largest city from isis. we'll have that for you. that will be a good interview. >> that is going to do it for us on this friday. i'm betty nguyen alongside alex witt and louis burgdorf. "morning joe" starts right now. >> i would like to address an important religious matter. the issue of going to confession. or as hillary calls it, the fourth of july weekend with fbi director comey. >> people look at the statue of liberty and they see a proud symbol of our history of a nation of immigrants, a beacon of hope for people around the world. donald looks at the statue of liberty and sees a four. maybe a five if she loses the

torch and tablet and changes her hair. >> good morning. it is friday, october 21st. >> didn't go really as expected. >> you got to know your crowd. we'll have more of that coming up. with us on set, msnbc political contributor rick tyler and political writer for "the new york times" nick confessore. >> reminds me of correspondents dinner that didn't know the crowd and sat there and stared. >> awkward. >> trump started out -- he's not good at that. let's just say that. that requires self-deprecation. >> he had a small hands joke. >> he had a small hands joke. >> the joke about mill --

>> it became a campaign speech. >> the room started booing him. i'm sure we'll play that later. >> we have that coming up. at a rally in ohio yesterday, donald trump addressed criticism that he's received from his suspenseful and answer at the debate to whether he will absolutely accept the result of the election. he clarified he would accept the result if it's a clear one. >> ladies and gentlemen, i want to make a major announcement today. i would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters, and to all of the people of the united states, that i will totally accept the

results of this great and historic presidential election if i win. a candidate like crooked hillary clinton who will lie to congress, lie to the fbi, destroy 33,000 e-mails, put her office up for sale, and put our confidential information in the reach of our enemies is a candidate who is truly capable of anything including voter fraud. hillary clinton is the most corrupt and dishonest person ever to seek the office of the presidency. so it's in that context that i was asked a question about whether i would agree in advance

to concede the results on election inside if for some reason we should lose, which we're not going to lose. in effect i'm being asked to waive centuries of legal precedent designed to protect the voters. of course i would accept a clear election result, but i would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result. right? >> all right. so, willie, after he started poking his critics -- we're wondering what vegas entertainer was he. the point. you and you. you thought celine dion. i thought more wayne newton.

daddy, don't you walk so fast. you. tom jones. close. so he starts out with this total set up made for tv set up to enrage his critics. it worked. i saw several of them foaming at the mouth in passing. they were speaking in tongues. they were freaked out. the bottom line though is, of course, he would accept a clear result while reserving his right to protest. i mean, it's what barbara boxer did in 2005. she protested the ohio results in 2004 her right to do that. democrats right to protest anything. the question is, just strategically does this move him beyond this controversy? of course i'll self the results if they're clear. there's barbara boxer in 2005

actually issuing the first challenge for a vote during accounting of the electoral college since 1877. does it get past the mess that donald trump created for himself with that terrible answer on sunday night or wednesday night? what's today? friday. wednesday. you wake up at 4:00 for a decade, i was trying to figure out whether it was 16 or 20. >> a lot of people wish we were at 20. i don't think it moves him past. if he had just said at the debate, of course, i'll accept the result and later if something happens after the election he could contest it. he can't just say it. the only way we'll pass it is that he does something else which is what always happens. >> did he say it yesterday when he said of course i will accept

a clear result but reserve my right to protest anything questionable. >> i think for people offended by what he said, i don't think that's enough. he should have said it right the first time, and he can't just say it. i'll accept it if instead of saying i'll accept it. >> how fascinating. you have donald trump inhe second debate -- i guess it was the first debate. spending the entire week after the second debate doing cleanup operation on the fat shaming. here we have donald trump in the final debate, which many say was his best debate, just not able to clean it up yesterday and say, listen, i'm going to be clear. i'm going to accept the result. i reserve the right -- i will accept the result. people don't think it's a laughing matter when you talk about questioning the integrity of the democratic process. >> he's out of weeks. he can't spend whole weeks cleaning up comments from the last week. i think the problem is it's fine

to say, of course, i'll challenge a close reactielectio. >> everyone around him is saying that they don't question the integrity of the democratic process. >> sort of. >> what do you mean? >> giuliani goes off and says he's talking about the media. then talks about districts in philadelphia, right? he goes -- >> i'm saying it puts a context around his comment on the election. if he's making these allegations about fraud around the country and then he says -- >> the whole thing is self-inflicted. he never would have got the question. chris wallace doesn't ask the question unless he spent the previous two weeks undermining the integrity of the election. >> take a chance to be

statesmanlike. >> he conceded the election in a debate. he could have said what he said as a joke if i win. of course i'll accept the results. i'm going to win. he didn't say that. >> the biggest issue are how republicans are dealing with this. >> he put republican senate candidates in a terrible position. let me ask you, rick, have you in any campaign on any level where you had everybody around the candidate saying say this, say this, say this, say this, say this. it's important. it's important. like the trump campaign was doing to donald trump about the election not being rigged. and you saw surrogates out beforehand teeing it up for him telling him what to do and then he goes out and completely blows it up. first of all -- >> i've had the candidate say you're all wrong i'm doing this. >> but you knew that beforehand and you could deal with that. what would you do if you were in a position like this. do you walk? does kellyanne conway walk?

does she stick around until the end? >> i don't want to make those decisions for them. i wanted to support the trump campaign. i really did as a republican nominee. he's made it so impossible. i just couldn't ever get there. >> what was the thing for you? >> for me it started as a policy issue that donald trump is not a conservativ conservative. he's not even a republican. and it is lots of issues. >> it ends it right there, doesn't it? >> it's the life issue. it's the economic issue. he's introduced a welfare program. >> what do you think. i want to pass it around the table. it got so crazy yesterday. it's been bad, but i just turned off my laptop, got off my iphone and started listening to the beatles it got so crazy yesterday. on the left you had everybody freaking out saying that donald trump is basically destroying the pillars of democracy and we

would never survive this. we will survive donald trump. i'm so sick and tired of republicans, we will not survive bill clinton. then democrats, we will not survive dick cheney. then republicans, we will not survive barack obama. we'll survive a couple more weeks of donald trump. people need to stop freaking out. but then on the republican -- on the far right side. you have sean hannity saying that people like you and me that aren't coming out and supporting trump, it's our fault that we're supporters of partial birth abortion. >> i'm honored by the criticism. >> i'm just saying. what do you say to sean hannity that says because you don't support donald trump, or i don't support donald trump, and we haven't endorsed him, that we're supporting partial birth abortions? >> i think it's the tyranny of the immediate. if donald trump doesn't lose, we'll lose the supreme court, even though ted cruz is on the

judiciary committee and we're supposed to get advise and consent. we won't lose the republic. will we lose loss potential in my opinion? sure. on a lot of values. but i don't think we lose the republic. you know, i think the danger of having donald trump represent the republican party will cause more long-term damage. the party is splitting now and the question is it going to survive after this election? >> we've had for nine years at different times crises and people coming up to us and one of the questions are we going to be okay? the answer is, yeah, we're going to be fine. we're going to survive -- fill in the blank. i've been doing it for 25 years. we're going to survive. impeachment. end of the republic. we're going to survive the 2005 recount. we're going to survive the depression. there's no important difference. you know what? i hear that every time.

there's always an important difference, and the power of america, the strength of americans, always wash it away. but you believe that there's an important difference this time and is more urgent now than ever before. i'm an old man. i've heard it all before. so why is this time different than the other million times from world war i to depression to world war ii. >> trump is not an event. he's a person. he'll lead a movement after this election. it's going to tear apart a major political party and it's going to go on and on for three or four years. >> like sarah palin? >> a lot worse than sarah palin. >> young man, can i just tell you this? >> imagine the tea party with a megaphone. >> here's the thing. he's going to play a lot of golf in scotland and driving around in his rolls-royce. >> i think you're wrong. >> people that know donald trump

and we have known donald trump for 10 or 11 years, if people think donald trump is going to slog around to iowa in february -- >> he doesn't have to. >> donald is driven by money. he's driven by the deal. it's all about the deal. he can make deals, tv deals, he can make media deals. he's going to be looking for a lot of other deals. i think we have a bigger problem. i wrote about it yesterday in "the washington post." i think you're half right, young man. i'm just joking with you. i wish i were his age. i would love to be your age. >> how old do you think i am? >> 87. i'm 214. i wrote in "the washington post" yesterday that i think you're half right but it's not about donald trump. it's about the people who voted for donald trump. it's about the fact that we're coming up on the 50th

anniversary of the republican revolt in the deep south against lbj and the civil rights bills and the fact that we've been forfeiting 90% of the black vote now for 50 years. it's about the fact that we're forfeiting 80% of the hispanic vote. that is the real -- i think there is a reckoning coming. but i don't think it's to america. i think the reckoning comes within our republican party because we either look forward and reach out or we're destroyed. >> one thing i would say to sean hannity is if donald trump does indeed think he's going to lose the election, because his pollster would be telling him every day, he would never undermine the integrity of the election. if people don't believe donald trump is going to win and he apparently doesn't believe he's going to win, people just won't

show up. those the same people that marco rubio is depending on and toomey is depending on. we'll lose house races already because of what donald trump said. he's doing his own voter suppression. >> an interesting exercise in -- i'm tired of getting yelled at during this election. you ask a question about something about hillary clinton, who i'm for because we revealed that here, and everyone is, like, you must be for donald trump. no. our job is to ask a lot of questions. i have been yelled at more and sort of gotten into more dust ups with people. >> mika has been clear about the fact she's voting for hillary clinton. i've been clear for over a year that i'm not voting for donald trump and people come up and scream every day. >> so republican voters look at

who the next in the republican party. 27% see mike pence as top choice to be the leader if trump loses to clinton. senator ted cruz at 19% and speaker paul ryan at 15. >> let's stop there for a second. meet the new boss. same as the old boss. combine this year's ticket and you're at 51%. one out of two voters say the future of the republican party are mike pence or donald trump. >> and there's another one inside that bloomberg poll that says who better represents the republican party to you? this is after all we've seen from donald trump. 51% say it's donald trump. still a majority of republicans say donald trump is my republican party. i think the question with the power he sees in that --

>> young man is grimacing. >> that number is brutal. >> that's what i was trying to tell you. >> that's what i'm telling you. >> the thing is that donald trump -- it's the views of donald trump. >> it's that he's a dominant figure in his party, and he will keep being that if he wants to be. >> how many people know paul ryan's position? >> as to how many republicans will follow trump should he lose the election, 38% say they'll stick with him while 33% said they'll likely lose interest and 24% say they will give up and not pay attention to trump after the election. >> there's 57% that are going to say we'll watch him on "the apprentice" once a week, but we won't follow him over the cliff. >> i like those people that say i'll probably lose interest. who answers a poll question like that? >> this happens all the time. it happens all the time. you were at the center of the

stage or the center of the world and then you lose and then, boom, you fall off a cliff. lights off. >> yes. if you started to interview the people that loss, today they'll tell you that you have secret service and staff members around you and the next day you're nobody. literally nobody. >> donald trump is not nobody. that's the difference. he's still donald trump. i think his reaction to this will be interesting because if the polls hold up, he's getting ready to be really humbled on a global stage in front of the world he's going to -- does that mean he walks away to his old life or does he seek redemption and prove this movement meant something and he's an historic figure in this country? >> it's also lucrative. there's a lot of money to be made. >> he's going to make so much money. he knows that already. whether he streams a tv network, which he launched the other night basically with trump tv, or books or -- i want you, mika,

to talk from very personal experience about what happens when you go from being at the center of power in the world one day to sitting in your living room and watching men in suits come in and rip out red phones. >> when was i -- when carter loss. >> with your dad. >> lights went out. literally came in and ripped phones out of the wall and everyone was gone and you could hear the crickets. >> secret service around him for four years. >> amazing. we had a family meeting about it. it was expected. it really is very jarring. for my family -- can you imagine for these candidates? this is lower level but still, it was really jarring. and it's hard for the person involved to sort of -- >> do you think he'll build

homes for poor people? >> no. he loves to build golf courses. he loves to make deals. he loves -- >> he loves to do tv. >> he loves tv. i'm sure he would love to be back on "the apprentice." he loves to do what he loves to do. >> he has savvy media people around him. there's no reason he wouldn't start some sort of tv and there's clearly -- if you look at that number, there's a lot of people that would potentially watch. >> we're not talking like the election is over. people think that donald trump is going to stand on a tank like boris yeltsin in red square. that requires too much effort. it's not what he does. >> i think this is all phony. he's not going to contest the election. i do think for the next four years he's just up the street from every tv studio in america. he can say i told you so about hillary clinton. >> and he will in a lot of different ways. >> and have 38% of the country. >> about the media --

>> he's still going to be around is what i'm saying. >> he'll be around in a way that i think in a bigger way than sarah palin was. let's not forget that sarah palin had a big footprint for a couple years. she went out and said vote for this person -- you know very well, the republican base voted for that person. will donald trump do that? yes. will donald trump talk about burn down the temple, no. >> he could do the palin route. palin had a half life that sort of faded. if he does some kind of politics media property and wants to have a presence as an activist in some way, i think it will be a long couple years for the gop. >> i think he's going to do that. >> the gop made their bed. sorry. >> i think it's up to the republican party to figure out what they want to be when they grow up. maybe there is no republican five or ten years from now. i suspect there will be. >> i think they'll survive.

t throughout history you knew power change because parliament building was burning or someone standing on a tank or the military takes over. the united states has been the beacon of freedom and model for how to do peaceful transition of power. which is why hillary's joke was so funny last night. to undermine th is to speak against the american ideal. american isn't so much a place as it is an ideal and speaking against that ideal when he talks about we don't have elections that you can trust. >> by the way, donald trump knows he has to get people back to his properties. again, he spent his entire life building this real estate empire. he's got to get people back to his properties. business is down since he's been away from it. he's going to want to build more golf courses. he's going to want to use this experience to make more money. it's what he does. if he's standing on a tank screaming the streets will flow

with blood of unbelievers, bank of america will be less likely to extend him a loan for his new property. he's very proud we know. he hasn't talked to me about it personally but you can see on tv. he's really, really proud of his new property on pennsylvania avenue. that's what -- >> russian banks will love him. >> that's what drives him. burning the parliament building does not help him where he wants to go. >> there's been a lot of overreaction and foaming at the mouth. a lot of freaking out having said that, he said some of the most destructive things i've ever seen in a presidential election along the way. it's not without merit. >> and the polls are reflecting that he's paying for that. >> americans are not that -- all right. still ahead on "morning joe." >> keep calm and carry on. >> we'll show more from last night's al smith dinner and thomas friedman joins the discussion and the islamic state kills nearly a dozen in kirkuk.

we'll get general david petraeus' take on this when he joins us on set later this morning. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful to me. but the best place to start is in the forest. kubo: i spy something beginning with..."s"

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donald trump and hillary clinton came together last night at the annual alfred e. smith dinner. the catholic church's dinner. they were seated on opposite sides of cardinal timothy dolan named in honor of the first catholic to be a nominee is a chance to poke fun at themselves and each other in the midst of a heated campaign. >> we both run impressive properties on fifth avenue. of course, his is much more impressive than mine. that's because i built mine with my own beautifully formed hands.

i know that so many of you in the archdiocese already have a place in your heart for a guy who started out as a carpenter working for his father. i was carpenter working for my father. true. not for a long period of time but for about three weeks. you know, the president told me to stop whining, but i really have to say the media is even more bias this year that aft after -- than ever before. you want the proof. michelle obama gives a speech and everyone loves it. it's fantastic. they think she's absolutely

great. my wife gives the exact same speech and people get on her case. and i don't get it. i don't know why. >> okay. at that point -- >> that is funny. >> at that point, willie, take the mike. drop it. sit down. >> end it. >> he gets a 10. he does know how to play within the lines. but then -- >> didn't happen quite that way. >> that was the high point for donald trump. then the room turned to a heckling fest and boos and the whole thing. >> it was so good. >> turned into a trump campaign speech. >> hillary is so corrupt. she got kicked off the watergate

commission. how corrupt do you have to be to get kicked off the watergate commission? pretty corrupt. >> the guy's face to the right is priceless. >> then it was hillary clinton's turn. >> just continue clear, i think the cardinal is saying i'm not eligible for sainthood. but getting through these three debates with donald trump has to count as a miracle. because this is a friendly dinner for such a great cause, donald, if at any time you don't like what i'm saying, feel free to stand up and shout wrong while i'm talking. you know, come to think of it, it's amazing i'm up here after donald. i didn't think he would be okay with a peaceful transition of

power. and, donald, after listening to your speech, i will always enjoy listening to mike pence deny that you ever gave it. >> okay. after her jokes, clinton turned serious. invoking the head of the catholic sunshine to seemingly contrast her opponent who sparred against pope francis. >> school boards sent home letters with children saying that if al smith is elected president, you will not be allowed to have or read a bible. voters were told that he would annul marriages. appeals to fear and division can cause us to treat each other as the other. you certainly don't need to be catholic to be inspired by the

humility and heart of the holy father, pope francis, or to embrace his message. his message about rejecting a mindset of hostility. his calls to reduce inequality. his warnings about climate change. his appeal that we build bridges, not walls. >> willie, what do you think? a strong end. >> yeah. they both had moments is what i'll say. if you go back and watch 2012, barack obama who is excellent at all these things and mitt romney was funny. very good. i watched it on c-span because i'm a nerd. she went back to her seat. donald moved to pull out the chair. there were glimpses of civility that were nice to see. it's all going to go away today and donald is tweeting already

about her terrible speech but just for five minutes they were civil to each other. >> that's hopeful. >> we can have nice things. >> for a minute. >> see, the world is not coming to an end. >> been a long week. >> don't worry, young man. in the words of john lennon -- i won't say. people get mad every time i do. >> coming up, peggy noonan offers a visual. imagine a sane donald trump? we'll read from that in the must read opinion pages. proud of you, son. ge! a manufacturer. well that's why i dug this out for you. it's your grandpappy's hammer and he would have wanted you to have it. it meant a lot to him... yes, ge makes powerful machines. but i'll be writing the code that will allow those machines to share information with each other. i'll be changing the way the world works. (interrupting) you can't pick it up, can you? go ahead. he can't lift the hammer. it's okay though! you're going to change the world.

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up next, political reports that donald trump's national political director is no longer playing an active role in the campaign. up next, stuart stevens gives his assessment on where the race stands now with just two weeks ago. we're back after this. this car is traveling over 200 miles per hour. to win, every millisecond matters. both on the track and thousands of miles away. with the help of at&t, red bull racing can share critical information about every inch of the car from virtually anywhere. brakes are getting warm. confirmed, daniel you need to cool your brakes. understood, brake bias back 2 clicks. giving them the agility to have speed & precision. because no one knows & like at&t. [music] jess: hey look, it's those guys.

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>> the democrats. there was a mosquito. i don't want mosquitos around me. i don't like those mosquitos. i never did. speaking of mosquitos, hello, hillary, how are you doing? they're working for themselves. i see a mosquito. right now, i don't like mosquitos too much, folks. get out of here, you mosquito.

i never minded mosquitos. now i'm not loving them. get that mosquito out of here. get a little nervous with mosquitos nowadays folks. up here you haven't been hit yet. we need a nice mosquito bite. >> we love you, trump. >> thank you. i love you too. mosquito bite right smack in the middle of the nose. we don't want it. >> he seems so obsessed with mosquitos. what is that? >> he's a germaphobe. i know what i'm talking about. >> i think he's make a zika reference. >> you think it's a zika thing? >> you guys are thinking too

hard. >> he's freaking out. >> i'm telling you, it's the reason. >> it's not like he's going to have a baby. i mean, he's good. he's freaking out about these mosquitos, right? >> do i do our guest or -- all right. joining us now from annapolis, maryland, stuart stevens chief strategist for mitt romney's 2012 presidential campaign. >> let me ask him an important question first. who does ole miss have this weekend? >> we've got ole miss/lsu coming up. >> how are you feeling? >> always hopeful. as long as we're not playing alabama. >> okay. that's a smart assessment.

here's peggy noonan from "the wall street journal." imagine a sane donald trump. look. he's a nut. you know he's a nut. they all know donald trump is a nut. some will vote for him anyway. many are in mad men versus criminal mode living with or making their final decision. they got the blues. everyone does. they're worried about the where we are and where are we going. i get the reagan fantasy. big guy with a nonstandard resume comes in from outside, cleans out the stables, saves the day. it's a fantasy and does not apply to this moment. for a year you've been observing the tv fun house that is his brain. what if there had been a sane donald trump? oh my god, sane trump would have won in a landslide. sane donald trump for president, too bad he doesn't exist. >> so we've seen in the past there are a couple times in this campaign where donald trump

listened to people around him, listened to his family and sort of played within the lines and his poll numbers went up. but those times were far and few between. do you think peggy has the point that if he had discipline to stay in between the lines, we would have had a closer race here? >> if he had discipline, he wouldn't have won the primary. he won the primary by saying things that were disqualifying for the general election. we should have a muslim ban. certain segment of the republican primary electorate liked that. >> that's a real question we've been talking about around this table. donald trump is not the issue if he loses this election moving forward. our republican party is the issue. the reckoning that has to come to our republican party. how do we make sure that candidates that talk about muslim bans and all of those

things and deny that they know who david duke is and claim that they don't really know a whole lot about the ku klux klan that those people don't win primary contests? >> you got me. i really don't have any idea. there's talk we should have superdelegates or something. you know, i think that part of the problem in the primary was there was not a strong enough candidate there to take on donald trump from the very beginning and disassemble the absurdity of donald trump being a republican nominee where we see republicans losing georgia. tied in alaska. arizona is a great battleground state now. it really has to be up to the candidate, i think, not the rule makers, to do what it takes to lead a party. and i don't know who's going to emerge here. you really can't outsource your

courage. you have to get in there and you have to be willing to take it on and make a case. you don't see a lot of people like donald trump winning a lot of primaries in big states. you see reasonable people. now u.s. senate nominees or u.s. senate candidates and for the most part republicans have better senate candidates than the democrats do. it's up to that person at that moment to stand and fight and win. >> here's charles from "the washington post." my vote explained. as a conservativconservative, i disagreed with her world view and the policies that flow from it. the recent disclosures should close the case. a case so strong that against any of a dozen possible gop candidates voting for her opponent would be a no-brainer. against donald trump, however,

it is a dilemma. i will not vote for hillary clinton. but as i've explained in these columns, i could never vote for donald trump. the only question is, who's name i'm going to write in. i'm down to paul ryan or ben sasse. two weeks to decide. wow. >> that's the dilemma so many republicans find themselves in. no way can i vote for hillary clinton. but this is my alternative. it would be nice to go to a third alternative but the guy doesn't know where aleppo is. not a lot on the board. mcmullin is an impressive guy. i don't know if either of you know what you're doing and there are almost three weeks left until election day. >> the question is, the question is again, it's the sean hannity argument. if you don't vote for donald trump, then you are helping elect hillary clinton. and hannity says but you're then responsible for partial birth

abortion in america which is absurd. that's the argument that many people will have. >> it is an absurd argument. it's unrealistic. if everyone voted for mcmullin, he would be the president and not donald trump and hillary clinton. that's not reasonable because people don't know his name. i couldn't remember his name for a long time. i remember egg mcmuffin. >> we're all voting for egg mcmuffins. >> that's the way i remember his name. >> for practical purposes, there are two votes here. it's trump or clinton. all i can do is control my vote. >> right. i'm saying a vote for mcmullin, is a vote for trump. >> it's a vote for hillary. >> considered to be a vote for hillary except for the fact, stuart, i have so many people that come up to me and say, you know, how can you not vote for

hillary? you're saying that you're not voting for trump. how can you not vote for hillary? they are shocked and stunned. they list -- they don't understand how anybody could ever vote for donald trump specifically to vote against hillary. i always say, you don't judge people for that because for a lot of americans voting for hillary clinton is just as offensive as voting for donald trump. she's a woman that 55% of americans in this abc news/"the washington post" poll should be indicted. the more we learn from fbi and james comey's handling of this case, she got special treatment in a criminal investigation. so it is really two horrific choices for conservatives.

>> do you think she's unfit for office? >> stuart, go ahead. >> is hillary clinton unfit for office in your opinion? >> no, i don't think so. i don't feel that. i spent '90s working against the clintons and not supporting them. i don't come to that conclusion at all. you know, we go back to is voting is the most personal affirmation we of what we would like the country to be and who we would like to lead the country. it's just deeply, deeply personal. i think that voting against someone never means as much as voting to affirm someone. you don't have to vote in our system. i think a lot of people are struggling with this question. you know, i look at these early voting numbers. i think there's going to be big turnout. i got to tell you the democrats are doing much, much better in

early voting than they did four years ago because there's not much of a republican organization out there. >> stuart stevens, thank you very much. >> i was going to say. i know a lot of republicans that are going to leave the top line open and then vote straight ticket below there. >> still ahead, the latest from iraq. efforts to retake mosul as fighting breaks out with islamic state fighters elsewhere in iraq. plus, more from last night's al smith dinner. the jokes that hit and missed. as we go to break, a classic from john mccain who some felt outshined barack obama at the 2008 edition. we're back right after this. >> i come here tonight to the al smith dinner knowing i'm the underdog in the final weeks but if you know where to look, there are signs of hope. there's signs of hope even in the most unexpected places. even in this room full of proud manhattan democrats. i can't shake that feeling that

some people here are pulling for me. i'm delighted to see you here tonight, hillary. with my moderate to severe ulcerative colitis, the possibility of a flare was almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal. until i talked to my doctor. she told me that humira helps people like me get uc under control and keep it under control when certain medications haven't worked well enough. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common,

and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. raise your expectations. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, control is possible. i spent many years as a nuclear missile launch officer. if the president gave the order, we had to launch the missiles. that would be it. i prayed that call would never come. self control may be all that keeps these missiles from firing. i would bomb the [ beep ] out of 'em. i want to be unpredictable. i love war. the thought of donald trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death. it should scare everyone. i'm hillary clinton and i approve this message. (ee-e-e-oh-mum-oh-weh) (hush my darling...) (don't fear my darling...) (the lion sleeps tonight.)

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still ahead. this is exciting. david petraeus is going to be here live. >> the retired general is coming

up. also with us this morning, "the new york times" thomas friedman here to talk about what -- >> hillary's paid speeches say about what kind of president she would be. it's a topic that came up a number of times in last night's al smith dinner. >> i'm pleased to announce that tonight we have raised $6 million. let me put that in perspective for you. that will pay for nearly five minutes of our next speaker's speech. ♪ audi pilotless vehicles have conquered highways, mountains, and racetracks. and now much of that same advanced technology is found in the audi a4. with one notable difference... ♪

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and even tonight with all of the heated back and forth between my opponent and me at the debate last night, we have proven that we can actually be civil to each other. in fact, just before taking this, hillary accidentally bumped into me and she very civilly said, pardon me. >> you notice there is no teleprompter tonight which is smart because maybe you saw

donald dismantle his prompter the other night. it's harder when you're translating from the original russian. >> those were two good ones. >> it took a while to get the pardon me. >> i hed it four times. that's nice. i don't get it. all right. welcome back to "morning joe." it's friday, october 21st. it's been a long week. >> what was that license plate that we showed seven or eight years ago? we showed it in the 6:00 hour and mika didn't get it. >> it was a filthy joke that of course i didn't get it. you guys got it right away, you perverts. >> ted cruz's campaign communication director and now msnbc political contributor rick tyler is with us and joining the conversation is kasie hunt and in vegas, msnbc analyst robert

costa. and jerry peters. and let's get to willie geist. it's friday by the way. you don't want to have to enunciate everything. >> let's give a shout-out to bob costa. the debate was two days ago. he's still in vegas. >> had to work that out. >> casinos are open. >> and what's the line on notre dame this weekend? >> i'm a die-hard domer but this season is pretty much over. >> doesn't mean you can't bet on their misfortune. >> what does that have to do with anything? >> last night the al smith dinner here in new york city. donald trump sitting one seat away from each other. cardinal dolan between them. >> a line of reporters between

them. so hillary clinton had one line to rudy giuliani that wasn't received well by its target. >> it is great also to see mayor bloomberg here. it's a shame he's not speaking tonight. i'm curious to hear what a billionaire has to say. we've got the honorable chuck schumer, the honorable mike bloomberg, honorable bill de blasio and so many other wonderful elected officials and we have rudy giuliani. now, many don't know this but rudy actually got his start as a prosecutor going after wealthy new yorkers who avoided paying taxes. but as the saying goes, if you can't beat them, go on fox news

and call them a genius. >> not a muscle on his face moved after that. he didn't like that. >> maybe he just had a botox treatment. >> maybe he couldn't hear what she said. >> if you watch it again, they were both funny. they both had good moments until trump's in particular fell off a cliff pretty quickly. >> like this show, it's all about taking risks. sometimes it doesn't work. you put yourself out there. >> make them laugh. >> make them laugh. >> why not. >> that's what it's about. laugh at yourself. >> if not, we would be crying. pardon me. let's get to the news. at a rally in ohio yesterday, donald trump addressed the criticism that he's received from his suspenseful answer at the debate to whether he would absolutely accept the results of the election. he clarified that he would accept the results as long as it is a clear one. but not before starting with a

joke likely aimed at his critics. >> ladies and gentlemen, i want to make a major announcement today. i would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the united states that i will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election if i win. [ applause ] hillary clinton is the most corrupt and dishonest person ever to seek the office of the presidency. so it was in that context

whether i would agree in advance to concede the results on election night if for some reason we should lose, which we're not going to lose. in effect, i'm being asked to waive centuries of legal precedent designed to protect the voters. of course i would accept a clear election result, but i would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result. >> all day long there was such reaction to this. this is so unprecedented and such a threat to our system. >> he said he would accept a clear result. he would continue to be able to press a legal challenge if one

came about. >> that's astounding. people have never seen that before. that's why hours of coverage after he made the speech foaming at the mouth. >> it actually has happened before where somebody put a legal challenge forward under great pressure. barbara boxer did it in 2005 actually. first time since 1877. she said she regretted not doing it in 2000 so she challenged the 2004 election and stopped counting of the electoral votes. alex, i think we have a clip from "nightly news" on that. >> the votes of the electoral college carried into a joint section of congress where they are certified. >> certificate of the electoral vote of the state of ohio. >> and the election is made official. but today a handful of democrats objected to certifying the vote of ohio sending the senators back to their side of the capitol under a rarely used law

that requires full debate if at least one member of each house objects. the objectors said irregulari irregularities in ohio and voters were disenfranchised that the ohio vote and result of the presidential election are still in doubt. >> throwing into question that. willie, that's within the boundaries. you have a right to challenge an election result. as long as trump says he's going to accept it. a clear result. maintains the right to challenge later. there's perception and there's reality. i think the reality is that's fine. the perception, i think, because what you said before all of the weeks of talking about rigged elections, i don't know that his words yesterday are going to bring a lot of comfort to many people out there. >> as i said yesterday, that's the difference. that clip was january of 2005.

two months after the votes had been cast. barbara boxer and others were voting and protesting against something that had already taken place. he's forming a runway for what he thinks is a crash landing of this election. it's not happening in a vacuum. it's the endof a long conversation he's had about the system being rigged and specifically polling places. >> he's likely to get a clear result. >> i think he's going to get a clear result. if he gets a clear result, he says, at least, that he accepts it. >> and clinton campaign i think says and feeling more pressure to make sure the result is as clear as possible in as many states as possible saying if he comes within 500 some odd votes of hillary clinton in one swing state and that's going to decide the whole election, fine. no one is saying you don't have a right to challenge the result of an election that seems really close. i think the question is the one that you hit on, which is if you convinced all of these people

that no matter what happens and how clear cut it seemed, the whole thing was rigged to begin with, that's the final -- >> so jeremy peters, the question as we move forward is this. is that his last statement on vote rigging? if that's his last statement on vote rigging which is okay, okay, i will accept a clear result. but if he goes out today talking about rigged elections, then it means nothing. >> jeremy? >> i don't think that you can overstate the power that this argument has on the right. as you point out and that clip from 2005, these issues are not new. in 2004 and 2005, i remember this very well. i remember voting at the time and there being this big controversy over whether or not it was okay to have poll watchers there in heavily african-american districts intimidating african-american voters. so both sides have done this for a very long time.

there's this push inside trump tower right now to get trump to focus more intently on his messages of anti-corruption and clinton as the guard of the status quo. if they can get him to do that, i'm not sure that everyone is onboard with this strategy, then he's got a very powerful message because one thing that trump has above everything else is his ability to go in and say i'll smash this system. he's never got credit for being a reformer because nobody has ever seen him as the squeaky clean type to go in and really drain the swamp of washington as his campaign slogan goes. whether or not he'll be able to make that transition, i just don't know. it may be too late. >> bob costa, that's a question inside the trump campaign. obviously they don't want him talking about rigged elections. they didn't want him talking about rigged elections during the debate. they certainly didn't want him talking about rigged elections after the debate. they don't want a repeat of the

miss universe week. from your sources, do you hear that there's a belief inside trump tower that that's the last we'll hear about rigged elections and now he's going move to issues or do you think we're going to hear more of this moving forward? >> i think it will be the latter. inside of the trump campaign, there's an acknowledgement that in spite of the lack of evidence of widespread voter fraud in this country, trump supporters and many people in the republican party believe there is the potential for this kind of voter fraud. there are limitations for what trump can do in the next 19 days. take a city like philadelphia which trump often cites large african-american population and to have vote watchers there, you have to have residents from the city inside the precincts, it's

not a wild scene. there's a system for this. the trump campaign is getting lawyers ready to be ready at the county level and state level but some kind of national operation just rarely, if ever, happens in american politics. this is something driven by campaigns at the state and county level and it's really an attorney observational mode. >> the question is, is trump going to keep talking about rigged elections? >> yes. look at that tape last night from the al smith dinner, the stone face from rudy giuliani and who is around trump right now? it's mayor giuliani and steve bannon. when we spoke to mayor giuliani at the debate, he talked about how democrats are going to create a corrupt system in places like philadelphia and cleveland without evidence he was claiming that there would be people stealing votes from dead people voting four or five times

so this conversation is being made on the record by people closest to trump. >> obviously the position that trump has taken has put a lot of republicans in an awkward position once again. look at these polls. republican voters were polled on the future of the party who they see as the next face of the gop as well as whose view best alliance with their own view. 27% see vice presidential nominee mike pence as top choice to be their party's leader. should donald trump lose to hillary clinton. pence was followed by trump at 24%. senator ted cruz at 19% and speaker paul ryan at 15. when asked whose views matched their own of what the republican party should stand for. 51% said trump followed by 33% for ryan. >> what do you think about that number? >> paul ryan has an impossible

job. the republican party -- it's true to some extent. the republicans and conservatives gave the house majority to the gop, right? and then what was the argument? the argument was, well, we can't get anything done because we don't have the senate. we give them the senate. we can't get anything done because we don't have the presidency. people are tired of that. i'll quote thatcher. you win the argument, you win the vote. it means you have to have a conversation with the country about the things that are wrong and then overwhelm them. clinton did not sign welfare reform. he vetoed it twice. 101 democrats didn't vote for welfare reform because they wanted to but they did it because -- >> they were calling us racists and bigots. >> if you won't do this, we'll find someone that will. that's why democrats did that. >> we did it and it worked. you know what that required?

it required a communications plan first of all and also willing to stare down the president. >> my point is it's a rejection of ryan. i don't know that it's necessarily we like trump better than ryan in a sense. it's a rejection of congress isn't doing a good job and not getting things done for the republicans. >> the fact is that voters in 2010 gave republicans an historic landslide. we look at the presidential race and they have been remarkable for barack obama in '08 and '12. in 2010, republicans won an historic midterm victory. i think the most ever. like over 700 seats on the state and national level. 2014, another massive landslide. republicans hold more seats now in the house of representatives than any time since 1928. and yet all republicans hear is what the republicans in the house and senate can't do. >> the problem that you were talking about is likely to get

worse under the circumstances that we're facing because if in fact this wave comes to pass and there are more republican seats in the house that are lost to democrats than we might expect, those are going to be the people that have been willing to work with paul ryan. fewer people willing to work with paul ryan. i actually thought what was interesting is that republican voters on the first slide you showed mike pence on top of donald trump. that actually almost -- it seems hopeless on one hand for the republican party's prospects of putting this party back together. but if voters are willing to say we rather have mike pence than donald trump, they might be able to do it. if these people who backed trump are willing to back pence, certainly the establishment of the republican party is, i'm surprised by that number. >> it depends on who wins the argument. whose fault is it that donald trump lost and we lost these seats? >> 51% of republican voters say the current ticket in '16 is who

they want leading them moving forward. >> so often when we talk about the republican future, we talk about personalities. a governor pence, speaker ryan. if you step back and wonder this is not just about people in the next few months but about policies and issues. is there a crisis on the right inside of the conservative movement that you have written about for so long on issues of tax cuts and cutting social security and medicare and reforming the federal government. that doesn't seem to be at the fore of agenda for much of the party's base. regardless of how talented speaker ryan is at being a political leader, perhaps the party has moved away from that wing and that dynamic is going to be difficult for anyone in the coming months. >> you know the problem with all of the candidates that ran against donald trump and the problem with the republican party right now in just my opinion as someone that has obsessed over this for 20, 25

years how you win 49 states like ronald reagan is that you had people, i thought, running against donald trump that were chasing the voters. what they thought the voters wanted. 90% of americans support enhanced background checks. not a single candidate out of 17 supported enhanced background checks. 90% of americans supported the idea of other than sane measures that nobody else supported. you could go down one thing after another after another where it always seemed like they were chasing the voters. instead of taking the steve jobs approach. the steve jobs approach is this. i'm going to tell you what you want. i'm going to tell you what you need. i remember. this sounds awfully arrogant. i remember i was 30 years old. nobody thought i was going to win. people came up and told me there's no way they would ever vote for you. i said i don't care whether they

vote for me or not. they have no choice. i'm going to represent them and they're going to love me. i got 62% of the vote. >> that's how we all feel. >> that's how i started. >> i get what you're saying. >> if there's a republican that has the nerve to say i don't care if reforming entitlements is at 2% and if everybody says that's the third wheel of american politics and this is what we're going to do. i don't care if all of my donors think that they should only pay 14% in taxes when their secretaries are paying 28%. i don't care if all of my donors believe in free and unfettered trade and don't believe in taking care of the communities left behind. this is what the republican party is going to stand for. and, willie, you go out there and you tell them what they want and if it's something new, and different from what they heard since ronald reagan ran in 1976

the first time, they just may go for it. >> i hear you. you know who did that? john kasich did that. he only won his home state. john kasich said i won't play the trump game. i won't get into the insult war. here's who i am. here's who i've always been. you may not like what i've done but this is my record. vote for me or don't vote for me. you have to get through the primaries. >> i guess. if republican leaders had that attitude from the get-go and i'm talking about the ones that ran against donald trump but the ones in power right now, perhaps there could have been a massive development somewhere along the way when things really went off the rails. because they did. they really went off the rails. >> you were there. final word. what do you think? >> we all have a fantasy about the candidate we like. donald trump had name i.d. self-funder. people liked him. he was a celebrity. if he had used that talent in a

way, he really would be winning right now. but nobody could overcome the force that was donald trump. it was a perfect storm for him. >> robert costa and jeremy peters, thank you both. still ahead on "morning joe," russia asked u.s. officials to monitor our elections. how do you think that went over? former general david petraeus joins us to talk about moscow's growing tension with washington particularly in syria. first, the ap reports that hillary clinton avoided criticism of wall street in speeches to goldman sachs but what clinton said points to pragmatism. tom joins us next to explain. surprise!!!!! we heard you got a job as a developer! its official, i work for ge!! what? wow... yeah! okay... guys, i'll be writing a new language for machines so planes, trains, even hospitals can work better.

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>> front page. poor guy. decade of e-mails. you said that you talked to a friend who was expecting explosions and everything. >> every reporter wants to get

behind the curtain of a campaign. they want to see how the sausage is made and get the inside scoop and then here we have it. it's all right there with john podesta. it's mostly boring. >> all right. joining us, "the new york times" columnist and pulitzer prize winning author thomas friedman. his latest column called wikihillary for president recently made public by wikileaks and he writes in part. when i read wikihillary, i hear a smart, pragmatic center left politician who will be inclined to work with both the business community and republicans to keep america tilted toward trade expansion, entrepreneurship and global integration. while redoubling efforts to cushion workers from the downsides of these policies. i'm just sorry that campaign hillary felt she could not speak like wikihillary to build a

proper mandate for president hillary. she would have gained respect for daring to speak the truth to her other constituency and demonstrating leadership, not lost votes. >> that's the critique that some have of these e-mails. she says one thing behind closed doors that youfind admirable. >> it's been a consistent criticism of hillary clinton. it's been a criticism of mine. i think the opinions she holds is where the democratic party should be. right balance between entrepreneurship and regulation. >> it's where her husband was, right? >> absolutely.

it's basically where center left of democratic party and where joe scarborough republican party is. there's not much difference. >> what are you trying to do? i can't go back to pensacola. hateful. hateful. keep talking. >> it was interesting, one of the people hillary brought to the last debate was meg whitman, the ceo of hp and former ceo of ebay. that's the center right of the republican party. and it seems to me there's a whole group of republicans now if you think of them as a third, a third evangelical and a third modern progressive republicans, business orientated, that last third there, they are completely at sea. they're going to be looking for a party to join after this election. they're a significant body. the question to me is will

hillary open to them in a sense on their right and create a new center in the country or will those people basically be left orphaned. >> tom, it's willie. good to see you. you cover the world so closely in foreign policy in particular, we had tim kaine talking about syria and what to do in aleppo and he talked about creating humanitarian safe zones as something that a clinton administration might do. i asked him why that hasn't happened yet and he said the current obama administration has been unwilling to do it. do you see if hillary clinton becomes president a more aggressive stance in sierra and the middle east more broadly? >> i think she will explore deeply the idea of a no-fly zone to create a safe haven where syrians will not feel they need to flee the country to europe and put pressure on europe but moving toward a no-fly zone she

hopes to create leverage to get toward a negotiated settlement in syria. i think the obama administration has concluded that it's too militarily complicated and opens a door to a deeper intervention and that maybe the best thing for syria now is just for one party to win. as brutal and cruel as that is, stop the war and at least have one source of authority there. that debate will be played out in a clinton administration. >> how does the united states put together -- how does it move forward with russia treating it as a responsible member of the international community when it is vladimir putin and russia's policy to starve young children, their parents, the elderly, to bomb purposely hospitals and to take part in just a horrific slaughter that we see unfolding

every day before our eyes? >> putin has emerged as a bad guy. a leader in russia looking for dignity in all of the wrong places. not investing in his people incredibly talented russian people but looking for sugar highs in places like syria. the only way to move him is with economic sanctions and keeping them in place. we hurt russia badly through that and hope you'll push him back. we won't go to war with russia but more muscular posture in the middle east context. not to start a war but negotiating in the middle east without leverage is like playing baseball without a bat. you're really not going to get very far. i think what we've been missing in syria is the kind of leverage

to push russians to what we want to see there. >> tom's upcoming book, "thank you for being late." publish on november 22nd. we'll look forward to that. and have you back. coming up, what a difference two years make. in 2014, most democratic candidates ran as far as they could from president obama and now the president is out on the trail for senate candidates everywhere including florida where he took on marco rubio for his work ethic. that will be good. "morning joe" is back in a moment. afoot and light-hearted i take to the open road. healthy, free, the world before me, the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. the east and the west are mine. the north and the south are mine. all seems beautiful to me.

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comcast. >> beautiful friday sunrise over washington d.c. steve kornacki joins us along with steve jansing. we'll get steve's take on the state of the race and chris' take on who should start game one of the world series for the cleveland indians. that's her squad. we're back after this. ♪

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election, that will be on us. it will be because we didn't stand with her and it will be because we did not vote for her. let me tell you this, that is exactly what her opponent is hoping will happen. that's the strategy. to make this election so dirty and so ugly that we just turn off the tv and say we just don't want any part of it. so when you hear folks talking about a global conspiracy and saying this election is rigged, i understand that they are trying to get you to stay home. they are trying to convince you that your vote doesn't matter. that the outcome has already been determined and you shouldn't even before to make your voice heard. they are trying to take away your hope. >> i don't know if donald trump has ever been to an actual polling place where you have

democrats and republicans who are in charge of taking the votes, but he doesn't worry if what he says is true. this is just about him worried that he's losing. >> both president obama and the first lady out campaigning for hillary clinton last night. the president was in miami where he also rallied for democratic congressman patrick murphy who is trying to unseat marco rubio. latest polling from florida shows murphy two points behind rubio within the margin of error. here's more from the president. >> she is not going to be able to do it alone, so we also have to have outstanding members of congress, and patrick murphy when he's your united states senator, he's going to be doing his work. in fact, unlike his opponent, he actually shows up to work. so i don't give a lot of credit

for folks just now trying to walk away from trump. although i will say i'm even more confused by republican politicians who still support donald trump. marco rubio is one of those people. how does that work? how can you call him a con artist and dangerous and object to all of the controversial things he says and then say, but i'm still going to vote for him. come on, man. >> how does that work? i'm actually quite serious. not just marco rubio but everyone else in leadership who just -- i -- you try to explain it to me and it doesn't work. >> we asked that question a thousand times. we have yet to get an answer. with us now, political

correspondent steve kornacki and senior white house correspondent chris jansing who is kind of excited this morning. >> a little bit. >> do you want the dodgers or the cubs? >> we are -- when i say we, i mean the collectively cleveland indians, we are so young, so fresh, so hot, so committed, it doesn't matter. it doesn't matter. i understand trevor bauer's finger has stopped bleeding. it's all good. >> keep away from the drones. >> stay away from drones on days you're starting. steve kornacki, a lot of maps out there right now. what are you seeing that tells you where this election is going as far as trend lines go? >> a new poll out this morning in georgia. georgia is a red state. one saying how much slippage has there been for trump? 44% for trump. 42 for clinton. 9 for johnson.

>> plus six since august. >> if that poll was taken in august after the democratic convention they may have had clinton up. >> must have been right after the -- when he was attacking the khan family. >> that's when people said georgia could go because more recently he's been winning in georgia again. >> let's look at these numbers. this is crazy. we talk about obviously donald trump's problems with women. huge gender gap. he's losing women right now by a 48 to 37 margin. trump is winning men by a 50-35 margin. in georgia. this is a race that is again not just going cleanly republican/democratic. we see a lot of crosscurrents. men and women and richer and poorer. more educated.

less educated. >> class is a big one in this. what we're seeing is that red state/blue state divide that we've known for a long time. there's now changes that are happening within some of these states, so you're seeing the red states seeing softening because of that class divide. you see softening in arizona, in georgia, in utah, maybe even like in an indiana or state like that that could come into play. on the flip side, some of these states that we thought of as swing states that are slightly blue, virginia, colorado, states with a lot of, sort of, white collar professional voters. these states are no longer on the board. these are safely democratic states. you have seen shifting within the red and blue states just this year. it's one of those we haven't seen a shake-up in the map in a while. we might see one on election night. >> there's a poll which has clinton catching up in ohio. >> i felt it a little bit on the ground when i was there. i do think that there is a

cumulative effect of comments of donald trump, first of all. second of all, there is a lot of pressure being put to bear in a way that i'm not sure i've seen in previous elections neighbor to neighbor, person to person, within churches, i saw that a lot in speaking to the people of georgia and conflict inside the evangelical community which makes up a majority of voters in that state. so i'm not surprised at this movement. you think that people are settled. you think that by now people have made up their minds and certainly the vast majority of them have. i also see again just being on the ground and talking to people a deep inner turmoil that i have not experienced in all of the years i've been covering elections. >> more than undecided like traditionally undecided. it's like do i really have to vote for him? do i really have to vote for her? people can't believe it. this is interesting. in ohio, trump plus three since september 14th. hillary clinton plus six.

gary johnson all of the way down to two. jill stein, one. this is an example of people going to the main candidates closer we get. >> don't underestimate the power of neighbor to neighbor and microtargeting that they startinged with barack obama campaign and now that they're continuing. if you're a teacher and education is your issue, the person that's coming to your door is another teacher who is bringing that. that's something that the trump campaign doesn't have. >> you talk about new battleground states, you refer to in the clinton campaign hoping to expand the map, look at where they put resources where there are super pacs are putting resources. arizona two weeks out from the election putting resources there. and now the atlanta journal constitution today is reporting that the super pac is pouring $2 million before election day into the state of georgia. georgia is in play. >> arizona is interesting to me. either one of those. if you're the clinton campaign and you win arizona or georgia,

forget everything else. election is over. you've gone deeply into red territory. the thing that's also happening in arizona, i think, it's a bleed over of what we see in utah. there's a specific problem with mormon voters for donald trump. it's why evan mcmullin could actually win out in utah. arizona has -- it's not anywhere near the size the utah but arizona has a mormon population so it puts her in the game. i think trump is losing ground with mormon voters in arizona and that's making a difference. >> and they vote in huge numbers. >> this is starting to feel like 2008 perhaps? where indiana starts slipping away. >> obama won in 2008 was that congressional district, the omaha district in nebraska, that may be in play right now. he got it up to 365. i think right now if you took what obama got in 2008, 332.

if you're hillary clinton could you add 30 to that right now? only state right now, only obama state right now i could confidently say that clinton is not going to carry is iowa. i think she's going to lose iowa. >> so it's important for us, as we're talking this way and talking yerd, even some this morning like this race is over, it's october 21st. ee have 19 days left. and so -- >> is that an oh, my god, i'm not going to make it? >> 18 days left. >> thought sure. >> nobody here is calling the election, but if the election were held today, certainly, the trend lines are overwhelmingly going hillary clinton's direction. donald trump either turns things around or i think we're moving to the 2008 election. >> where our nbc/"wall street journal" poll is right now, we have it at double digits. the same time in '08, mccain was down double dinlts. he may have five points with republicans coming home down the stretch. that might be something we see

to tighten it a little bit. >> steve kornacki, chris jansing. thank you. >> in the next hour, an exclusive interview with retired general david petraeus. he joins us live on set to talk about the humanitarian crisis in syria and whether the u.s. military has any reasonable options left there. he'll also weigh in on the effort to retake mosul from isis. where nbc's richard engel is on the front lines. >> we climbed into one of the iraqi special forces old american humvees. it's battle worn, shot up, and the driver said damaged by an isis suicide bomber. then it was on foot. quickly, because rounds whiz by. but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three-quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do? drive three-quarters of a car? now if youad liberty mutual new car replacement™, you'd get your whole car back. i guess they don't want you driving around on three wheels.

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it's either he is so stuped that he doesn't -- no, no, it's possible. no, really. it's possible he doesn't understand the damage he's doing. >> vice president biden rails against donald trump for trump's rigged election talk. we'll show you what donald trump said about this after the debate. >> meanwhile, republicans are looking to the future, sort of. we'll tell you which leaders in particular they are eyeing in a post-trump era. "morning joe" is back in a moment. sure, we could have stacked these tires. or put 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.

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i'd like to address an important religious matter. the issue of going to confession. or as hillary calls it, the fourth of july weekend with fbi director comey. >> people look at the statue of liberty and they see a proud symbol of our history as a nation of immigrants, a beacon of hope for people around the world. donald looks at the statue of liberty and sees a four. maybe a five if she loses the torch and tablet and changes her hair. >> oh, good morning. it is friday, october 21st.

>> some of the good parts of that. >> the al davis dinner. >> you gotta know your crowd. >> yeah. >> we'll have more of that coming up. with us on set, former ted cruz campaign communications director, now an msnbc political director, rick tyler, and political writeer for the "new york times," nick confessore. >> it reminds me of a couple white house correspondents dinners we went to. where the people speaking -- exactly, did not know the crowd. and everybody sort of sat there and stared. >> yeah. >> trump had some -- he started off. he's not good at that. let's just say that. that required self dep ruication. >> exactly. >> he had a small hands joke. >> he had the small hands joke. the joke about melania and the speech. >> very funny. >> and then -- >> then it became a trump campaign speech. like he was at a rally talking about how corrupt hillary

clinton was, and the room went quiet and then the room started booing him. we'll play some of that. >> we have all that coming up. >> but first, at a rally in ohio yesterday, donald trump addressed the criticism he's received from his suspenseful answer at the debate to whether he will absolutely accept the results of the election. he clarified that he would accept the results as long as it's a clear one. but not before starting with a joke, likely aimed at his critics. >> ladies and gentlemen, i want to make a major announcement today. i would like to promise and pledge to all of my voters and supporters and to all of the people of the united states that i will totally accept the results of this great and historic presidential election

if i win. the candidate like crooked hillary clinton who will lie to congress, lie to the fbi, destroy 33,000 e-mails, put her office up for sale, and put our confidential information in the reach of our enemies is a candidate who is truly capable of anything. including voter fraud. hillary clinton is the most corrupt and dishonest person ever to seek the office of the presidency. so it's in that context that i was asked a question about whether i would agree in advance to concede the results on

election night if for some reason we should lose. which we're not going to lose. in effect, i'm being asked to wave centuries of legal pr president designed to protect the voters. of course, i would accept a clear election result, but i would also reserve my right to contest or file a legal challenge in the case of a questionable result. right? >> all right. so willie, after he started, of course, poking his critics, and of course, we're all wondering, what vegas entertainer was. like that point. you and you. you thought it was celine dion, i thought it might have been more wayne newton. you. >> so tom jones. close.

anyway, so he starts out with this total setup, made for tv setup, it worked. i saw several of them last night foaming at the mouth and passing out. they were speaking in tongues. they were freaked out. the bottom line, though, is of course he said he would accept a clear result while reserving his right to protest. which, i mean, it's what barbara boxer did in 2005. she protested the ohio results in 2004. her right to do that. democrats' right to protest. but the question is, just strategically, does this move him beyond this controversy? him saying, of course, i will accept the results if they were clear. and there's barbara boxer in 2005, actually issuing the first challenge for a vote during the accounting of the electoral

college since 1877. but does it get past the mess that donald trump created for himself with that terrible answer on sunday night? or wednesday night? what's today? friday? you wake up at 4:00 for a decade, i go -- i start to forget whether it was 16 or 20. are we at 20 yet? >> a lot of people wish we were at 20. i don't think it moves him pass because it's so caveat laden. if he had just said at the debate, of course, i'll accept the result and then later if something happens after the election, he could have contested it, but he can't just say it. i think the only way we will pass it is if he does something else. >> did he say it yesterday when he said of course i will accept a clear result but reserve my right to protest anything questionable? >> i think for people who are

offended by what he said, i don't think that's enough. he should have said it right the first time. he can't just say it. he says i'll accept it if, dot, dot, dot. >> how fascinating you have donald trump in the second debate, or i guess what was the first debate, spending the entire week after the second debate doing a clean-up operation on the fat shaming. here, we have donald trump in the final debate, which a lot of people said was his best debate, just not able to clean it up yesterday. and say, listen, let me be clear. i'm going to accept the result. i reserve the right, but i accept the result. don't joke about it. because a lot of people don't think it's a laughing matter when you're talking about questioning the integrity of the democratic process. >> it's not. and look, he's out of weeks. he can't spend whole weeks cleaning up comments from the last week. i think the problem is it's fine to say, of course, i'll challenge a close election or a recount or something like that,

but he's been going around for weeks saying that there's voter fraud everywhere, making these loose allegations and conspiracy theories. >> well, everybody around him is saying that they don't question the integrity of the democratic process. >> sort of. >> well, well, what do you mean? >> giuliani goes off and says, oh, no, he's talking about the media. then talks about district in philadelphia. >> i'm saying it puts a context around his comment on the election. if he's making his allegations afraud around the country and then he says i won't take the result -- >> the whole thing is self-inflicted. he wouldn't have gotten the question. chris wallace doesn't ask the question unless he hadn't spent the last two weeks undermining the integrity of the election. >> take a chance to be statesman like. >> i thought it was intesti because he conceded the election. he could have said what he said as a joke, if i win.

like, of course, i'll accept the results. i'm going to win. but he didn't say that. >> the big issue is how republicans are dealing with this. >> he's once again put republican senate candidates in a horrible position. rick, have you ever been in any campaign, on any level, where you had everybody around the candidate saying, say this, say this, say this, say this, say this. it's important, it's important. like the trump campaign was doing to donald trump about the election not being rigged. and you saw all the surrogates out beforehand, teeing it up for him, telling him what to do. then he goes out and completely blows it up. first, have you ever -- >> no. >> so no. >> not blow it up. i have had the candidate say, you're all wrong. i'm doing this. >> but you knew that beforehand. >> that's right. >> you could deal with that. what would you do if you were in the position like this? do you walk? does kellyanne conway walk, does she stick around to the end? >> i don't want to make those decisions for them. look, i wanted to support the

trump campaign. i really did. as a republican nominee. and but he's made it so impossible. i just couldn't ever get there. >> well, what was the thing for you? >> for me, it started as a policy issue. that donald trump is not a conservative. okay, he's not a conservative. is he a repcan? he's not even a republican. it goes to lots of issues. >> it kind of ends it right there, right? >> kind of. it's the life issue. the economic issue. >> what do you think? yesterday, i want to ask you and pass it around the table, it got so crazy yesterday. it's been bad already. but i just -- i just turned off my laptop. you know, got off my iphone, and started listening to the beatles. it got so crazy yesterday. on the left, you had everybody freaking out, saying that donald trump is basically destroying the sacrosanct pillars of democracy, and we would never survive this. we will survive donald trump. we will. >> we will survive.

>> i'm sick and tired of republicans, we will not survive bill clinton. then democrat,s, we will not survive dick cheney. then republicans, we will not survive barack obama. we'll survive a cup more weeks of donald trump. people need to stop freaking out. the republicans, on the far right side, you have sean hannity saying people like you and me that aren't coming out and supporting trump -- >> it's our fault. >> it's our fault we're supporters of partial birth abortion. >> i'm honored by the criticism. >> i'm saying, though. what do you say to sean hannity who says because you don't support donald trump or i don't support donald trump, and we haven't endorsed him that we're supporting partial birth abortion? >> i think it's the tyranny of the urgent. the immediate. what you said, that if donald trump doesn't lose, we'll lose the republic. we'll lose the supreme court, even though we have a senate, even though ted cruz is on the judiciary committee, even though we're supposed to get advise and consent. we won't lose the republic. will we have lost potential?

in my opinion, sure. on a lot of values, but i don't think we lose the republic. and you know, i think the danger of having donald trump represent the republican part y will caus more long-term damage. the party is already splitting now and the question is will it survive after the election? >> we had, mika and willie, for nine years at different times crises and people coming up to us and one of the questions they ask, are we going to be okay? and the answer is, yeah, we're going do be fine. we're going to survive fill in the blank. i have been doing it now for 25 years. yes, we're going to survive iev impeachment, the 2005 recount, we're going to survive the depression. there's no important difference, because you know what? i hear that every time. there's always an important difference, and the power of america, the strength of

americaens, always wash it away. but you believe there's an important difference this time. it's more urgent now than ever before. you have to understand, i'm an old man. i'm an old man. i have heard it all before. so why is this time different than the other million times from world war i to the depression to world war ii. >> trump is not an event, he's a person. he's going to lead a movement that's going to go on and on for twor owe three or four years. >> like sarah palin? >> a lot worse than sarah palin. >> young man, can i just tell you -- >> imagine the tea party with a titular head with a megaphone. >> here's the thing about the titular head you're talking about. he's going to be playing a lot of golf in scotland and driving around in his rolls royce. >> i think you're wrong. >> people that know donald trump and we have known donald trump for ten or 11 years, if people think that donald trump is going

to be slogging around to, like, iowa in february and whipping up the base -- >> he doesn't have to. >> listen, donald is driven by money. he's driven by the deal. it's all about the deal. and he can make deals, tv deals. he can make media deals. he's going to be looking for a lot of other deals. i think we have a bigger problem. i do. i wrote about it yesterday in the "washington post." i think you're half right, young man. i'm just joking. i wish i were his name, i wish. i would love to be your age. >> how old do you think i am? >> i don't know, 87. i'm 214. but i wrote tunt it in the "washington post" yesterday that i think you're half right. but it's not about donald trump. it's about the people who voted for donald trump. it's about the fact that we're coming up, rick, on the 50th anniversary of the republican revolt in the deep south against

lbj and the civil rights bill. the fact we have been forfeiting 90% of the black vote for 50 years. about the fact that we're forfeiting 80% of the hispanic vote, 80% of the asian american vote. >> whether you have donald trump or not. >> that is the real -- i think there is a reckoning coming. but i don't think it's to america. i think the reckoning comes within our republican party because we either look forward and reach out or we're destroyed. >> one thing i would say, joe, to sean hannity is, if donald trump does indeed think he's going to lose the election, because his pollsters would be telling him every day, then he would never say anything like undermine the integrity of the election because what will happen is if people don't believe donald trump is going to win, and he apparently doesn't believe he's going to win, people won't show up. those are the same people that marco rubio is depending on, that toomey is depending on.

we will lose house races already that are close because of what donald trump said. he's doing his own voter suppression. >> it's been an interesting exercise in self -- i mean, i'm tired of getting yelled at covering this election. you ask a question about something about hillary clinton, who i'm for, because we reveal that here. and everyone is like, you must be for donald trump. i'm like, no, no, our job is to ask a lot of questions. i have been yelled at more and sort of gotten into more dust-ups with people. >> mika has been very clear about the fact she's voting for hillary clinton. >> yeah, she's obviously -- >> i have been clear for over a year that i'm not voting for donald trump. people come up and scream every day. well, actually, i'm not. >> republican voters were polled on the future of the party, who they see as the next face of the gop. >> who's the new flavor? >> whose view best aligns with their own. what? 27% of republicans see vice presidential nominee mike pence

as the top choice to be their party's leader should donald trump lose to hillary clinton. pence was followed by trump at 24%. senator ted cruz at 19%, and speaker paul ryan at 15%. >> l's stop there for one second. willie geist, they won't get fooled again comes to mind. meet the new boss. same as the old boss, combine this year's ticket and you're at 51%. 1 out of 2 voters say the future of the republican party are mike pence or donald trump. >> yeah, and there's another one in the poll that says who better represents the republican party to you. this is after all we have seen from donald trump, 51% say it's donald trump. so still a majority of republicans say donald trump is my republican party. so i think the question with the power he sees in that -- >> young man is grimacing. >> i'm saying that number is brutal. >> yes.

that's what i was trying to tell you. >> that's what i'm telling you. >> the thing is, though, donald trump, it's the views of donald trump. >> no, it's that he's a dominant figure in his party and he will keep being that if he wants to be. >> how many people know what paul ryan's positions are? >> as for how many republicans will follow trump should he lose the election, 38% said they will stick with him, while 33% say they'll likely lose interest, and 24% say they will give up and not pay attention to trump after the election. >> young man, there's 57% that are going to say, we'll watch him on "the apprentice" once a week but we're not going to follow him over the cliff. >> i love the people who say, yeah, i'll lose interest. who answers a poll question like that? >> but, rick, this happens all the time. it happens all the time. you are like at the center of the stage, the center of the world, and then you lose, and then boom. >> lights out. >> fall off a cliff.

lights out. >> in fact, yes. if you started the interview all the people who lost, they'll today tell you that one day you're a rock star and you have secret service and all these staff members around you. and the next day, you're nobody. like literally nobody. >> donald trump is not nobody. that's the difference. he's still donald trump. >> i agree. >> i think his reaction to this will be interesting boss if the polls hold up, he's getting ready to be really humbled on a global stage. in front of the world. does that mean he walks away to his old life or seek redemption and prove that this movement meant something and that he is a historic figure in this country and that he wants to do something else with it? >> it's also lucrative. a lot of money to be made. >> he's going to make so much money. he knows that already, whether he streams a tv network, which he launched the other night, basically, trump tv. or books. i want you, though, mika, to talk from very personal experience about what happens

when you go from being at the center of power in the world one day to sitting in your living room and watching men in suits come in and rip out red phones from walls. >> i was like, when was i -- when carter lost? >> yeah, when your dad -- explain. >> lights went out. like literally came in and ripped the phones out of the wall, and everyone was gone. you could hear the crickets. >> secret service around them for four years. >> it was amazing. but like a family moeeting abou it, and it was expected, but it really is very jarring. and i mean, for my family -- can you imagine for these candidates? i mean, this is a little bit lower level, but still. it was really jarring. and it's hard for the person involved to sort of re-assimilate. >> you think trump will go out and start a world renowned charity to build homes for poor people? >> no, he's going to do what he loves to do. he loves to build golf courses.

he loves to make deals. >> he loves to do tv. >> he loves tv. he would love, i'm sure, to be back on "the apprentice." he loves to do what he loves to do. >> he has very savvy media people around him. there's no reason he wouldn't start some kind of tv. if you look at the number, there's a lot of people who would potentially watch. >> we're not talking like the election is over. people think that donald trump is going to stand on a tank like boris yeltsin in red square. he's not going to do that. that's not who he is. that requires too much effort. it's not what he does. >> no, i don't think -- i think this is all phony. he's not going to actually contest the election. but i do think for the next four years he's just up the street from every tv studio in america. he can say i told you so about hillary clinton. >> and he will on a lot of different ways. >> and still have 38% of th country with him. >> about the media. >> he's still going to be around. >> of course he is. and he's going to be around in a way, a bigger way than sarah

palin was. let's not forget, sarah palin had a big footprint for a couple years when she wept and said volt for this person, you know well, the republican base voted for that person. will donald trump do that? yes. will he talk about, you know, burn down the temple? no. >> he could do the palin route, and we saw palin had a half life and sort of faded. but if he does some kind of a politics media property and wants to have a presence as an activist in some way, i think it's going to be a long couple of years for the gop. >> still ahead on "morning joe," new polling in ohio shows a dead heat. kristen welker joins us live from columbus with just 18 days to go. and as we go to break, more highlights from the al smith dinner. a moment of civility in one of the nastiest elections in memory. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> you know, the president told me to stop whining. but i really have to say the

media is even more biased this year than ever before. ever. you want the proof? michelle obama gives a speech and everyone loves it. it's fantastic. they think she's absolutely great. my wife melania gives the exact same speech and people get on her case. and i don't get it. i don't know why. i'm anne. i'm a scientist.

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coming up on "morning joe" -- >> this was an isis escape

route. also seems to be one of their positions. isis fighters lived here, safe from u.s. war planes. >> just based on the number of mattresses we have seen, this could have held 20, maybe 50 people. more if they packed them in. the tunnel extended for about a half a mile. >> we'll get a report from richard engel on the front lines of the effort to retake mosul. and general david petraeus joins us as well to explain what it will take to flush isis from iraq and whether the nation can remain as one. ♪ ♪ ♪ only those who dare drive the world forward. the cadillac ct6. [baby talk]

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isis is launching retaliatory efforts in iraq amid the ongoing campaign to retain mosul. it's now claimed the life of a u.s. service member. u.s. defense official tells nbc news that an ied hit the vehicle that the soldier was traveling in just north of mosul. he is the first u.s. casualty of the recent operation and the fourth u.s. service member to have been killed since a focus on fighting isis in iraq and syria escalated in 2014. >> meanwhile, there are reports that isis fighters have attacked government buildings in the city of kirkuk. richard engel has more from on the ground in iraq. >> reporter: mika, good morning. the pentagon announced an american soldier has been killed in support of this operation. the first american to die. there are some 5,000 u.s. troops in this country, most of them on their bases, but between 100 and 200 are pushed out to advanced positions and are working

directly with iraqi troops and kurdish fighters which puts them in greater harm's way. right now, we are at one of those advanced positions. this is an all-iraqi position. and the iraqi offensive is going much more quickly than anticipated. isis today hit back with a sneak attack on a government complex in the city of kirkuk, where they exchanged fire with security forces. isis may be trying to slow down the assault on mosul. it doesn't seem to be working. iraqi troops said today, they've pushed to within just four miles of the city. the isis capital in iraq. the biggest battle was for control of a tow on mosul's eastern doorstep. to reach the front there, we climbed into an iraqi special forces old american humvee. shot up and nearly blown up, the driver said, by an isis bomb. iraqi troops brought in their heaviest weapons. isis fought back with suicide bombers.

but all this was music to the iraqi soldiers' ears. we'll win, god willing, we'll be in mosul in days, a soldier said. isis does seem to be retreating from some of its positions. the soldiers showed us a tunnel and bunker complex they just discovered. be very careful where you step. there's a concern these could be booby-trapped. dozens of fighters could have stayed down here. the corridor stretched for about a half a mile. at the far end, we came out into an isis headquarters. food still in the kitchen area. half made bombs, chemicals for more. >> on the wall, what has become one of the most infamous symbols anywhere, the isis logo. more often than not, when americans were standing in front of this, they were about to be beheaded. isis killed many more iraqis. today, it was their turn to have isis on the run. but reaching mosul, the isis stronghold, may skwlus be the easy part.

>> the real battle is expected once iraqi troops actually enter the built-up urban areas. today, the u.n. warned that isis has gathered around 600 families, civilian families, from the mosul area, and has brought them to isis positions to use as human shields. the pentagon has not identified the american soldier who was killed in support of this operation. mika. >> and up next, a man who knows more than a little about iraq, general david petraeus joins us right here on set.

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bud: see ya, buddy. today, shawn's got a hearing, we'll see how it goes. good luck! so, it turns out buzzed driving and drunk driving, they're the same thing and it costs around $10,000. so not worth it. my advice for looking get your beauty sleep. and use aveeno® absolutely ageless® night cream with active naturals® blackberry complex. younger looking skin can start today. absolutely ageless® from aveeno®. with us now, very excited to exclusively have retired army general david petraeus. high commanded u.s. forces ipiraq from 2007 to 2008. and general, obviously, order was brought to that region some time ago. it looks like we're going back to the future. isis goes into iraq and syria.

now it looks like we may be seeing them clear out. but is it a foregone conclusion that we take mosul? >> yeah, no question about that. we have reconstituted the iraqi forces, retrained, reequipped, remanned them. we're advising and assisting and providing an armada of manned and unmanned aircraft over them with precision strike, great leaders like steve townsend who fath in mosul in the surge. i spent the first year in iraq there as the commander of the 101st airborne division. we have seen what isis is willing to do, use suicide bombers, tunnels, explosives, but at the end of the day, the iraqi forces will clearly prevail. that's not the real battle. real battle comes after the islamic state and after they clear out the rest of the province all the way to the syrian border. that's about politics in the most complex human terrain in all of iraq. sunni arab mujory, but shiites,

kurds, you name it, they're all there. >> let's talk about the makeup of that army that is fighting, going into mosul. we have heard for some time that there's no way you're going to get sunnis to be unite in an army that takes its orders from baghdad, which many sunnis believe takes their orders from tehran. what's the makeup of that force, and how are they sticking together long enough to actually be successful out in the battlefield? >> they're all united in the desire to clear the islamic state from mosul and the rest of iraq. there are iraqi security forces, army and police units, the counterterrorist forces they'll bring up every time they need something particularly difficult done. there are shia militia that are really sponsored in a sense, directed to a degree by iran. there are kurds that are of course working for the kurdish regional government leaders and sunni militia from the tribes as well. you have a big grouping of these, and that's indeed what

the challenge is going to be after the islamic state is done. that unifying force now becomes much more a case of them all struggling to achieve power and resources, which is what iraq has always been about at the national level as well. as you know, in baghdad right now, the prime minister who is focusing the attention of the country on mosul, he's got to watch his own back politically because the former prime minister is coming after him and has had votes of no confidence that have taken out ministers of interior, defense, and finance. this is a full contact support here, and mosul will be a microcosm of that, and there will also be further political wrangling in baghdad as well. u.s., a great ambassador doug sillman, again, general steve townsend, others, the commander of the 101st airborne division is there, as well. they're going to have to help nudge this along, encourage it, but it has to be iraqis that

come together and achieve governance in mosul that is representative of all of the different elements responsive to them, and guarantees minority rights as well as majority rule. >> let's go to the man responsible for you watching "morning joe" every day, and willie, it shattered me to find out the only reason he watches my show is because he watched "way too early" first. >> now i watch "morning joe" because willie is here. >> a good military man to be up at 5:30 in the morning watching way too early. i want to ask you more broadly how the war and fight against isiz is being prosecuted right now. obviously, donald trump has been critical of president obama saying he'd knock the hell out of isis in a way that president obama is not doing, but even hillary clinton said there are things she would do in syria, like no-fly zones, that the president is unwilling to do. what is your assessment of how president obama and his administration have approached isis. are they doing enough? >> increasingly, we're doing enough and more. i have said for some time than the sooner you could show that the islamic state is a loser, is

the sooner they're no longer effective in social media where they're really distinguishing themselves, in addition to having a caliphate. that was important. it's taken time to develop this momentum to be sure. one of your other guests, general mike hayden, used to say this was underresourced and overregulated. i don't think that's the case now in iraq. there's also a development in now north africa, afghanistan, syria. in syria, i think, though, there has to be more done because there has to be a change in the military context. secretary kerry says, for example, that there's no military solution. i'm not sure that vladimir putin and bashar al assad got that memo because they seem intent on that. but he's undoubtedly right at the end of the day, but there has to be a change in the military context or there's not going to be any negotiation that is meaningful. so i think a safe zone built on the now existing turkish safe zone they're establishing, then where we are over in the northeastern part of the country and a no-fly zone, and telling

bashar al assad if his forces drop bombs on the people, that we'll ground his air force. you have to do this very, very carefully because russian air power is in there. we don't want to be provocative and start world war iii over syria. having said that, if we don't show this kind of additional toughness and firmness, i don't think we're going to have a context in which we can get anything apprecinable negotiated. >> i have heard a lot of military leaders and foreign military leaders suggest what you did in syria. why don't you think president obama hasn't done it? >> there's understandable issues. i sat at that situation room table and had the, and then what? then what do the russians do? then do the iranians have the shia militia attack us in iraq? those are very legitimate questions and they're being asked, i can assure you. i was with brett mcguirk, the presidential envoy for the foig against the islamic state who was a bush and now obama

appointee working at this very hard as well. and there are very legitimate and then what kinds of questions. >> general, willie was talking about how we all kind of foresee a clinton future presidency here. how does -- does the strategy change in getting isis out of or defeating isis, and you also mentioned, i'm curious, isis has been very successful through social media, and i think it's completely been underestimated of how we're fighting. nobody talks about how we're fighting isis or other radical groups who are recruiting openly on social media. >> there's momentum building there as well. there's an element created at the state department to oversee all of this. very impressive guy who's in charge of that. and actually, what's most hearning is groups like google and titter are now much more active there as well. jared cohen, google ideas, now jake saw, has unveiled something

that when you type in a certain phrase or word that would be extremist or isis, you not only get back the stuff that presumably you're looking for if you're a would-be jihadist, you get other items back as well. a little like they say it's what cyber folks have done with respect to suicide. if you type that in, it says, yeah, you can do that. you can slit your wrist, but it's really painful and it doesn't always work so you may want to sit under a tree until the thought passes. the same with isis and a bit more serious note, if you will. >> general, you have done such good work with supporting vets since you left public life, for the most part, and taken care of the men you led into battle over the last 13 years or so. what can we do better than we're doing now at the v.a.? it's something that hasn't come up enough in this presidential campaign. there are a lot of well intentioned people trying to do the right things. there are incredible doctors and nurses and public servants involved. but it's still not working. how do we do better?

>> i think we have to grapple with the bureaucracy. the care givers, as you haved, are wonderful in the v.a. the doctors, the nurses, thepro are exceptional. but to get to them, you have a lot of bureaucracy, and to get your bills paid and to get out-patient treatment, whatever, and that has to be attacked. i think congress working with the secretary of the v.a., a dpelo veteran, can take this on, but they're going to have to give him non-standard capabilities, if you will, so he can take the kinds of actions necessary to improve that aspect of the v.a. >> all right. general david petraeus, thank you so much for being here. we greatly appreciate it. hope you'll come back. >> thanks very much. all right, and we'll be back with much more "morning joe" in a minute. made history when it sold for a record price of just under $30 million. and now, another mercedes-benz makes history selling at just over $30,000.

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the al smith dinner by its nature literally tries to -- i'm sitting there between the two, and literally, i'm supposed to be a bridge to bring these two people together. and i try my best. and there were some very touching moments. when we were going in, i said, could we pray together, as we're waiting to be announced. and after the little prayer, mr. trump turned to secretary clinton and said, you know, you're one tough and talented woman. and he said this has been a good experience, this whole campaign, as tough as it's been. she said to him, and donald, whatever happens, we need to work together afterwards. >> oh, that's great news.

that's cardinal timothy dolan, the catholic archbishop of new york, talking with the "today" show about the behind the scenes moment of hillary clinton and donald trump last night. it was really, you know, that's nice to hear. that behind the scenes, they're talking that way. now, kasie, joe biden. >> joe biden. >> joe biden driving. >> does it again. so first president obama did comedians in cars getting coffee with jerry seinfeld, and now vice president joe biden got a chance to get behind the wheel of one of his all-time favorite cars, and he may have gotten a little too excited. in a preview of an upcoming episode of jay leno's garage, biden gets to take his stingray corvette convertible, i always wanted a stingray corvette convertible, out for a spin. it's just the third time in his presidency biden has been able to drive a car at all. it looks like he may need to get reacquainted with luthe gas

pedal works. >> should we take it for a ride? >> i would like to do that. >> sounds good. >> try your brakes. >> they're good. >> how does it fell to get behind the wheel? >> feels great. it feels great. i have always loved to drive. i shouldn't say it on television -- i like speed. >> i love it when people like yourself say i shouldn't say this, but -- then you know it's going to be good. so you like speed. >> i do. i mean, i buried this. it says, you know, when i was younger. >> you had this to 160. >> i was told it's actually only 152 at the time. >> only 152. >> jay leno looked scared. did you see that? >> a little nervous. >> and he goes try the brakes. he goes, they're fine. >> it's a beautiful carb. >> coming up next, hillary clinton is on her way back to cleveland as she closes the gap

in polls there. we'll check in with nbc's kristen welker who is about to take off on the next leg of their trip. we're back in just a moment. ♪ ♪ the highly advanced audi a4. ♪ and so when i saw that, that was completely disqualifying. i'm a republican, but this election is so much bigger than party. my son max can't live in trump world. so i'm crossing party lines and voting for hillary. i don't always agree with her, but she's reasonable. and she's smart. she can work with people to solve problems. i want to be able to tell my kids that i did the right thing

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already whining that the vote's going to be rigged before the game's even over. we just starting to vote now, he's already like, oh, the game's rigged. except today he said, of course, it's not rigged if i win. >> with us now from white plains, new york, we have nbc news white house correspondent kristen welker covering the clinton campaign. kristen, ohio getting closer by the day. donald trump was up maybe four, five, six points a week or two ago. now we have polls out that show it's deadlocked, 45% to 45% in the latest suffolk poll. what's she doing in ohio? >> that's right, joe. it is razor tight in ohio. she is going to be encouraging voters to get out and vote, early voting got under way last week on wednesday. and so far, early votes are outpacing where they were at this time in 2012. so the campaign encouraged by that. i think you're going to hear her echo what you just played from president obama, trying to

capitalize on donald trump's comments that the system is rigged. democrats see that as a fatal error. so that is going to be a part of their messaging. look, secretary clinton wants to win a state like ohio because part of the strategy is to run up the vote total, to blunt any talk of a rigged election. so as a part of that, they're also looking to expand the map. you have michelle obama in arizona yesterday. look what's happening in georgia. the polls there getting tighter as well. the latest poll shows donald trump leading but really within the margin of error, 45% to 42%. look at the gender gap. this tells the whole story of this race. among men, trump leads in georgia 50% to 37%. but look what happens with women. secretary clinton leading 48% to 35%. so the democrats see openings in traditionally red states. they're going to try to capitalize on that. one more point about messaging, joe. while secretary clinton is undoubtedly going to hit donald trump on the whole rigged system thing, she also is going to

start to increasingly pivot to more of a positive message, talking more about her policy positions. the reason for that, one of her top campaign officials telling me it's really important they feel that voters have something to vote for instead of just making the case to vote against donald trump. so that's going to be her challenge and her goal in the final weeks of this campaign. >> all right. we're down to the last two and a half weeks in a historic campaign. good luck out there. >> thanks, joe. >> thanks, kristen. time to talk about what we learned today. what i learned was weird al jankovic and the gregory brothers did something a little fun to the debate. auto tuned it. ♪ we haveo many adversaries overseas ♪ ♪ can we all agree to be frenemies ♪ ♪ i would work with our allies in the middle east ♪ ♪ ♪ mosul mosul mosul so sad so sad ♪ ♪ it's a catastrophe

>> that's him singing right there. what did you learn today? >> i learned from general petraeus that isis, defeating isis is a foregone conclusion, but after isis, which is going to be so important to this election, the middle east is a mess. and governing establishing a governing coalition in the middle east, in iraq in particular, is going to be extraordinarily difficult and dangerous. >> yeah, it continues. kasie, what did you learn? >> i'm stuck on the clip you just played. i didn't even realize weird al was still working. >> kids are staving in japan. he's got to keep going. alex just said you're going to get crushed on twitter for that line. >> i'm sorry. i apologize. >> so you learned that weird al is still working. >> all right. very good. we all learned that if you look for the future of the republican party, where it's going to be, if you look at a poll that we showed earlier today, that the future looks like the immediate past, when republicans were

asked who they thought were the leaders going to be after this election, i think it was 27% said mike pence and 24% said donald trump. that means 1 out of 2 voters think the people that are on the 2016 ticket will be the head of the party leading into 2020. >> i think pence above trump there is interesting. >> that's interesting. ted cruz at 19%. paul ryan at 15%, and john kasich at 10%. all right, that does it for us. thank you so much for being with us all week. as always, we thank you for your patience. we know it's hard sometimes. stephanie ruhle, though, picks up the coverage right now. stephanie. >> thanks so much, joe. have a great weekend. this morning, bombs away. a traditional night of joking for charity scores a lot of laughs. >> donald, if at any time you don't like what i'm saying, feel free to stand up and shout "wrong" while i'm ta