and the third party vote could matter in alaska big-time this year. vp nominee bill weld stumped for his running mate last week in anchorage. polls have had johnson as high as 18% last month. and a live telephone poll last week had clinton up in alaska by four points. folks, we're not ready to throw alaska into the toss-up pile, we have it in lean republican for now. but we're telling you the state might be worth staying up late on tuesday night/wednesday morning just to check it out. could be interesting. that's all we have for tonight. "with all due respect," though, starts right now. i'm john heilemann. >> and i'm mark halperin. with all due respect to people out there making political predictions, you ain't got nothing on this guy. >> sure as god made green apples, some day, the chicago cubs are going to be in the world series. that may be sooner than we think.

oh, the days are flying by and taking forever. unless this race goes into extra innings, we're just five news cycles away now from electing the next president of these united states. it was a busy day out on the campaign trail. hillary clinton and donald trump both their running mates and plenty of super surrogates were barn storming across the battleground states from sea to shining sea, making a final pitch to the voters. >> what a wonderful welcome here in pennsylvania. >> florida, we have five more days! >> in five days, we are going to win the great state of florida. >> love for this country is something we immediately shared when i met donald. he loves this country and he knows how to get things done. not just talk. he certainly knows how to shake things up, doesn't he? >> this is a guy who spent 70 years, his whole life, born with

a silver spoon, showing no respect for working people. >> why isn't he back in the office? sometimes referred to as the oval office. why isn't he back in the white house bringing our jobs back? and helping our veterans? >> you even have a republican senator saying you cannot afford to give the nuclear codes to somebody so erratic. and as hillary points out, anybody that you can bait with a tweet is not someone you can trust with nuclear weapons. >> someone who always puts himself first and doesn't care who gets hurt along the way. a president with a very thin skin, who lashes out at anyone who challenges him. who praises adversaries like vladimir putin and picks fights with our allies and even attacked the pope. >> thank you very much, everybody. god bless you.

god bless you. get out and vote! >> amidst all the swirl, there's really only one thing anybody cares about right now. does hillary clinton have an impregnable lead or does donald trump have a real path to the white house? there were fewer credible polls out today, giving us a snapshot to the answers of those questions but a handful of surveys in fact look pretty positive for the republican nominee. first the national survey, cbs and "the new york times" has clinton up by three, 37-44. that same poll showed clinton with a nine-point lead a few weeks ago. there were actually a bunch of state polls that likely have trump world smiling. a new hampshire survey from "the boston globe" and suffolk university showed clinton and trump tied. the granite state is a place that up until recently, people thought clinton had pulled ahead, well ahead. the two candidates also were tied in a new colorado poll, from the university of denver. that's another place where clinton was presumed to have the electoral votes locked down. a new nbc news/"wall street journal"/marist poll has trump with a comfortable lead in

arizona and texas, if those surveys are to be believed. so much for clinton making inroads there. and finally, trump is up six in a monmouth university poll in utah, where evan mcmullin, the independent candidate, who in some surveys was in first place, has now fallen back to third. so in a sec, weal talk about the polls that were good for hillary clinton. but what do you see in these surveys that is good for donald trump? >> look, the main thing is you're starting to get a incontininkon incontrovertible sense that the race has tightened in the last days before election day. if that colorado poll were true, it would be the best news in that group. because that would suggest that a state as you said, mark, that hillary clinton has relied on, as being in the bag, basically, is now not only competitive, but trump is ahead. if you look into that poll a little more closely, you'll see it's only showing 9% of the electorate being hispanic, which would not be at all the number

was like. i think it was 14% in 2012. so that poll may be underrepresenting in a key demographic in that state. but if that's true or even close to true, it says something important about what's going on in this race. >> to me the big question is, trump clearly has shown movement over the last two weeks. the question is, is he still moving or has he topped out? has the clinton campaign fought back or is trump hitting his natural ceiling? because we know he's got some natural ceiling that's lower than 50%, to be sure. i believe this data suggests he may still well be moving. and he may be moving in a number of places, in a positive direction in those red states where clinton was thinking about challenging and in a positive way in those blue states, he's still not there. but these polls suggest it's now, i think, the third day in a row where the data suggests that trump movement up. and clinton still, in most of these places, well below 50, the trump campaign got to hope, as they have all along, that a lot

of the undecided voters break his way, because she's the quasi-incumbent. >> right. one of the biggest questions still outstanding, and i raised this question yesterday, is what the relationship is between what's going on this week and what has already happened in the early vote. and we have mixed evidence on the early vote in some places. people on the democratic side are very confident. places like nevada, for instance, where trump in some polling is said to be ahead. but democrats are confident they have a huge lead in the early vote. there's the election that's going to happen on tuesday, the election that's been happening over the course of the last month. how the interplay between those two will matter a lot in terms of what the outcome is. okay, so hillary clinton, by contrast, had a few positive poll numbers that came out yesterday. she had a better day, i would say, probably, in the polling than donald trump did. but today, there were just two polls that we can cite where clinton would be smiling. a nbc news/"wall street journal"/marist poll of red state georgia has clinton trailing trump by just one

point, 47-46%. that, of course, would be a huge deal if hillary clinton were to win the peach state, as deep red, as it is. and there's a florida poll by a local fox affiliate there, that has the democratic nominee up by four percentage points in the sunshine state. that is, again, if true, a big deal. florida, of course, donald trump can't win the presidency without florida. so mark, although we are only citing two polls here as good news for hillary clton, do those polls, do you think, are they significant enough that they might offset the good news on the trump side, in terms of the clinton psyche? >> well, they don't fully offset it, but she is still ahead, and she still has, if you take -- if you did a stupid thing and took the latest single public polls never battleground state, she'd still win. so the bottom hasn't fallen out, trump still hasn't broken through in enough places to say that he's had parody with her in terms of his chances to win. and look, i know people think we get paid to be definitive and

decisive. i still believe all these states could break in one direction or another. and she may end up winning a state like georgia. i think she could end up winning a state like arizona, but she could also end up starting to lose. and i'll just say, momentum matters at the end. she's holding on. she's not collapsing. but it's hard to say that she got any momentum right now compared to trump. you see that in the polling data, out on the stump, you see that in the advertising. >> right, agree with that. of course, the question is, if she doesn't have momentum, which i think you're right, it's clear she doesn't have a lot of forward momentum. if you are in the lead in the final week and you just hold serve, you end up winning. i just think the florida poll is, right now, the true campaigns give privately, different assessments of where things are. that florida poll that we just put up, four-point lead for hillary clinton is what i think most democrats now think is the case. so if that poll has captured a reality and hillary clinton is going to win florida, that is as

consequential as any other single thing in this entire race. >> game, set, sunshine match if she can. we talk a lot here, as people do on other programs, about trump's narrow path to 270 electoral votes. the states he would need to win including florida to get there. but we want to flip things around to show you why hillary clinton has the upper hand in this race, becauseer journey to 270 is relatively simple. you start with the solid blues, places like california, new york, hawaii, rhode island. those have 195 electoral votes. you could bank those for hillary clinton. then look at these states. 59 states that have -- are states that have 59 electoral votes. those are ones that are leaning her way, where she's got big leads in the public polling. averaging five or more. if she wins those, she has 16 electoral votes away. and you can see that final list of where she would need to get 16. either winning florida or ohio alone would do it. otherwise, some combination of those. now, you go back to the leaning list, and again, trump's challenging in every one of

those, with the possible exception of virginia. can trump take any of those away? maybe. but you can see, again, under current public polling, hillary clinton is just 16 electoral votes away, with a relative ease. if trump starts to dig into that list, we're dealing with a different situation. >> yeah, i mean, it's a -- the thing about this is, i'm looking at the list here and trying to get my head around it. the thing about the leaners, right, at this moment, pennsylvania, virginia, michigan, wisconsin, and new mexico, all leaning democratic, of those states, four, excluding virginia, of those states, four, have been states that democrats have won consistently at the presidential level now cycle after cycle. you would have to go back to the '90s to find any one of those states going republican, i believe. and virginia was a closer run battleground, but she's been comfortably ahead there for a long time. i would be shocked, shocked if any of those states end up in donald trump's column.

doesn't mean it's impossible, but i would be shocked. and if you look at those, i think that is a really kind of illustrates why she is in the state still. i know donald trump's contesting them right now, but they are big reaches for him to win any of those. >> yeah, you've used the word "shocked." if you woke up tomorrow and showed trump ahead in any of those states or trump moving nationally, i don't think at this point people should say they're shocked. that's not to predict it's going to happen, but she's still bedevilled by wikileaks. and i said earlier in the week and i'll say it earlier again, hearing from a lot of republican operatives, the affordable care act thing is in the minds of a lot of voters. it's certainly bringing republicans home. and republicans believe in a lot of these contested races, it's going to really help. and again, if we can put the list of states back up, people have got to remember that in a lot of these states, there are contested senate races, in the swing states, and in those contested senate races, with one or two exceptions, the republican candidates continue

to do quite well, and if ticket splitting is minimized, that can make a big difference in the hospital the solid list. we want to go over there to the list of the leaning. you've got a race in pennsylvania, you've got one in wisconsin, and on the toss-ups, senate races in florida, ohio, north carolina, nevada, all of those states, new hampshire, all of those states have those contested senate races. and again, republicans are in much better shape in those races than most people thought they would be. >> right. i'll just say, just to go back to my "shocked" comment, very quickly, if donald trump wins two of those six democratic leaning states we had, i think that means he'll win virtually every one of the toss-up states. that means that a national wave has happened at the very last minute in this election. i don't expect that to happen, which is part of why i say i would be shocked. nothing is impossible, but it would mean that trump's caught a big, big wave and a bigger wave than we've seen in this race so far, and a bigger wave than anything trump's come close to riding in the campaign to date. all right, up next, melania

trump, making a rare campaign trail appearance today. we'll talk about that and more when we come back. ♪ ♪ see ya next year. this season, start a new tradition. experience the power of infiniti now, with leases starting at $319 a month.

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before her infamous speech at the republican national convention this summer in cleveland, melania trump was a phantom on the campaign trail, her big cleveland moment ended pretty badly when it was discovered part of her speech was lifted almost verbatim from michelle obama's own convention speech years earlier. since then, we've only really seen trump's wife and a handful of tv interviews, but all that changed today when mrs. trump reemerged and spoke at a campaign event in berwyn, pennsylvania. >> donald promised to campaign on behalf of those who feel the system is broken and does not work for them. those who just want a fair shake, an opportunity for a better education, a better paying job, a better future. >> so, mark, this represents a

late and unusual appearance in the campaign by melania trump. what do you think is the reason they didn't use her more and sooner? >> i think she wanted to spend time with her son, and i think that, obviously, she was shaken, at least a bit, by the convention experience, where she was -- inadvertently had lifted things from the first lady. you know, her speech today, i thought was -- they need to try to win over more women in that part of philadelphia. i thought signaling out being against cyberbullying, when her husband is probably the nation's premiere cyberbully was maybe not the best choice, but other than that, i think it shows -- it highlights the fact that she has been absent and they have missed out on the prospect of a pretty major surrogate. >> yeah, i'm not sure about that. i think the vngs thing obviously mattered, but it is no disto melania trump to say she is not the most relatable presidential nominee's spouse that we've ever had out there. her glamour, all the things that

are -- many of her at tributes, the things that stand out most about her are things that make her an imperfect menninger, i think, to a lot of ordinary voters. so i don't know how much they have actually missed by not having her out there. she was fine today, but i'm not sure she cost them a lot by not having her out the there more frequently. >> part of the problem is, this takes practice. michelle obama is now one of the best speakers in the country. i saw her early on in her husband's presidential campaign. she wasn't the person she is now. and they put a lot of pressure on her by having her speak to rarely. second day in a row, a guy pretty accomplished on the trail, president obama was out on the campaign trail for hillary clinton for the second day in a row, this time in florida. the president once again picked a fight with melania trump's husband. >> when i ran in '08, i ran against john mccain and disagreed with him on a whole bunch of stuff, but i didn't fear for the republic. i just thought i would be a better president. when i ran against mitt romney in 2012, i disagreed with him on all kinds of things.

but, although i thought i was going to be a better president, i did not think that our democracy would be injured by him taking office. this is different. >> today, the clinton campaign announced there's going to be a double date on the campaign trail on monday. bill and hillary clinton appearing with barack and michelle obama in philadelphia. so, john, what, at this point, do the pros and cons appear to be to having the president play such a leading role in this campaign? >> i can't say that i see have many cons at this point. as we've said now for weeks, he's a very popular president at this moment. his approval rating's high. he's, you know, as accomplished a political athlete as there is in the country right now. and seeing him out there again today, if i were hillary clinton, i would be thanking my lucky stars that i have him on my side and he's willing to do so much for her in these closing days. >> he's so into it today at the rally, he literally read out the

address of where people could go early vote in florida, ten minutes from the address site, gave the url a site from all over the country can use to turn out. i think this -- if hillary clintonnds up holding on and winning, i think people will look at the data, and look at the flow of the news coverage and see that he, president obama played what's turning out to be the modern era, an unprecedented role for an incumbent president, trying to help get his chosen successor into office. >> yeah, i think that's right. and we all said that we thought he would be pretty active in this campaign, especially when it became clear that donald trump was the republican nominee, but he's been way more active than i think most people expected. and way more passionate, way more engaged. i think he, for all the reasons we discussed many times in this program, really -- could be really -- the stakes could be really high and he wants to do whatever he can to help hillary clinton hold on. up next, we have a tour de force, nbc political correspondent, katy tur joining us after these words from our sponsors. ♪

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i'm not a customer, but i'm calling about that credit scorecard. give it. sure! it's free for everyone. oh! well that's nice! and checking your score won't hurt your credit. oh! i'm so proud of you. well thank you. free at at discover.com/creditscorecard, even if you're not a customer. with us now from selma, north carolina, where donald trump is speaking tonight, nbc news correspondent, katy tur, covers the kbcampaign. katy, fascinating to be watching trump these days in his speeches,tolo toggle between mo uplifting rhetoric than he's used to and still being quite negative going after hillary clinton. is there some balance they're strig to strike, or is it like a lot of things, donald trump, a little more haphazard. >> well, all campaigns want to end their campaigns on a

positive note. certainly hillary clinton did as well. she's not able to at the moment. but donald trump's campaign is no different. but at the same time, his campaign is very much been defined by attacks. oftentimes personal attacks for other people online, on social media, or at rallies or in interviews. but also attacks against the establishment, attacks against hillary clinton, attacks against the idea that the whole system is out and rigged not just against donald trump, necessarily, but the american people. it so makes sense for him to continue on during this next five days, but also, he needs to distract from his onslaught of negative headlines that we've been talking about now for 16, 17 months. this is his best chance to focus on hillary clinton entirely, to get out of the way and just let her wallow in a slew of bad headlines of her own. so this is a calculated move by the campaign. it's one that they believe will help them regain some ground. it's one republican operatives

will regain some ground, just so long as donald trump is able to stay on that message. >> katy, a question we were just discussing on the program about melania trump. she's out there today. she hasn't done very much publicly. why now? and do they have any regrets about not using her more? >> well, let's look at where she was, specifically, today. she was in the suburbs of philadelphia. the main line of philadelphia. this is where donald trump needs to pick up a woman vote. he needs to pick up republican women in this area and get them to vote for him. so melania was deployed there, very strategically. she's trying to portray the softer side of not only donald trump, but the softer side of their family. so it is a method they need to use going down for the next five days. because he does not have the support of women other past republican candidates had, essential not what mitt romney had in 2012. and if he's going to have a

fighting chance against hillary clinton, they need to find a way to stem the bleeding against republican women. do they wish she came out on the campaign trail more? they're not saying that to me in conversations, but i would be surprised if they did not think they could have used her more. of course, she's been not so apparent on the campaign trail. she had that speech at the republican national convention, but we haven't seen her much on the trail, even by donald trump's side during this campaign. he's been very much focused on trump the personality, rather than his family life. we've seen more of his kids, though, on the trail than melania. but what i found so interesting about her speech today, and i'm sure you did as well, that she was talking about what she would be like as first lady. and the issues that she would focus on. specifically bullying. bullying on social media. and how she said that this -- the rhetoric in this country has just gotten too mean and we need to find a better way to communicate and talk to each other. and that's raising a lot of eyebrows today, because donald trump has built a campaign on name-calling and insulting and

undercutting his opponents in absolutely any way he can. and also his social media following, that goes after critics of him, with ferocity. so that was certainly eyebrow raising. again, do they wish melania was on the trail more? i would assume they did, even though they're not saying it publicly. >> earlier in the show, katy, i said trump was the country's biggest, most prominent cyberbully, so her remarks seem at least ironic, if nothing else. we've got about a minute left. i'm wondering, at 30,000 fee here, it wasn't that long ago that kellyanne conway was acknowledging that trump was the underdog. trump always says he's the favorite. but in my conversations with campaign aides now, they're suggesting that this race is tight or they may even be the favorite at this point. what's your sense of their -- not his posture, but his staff's posture about where they stand? >> reporter: his staff is extraordinarily confident right now. they were handed a gift last friday with the revival of the fbi investigation. and then another gift with obamacare premiums rising.

and yet another one with the cnn allegations of donna brazile giving hillary clinton questions gfr debates. so they have a lot to feel positive about. they feel like their internal polling is showing them gaining ground in a lot of these states. they even claimed they're gaining ground in a pretty blue state like new mexico, but, listen, if you talk to people outside of the campaign, one step removed, they will say, it is still going to be tough for donald trump to win, but what they're most hopeful about right now is the fact that he's moving in a more positive direction in the polls, means not normal that he's going to win, but that down-ballot races are in a much better position than they were even last week. >> katy tur, thank you very much. we're going to talk wikileaks and the fbi when we come back, right after this break. the pursuit of healthier. it begins from the second we're born. because, healthier doesn't happen all by itself. it needs to be earned every day. using wellness to keep away illness.

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decades of lies, cover-ups, and scandal have finally caught

up with hillary clinton. hillary clinton is under fbi investigation again, after her e-mails were found on pervert anthony weiner's laptop. think about that. america's most sensitive secrets, unlawfully sent, received, and exposed by hillary clinton, her staff, and anthony weiner. hillary cannot lead a nation while crippled by a criminal investigation. hillary clinton, unfit to serve. >> i'd look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers. >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that aren't captured, okay? you've got to see this guy, uh, i don't know what i said, i don't remember! a person who is flat-chested is very hard to be a 10. our military is a disaster. when mexico sends its people, they're bringing drugs. they're rapists. i would like to punch him in the face, i'll tell you. get him out of here! >> those were some excerpts from the latest tv ads from the trump and clinton campaigns. we're joined now by washington,

d.c. but tracy supple, a democratic communications consultant and a senior adviser to the democratic national convention, and up in chambers, massachusetts, former campaign manager for carly fiorina's presidential run. we just saw those ladies in the opposite order i introduced them. so great to see you, tracy and sarah. let me start out with you, tracy, and i'll ask you the same question, same question we're asking everybody when we start out these blocks right now. where do you see the race? >> well, first of all, mark, i'm in chicago and i see the race, frankly, and i see everything right now through the lens of last night's huge win. so forgive me for the euphoria that's still extending here. but as far as the race goes, i think we're in a good place. what hillary's got going for her continues to be one of her strongest advantages. and that's her ground game. and what's happening in the states and the organization and the early voting, all of these factors are very much in her favor. and i'm feeling confident about

tuesday night. >> tracy, congratulations on your cubs, by the way. i should have probably said that in the introduction. >> right! >> sarah -- no kidding, sorry about that. go cubs! good for you. you've been waiting a long time for that. congratulations. you're up there in boston, i believe. you're in the right place. where do you think about where the race stands right now? >> well, look, i would have agreed that hillary has this much-vaunted ground game, but it hasn't been turning out. you look at these early vote numbers that are showing up in florida, in north carolina, and if i were the hillary campaign, i would be getting extraordinarily nervous. i think at this point, when you have new hampshire tied and nevada closing in, with i'm going to keep watching those nevada numbers move, because i think that's where this might come down no florida and north carolina get away from her. >> sarah, give me an anecdote. tell me about somebody you know who wasn't for trump before, but now is. >> you know what, i'm not sure that it's people changing their mind, actually, but what we saw about a week and a half ago is

that the enthusiasm numbers flipped. you know, this last three months, trump's enthusiasm numbers had been higher, but then hillary took over. and her enthusiasm numbers were higher. what happened with the comey e-mails, those numbers changed again, when you have two such unlikable candidates. and i think we can see why based on the ads you just showed. then i think that's a real problem. and so, you know, whereas 2012, republicans were down in early vote count, they're now up. and by quite, you know, a real margin. in north carolina, the turnout operation just isn't working. so either hillary clinton's campaign is intentionally not turning early voters out and they were lying the whole time before they said that that was their strategy, or, in fact, things aren't going the way they thought they would. >> tracy, as you look at the new clinton ads and the continued attempts to sort of define donald trump as unacceptable, is that working? or do you think that's not working? >> well, what i think is

masterful about the approach is that all of these ads are just donald, himself, footage of him, talking, the things he's said, the things he's done. it's really a sort of hands-off, you could say, for the hillary campaign. he just makes the case for himself through his ridiculousness and the lying and the dangerous and qudivisive things that he says. i think the fact that all you have to do is play the tape of him tells the story and tells it extraordinarily well. particularly, when you think about the negative ads that he's running against, hillary, are largely based on innuendo, as opposed to video clips of hillary herself talking. he's given the campaign a gift in this regard. and i think that the clinton campaign is smart to be utilizing it the way they have. >> tracy, let me just push back on you a little bit. as i looked at those ads, what struck me about them, in addition to the fact that the

clinton campaign ad is beautifully produced, and the trump campaign ad looks a little bit more like a tabloid style, more garish. but the reality is the kind of arguments in the clinton campaign's ad, arguments in the ad, are arguments that she's been making for months and months. and the ads, the style of ads we've been seeing for months and months, the trump campaign is injecting fresh information and fresh controversy into the race. so it seems to me that ad is a little bit more eye catching and has a greater possibility for impact at this late stage because it's new. it has the feel of something new. does that not concern you, or do you not see that at all when you compare those side by side. >> what i do know is how many people are going to make their decisions, assuming they haven't voted yet, they're going to make their decisions based on their conversations with their friends and their colleagues and their neighbors. i don't see any instance where a tv ad is someone's ultimate deciding factor. so in that regard, five days out, i'm not concerned. i think you're right that there's a garish, tabloidish

quality to what the trump campaign is doing. and i can tell you last night during the series when one of those ads came on, when i was watching with, the place erupted into boos. it's not a welcome sight right now. >> sarah, let me ask you, we were talking before about paths to 270 electoral votes and put up a bunch of states that are leaning democratic states that donald trump is the now spending time in, places like new hampshire, michigan, wisconsin. just from a strategic standpoint, do you think it makes sense for him to be spending these pressures days in states like that, that have been blue for so long? >> no, i would be locking down florida, north carolina, and then battling in nevada, new hampshire, and pennsylvania. what i do think is stunning, though, is that the hillary campaign is sending hillary to michigan tomorrow. nothing shows me the internal panic of a campaign as much as the candidate's schedule and going to a state that doesn't have a senate race, nothing explains that, except that they think that michigan is on the

happen. and if michigan's on the map for them, this whole thing is slipping away pretty quickly. i think it's stunning that a democrat would say that tv ads don't matter, when clinton has so wildly outspent trump on tv. and now they're saying, well, that part doesn't matter. i think there's a lot of panic going on inside hillary's camp right now. i think it's warranted and i think that moving forward, they're going to have to do some soul searching about what their message is going to be heading into sunday/monday in order to turn their voters out. election day has traditionally been a republican day. >> tracy, are you panicked? >> i appreciate -- opposite of. opposite of. and i appreciate sarah's point, although i think she was misconstruing what i said. it's not that ads don't matter. what i'm saying is that the cumulative process that this campaign and yes, the millions and millions of dollars that have been spent on tv ads, have made the case. one ad now in these final five days is not going to be the make or break. it's the sum total that we're

talking about here. >> okay. tracy sefl, because the cubs won, tracy gets the last word. stick around. you're coming back. more on these two fantastic strategists are coming back. if you're watching us in washington, d.c., don't forget, you can listen to us on the radio radio at bloomberg 99.1 f.m. we'll be back with them. these goofy glasses. yeah. well, we gotta hand it to fedex. they've helped make our e-commerce so easy, and now we're getting all kinds of new customers. i know. can you believe we're getting orders from canada, ireland... this one's going to new zealand. new zealand? psst. ah, false alarm. hey! you guys are gonna scare away the deer! idiots... providing global access for small business. fedex.

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back with democratic strategist, tracy sefl and in chicago, republican strategist sarah flores in boston. i want to ask you guys about wikileaks. sarah, there have been lots of documents out, but there's been nothing that's a huge silver bullet. but if you were to choose one of the disclosures, either a specific e-mail from the podesta inbox or outbox or a theme, what would you say has been the most damaging to hillary clinton? >> well, i'd actually pick thing past this election, which is, i think that the donna brazile e-mails really validate what bernie sanders has been saying about their primary process being rigged. i think it really validates that claim. so i think moving forward, you'll see a lot more dissension in the democratic ranks, especially in the base. i think those leaks were incredibly damaging to the inside structure of the party and the party elites in the democratic party. >> but you don't think they've done anything to help donald trump? >> not really.

i mean, i think, i mean, we've seen nothing in particular that would have changed voters' minds, enusiasm, maybe. overall, i think that the fbi e-mail issues are far more impactful, you know, if you don't want the fbi involved in your election, don't nominate someone being investigated by the fbi. so, i think that that's really setting with voters, that this is someone that they just can't really trust, on national security issues. >> tracy, what do you think the impact of the wikileaks disclosures day after day, has been, if any, on trump's chances and clinton's chances? >> oh, considering the manner in which these wikileaks documents were received, it's difficult for me to say, oh, okay, therefore, they're going to have a profound impact on this election. what could have a profound impact on this election is the very fact of the crime and the manner in which they were collected and released. that's where i see the problem. what we're talking about with this cybersecurity issues and

hostile foreign states' potential involvement in these leaks. that's the larger concern. and i believe that's the concern that lasts well beyond election day. >> but, tracy, don't you think it's possible that voters would actually see this and think, yeah, that means hillary's server was probably hacked, too. >> um, appreciate the question, but i don't think so. i think that it's clear that this story has been playing out for so long, so agonizingly long, that anyone who had formed an opinion about it, formed that opinion some time ago. >> tracy, there's word and reporting today that the fbi is not likely to finish its review of the e-mails that are the subject of this latest kind of phase of the inquiry before election day. just from the standpoint of hillary clinton and from the standpoint of the race itself, do you think it's important that -- that it would be important for the fbi to try to come forward with some kind of a statement before election day,

or if they haven't finished their inquiry, if their inquiry isn't completely finished, they should keep their mouths shut and not get back into this election again before tuesday? >> well, i would be happy to not have them rear their heads again. it's clear that that place is a mess. whether it's management issues or the leaks that we're seeing or the constant sort of bewildering information that we're seeing. and on top of all of that, it's still all very vague. we don't even know what it is we're talking about, that they're reviewing or not reviewing or finishing or not fini finishing. so at this point, given the mess that they have made and the muddled circumstances that all of us have been forced to sort of muck around in, let's be done with it. that's my personal opinion and i certainly hope i'm right. >> tracy sefl, congratulations on that baseball victory last night. and sarah flores, thank you. congratulations for being part of america. we'll be right back. check in with two reporters in

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we are five days away from the election, and we are joined now by two people who hopefully have long vacations planned in their future. in our nation's capital, we have washington editor for the "national review," eliana johnson, and from "the washington post" newsroom, we have the great meteah gold. eliana, i want to ask you this question to start. it is said and seems to be true that what is happening with donald trump and him closing the gap between him and hillary clinton has to do with the republican consolidation and republicans coming home to donald trump. can you explain to me why republicans are coming home? what's driving that at this late stage? >> yeah, i think that's right. and you can see it most clearly in utah, where the independent candidate, evan mcmullin, had been surging in the polls, as recently as last week. and donald trump is actually leading the latest polls and mcmullin has fallen to third

place in some of them. but i think, as you get closer and closer to election day, there tend to be fewer and fewer undecided voters. and so, i think it's natural to see the people who had been sitting on their hands and telling pollsters that they're unwilling to vote for donald trump, coming home as election day nears. >> but, eliana, just stay with you about this. obviously, it's the case that the race has tightened and undecided voters eventually go one way or another. but republicans who had profound misgivings about donald trump for months, what's happened, do you think, in the state, and what's happening in the race that's caused people who had big misgivings about trump to abandon those misgivings and come back to their natural home? >> one factor, i think, is that trump has pretty much been quiet for the past few weeks, and i think one constant in this race has been that whoever -- whichever candidate is in the headlines, the other candidate benefits. so, when donald trump is making news, hillary clinton benefits.

and vice versa. while it's hillary clinton who's been in the headlines for the past few weeks and donald trump has benefited. most of this campaign, donald trump has played right into hillary clinton's hand, eaten up most of the newspaper headlines and air time on television shows, but that hasn't been the case for the past couple of weeks. and i think that's redounded to trump's benefit. >> meteah, on the democratic side, we have sort of a mirror image situation going on, as republicans are coming home and there's a lot of republican enthusiasm, democrats seem very worried now about turnout among core elements of the democratic base, the obama coalition. and there's sop evidence to suggest they're right to be worried. what can the clinton campaign do, if anything, or what do they plan to do to try to fix that problem in the very short amount of time remaining before election day? >> well, you see their action plan deployed right now. the spear is really president obama who is out there nonstop from now until election day.

yesterday, north carolina. today in florida, making incredibly kind of personal appeals to frip voters. he said yesterday he's worried that the african-american vote is not as solid as it should be. he's telling those voters, look, this is a vote for my legacy. if you want my legacy to continue, you immediate to cast your ballot. you need to come out to vote. so we'll see him put it out on the line. and you know, the clinton campaign is also using their enormous war chest to run a last blitz of ads aimed at african-american and latino voters, their allied super pac is jumping in as well, so there'll be no shortage of outreach to these voters, but the question is if you can mobilize and get them to feel the stakes of this election. >> meteah, there's been a lot of focus on the african-american piece of this. and we talked about it at some length on the show yesterday. i'm curious about whether there's a similar problem or not among hispanic voters. obviously, a larger segment of the population and super

important. what do you know about the degree to which enthusiasm -- about enthusiasm levels among at key demographic for hillary clinton? >> we are seeing some early indications, actually, of the latino vote being up in key states, places like nevada and florida. so actually, i think democrats feel more confident about that demographic. and we've seen an incredible amount of energy going in to register latino voters and get them out to the polls and trump's polarizing comments from the beginning of this campaign have really mobilized that community. you're hearing from activists on the ground that people are engaged. it's just a matter of making sure that people who are low-propensity voters actually know where to go, and they actually know how to cast their ballots. >> i want to talk more about the electoral college and correct something we got wrong earlier. we made an error on our graphic. appreciate those on twitter who aggressively pointed that out. here's the updated, corrected graphic, that shows, again, hillary clinton's solid-blue

states like california, rhode island, that gives her 195 electoral votes. the middle column is states where clinton is leading in public polling, but five points or more. pennsylvania, virginia, michigan, wisconsin, and new mexico. that's 64 total electoral votes. and that gets her within just 11 she'd need to get from that last column. and as you can see there, there's plenty of options. so matea, this illustrates that hillary clinton has a far easier road to this point to 270, that trump will have to have a national surge. he's not going to be able to cherry pick his way to 270 electoral votes. does that make sense to you? >> yeah, and he has to have so many things go in his favor at this point. the trump campaign sees a lot of potential in these blue states, but the reality is, you know, he needs florida and blue states, he needs to create a coalition of a lot of these places in order to carve that path. it's just, she has to hold him off just in a couple of key

places. and that's still the case, even though the polls have tightened, i think that she still had, obviously, more ways to get there than he does at this point. >> eliana, i'm sure you're experiencing with the people who are working directly for donald trump, they're ecstatic and believe this is now close to theirs to lose. what are you hearing from republicans working on down-ballot races, from republicans who are for trump, but not wild about trump? are they now significantly more optimistic about his prospects? >> i actually think the most significant ramification of this tightening of the race will not be for trump himself, who i think is still likely to lose on tuesday, but for some of these down-ballot republicans, who can only run so far ahead of trump. they can't outrun him by ten points, but they can, maybe, by five or six points. so people are much more optimistic, for example, about republicans holding the senate. somebody like kelly ayotte in new hampshire or even pat toomey in pennsylvania, who is running neck and neck, with his

relatively weak democratic challenger, katie mcginty, some republicans are much more optimistic about their chances to win those races than they were, say, ten days ago. >> eliana has the prerogative to do dodge my question. so matea, did supporters seem more optimistic about trump chances than they did a week ago? >> i think the people paying attention to this race are worried about the ground effort. they're worried about the fact that the democrats and clinton have an incredible unbalance when it comes to mobilizing voters. and that is the direct result of her superior fund-raising operation, that she started a full, you know, year before she did. so, that is something that, i think, the day after the election, we're going to be sifting through a lot of this to figure out what happened. i think that's going to be a key role. >> matea gold, thank you both. john and i will be right back. 's kiosk maps your feet

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donald j. trump may be the first republican since 1956 to lose among one important swath of the electorate. find out who we're talking about right now. go to bloombergpolitics.com and you'll see the story right there. until tomorrow, thanks for watching. sayonara. "hardball with chris matthews" is next. big mo, don't know. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. with just days to go, donald trump and hillary clinton are both making their final pushes to drive out voters. today, neither candidate was seen cruising on the high road. >> putin has no respect for hillary clinton. he dreams -- he dreams of her becoming president. you know who else dreams of hillary clinton? isis. she always talking about me. see, what i have is a winning temperament.