nicolle wallace starts right now. hi, everyone. it's 4:00 in new york. there's an adage in campaign work while events or breaking news can intervene in the last days of an election and shake up the race, think of the comey letter in 2016, or the bin laden tape in 2004, there's not much that a candidate or campaign can do to introduce a new message in the final days. so, less than a week out from the midterms, the closing arguments from both parties are in. republicans glued to trump are now stuck with his message. >> so as the caravan -- and, look, that is an assault on our country. that's an assault. and in that caravan you have some very bad people. you have some very bad people. and we can't let that happen to our country. when i say enemy of the people, i'm talking about the fake news, and it is fake. you have the haters and they continue to hate. these are foolish and very stupid people.

they have a word. it sort of became old-fashioned. it's called a nationalist. and i say, really, we're not supposed to use that word. you know what i am? i'm a nationalist, okay? i'm not on the ballot, but in a certain way, i'm on the ballot so please go out and vote. >>as axios reports, that closing message isn't expected to fare well on tuesday. some top republicans tell axios they worry that their candidate will pay a price following the anti-semitic murders in pittsburgh and the arrest of a rabid trump support for the mail bombs. said one official closely involved in the house fight, the world looks crazy and we're in charge of it. next tuesday we'll know if trump's politics of crazy have a ceiling when we measure it against the democrats' closing message. >> yeah, this idea fronted by the president that somehow the press are the enemy of the people reinforced by him tweeting out images of a reporter being hit by a train,

body-slammed in a wrestling wring, it's incitement to violence. i don't know any other way to call it. >> this week 11 people will be laid to rest in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, due to a mass shooting at a synagogue. we've had bombs mailed into the holmes of democratic leaders around the country who have, on occasion, criticized the president. the toxicity that he is sowing into the american political system is now turning into political violence. that's dangerous. >> we've got to bring this country together. the only thing that's strong enough to tear america apart is america itself, and we've seen it start. and we must make it stop. we choose hope over fear. we choose unity over division. we choose allies over enemies. we choose truth over lies. >> here to discuss the state of the race, some of our favorite reporters and friends. chief white house correspondent

peter baker. at the table, national affairs analyst for nbc news and msnbc, john heilemann. co-host and executive producer of showtime's "the circ us" eddie, professor and chairman for african-american studies at princeton university. bloomberg opinion executive editor tim o'brien and mara. we were saying as we were watching those clips, they're good. they may be beto and gillum may be the two best democratic candidates running this cycle. >> i've had a chance to spend time with both of them since labor day. i had not previously. i'll say that everybody has political liabilities and neither one of them is a perfect candidate. >> no such thing. >> at the level of performance skill and communications, they are, i would say, both of them are not only in the top of their class in terms of rising stars in the party but they are both better communicators than anyone who ran for president on the democratic side in 2016. and that includes the nominee and bernie sanders.

they're both very, very good. huge figures in the party whether they win or lose. andrew gillum much more likely to win. be maede a place for themselves in the party in term of their communication status and betto in terms of his way to raise money. >> they've outtrumped at trump-ism. they went straight to the third rail and played on that dangerous terrain. beto, by taking on the anthem issue in deep red texas and saying, you know, here's why it's a free speech much and not an anti-patriot issue. he turned that around. and gillum, by taking the race question and, it's still one of the best political lines uttered this cycle. i'm not saying you're a racist. the racists think you're a racist. >> not only great communicators or communicating clearly, what the opposition is, what the choice is, they're speaking to young people and they are

speaking to the next set of voters. so the long-term political implications for both of these figures. let me say it more directly. they're speaking to the america that is coming into being. over and against the america that is wailing about because it knows it's dying. so i find them to be really interesting because they're standing at the cusp of this transition we're in. >> peter baker, the white house can't be pleased that we're closing in on images of the protests yesterday during donald trump's visit to the synagogue which i believe his press secretary called a church in a pool report. donald trump going there over the protests of local leaders like the mayor of pittsburgh and many jews who signed a letter from the pittsburgh area saying until you denounce white nationalism, we don't want to see you there. he went there anywhere. a lot of republicans anxious at his handling of the shooting on saturday and his response to the pipe bomber. >> absolutely. look, they understand this is not a president who excels at

empathy or, you know, unifying themes during moments of national crisis. it's not how he got to where he is. it's not something he ever pretended to be for that matter. your old boss george w. bush, bill clinton, barack obama, ronald reagan, they rose to that occasion in moments of crisis and could at least give lip service at the very least if not actual genuine authentic feeling toward the emotions that were royaling the nation at times of crisis. that's not something this president wants to do or even tries to do. so he wants to get back into the rallies. we have 11 of them coming up now in the next six days. that's the message he's going to send to the public. he'd like to move on beyond pittsburgh and beyond last week's spate of mail bombs. >> peter baker, he's also now embroiled in a fight with the second highest ranking republican in the country, paul ryan, over his hard-line immigration policies. does the white house see any danger in a fight between donald trump and paul ryan in the final days of the midterm election

cycle? >> well, you said it. six days out before an election it's really late to be sprugs new id introducing new ideas into the conversation. to say i think i can sign legislature ending birthright. candidates across the country were suddenly being asked in their districts in their states, where do you stand on this? for some republicans it was very uncomfortable. paul ryan spoke out yesterday saying you can't do it. no way he can do it, and i don't think we should try to muck around with the constitution. that earned him a presidential rebuke today. six days in front of the election instead of having a unified republican party you have republicans fighting with each other about whether or not children born here in this country should be automatically citizens or not. >> so there's something tim o'brien about having these politics a division that are so galling. trying to go farther than baby cages and then doing it incompetently. so taking the politics of hate, the politics of xenophobia and

you earn a rebuke from the republican speaker of the house. it's almost miraculous to see. >> it's also trump understands he's lost control of the narrative. there was this nice bump they enjoyed after the kavanaugh hearings. and then the khashoggi -- >> which is gone. that's evaporated from all the polls. >> and the khashoggi murder happened. and he came under sharp criticism for that. he tried to rebound on all the chatter about the caravan which was about fomenting division, bigotry and fear and those were the hot buttons he was going to hit. same thing he meant to hit when he said he was a nationalist and talked about birthright citizenship. first the pipe bombs and the murders over the weekend in pittsburgh. attention is focused on his character and focused on his inability to lead. that's not something he does well and he understands it and also is seeing the data coming back that it looks like the house is not going to stay in republican hands. i don't think he wants to get

saddled with that loss. >> greg sargent writes in "the washington post" that trump's hate and lies are failing. two new studies show why. it's widely observed that democrats are favored to take back the house because of a backlash against trump's ugly personal characteristics and verbal displays of misogyny. it's already discernible in trump and republican messaging that the public has turned on the trump-era gop agenda. that's a peculiar fusion of xenophobic nationalism. i want to believe this is true that the public has turned on his agend abut his misogyny and racism are on display in 2017. >> the most frustrating experience because you're absolutely right. everything that we have learned about trump we could have known in november 2016. we did know. and yet it was not disqualifying for many americans. and i think that there was a sense of, well, you know, maybe his tweets are off base but

maybe he'll become presidential. he'll grow into the role. and as americans have seen that actually not only has that not happened but it's gotten worse. and it's not just tweets. in fact, tweets and words do matter as protesters in pittsburgh have said. i think that the violence that we've seen sharp from charlottesville to pittsburgh and everything nels between that this president has done has started to create a sense of concern if not alarm, among a preponderance of americans that this president actually is dangerous. and i would also add that the swing districts that are pivotal for the democrats to retake the house, you know, these are not republicans in those districts that are in the deep red of the president's base. these are republicans and democrats and moderates who want to talk about health care. that's, right now, this year, that's a democratic issue. and so trump plays on one note. he's a, you know, a one note musician. and that's not going to work in

these swing districts. >> there's a big difference between 2016. obviously, one thing is that a lot of people in our profession didn't take trump seriously. didn't believe he could ever win. he got a lot of scrutiny but this is true not just in the media but a lot of voters. we look at what happened -- >> comey didn't think he was going to win. >> a lot of democrats looked at hillary clinton and found her uninspiring and just said i'm going to stay home because they assumed eventually she'd win anyway and then they looked up and went, wait a minute. her defects are minor compared to his. the huge difference to 2016, you look at this closing period. people forget how in those closing days of 2016, after comey flipped the narrative and made it about hillary clinton again, how in an extraordinary moment, i mean extraordinarily rare, donald trump was really disciplined the last 12 dhafays that campaign. he talked about building the wall. he talked about change. he talked about draining the

swamp, hillary clinton. he made it not about himself. >> he talked about jobs. >> and in that period, it was about hillary clinton's defects, about trump bringing home, at that moment what he had to do was consolidate traditional republican voters nervous about him and got just enough of them in enough places. the script has been flipped. and it's all about trump. partly that's because the way he's campaigning because he's just all about the base. partly it's about the events of the last week which have shined a harsh light on him at a pivotal moment. but all of that, what was working for them after kavanaugh, which was talk about democrats, talk about the mob, now it's talking about trump. and when the american public is focused on donald trump, inevitably, we see it over and over. when they're focused on trump, his numbers go down. he gets more and more desperate and digs the hole deeper and deeper. the timing. you knew that post-kavanaugh sugar high was not going to last and trump's weaknesses come to the fore and the events he is

totally inadequate to dealing with have put him in the worst possible place right now. >> peter baker, it's an extraordinary commentary. this may be an inside nuanced point but you've covered it as have you. in 2004 when george w. bush was running against john kerry in the after action analysis, a lot of folks on the kerry campaign thought the release of the bin laden tape over that final weekend gave george w. bush an opportunity to be seen as the president, speaking on behalf of all americans as he did in the days and weeks after 9/11, in speaking up for the country against bin laden. it is such a sign of how far we've tumbled that a crisis harms an incumbent president. these two crises, the twin cr e crises of the pipe bomber targeting almost the entire democratic leadership of america that donald trump couldn't pick up a phone and say i know we're on opposite sides with all the policy debates but i'm one of 45 people in american history who

have had the job as president. i'll do anything to protect you and your girls. he didn't have the human capacity to act like a president for ten minutes after that and then went to the funerals in pittsburgh n didnand didn't utt word about anti-semitism fop fuel those before the midterms is staggering. >> well, look, exactly right. you are right about the bush/kerry contest. you mentioned the obama hurricane sandy in 2012 when in the last few days before the campaign, he was a president with chris christie, republican governor, deal with the crisis, confronting very real americans and not a partisan-type atmosphere. these are -- it's crass to say these are moments but when -- we expect our presidents to rise up to accept that they have a role that's different than just a partisan. i think trump sees himself like everybody else. if everybody else is out there

swinging away at him, he should be able to swing back at them. and the idea that he should somehow let something fall off his back and try to set a higher tone or a difference kind of example, that's not his conception of the job. he doesn't see the presidency that way. he sees it as, you know, one more pugilist in a worldwide wrestling federation tournament. >> peter is exactly right but i wonder if defeat, he is going to lose on tuesday. he is most likely going to lose the house. he's going to lose some of the candidates he campaigned for. he didn't just say vote for them. he didn't talk about them or bring them to the stage until 40, 50 minutes into those rallies. he said this is about me. he said vote for me. so if anyone he campaigned for loses, it's a giant failure on the part of this president. >> and i don't know how he's going to behave. i don't know how he's going to react or how his supporters will react if there's a blue wave. i'm not optimist ike. >> doesn't need to be a blue wave but he said in every race he got involved in, this is

about me. >> what i mean is everybody -- nothing is going to get better after this midterm. everything is going to get more intense, and it may even get worse. but let me say this. not only did he not do all the things you just laid out. he introduced birthright citizenship. he doubled down. he doubled down on what motivate ed them to go in there and kill 11 people. i'll say this on your show, nicolle. i was critical of hillary clinton and get hemmed up on twitter every day for criticizing donald trump because people believe i'm responsible, in part, for donald trump being in the white house. what i did wrong in 2016 is i overestimated white people. i didn't think white people would put him in office. so here he is running around the country appealing to our darker angels, appealing to our hate

r reds and fears and i'm supposed to believe delaware county is not going to vote for him. the suburbs in pennsylvania aren't going to vote for him? so part of what i do know is that it's going to require young people, it's going to require people of color, it's going to require african-americans like they showed up in alabama and virginia. it's going to require us to turn out in massive numbers because i made a mistake in 2016. and the evidence is not in yet. it sounds cynical, but this man doubled down after 11 beautiful people were shot and killed while worshiping. jefferson town, kentucky, murdered, shot in the back of the head for what? for what? some ideal of whiteness that donald trump represents and spews out of his mouth every single day. >> i'm not willing -- i can't disagree with that, unfortunately, but i'm not willing to let white voters off

the hook. i think that they, like the rest of us, should be treated as adults, and i think there are a large number, a majority of white americans in this country who are not just democrats but who are people of conscience, who are good americans and i believe that they need to move from saying well, i don't like his tweets, but, you know, the economy is doing okay. they need to move from there to reality, which is that we have a white nationalist president who is a threat to american democracy. and regardless of party, or policy views, you should put country over party first. >> this is not the conversation donald trump wants the country to be having in the final days. >> no, because it's not a campaign strategy on his part. this is who donald trump is. he has been a bigot and a white nationalist for a long time. this is a guy who kept a book of hitler's speeches on the nightstand by his bed. >> wow. wow. >> this is a guy who in tweets over the last week has invoked stalinist and nazi rhetoric. >> fascist rhetoric.

>> he revels in it. it's not just a short-term, you know, policy or political move by him to appeal to his base. he's speaking from the heart. and american voters are seeing him for who he is. >> just to inject one note here of what i actually think is going to happen, right. the greatest likelihood is we'll have a split decision on -- democrats are not going to take back the senate. it's not impossible. it's a low probability outcome. >> he has decided to do these rallies. they are an acknowledgment the house is gone. he's not going to competitive house races. he's going to red states to the reddest part of red states the places that love him most in places where he's recognized the senate is not only salvageable but possible democrats could gain a few spots in the senate. he's already said that if the republicans win, it's because of him. and if republicans lose, it's not his fault. he's already announced that. so he's not going to take any

blame for what happened in the house. paul ryan, in standing up to him on the birthright citizenship thing, he's already given him a scape goat. he's going to attack paul ryan and republicans who didn't go with him all in on birthright citizenship and revoking it. he's going to blame other people for the loss of the house and then claim credit for whatever gains there are in the senate. that's what's going to happen. >> and he'll blame desantis for being a crummy candidate. >> we're going to speak the truth and he'll speak his truth which is, as usual, an abominable lie. >> peter baker, thank you for spending time with us. we're grateful. after the break, the oprah effect. oprah hits the trail for stacey abrams in georgia. the last candidate she went all in for went all the way. can oprah do it again. and beto goes there telling chris matthews he's taking his message of unity to all texans, including republicans who may have some buyer's rebhoers

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there are celebrity endorsement and then there's the celebrity endorsement. the holy grail, the big cahoona, the one you can feel on the richter scale. right now stacey abrams probably feels like she won the surrogate lottery. oprah winfrey is hitting the stump for abrams who would be the first women black governor in the united states if effected. she and her opponent, brian kemp, have been locked in a neck

and neck race for months. but today for the very first time since july, abrams has the slight edge. joining us now is "washington post" national political reporter and moderator of "washington week," robert costa. what's going on in georgia? >> you have a very night gubernatorial race. voter suppression an issue at the fore of that state debate between ms. abrams and secretary of state kemp. you have -- the whole race becoming nationalized as well. having oprah winfrey go in there. she doesn't want to run for president in 2020, but her close friend richard share tells me she's keeping an eye on democratic politics. that could get the democratic coalition to come out. ms. abrams is trying to get the suburban voter, the swing voter and the latino voter, the traditional african-american voter to come out in droves. >> robert costa, does oprah's presence on the trail because she appeals to every group you just listed, does that strike fear in the hearts of republican operatives and republicans

watching democrats make serious gains in some of these deeply red states under donald trump's presidency? >> republicans are on edge about what's happening in georgia. ms. abrams is taking a really different approach. they expect democrats to take almost a milk toast approach, appealing to the center of the state and the south. but if she can really get a different kind of coalition in a place like georgia, that changes the entire map for 2020. if abrams is successful, you'll have democrats really thinking about doug jones in alabama. stacey abrams in georgia. betto o beto o'rourke in texas. could that paint a new path? >> stacey abrams answering questions about her opponent in what sounds like a new tone. >> do you think that kemp's efforts are racially motivated? >> i don't question his heart. i do question the results. and we know that he is disproportion atly purged voters of color, arrested voters of

color, and that's problematic because, regardless of his intent, the result is that racial bias has been injected into our system. and that undermines confidence in our democracy. >> robert costa, that seems to do just what you described. it's a blunt message but she lets him off the hook saying i don't know what's in his heart. this sms smart and almost a per democratic candidate for this cycle in this moment. >> i've sat down with ms. abrams in atlanta. she's a tough candidate. she's someone who not only has experience in the state legislature but she's unafraid of confronting some of these thorny issues like race. takes it head-on. and she's raising questions about legitimacy. even former president jimmy carter from georgia, far into his retirement, very active president carter, has issued a statement saying mr. kemp should resign as secretary of state, to not have any question hovering over this election next week. >> the oprah effect and the

question that robert costa just raised about legitimacy. vox has a report saying that oprah, university of maryland researchers estimated in a 2008 paper that winfrey's endorsement of obama was responsible for 1 million additional votes for him in the primaries. they also found winfrey's endorsement increased the overall voter participation rate and the number of contributions he received. the oprah effect, the same thing that boosts the sale of books she recommends or products she endorses also translated into support for obama and in a significant way. >> icing on the cake. stacey abrams has this extraordinary ground game. if we look at what she's doing. just before oprah came into view, will ferrell was stumping for her. it's a different kind of demgraphisk. you have close to 944,000 people have already voted in georgia already. that's three times as many. so i think her strategy is not just simply to appeal to that

suburban white voter, to not appear to deracialize in some ways, to be herself and to build a coalition that reflects the demographic shift that is georgia. >> she also is using celebrities in a smart way. they're not doing big televised national events. she's got them going door to door. we can count on two fingers the celebrities that get involved in politics but i think democrats have had to change the way they use celebrities so they don't look like elites. i imagine if oprah winfrey knocked on my door i'd drop my coffee and -- >> where's my car? what gifts do i get today? >> it's appealing to people at a grassroots level. that was one of the lessons of hillary clinton's candidacy was the technokrats in the party got control of the process and they weren't doing good retail politics. what krooyou're seeing are real talented retail politicians. beto o'rourke, gillum in florida

and stacey abrams in georgia. i hate setting up that sort of point this way but the up side of the trump if i nphenomenon i forcing people to strip the band-aid off these notions around things like race and third rail issues like you're pointing to. they're embracing them. >> stacey abrams has shown, and i don't know if it's because she's a woman. she can walk and chew gum. she's not running around complaining about kemp. she's running. she's winning. she's ahead in a poll today. and she's making inroads in all the places robert costa talked about. >> i don't think it's a mistake these three democratic superstars are coming from the south because not only do you have changing demographics, right, which is reflective of the country at large and certainly especially democrats at large but also candidates who know how to talk about race. and that -- and they know how to talk about race to everyone. >> three states that are sort of purple. >> in three states sort of

purple. that's a road map for democrats at large in the country. >> i spent the last week previously with her. and i'll put her in the pantheon of these rising stars. we didn't play sound from her but gillum, o'rourke and stacey abrams. she's an incredibly good at what she does. and the thing that she did that i thought beyond -- she's doing an incredible job with being really forthright about the voter suppression issues in georgia without losing what she needs, this balance. it's tricky this balance with a lot of suburban business people. she understands there's the demographics of georgia are changing. but the thing she, does the most impressive thing is she has all this debt. a lot of debt. she's in debt to the irs. and she pays on an installment plan. it is, again, in my career, someone who owes a lot of money to the ir soo sorry? >> unlike the president.

>> this would be, in any standard candidate you'd look at their liabilities being in debt to the irs, in not small dollars, six figures, would be considered a huge political liability. she's neutralized it but seeing her campaign in rural georgia in what traditionally was the black belt in some of the places where voter turnout is most important. she not only neutralizes it but turns it into an asset. i've lived the life you've had. i've had a brother who is in jail, parents with health care struggles. i piled up debt and i've met my responsibilities. i'm not a shirker. i'm not trying to defraud the government. i just need a little time to get this stuff paid off. you see people on the ground. they think it's great in some ways. >> exactly. >> how she's handled this particular challenge because it's familiar to so many people. >> robert costa, let me give you the last word. it's about oprah winfrey. donald trump inspired to weigh

in when oprah winfrey gets in the ring. are you predicting or expecting some engagement with oprah tomorrow when she's on the trail with stacey abrams? >> the president is in a combative mode. he wants to fight on that level. he sees a lot of people throughout who have celebrity profiles, whether it's michael avenatti or oprah winfrey as possible contenders in this new political age that we live in. and for democrats, there's still not a front-runner. you showed vice president biden and others on the trail. because we're talking about beto o'rourke and stacey abrams as emerging stars, it underscores how the party doesn't have a clear leader. that's why someone with a celebrity profile could come in to the conversation. >> robert costa, thank you for spending some time with us. when we come back -- is texas democratic candidate beto o'rourke closing in on the gop's least likable senator in we'll bring you the latest polls.

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the invitation to hate

openly, unapol jetically, to call mexican immigrants rapists and criminals to call asylum seekers animals, an infestation. to describe white nationalists, klansman as very fine people, that's certainly contributed to the environment that we see in this country at this moment. the challenge, though is not to assess blame but to try to lead by example. we are more than the president of the united states. the current occupant of the white house. i know that from traveling the state and finding republicans who may have voted for trump who don't approve of this kind of behavior. this kind of rhetoric. >> it's one of the senate races that's caught the nation's attention. beto o'rourke still holding on in his fight against ted cruz of texas. polling released today has senator cruz maintaining a tight lead of about 3.5 points. cruz's lead is about 7 points in polling averages. compare that to data from another statewide election.

governor greg abbott is beating his democratic opponent by nearly 20 points. let me throw one more poll number at you. among hispanics in texas, cruz has 34%. o'rourke 60%. super important part of the electorate. and you were saying that latino turnout can sometimes be a deciding factor. >> it's the challenge. texas is going to be california one day. the demographic tides are such that -- but the question is when? we've now seen successive cycles where everybody has predicted in going back now four or five cycles, this is finally the one texas is going to turn blue. it's a really conservative state. the only counterbalance to that would be unprecedented voter suppression by the hispanic population. and every democratic candidate will tell you that's the issue they confront. how do you get those voters registered and get them to the polls on election day. no democrat has cracked the code on that yet.

one question will be whether beto o'rourke is the one to do that. they're spending an unprecedented amount of resources. there's also no precedent for getting the turnout you'd need to win at a statewide level. maybe o'rourke will pull it off but history is not on his side. >> garrett haake tweets about it. just spoke to my first abbott/o'rourke voter, an independent from richardson who thinks gop governor abbott is doing a good job running texas but that cruz is too much just for cruz and that there needs to be a check on trump. beto needs lot of these people. that's a little bit of what you're speaking to passionately about -- i mean some of those voters are white voters. do you think that this race is a place to study whether something has changed? >> i think so. and i should say that for

passionate reasons, i possibly overstated the point. >> don't read your twitter feed. we love your passion. >> but there are people -- our identities are always allied with the moral choice. >> can we just -- we all know people, i'm sure, who were on the list of the pipe bomber. passion defines this moment in american politics. if this is a conversation about american politics, if it didn't have passion, it wouldn't be real. >> that's absolutely true. we're all having to face a choice about who we take ourselves to be. and i think what the abbott/o'rourke voter signals, i think is a broader political realignment. you know this environment better than i do. but the age of -- reaganism has collapsed. it's become trumpism. clintonism is dead. in interesting sorts of ways. the party is trying to figure out itself. post this midterm and post 2020, i don't know what the political landscape will look like because

the ideological terrain is so messy. you'll get voters like this. you'll get people who are going to vote for one conservative in this instance and a liberal in that instance. our traditional labels won't capture the political behavior. >> it suggests something else interesting that policy doesn't matter. i mean, i think jeb bush learned this in the republican primary when he ran a policy ad criticizing the policy positions saying they weren't conservative. gop primary voters didn't give a bleep. >> jeb bush got wiped out very early on as a technocrat policy wonk. >> policy guy. >> the presidency speaks to the campaign for president speaks to people's emotions. it's about touching people's dreams and about them feeling you're authentic. we can say what we want about donald trump but he comes across as authentic to his supporters. and that was the -- >> no one would manufacture that. >> and there's a lot of people who think the way he thinks.

we can't deny that. >> that's what we have to learn about the country. >> the thing about texas and hispanic voters that's a mystery to me. i don't know why the democratic party cannot energize voters of color and specifically in those races, hispanic voters, in a more profound way. why aren't they coming out? you have someone in the person of donald trump who slagged a commonwealth, an island, puerto rico, in the midst of a crisis while people were exiting the island to move to the states. why aren't those voters engaged and energized? >> it's not one voting bloc, especiallydemocrats need to leak to every segment of that demographic and, you know, beto might be on to something. >> republicans should, too. >> of course. >> they're down the rabbit hole with donald trump. every candidate that wants to win and go on to govern

effectively. you want the laugh word? >> no, those are good words. mara, thank you for spending time with us. in the million-dollar question well b the mueller investigation. have the subpoenaed the president of the united states in the investigation into russian interference? hey there people eligible for medicare.

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as the nation's leader in energy storage, we're ensuring americans have the energy they need, whenever they need it. this is our era. this is america's energy era. nextera energy. have you received a subpoena from robert mueller? >> no. >> he was asked there if he'd been subpoenaed by robert mueller. we got a quick no. it was an intriguing answer to an intriguing theory raised today in politico by a former federal prosecutor who once worked for rudy giuliani in the southern district of new york. he wrote we cannot know from the brief docket entries available to us in the sealed case that the matter involves trump but we know from politico's reporting that it involves the special counsel. and that the action here was filed the day after giuliani noted publicly we're pretty much finished with our memorandum opposing a subpoena. we know that the district court had ruled in favor of the

special counsel and against the witness that the losing witness moved with alacrity, which i had to look up. it means cheerful speed. and with authority and that the judges have responded with accelerated rulings and briefing schedules. we know that judge katsas, trump's former counsel and nominee has recused himself and this sealed legal matter will come to a head in the weeks just after the midterm elections. trump's lawyer jay sekulow denounced the piece. the report in politico is completely false he said. there's been no subpoena issued and there is no litigation. joining us, msnbc legal analyst paul butler. i took this piece as a thought piece. this is -- help me explain it. this is a former federal prosecutor looking at a bunch of public data points in the filings in the u.s. district court saying somebody -- somebody had these interactions that he described there and it could have been, one of the possibilities is it was a subpoena for the president. >> yeah, so thought piece but also a hardy boys/nancy drew "who did it."

part of it is we already know when you are a prosecutor during a serious investigation you always try to interview the subject. that's how we know that the fbi investigation of justice kavanaugh was rigged because they could have interviewed him, but they didn't. so, of course, mueller has to try to issue a subpoena if trump doesn't come along voluntarily. he'll win. it will go to court but the precedent, u.s. versus nixon, the president has to turn over documents in a criminal case and then jones, the clinton case, the president has to appear in a civil case. ifr the profit to comply with a subpoena and talk to mueller. what this new gorsuch supreme court will do, kavanaugh supreme court will do, we don't know but, of course, mueller has to try and looking at the evidence it looks like he is trying. they are fighting it out in federal court right now. >> and this would be the obvious

extension of this months-long haggling over the questions. "new york times" first reported at the beginning of the year that a list of questions had been given to donald trump's lawyers and then suggested conditions around the interview and then a proposal to just have collusion questions because they know they're bleeped when it comes to obstruction. so a subpoena would be the natural next step are go prosecutor or investigator, right? >> robert mueller was trying to play nice which is what prosecutors usually do. again, if the subject says i'll be interviewed but let's limit it by this time or this place, that's what bill clinton told ken starr and they worked it out. donald trump is not able to work it out. again, knowing the way that he goes off when he's asked questions. no responsible lawyer would let him go in and talk to robert mueller without a fight. so there's nothing wrong with this fight from due process standpoint. again, the only concern is if it goes to the supreme court how that court will respond.

>> a subpoena would have to be signed by the deputy overseeing the probe, rod rosenstein. >> and there's so much when you think about the stakes of this election, one of the things that is very much at stake is the question of, of what will donal trump do. eddie glaude was talking about it earlier, i don't know what donald trump is going to do. democrats take control of both, trump is unpredictable. but the likelihood, the possibility, the probability, t the plausability and donald trump interprets results as a threat or something that makes him feel like he's empowered. >> or sees someone on fox news to take it as such. >> to start firing people like jeff sessions. does he move down the list and start doing all the things that we ought he's wanted to do for a long time. does he say here's my moment. either i'm so threatened or so

empowered that i have the freedom to do this thing i felt constrained from doing for the last two years and take rosenstein out. >> what do you think would happen? do you think if the house were under control of the democrats that swalwell and the democrats there would restart their russia investigation? >> yes. >> one of the things on the ballot is the question of what russia did in 2016. if we want to know the extent to the russia question, how involved they were and whether it was a conspiracy involving the trump campaign, we need bob mueller to stay on the job. >> and the house committees have their own subpoena power. they're going to start launching subpoena bombs at this white house. i think you'll see an exodus of people in the white house who don't want to deal with that after the midterms. i don't dismiss the idea that trump will just fire mueller outright. i don't think he cares with the constitutional impact of it. he's a survivalist first and foremost and he's seen him as a threat from the very beginning.

no one knows what bob mueller has done but bob mueller. that article i was very jealous of, it had great forensic work in it. it clearly -- rudy giuliani shut up around mid-august and he had been the only one telling this narrative we were negotiating a letter. bob mueller has subpoena power. he doesn't have to do a written agreement with them. if those questions are uncomfortable and get to things like the president's finances, which they appear to, which is the third rail of this. i don't think trump cares about collusion. you know, he recognizes that he might have obstructed justice. but the real heavy metal in this comes into any financial dealings he's had with russia and the extent to which that established quid pro quos between his tecampaign, his transition team or the white house. >> and he doesn't think he's capable of colluding because as everyone around the campaign

said at the time we couldn't collude with our press office. but that is spin. if you look at "the washington post" story reporting on steve bannon being back in with mueller's investigators for more than 20 hours, bannon is one of the key, i guess, witnesses in talking about what the campaign knew and when they knew it about the hacked dnc e-mails. it seems like it's still -- >> roger stone is under the magnifying glass. >> roger stone knew about this stuff before it happened. >> he possibly engineered a big portion of it. >> he knew the damaging e-mails about hillary clinton would be leaked before it happened. he knew the damaging e-mails from john podesta would be leaked before they happened. at the lowest point of the trump campaign when those "access hollywood" tapes were released, very damaging to donald trump, two hours later, wikileaks releases these damaging e-mails with hillary clinton trying to change the subject. >> that they had been signaling

for two weeks prior. >> if roger stone knew about that, if the trump knew about that, that's collusion, which the president needs to be very concerned. if the republican senate steps up, if there's evidence, he could be removed from office just on that basis. >> and we know robert mueller has charged 13 russians with a conspiracy to impact the 2016 election. isn't he just waiting for that one last dot to connect it to the trump orbit? >> i think so. i think before we got into the heat of the midterms, folks were talking about he's shrinking his office, lawyers are leaving, he must be close to concluding. mueller's investigation. we were reporting that. then we knew they were going to go silent. but what i love about this story is that it reveals that mueller is still there, right? he's still moving. >> and that he's a process guy. >> he's going by the book and has the engineering of the court behind him. >> but it goes back to something i said earlier. if donald trump -- if there's a blue wave, if mueller drops his decision and it seems like it's

anything afterno negative, i just in my gut, all hell is going to break loose. >> i'm not sure we're not already there. what do you think roger stone's next six weeks hold? >> well, everything from people who are smarter than me and actually have law degrees, i'm like i pretend like i have one sometimes, but all the signs seem to suggest he's going to get indicted. what actually he did is such complicated -- i spent various amounts of time with roger stone. the problem is that you have two different things in him that make him complicated to read. one is that he is a pathological liar. and the other is that he's also the master of braggadocio and a proud master of the dark cards. that combination for everyone who covered this campaign, the question of is roger stone trying to instatimate that he h much more connection to the campaign than he has or he's trying to wave you off and has

much moere connection. but proud dark arts, pathological liar and someone who boasts and is spinning the actual truth is something that bob mueller knows but no one else does. it's possible donald trump doesn't even know. >> there is a trial rurj stone. >> he's bringing in to the grand jury what roger stone says. the next six weeks roger stone is wearing an orange jumpsuit. >> i like that smile on your face when you said that. >> he'll be brought to justice. >> you can tell we're all riled up guys, thanks for hanging out for us. we have to sneak in one more break. we'll be right back. ory to the . ride hailing, car sharing, carpooling... ...mobility services are proliferating. and there's a new generation who don't seem to want to own cars in the first place. it all means massive disruption to the car industry, cities, businesses and investors.

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we are nothing without our guests so i thank john heilemann, eddie glaude, tim o'brien and paul butler. that does it for our hour. i'm nicolle wallace. "mtp daily" starts right now. hi, chuck. >> what are we without guests? >> nothing. you've got political analysis. i've got nothing. >> no, no, no, stop. thank you, nicolle. if it's wednesday, it's almost the witching hour. ghoul evening, i'm chuck todd here in washington, happy halloween. six days to go, think about that. right now it looks like they're giving out full-size candy bars on the democratic side with nancy pelosi going as the next speaker of the house. in fact i think that's her costume