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a very good day to all of you. from msnbc world headquarters in new york. welcome everyone to "alex witt reports" and we begin with decision 2024. with 17 days left in the race to the white house. early in-person voting started in nevada and massachusetts today and in 16 states where americans can personally cast their ballots. more than 12 million voters have already done so, breaking records in georgia and north carolina. vice president kamala harris and former president donald trump were in detroit, michigan yesterday where the polls illustrate the challenge of predicting the outcome of this election. a wall street journal poll shows harris leading trump by two points, well within the four point margin of error. while a quinnipiac poll taken around the same time shows trump leading harris by three points, also within the margin of error. jack smith and judge chutkan were included in trump's

message to voters. >> this guy is a sick puppy. to relay something else and always before the election. this judge is the most evil person. they all said well, make sure you don't get chutkan and who did i get? >> okay. so here's the thing about that. here's the thing about that. the courts are going to take care of that. we are going to take care of november. >> trump battled technical gremlins during his detroit speech when his microphone suddenly left him inaudible. we will have more on that in a moment. his surrogate and financial backer, elon musk, held a town hall in pennsylvania where he admitted to voters that his plan for the department of government efficiency will lead to job loss. >> hopefully if this comes to pass and we are able to take action, we will reduce a lot of

government headcount. we are going to give like very long severance. two years or something like that. look, just go do something else is what we are going to say and you will get paid for two years, you know? >> meanwhile former president obama stumped for vp harris in arizona on friday and he focused on my character is important in a presidential candidate and compared trump to late arizona senator john mccain. >> john was conservative. to put it mildly. ran against me in 2008. talked about me on the campaign trail. but you know what, he understood that somehow you transcend party. he believed in honest argument and hearing the views of other people. he did not demonize his

political opponents. and new this hour, steve kornacki will join us to break down the road to 270. meantime our correspondence or covering new developments from across the country and we begin with dasha burns in chicago. >> reporter: both candidates have been pounding the pavement in the home stretch and both have been getting a helping hand from big-name surrogates. elon musk has been stumping for trump. meanwhile former president obama is rallying voters for harris. a battleground blitz. a late night split screen between the two candidates in critical michigan. >> if we win michigan we win the whole ballgame. >> reporter: trump supporters tearing after nearly a 20 minute wait when the former presidents microphone went out. >> hello. >> reporter: the second time in the past week a trump rally turned into a musical interlude.

>> i won't pay the bill for this stupid company. >> reporter: after making headlines after his last visit to michigan for criticizing detroit. >> you want to know the truth? it will all be like detroit. our whole country will end up like detroit if she is your president. >> reporter: trump praised the modal -- motor city. >> kamala and the democrats have been wreaking havoc on this place. >> reporter: meanwhile vice president harris ramping up her attacks on former president trump, once again questioning his fitness to serve after he appeared to doze off during an earlier campaign event. >> his own campaign team is saying it is because of exhaustion. if you are exhausted from the campaign trail, it raises real questions about if you are fit for the toughest job in the world. >> reporter: the vice president addressing a key michigan voting block, thanking arab-americans for their support. >> i know this year has been difficult. >> reporter: calling the death of yahya sinwar a turning point in the war.

>> everyone must seize this opportunity to finally end the war in gaza. >> reporter: as both campaigns continue to battle for black male voters, the vast majority back harris, but former president obama warned she is not getting enough support. >> we are ready for president kamala harris. >> reporter: obama taking to the swing state of arizona last night to target trump. >> there is absolutely no evidence that this man thinks about anybody but himself. >> reporter: former president trump heads to battleground pennsylvania today. he will be crisscrossing the commonwealth all weekend. meanwhile vice president kamala harris will be hitting both michigan and georgia. >> dasha burns, thank you for that report. let's go now to detroit where vice president harris is set to take the stage about an hour or so from now.

she is kicking off the first day of early voting, so what is the campaign's message and focus as michigan voters start to make their choice for president? >> reporter: alex, the focus today is to get out to vote and get excited about voting. the vice president at her events often will say the election is here and that is really the point of this event. not only use celebrity surrogates to drive excitement and get a large group here, but also to take them to the polls and make sure they are voting early. the campaign has focused efforts on appealing to persuadable voters and driving up margins among specific groups that it finds critical to the path to victory. earlier this week there was a focus on black men. we saw her ramp up advertising on different gaming sites to appeal to men. we've also seen an emphasis on tailoring her message to republican voters, moderate voters, swing voters, as she feels they are going to be crucial winning over the nikki

haley voters to her path to victory. we saw that last night in oakland county. that is a suburb that is a battleground that could go either way and you saw the vice president have a specific message regarding support of her campaign from republican leaders. take a listen. >> america is ready to chart a new way forward. ready for a new and optimistic generation of leadership. it is all of you. all of us. which is why democrats, republicans, independents, are supporting our campaign. in fact you may have seen earlier this week, over 100 republican leaders from across the country joined me on the campaign trail. >> reporter: alex, as vice president harris really works to amplify turnout in these battleground states, that is really her focus, appealing to

republican voters. it will continue next week when she holds campaign events with liz cheney. moderated discussions that are intended to win over suburban women and boost support among the critical constituency that could help determine the outcome of the election. >> like you said, lizzo will join her today. the detroit mayor and a bunch of labor leaders. it will be a packed house and we appreciate you telling us all about that. nnamdi, thanks. as we now take a look at kamala harris, she has just spoken with reporters in detroit before taking to the stage where we just saw nnamdi. let's take a listen to what she was saying. >> a great american city with hard-working folks who have grit and ambition and deserve to be respected for all of that and then on monday i will be headed to pennsylvania, to michigan and wisconsin, to spend some time with a great american leader, liz cheney. and talk with folks about why it is important for us to put

country before party and value the very important foundational principles that we stand on, in terms of respecting and upholding the constitution of the united states and the rule of law and the importance of having a president in the white house who actually understands their job and is fit to serve. with that i will take questions. >> reporter: on early voting are you concerned republicans are cutting the democratic strength of early voting and what have you seen of the numbers now and how are you feeling about them? >> what i am hearing is we are seeing record turnout. in georgia for example we are beating all records in terms of early voting and in north carolina. today in michigan i will challenge the folks here to do the same. so i don't yet have enough data to tell you who is voting for who or how they are leaning, but i think it is great that people are turning out and voting, being active.

it is what we should all want in our democracy. that people understand it is their civic duty, but also they can make a difference. >> reporter: i wonder what you think of elon musk getting increasingly involved in the election with his financial contributions to trump's super pac, but also holding campaign events, attending rallies? >> listen. i think that the most important thing that anyone of us could do right now is pay attention to the issues that are at stake and there is a lot at stake. we are looking at, as i say repeatedly because it is true, two very different visions for our country. and donald trump has proven himself to be increasingly unstable and unfit and he is trying to take us backward. he is someone who demeans the american people. who has no actual plan for uplifting the middle-class. no actual plan that is about any sense of optimism and who the american people are and what we are capable of doing

and i think that that is really what is most important in these remaining, i believe 17 days to the election, which is focusing on the issues themselves and reminding the american people they not only have a choice, but they have the power to decide the future of our country through this election. >> reporter: so yesterday you called day she has faced tremendous backlash since you mentioned his name at the rally and obviously there is a lot of turmoil within the arab- american and muslim communities in michigan. do you think you could lose the election because of gaza and what, you know, overnight there were more strikes. 32 more people were killed in gaza. some in hospitals. you know, how risky is it that you could lose the election? >> well, it is undeniable that it is something that everyone is aware of, what is happening there. i speak publicly all the time

about the fact that there are so many tragic stories coming from gaza and of course the first in this phase of everything that has happened, the first and most tragic story is october 7 and what happened that day and then what has happened since. i think what is critically important as we look at this moment is one, acknowledging the tragedy of what has happened in gaza in terms of the extraordinary number of innocent palestinians who have been killed and taking that seriously and speaking truth about that. in addition to what i said about what happened on october 7 in terms of 1200 innocent israelis being slaughtered and then fast forward to today with the killing of yahya sinwar. this creates an opening that i believe we must take full advantage of, to dedicate ourselves to ending this war

and bringing the hostages home. >> reporter: but it is not working so far? >> listen. as it relates to the issue in the middle east, it has never been easy. that does not mean we give up. it is always going to be difficult. it does not mean we give up. we can't give up. >> one more from npr. >> reporter: you have been doing some more rapid response i would call it, responding to him in near real time in recent days. it feels like something slightly different from the way you are handling it before and i was wondering why that shift? >> he is becoming increasingly unstable and unhinged and it requires that response. the american people are witnessing it in real time and we must take note of the fact that this is an individual who wants to be president of the united states and i think the american people deserve better than someone who actually seems to be unstable. thank you all.

>> okay, there you see the vice president. she took a number of questions from the journalists assembled ahead of that rally in detroit and a wide range of topics, but getting some various serious questions. some very serious and thorough answers. we will see more of what she does in detroit, 45 minutes or so from now, but right now we will go talk about early voting, because that is also underway in battleground nevada. the harris-walz campaign deploying star power with former president obama rallying this evening and we have steve patterson in las vegas, talking to voters for us. welcome, my friend. how is the turnout where you are? >> it is looking good. nevada a critical swing state in the race for electoral votes, but that could absolutely make the difference and i think people here know that and they feel that. early voting has been going on for an hour or so in this state and already turnout has been pretty good.

we can't take you to close because of campaign rules, obviously, and also this line was much bigger before, i promise you. stretching all the way down the sidewalk to these palm trees, but still people responding very well. the line was really long this morning and i think people understand how important this election is. immigration, reproductive rights is on the ballot here. big issues, but the number one thing has to be the economy. this place suffered more and recovered less than just about any other state in the nation from the pandemic. it is entirely dependent on the service industry. unemployment, 5.5%, worse than any other state. inflation hitting the state particularly high. gas is more expensive. groceries are more expensive. these are not theoretical things voters are worried about, this is stuff hitting them every day in their pocketbook, so that is critical to the state and who people are voting for. i spoke to folks about how important it is this election. here is what they told me, listen to this.

>> this country is down the drain because of our government and who is running the government. >> reporter: you think it is time for a change? >> time for a change, going back to donald j. trump. >> i want someone who will do it for me. that is why they are there. they are there for me, not anyone else. not to pad their pockets. not anything else like that. they are there for us. i want somebody there who will do that. >> reporter: can i ask you think that somebody is? >> kamala harris without a doubt. >> reporter: the margins are razor thin. it is essentially neck and neck in the state. this is one of the true purple states and people actually meet it. 40% of the electorate are nonpartisan voters, higher than republicans or democrats. you have two democratic senators. you have a republican governor. people really vote on the issues, although it has been blue in the last few elections. since 2004 folks here have voted for a democrat. >> steve patterson, i know we

will see you again. thank you, my friend. we are back in 90 seconds. steve kornacki will boil it all down for us on the road to 270. that is next. later, the obama factor. hear more of what he said last night. how much of an impact can he make?

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critical swing states. several have already been setting records and the road to 270 electoral votes will likely come down to the seven battlegrounds. national political correspondent steve kornacki has a look at the lay of the land today in this razor thin race. steve. >> reporter: all right, we are in the home stretch, truly. coming up on two weeks left in this campaign, if you can believe it, so let's take a look at where things stand in the road to 270. the seven core battleground states. we have them in that tossup category right now. everything else going with who is expected to win. we will see if there are any surprises, but things will start with the core battleground states. now we have been tracking and continue to track the average of all of the polls within those states. the headline is they are close. they are super close. almost all, the averages are almost all within one point. talking fractions here. so to give you a sense here. we say this is a close

election. i can't remember all the times the battlegrounds were that close. to give you a sense of it, if we assigned the states here to give you a sense of the lay of the land, based on where the averages are right now, here is what it would look like. there are two states where harris does average, a very slight lead over trump. those states would be wisconsin. and pennsylvania. so if harris were to win those states that would give her 255 electoral votes. in the others, trump does have some kind of lead. again, very, very small, but just to give you a sense of it if trump were to get michigan, if you are to get carolina. if you are to get georgia, which he only lost by about 12,000 votes in 2020. arizona was about 10,000. nevada was more distant, but republicans have long felt that was within reach.

that would put trump at 283. that is what it adds up to right now, but when i say it is close here is what i'm talking about. in michigan the average lead for trump is 1/10 of one point. in nevada which you see right here, one 10th of one point. just take a look here. if it flipped over for harris, now suddenly harris is hitting 270. trump is underneath that number. that is smaller. it is just six electoral votes. if trump were to lose in nevada, but still hold michigan, he would be over it. nevada, much smaller than the rest of the battleground. again, that is between nevada and michigan. 2/10 of one point. that is the combined advantage trump has and again, if they are read in this scenario, trump is over red and blue,

harris is over it. the headline is not so much that this is a prediction. the headline is that each one of these states, really, is at that level where if it swings one way, swings the other way, it can completely blow up this map. it is fun to follow because it is so unpredictable, alex. >> i don't know about one, but thank you so much, steve kornacki. joining me now is peter baker, correspondent for the new york times and msnbc legal analyst. and megan hayes, former director of message planning. i don't know, you guys. i was having a slight anxiety attack watching that. i can't believe how close this is and peter, as you consider the unpredictability that steve kornacki was describing, again, 17 days out from election day and now we have 12 million early votes already cast. are you seeing any kind of significant shift in campaign tactics? >> look. you saw kamala harris was asked a few minutes ago about calling

out donald trump's comments more aggressively lately. she is definitely trying to pivot to make the future of democracy more of a theme. that was a biden favorite and she had actually pivoted to more of a let's make fun of them, let's talk about how weird they are and talk about how joyful we are moving forward. a lot of votes that biden had lost, but now she had a ceiling and is trying to get those remaining uncommitted people who don't like donald trump, clearly, because they have had him in their sites for eight years. reminding them how much they didn't like trump and why they did not like trump and what kind of threat she believes he poses to the country. >> indeed and picking up on that, kamala harris has also been honing in on the message that donald trump is unstable. to peter's point, dangerous to democracy. picking up on a prominent theme from president biden's campaign. let's listen to what she said.

take a listen. >> donald trump is unfit for the office. he is unstable and frankly he is a danger to our democracy. as has been said by people who worked closely with him even when he was president, he is unfit to be president of the united states. he said he will target and punish those who disagree with him or refuse to bend to his will. he calls these americans the enemy within. >> clearly that was a mashup of things she has said recently this week, but she reiterated that moments ago and given everything overall we are seeing on the trump campaign trail, how effective is this now? has example upon example for the voting public to consider taken root? >> i think so. i think they are reminding people what four years of a donald trump presidency was like. it is unfortunate that people

have a short-term memory, but they do. people move on in their lives and you need to remind people how chaotic he was, how unstable he was. he is getting more unhinged. i do think it helps people who are undecided and not just people who are undecided of who they will vote for, it is people who are undecided if they will vote at all. she is trying to give people a reason to vote in general and i think that is an important distinction. >> trump allies are reportedly concerned about meandering speeches and personal attacks on kamala harris. politico reports his campaign declined an interview because trump was, here's the quote, exhausted. and questions are swirling about his mental acuity after this rally where he was dancing on stage and calling on a playlist for nearly 40 minutes. is he behaving differently? at 78 years old is this a real concern or has trump done this kind of behavior and so he has normalized it?

>> he's always been an unusual character, no question. he's not like a politician we have seen as level before, but i think we have seen a change in the last eight years. we've done a study of his speeches going back to 2016 when he was first running and clearly they have taken a turn. he is more incoherent. he uses more all or nothing language, which a lot of experts say is a sign of aging. he uses more negative terms than he used to, also seen as a sign of advancing age. he uses more profanity, which some people would say fits the term, disinhibition, when you stop feeling inhibited. his speeches are about twice as long now as they were eight years ago. less disciplined and he is obviously not following a script. he is really off the script a lot these days. talking about sharks versus electric boats and making things up.

so many things. i think there are questions about his age. that were not focused on a strongly when biden was still in the race, because biden was even more pronounced in a public and physical way. trump obviously doesn't present the same way as biden, but i do think he fell asleep at his trial. he doesn't do about a quarter of his many rallies that he does now compared eight years ago. is that article showed there are some people who say he is too exhausted to do more than he already has. >> let me say picking up on his use of profanity, i call that not presidential, but that is me. this week after general mark milley was quoted as saying donald trump is fascist to the core, harris began and repeatedly said the term fascist applies to the former president. what is driving harris to support this language publicly? >> i mean it is the truth. it is what people believe and mark milley from my experience

being in the white house around him is he does not mince his words. he means what he said. i think the vice president feels comfortable because she believes this is the truth and i think she wants the american people to take a hard look at who she is running against and who could be the president in charge of the nuclear codes and i think that is a really important thing to continue to drive that contrast on the campaign trail. >> listen, my apologies for the brevity of this, but we can blame kamala harris because we did take her alive earlier. thank you so much. the fallout in the middle east following the death of the hamas leader. leader. to help reverse the 4 signs of early gum disease a toothpaste from parodontax, the gum experts.