happy halloweener, sports fans. in our pillowcase of candy tonight, hillary clinton hits a sour patch, donald trump snickers, and the fbi draws a fireball of backlash. but first, federal agents get a watchmacallit. anthony weiner, the estranged husband of hillary clinton's top aide, huma abedin. since james comey informed congress about those messages, which he a vaguely called, quote, pertinent to the agency's previous investigation into clinton's e-mail server, we've learned a lot about intragovernment feuds in this case, but virtually nothing about what's actually contained in the e-mails in question. with the election just one week and one day away, clinton was out on the campaign trail today

at kent state university in ohio trying to keep this story from spinning out of control. >> i'm sure a lot of you may be asking what this new e-mail story is about. and why in the world the fbi would decide to jump into an election with no evidence of any wrongdoing, with just days to go. that's a good question. and first of all, for those of you who are concerned about my using personal e-mail, i understand. and as i've said, i'm not making excuses. i've said it was a mistake and i regret it. and now they apparently want to look at e-mails of one of my staffers, and by all means, they should look at them. and i am sure they will reach the same conclusion they did when they looked at my e-mails for the last year. there is no case here. >> just before clinton took the stage, donald trump held his own rally in grand rapids, michigan, where he kept pressure on his

political opponent. >> hillary is the one who broke the law over and over and over again. we can be sure that what is in those e-mails is absolutely devastating. and i think we're going to find out, by the way. for the first time. thank you, huma. thank you, huma. good job, huma. thank you, anthony weiner. >> so, what do the voters think about all of this? well, a new nbc news/survey monkey tracking poll has clinton still leading donald trump by six points among likely voters, 47- 47-41%. that margin is unchanged from last week. and there was no sign that clinton lost any support in the days immediately following comey's letter to congress and the explosion that followed that on friday afternoon. so, mark, from what we know, at this moment, how much is all of

this affecting the presidential race? >> all right. there are two ways to talk about it affecting the race. let's try to do it crisply and precisely. in terms of the dialogue, the dialogue for the last 48 hours plus, and at least until tomorrow, is about hillary clinton, the fbi, and an investigation. the clinton campaign's handling it in a way that it's also about director comey. it's rallying both bases. but clearly, this is not what the clinton campaign would like to be talking about. in terms to have the actual impact on donald trump's chances of winning, we don't know. this has not caused clinton to collapse. the public data is pretty slim. the private data, i've heard, on both sides, suggests, perhaps trump has gained a little bit of an edge. but this has not changed the race right now. but it's an evolving story. >> i find it troubling, if you're in a position where i have to agree with pretty much everything you've said. i agree with that. this is about the dialogue and the dynamic. the electoral dynamics. there's no doubt that what we've seen over the course of this

entire campaign is whoever is the focus, whoever's at the center of the discussion loses altitude in this race. right, when we're talking about donald trump, it's bad for donald trump. when we're talking about hillary clinton, it's bad for hillary clinton. they're both really unpopular, not very-well-liked nominees. so hillary clinton wanted to spend the last eight or nine days of the campaign talking about donald trump. and she's not right now. she's talking about other things. so i agree with you about that. and also, i think, look, the data is very sparse and scarce at this point. we'll know more in the next 48 hours. but if this survey monkey nbc news poll is indicative of what we're going to see over the next two days, the dynamic has not been changed, at all. >> yeah. i mean, the republicans claim both kellyanne conway, the trump campaign, and other republicans claim trump was already moving ahead in some battleground states before this happened. just as the last thing in the world donald trump wanted to be dealing with a few weeks ago, was accusations about his treatment of women, really, the

last thing in the world hillary clinton would want to deal with is the combination of wikileaks, about clinton inc, and the clinton foundation, stories about investigations of the foundation that were squashed, allegedly, or at least restrained. and then, of course, any questions related to her e-mails. so, it is testament to the clinton campaign and her standing that this has not caused the bottom to drop out, but it's also testament to the fact that we're a divided country. and as i said, a lot of the impact has been to give hillary clinton a rallying cry against comey and against trump. >> here are two things that i would say, just to draw the parallel out a little bit, the difference between the "access hollywood" tape and the accusations of sexual predation against donald trump, that was new information, right? and it was, it was also information that went directly to donald trump's behavior. in clinton's case, this is reinforcing an old story line, and so far, at least, this big october surprise, does not go directly to anything she did

that's new, right? so, it doesn't surprise me, maybe, if it turns out this doesn't have a big affect, it might not be totally shocking. and that's the difference, it seems to me, between these two october surprises. >> yep. all right. from the time the story broke on friday, hillary clinton and her allies have been trying to make this story all about james comey and the fbi director's decision to send that cryptic letter to congress at the end of last week with the election just days away. today during the white house briefing, the press secretary, josh earnest, refused to defend or criticize comey. other democrats, though, including congressman elijah cummings of maryland, have rushed to clinton's defense. >> now we have a situation when he's come out with this vague letter. we don't know how many of these e-mails are duplicative. we don't know very much at all. but this letter has been put out there and i think he has now placed her in a situation where she's basically being questioned and asked to defend something.

she doesn't know what she's defending. and so, you know, i just think that he made a mistake. and i think he needs to try to correct that. and one of the things he can do is let us know -- i mean, he's put out this information with regard to, you know, secretary clinton. they also have some questions about mr. trump, his associates, the russians, and any coordination and cooperation with regard to our elections. >> clinton's pushback effort also includes the release of a bipartisan letter, signed by more than 100 former federal prosecutors and justice department officials, expressing concern about comey's actions, and the senate's top democrat, harry reid, released his own letter, that went as far as to say that the fbi director might have violated the hatch act, the federal law that bars officials from using their authority to influence elections. donald trump's team also add in force with what appears to be two distinct talking points. that regardless of comey's decision, this is a scandal of clinton's own making.

and that the media is focusing on the wrong aspects of this story, because it's in the tank for the democrats. >> this is mind-blowing. that everybody is rushing to her defense. there should be serious questions -- the only reason we're here is that they violated rules and regulations from the get-go. if hillary clinton and her aides had used a state department e-mail, which was the rule at the time, and hadn't tried to bleach it away, and hadn't self-selected the e-mails and hadn't lied over and over and over again, we wouldn't be here. this is a scandal of their own choosing. they chose to avoid government rules and regulations. they chose to lie and lie and lie. and this is where we are. they have no one to blame but themselves. >> john, which side, team clinton or team trump, is so far handling this comey-induced chaos better? >> well, look, i think that it's easier for the trump campaign, and they're doing a fine job at driving the two points that they want to drive. it's a much harder situation to be, again, just talking here

strategically, tactically, to be in the clinton camp's place, and i think given the difficulty that they've faced, just purely politically, not on the merits, just how are they doing it pushback, they've done a pretty good job going on offense, attacking comey, and getting a sense of bipartisan, in some respects, bipartisan condemnation of comey, for doing something that seems to have violated the justice department's own customs and the way in which it's supposed to operate this close to an election day. i think they've done -- as pushback goes, they're doing it pretty effectively and efficiently. >> yeah, the clinton campaign could easily have tried to ignore this, pretend it didn't exist. hillary clinton, press conference on friday. she's talked about it in her events, very aggressively, whipping up the crowd. i agree with exactly what you said. both sides have played their hands pretty well and pretty aggressively. and without many errors. i will say, because we haven't condemned comey yet in this episode -- >> yes, let's go.

>> what comey did is receiving widespread congressional condemnation. and the clinton campaign clearly decided friday, we're going to take the risk, we're going to take on the fbi director, make this about him. and a lot of the news coverage, as republicans point out, has been about him. i understand why republicans are hot on this story, but we don't really know much at this point about how incriminating this might be. i'm amazed that republicans haven't jumped more on that "wall street journal" story, that some weren't keen on investigating the clinton foundation. the last thing i'll say, this aggressiveness by the clinton folks is -- i won't say it's uncharacteristic, but it is reminisce reminiscent, i should say, of the way bill clinton would have fought back. and i think that's a pretty positive praise you can give somebody, to say it's clintonesque, in terms of pushback. >> all right. up next, we're going to take a look at what donald trump's schedule says about his path or potential path, maybe, path, hopeful path, to the white house. we'll be right back with that. changes to make things right.

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we talk a lot on this program about how donald trump's electoral college path to the white house is narrow, like it would be for any republican. but there are two scenarios. we call the first scenario the new hampshire scenario. trump would have to win north carolina, ohio, florida, plus iowa and neva, and if he won all of those, it would put him over the state. that gets him to exactly 270. so the big five, plus new hampshire, and that one in maine. the other path's more simple. trump wins the big three states, ohio, florida, and north carolina and then wins pennsylvania, where he and mike pence are visiting tomorrow. but where a recent cbs/ugov. poll had clinton up by 8 percentage points.

and that is not the only blue state that is currently on trump's schedule. yesterday he campaigned in colorado and new mexico. today's in michigan. tomorrow he's coming here to wisconsin. one problem with teasing out trump's strategy here is there is not a lot of recent polling data in these states to get a sense from public polling of what he's up to. for instance, the last good survey out of new mexico was from september. so john, is trump going to these other new blue places because he thinks they're in play, or is he going there because new hampshire and pennsylvania don't seem very likely for him at this point, and he needs to find at least a plausible combination to 270? >> well, from inside the trump campaign, there is a lot of insistence that he's -- that he's campaigning in a rational way. which is to stay, going to places that although they are a reach, are within reach. my actual gut says, on the basis of what we know about the polling data in these places, is that they have come to a conclusion also rational, that new hampshire and pennsylvania

are, wiin fact, out of reach, a they have to find some other way to 270, so they might as well go to the likeliest paths, however unlikely those paths are, to try to get him there. >> if trump's going to win, he's going to have to win four out of the big five at a minimum. and north carolina right now is the toughest one. i don't think they've given up on new hampshire. they certainly haven't given up on florida, nevada, ohio, iowa. i think what they're trying to do is see if they can figure out a way to get a national tie to put them in a position that if things break badly in one place, they've got a bit of a back up. north carolina could end up being the key to the whole election. and it's clear the clinton campaign sees it that way. you look at the recent resources they've put in there, surrogates galore going there, both obamas, president clinton, hillary clinton, chelsea clinton's been there, tim kaine's been there repeatedly. you see the october events that have either happened or will happen. and then, of course, the tv spending there has been pretty big as well. so i think that as the trump people look around, they say,

could it be possible that they lose north carolina, but somehow win michigan, somehow win wisconsin here? doesn't seem likely. but if you believe them on their data and some of the other private data i've seen on both sides, it's not a crazy play, if he can't win north carolina, he can't just give up. >> well, the last thing you said, i think, is the closest thing to being right on the money. we have said all long that there is -- forget about big five or big sixes or big sevens, or whatever, there's three. he needs, must win, ohio, north carolina, and florida. he could win ohio right now, and florida is pretty much a toss-up, everyone agrees. he's maybe a little ahead in ohio and has been for a while. north carolina is the place where demographic change has pushed that state more to hillary clinton's direction. she's had the upper hand narrowly, but had the upper hand for a while. if trump can't win north carolina and that realization is dawning in trump tower, they've got to go someplace else. that's a bunch of electoral votes they've got to make up for. so as i've said before, you've

got to figure out something else. and new mexico seems like a long shot to me, given its past voting behavior, democrat cycle after cycle after cycle. but they've got to bring in some big new trove for electoral votes, and it seems to be they're on the hunt for that rather than playing in places the that are easily within his grasp. >> yeah. again, if they can somehow win florida, ohio, nevada, and iowa, then if they don't win north carolina, they've got a brig problem. even if they do win north carolina, they've got a little problem. they need a big replacement and new mexico's not enough. that's why they're doing it. and we'll talk more about this with donald trump's communications director a little later in the program. but for now, we're going to take a break. we'll be right back with more on the clinton fbi story and the presidential race right after this. there's only one egg that just tastes better. fresher. more flavorful.

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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. want more proof? ask your rheumatologist about humira. humira. what's your body of proof? we are joined now by two top-notch political strategists, liz smith was the deputy campaign manager for martin o'malley's presidential campaign and worked for director of barack obama's rapid response in 2012. and we also have susan del perc percio, a communications consultant. ladies, great to see you. i'm going to start with you just because -- >> why? >> because the spotlight is obviously on the clinton campaign right now.

how do you think they have handling the fallout from the comey letter on friday? >> i heard you and mark talking about it earlier. and i disagree a little bit with you on this. i think that they should have outsourced some of the direct criticism of comey to people like eric holder and not made this into a combination between hillary clinton versus comey. you know, for her to win, it needs to be hillary clinton versus donald trump. and if you look at the headlines coming out of her rally today, it's all about her assailing comey. so, otherwise, you know, her calls for transparency, all that stuff is smart. but i don't think that pigging a war with the fbi is smart, especially when you see stories like "the wall street journal" yesterday, where they were leaking stuff like crazy. >> i know you -- although you're a republican, susan, i'll ask you the same question, just because this is obviously a moment of crisis for the clinton campaign. how do you think they have handled things since friday? >> as well as can be expected. i may differ a little bit with liz, because at least on the

e-mails, it's clinton/comey in one headline. she's trying to diffuse a little bit of the attack. but she was out there today and she was saying, here, this is what i did on my e-mails. and she was really direct about it, much more so than i ever have seen her talk about the e-mails and her staff. so, in that regard, she did the best she can. but she's still playing a lot of defense on this. >> within both campaigns, as they look to see if this is impacting the race, besides polling data, is there any way if one can tell, is this having an impact on voters? >> polling data is what is going to be key. and what you have to start looking at in past races is where the independents will start to break. when you have two such unfavorable candidates, they really, they're fighting to be the least worst. it's hard to tell without -- when you look at the polls, you kind of get a sense of it. but if you have to go on the map alone, this is breaking towards hillary clinton. because all she has to do is prevent donald trump from

winning just, let's say, north carolina or florida, or ohio. she has to prevent him from winning one. he has to win them all. and that's a big challenge. >> yeah, i mean, it's really hard to see this changing the ultimate outcome of the election. i don't think that suddenly, overnight, donald trump is going to win because of these e-mails. you have to be living under a rock to not know about the e-mails and not have formed an opinion about them. >> but there is one other thing we have to take into consider, that's donald trump. can he stay on this message for eight days? i'm impressed he did it for eight hours, frankly. he's been really good this weekend. but can he go on the rest of this campaign and have it not be about him? that's always been his greatest challenge. so that's what we're going to see play out. >> susan, this story kind of wiped out to atalk about the affordable care act, bill clinton ink.

the clinton campaign is trying to revive some of that topper with trump and pence both in pennsylvania. are those messages bundled up with this comey thing. do you think smart for the campaign to do, or should they pick one or two at most to talk about? >> well, it's swluabsolutely -- >> the e-mail story runs itself. and talking about the affordable care act with those increases arriving in the mail as we speak is a great talking point. it brings republicans back home. it gets the participation rate, instead of being around 82% for trump where it was last week, probably closer to 88 or 90. and that's exactly what he needs to hold on to. so, yes, the clinton -- the clinton inc story is a great story and something that definitely hurts the clintons. it's harder to explain, but when you get that notice in the mail that your rates are going up on an average of 25%, that's real easy. that's -- clinton hurts your pocketbook. >> and mark, another thing it knocked out of the headlines was all these accusations about donald trump sexually assaulting women. and there was just a 12th woman

that came forward last week, and it became completely buried by this fbi announcement. >> so, an interesting question right now is still, to me, is whether comey is going to have to respond. is he going to do a press conference? will he come forward? first of all, let me know what you think about that. and do you think clinton campaign would rather have him come forward or stay hidden away and continue beat on him using hill as a punching bag? >> i think he has to come forward, given the -- all the criticism he's facing from all sides. and given how close we are to the election. and i actually do believe that the clinton campaign is being honest when they say they want him to come forward with all the information. there's no indication that there's anything new or that there's any bombshell in here. and so, it would benefit them, i think, oddly, for them to be a little bit more transparent. >> except, there's nothing for him to say right now. we know that they have to go through all of those e-mails. what can he possibly come

forward and say, unless he can say, we've reviewed the documents and there's nothing there. that's not going to happen in five business days. >> it's the fbi -- i disagree with you. it's the fbi. they have limitless resources. i think it's -- >> it took hillary -- excuse me! it took hillary clinton how many weeks to go through her own -- and they were her own e-mails. so i don't think -- i just don't see how he's going to come forward now without making a bigger mess for himself. i think that this is more of a reflection of a crisis in the fbi than anything else, actually. because his hand was forced to come forward. >> if he doesn't come forward now, the republicans can run with this campaign of innuendo. and that's really irresponsible. and he created this environment that has allowed republicans -- >> no, no, excuse me. hillary clinton has created this environment by having a private server. so let's not. this is not a hillary clinton, oh, i'm a victim, i can't believe the fbi came after me. >> that is a fair point, yes. she did show poor judgment setting up that server. >> i'm happy that you guys came to agreement by the end, because we like to have an atmosphere of

togetherness and kumbaya at all times. susan del percio and lis smith, thank you for coming on. we'll be right back with the guy who has been on this fbi story from the very start, nbc's justice correspondent, pete williams joins us after these words from our sponsors. i love that my shop is part of the morning ritual around here. people rely on that first cup and i wouldn't want to mess with that. but when (my) back pain got bad, i couldn't sleep. i had trouble getting there on time. then i found aleve pm. aleve pm is the only one to combine a sleep aid plus the 12 hour strength of aleve. for pain relief that can last into the morning. ♪ look up at a new day... hey guys! now i'm back. aleve pm for a better am.

late this afternoon, hillary clinton's team held a conference call with the media. on it, her campaign manager, robby mook, and her press secretary, brian fallon, repeated a lot of the things they said about fbi director comey and donald trump and the whole situation they find themselves in. in other words, there was no news on that call. our next guest has been all over this story. joining us now from the nbc news d.c. bureau, nbc news justice correspondent, pete williams. pete, i know you've been saying,

understandab understandably, correctly, so many unusual things about this case and this matter. i heard you say earlier, one thing, the fbi is now basically being asked to get play-by-play in realtime of an investigation. mixed reporting, where do you stand now, as your understanding, how quickly will they say anything else publicly about this matter? >> i think they don't know the answer to that question, because they don't know all of what's on this hard drive. so what they've done is, since they got the search warrant sunday night, allowing the team that did the clinton e-mail investigation to now look at the huma abedin e-mails that were on her estranged husband's computer, now they're doing that. the first step is to make a copy of the hard drive. you always work on a copy, so you don't accidentally erase anything on the hard drive. so now they're analyzing it and they have a big universe of data they're going to trim down. they start with all of her e-mails, that's easy to do, the to/from thing on the met data at the top. then using the dates, they'll

narrow that down to just those sent when clinton was secretary of state. then once they have that, they'll apply what's called a d-duping program to basically eliminate any e-mails that were already seen by the team. any of the thousands of e-mails that the fbi already acquired in its investigation of the clinton e-mail server. whatever's left, they will start to look at individually, toss out any that are strictly social, what time do you want the car to pick you up, and then any that are left that discuss governments by, they have to assess whether that's classified information or not. if it turns out that there aren't any left after the d-duping function, then they can say, okay, we've looked, and there's nothing here. in which case, they would make a public statement. but if it's going to take time to run down the province of any new -- providence of any new e-mails, then that's going to take time. there was some initial optimism, they might be able to say something in the next couple of days. we'll have to wait and see. >> peter, it was reported that the attorney general, justice

department, asked director comey not to put that letter to capitol hill, and that he still went ahead and did it. what do you know about the relationship, currently, between the attorney general and the fbi director, who in theory, works for her? >> it's a might testy right now, i think you could say. i don't know whether i would say they asked him not to send the letter. i would say that my understanding is all this communication went back and forth, from the fbi to the justice department, through the deputy attorney general, sully yates. that's the normal way that the fbi communicates with dodge. that's part of her job. it's certainly safe to say that the justice department urged them not to, and reminded them of the two potential policy issues here, publicity, taking an investigative step before an election, and also discussing investigations in progress. but what the fbi says is they're well aware of both those policies, but they thought in this case, given all that comey had said in july to the congress, it was better to say

something now than have it come out later or leak out and be translated in lots of different ways. >> pete, i think it's fair to say that james comey has come under an extraordinary amount of condemnation over the last 72 hours. now we have stories first reported by cnbc and confirmed by other outlets that he argue ed, the hacks that led to the wikileaks disclosures. how big a problem for him is that? his argument was, we don't want to be part of this, because it's too close to election day. there seems to be some inconsistency there. again, talk about that reported, how much of a problem it poses for him? >> so my problem is, i can't talk about that report, because that's not information thatty developed. i don't know anything about it. eamon javers from cnbc, i think was the first to report it, and he's a great reporter, but i don't know enough about it to

say anything about it. >> there was a lot of pressure, quite a lot of questions raised about whether comey would feel compelled to come forward and try to defend his letter on friday. he has obviously not come forward so far. do you think there's pressure on him? and do you have any expectation that he might yield to it? >> no. yes, there's pressure. no, i don't think he'll yield to it. my understanding is, he has no plans to, as they say in congress, revise and extend his remarks. in other words, amplify the letter that he sent to congress on friday. many members have said, you know, just tell us a little more about what was behind that letter. there are no plans, as i understand, to do that now. the only way we're going to hear from him, i believe, before the election, is if they can say something about their analysis of the e-mails, if it goes quickly. i think it's too soon to say whether it's -- how quick it's going to be, until we get a little further into the process. barely 24 hours now, since they started. >> pete, i want to ask you about "the wall street journal" report. you may say you don't know anything about this one, as

well. but suggesting a lot of disagreement between the fbi and the justice department about whether and how to investigate the clinton foundation. that seems to me, particularly if hillary clinton wins the election, to be a pretty blockbuster concept, that there's real tension there. what do you know on that story? >> my understanding of this, and we've been aware of this for some time, not in the detail as evan barrett's story in the "wall street journal," but part of this is the understandable, typical headquarters field office mentality. and we see these often in criminal cases. you know, the guys in the field say those people at headquarters are micromanaging us. if they would just take the shackles off, we could really get to this. people in headquarters say, i know you're committed to this, but you don't have it yet. and there's some of that element to it, here. and, you know, we've heard the same criticism, frankly, from a lot of people in the fbi about how the investigation of the

clinton e-mail thing was done, too. they also felt micromanaged by this. they felt that every step they took had to be cleared by main justice and they didn't like that. so i think that's some of what's reflected in this story. >> but pete, obviously, the dpg you're talking about occurs all the time. but the concern that some have, and the trump campaign is raising is, is it possible that the motives had to do with politics, that loretta lynch or anyone else in the justice department, the deputy attorney general, trying to protect the democrats. is there any indication that that claim is being made by anyone in the fbi? >> well, sure. i mean, it's being made by some people in the fbi, by some street agents, who are upset by how this is being run. and a lot of people outside the fbi are upset by it. but i don't think it's a widely held view in the fbi that it's politics. >> okay. pete williams, nbc news, pete, thank you very much. >> you bet.

all right. we're going to talk to someone from the trump campaign, about what this fbi news means for your halloween. communications director jason miller, right after this. when you're close to the people you love, does psoriasis ever get in the way of a touching moment? if you have moderate to severe psoriasis, you can embrace

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♪ 'cause there's a million things to be ♪ ♪ you know that there are ♪ and if you want to be me, be me ♪ ♪ and if you want to be you, be you ♪ ♪ 'cause there's a million things to do ♪ ♪ you know that there are ♪ the search for relief often leads here.s, introducing drug-free aleve direct therapy. a high intensity tens device that uses technology once only in doctors' offices. for deep penetrating relief at the source. new aleve direct therapy. joining us now, jason miller, the senior communications adviser to donald trump tease presidential campaign. he's in gotham city. jason, i know you've gotten a rhetorical boost from what director comey did. i know you'll say your supporters are energized, but do you have any empirical data?

are you in the field and will you represent to us that you're actually seeing this impact the numbers in battleground states or too soon? >> well, the numbers really started moving this past week, with the news of the obamacare premium increases. that's what really got the numbers moving in a big way. i would say, beyond that, the news about the clinton inc e-mails that came out, where doug band had this memo about how they were going to essentially use the clinton foundation as a $66 million for-profit operation. and the big bombshell ton friday, which is what you've been talking about so far on the show, with the news about anthony weiner's laptop and the e-mails and this entire investigation that's brought it all up. we've seen the numbers continually moving in our intersection. that's why you saw mr. trump in new mexico yesterday. he's in michigan today. tomorrow morning he'll be in pennsylvania and then to wisconsin. these are all states that as you know, traditionally, are blue to purple. but we're on offense. we've seen the numbers closing here really tight.

and of course in the key battleground states, florida, north carolina, ohio, mr. trump's looking very well. >> i know you and others in the campaign have said your numbers started moving last week because of those other developments. i'll ask you again, were you in the field saturday, sunday, into today and do you represent that you saw change in the data after friday's announcement? >> numbers seen since the announcement have all shown positive movement in our direction. but, again, i don't know how much of that is attributable to the fact of republicans coming home and coalescing around mr. trump, how much of that's friday. but the one thing, mark, that i think you and john would both agree on this, what this does is it brings everything back up. it brings up all the clinton drama. all the questions of what the heck were they doing with this server. it reminds people of all the reasons why they're frustrated with secretary clinton and the entire d.c. establishment, insider establishment in the first place. >> let me ask you this question. if we went back to last friday and let's dial back the clock.

the comey letter has not come out yet. you wake up on friday and suddenly learn the news in the afternoon that james comey, the director of the fbi, has sent a letter to congress saying that the fbi has opened an investigation into the connection between vladimir putin, russian hackers, and the trump campaign. you would say, 11 days before the election, your reaction to that would have been what? >> well, i mean, that's a silly hypothetical to go and throw out? >> i don't think there's anything silly about it. this issue has been raised many times in the course of the campaign. the chief ethics officer for george w. bush's administration made exactly this type of hypothetical in "the new york times" over the weekend. >> there's no basis of truth. let's talk about why we're here. because hillary clinton -- >> that's not -- i appreciate that, but i'm trying to stay with my question. it's not really a crazy hypothetical. if it happened, your reaction would be, that's perfectly proper for the fbi director to raise an investigation or any

investigation -- forget about russian hackers. if he was investigating the trump campaign in any instance, if he sent a memo to congress revealing that on friday, you would have thought that was fine, 11 days before the election? or you would have complained that that was an improper abuse of power? >> law enforcement needs to do their job. and we wish the fbi had done their job properly earlier in the summer, and that charges had been brought against secretary clinton. i don't think there's any way to look at this and not say the whole outside server that was set up, the reasons for which it was set up, the fact that we have confidential and classified information being routed around it, and tying it all back into the clinton foundation, this whole incestuous mix going on, we wish they had pushed forward and done the right thing earlier. glad they're righting the wrong now. the timing of which -- i'll leave it to you guys and pete williams and everyone else, but the important thing is here, clearly, they found something. what'd they find? 650,000 e-mails that they've got to go through. how many thousands are between secretary clinton and huma abedin, we'll find out, as it sounds like they're starting the

investigation. >> with all due respect, you just did not answer my question remotely. >> i just think it's a nonsensical question that doesn't at all apply to our campaign. >> okay. >> jason, let's talk about the electoral college a little bit. rank these states in the order that you're feeling good about them, from best to worst, and don't say they're all equal. florida, ohio, north carolina. >> boy, that's a tough one. so as we look at florida, it's tough, because some of them are on percentages and some of them are on actual ballot returns that we've seen so far. so let's take florida, for example. we've had two polls in the last several days that show that mr. trump is leading by four points, which is great, obviously, much rather be leading than four than trailing by four. and the two things as far as ballots have been returned so far, both the absentee ballots and early vote, the republican returns are about 7% higher than four years ago. democrat returns are about 10% lower. and so usually republicans start off going into an election day

with a deficit. we're about 100,000 votes closer to the democrats than mitt romney was at this point four years ago. so we feel very good about the progress we've made in florida. when you look at north carolina, the republican returns so far are about 35,000 higher. than where we were four years ago. democrat ballots down by about 7,000. so that net of being about 42,000 votes closer, very good. and then, ohio, some of it's a little bit trickier to count quite the same early and absentee vote numbers. but things look very good there. i got to feel good -- >> is that the order? is that the order you're feeling good about them? >> it's tough. i'm going to shamelessly punt on this, because i love all three states and i think mr. trump will win all three on the 8th. >> you guys -- you're also spending a fair amount of time with a bunch of very blue states, right? new mexico, now you're up in wisconsin, then, of course, michigan is another state. what's the evidence for -- that you guys are operating on that

makes you feel like those states are remotely close to winnable? >> i'm glad you brought this up. when you talk about, when i woke up last friday, after not much sleep, one of the first things you take a look at is the tracking data. what we showed coming out of thursday night. this is before we got the news there director comey, which came out around 1:00, whatever the exact time was on friday, we showed it effectily a dead heat in both new mexico and in michigan. and at that point, we had certain things that -- we had already talked about a couple of ideas, but we decided we had to get new mexico on the books and mr. trump went there yesterday. michigan, we'd already been talking about and planning that. mr. trump is doing two events there today, in grand rapids, and i believe he just finished up in warren. and we'll tomorrow be in pennsylvania and wisconsin, as i mention year old. so -- but these are races -- part of the thing that gives me so much hope in these races is secretary clinton is continually around 41, 42%, maybe on a good poll, she might be at 43%. so there's certainly ceiling issues, where she's bumping up against. and what we're seeing in the

makeup of the undecideds that are still out there, that they break overwhelmingly in favor of republicans. i've seen a couple of these different state polls that show upwards of a 20-point advantage on the generic ballot, in terms of undecideds. so we have a very good feeling that folks are going to break our way as long as we're out there and asking for our vote. and there's a remmington research survey, that came out today that showed a dead heat, as well. this is really the first cycle where it's a full-on vote by mail in colorado. and so, again, some of the dynamics are a little bit different from what we've seen in the past. as we look about these pickup opportunities, and these are great opportunities. clearly, secretary clinton has base issues, she's not getting the base, the african-american support level that president obama did in the state of michigan, in particular. she's not getting those millennial supporters, the same way that president obama did. and so there are definitely places for pickup. i think one of the other things, too, that you and mark would both appreciate. the map this time looks a lot

different than it did in 2004, 2008, and 2012. we're going to wake up on november 9th and see a couple of blue states that mr. trump is going to win and say, how did he win these? romney had no chance there, mccain had no chance there, bush had no chance there, even in a re-elect. but the way that trump is changing the electorate and turning other people out, we're seeing something different in the modeling. and don't just listen to me on this. secretary clinton just went up on tv in wisconsin on friday. they're not doing that unless they're worried about losing the state. >> i want to ask you a question about one of our colleagues over here, josh green, and sasha issenberg wrote a piece in "bloomberg businessweek," a lengthy piece about your campaign and its data operations and other things. that piece quoted a senior trump official saying that you had three different separate voter suppression strategies that you were -- that the campaign was pursuing. and went into some detail about what they were. can you -- like, for a lot of people, that's a pretty disturbing prospect. what do you have to say about that? >> either one of two things

happened. either the person, whoever this person, not named in the story was, either misspoke and misdescribed what was going on, or they fundamentally have no clue what mr. trump is doing with the campaign. look how late we are in the cycle. we're eight days out and mr. trump is going into communities. in fact, he spoke at length in michigan about his plan for renewing our urban centers and helping the black community in a way that democrats haven't for cycle after cycle. mr. trump is running to be president for all americans. and he's made this a big cornerstone of his campaign. and quite frankly, i think he's gotten a lot of praise for it. i think it's something that's been pretty remarkable, to see a republican working this hard, to bring in different groups. and so, any of that type of language, someone, i think, was just way off, with their description of what's going on, obviously, you always have certain messaging, where you say, here's why secretary clinton has failed the community. here's where donald trump has

presented actually policy specifics from infrastructure, to school choice, to taxes to give people a reason to vote for him. you're always going to have some of that. but any of this other language, i have no idea. >> all right. >> so, jason, let me just ask you kind of the megaquestion as we close here. obviously, there's some polling, both nationally and in key states, like nationally, "the washington post" poll, the abc poll, rather, that shows the race tied. but there are many more polls that show hillary clinton with a lead and in some cases a significant lead. what would explain donald trump winning this race in conflict, up-to-th, at least, the public polling. >> i don't know if you can throw out the "most" label. there are polls that show mr. trump in the lead. the "los angeles times" daily tracker, there are polls that show it literally a dead heat. i believe the overnight upi poll has it 0.47 point differential between the two. the others have had it a one-point race. >> but there's no -- there's

no -- there's no question that some polls that show it close. but i believe, if you looked at polls that you and i would have talked about over the years as credible, national polls. more of them have her having a lead. i'm just wondering, do you think that the polls aren't picking up your supporters? you've got more enthusiasm? you'll close the gap before election day? what's the explanation your supporters should look to to say, i'm seeing a lot of reporting showing mr. trump behind in the real clear politics average, but somehow you're still going to win? >> part of the problem is, if you live by the poll of polls with the real clear politics, then you're going to die by it. the problem with a lot of that, a lot of those polls are outdated, as we've seen, even the abc "washington post" poll, it went from a 12-point gap to literally a one-point gap in the space of one week. now, i don't think it was ever 12 points. i don't think you or john think it was a 12-point gap. but we've seen it tightening up, as far as the national polls. but more importantly, the point i just brought up, we've seen

multiple polls in florida show us leading. north carolina, public polls showing it. in ohio, we've seen -- ohio is another state where the democrats don't want to give us credit for doing well in iowa, but here's a state that's been blue for a while, and mr. trump is going to win iowa. we feel very good. a strong basis of support. so at this point, you've got to start looking at the electoral map and how we're going to get to 270. we feel, not only are there a couple of pathways, there are a number of pathways that are there, and all momentum is coming up trump right now. >> all right. the jason miller, speaking of momentum and comey and everything else. thanks very much. john and i will be back in just a minute. if you're watching us in washington, d.c., you can listen to us on the radio radio. this program is on bloomberg 99.1 f.m. in the nation's capital and we'll be right back. . we found lower co-pays... ...and a free wellness visit. new plan...same doctor. i'm happy. it's medicare open enrollment. have you compared plans yet? it's easy at medicare.gov. or you can call 1-800-medicare.

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make sure you check out bloombergpolitics.com. for now, sayonara. >> coming up, "hardball" with chris matthews. halloween politics. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. fallout from fbi director james comey's bombshell announcement last week reverberated on the campaign trail today. on friday, comey told congress that the fbi had learned of new e-mails that appear to be pertinent, appear to be pertinent, to the investigation into clinton's use of a private server. today, donald trump praised comey for his guts. hillary clinton called the decision to go public this close to an election pretty