that were filed -- >> i'm aware of your investigation. >> we're working through that in an orderly way. we'll uphold the integrity of the vote. what donald trump is saying in the 20 days that remain, republican, democrat or independent should avail themself of the opportunity to be involved in the electoral process, to respectfully participate in a way that ensures accountability on a precinct by precinct basis, then we can all be very confident that when the polls close, the american people will have been given a voice to their goals and their aspirations for the nation. >> put another way, if you're going to run on a ticket where the top of the ticket is saying the election is rigged, are you prepared to accept the responsibility of millions, tens of millions of people perhaps, if you're on the losing end,

believing the result of an election was illegitimate? >> well, number one, i don't think we're going to be on the losing end. i campaigned this week so far in ohio, in north carolina. i know there's a brand-new poll out from "investor business daily" that shows that we're actually up a point in a national survey. i think there's tremendous momentum in this campaign, and what donald trump and i are essentially calling out is the obvious bias among many in the national media, brian, that seems like many in the national press are doing half of hillary clinton's work for her every day but also calling on americans to participate in the process. but make no mistake about it, we believe we're going to put our head down, work hard and run all the way through the tape in this election, and i think donald trump's going to be the next president of the united states. >> indiana governor mike pence, number two man on this trump/pence ticket. thank you very much for being with us, governor. >> thank you, brian. >> raching, there you have it. >> you know, it is -- governor

pence is very good in interview settings. he's just a real like practiced politician. he was a radio talk show host before he was ever elected to anything. he's good at spinning stuff. but it is still even with that, jarring to have him tell you that we don't know if it's russia, we don't know who is doing the hacking. >> all evidence to the contrary. >> this homeland department of security has made this remarkable statement that it's russia, the director of national intelligence has come out and said it is russia that has done this. our government does not do that lightly. to have mike pence take what everyone thought was the crazy donald trump line on this, we don't know if it's russia, could be anyone, that is not slick. >> it's notable and being repeated over and over and over. chris matthews in las vegas heading up our coverage there. chris? >> thank you, guys. i'm with ben ginsberg, of course, the lawyer for the

republican party, and robert costa, i didn't think he answered the question, the governor, governor pence. did he answer the question? will they make the charge of a rigged election, are they talking about electioneering or elections, which one? >> it should be about the results. i'm not sure i see the distinction. >> politics or the actual election count? are they saying the count's going to be played with, it's going to be phony? >> i think what he was trying is saying they're not going to challenge the actual count or at least he's not going to be part of it. what he's talking about is the electioneering part. >> but brian's -- because robert they have tried to get trump to stop saying the election count itself and to focus on the media, this is i'm also concerned about the voting booths and what happens in the count. the mainstream -- >> he won't and he won't until election day. the mainstream of the republican party doesn't want to have this kind of conversation. there's little to no evidence that this kind of fraud is

occurring. what we see with donald trump is the creation of a grievance movement in this country, something that goes beyond the traditional right/left lines. >> we have a tradition, richard nixon, whatever you think of nixon before during and after, didn't stop the constitutional process of a change of office from a republican, general dwight eisenhower, to john f. kennedy. al gore took it in the chest. i didn't get the electoral vote, the supreme court intervened but i accept how that works with judicial review. will trump play games with this? will there be shenanigans? >> the answer is he should not. what robert said is absolutely true about the grievance movement. that plays into not talking about it before election day. but donald trump and everybody who runs for any office does have an obligation to accept the -- >> will he do it tonight? >> no. >> so he'll play a game tonight? >> i think he'll keep saying what he's been saying, it's rigged. >> but not just the party.

he's setting up a whole global media conspiracy, political conspiracy. that's an argument he's building day by day. >> if he wants to win the election, he should focus on issues he should win votes with. i don't think he wins a single vote with this issue. it just riles people up. tonight we'll find out whether he still thinks he can win the presidency or if he wants to build this rear guard action for afterwards, whatever he will do with it, tv network, whatever. we'll find out tonight. >> chris matthews et al. some language just snuck into the conversation from behind our panel there. having watched cable news all day long, college campuses are great places. these crowds have been on and off a little bit toxic today. it's been hard to listen to and follow conversations. our dynamic and beautiful democratic process has turned profane in part this election cycle. something tells me we haven't heard the last of it.

on that note, we'll sneak a quick break in here. there is the venue, 32 minutes ay from start time.

we are all of a sudden 27 1/2 minutes away from start time inside the venue there in las vegas as the crowd files in and gets set to get comfy for a

90-minute debate tonight. >> there are not a lot of third debates in history to compare this to. a lot of presidential matchups never went to a third debate for a variety of reasons. we have had tremendous interest in the debates this year. the first one between trump and clinton, of course, 84 million people. that's an all-time record for a presidential debate. second one was still a lot of people, 67 million people. tonight, because this is really the formal end of the campaign, this is likely the last time anything is going to happen between these candidates other than just, you know, voting and hopefully a concession speech by one of them, i think it's anticipated that there's going to be a really big viewership tonight. one thing that's happening is that movie chain is showing the debate in movie theater on more than 200 screens across the country, that's in addition to all the networks and online sources that will cover this. that makes it seem like the stakes are bigger than usual, but we'll see when it gets going. gene robinson is here from "the washington post," our friend nicole wallace, veteran of the

george w. bush white house and the mccain/palin campaign 2008. sarah is supposed to be in the audience tonight. how does that make you feel? >> more excited than i already was. i'm still sort of feeling the ripples of the pence interview because that completely realigned the 2020 calculations. marco rubio is now the republican who is taking a principled stand against russia, who, as a lot of republicans have sort of wrung their hands over many aspect s of the trump candidacy, you know of my putin love angst. all this flowery language and overtures towards putin, it's so against everything this party stands for in this moment. i think marco rubio to the top of the pack politically. this week we're talking about hillary clinton's stolen e-mail, what will you do next week when it's yours. the person who had the great week this week aren't the people on the stage, it's marco rubio in my party. >> he had the senate democratic

campaign committee pull out its resources in florida. he had a policy good week and political week. >> that second thing really makes it a good week. >> i don't mean to take away from hillary clinton's week. she'll be the next president. to have a republican sort of stand up on principle and sort of give the clinton campaign, frankly, a little bit of cover on matters of national security is about the only way you can sort of take a stand. >> i remember the days when republicans used to stand up on principle on national security all the time. it used to happen. but this is -- i know a whole lot of people who are going to watch the debate tonight. i frankly don't know a lot of people who are going to watch it who are happy about the fact that they're going to watch it. but they're going to watch it somewhat grimly, i think. perhaps with john mccain's in mind, it's always darkest before it goes totally black. and about which corner of the

country's earth has not yet been scorched and how bad could it get. but chris matthews was so smart about political calculations and how you think about where you are and how you can win and this and that. but that assumes that donald trump at this point is taking that sort of rational view in calculation of, you know, do i still have a chance to win? should i be presidential or whatever? it just strikes me that for a while now he has been in the sort of throwing stuff at the wall phase of the campaign. >> the kitchen sink. >> to see if anything sticks. >> and the problem is that once you've thrown the kitchen sink, once you've thrown everything, you're left with an unusable house. >> speaking of houses, i got a little insight into his family's thinking this week. there was not as much debate prep as some of the folks left in the inner circle had hoped this week, but there was some on sunday. and there is a beginning of a realization that the end is

near, that it probably won't go his way, and i think some members of the family -- and this is from folks close to donald trump personally, not necessarily folks still involved in the political endeavor, but there is growing concern about the house that the trumps built, the business empire. there is mounting concern among his sort of personal circle, not his political circle about the family brand and the damage. >> you do reports of hotel bookings being down, for example. >> and that's just in this country. he's more polarizing and more unpopular abroad. millions in this country will vote for him. >> this could be the trivago election. we'll fit in another break. when we come back, the indes pinsible steve schmidt and james carville, when we continue. life and death. 600 dollars. of abuse.

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beauty of the evening as we get under way. >> you never know. it could be a gorgeous moment in civil discourse, brian. >> all righty. you sound like my professor during the brief time i attended college. we'll let people know what else is going on tonight. on facebook live -- >> this is amazing. >> -- and this notable because of what serious minded people have theorized is the future for donald trump. there is this live thing going on. it peaked at around 200,000 users a few minutes ago. that's former arizona governor jan brewer on the right and boris epstein of the kind of a trump all-around surrogate on the left. and this is live in the spin room. a lot of people have theorized that there will be a network of some sort, a media organization of the far right of some sort maybe modeled after the blaze, maybe not a television network because that's a tough business to break into. maybe something that looks a lot

like this. >> the next iteration of breitbart.com which is run by trump campaign's ceo. if you're tired of biased mainstream media reporting, otherwise known as crooked hillary super pac, tune into my live broadcast. this is a trump campaign designed to look like news, but they want to get around the -- they want to get around journalism, they want to get around the media and do their own thing. i was talking at the top of the hour about there being more and less strategic ways to badly lose a presidential election. if you're just a business guy and don't care about the republican party, one strategic way for you to benefit from a badly lost presidential race is turn it into another brand move for your organization and expand into fake journalism. >> come on, let's get this together. this very well may be the first salvo in that that we're watching tonight. we're all in this together. steve schmidt is in it with us

inexplicably. and he's been so essential to our modest eleventh hour broadcast this week in bemoaning what happened to his beloved republican party. steve, do you concur with nicole's analysis that with mike pence's failure to go all in against russia, this really could count on his permanent record down the road? >> there's no question about it, brian. that was an extraordinary interview. let's unpack it and look at the two things that just happened that again are just extraordinary. there's no debate in the national intelligence services of this country about who is responsible for these hacks. this is the russian government, russian intelligence services and, for the first time in the history of the united states, you have open foreign meddling in our election process. and that is an attack by foreign pow power on the sovereignty of the

united states. this is an enormously big deal. it deserves the condemnation of every american political leader regardless of party. and i think it bears mentioning that when ronald reagan had to choose an ambassador to send to the soviet union, the person that he chose was the great democratic party statesman bob strauss, the former chairman of the democratic national committee because we used to communicate to our foreign geopolitical adversaries with a common voice and purpose. the second thing that mike pence did that is remarkable is he refused to acknowledge what his running mate is in fact saying on the campaign trail, which is fundamentally different from what mike pence represented him to be saying. what donald trump is saying is this election, the way we choose our leaders is not legitimate.

it's rigged. it's part of a global conspiracy. and when mike pence said there's voter fraud, he is at a minimum being extremely disingenuous. there are isolated incidents of voter fraud, but we do not have systemic voter fraud in the united states and certainly not at a level that is possible to overturn a presidential election from the will of the american people. it is a statement no different than when donald trump talked about the thousands of muslims he said he saw in jersey city cheering the fall of the world trade center. it was an event he made up from whole cloth, from a fevered imagination. it never happened. though so we may live in post-fact america, i think it's important for our candidates for the vice presidency and the presidency to have at least some

relation to reality when they make representations that go to the heart of the integrity of our democratic system. and let's be clear. these are attacks on the foundations of how we pick our leaders, and it is very, very disturbing. >> troubling indeed. steve schmidt, thank you, we'll vow to bring facts back at some point when this is all over. we saw hillary clinton arriving with her husband, the former president, daughter chelsea and her husband, the clinton's son-in-law. to kristen welker we go in the spin room. any last-minute reads on strategy here? >> i just spoke with a campaign official moments ago, brian, who tells me that secretary clinton doesn't feel as though she needs to destroy donald trump. he's already in pretty bad shape. instead her goal tonight is going to be to look presidential. she will not hold back if she

feels she needs to engage with him. at the same time she's not necessarily going to get into the mud with him. and we saw a little bit of that strategy play out during the second debate. you recall some of her supporters wanted her to actually be a little bit more aggressive. but what we're seeing, brian, is a shift to the more positive. we saw that today in an ad that she released in which she talked about the fact that she would be a president for everyone. why is that important? because the campaign is trying to send a message to independents and to undecided voters that she will be a president for them as well. incredibly important in this deeply divided environment that we're in right now, brian. i'm told she's feeling confident heading into tonight. >> kristen welker in the spin room, thanks. you can hear she was battling there with the p.a. system. that's because the audience is getting their pregame briefing. that's frank farroncoff on the left and secretary for the clinton white house.

in tonight's case, what happens in vegas will be beamed around the world. we're now going to go to our final break. when we come back, it will be the bridge, the top of the hour and get under way as the debate begins the third and final presidential debate from las vegas.

now back inside the hall we go. both gentlemen are talking ground rules for the audience and so should we, by the way, when chris wallace of fox news takes the stage and gives his briefing to the audience, we'll

share that with you live. this is going to be a format we are not used to. and the other sub plot of tonight is it's going to give chris wallace broad discretion as moderator. there are only six topics. 90 minutes. debt and entitlements, immigration, economy, supreme court, foreign hot spots, fitness to be president. two minutes each. at the top of each of those segments, but each of those segments is budgeted for 10 to 15 minutes. so it's going to be a lot of discussion, a lot of cross-talk, we assume the same number of tangents as these things go off in and the moderator will attempt to get them back on schedule and back on topic. >> yeah, this is set up, i mean, just to underscore, this is set up as a question on each of those topics, two minutes to respond, and then ten minutes to jabber. ten minutes to discuss. i mean, and that defines this in

a couple of interesting ways. one, it does really put a spotlight on the moderator in terms of him having a lot of leeway to run this the way he wants to. he's never done a general election debate before. nobody from fox news has done a general election presidential debate before. it also gives us fair warning that sort of now we know that there are whole swaths of issues on which american presidential elections are usually fought that haven't been discussed in the general election debates yet, and that still won't. we haven't talked in the general election debates about gun control or voting rights or abortion or drug policy or gay rights or afghanistan or even -- there was only a brief mention of the iraq war. we haven't talked about veterans issues other than in these brief mentions. there's been all of this stuff that hasn't been addressed. and tonight we sort of know for sure that it won't be before this campaign is formally over. >> that would, of course, sully this campaign with a discussion of the issues.

james carville is standing by to talk to us. he's in his beloved city of new orleans, louisiana, tonight. and james, talk to us about the advice and counsel you would give to hillary clinton going into that room. >> well, i think what she wants to do is come across answering the questions, being very knowledgeable, being very warm, not so much engaging trump, whatever he's going to do, i have no idea. i also think that chuck todd made the real money point earlier. if the question is not will trump do well enough to make this race competitive. i don't think he will. can he stop the hemorrhaging that the republicans around the country are so worried about? i think that will be the important point here. can he put some kind of a floor on where it is now? because it has been a terrible two weeks for him. >> james, you agree this wikipedia story that keeps playing out by the thousands of revealed e-mails every day, so many that news organizations with people devoted to it

running full bore can't keep up with the numbers, can't read it all. do you agree that there is real damage to be caused by this politically, first off? >> well, so far it hasn't. honestly, many commentators have said we found out exactly what we thought about her, and i don't know if anything in there has been damaging as some other things that we've seen. now who knows what's coming or who knows what else is hacked or anything else. but if any campaign, any person or any news organization were hacked and everything came out, honestly, a friend of the democrat or a friend of the clintons, i'm surprised at how little damage has been done by this as are a lot of people and a lot of neutral commentators. >> james, rachel here in new york. i've been thinking about the wikileaks factor here. we'll see how chris wallace handles it. we know that he can be a very tough interlocutor when he wants to, he can really not let

somebody off the hook if he wants to. we'll see if he does that or if clinton does that with trump. clinton, if she weren't so far ahead, she might spend a good portion of this date -- this debate dred debate addressing the wikileaks and things in the e-mails. but because she's so far ahead, she's campaigning for utah, she's campaigning for texas, she's campaigning for nebraska and maybe the centrist conciliatory stuff in there won't play badly in those states. >> rachel, one of the things we see in the progressive wing or the left wing or whatever we call it these days, the democratic party, coming together pretty good. sanders has been good. you see michael moore coming out. you are seeing different people like that coming out. i think she's fairly protected there. some of it is the horrors of donald trump. i would add one thing in the issues we haven't discussed. i know you're very big on this.

we haven't discussed climate and that won't be discussed tonight which is kind of amazing to me at any rate and i think to a lot of other people. >> given the water behind you and the water that makes up the state of louisiana. discuss it sooner or later. we'll reserve our right to come back to you and talk about the debate. lord knows not talk about the lsu football program quite yet. hugh hewitt is standing by in las vegas. we're duty bound to get this out of of the way. hugh, congratulations. your cleveland indians are going to the world series. >> wearing red, white and blue tonight. as a pro to what rachel said, i'm most looking forward to the supreme court segment tonight because when that is talked about every republican senate candidate will be cheered to hear originalism discussed and the idea that if indeed secretary clinton is going to be president, and there's no great

comeback by donald trump, we're going to need a republican senate to count on her worst judicial appointment. when i think about tnew hampshie and roy blount and toomey in pennsylvania, they'll focus on this discussion tonight. when secretary clinton was asked about it at the last debate, she never mentioned the constitution. and it was donald trump's biggest applause line in cleveland. so if he's focused tonight, the supreme court becomes a key issue for him and for the audience and for senate candidates across the country who are on the republican side. >> hugh hewitt, we're keeping an eye on the right-hand side of the screen where the executive director has come out on stage, we believe, to introduce our moderator, chris wallace. let's listen in. >> good evening. let me be the last person to welcome you to tonight's debate and also the last person to lecture you on why it's so important to be quiet. let me as a show of hands, how

many of you have been to a general election debate between the two presidential nominees, raise your hands? wow. okay. so you know the drill. and those of you who don't, i'm going to repeat the drill. it's really important. i know in some of the primary debates, and i participated in some of them, people would hoot and holler and that wasn't necessarily bad. but this is different. one of these two people three weeks from yesterday is going to be the next president of the united states. it's very important for them to be able to make their case. it's very important for the millions of people who are going to be watching out there to be able to listen to them make their case. i'm sure in the course of the evening, you're going to hear your candidate say something absolutely wonderful and you're going to want to cheer. don't. i'm sure in the course of the next hour and a half, you're going to hear the other person, the other candidate say something that you don't like, you may want to make some noise. don't. just remember, you're not a

participant here. you're a guest. i'm going to sit here and get ready at 3:00 sharp we're going to see -- you're going to hear in the back of the platforms all the networks beginning to do their coverage. 30 seconds before, i'll give you notice that we're going to start. we'll introduce the candidates. applause then. at the end of the debate, you can applaud all you want. but in the meantime, silence, please, blessed silence. >> chris wallace starting things off. it is now 9:00 p.m. eastern time, 6:00 p.m. local time out there in las vegas. he takes his seat. we get ready to go. and a word about chris wallace. a member of the extended mike wallace family. a former member of the extended nbc news family. he was a correspondent here for a good, long time. and as has been pointed out this week by "the new york times" and others, tonight represents something of a big deal for his