the the reckoning. let's play "hardball." good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. well, this morning, actually, this monday evening, president barack obama, first lady michelle obama, president clinton, hillary clinton, and chelsea clinton will appear. monday evening's election eve rally is part of a professional get-out-the-vote effort in a state, with pennsylvania, where hillary clinton is protected by an electoral firewall. donald trump and his republicans would need to breach that wall or lose the presidential election on tuesday. that's been my call for weeks.

i'm sticking with it. protecting that firewall, block by block, street by street, is the last great political machine in this country. the democratic city committee of philadelphia today i sat inside the room, as u.s. congressman bob britton, the chairman or boss of the philadelphia democratic machine, held their final meeting before election. it's the meet they share in accepting their mission and get the street money to get out and meet it. when they get back to their wars, they distribute their money to dozens of committee people. my grandfather used to be one. the committee people hire the workers for election day and the workers begin knocking on every door in the city in the morning and again in the afternoon, on election day, until that person damned well gets out to the polling place. the stakes are high. philadelphia, one of 67 counties in the state reliably brings in a giant enough vote to swamp the rest of pennsylvania. in the last presidential election, for example, 85% of philadelphia went for president obama, creating a city-wide plurality of almost half a million votes. that's net half a million. democratic congressman bob brady

told me he's confident his efforts would ensure philadelphia and pennsylvania gets his friend, hillary clinton, elected president on tuesday. explain why republicans, who are professional people like yourself, seem to always think they can carry pennsylvania? every year they target it, it seems, and every year, they get beaten. what's that about? >> it's called propaganda. they're never going to beat us, they're not going to beat us, and they can't beat us by any amount. they're not going to beat us. and we turn out 480,000 majority to be able to carry the rest. always and always will. and we'll do that again on tuesday. >> what you have as a ground game. old school. resources on the street. you've got committee people in every voting division. you cover the whole city, 67-plus wards. they don't have anything like that. >> we cover every polling place, every division. we have committee people in the 1683 divisions that we have. we're probably without question the last democratic party organization in the country.

>> that's a big machine. this is the kind of political organizing i see on television. this is street level, political machine, grinding out the votes, ward by ward, division by division, block by block. it's the ground game that hillary clinton's got, remember this on tuesday night, and donald trump doesn't. in a close race, as this may well be on tuesday night, it's the street campaign backed by street money that turns out the vote. and wins the big elections. joining me, hallie jackson, joy reid, and jonathan tamari. i wanted to cover the part of the cain you don't normally see, inside the building there. all those ward leaders, african-american, white guys, men and women, they've been there forever. they know their business, they get the street money, they go up to the committee people and they bring in the vote. they start knocking on doors. one people told me 6:30 in the morning, they go back at 11:00 in the morning, 4:30 in the afternoon, and damned well make sure their vote turns out. how does trump beat that in

pennsylvania? >> by getting out of philadelphia. that's the entire strategy. when you look at what's happening in the rest of the state, that's a place where trump was ahead maybe 11 points statewide, in certain parts of the state, but overall, it was clinton who had the advantage. when you look at what is happening in the counties like bucks county. we talk about it all this time on this show. it was 4,000 votes separating the winner and loser back in 2012. and that is a microcosm of the election. that is the place where hillary clinton is blowing donald trump out of the water, with suburban white women. >> you're right, four counties, the one you're from, bucks, the other, delaware, montgomery, and chester, all went between 54% and 60%, barack obama. and they're largely white counties. they're suburban. and the fact is, they were that big. imagine how they were going to be with women voters. so in addition to the almost half a million votes that the city machine cooks up or brings in, you've got another huge

percentage of the state. i want to go to joy on this. this -- people don't underestimate. you look at the map of this country, it's all red, except it's blue most of the times, because of the areas where people live, big cities, they dominate presidential elections. and in philadelphia, that one county, out of 67 counties in pennsylvania, dominates the state, because that's where so many people live. >> yeah, absolutely, chris. i went into a deep dive worm hole on pennsylvania today, reading one of the hold bibles of the state. and you're absolutely right. you have this big behemoth that is philadelphia, and the philadelphia suburbs, where philadelphia is such a large non-white population, and larger than average college-educated white population. compare that to the rest of the state, but they're just numerically not as large. and so the challenge for republicans, every single cycle, when they say they can win pennsylvania, because it's demographically similar, let's say, to ohio. so demographically, yeah, they're about the same. about the same size african-american vote.

but the way that philadelphia is concentrated. those philadelphia suburbs are so full of white college-educated voters, those are just the kind of voters that are trending towards the democratic party. and pennsylvania, just interestingly enough, against ohio, it has a slightly higher college-educated white population. a slightly higher median income. it's even an older population. but it's just built just enough in the democrats' favor that if you can turn out those suburban white voters and those african-american voters in philadelphia, that's the state. >> let me go to jonathan on this. let me explain street money, what it is. my grandfather used to get it, like $35 every election, whatever, when he was a committeeman in north philly. what you do is you get -- the ward leaders get a chunk of money, then they take it to the committee people, two in each voting division. they use it to pay for people's lunches, use it to give some money to the workers. it's very professional. and this is the way it's been going on for years. you go out and vote, because people and pound on that door until you get out there and vote. it's very professional and it's been going on since at least the

early' 50s. >> it's a very old-school political machine, strong labor unions that are very tied into the democratic party there. and as joy and hillary were talking about, you've got philadelphia. it is, in any swing state, it's the largest city that's in -- >> how do republicans compete with that when they don't have anything like that? they don't have a machine. >> that's why republicans are able to win in off-year elections, when folks in philadelphia and a lot of the democratic voters don't show up in the same level of force that they do in the kind of presidential years. but what we've seen in presidential years since 1992, philadelphia and those counties have pushed pennsylvania -- zm hallie jackson, i want to ask you -- and joy as well. i thought it was a pretty funny line, but i think he meant it, i said to bob brady, the chairman of the committee up there, of the machine, i said, why do republicans keep having this lust for pennsylvania? it's the craziest thing. we're going to get pennsylvania! you seem to be enjoying this. joy, why do they always say, we're going to get pennsylvania this year and they never, never, ever -- it's like lucy and the

football or charlie brown. it never happens, at the big pumpkin. it doesn't happen. their propaganda, they convince themselves they can do it. your thoughts. >> every four years republicans swear the state they're going to flip is philadelphia. they said it in '04, said it in '08, said it in '12. i think pennsylvania is so enticing to them, it feels like a stay like ohio, that they should be able to flip it. but you just made the point. but metrics and data don't win campaigns. campaigns win campaigns. democrats have a heck of a machine out there. you have an entrenched political machinery that the democrats just have and republicans don't. and even if republicans did, that same kind of machinery doesn't work as well in rural counties. that's a bigger lift. they'd need a much bigger staff to try to pull people out of those rural counties than democrats can do it in a concentrated state. >> and you talk about concentrated, concentrated votes, too. the democrats, there's 59 voting

divisions, a single vote for mitt romney last time. that's not cheating, that's a fact. these are poor african-american voters, many of them poor people. they are democrats to their roots. and all you've got to do is get the vote and they're going to vote democrat. this is big news nationally, just came in tonight. abc news tracking poll out tonight shows a rebound for clinton. she's now up four points over trump, 47-43. that's a swing over the last five days of five points. this week began with us reporting that trump was up by one vote over hillary in that same poll. now she's up by four. a five-vote swing. new polls today from ppp show clinton with an edge over trump in five crucial battleground states. up by two in nevada. five points in new hampshire, and up by seven in wisconsin. trump is closing, slightly, in michigan, where clinton now leads by four points. 42-38. hallie, your sense about this race. el us where you think it's going to come out tuesday night. where are we going to be scratching our heads, saying,

this is a tough one. >> you just put up a poll of michigan, chris. that is where the trump campaign believes they have a very good shot, or at least the best shot of scaling that blue wall that we talk about. of those rust belty kind of states like michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, i think pennsylvania, wisconsin, real uphill battles, wisconsin in particular, when you look at where the polling is. but that poll you just showed out of michigan, that is something that i believe is giving the trump campaign reason to be hopeful about that state. you saw hillary clinton there today. you talk about a place like pennsylvania. one of our colleagues here, joe scarborough, calls it fool's gold for republicans. that's kind of what it is. it's also, potentially for republicans, if trump does well there, remember, why every year? as joy pointed out, we saw it in '04, '08, we saw it in '12, with republicans thinking they could flip p.a. or take p.a. but republicans this year felt like they have a very unique candidate. donald trump is not mitt romney. donald trump is somebody who is speaking to that working class voter, so that white man that's out in sort of the middle of the state, between pittsburgh and

philly. and so there was that -- that was driving a lot of the reason for optimism on pennsylvania. and the other bellwether, looking ahead to tuesday night when the polls start to close on the east coast, what happens nah new hampshire? that is another state where the polls are tightening in a real way -- >> but so what? to be blunt. so what about new hampshire if it's not close. new hampshire matters if it's close. >> sure. >> you're right. i shouldn't cut you off. it is a bellwether. >> it's an indication of where this thing is going. i had one republican operative say to me yesterday, they said, if she wins new hampshire, i'm turning off the tv. trump promised a couple of surprises that would change the race. i'm going to ask mayor giuliani what he knew and how he knew it. later, my prediction for the final weekend of campaigning. this is "hardball" the place for

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you're going to hear. i mean, i'm talking about some pretty big surprises. >> i heard you say that this morning. what do you mean? >> you'll see. we've got a couple things up our sleeves that should turn this around. >> back to "hardball." that was former new york mayor rudy giuliani. was the timing of giuliani's big tease coincidental. he was asked about that earlier today. >> a couple days before this all broke you were on with martha mccown and you said, look out,

something is coming down and certainly it did. what did you know? and a lot of other networks are pointing that out as if you were part of it. >> it was very simple. not part of it at all. all i heard were former fbi agents telling me there was a revolution going on inside the fbi so it was now at a boiling point. >> you had a general idea something was coming? >> honestly, to tell you the truth, i thought it was going to be three or four weeks ago. i had no role in it. did i hear about it? you're darn right i heard about it. i can't even repeat the language that i heard from the former fbi. >> this afternoon on msnbc congresswoman maxine waters said giuliani ought to be investigated for this. let's watch that. >> the leaks that have gone out. the division that appears to be in the fbi is unprecedented. nobody expected that you would have false information coming out from the fbi and giuliani needs to be investigated also because he has a role in this.

>> two other members of congress, elijah cummings and conyers called for an investigation. giuliani never said he ever heard about it from live employees. joining me now is mayor giuliani. thank you so much for coming on. i'm trying to figure out the time line here. according to james comey, the fbi director, he didn't get this information about these e-mails in anthony weiner's laptop until thursday. you were talking on wednesday, the day before, about this thing coming. how did you get a 24-hour -- >> no. no. >> you had a 24-hour jump on comey. >> i'm not a prophet. i'm not talking about these things coming. what i was talking about, chris, was the advertising we're doing this weekend. we have been debating -- >> you were teasing with that anchor woman that you had an advertising plan? you sounded like you had something really good ready to come. >> chris, do you want to hear my

answer? >> i want to hear -- yeah. >> what we were talking about was i've been working on a speech and i've been working on a presentation where he was going to buy a lot of time at the very end to lay out his message. we had about four different ways we were going to do it. that's what i was talking about. i had no idea that jim comey was going to do what he was going to do the day that he did it nor did i ever think he was going to do it. what i did know about, which was quite true for about four months, is that the fbi was very, very upset about the way jim comey had handled the case but i heard that from former fbi agents, not from current fbi agents. i haven't spoken to a current fbi agent i don't think in the last nine months. >> so then you're innocent of knowing any inside information on the possible -- >> about comey? absolutely. >> dmo. no. you have no inside information as of this moment from the fbi? >> correct. all of my information comes from -- >> so you don't know anything more about the case than what

you were thinking about as a private citizen? >> absolutely not. >> okay. okay. >> everything i know comes from -- >> what you say about hillary being guilty, is a former prosecutor -- >> i said that a year ago. >> here's the question. hillary clinton when she became secretary of state, this is public information, chose to have a private server. i don't know anything about this stuff. she chose to have her own. she kept it private. by your argument, i believe, that was a felony. >> i would say -- >> at that time, in other words, she committed a felony the moment she became secretary of state? >> not the moment that she did it but when it became apparent that these things were all on private server, she wasn't using the -- she wasn't using the state department server. >> she chose to do that the first day. >> let me finish, chris. she was exposing this information to hacking. she was exposing this information to anyone who could take it from her. i would be shocked if the chinese, the iranians, the

russians and i don't know some little jerky kid didn't have it -- >> they can hack the state department, too. >> yeah, but the state department has no control over it and at least -- and then when you make the choice between what's public and what's private, it's a state department employee making the choice. >> you're the lawyer. i'm going to ask you one more time. if it's a felony to have a private server and she made that decision the day -- when she realized she was going to accept the appointment as secretary of state, what was her motive? what was her criminal intent then? you're suggesting a crime here and i can't figure out when it occurred. >> the crime is very, very simple. i think the 33,000 e-mails she destroyed shows a link between the clinton foundation and hillary clinton. she knew from the beginning that they were going to sell out the state department. >> what inside information do you have that? >> i'm telling you from my inference. clinton cash, "the new york times," washington post, "the

wall street journal." i'm telling you -- >> okay. you also know the law. you know what i know, mayor. you know what i know, the law says -- >> there is a prima facie case. jim comey laid out a prima facie case that i could take to a grand jury. the fact that the -- here's what i didn't know until recently. the jusz tis department blocked a grand jury of this investigation. that is corruption and outrageous. >> okay. you think you -- you trust the honor of jim comey -- >> if that were you or me, that case would go before a grand jury and the justice department is corrupt. obama's justice department is corrupting this investigation. >> that's just a charge. >> and the fact that they have podesta's lawyer involved in this investigation, the guy that podesta said kept him out of jail is an outrage. it is a dishonor of the justice department. >> these charges have become what we do in this country now. it sounds like a third world country. all of a sudden newt gingrich

said the democratic leaders were corrupt. it's thrown around. >> the justice department corrupted this investigation. >> how did they because she recused herself? >> asked for a grand jury in february on the clinton foundation. they should have given them a grand jury and we would have this thing cleaned up by now. the reason we're going through this right now is because hillary clinton and her lackeys in the justice department, people who work for her, people who defended poe test da, someone podesta said kept him out of jail is involved in this investigation. >> okay. >> give me a break. that would never have happened in a justice department that i know. >> thank you, mayor giuliani. when i return, my election diary for the last weekend of the campaign. this is "hardball" a place for politics. [ keyboard typing ]

intercom: the library is now closing. ok kid, closing up. goodnight. the hardest part about homework shouldn't be figuring out where to do it. through internet essentials, comcast has connected over 3 million people in need to low-cost internet at home. welcome to a brighter future. comcast. november 4th, 2016. today i got to sit inside the democratic city committee.

sitting among the democratic ward leaders. let's call it that, city big political machine. they're covered through the city with wards. it's broken into voting division. every voting division has committee people and they are the people who tend to the neighborhood concerns. the people who get out the vote on election day. know who voted and who didn't. they keep score. how do you score a ward leader is simple? chairman bob brady explains. how many votes do they get out. this is the fire wall. you're looking at it. this is the reality of the big city of philadelphia. the political machine, let's call it that of philadelphia, the democratic organization under bob brady can produce a 450,000 vote plurality. it can deliver pennsylvania to clinton. the rest of the areas called the t can go whole hogg for donald trump. what matters will break the

republican part will be the year round work of the last great political machine in the country, the democratic machine in philadelphia. coming up next "your business" with j.j. ramburg.

good morning, everyone. coming up on msnbc's your business, it's msnbc's show. they're living together and running small businesses to help communities improve their local economies. plus how one small business beat the big brands at their own game. we have that and more coming up on "your business."