at cloro2 we've turned ving sins in a science. now pr! watch staiisappearright b. reve times more than deterernt. good day, everyone. i'm alex witt here in new york at msnbc world headquarters. nine days until election day. a number of new polls suggest tightening in one battleground state but a wider lead for one candidate in another key state. these details ahead. in fact -- in fact, it's not just strange, it's unprecedented and it is deeply troubling. >> hillary clinton not talking about the whole of this campaign season, just the latest wrinkle from the fbi on e-mails. there's plenty of new reaction from all sides within the past couple of hours.

>> this is the biggest political scandal since watergate. >> donald trump there trying to seize the moment. but in the waning days of the campaign, can he make up lost ground? the battle in the sunshine stay. florida could determine the next president again. you will hear from voters still weighing options in a live report. we are entering the home stretch right here on msnbc, the place for politics. we begin with the latest national poll released this morning. it shows hillary clinton's lead narrowing to a single point. she's at 46%. donald trump is at 45%. trump's campaign manager kellyanne conway a short time ago said renewed controversy over clinton's private e-mail server could be to blame. let's take a listen. >> i think for the voters at this stage, this plays right into their reluctance about hillary clinton anyway. i think issues like this where people are reminded she put national security at risk for her personal reasons is very

troubling for her. do people trust her to always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth? her entire career is hillary first. our message is america first. >> clinton's campaign manager robby mook says his candidate isn't worried about losing her edge. >> you believe this could cost you the election? >> i don't think so. look, as i said, we have over 50,000 volunteers out there. we're seeing record early voting numbers in north carolina, florida. we're feeling really good about this record turnout, over 200 million people now in our country registered to vote, 50 million of those are young people. we're just nose to the grindstone and we will finish this out. >> clinton continues her swing through the crucial swing state of florida, where in a new poll she holds just a one point lead over trump. trump heads out west today holding rallies in nevada and new mexico. hallie jackson is with the trump team. we are talking to voters in

florida. we will begin with casey hunt. casey is following hillary clinton today in fort lauderdale. a good day to you. we're getting new reaction now from key members of the clinton campaign today. what are they saying? >> reporter: it's good to see you. hillary clinton's campaign is soldiering forward just the way they planned otherwise despite this bombshell from the fbi. so she is in florida today for a second straight day. we have spent a lot of time in the last week in the sunshine state, partly for that poll reasons that are underscored in the poll you mentioned showing it's a tight race. of course, they are trying to move ahead and push fbi director comey to put out more information about these e-mails that have suddenly come to light here in the final dozen days of this election. her surrogates, spokes people were out in force today

defending her. among them, john podesta, who, of course, has been the subject himself of a separate e-mail issue. his e-mails were personally hacked and then distributed via wikileaks. but he was talking today about the new e-mails that have surfaced that comey told congress about. take a look at what he had to say. >> this was an unprecedented action. it broke with policy of democratic and republican justice departments. it was done over the advice of senior justice department officials. you know, i think that the justice department has had a long tradition of not interfering in an election, coming 11 days before the election. and as i said yesterday, it was long on innuendo, short on facts. i don't fault him for looking at what he found. we don't know what it is. he at least ought to explain if he thinks they're significant or not significant. let him come forward and say why.

>> reporter: you can expect to hear a lot more along those lines, unless, of course, we do find out some new information about this from fbi director comey. pete williams has been in touch with the fbi. they are in the process of attempting to start reviewing this new or potentially pertinent information. they said in the letter they don't know how significant it s. they're not sure what they are going to find. we will be on the lookout for that. in the meantime, hillary clinton is pushing forward. there are millions of americans who are already voting, especially here in the state of florida. this sunday is the first sunday of souls to the polls, which is a longstanding tradition, particularly for democrats of trying to bus people from churches to the polls. often times, early, in-person voting tends to favor democrats. more democrats vote that way, whereas absentee favors

republicans. you can expect to see lhillary clinton doing that. >> stay with me. he will have a conversation with you and others. we are going to hallie jackson. welcome to you. donald trump has been pouncing on this issue in his rallies over the weekend. what are you hearing from the campaign? what is their strategy moving forward? >> reporter: to go on offense in a big way. that's what i'm told from one of donald trump's senior advisers over the next really nine days or so. expect him to hit her on this. continuing to hit her on, for example, the obamacare rate hikes as well and other issues that have come up. you will see that when he heads to nevada, who is in havevegas today. his campaign manager is defending. she was asked whether the campaign is traveling to the proper places. she immediately said yes, essentially, they will focus on places like florida, ohio and

north carolina this week. in all of the stops watch for trump and his surrogates to go after clinton on the latest fbi news. mike pence was asked about this today on "meet the press." here is what pence had to say. >> he has a duty to share more information of what's known. >> i think he has a duty to move forward professionally and in a timely way on this. certainly, the public has a right to know. but let's be clear. hillary clinton -- when this story broke, i believe she was traveling with huma abedin. why didn't she turn to huma and say, put these e-mails out? >> reporter: as my colleague notes, that would not be necessarily a unilateral decision the clinton campaign would make. when it comes to the attacks on james comey, the fbi director, you are seeing from the clinton campaign, it's a full on assault. there is a bipartisan call as you know from both sides for comey to release more information, for republicans it's about hoping essentially that comey will confirm their

suspicion that clinton did something wrong. for dpemocrats, it's hoping to prove she did not, by comey releasing what some see is a political bombshell. >> hang on. i will bring in my colleague joy reed, host of "a.m. joy." as we have mentioned already, clinton and trump, they are tied up in this new poll here. how worried do you think clinton should be about a tougher fight ahead? how much will this e-mail controversy dog her? >> it's interesting. when you were giving the numbers. you have a small undecided out there, which i can't believe there's any undecided vote. where the clinton campaign has to be concerned is in a state like florida. we're seeing democrats slightly winning the early vote. they're not winning by much and

nearly as much as they did in 2012. since this is what i call a shadow re-elect election, it should mirror the obama re-elect. it isn't in florida. in north carolina, they are way overperforming where owe b obam it. the map is bizarre this year. there's strange things happening. it's hard to tell whether this story can move the needle enough to really change what had already been the trajectory. i think hillary clinton will win virginia, north carolina, which means alex, could you have an election where donald trump actually wins florida and ohio and still loses. >> wouldn't that be interesting? >> insane. >> unthinkable when you look at the history. >> speaking of souls to the polls, kasie had to boellt. they are on the move in florida. this article you wrote. comey went public because of intense pressure from republicans. are you suggesting that the fbi director is a gop pawn?

>> not at all. i think what you are seeing is intense pressure has been put on the fbi, starti ining last yearh the e-mail appropriate. jason chaffetz has been aggressive about trying to produce a prosecution. when no prosecution came -- that was not james comey's decision. he is the fbi director. he made a recommendation. he elaborated on their investigation in a way that fbi directors never do. if you reach out to the justice department, all they tell you is, yes, there's a probe going on or no, or we don't comment. by going into detail, he tantalized congressional republicans to think they could make political hay out of it. when there's no prosecution, chaffetz's committee grilled him. you have reporting that there is a great deal of pressure being put on the fbi, on the justice department regarding this e-mail story. you do wonder whether comey felt if he didn't disclose this this week he would be attacked or maybe dragged back before a

committee. it would appear he is trying to help hillary clinton. the politics around this e-mail story have started to invade the fbi. >> is the trump campaign signaling the extent to which they think this e-mail situation will help their campaign? >> reporter: what you are hearing from the campaign, alex, is a sense that they believe when you look at some of where the polling was last week, like on thursday, for example, before the e-mail news came out, they saw a tightening in the polls in what they saw. they viewed, for example, some of his attacks on the affordable care act as starting to become effective as trump went after hillary clinton more and more. there's a sense that the e-mail situation, this fbi news will help. but again, i think they would point to where they saw the numbers going even before this happened. obviously, trump and his campaign seize on the polls that they want to seize on to point to what they believe is a tighter race than pundits see. i expect that will happen. not a lot of polls have been in the field since friday's news. i think over the coming days, monday, tuesday, wednesday, we

will see more polling come out. i would expect the trump campaign to capitalize on that a week before the election. >> i'm curious, do you think comey had any option but to put it out this way? if you look at what they say, within the fbi, that they got this information. he was alerted on thursday. thought long and hard about it. certainly, got weighed in from loretta lynch and the doj, but he felt it could be leaked. had this come out tomorrow or tuesday, via leak, that would have looked worse. that's his perspective on all this. do you think that's true? >> this was leaked. this did not -- our understanding is that the letter itself that comey sent, he sent it to the heads of the committees in congress. the media apparently got it from members of congress. it's not as if the fbi made public this letter. it would have leaked either way. there was no way comey could not have anticipated that any letter he sent was going to get to the

press. making it vague, tantalizing people with what could be a scandal but saying, i don't know what it is, he must have known that would get into the body politic. he made this bed for himself in july by being so forthcoming and being so beyond what an fbi director ever does, elaborating on the decision not to recommend a prosecution on hillary clinton's e-mails. but then going into editorial, quite frankly, about how irresponsible in his view clinton was. he stepped so far outside the bounds of what any fbi director does that he set himself up. now he's in a position of rolling disclosure. because he disclosed in july, he feels he has to update now. i think he made this bed himself. it was an error. the preponderance of commentary on it from the left and right has been that this has been damaging to the reputation of the fbi. it's been damaging to the field agents to the field agents. it made the fbi a party to the election.

that's not where an fbi director wants to be. >> give me a read on florida. you are familiar with it. >> as we were talking, i'm fielding texts from people in florida who are a little alarmed that the early vote is not going better for democrats. hillary clinton should be able to win the state. it's a state built for her in a lot of ways. it's weird that as the donald trump scandals have gotten more over the top, trump has improved in florida. there's a large hispanic population. he's not doing well with hispanic voters. it suggests hillary clinton should win florida. but i think if ultimately hillary clinton loses florida, it's because their ovwn operatin was not aggressive enough. you have to do the work. >> look at the numbers. i will ask our director to put this poll back up, these numbers. we have trump ahead by four points. this came out today, this particular poll. >> i think these polls are now measuring both people who have voted and people who intend to vote. it's measuring intensity of your determination to vote.

you are starting to see trump voters become more determined to vote. you are seeing that reflected in the polls. again, in florida, you have a democratic party that pulled out of a senate race that essentially gave marco rubio. when you pull that out of the field, you hurt the ticket. if this state ends up going to the republicans, to marco rubio and to donald trump, it will be because the democrats did not put the intensity of effort on the ground. you have to mobilize your base. >> to that extent, very quickly, because we're out of time, wasn't trump late to the game in florida? he was only recently putting in -- >> spending a ton of time there. >> and his resources. offices he was just opening up not that long ago. >> reporter: you are right. i want to get this breaking news in here. it's not just florida but pennsylvania. we have confirmed by kellyanne conway that melania trump will deliver a speech in philadelphia thursday. we don't often see melania on the campaign trail. last week, trump promised his

wife would deliver two or three speeches on the campaign trail, news that seemed to surprise her in an interview. this is the first that will be rolled out, thursday in pa. >> thank you for that breaking news. joy is looking at that, really? >> they are losing pennsylvania and if they go to philadelphia, which democrats are going to win overwhelmingly seems very bizarre. >> it's the bucks county. >> reporter: some of the places considered key. >> ladies, thank you so much. great to talk with you both. another person that's great to talk with, i will ask clinton supporter former michigan governor how best the democratic nominee should respond to the e-mail situation. cohing means making ugchoice ji you'n!

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we know this is an

investigation, because her husband is sexting a 15-year-old girl in north carolina. that's how we got back to this place. this is not the right wing conspiracy. this is not the trump campaign. >> that is trump campaign manager kellyanne won way this morning reacting to the fbi's renewed look into a batch of e-mails that may have a connection to secretary clinton's e-mail server. the clinton camp on the offensive calling for james comey to offer more information to the public about the matter, not just the letter he sent to congress friday. joining me now, former michigan governor jennifer granholm, co-chair of hillary clinton's transition team. welcome to you. how did we get here? just nine days until election day. did comey mishandle this situation? >> absolutely he did. i'm a former federal prosecutor and former attorney general. is it really clear when you do an investigation that you do not talk about the investigation and you do not release information in a way that would influence elections. it's really clear in the

guidelines for both investigations and prosecutions. so he violated two rules in doing this. yeah, it is a problem for him. it's also a problem because he said in the letter to his fbi employees that he didn't intend to mislead anybody. but, in fact, look at what the trump campaign is doing with this. this is not a reopened investigation. we have no idea what this is other than we do know that the fbi looked at all of hillary clinton's work related e-mails through her server, looked aall of her aides' work-related e-mails, including huma abedin. these could be duplicates. because he left a mystery around this, he is influencing an election. can i just say that if you look at the -- if you look at the relative harms of the e-mails that she has apologized for and that he said already that there

are no -- there was no intentional violation and it wasn't even a close case. you look at that versus looking at what donald trump's violations of law have been, actual violations where he has been charged, where he has paid fines, whether it is through trump university and his foundation giving an illegal donation to pam bondy or him having paid a $250,000 fine for improperly violating the law in new york by lobbying illegally or whether he paid $65,000, again, for improper receiving a loan for his casinos. he has violated the law actually. she has not. she's not been charged. she has not been indicted. she's not found to be in violation. she has not paid a fine. the comparative between the two is astonishing.

we have to get back to the issues that people care about this week. >> we have this week to do it. right now, i want to get to what secretary clinton said about the controversy last night. let's listen to it. >> donald trump is already making up lies about this. he is doing his best to confuse, mislead and discourage the american people. >> to that extent, would it be fair to say that the clinton camp wouldn't be in this pred k predickmepr predicament if they had handled this differently? >> how many times does she have to apologize for the way the e-mails were handled? she has apologized. but that server and the e-mails that were on it were found to not even be a close case with respect to prosecution. she has learned her lesson. she made a mistake. she has apologized.

yes, they bear some responsibility for the way the e-mails were handled. but when you compare this actwi the stakes that are on the table for a donald trump presidency, alex, this week the economist came out with their ranking of the most serious global threats. donald trump in november of 2016 is the sixth greatest global threat, his election would be the biggest -- the sixth greatest threat to the globe. in fact, he is just behind the rise of jihadi terrorism. he is that dangerous. when you compare what's at stake here, i think there is no comparison. >> let's see the effect though on our voters, all of this. there's as you know this new poll of registered voters from abc news which found a full one-third of everyone polled will be less likely to vote for

clinton as a result of this renewed fbi investigation into the e-mails. how much do these numbers concern you? 34% less likely. >> but who are those voters? it's not clear that those are voters who were undecided. those may be voters, i'm sure, who might be in his camp already. it's clearly the clinton team's responsibility to go forward this week and continue to call for comey to release the information. they are not afraid of that information getting out. they want the voters to have the full array as well. but they want voters to know that they are the ones who are putting forth policies and plans to improve their lives. that's the task of the clinton campaign this week is to make that very clear to people. they don't have anything to worry about regarding this investigation. and they have plans to help people's lives. i think people are sick and tired of hearing about her damn e-mails as bernie sanders started by saying. >> in terms of quality of life,

i want to ask you about the related issue. obamacare. the"the new york times." the increase in premiums will affect the vote in arizona. do you think this might be a game changer giving trump an advantage in a battleground state or in the battleground states? >> the challenge for arizona is that a number of insurers dropped out. competition was less. arizona was the up wione state was hit high. in ohio, it's a 2% increase. in new hampshire, it's only a 2% increase. it varied from state to state. for 84% of the people who have signed up for the affordable care act, 84% will not feel this increase because their tax credits also go up. so they won't feel it in their pocketbook. even in arizona, 77% of the people will be able to get a plan for under $100 a month. the number of people that this

affects is narrow. however, she's got -- she has the opportunity to say what she would do. it's amended, don't end it plan. she wants to fix what's wrong and make sure that we keep it so that the 20 million people across the country who now have access to health care are not ripped -- their plans are not ripped out from under them. she obviously wants to increase competition. she wants to have people have the option to buy into medicare if she want to. >> she has repeated that on the trail many a time. jennifer granholm, good to see you. >> great to see you. winning florida is the big week of news swinging suburban women in that state one way or the other.

welcome back, everyone. i'm alex witt here. here is what we're monitoring for you. a powerful earthquake that struck central italy this

morning. it had an epicenter around 80 miles northeast of rome. officials say this quake was too much for many buildings that had resisted an august ittumblers. many buildings were destroyed, including a 14th century cathedral. some injuries, no reports of death. back to politlitipolitics. there's a dead heat in the state of florida. hillary clinton is leading by one point. this is a state that could once again determine the outcome of the election. we are at a polling station in florida south of miami. another welcome back to you. you have been talking with the voters there. what are you hearing? >> reporter: it's interesting, alex. in this city of over 40,000 people, i've been hearing and seeing from a lot of hillary clinton supporters. but it was interesting to me in the short time i've been at this polling station here that i've not seen one single donald trump

volunteer or supporter. i have seen local candidates who are campaigning here. i want to ask them -- this is chuck running for local office. you have been here 7:00 to 7:00 every day. what have you been hearing and seeing at this polling station? >> really not a lot about the national candidates, between clinton and trump. there has been a few people here and there for clinton. i have not really seen anybody for trump out here from the campaign. it has been pretty low key, actually. people aren't really talking. >> what about the signs on people's yards in this community? >> havei have gone door to door. there's few signs out for either one. i would say ten to 15 signs for clinton, ten to 15 for trump. and we're a town of 45,000. it's not very many. >> reporter: thank you so much. good luck to you. alex, just to give you a fact, there have been more republican affiliated ballot returned across the state of florida. of course, that doesn't

necessarily mean that's how people are voting. the polls here, neck and neck. that small difference could really be the national difference on election day. this is one of the states to watch, if not the state to watch on november 8. i am expecting to see more folks coming here, especially as church service has let out. a big souls to the polls evidence going on. i will have that for you live in the next hour. >> we look forward to that. thank you. still ahead, a slew of new polls in the presidential race. what do they show? the answer is next. something new has arved. ♪ uniqly designed for the driven intrg the first-ever visit ur local infiniti reil today.

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[first, all customers who he changes been ited gs right. will be fully refunded. second, we'll proaively send you a confirmation for any new ecng, sangs, or credit caount you open. third, we've eminated product sales goalss to ense your intests are putfir. we're taking actio we're renewing our commitment you. today the clinton camp is fighting back against the rumors that have cropped up since the fbi announced it's looking into new e-mails in its investigation of the candidate. on "meet the press" robby mook questioned the intentions of james comey in releasing this information so close to election day. >> to send a letter to congress saying we may have some

information, we don't know if it's significant or not, without even looking at what's inside there, you know, ten, 11 days before a presidential election, it's just very curious. >> the issue is if he doesn't get all the information on the table, he will let any conspiracy theory take the day. >> let's bring in elise jordan and former pennsylvania governor ed rendell, an nbc news political analyst. always good to have you join me. ladies first with you. is robby mook right? i know you are a republican who is not a trump supporters. also not a fan of hillary clinton. given that context, was comey's action here reckless, maybe dangerous? >> i think it's really hypocritical on both sides of the aisle, the response to these allegations. republicans were so angry at comey back in july. the clinton camp was happy that he dismissed the investigation.

the investigation though was never technically closed. i think when you have a figure like tomorrow comey making thef making this investigation so public that, yes, this is -- we shouldn't be surprised that this has come to the forefront. i think that in the end, it probably will be somewhat beneficial to hillary clinton just because i do think that it energizes her base of supporters to go out and vote for her and for down pal lballot republican this couldn't be a greater gift. >> do you think it will energize her supporters? >> it will take some of the trump supporters who are reading the polls were saying, no reason for me to vote, donald says it's rigged, i'm not getting out there, it may energize them as well. i do want to say about the substantive issue, i was a prosecutor for 16 years. it's unheard of to do something

like this within 11 days of the election. having done it and he may have had reasons for doing it, having done it he has the obligation to say that the fbi has not reviewed one e-mail, there's no evidence of criminality at this time, we don't know if they're significant, we don't know if they are duplicate stuff we have. that should have been in the letter he sent to congress. >> do you see any reason why he may have put this out -- why he did put this out there friday? what was the justification that you see? >> well, i think without trying to go into it too much, i think he believed if he didn't put it out, someone in the fbi would leak it and it would look worse. if that's the case, he was okay to send the letter out. but where he made a mistake is leaving it open. donald trump took the stage 15 minutes after the letter became public and said, this is the biggest scandal since watergate. you know what? most of these e-mails are duplicates. we don't know if any went to hillary clinton or were sent by

hillary clinton. we don't know a bloody thing. it's unfair. >> do you think it's hillary clinton's own fault that this whole e-maile-mail story keeps back to life? >> she said she made a mistake and she did. the campaign last year -- i was on record as saying the campaign didn't handle this well. they should have been transparent. these may all be duplicates for all we know. these may be things that were turned over. to blame them for this without knowing what's in there and what they pertain to is -- i now understand from yahoo! that the director didn't see one of the e-mails himself. >> there are two head -- >> pretty shocking. >> two headlines i want to post out. first, abedin unsure how clinton e-mails wound up on wiener's computer. abedin swore she gave up all devices containing state department e-mails. how do you read this? >> i really don't want to

speculate how her e-mails ended up on anthony wiener's computer. i think that they are spouses. she was prossibly using his computer. no one knows why that happened. if she did deliberately withhold additional e-mails, that certainly is something that should be looked into. right now the incredible vagueness of what exactly the fbi has, what hasn't been disclosed, i just don't want to be a party to endless speculation when we really do not know enough. i agree with governor rendell that that was part of the original problem with the friday letter, just that it was too vague. if comey felt like he had to announce and to release this information, the vagueness of it does fuel this uncertain speculation and conspiracy theories at this point of an election. >> i want to ask you, governor, your interpretation of how this could happen. there is reportedly -- there are reportedly thousands of e-mails here. we know by reporting that huma

abedin turned over two laptops, a blackberry and files. she has said the way she communicated the most with the campaign was via her blackberry. you are in a home. i'm in a home. you have multiple computers. usually, people -- particularly people that work so much on a computer use their own computer. it does seem rather incredulous she would use her husband's computer. she's got a couple laptops already. >> yeah. it does to me, too. nothing involving anthony wiener seems to make sense to me. >> yeah. i guess you can put down the question right there with that. how about the profusion of rumors -- as robby mook is saying, conspiracy theories. could that be the point of this? is that enough to damage clinton's chances on november 8? >> well, i do think this is a reminder for voters who aren't fans of trump, republicans who aren't fans of trump and were considering hillary clinton of

the scandals and uncertainty that are definitely going to plague her time in office. just pushes them away. there are so many republicans who really wish that trump could have shown basic stability so they could have voted for him. had to reject him. there are so few undecideds that something like this does potentially affect some people who are on the fence. but really, most people have made their decisions by now. this is unlikely to affect how they vote. >> to that end, governor, pennsylvania, your state, hillary clinton is up there. we heard at the top of the hour, hallie jackson broke the news that melania trump will deliver a speech thursday in the outskirts of philadelphia. to whom will she be speaking? are there voters in that area that can be swayed? >> well, i think there are few undecided voters nationally and very few in pennsylvania. i think although melania is a sympathetic figure, i don't think much that she can say is going to sway those suburban

voters who may be undecided. there are few of them. i think the gist of the e-mail stuff is going to be how it affects turnout. if the clinton folks get fired up over this like the trump folks will, it will be a wash. i'm not sure that's going to happen. i urge everybody out there, whoever they want to win, get out and vote. don't count on anything. >> what are you hearing about pennsylvania where it stands right now? also the down ballot races. >> well, i think hillary clinton -- the times poll came out wednesday. she was seven up. i think that's a little high. i think she's probably five, five and a half points up. don't know the effect of this. i think there was a slightly small hidden donald trump vote in pennsylvania. i thought it was more like four or three points up. if hillary clinton wins by four or more, i think katie mcginty is the next senator.

we had this in philadelphia. a mayor there polled three or four points worse than election day. even though it's a stranger on the end of the line, people didn't want to admit they were voting for frank rizzo. the same thing may pertain. i'm told there may be a hidden vote. some of the women married to blue collar white trump voters may not want to tell their husbands that inside the poll they're not voting for donald trump. >> thank heavens it's private. when you get in the ballot box, it's private. do what you need to do. >> absolutely. >> thanks so much. >> thank you. we will talk with a former federal prosecutor about the justice department's role in the fbi announcement. new polls just released today. why the race is tighter than ever nationally. how the candidates are fairing among men, women and minorities in the battleground states with nine days to go before the election. here you go.

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history shows ohio has a pretty successful track record when it comes to picking the president of the united states. they have voted for the winning president in 28 of the past 30 elections. with the exception of 1944 and 1960. according to the latest polling, donald trump is leading hillary clinton 46-42. the remington research poll was conducted before the recent e-mail discovery. a look at what led up to the announcement by the fbi director. some insight from a former attorney general next.

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we need to make sure that we have a beautiful place for our children to live. together, we're building a better california. there is a reason why we have the standards and traditions and the protocols that say to the fbi and the justice department, don't do this kind of thing right before an election. what he has done is basically placed this black box filled with innuendo and conspiracy

theories and almost no new evidence right in the middle of this political campaign. >> that was part of my conversation earlier with charlie sykes, conservative radio talk show host in milwaukee. joining me now, kendall coffee, former u.s. attorney and federal prosecutor. welcome to the show. >> thanks. >> want to get your reaction to c what charlie said. >> i think that -- i agree it's extraordinary. it's unprecedented. i think comey had unprecedented circumstances. wisely or unwisely he got out in july and basically told the public and congress there's no further investigative steps being undertaken here. in october, apparently that's not true anymore. comey had two bad choices in front of him. the ultimately decided in favor of disclosure and put himself in

a difficult decision. his decision was rather than misinform the public by silence, he was going to accept the risk of getting a lot of heat. that heat will get warmer and hotter this week. >> that description there says it's an unenviable position. >> with another unprecedented scenario. he made himself the decider and the communicator to the congress and public on this issue. i assume that's why he felt that he had to make this next disclosure when circumstances apparently changed. >> tell me about the relationship between the department of justice and the fbi. i know nbc news has learned comey sent that letter against the advice of the doj and loretta lynch. could the justice department have stopped this? >> disagreement between doj and the fbi are not extraordinary or unprecedented. this scenario was. but i think the doj could have taken a stronger position.

as i understand it -- we're reading the tea leaves -- that he was advised against it and advised correctly that it would be a departure from normal doj policy. as far as i know, he was not ordered to stand down. i think as we reconstruct this months from now, that will be one of the questions that's asked. could there and should there have been a stronger basic -- an outright rejection of his intended course of action. >> does the fbi director now have an obligation to clarify what was in those e-mails, considering it's so close to the election? >> as much as possible, he needs to do that. unleashing a cryptic bombshell is probably not good enough. we don't know what might be there. at a minimum, if his focus is the an ththony wiener laptop an the view there may have been information in there that wasn't supposed to be in the hands of a civilian who would not have been authorized, if this is about

huma abedin, i think there should be some indication or some statement that we have no information at this point that implicates hillary clinton. at the end of the day, that's what the public is very, very understandably anxious to know. >> you are saying that he should do that. what's your best guess? will he do that? >> don't flknow if he will. there are probably people in the fbi that say we don't know. just as everything about this election and this case is extraordinary, i think he needs to consider extraordinary steps so that once he has unleashed this incredible uncertainty that he provides the kind of clarity that is most important and that clarity is, is there any reason to believe in anything that's known right now today on the eve of election that implicates hillary clinton? >> if he were to come out and do a clarification statement, do you sense there's any way that would risk compromising the investigation? is there something that would hold him back from doing that? >> well, the cautious thing to do is say any announcement

compromises the investigation. i think you have to drill down deeper and see if there's any prejudi prejudice. i don't see it. there's been an investigation. a lot of is out there. i don't see a risk to the investigation at this point. yeah, standard operating procedure is to say nothing more. but there's nothing standard about this procedure. >> all right, good to talk with you. thanks. >> thanks. sftill ahead, bill richardsn on the tightening national race and the e-mail story. before we go, here is former president bill clinton campaigning in north carolina. let's take a quick listen. >> therefore, the only answer is to vote for somebody who seems to hate the same people i do. that's about it. isn't it? us and them. phones, i was raised in us and them america. it's way overrated.

first of all, you can't have the economy you had in 1950. you can't. you can't have the economy you had in 1960.