president. >> good to be back here. >> we're right next to a gym and i've been listening to you the last couple of days. you're talking about taking on donald trump with fisticuffs behind the gym. so i brought something along for you that might be helpful to you in your new endeavor. a couple of boxing gloves. these are worn boxing gloves. these are the real things. >> let me tell you, chris, i was trying to make a point. you and i grew up in similar neighborhoods, i think. >> summerton. >> well -- >> scranton. >> scranton and claymont. one of the things that trump is trying to say that i was a pretty good athlete in high school, played a little in college. and people didn't act in the locker room like he talks about. that's not true. and you and i both know from the locker room and the school i went to, one of the guys said, this is what i'm going to do, because i'm the star halfback or quarterback, i'm the boss, and my sister and my girlfriends were out there, i would take the guy behind the gym. the point i'm making is, he is trying to dumb down, he's

insulting everybody in the neighborhoods i come from and the people who played ball. and that was the point i was trying to make. this is just absolutely unacceptable behavior, period. >> yeah, i agree with you. i've never heard that. and i know what locker room sounds like. bad words once in a while, but not this. >> yeah, come on. you're a regular guy who grew up with regular people. and i'm thinking what about what's going on in this state of pennsylvania. you're the third senator here. many people say. i'm looking at the numbers now. back as recently as 1996, 44% of the white working class working people voted democrat. they voted for bill clinton. recently, in 2012, it went down to 29%. it may go down -- why has this gone -- pat moynihan, your former colleague, he said, the democratic party should build on the white working class instead of abandoning it. what went wrong? how'd you lose it? >> what went wrong is a number of things, but not the least of which was that as the economy began to crumble, and it started long before the recession and

the bush administration, all the focus was on people that were hanging on the edge. and needed to be. people going off the cliff, working class people who were poor. people who were in real difficulty. and so, what happened is, that person who works on the line, the woman's a waitress, they're making 90,000 bucks a year, and they still can't make it, if they have two kids. and we don't talk to them anymore. we don't associate with their difficulty anymore. and it's almost like, like somehow they're in good shape, but they're not. they're not. they can't figure out how to get their kid to college. when you and i were -- well, i'll speak for myself. i always hear the economist in our outfit will say, middle class is $51,000. middle class is about being able to send your kid to a park and come home safe. middle class is about being able to send them to a high school where if they do well, they get to college. if they can get there, you can figure out how to pay for it. you can own your house and not rent. you can take care of mom when dad dies.

and when the recession came along, they were killed -- >> you mean 2008 and '9? >> 2008, 2009, they were killed. they h $20,000, $30,000 equity in tir home and they thought they had something and it got wiped out. even if they never missed a mortgage payment. even if they were able to keep their house, they got hammered. everything but locusts landed on the president's desk. and we have to be talking about to them. that's why if you notice in the last two years, the president talks about the things that matter to them. tax cuts for middle class people. getting rid of this exorbitant, ridiculous tax expenditures that go to the wealthy for no good reason. when reagan was president, $800 million -- billion a year in tax expenditures. now $1,300,000,000. most of it not at all able to be justified. so we just started getting back

to the point that we could talk about actually beginning to rebuild the middle class. wages are actually up, real wages are actually up for the first time in a long time. but we don't talk enough to their concerns. >> you talk about it as if it's all economics. do you think that's the -- >> no, i also -- >> what about the cultural stuff? >> i think there's cultural stuff, too. >> why is the democratic party? because all the contributors with their money has made it a more elite party? an ivy league? >> it's no malarkey. the fact of the matter is, those people built this country. they built it. and they are smarter than we give them credit for. there's almost like, what's happened in both parties, is there's sort of a, a yielding to pedigree. >> yeah. >> you know, the guy who goes to penn state, university of delaware, and the guy goes to yale or penn. the guy at yale or penn must know more. >> i haven't noticed that.

>> oh, you haven't? >> i haven't noticed the intelligence -- >> no, no. neither have i. but you know what i'm talking about. >> yeah. i know exactly what it is. this is sort of, you know, deferring to pedigree. and one of the reasons is that i think what's happened now is we really have a much more egalitarian society, particularly among millennials, where, you know, you go into neighborhoods, the smartest people who work for you and your staff, they all live in the same neighborhood. whether they're black or white or asian. there's this book written, there's a test if you are part of the new elite. the new elite are corporate executives, really quality lawyers, doctors and because it's now at the point where it is merit-based, whether you're part of the elite, we've kind of forgotten about ordinary americans out there. and so, it's like, it drove my boys crazy.

i had them take the test in the book and it said, have you ever been on a factory floor? were you raised in a neighborhood where over 60% of the people didn't go to college? if you get a chance to go to starbucks or mcdonald's for coffee, where do you go? do you know anybody who has whole milk in their refrigerator? >> because everybody else has skim milk? elitist. >> so part of it is that it's understandable, the good news is, it's based on merit advancement in many cases now, but the bad news is that these folks who were the people who are not the salt of the earth, they're the stuff that makes everything grow. and they're capable of so much more. that's why i think our focus on free college education, our focus on making sure that there's child care and get women back in the job market. our fox on things that are just basically simple fairness. minimum wage. i mean, people want to know that we really do -- my dad used to

have an expression, chris. he said, i don't expect the government to solve my problem, but i expect them to understand it. >> let me ask you about the things that mr. trump, who you want to beat up, because you do, i know you do, you said so. mr. trump comes out there and doesn't know anything about politics or have any ideology, but he jumped on these issues. illegal immigration, trade relations, which have cost the manufacturing base in this country, and wars which have cost the lives and the arms and legs of their kids. because it's not the elite we're talking about that are fighting these wars. it's those people we're talking about from pennsylvania, western pennsylvania. so he comes on and grabs these three issues. why were they available to him? >> well, by the way, they were available to us. that's why barack and i ended these two wars. we're still engaged, but we're not talking about spending $10 billion a month. we're not talking about 200,000

people, 170,000 people in a war zone. they were available to us. and we were talking about making sure that we take all the actions in the world trade organization. we brought more actions against unfair trade practice than any administration has. and a lot of people like my son went to war, and came back war heros. and what we did is, that's why we focus so much on military families. and so, but, look, when people have been really -- >> everybody liked beau. >> well -- thank you. that's nice of you to say. >> it's true. >> i do. but, anyway, trump comes along, for example, you never heard me criticize the tea party. and the reason i didn't is because a lot of people are scared, beat up, and what happens, they lost a lot, and what happened during the bush administration and the great recession, and they're angry. and so there's two ways to deal with it. and people go out and you find a

scapegoat. and it had to be because of the government. i remember we were running in 2008 a woman standing on a chair at a corner with about 100 other people saying, don't take my medicare. government out of my life. >> isn't that funny? they think government isn't the people who created medicare? >> so i think when you're appealing to people's fears and anxieties, you can make some gains. but the end of the day, i think you're going to find, i'll make you a bet, that in the state of pennsylvania, a significant number of those non-college-educated white women and men vote democrat before this is over. >> the reason i'm involved in this, what you were talking about, i was reading the "washington post," everything i've been thinking, bobby kennedy when he died, his train's coming down through jersey to pennsylvania and washgton. and you see white guys. a white guy with a dirty face,

saluting. >> that's right! we've lost that gut connection, i think, with the working people out there. we have black support, the democrats do, the liberals do. but this is gone. this salute to the democratic party. how do you get that back? you can do it, i think. >> because you have to talk to them. you have to engage with them. you have to go and let them know that you understand their act anxieties. look, when barack -- the president picked me up coming from philadelphia in 2009 to go down to be sworn in, thousands of people were along the track in delaware. there were those white guys in hard hats, saluting. and because i've always -- i get it. but i think we got to the point where a lot of local democrats took it for granted. and look, the other part of this is, you know, i may be mistaken,

but i think after sam nunn left, i'm the last guy in the senate that got a majority white male vote in their state. but again, a small enough state where i paid attention. and by the way, i get overwhelming support in the african-american community. >> i've seen it. >> overwhelmingly. >> let me ask you about the downside of trump, the danger side. it looks like he's losing, you know more than i know, but if he loses, election night is sort of predictable, say he carries ohio, maybe. maybe it's close in florida, but he loses. pretty clearly secretary clinton wins with a pretty strong electoral victory. it's obvious she won. and he says nothing or he says, they screwed me, they rigged this thing from the beginning. what will be the danger and how would you as an elected official be able to deal with that? how are you going to bring back the public with his 38 or 40%? >> well i think that you'll only have -- let's say if he gets, god willing, 38 to 40% of the vote. i think at least two-thirds of that vote knows it's not rigged.

you're going to have people, though. you always have them. whether they -- whatever their background, who are going to believe it's rigged. i saw an interview on, i think, on msnbc this morning, before i took office. >> good habit. >> well, yeah. but i saw a guy standing there and he had all these trump signs and they said, are you going to vote? he said, no, i'm not going to vote. they said, how are you going to argue it's rigged? he said, it's a rigged system. i'm not going to vote. it's rigged. look, we've always had that element in every election. the difference is, we've never had the head of a great party saying that it is rigged. but i really don't -- now, what would be a problem is if, in fact, is if you have a gore, you know, bush election, god forbid, and he says it's rigged if he were on the short end. i don't often agree with charles krauthammer, but he wrote a hell of an article about how fragile

democracy is and you can't play with it. that should be disqualifying in and of itself, what he's saying. you got elected at an incredibly young age, and you know what public life is like. no one's had your run, if you put it lightly. it's been an amazing run. what is it about public life? what i'm stunned by, young men and young women aren't running for office like they used to. there's a very short list for people running. in the old days, you know, astronauts would run, everybody would run. now people say, i'm not going to put up with that crap, it's too much for me. i don't want the personal inspection. what can you say that's fulfilling about your life? it's been so many years where you've actually dealt with real peoples problems? >> the most vulnerable time in a public official's life is when the public only s a snapshot of you.

but if you can make it through the first term, if you can make it through the first crucible you go through, they begin to have a video, a motion picture of you. and it gets harder to distort who you are and what you are and what you're willing to -- what your character is. and on balance, the american people are still extremely generous. they are fair, and you know, i think people can tell, you know, not about me, but i think people can tell whether when someone says something, whether they mean it. >> yeah. >> i think they can taste it. >> they trust you. your numbers have gone up since you haven't run for president. >> oh, it's amazing. by the way, you guys never gave me credit. they were up before i ran for president. >> but you're booming now. is that a lesson there? don't run for president? >> if i had known that, i would have announced every two years i wasn't running. >> okay. let me ask you about the world series. >> sure.

>> now, you're a phillies fan, so does that make you a national league fan? a cubby fan? >> no, i'm a phillies fan because they're in philly and i want to sleep with my wife. >> she's from willow grove. we know this. she hails from willow grove. >> oh, god, is she a philly fan, any sport. i know you're not supposed to say who. i'm an american league fan. >> really? how'd that start? the yankees? >> scranton and the yankees. everybody in scranton is either -- there's not many phillies fan in -- >> i know about that. >> that's how i was raised. my grand pop was a great athlete, went to santa clara, played football and i was raised on the yankees. >> despite the nomination of the national league growing up, all those years. >> despite. despite it. >> despite san francisco and l.a.? >> i'm so old, i remember bob feller. >> early win! i remember that, four straight. the best -- the indians had the best winning record with 114 games. and they lost four straight, to the giants. leo deroacher and those guys.

>> remember deroacher's comment? he said, better to have lady luck on your bench than skill. my grandfather used to say, it's better to have both. thank you for your time. and we'll be right back.

new poll numbers in key battle ground states, for that we check the hard ball score board. in arizona clinton is in the lead by a pint.

that's close. a new poll from the new york times and cnn college has clinton out. this is big time to 7 point lead. clinton, 46. trump, 39. last month that was tied and he needs north carolina. m minnesota clinton leads by 8 points and new star tribune poll clinton leads 47 to trump's 39. i can't believe they are the same. who would have believed it. we'll be right back. [ keyboard typing ]

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the pedigree problem. anyone at the top views anyone as not an ivy leaguer as below consideration. how the party has forgotten about ordinary americans out there how those people are smarter than they're given credit for. he's got something here. 90% of white noncollege graduates voted for bill clinton in 2012 that sunk down to 29%.

one person who saw this loss of the white working class voters early on was former united states senator moynihan of new york who wrote in 1968 right after bobby kennedy was killed n a word the people of south boston should be on our minds as those of roxbury or bedford stiv es ant. they've been abandoned. four years later moynihan talked about catholic voters. he said the white working class should be a base on which to build not to abandon. even in the high office of vice president, joe biden born in scranton hasn't either. as my old boss tip o'neill used to say, he hasn't forgotten where he came from. he knows and shares the sentiments of those ordinary people who feel they've been abandoned by the democratic party they themselves built. and that's "hardball" for now. thanks for being with us. "all in with chris hayes" starts

>> tonight the republican nominee kicks his self-promotion tour into high gear. what we know about the 8 million votes are cast with obama's 2012 battleground director. and senator elizabeth warren live in this hour. plus -- >> they're bad and very evil people.

>> the trump war on the press continues. tonight the national cost of a conservative media bubble now featuring alien conspiracy theories. and about those obamacare headlines. >> all of my employees are having a tremendous problem with obamacare. >> why donald trump repealed and replaced his own talking points. >> i must be honest with you. >> when "all in" starts right now. good evening from new york, i'm chris hayes. we are now exactly 14 days from election day. two weeks from this very moment polls will have just closed and results will be coming in and depending how close things are we may already know who will be the next president of the united states. but a lot can happen in two weeks. so tonight senator elizabeth warren is holding a get out the vote rally in raleigh, north carolina, where early voting has already been under way since last thursday.