tonight a civil war has ignited in the gop. our new poll shows hillary clinton surging to a double-digit lead. also, his own words, what we found in the archives, what trump has said about himself and women. did he predict the trouble to come? >>> drowning in a deluge. frantic high water rescues as towns become swallowed in the hurricane's deadly aftermath. a race to save so many trapped with no way out. >>> and off the shelves -- the major moves from the nation's biggest cell phone carriers, and a big blow to samsung over fears of exploding phones. "nightly news" begins right now. >>> from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt. >>> good evening. 29 days until election day, and our new poll numbers out tonight speak to the urgent crisis exploding inside the republican party from the top down. with donald trump's fortunes fading over his lewd comments about women, a gop civil war has broken out. at its center, party loyalty versus self-survival. the crisis underscored by a new nbc n

republicans are worried could take other gop candidates down with him. our analysts and guests will have full coverage of the top stories. let's begin with the breaking news. a major attack on the internet by per traitors who are still unknown effecting twitter, netflix, spotify among many others. let's get to our chief national security correspondent what are you learning? >> this attack is still under way and growing in the last few moments of a third wave of attack. this started this morning across the northeastern united states knocking down many popular websites, as well as cloud computing, slowing many internet connections to a trickle and spread across the continental united states and jumped the atlantic to europe. dvs attack is where multiple devices are hijacked to bomb bard servers with requests to the point of dropping them down. they are looking at all causes both criminal activity as well as a possible siberiaer as a possible cyber attack by a state actor. adam smith has been briefed on the investigation and says u.s. investigators can dete

focusing only on gop control of congress. even as trump today tweeted ryan shouldn't waste his time on fighting the republican nominee. senator richard burr, up for re-election in north carolina, won't betting it's better to stick by trump's side. >> if we don't allow somebody to be forgiven, who's going illustrating the gop dilemma. go against trump and risk the wrath of his base, or go against him and hope he loses. now it's not just the senate in danger, but the house too. >> it's time for republicans to hit the panic button, because trump could drag them into the political abyss. >> reporter: the republican national committee, silent so far, but outside its headquarters, a graphic display of the gop divide. at a protest, a reference to trump's 2005 comments about genitals. better to grab one, than be one. >> each candidate is running for him or herself. that may include embracing donald trump or not embracing donald trump. >> reporter: ryan's republicans and trump's, a coalition now crumbling. our new polling shows more v

he's in it, even if he doesn't have the gop support. when you have this avalanche, the best word i can describe, the avalanche of, you know, loss of support, the gop saying and even kelly ayotte saying she is willing to write in mike pence. i mean, donald trump is saying he's going to go this alone. he can do that even with just 30 days or does the gop have some option to insist that he either step aside or, you know, catapult mike pence into position. what are the options as it pertains to the gop, if any? >> they are the very conversations taking place. there are options that are being discussed. that law is kind of big how they would approach this. i think that's exactly what is behind closed doors, republican leaders are discussing. as you mentioned, with each and every republican coming out saying no, i'm not going to vote for donald trump, i'm going to write in mike pence, that is significant. we are hearing from leaders within the republican party, the former nominee, mitt romney out campaigning in las vegas. a candidate locks in

dozens of gop leaders have abandoned him. house speaker paul ryan said, i am sickened by what i heard today. senate majority leader mitch mcconnell, these comments are repugnant and unacceptable in any circumstance. congressman jason chaffetz, i'm out, i'm pulling my endorsement. now, i know yo that's the elite or the establishment. there are a lot of people who were trump supporters who have had enough. i guess my question is, if the gop, if leaders were to come to donald trump this week and say, for the good of the party, to save the gop majorities in the house and in the senate, you've got to step down. what will he do? >> donald trump is running for president. he was selected -- many of those their opinion is given a great deal of weight and consideration. but he was selected by millions and millions of republicans who still very much believe in him, who i think are more willing to forgive, maybe, than some others, and more willing to realize that this is a different man today than the man that was reflected in those comm

thank you. >> so that's what a veteran gop senator and a former gop looks like. and mike pence did the right thing how out of fashion that all is. and that's the worry that traditional folks have that somehow the -- a loss will be made to look like a delegitimized election. >> no matter who wins there will be tens of millions of americans and i'm not using that figure hyperbolicly, that someone is a crook or a liar. it's a really challenge for whoever wins and right now you have got in the republican party part of the crackup is donald trump is unleashed extraordinary emotions on the part of many of his followers on issues like trade an immigration where he has changed the face to have republican party and not behaving in a way like mike mens -- pence did to calm things down. >> another eventful and many would argue another dark day in this campaign, terrific discussion however at the end of it hally jackson thank you, robert costa thank you. >>> for the first time, president obama tears into donald trump about his comments about the access holly out takes. >> sh

i feel strongly that the gop is completely tone deaf to one simple fact.ump was probably never the ideal of every person out there voting. we get he's an outsider, he says things clumsily but everyone is willing to overlook, that the majority of republican primary voters were, because they were so completely disgusted with the gop establishment. mr. trump is a product of what paul ryan and his cronies created, and i don't know how in the world they could possibly dream winning those people. >> i do too. charles: we have leave it here. paul ryan has had a stiffer spine in fighting donald trump than perhaps fighting barack obama. >> great point, charles. >> thank you for having me. charles: america is scrambling in fight against isis in iraq and syria. now russia is sounding the alarm over the threat of a nuclear war. talking world war iii. looks like it's already hit aleppo. guess what guys, i switched to sprint. sprint? i'm hearing good things about the network. all the networks are great now. we're talking within a 1% difference in reliability of each oth

does that send a signal of more chaos of what the gop is after this election? i think what they are concern about is holding onto a majority so that there is some level of check and balance on hillary clinton. i don't think there is very many people who know about politics and are watching of the data that's rolling in and believe that hillary clinton is going to be the next president. that's the bed the republican party have made itself by nominating a weak candidate as donald trump. what he is saying is we need to do what we can do in order to try to hold on of the republican majority so that the congress is the last stance against hillary clint clinton's agenda. mike pence is standing by. i want to play a portion of the interview that i have with my colleague, take a look. >> what do you say of my mom of a suburban republican woman who can no longer vote for him because he does not believe in her daughter. >> what i would tell your mom or anybody else is that there are two human beings running in this election and nobody's perfect. i can think one person in

liz: now we've got threats against two other gop headquarters, a bomb threat at gop office in arizonaher threat in utah. forcing those shops to close. executive director of the north carolina gop dallas woodhouse joins me now. do you fear a trend is growing here, dallas? >> i certainly hope not. what happened in our orange county satellite office over the weekend was really horrific. it has really shaken a lot of our volunteers, but we've seen a lot of coming together by republicans and democrats who reached out to us, and we certainly appreciate vice president candidate, he'll be vice president, mr. pence, coming by the site today and thanking our volunteers working around the clock to get their office up and running. you certainly hope this kind of thing doesn't spread. what happened in our area was not a threat, it wasn't throwing a beer bottle through a window. it was a violent act that could have very well killed people. liz: dallas, you know, hillary clinton condemning this, what you call horrific act and other democrats, too. you called the political terrorism, mike pence agree

is the house speaker paul ryan perhaps going to be a casualty of the gop civil war?eaking news. russia is now being blamed for another election cyber attack. this time in a critical battleground state and we're learning some new details. (man) it was his turn to buy the next round. it just happened to be during... (crowd cheers) ...a huge pick six. a play so big, years from now it will be known as simply "the pick." it's a shame, but it's also a badge of honor all true fans must endure. so sprint proudly, my friend, because we get you. and like you, courtyard is all about the game. ♪ on a perfect car, then smash it into a tree. your insurance company raises your rates. maybe you should've done more research on them. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. and if you do have an accident, our claims centers are available to assist you 24/7. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. woman: how do we protect them from $4 billion in new cuts to california schools? man:

gop traitors not supporting you is voting for her destroying america.ccording to brand-new poll from "politico," the vast majority agree 70% saying gop leaders should continue to support their partied current nominee for president. joining me senior adviser to the trump campaign. so you guys, people are calling this is a civil war in the republican party. it doesn't strike me as a civil war. >> no. >> it's a cadre of leadership of the party that turned against trump. the overwhelming majority of the base of the republican party is still with him. >> this is a nothing burger. we've seen this all year, the gop establishment and those who are sour grapes was they wanted nomination and didn't get is, a jeb bush or mike lee who never endorsed trump to begin with. >> what about john mccain? >> he was never really on the trump bandwagon, let's be honest. it's not really news when they suddenly say mr. trump should drop out. of course, he was never really on board. 74% thinks they are at odds. >> say jean-marc is a perfect example. one is this is a principled r

one of those is gop elites. in an interview with "the washington post" hannity specifically name checked house speaker paul ryan calling him a saboteur who needs to be called out and replaced. and saying he would actively urge hardline conservatives to challenge him for the speakership. "the new york times" shows that forces in the trump campaign or on capitol hill are planning to continue their battle against gop leadership after election day. ohio congressman warren davidson told the times you can't ignore what millions of people have expressed in this election cycle. of course, millions and millions of people also expressed virulent opposition to donald trump and many of them live in utah, a state that mitt romney won by almost 50 points four years ago. trump is doing so poorly in utah virtually tied with independent candidate evan mcmullin in a new poll, he had to send his running mate there today less than two weeks before the election. >> the truth of the matter is there's only two names on that ballot tha

which people say within the gop that it's not contrite enough is? did you have that kind of conversation about whether he needs to say more or whether he needs to re-dress his apology? >> in the conversation with me, he did not discuss going further in the apology. actually, he was a little more on the offense. what he said to me is, go behind closed doors of the holier than thou politicians and pundits and see what they're saying. i look like a baby he said. so he was on the offense. he wasn't being more apologetic when he spoke to me. >> and did he say anything to you about what this has done to the campaign? how his advisors are responding? what they're telling him, how his family, his sons, his daughter, what they're saying to him in light of this release of this 2005 video? >> well, of course, he talks about all the support he's getting, all the e-mails, his phone, he said is ringing off the hook. do you know what i asked him -- i have been covering him for more than a year and have travelled with him on the plane. i was just in the campaign he

throughout the year he has kept a distance from the gop nominee, mainly over concert first seal comments that trump has made. but at the same time speaker ryan needs a lot of those trump supporters who are hell-bent at turning out at the november election voting for donald trump. so in this case on today's conference call we saw speaker right saying he will not appear on stage and campaign with donald trump from today until the election day. he will not defend donald trump over these very sexist comments there are caught on a 2005 recording that was released on friday. at the same time, speaker ryan has said he will not go as far as many of his house colleagues have gone and rescind his endorsement. so he is in a difficult spot in the same spot really that he is been in throughout the year. >> it to not take long for trump to response and that paul ryan should spend more time on balancing the budget, jobs, and illegal immigration and not waste his time fighting the republican nominee. your reaction to that. >> it is remarkable that the day after a presidential debate in which donald trum

we are looking at now an avalanche, really within the gop in terms of gop leadership that is taking back support of donald trump and people who are distancing themselves and one is not sure how to interpret what this means when mike pence, the running mate is not going to go in place of donald trump. >> mike pence is very close to the wisconsin republicans. this shows how big of a distraction this video tape has become for the entire republican party for their ability to keep the house, the ability to keep the senate. these republicans down ticket want nothing to do with the top of the ticket. at the wisconsin event, there's a vulnerable senate republican going there. he wants nothing to do with the top of the ticket. >> he was a reluctant backer of donald trump. it took some doing for paul ryan to say i'm going to support this nominee. >> this just burst those divisions right through. it is clear, if mike pence, the republicans are more comfortable with him, they see him as a huge, huge distraction to get past this episode. there's a question whether they will. it will peril their bid f

kennedy: anarchy, the gop lawmakers are instructed to do what they might.ver happened to unity. some say if he' elected he will appoint a prosecutor to make sure hillary goes to jail. >> it's time for order in this court. >> a confident hillary clinton is challenging hillary clinton to comb through her record to

. >> of the gop. >> and the donald trump wing of the gop. >> that's right. >> that are now at war. with each other. where do you fall on this? >> you know, i'm heartbroken by it, alisyn. i don't like to see us at each other's throats. at this point in the campaign i'd like to be focusing on hillary clinton, and what the democrats want to do with what i view to be a pretty radical agenda. >> yes -- >> and i'd like to see us get through this. >> huh. >> and get back to that. >> well, i mean, donald trump's tactics do not seem to be getting through this. he seems to be, you know, he's declared war basically on speaker paul ryan, john mccain. do you think that he can win without those establishment figures? >> well let's just go through what happened here. obviously a tape was released, and some fair weather friends turned their back on the gop nominee. and the gop nominee is not the type of person to talk privately about his -- the fact that he was frustrated by that. he tends to talk in public like he does in private. and that's unconventional. but it's also authentic, and when he's

gop strategist carl rowe. maureen doud, author of the new book, the year of voting dangerously and boy, is it. and jason riley of the wall street journal. carl, let me start with you and the rules of of the republican party. trump says he is not dropping out and apparently it is almost impossible. maybe you tell me i'm wrong for them to force him out. i know that the house gop is going to have a conference call tomorrow morning to discuss all of this. how seriously is the idea of trying to find some way either by force or persuasion to get donald trump to drop out. >> there are two steps to this. they can't force him out, but they could declare him some how ineligible. realistically, the republican national committee can't replace him unless he withdraws then the members of the national committee can replace him. the second problem is the states. we're voting in more than a dozen states. the absentee ballots in several locations and several dozen more. there are ballots prepared in virtually every state and it

tonight a civil war gop. our new poll shows hillary clinton surging to a double-digit lead. >>> also, in his own words, what we found in the archives, what trump has said about himself and women. did he predict the trouble to come? >>> drowning in a deluge. frantic high water rescues as cows become swallowed in the hurricane's deadly aftermath. a race to save so many trapped with no way out. >>> and off the shelf, the major moves from the naon cell phone carriers, and a big blow to samsung over fears of exploding phones. "nightly news" begins right now. >>> from nbc news world headquarters in new york, this is "nbc nightly news" with lester holt. >>> good evening. 29 days until election day and our new poll numbers out tonight speak to the urgent crisis exploding inside the republican party from the top down. with donald trump's fortunes fading over his lewd comments civil war has broken out. at its center, party loyalty versus self-survival. the crisis underscored by a new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll

and the gop will never be the same. >> so this will be the gop of donald trump. what do they do the day after the election if it doesn't go their way? >> a little unclear to me. the extent to which over throw will clearly be a large number of people who vote for donald trump in november. some will vote for him because they vote republican no matter what. however much loyalty they have to trump or trumpism. to me it depends on the margin. a margin of hillary clinton winning 363 electoral votes and beating trump by 8 points, 9 points, it strengthens the hands of these want to turn away from populism and nativism and things that trump has done. there will be a genuine civil war for four years if trump loses narrowly. if he loses narrowly, blood shed and chaos. if he loses by a lot, trumpism could be put down. >> do you see an exile government? do you see if it is not a narrow loss, let's say, do you see a couple guys named bush and mcconnell going to winter green for a sum that first week afterwards and reassembling the old club? >> if he wins or loses? >> if he los

the gop nominee has inappropriately touched that. nominee donald trump has denied all the allegations that come forth so far over the last week. kelly o'donell where paul ryan delivered that speech. kelly, lets talk about the message that speaker ryan had to deliver and the future of what it means to be a conservative or a republican, part of a gop brand. >> reporter: so that's moving rapidly behind us at this campaign. these students submitted in writing their questions and it is understanding from talking to students that paul ryan's team was able to going through those questions and they were presented by a moderator. here paul ryan did not talk about donald trump directly. did speak of tried to lay out of a competing vision going towards republican ideas verses what he critically called a liberal progressivism as a way of taking away liberty. that's the policy part of this. when the students asked questions, they, too were surprising to us of asking how to talk on how to be republicans here at the university of madison. they did

and yet he made monday all about picking a fight with gop party leaders. we've seen this in tweets from donald trump. we've also seen this in tweets from some of his top campaign aides. they're going after paul ryan pretty aggressively. you know, obviously upset by some of the speaker's comments on the conference call. but it's strange that this -- all of the ammunition is aimed at paul ryan rather than hillary clinton. >> so scott wong, where does this put congressional republicans and campaign strategists? a new poll gives hillary clinton an 11-point national lead in this latest survey. and some strategists on the republican said saying that their effort now is to make sure they don't give a president hillary clinton a blank check in congress. so what can we expect? >> we did see a poll from nbc saying a greater number of voters want to see the democrats take control of the house, you know, much -- many more voters than we've seen say that in the past. and so what speaker ryan has said today in talking to some of his rank and file members is that he want

charles: donald trump lashing out at critics inside and outside the gop. hughes swaths of the party have entered panic mode. what does the party look like now. let's say if donald trump wins and the gop can -- mats joart in congress. carol, that sounds of sounds like an easy scenario to smooth things over. but there are a lot of wounded folks out there right now. >> if donald trump wins he will work to build a coalition and he will try to bring along some of the democrats, especially the black caucus. they complain about the democrats, their own party members not doing have much for african-americans. they will get an opportunity to work the president who has pledged to do more than any other president has done in recent years. so i think donald trump would have a great opportunity to do some things that haven't been done beforen reorganize the government so it's more efficient. charles: let's say donald trump doesn't win. paul ryan keeps his position as speaker. will we look back at this as moment in time when there was a a -- a revolt that was put down i

. >> speaking of that wider gop, robert, as you know there were some republican politicians today who leaned back in p having previously said they unendorse, they don't support anymore, today was the day and this was reflected in several publications some of them came back to the trump campaign. is this going to mean a second unendorsement? >> reporter: we're seeing a flurry of these reversions, mostly because there's been a blowback for those who have unendorsed trump because trump still has as a lot of hold on them. and paul ryan he had a conference call with donors at 9:00 tonight to talk to them and hear some of their frustrations at the highest level of the donor class, so you're seeing it from some donors and goes all the way down to grassroots. >> all right. stay with us, nicole, you're reaction? >> you know, i talked to two folks inside the trump inner circle, both of them in new york trying to figure out how to respond and i think it's more than likely that he is going to war with "the new york times," right now he's in a hot war against hillary clinton, against bill clinton

so afterwards i also think you will see a much more united gop.ul ryan putting out his message that he put out friday made it very clear that we are all on the same team on this one on corruption and on the fact that hillary clinton is above the law. i mean, you've got to look at what most people see here. they see a woman who is not honest with the american people. >> why did it take -- let me ask you this. why did it take something like this? even hillary clinton has come out and said, i think people made up their mind about my e-mails already. >> she hopes. she hopes. >> well, but with that said, and there's probably some truth to that to some degree, why did it take something like this for republicans to get behind donald trump if that is how they have felt about hillary clinton for so long? >> well, there was a splinter because you had a lot of people who did not like the way donald trump said things and the way he was not focused on issues, the way that he did not focus on some of the issues in the last month of the campaign. and so when you

he's not losing gop women in droves. they are sticking with him for partisan reasons. the polls show he's losing women. >> she's not hot enough defense i don't think is a good one and his problem as it always s-i don't think he's ever been in self-reflex or expanding the ten it's about the audience he's talking at the moment. his goal has never been these things. moving forward can he get off of this story? no, i don't think key because he's not a person who changes his strategy in a nimble way. the reason people are leaving and reason people believe these accusations, party idea being accused is not my metric for whether i believe these stories or not which unfortunately in this town is often the metric but i don't know if he can move off of this because there's a tape of him saying dethese things. that's the bottom line. >> that's one of the issues. i don't like replay this gratuitously. this is part of the problem. donald trump says this never happened. said he would never do it. then he aedes they are not attractive enough. one of his issues is that the women are c

the '87 gop electorate is not endorsing trump. we still don't know what that means. >> using the word unshackled, i think a lot of people following donald trump for the entirety of his run beyond earns what that meant. as if he was more reserved before. but what he's addressing here is likely the fact that he was trying to balance earlier in the campaign the interests of the gop establishment in washington, the rnc, people like paul ryan. he clearly feels free of those individuals right now and is running the campaign, you know, what he says the way he would like to. the question now is how that's going to reach out beyond his base and towards those voters who have been skeptical of him for a long time during his run. >> all right, kerry dann, thank you very much. greatly appreciate it. reminder, you can watch msnbc for all day coverage of the third and final presidential debate next wednesday, live, appropriately, in las vegas, 9/11. we'll be right back back. if you're gog to make astatemt.. make sure it's an intelligent one. ♪ t

about why gop members can do about donald trump. >> anywhere in the gop wants to abandon donald trump because split ticket voting to submit beyond 10%. you need to support donald trump wholeheartedly all the way through and abandoning him will cost massive losses for the gop in senate gave donald trump is the one who's generating all the bcs and in a lot of gop members need to understand he made a big stand last night. he has a chance to win this. clinton is still a slight favorite. i may come down to the third debate. >> 80% for her. >> that is a slight favor. you're talking about $350,000 potentially spread across four or five states. 70,000 in florida, 100,000 ohio. this thing can change because you have to understand of 120 how many people can thought they presidential election. they've got to keep a foot on the gas and have a strong debate when chris wallace underrated. true to most people you speak with feeley took this one. he had her on the heels about so many things pertaining to e-mails, painting her as a liar, bringing in someone 12 years old. so he really dug deep and inte

so what, just to keep the senate gop. what is your response to that coming from your own party? >> it is a little disappointing. and we feel like running on a ticket with senator ayotte is a strongest possible way of accomplishing what many voters want, which is taking the country in a new and different direction. and how different would that be? we already have divided government and people are not satisfied with that. i that's really propelled the donald trump candidacy from the beginning. a true outsider who says i can credibly and legitimately come inside and change things but he needs a republican house and senate to make that happen. i would also note that in states like indiana, missouri, the trump/pence ticket is ahead in new hampshire. and some new polling shows ayotte up a few and donald trump down a few. but governor pence is in new hampshire all day campaigning on behalf of the ticket. i get why some interest groups want do this but from our perspective in the trump campaign we want a republican house and republican senate so we don't have the kind of divided governm

podesta pointing to notorious gop operative roger stone. >> mr. stone had advanced warning in the trump campaign had advance warning about what assange was going to do. >> reporter: stone tells nbc news -- >> i have back-channel communications with wikileaks, but they te going to do. >> reporter: despite his tweets seeming to preview a damaging document dump stone says he never knew specifics and has never met wikileaks founder julian assange, and while he used to be a trump confidante, said he didn't tell the campaign anything. >> i'm trying to help in the election of the entire republican ticket independently, and therefore i don't coordinate my activities with them in any way. >> reporter: hallie jackson, nbc news, panama city. number of states, nbc news has crunched the numbers and as nbc's kristin welker explains, hillary clinton appears to have an early edge. >> tonight hillary clinton in colorado, trying to capitalize on chaos in the republican party. hitting donald trump for what she called his scorched earth policy. >> it's all they have