my bookkeeping degree. what? that's what you do, right, when you're spending eight years in federal prison? that's what i was facing for insider trading. eight years of my life... (imitates shooting sound) wasted if she hadn't saved me. so the way i see it, liv's a good person, and if a good person has to do something bad for the right reasons, i'm down... with... that. so i don't know the hows i don't want to know the whys. i just come to work every day thankful as all hell i didn't have to earn a bookkeeping degree. hmm? mmm. (projector and camera shutter clicking) (tv playing indistinctly) i don't understand why you have to get gas tonight. it'll save us time in the morning. (woman) ...embroiled in a scandal this week involving

in a washington, d.c. home... (volume increases) police were called to the scene where lavich was pronounced dead, the victim of what appears to be a freak heart attack. (huck) earlier tonight i went out. i went out hard, drank a lot of whiskey. i wish i could say i didn't enjoy it, that i felt sick to my stomach, that i couldn't even look at myself in the mirror afterwards, but i can't say that, because it was... it was perfect. and that kind of perfection doesn't make me feel weak, it makes me feel strong. (exhales) i looked at myself in the mirror, and i finally recognized that person i once knew so well, that person who went out all the time, sometimes just for fun. and now that i've seen that person again,

(camera shutters clicking, reporters shouting at once) (man) mr. president! (camera shutters continue clicking) you gonna miss me? that was an asinine thing you did today. worked out well for me this time, but the next time you cross me-- careful. you don't want to threaten me. 'cause i might actually get angry. now say good-bye to our child. you never miss a beat, do you? (chuckles) (reporters continue shouting at once) good luck in tokyo! i love you! (shouting continues) (humming)

all when i broke in earlier. what are you-- you can't just break in-- you--what are you-- what the hell? is this something, you and me? is it? are you just having fun? is this just sex? or is this real? or... is this something? (sighs) this is something. then we should talk about what's going on with olivia pope. i've been focused on quinn perkins. i've been focused on olivia pope. i've been wrong. (projector and camera shutter clicking) (david) they know things. they're involved, sure. but the murder of those seven people at cytron software... (projector and camera shutter clicking) it's bigger than them-- much bigger. 'cause why is jesse tyler,

ing) 11 times the week he's blown to bits? maybe they were old friends. maybe he's related to the guy. one of the grant administration's biggest donors? wake up and smell the cover-up, abby. this is a conspiracy. who knows how high up it goes? sure do you appreciate you making the time, friends. so what do you think? i think oswald acted alone, i think 9/11 was just a terrorist attack, and i think a.i.d.s. is a crappy disease, i think "conspiracy" is a strong word. (sighs) i hear we have a david rosen issue. that we do, livvie. that we do.

(sighs) (projector and camera shutter click)

>> dickerson: welcome back to "face this." i'm john dickerson. i'm joined by alfonso aguilar, facebook news contributor tammy bruce and matt schlapp of the american conservative union and russell moore. russell, i want to gok locker room talk. when there are indelible molts that are happening here that some conservatives i talk to say we can't get back from. on this question of character, you have people saying, you know, what donald trump said was just what gets said in any old locker room, normalizing that behavior. i spent a lot of time covering conservatives who talked a lot about character. what happened to the character question? >> i think what we're seeing right now is the warnings of the old religious right have come through about the course of our

on television dismissing essentially what happened with monica lewinsky, even when he admitted to it and then attacking ken starr and thinking, aren't the democrats are going to be morally outraged by this, and they weren't. now we're seeing the situation where you have horrific talk about sexual assault and boasting and glorying these things, which isn't a one off. this has been happening for a long time in the way he's been talking, and you see people trying to dismiss it as just locker room t alpha male, as one person said, this is the way men talk. i'm hearing from a lot of women who are horrified not just about what happened with donald trump, they know what donald trump is about, but by leaders who are silent or who are dismissive about this. i think that, forget what's happening in this election, that is going to have a long-term implication for the rest of the country. >> dickerson: tammy, address that idea of leaders being silent, but then also donald trump has talked about his

tough words about those acsers and evaluated them on their attractiveness, which seems to be the thing that got him in trouble in the first place. >> it's really good we're not electing a husband or a boyfriend. we're electing a president. if you're in the ambulance and you're going to the trauma center and there is a trauma surgeon, i'm not particularly going to care how that person is going to be speaking that. person is going to get do you live another day to, be able to get out of that emergency room, to be able to function the next day. now, look, i can tell you the obamas p marriage since the reagans in the white house. mr. obama clearly does not offend anyone when it comes to the nhl of how he speaks about women or people. this nation is now going down the drain. and while i would prefer to have president reagan back, we don't, so what i'm looking at is i'm voting for mr. trump for the thousands of women who deserve to not be murdered as an example by the one of the 1.2 million illegal criminals, illegal

it's about economic freedom. it's about the job. again, i mentionled earlier the 3.7 million women in poverty since obama became president. of course we would prefer fabulousness at every level. from mr. trump, i prefer to be offended by him on occasion than left for dead by hillary. >> we keep going to this question about what does somebody who believes in strong traditional values in the culture, i agree with some much of what you said about what we w has happened in the culture, but when i talk to people, first of all, they're completely offended by the e-mails that were released about them mocking catholics and christians. that was reprehensible. we should cover that more. but second of all, christians are no longer a necessary thing, we're going to bring back traditional classroom, we're going to bring prayer in the classroom. they want to be left alone with their first amendment rights, be able to practice their faith fully in the job, in their home,

children, forcing nuns to buy contraception and these strange permutations that the obama-clinton policies have us in have christian voters of faith in a different position. they will support in many cases, not all case, someone like donald trump because they think he will stand up and fight. >> dickerson:>> i think it's mod than that. inside the beltway, i hear voters saying this is a binary choice. i know hillary clinton and he being controlled by liberal activist judge, you have to vote for trump. but the truth is, in america, different from other countries, this is not italy where you have silvio berlusconi who is something with women and then his poll numbers go up. this is america. and character counts. you always consider character as paramount. the president of the united states is a moral reference. so, yes, i'm appalled at hillary clinton, her scandals, her lies,

but to choose donald trump just because he's the anti-hillary, i just think that a lot of us are going to come out and just leave that part of the ballot blank. we have too many candidates in this primary. despite our differences, the frustration here is that possession point our differences, we know that if we have a serious candidate, we should be winning this election with all the scandals, everything that's coming out of wikileaks. her candidacy would have been derailed. >> dickerson: r a republican, and a lot have broke within the nominee after this tape came out, who is taking the moral position, the better moral position, the person who says i have a fixed set of standards, these break them, or the person who says i'm going to support donald trump, he's the nominee of my party and i'm pledged to the party and i'm going to support him whom has the moral high ground? >> i can understand the person who is wrestling with his or her conscience and i'm going to choose one or the other because of a lesser of two evils. i don't agree but i can

than the people who are standing up and saying, well, we're not electing pastor. we're not electing a sunday schoolteacher. we're not electing a choirboy. we're electing someone who is simply going to be as mean and as tough as possible, and to act as though we fight lack of integrity and character with more lack of integrity and character, i think that is going to... >> but we can't avoid the fact -- >> that goes directly to my comment about who we are electing. i think it is important to think about women and character when we move foar talk about jobs, the nature of who will build up the business in this country, the issue of regulations and tax, that is... you want to talk about an assault on women? the assault on women is destroying small businesses, having women live in their parents' basement until they're 30, the destruction of hillary clinton, our hospitals and doctors. so this does matter. and it is about hiring someone at this point because we're in

future. for every woman watching making a decision, vote with the women and vote with the future in mind r yourself and your daughters. the future is surviving so we can continue the greatness of this country. >> dickerson: the charge i hear is that these don't happen in silos. when you don't respect the boundaries on the character front, that your ability to solve things in just the way tammy suggests is actually also eroded. that was the claim that's been made in other character instances. why isn't that the case? >> i'm with the doctor i think your character matters. i don't think you can privatize your character. i think it does permeate to what kind of president you're going to be, and what i know and what i've seen of donald trump, he's somebody who looks at the last seven and a half years of barack obama, and he woke up and got a lot more serious. he realized this country was going down the drain. i think he's lived a big, flamboyant life. i'm sure he's done tons of things we would all object to. but as he says, he is who he is.

for one. she says bill clinton will run the economy. he was impeached. they were dead broke because they paid $850,000 to paula jones. they paid over $1 million in fines and semghts in fees. he was disbarred. he wasn't allowed to go to the supreme court. >> and she's bragging. >> the idea that the clintons would make the moral case and the character case is absurd, and i think many voters realize that. >> dickerson: but it's standard. >> but she's bragging in the wikileaks about the importance of being two-faced. 's >> if this is more serious on the trump side, i think many americans are saying... >> but the obama marriage and character disputes that about the nature of what's going to save this country, and perhaps even just for four years, the steps we need to take to right her. >> dickerson: we'll have the leave it there. i'll thank our panellives and we'll talk next about hacking and e-mails and all the other news in the political world. news in the political world. stay with us.

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we've enclosed a picture of our son so that you can get a sense there are real people out here trusting you with their hard-earned money. ? at fidelity, we don't just manage money, we manage people's money. ? >> dickerson: and we've assembled an all-star panel to talk politics. mauer -- maureen dowd is an op-ed columnist for "the new york times." her new book out is called "the year of voting dangerously." bob woodward's latest book is

"destiny and power." and dave ignatius is a columnist for the "washington post." jon meacham, i want to start with you about a piece you wrote in the "new york times" about the difference between george herbert walker bush and the current republican nominee. there is a big difference in a pretty short time period. >> to paraphrase henry adams, the movement from george h.w. bush to donald trump disproves darwin. it's a remarkable dissent, whether you agreed or disagreed withrg politically, he was a figure of enormous public grace and dignity and empathy. he knew how to play politics. he knew how to hire tough people. he ran a tough campaign in 1988. so this is not a case for st. george of kennebunkport. what it is a case for is that this is a man who when confronted by the vicissitudes of politics, he almost always did the right thing and tried to put the country first.

from where we are right now? you have drusmg talking about a rigged election with 23 days to go before. how do you see trump in the sweep of history? >> well, i frequently disagree with jon, but i agree on this. this is an amazing, appalling election, and, you know, the idea that you're reduced to the discussion of when did he grope d did he grope is absurd. and it is a true shame for the voters that people are not getting answers to questions like "how might you use military force?" "what's the job of the c.i.a.?" "how would you organize your white house?" "how do you keep from letting the white house become a bunker

those things don't come up. >> dickerson: maureen, you've covered bill clinton and you're watching this unfold. donald trump responded to his accusers by calling them sick, by suggesting one of them wasn't attractive enough for his attention. where do you... how do you see that? >> well, it's funny because bob said to me once, we went to the premier of 2 movie "nixon," and he said that every president gets the psychoanalyst he deserve, but now the whole country has become psychoanalysts. we're all trying to analyze trump's behavior, and he brought some women who were bill clinton accusers and sat them in front of hillary clinton for the debate, which i think was one of the most bizarre things any of us have ever seen. and his argument was that they hadn't, you know, been treated as credible enough. and then when he has this cascade of women accusing him, he just suddenly, you know, begins trashing them and saying they can't be believed.

there's no logic in trump world. he lives in his own alternative universe where logic doesn't apply. and as one of his good friend said, "donald does as donald wants." >> dickerson: david, i want to ask you about this question of russian hacking, the e-mail, the other story we've been talking about today. first of all, what does the u.s. government think about what's actually happened? the connection between the russian government and what we've seen coming out of wikileaks? >> since july this is when the first evidence that the national committee surfaced. there's been a big debate within the obama administration about how west to respond. and after a lot of back and forth, the decision was made, we need to state as much of what we know publicly as we can. so a week ago he had a formal statement by the director of national intelligence, james clapper, and the secretary of homeland security, jeh johnson, essentially accusing russia of

then put them enter our political debate in an election year for the purpose of destabilizing. then on another network show today, we have the vice president, joe biden, taking it a step further and saying we intend to send a message to the russians through our actions not to do this ever again, and when he's pressed, he kind of smiles and says he hopes the public won't know about it and there will be covert action. i'm told this morningy government officials that no action has yet been taken by the united states. there were some stories out immediately after the first accounts of what was said suggesting it had already begun. currently it hasn't, and they're still debating what will be most efficacious. what do you do that deters the russians without hurting yourself more in prot process. i think they want to prevent the russians from doing even more in

>> dickerson: i've been talking to clinton officials and they bring up the word watergate. i ask you, they say, if nixon had said, oh, this is great what they found by breaking me in and i'm going to use this in my campaign, it would have been pretty shocking. they say people should be equally shocked at the trump campaign using to their benefit the findings of this hacking. >> well, but watergate was a domestic crime, clearly a crime. in this case it's espionage, at least at this point. buth look at what the e-mails tell us. and i'm be no means have read them all, but i have read some. and it was one where hillary clinton's chief speechwriter sent to cheryl mills, the chief of staff in the state department saying, oh, hillary's changing her position on the keystone pipeline, and let's leak that so she won't have to say it herself publicly.

concealment, the fail year to have straight talk, and it's quite likely hillary clinton's going to win and be the next president. i think the question becomes for her and for voters: is she going to be able to govern? you talk to lots of people who are her supporters, and they say, you know, she may be elected, but she will be a weak president. and part of this is she's face and... this isn't just about trump. it's about her. majority of the people distrust her, and she needs to... she can't walk away from that question. >> dickerson: maureen, did you in these e-mails when you see what bob is talking about, the xl pipeline, trade, other things, where there is shifting and shading, trying to hide her or divert, does that look like politics as especially, or is

clinton stuff? >> it's hard because the crazy transgressions of donald trump kind of relatively speaking make this seem minor. i think it would be more lethal during the primary, but the part to me that's almost poignant is hillary clinton has been trying for 25 years to show who she is to the public and getting memos from her staff. so we see the same memos from her staff now that she got in '92 saying, we're going to... in a spontaneous -- they're always scripghtsding spontaneity, right? so we're going to have this spontaneous moment where bill and chelsea surprise you on mother's day. so now we have near a tandem sending one saying, we're going to have an end-of-summer party where you'll groove to the music. she can groove to the music and she can have a beer. it's just sad. they have... you know, they have

scripted out for her for reporters with the cue to smile. it's sad. >> dickerson: john, when asked a question about governing versus campaigning, in campaigning you want candidates to be straight as possible. there is a case hillary clinton tried the make in one of the goldman sachs speeches there should be a distance between the public position you have and the private in order to when you're trying to make deals. you've written about a lot of presidents. is she right about that? >> absolutely she's right. this is not a insight. you go to machiavelli and go even further back. politics is the art of the possible. it is about personal in my -- manipulation in many ways. thomas jefferson would try to tell the person he was talking to, signal the person he was talking to he agreed with them and he would take the best of what they said and try to put with it this other idea that wasn't so great from the other guy and maybe we can get there. so we live in a nation that is

johnson could do that. because ronald reagan could do that to some extent. so there's always a public and a private face. the problem right now is with 23 days to go, you have a woman who... for whom this election was entirely a referendum on trump, it would be over, but as bob says, it is also a referendum on her, and that is why it's so close. >> dickerson: and david, your thoughts about these e-mails? >> well, the interesting. i have to be honest, i find political embarrassment in them. i find characteristics of her closed, tight, scripted political personality, which is familiar to us. i haven't found yet anything i'd call "scandal." and on the question, is she a fundamentally dishonest person, she's certainly a closed person,

dishonesty by the republican candidate, donald trump, so i just make that distinction. the final thing, we don't know what else is going to come out from these e-mails and leaked things in the last month. >> dickerson: 20 seconds. >> that's exactly right. we don't know. if these people, wikileaks or whoever is behind it can hack john podesta, my god, getting to hillary clinton's e-mails, as the f.b.i. now has told us there are 14,900t over that have gone to the state department, so you know, keep your seat belts on. >> dickerson: 22 more days and more disclosures. thanks to all of you. when we come back, we'll go in-depth with our battleground tracker. stay with us. >> their final debate head to head, their final chance to win your vote. the final presidential debate