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>> it's the donald. oh, my god. >> excuse me, where's the lobby? >> down the hall and to the left. >> look like you killed a squirrel to me and put it on top of your head. >> you're fired. you're fired. you're fired. >> that is trump where he's most comfortable, as an entertainer. although he wasn't very entertaining at the al smith dinner. maybe because of his reported exhaustion, which is apparently why he's skipping any more serious interviews. also tonight, kamala harris and trump are in michigan, both with some baggage to overcome. michigan's own michael moore will join me. and the harris campaign is bringing out the heavy hitters. plans are now in place for barack and michelle obama to hit the campaign trail with the vice president next week. by the way, former president obama is getting ready to speak at a harris rally in tucson,

arizona, and we will bring that to you live. >> but we begin tonight with just 18 days left before the election. both vice president kamala harris and donald trump are spending the day in the important battleground state of michigan. it is harris' second day in the rust belt. she chose to speak to voters in wisconsin yesterday, rather than appear last night in person at the annual al smith dinner, hosted by the archdiocese of new york. an event that is typically attended by both presidential candidates during an election year. it usually includes the candidates lightheartedly roasting each other. the vice president did send a video that included molly shannon reprising her "saturday night live" character mary katharine gallagher. >> is there anything you think maybe i shouldn't bring up tonight? >> don't lie. thou shall not bear false witness to my neighbor. >> indeed, especially your

neighbor's election results. >> will be a fact checker there? >> who? >> jesus. and maybe don't say anything negative about catholics. >> i would never do that no matter where i was. that would be like criticizing detroit in detroit. >> trump did appear in person, but you know, maybe he should have sat this one out. while perhaps entertaining some of his supporters, many of his jokes either bombed or were just plain tasteless. >> apparently joe didn't think it was fair for me to have the podium to myself with kamala skipping the event. so he called, looked at me, and said don't. does anybody understand that? yes. i thought it was actually very good until just now. i'm surprised that bill de blasio was actually able to make it tonight, to be honest. he was a terrible mayor. i don't give a shit if this is comedy or not. right now, we have someone in

the white house who can barely talk, barely put together two coherent sentences. who seems to have mental faculties of a child. it's sad. a person that has nothing going. no intelligence whatsoever, but enough about kamala harris. >> mm-hmm. by the way, donald, if you're going to try to make a joke about someone who can barely talk and put two sentences together, maybe you should be able to say the words yourself or risk becoming the butt of the joke, something i know that you're used to. also, imagine being in a room full of catholic clergy and feeling free to drop a cuss bomb. i'm sure he'll ask for forgiveness the next time he goes to church. oh, that's right. he never goes to church or asked god for forgiveness. it was a surprise to see him appear at the smith dinner considering his campaign has been pulling him out of events and interviews left and right, including can 60 minutes, cnbc,

nbc, and a rally with the trump friendly nra. politico reported today trump was also in talks to sit down with a social media outfit, the shade room, but like the others, that fell through. politico writes, a trump adviser told the shade room producers that trump was exhausted and refusing some interviews but that could change at any time, according to two people familiar with the conversations. vp harris responded to that report from the campaign trail. >> i have been hearing reports that his team at least is saying he's suffering from exhaustion. and that's apparently the excuse for why he's not doing interviewed and of course he's not doing the cnn town hall. he refuses to do another debate. and you know, look, being president of the united states is probably one of the hardest jobs in the world, so we really do need to ask if he's exhausted being on the campaign trail, if he is fit to do the job. and i think that's a question that is an open ended question that he needs to answer.

>> do remember, this comes from the oldest nominee ever to run for president, who is unwilling to release his medical records and who claims just three days ago that he's far healthier than all of the other former presidents and kamala harris too. i don't know, maybe he's canceling all these interviews because he's just afraid of having to take real challenging questions from those who are not his maga sycophants. that could explain why he went back to his safe space this morning on the comfy couch at fox where he was giving free reign to say whatever he wants to his frsincluding the ones sitting beside him on the sofa. >> i am the most stable human being. remember, they said a stable genius. i'm the most stable human being. i hate to talk that way, but we can't let this woman get in. it's two people, and she's -- you're talking about unstable, she's a whack job. >> he also let it slip that some people over at fox helped write some of the so-called jokes he delivered last night at the smith dinner, and he gave an

open endorsement to a key element of project 2025 on education. >> we're going to take the department of education, close it. i'm going to close it. we'll have one person, could be if you you decide to retire. >> let's say you have a liberal city, and they decide, oh, we're going to get rid of that history. we have new history, this is america built of the backs of slaves on stolen land. >> then we don't send them money. >> people may wonder how we got here. that somebody this incapable could possibly return to the oval office. for that, you can look at his performance on fox this morning, which is a reminder that he is ultimately nothing more than a television performer. being on tv is his comfort place, and that is largely because of his time on "the apprentice." if thought for that show, which created the fictional tv version of trump that audiences saw, he may never have wound up in the white house in the first place. speaking to producers on the show, "the new york times"

pointed out last month how apprentice producers had to cover for trump who at times had no idea what was going on on the show. especially when it came to firing someone. the times writes, quote, for those moments when mr. trump's choice threatened to reflect badly on him and the show, mark burnett's producers waved their magic wands in the editing bay. our job then was to reverse engineer the show. and to make him not look like a complete moron, he said. they would go back through the tape from the week and selectively choose snippets to make the person who he fired look not as good. joining me now is john d. miller, former chief marketer for our sister network, nbc. this week he wrote in u.s. news and world report about his regret leading the team that marketed "the apprentice." also joining me is tim o'brien, senior executive editor of bloomberg opinion and an msnbc political analyst and pal of the

show. thank you both for being here. great to meet you, mr. miller. i want to read you to yourself. you wrote, we created a monster. trump was a tv fantasy invented for "the apprentice." at nbc, we promoted the show relentlessly. thousands of 30-second promo spots that spread the fantasy of trump's supposed business acumen were beamed over the airwaves to nearly every household in the country. the image of trump was highly exaggerated. in fact, trump declared business bankruptcy four times before the show went into production and at least twice more during his 14 seasons hosting. the opposing board room where he famously fired contestants was a set because the real board room was too old and shabby for tv. i also learned from working for him that he has questionable judgment. at the wrap party for season three, he pitched an idea for the upcoming season. this is wild. he told me we should make a team of black players compete against white players. my first thought was, wtf? talk a little bit about the way that trump was in reality versus

the trump that people saw on the show. >> well, what you see right now is sort of what he was in reality. he was to a large degree someone who was an entertainer. he really was not a good businessman. our job from a marketing perspective for the conceit of the show was to make it seem like he was a legitimate businessman, competent, good judgment, compassion when needed. none of those things were actually apparent, but that's what we had to do to make the show work. and so we created that narrative, made it seem like he was living in royalty with the cars and limousines and helicopter all labeled trump in gold gilded like the gilded new york age. and then had to position him as a great potential ceo. and i say potential because he never really was a ceo. he was a lot of little businesses he had, but to make

the show work, we had to make it seem like that. and unfortunately, that because we just pummeled america with those messages, that remains there right now. and to many people, even though there is significant things that you can see right now where that's not true, many people think it is. and right now, with the economy being one of those things that people are looking at, we made him seem to be a very smart businessman. and quite honestly, that is not true. he wouldn't have had four bankruptcies if he was that good. >> mark cuban is on a tv show, but that's because he's judging other businesses and he's a very successful businessman, and really genuinely rich. but tim, we have talked about this a lot. donald trump is not as rich as he said he was. definitely not that successful. his company was a little series of llcs, he doesn't even own

most of the buildings with the word trump on them. talk about the real donald trump and what do you think was the damage done by people really genuinely believing that trump really was successful? >> i think "the apprentice" was his ticket into the white house. >> absolutely. >> prior to "the apprentice," he was this punch line of jokes about the excesses of the 1980s. he was out in the tundra. no one did big deals with him. he was an afterthought on comedy shows. he was the sort of subject of ridicule and new yorkers knew him as like one of the sort of you float above the city as a feature of new york life, but he wasn't a major real estate developer. the real estate community shunned him. and he had this very fortunate intersection with mark burnett, and mark burnett, who was an immigrant, was selling blue jeans in california and read "art of the deal" and it was like his bible to the american dream, and he always thought, he told me this, that he would one

day do a show that embodied the spirit of "the art of the deal." it's a book, a nonfiction work of fiction. >> that trump didn't even write. >> it's full of errors and mythologizing and presenting him as a great deal maker when he wasn't a great deal maker. he routinely got taken to the cleaners by other deal makers. he overpaid, went into debt, went into bankruptcy, and then "the apprentice" rolled around, via mark burnett, and he gets re-created as this entrepreneurial guru to the masses when in fact he was a serial bankruptcy artist. his real office in trump tower, a relic of the 1980s, shag carpeting. >> i interviewed somebody who was a contestant on one season of "the apprentice," who said it was shocking to see how shabby the board room was. >> and he still wears the same suits and ties. >> that are down to his knees.

>> baked in amber of that era, and i think the myth of him being an unusually gifted businessman is what sold him to voters in 2016. >> and they still do, you still hear people say, i'm going to vote for him because he's a businessman and understands the economy. let's play a clip from "the apprentice." this is a moment when he showed who he really is, the vile person he is. >> i at this point am the team choser. >> excuse me, you dropped to your knees. >> yes. >> and begged to do this. i said i'm looking around the room, and even la toya thought maybe -- >> a pretty picture, you dropped to your knees. >> that was a glimpse of the real him. >> that got into the celebrity apprentice at that point, where it sort of got into the later seasons. he didn't do -- the people he didn't know, he could do that harder, but going back to the casting, the reason that donald trump got cast, because almost no other ceo would do it.

>> they didn't have the time because they had real jobs and money. >> and dignity. >> he needed the money, right? >> at that point because he was bankrupt, yes. and the black versus white thing, when he told me about that, i had to basically had to think about how do i do it because you don't want to make him mad, but at the same token, i had to say, what are you, crazy? i said i can see why you think that would be a noisy idea because everyone would be talking about it. >> was the idea that he thought it would prove some sort of racial superiority of white people? >> it probably was. i said you're going to lose money because you make most of your money off integrations and no company will want to touch it. >> the other piece about it is that he's also -- he benefits from a level of sick ofancy that i think most people can't imagine having to deal with in real life. this is stephen miller, the architect of his child separation policy commenting on

his performance at the al smith dinner. that was the single best comedy performance of any president or candidate for president in any history. but what it make even more extraordinary, the jokes were politically devastating for kamala. he absolutely crushed the democrats tonight. he did the same thing about the disastrous bloomberg interview where he couldn't even explain tariffs and said it was the greatest interview any political leader has done in our lifetimes, period. he has people doing that for him all the time. >> because to survive in his orbit, you have to kiss the ring. and he tends to attract c-minus people. >> that guy definitely is that. >> i think in both his business life and political life, he's never had first rate people who are much sought after talents. what he has are people who either think they can take advantage of him, they usually are proven wrong, or they are people who are just sublevel and they think they can get into the spotlight and ride his coat

tails and they know to stay there, you have to bend the knee, cisthe ring. >> he's the single easiest person to manipulate i have ever worked with. the easiest thing, he has an unfillable hole for compliments. things that would make people blush and say too much, that never happens to him. you can do it in grand doses and when you do that, he is your genius. and called me many times a genius. i'm a good marketer, i don't know if i'm a genius, but if you disagree with him, you're an idiot. i don't think i'm an idiot either. quite honestly, it was black or white with him. >> he does it now where to try to explain, he says, no one wants to work with kamala harris. no one wants to work with her, but most of the people who worked with him don't want anything to do with his new campaign. he says, they were terrible people. i fired them because they were awful. >> the fact is she's attracted to her campaign some of the best operatives.

>> did it surprise you when the gimmick that made him famous made him president? that he became president? >> yes. less surprising than disturbing, because i knew i was complicit in it. and that was difficult to do. the reason that i'm coming forward now, of course, i was executive for a long time and couldn't speak up at that point. i retired a couple years ago. a few weeks ago, i said what can i do? i i said have to tell this story, and i hope it's not too late, but i helped pull the wool over america's eyes towards a guy that should not be president, should never be president, and should be fired from the whole thing. >> you know who says the same thing? tony schwartz, the guy who really wrote "art of the deal." >> he has a lot of guilt. >> he said exactly the same thing sitting where you're sitting. john d. miller, thank you so much. i appreciate you coming forward. tim o'brien, thank you. appreciate you always. and up next, the crucial

state of michigan with both trump and harris on the trail there today. we'll talk to michigander michael moore about what kamala harris needs to do to win the state, next. in the history of feet. ♪♪ visit bombas.com and get 20% off your first order. what does a robot know... about love? ♪♪ it takes a human to translate that leap in our hearts. into something we can see and hold. etsy. (♪♪) (♪♪) (♪♪) start your day with nature made. and try new zero sugar gummies.

- [narrator] life with ear ringing start your day with sounded like a constant train whistle i couldn't escape. then i started taking lipo flavonoid. with 60 years of clinical experience, it's the number one doctor recommended brand for ear ringing. and now i'm finally free. take back control with lipo flavonoid. okay, our plan was to talk about michigan, but guess who is in tucson, arizona? that would be barack obama, former president of the united states. let's listen in. >> it is good to be back in arizona, good to be back in

tucson. and i appreciate y'all coming out the day before homecoming. as we landed, we saw colorado's buses at the airport. and i know, colorado has a couple good players, but i also know you guys have beaten them twice in a row, so don't bet against the wild cats tomorrow. come on. i love you back. but i am not here just to talk about football. i am here to ask you to vote. for my friend and your outstanding congressman, raul

grealva. for your next member of congress from the sixth district, consisten ingle. for your outstanding next united states senator, ruben gallego. and for the next president of the united states, kamala harris. now, before i get going, you guys have to forgive me. because let's face it, i'm a little out of practice. so i got a little something in my throat. but that's okay. because what i have to say is going to make so much sense that even if i'm coughing a little

bit, i think you're still going to catch what i'm saying here. because here in arizona, voting has already started. you can vote early. or return your mail ballot today. there's no reason to delay. what are you waiting for? and of course, you can vote at your polling place on election day, november 5th. si se puede. just remember to bring your photo id. and i think as reuben mentioned, as ruben mentioned, you need to make a plan. and if you have any confusion, any uncertainty about what your plan is to vote, then you go to

iwillvote.com/az. and then once you have a plan, then you have to make sure your friends and family make a plan to vote too. because together, we have a chance. to choose a new generation of leadership in this country. start building a better and stronger and fairer and more hopeful america. now, we know -- we know this election is going to be tight. and it's going to be tight because a lot of americans are struggling right now. as a country, we have been through a lot over the last few years. we had a historic pandemic that wrecked havoc on communities and businesses. disruptions from the pandemic then caused prices to spike.

and that put a strain on family budgets. and in a lot of ways it felt like the aspirations of working people have taken a back seat to the priorities of the rich and the powerful and the well connected. so i understand why people are looking to shake things up. i get why sometimes folks are frustrated with politics. i'm sometimes frustrated with politics. so i get it. what i cannot understand is why anyone would think that donald trump will shake things up in a way that is good for you. that i don't understand. because, because there is absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but

himself. i have said it before. donald trump is a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down that golden escalator nine years ago. and when he's not complaining, he's trying to sell you stuff. he's got his gold sneakers. he's got the $100,000 watch. says it's a swiss watch, but nobody can actually figure out where in switzerland was this thing made. he's got -- this is my favorite. he's got the trump bible. wants you to buy the word of god, donald trump edition.

his name is going to be on there embossed, right next to luke and mark and matthew. and by the way, i will give you one guess, you could not make this stuff up, where these bibles are made. so mr. tough guy on china except when he can make a few bucks. hawking his trump edition bibles. come on, man. you can't make the stuff up. but he's doing it. and the reason he's doing it is because what he cares about is his ego and his money and his status. he's not thinking