cnn political analyst michael gergen, jackie kucinich, of the daily beast, and jason johnson, politics editor of theroot.com. welcome. okay, david, lots to unload. there's this civil war again brewing within the republican party. you heard congresswoman michele bachmann say, you know what, paul ryan started it, donald trump is justified in fighting back and one more thing, if hillary clinton continues to bring up these tapes from 11 years ago, bill clinton's infidelities is fair game. >> we're just in extraordinary times. when the nominee of a party attacks the highest ranking member of his own party. you know, paul ryan is the highest ranking elected republican, speaker of the house of representatives. and paul ryan basically disassociates himself from the trump campaign. you then have -- this is a titanic clash and one that's only guaranteed to reduce republican chances in november. because some of these voters are either going to be disenchanted or revolt or do whatever. no one knows what. i want to say this. you know, michele bachmann and others are now basically accusing the repub

and washington bureau chief for the daily beast jackie kucinich. you heard strong speeches for hillary clinton before. this is clearly one of the most powerful speeches. >> this is one of the most powerful speeches i've ever heard by a woman talking about the power of women in politics. ironically, it didn't come and probably couldn't have come from hillary clinton herself. >> right. >> but came from michelle obama on behalf of hillary clinton. expressing the outrage, as she put it, expressing that this is not normal behavior. this is disgraceful, intolerable, no woman deserves to be treated this way. and in a very sort of personal way saying, i can't stop thinking about this. this has shaken me to my very core. talking to women voters out there. talking to their children. talking to their husbands. and saying this political race comes down to an issue of character. and comparing the character of donald trump obviously to hillary clinton. and i think when we look back on this speech, talking about the power of women to change an election, it's goin

with us to share reporting and invital, jonathan martin, "new york times," jackie kucinich, jeff zeleny and from the "washington post." donald trump made clear, no intention of releasing his taxes and no intention of apologizing. >> i have legally used the tax laws to my benefit, and to the benefit of my company. my investors and my employees, i mean, honhonestly, i have brilliantly used those laws. >> now it's a safe bet mike pence will be pressured to define brilliant and trump's decision not to release his taxes. showing a nearly $1 billion trump loss in 1995. experts say that means trump could have avoided paying any federal income taxes legally, perfectly legally, for nearly two decades. trump called it brilliant. hillary clinton calls it hypocritical. >> in other words, trump was taking from america with both hands, and leaving the rest of us with the bill. >> so this has been the defining issue, ladies and gentlemen, or lady and. >>> a i should say, i guess. on the campaign the last few days, we assume right off the bat, tim kaine gets the first question. i wouldn't be surprised

mark preston and jackie kucinich. let's first go to the national poll that's come out. interesting because it is post-tape. it's after voters saw the tape, but it's before the debate. this is an nbc poll. she has a double-digit lead here. 46% to his 35% in a four-way race. can you give us some context. 28 days before past elections, has there ever been a candidate who's made it back from that kind of deficit? >> i don't think so. in fact, what we're seeing right now is obviously she's going in the right direction, he's going in the wrong direction. if you look at those numbers, 35%, i don't think we've ever seen him drop that low. he usually hovers around 40%, 41%, which means after that tape, assuming that poll captured it correctly, that not only, you know -- not only did he not gain any support, obviously, but he lost core support. that's critical right now. he needed to build on. now he's starting to erode underneath his foundation a little bit. that's a bad place to be. >> do you want to ask the fly from the debate a question? >> chris booked him. >> or i say that

jackie kucinich and david gregory. let's start with what ended that conversation, that piece of the conversation. michelle obama should worry about the people who support them. she's probably referencing the clintons. what is your take on melania trump wanting to come out, dealing with these difficult allegations for the wife to deal with? but how does it come across? >> i wonder why she didn't come out sooner. the damage is sort of done at this point. but no, she's an important surrogate for her husband, particularly on issues like this. who knows him better than melania trump. her standing up for him and standing up so strongly for him, i mean, that -- again, i'm just surprised it didn't happen a little sooner. >> david, it's the double standard on both sides that's so confusing and hard to get your mind around. there are striking parallels between what the accusers of bill clinton from the '90s say he did and what the accusers of donald trump from, you know, the past 20 years say he did. yet, both sides say, well, t

we have david gregory and political analyst jackie kucinich and abby phillips. great to have you here. david, was the defining moment for you the i'll keep voters in suspense? >> i thought after a strong hour after momentum for trump as more of a republican and sounding like a conservative, i think this was a death blow for him. not abiding by the traditions of the country to accept the election results. somebody wants to make america great again and wants to undermine our democracy. it goes to the core of that problem for trump which is most americans don't think he has the temperament to be president. i think that was just the best evidence you could find. >> why is the suggestion that it could be rigged so i have to wait and see. why isn't that compelling enough to offset what david is saying? >> this is not a stay tuned answer. this is not reality tv show. this is foundational for the united states democracy. and when he said that, you saw on twitter. republicans sort of the air went out. >> they said no, no, no. the election will be legit. let's play the mo

joining us to talk about that and more, cnn political analyst jackie kucinich, "new york times" political reporter alex burns, and cnn political analyst david gregory. great to see all of you. before we get to obamacare and what this means for the race, let's talk about the new cnn polls that came out. they're very interesting and they're divided. donald trump wins in some demographics. hillary clinton wins in some. let's look at the overall. okay, let's start with women. there you go. hillary clinton wins with 53 to his 41. he wins with men. alex, 48% to 45. >> and the spreads are different. she had like a 20-point spread with women. not in this poll. trump is over that threshold of 40% we keep talking about. so that's different. >> let's look at independents, that all-important voting bloc and how they're doing at the moment. trump has 45% to her 41%. he's winning with independents. educated white voters versus noncollege educated, clinton wins. if you have a degree, she gets 52%, he gets 41. alex, what do you see in some of these numbers? >> i think in that last breakdown, it really sh

let's bring back our panel, errol lewis, philip bump and jackie kucinich.e in the poll that came out yesterday. gender. at the moment, clinton is leading by 12 points. with men, hillary clinton is now leading in this abc news poll 44% to trump's 41. was this all the billy bush tape? what happened here that turned the tide here? >> this is something of an outlou has this floor of support that he hasn't gone above very often. when he has gone above republican women and independent women have come onboard and then he loses them. he lost them after the democratic convention and he lost them starting at the first debate which overlapped with the billy bush tape. the question is if these women will come onboard team trump. at this point they're off team trump and hard to imagine what might happen over the next 15 days. >> more and more the number that really has stuck out is his overall. he hasn't been able to get over that 40%. there have been different moves in those, you know, in those interior cross tabs whether you talk about gender or different economic and

i have to leave it there jackie kucinich, paul singer thanks so much.come in the "newsroom," newt gingrich tackles the media on takes on megyn kelly. >> you are fascinated with sex, and you don't care about public policy. >> me? >> that's what i get out of watching you tonight. >> hear what came before that epic clash. next. >>> and good morning, i'm carol costello. thank you so much for joining me. newt gingrich melts down, angrily accusing mellon kelly of fox news of being assessed with sex after she brought up the billy bush tape. you have to see it to know what i'm talking about. >> the three major networks spent 23 minutes attacking donald trump that night, and 57 seconds on hillary clinton's secret speeches. you don't think this is a scale of bias worthy of -- you want to know why donald trump -- >> if trump is a sexual predator -- >> he's not a sexual predator. >> okay, that's your opinion. i'm not taking an opinion on it. >> -- people like you, using language that's inflammatory that's not true. >> excuse me, mr. speaker you have no idea whether

let's bring back our panel, jackie kucinich, david gregory, matt lewis, brother lewis, i go to you first. you're loving the unknown of the fbi because it's distracting from the known knowns of your own campaign. specifically, "wall street journal" brought out about all the charitable nongiving of your candidate and the voter fraud who was a trump supporter who voted twice heeding the call of your candidate. how do you make sense of these things, sir? >> well, i admittedly fully donald trump. i've been pulling for him this whole time. no, look, i think that there -- we are now in such a weird election cycle and whether it's the "access hollywood" comments that are, obviously, horrific that daonald trump made or this e-mail scandal which is very problematic. at the very least hillary clinton had this private e-mail and deleted 33,000 e-mails. so, those things are overshadowing other stories like the fact that donald trump, you know, hasn't released his taxes. they're overshadowing those stories because so much controversy, there's so much scandal on both sides that other stories that might

warner cable news errol lewis and mark preston and washington bureau chief for "daily beast" jackie kucinich. >> we all shook hands before the segment. this is such an interesting night. it's comforting you can come in and laugh and have this levity for three hours and there's also something strange on the campaign trail. why can they do it there last night and then so hateful on the campaign trail. >> let's keep in mind, they didn't quite do it last night. there was a little bit of humor. but they also had something that doesn't normally happen which was the booing and the digs and the caustic jokes as opposed to jokes that sort of gently poke none at each other but keep the overall tone of this is the elite all showing the country that we all come together. >> there was more harsh last night. >> it was. that's not, you know, look, the reality is, you don't want to just put on a show. put on a complete illusion but this does demonstrate previous divisions. >> i've been to one of these dinners before and the idea for the most part have self-deprecating humor and this was more deprecating hum

we have political commentator matt lewis and mark preston and analyst for the daily beast jackie kucinich and maeve reston and david gregory. >> i do because of the context. donald trump should have been on the ropes. i think hillary clinton could have put him out to pasture last night. the narrative could have been the race is all over. instead, donald trump is harry houdini. he managed to escape and survive. any normal person or conventional candidate would have gone in the debate like the kid who forgot to do his homework. you show up and contrite and on defense. instead, donald trump what only donald trump would do. goes on offense. takes it to hillary clinton. i think she was on defense most of the night. i was surprised. i think this subject has been changed. we are talking about a debate. not just about what he said on access hollywood. >> david, how did you see it? >> i see it differently. i do agree that trump exceeded expectation. he seemed more comfortable. he seemed more prepared. he was certainly on the attack. i think we have to think about the context in which this is happe

. >> jackie kucinich. he tweeted about rigged elections.are not happy, big lines, what is going on. why is he continuing to raise this specter of possibly a rigged election? >> i mean, the other thing that happened today, a poll came out that showed him ahead by three in red texas. it's an extraordinary development. so it seems like he is trying to have an excuse for, not if he loses texas, but if he loses in general. it's hard to believe in texas where the whole top of the government, lieutenant governor, governor, secretary. everyone is a republican, that somehow they're colluding to rig the election for hillary clinton. >> laying out an excuse in case he doesn't win by a big enough margin or were to lose. >> it couldn't be because of donald trump and his messaging and the disastrous campaign. he has to be because someone did something to take it away from him. >> nobody really thinks that a presidential race at least this time around that texas is at play. the polls show -- three points. that's pretty close in texas. jason chaffetz, the

david gregory, abby, jackie kucinich and ron brownstein. ron, what did you think of those moments? >> there is an answer to chris' question. by any conventional expectation or definition of what the electorate looks like, what donald trump has been doing the last few weeks doesn't make a lot of sense. because it certainly many of these kind of accusations it the election is rigged against me, i won't accept the results. only deepen the questions about his temperament among the voters to most political analysts look like the swing voters that will decide this thing. donald trump seems to be operating on a countertheory. what is calling the missing white voter theory in parts of the republican party after mitt romney won white voters in 1980. most republicans had to reach out. the counter theory was to increase turnout against blue collar white workers and any methituod to the madness. he's constantly feeding those voters more of kind of coal in the fire to kind of stir them up and there is a way forward, it is by radically transforming the electorate into something no one else expec

commentator sally kohn who backs hillary clinton and jackie kucinich, washington bureau chief for the daily beast and my friend and senior political correspondent brianna keilar. the ladies panel. love it. scottie, let me begin with you. coming off of the question from the 15-year-old on body issues. this isn't going away. i realize it was hillary clinton being asked about it but everything that happened with the miss universe, woman's body issues and a grown man discussing at 3:00 a.m. on twitter, how does he handle this? >> with a classy approach and not only ignore it but move on. this shows hillary clinton doesn't want to talk about policy. the fact she just released this ad not talking about her policies on how she's going to help these women rather going negative against the words mr. trump has said in the past and taking them out of context. >> i don't think this means she doesn't want to talk about policy. she's being asked about a body image question. >> but then she releases this ad. we have yet to hear how she's going to help the 12% of women that -- only 12% feel comfortab

the daily beast jackie kucinich and political commentator for the call, matt lewis. everybody so serious. >> you used that already. >> you have to go back to radio. let's look at this from 10,000 feet. we start with timing. timing is a big issue here. why they waited. do you buy that as a concern? do you believe timing is a real issue here? >> absolutely. i think timing is the issue here for a lot of the facts. timing is 11 days until the election. every statement you see from the clinton campaign and everybody who doesn't like the decision. >> what if he didn't do it? >> what do you mean? >> what if he didn't come out and did not say anything about it and people later learned they were sifting through thousands of e-mails? >> there are two schools of thought. bad it came out now or it would have been worse if it came out later. here's the thing, we still don't have all of the facts of what is in the computer. what is in the e-mails. there is a debate over whether this was good or bad. >> matt, what some of the sources are saying is the reason that james comey did it

anchor of time warner cable news errol lewis and washington bureau chief of "the daily beast" jackie kucinich and wana summers. errol why are we saying he is fumbling his message because of what he did at one of his own rallies? let's play a taste. >> we're going to repeal and replace obama care and i can say all my employees are having a tremendous problem with obama care. >> you provide health insurance plans to all these employees? >> obama care is a disaster. it has to be repealed and replaced. >> none of them are on obama care? >> okay. some of them, but most of them no. he brings out his employees and he says they're struggling with obama care, but they're not. it's not really even some of them. his own manager says it's like certainly 90% or above get insurance the way half this country does, if not more which is through their employers. is this stepping on his own message again? >> the first problem, as you said, 95% of his employees according to his own managers are already covered. that's not obama care. the second is the increase in the premium rates which is bad news that he shoul

the truth about trump" and nia malika henderson and washington bureau chief of the daily beast, jackie kucinich you have written about donald trump extensively. i imagine many of the details and the color of this piece not new to you in the $916 million but when you saw that money and the suggestion of 15 years, no federal income tax, how did it strike you? >> well, it struck me as the quintessential example of what donald trump really is. he's a promoter and he's an exploiter of the tax system. this is something that he started in the 1970s when he demanded and got really big tax abatements to build his first project, the grand hyatt at the grand central terminal. this is common in real estate that people manipulate the tax system and make big demands on local officials to get special breaks, but it's probably the first real insight we have had into how someone at this level takes advantage of the federal income tax system and it's a pretty stunning example. >> we haven't seen any of his other tax returns, with this being the only peek it is a pretty stunning peek as you say. nia, we have seen

with us, cnn political analyst and washington bureau correspondent -- chief for the daily beast, jackie kucinichug hyde, former communications director for the rnc and carl higby, former u.s. navy s.e.a.l. and trump supporter. thanks for being here. michael, you interviewed donald trump for hours upon hours for this book. this part of it, this -- his like of fighting, all types of fighting, did it stick out to you at the time? what does it tell you? what did it tell you? >> he is a very fighty kind of guy. he really likes conflict. what struck me is that he's most comfortable in conflict. that's different from many of us who are conflict-avoidant. i actually think he prefers the action of an aggressive contest with somebody and it does go way back to when he was a little kid. >> he's not conflict-avoidant. neither apparently is the vice president of the united states, joe biden. thanks to the vice president, and the republican nominee, we have what i consider to be one of the most absurd back and forth exchanges of this entire campaign. let's listen. >> the press always asks me don't i wish i we

. >> with us on sleep deprivation day to share their reporting and insight it is, jackie kucinich of the daily beast, cnn's jeff zeleny, reed wilson of the hill and cnn's sara murray. whether the republican nominee will accept results is an open question. >> i will look at it at the time. i'm not looking at anything now. i'll look at it at the time. >> what isn't in doubt is hillary clinton enters this post debate 2016 stretch in a commanding position. significantly more money in the bank. that was significantly, speak english. and a superior organization. as the focus turns to early voting and to turnout. >> so it's been a year and now we have finished our last debate and we're feeling, you know, both relieved and very grateful. no more debates. no more naps. >> making a joke there. no more naps. donald trump would mock her, saying she's not really preps for the debate, she's off the trail. it's a fascinating call around this morning to get a different pulse on the democratic side and the republican side. there's a sense of gloom on the republican side. not just about donald trump's

with me, jason johnson, politics editor at the root d.com and sirius xm contributor, jackie kucinich from the daily beast and dana bash, cnn chief political correspondent. welcome to all of you. okay. dana, let's start with you. it was nice to see them shaking hands and it was nice to see, i don't know, at least an attempt at pleasantries between the two candidates, right? >> yeah. especially what we just heard from cardinal dolan about what happened behind the scenes, that he had some nice words for her and that she said whatever happens, we can work together. that is the kind of thing that you hope happens, that people sort of go at it perhaps because they are trying to defend themselves and win the white house in public but in private, they can have a more cordial conversation. it's certainly what i have witnessed over the years covering congress. happens every single day. they do their thing in public, then in private they say okay, we have done our thing, let's try to work together. we will see if that actually happens. >> we'll see. so jason, remember last night during the deba

with me now, jackie kucinich, washington bureau chief for the daily beast and a cnn contributor. heidi prisbella for "usa today" and mark preston is cnn politics editor. good conversation, i can't wait. mark, analysts say vp debates can't win elections for their running mates but they can lose them. so what do these two men have to watch out for tonight? >> couple things. mike pence, as we expect, is going to try to steer the conversation towards tim kaine. it takes all the spotlight off of him trying to answer for donald trump. at the same type, you're going to see tim kaine try to talk all about donald trump. of course, he'll sprinkle in why we think hillary clinton will be a better president. to the point, for today and tonight, you have hillary clinton with momentum. you have donald trump, you know, who feels like he's decreasing in his momentum. if pens has a solid showing tonight, that will give a boost for the trump campaign when they really need it. if mike pence comes in flat, the narrative tomorrow will be this is a strong ticket heading into the next debate. >> mike pe

jackie kucinich, cnn politics executive eder mark preston and "washington post" national political reporterllip rucker. thanks for being here. jackie, covered capitol hill a long time together. what is paul ryan doing? cutting members loose? why is he getting so much blowback? your take? >> trying to split the baby here. right? has members that can't -- can't be with donald trump now. someone like a charlie dent, and other members, they need donald trump supporters. him himself was booed at that rally this weekend. sort of in an impossible situation and what should he do in this situation? obviously, having his own personal issues supporting donald trump. a lot of these member es -- seems to be two sets of members. ones that didn't want to support donald trump at all in the beginning and now have an excuse not to and those married to this once he became the nominee. >> and listening to constituents and districts. >> exactly. >> seems to me based on the reporting, this is an official cutting them loose. do what you need to do. you are not obligated to support the republican nominee. phillip

senior political analyst and senior editor of "the atlantic" ron brownstein, david gregory and jackie kucinich and "washington bu buffo chief. monitoring opportunities for donald trump to do what he has to do in your opinion, expand the base. with just this one statement did he pop that balloon? >> yeah. look, i think that the big moment in these debates was the first debate. that was his chance to reverse the perception that it built up 60% of the country saying he's not qualified. didn't have the judgment he didn't do in the first debate which daronald reagan did in th first debate. the first half of the debate, as we discussed, he was pretty effective in making the republican case for change and making the conservative argument on a whole series of issues from national security to abortion. but when you geet the poit to t that you're not willing to accept the results of the election. deepen the doubts among those voters who question whether you have the temperament and judgment to succeed as president. and those voters, at the moment, are about 60% of the electorate. in the poll last night,

and jackie kucinich, washington bureau chief of the daily beast. he says nothing to see here, you buy that? >> no, clearly, that's what he's supposed to say. he threw the fbi under the bus. there was a quid pro quo here. clearly goes to show further evidence of what the fbi has indicated, that there was careless disregard for classified information. as paul ryan said, she has shown that she has not -- doesn't know how to handle classified information and, as we've seen -- this comes on the heels of the earlier e-mails that have come out about the clinton foundation and the state department. and what tends to happen is it becomes so much, the volume is so much. i think voters kind of tune it out. it turns into a molehill out of a mountain of evidence that we need to see more about hillary clinton's e-mails. because we've seen a conflict of interest and a pay for play with the state department. >> a lot -- this is like becoming a long menu here. let's stick to the state department. you say there was a quid pro o quo. do you have proof? we have heard

with me, jackie kucinich, political analyst and washington bureau chief of the daily beast and david swordlich, assistant editor at "the washington post." let's start with joe biden. so somebody within the clinton camp floated joe biden's name out there. any idea what the reason is? >> i mean, this does seem like a trial balloon. i think elise hit the nail on the head. there's a long list of people and you do start, this is very common at this stage of the campaign, you do start hearing names of people that will be in positions of power. joe biden has campaigned very hard for hillary clinton. has really put himself out there for her. and the clintons really like loyalty so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility, but it seems like probably a lot of people are being vetted at this point for those senior positions in the next administration should hillary clinton win. >> so you know what some people are going to say, they are going to say well, she's already naming her cabinet positions, this is kind of arrogant. other people will say you know what, floating joe biden's nam

. >>> now let me bring in manu raju, cnn senior political reporter, jackie kucinich, washington bureau chief of the daily beast and bob cusack, editor in chief of the hill. guys, thanks for being with us. bob, let me start with you. as far as i can tell, it's been, what, about 15 hours since donald trump last tweeted about someone in his own party or did a national interview attacking them out loud. maybe he's turned a corner, yes? >> well, maybe. i think we got to wait a few more hours. overall, when the party that's not united is the party that usually loses. it's an interesting strategy by donald trump. every time he's talking about anyone else other than hillary clinton, it does seem like a distraction, whether that's the khan family, miss universe, john mccain, paul ryan. but it is interesting, this strategy. maybe it's just to get people to stay home. trump knows his turnout will i think be pretty good. his supporters are going to show up. but are there enough of them. on the other side, the democrats, barack obama says if you stay home, if you don't vote, that is a vote for dona

with us to share their reporting ed o'keefe of "the washington post," jackie kucinich of the daily beast, margaret talbot of new york politics. people see florida, dead heat, nevada, dead heat, and everyone says the race is tightening. tightening or tightening in a way that's a surge for trump? or tightening in a way of okay, we live in the united states, polarized, pretty natural. >> the latter. >> yes. >> nevada is sort the new florida in that you've got these tight contests and democrats will tell you any chance they get polling out there is pretty bad because it doesn't account properly for hispanics, among others. florida being tight, i mean, look, the sun came up today and the pope's still catholic. that's the way it works. >> it was the closest state between obama/romney with florida. north carolina went back and forth. the states, the gold, toss-up state, are the states we always come down to in the final weeks. you could say trump's in a better position today than last week. but last week he was in a deep ditch of his own digging because of that "access hollywood" tape and the w

evan perez and washington bureau chief, jackie kucinich and alex burns and "washington post" reporter abby philip. evan, as the justice reporter for us here, everybody says who knows anything about the situation that comey is dealing with a lot of political pressure in house and out of house. how true is that? >> boy, he's in the middle of all of this, chris. you're right, he's getting pressure both inside his organization and outside. now, inside there's a lot of ointrigue. look, the problem here is that there is a new york field office which first began handling the clinton matter. the e-mail server investigation and it was moved to headquarters where comey was closely monitoring the investigation. there's a lot of people in new york who are very angry about that and they frankly are getting a little revenge which you see in some of these stories that are out over the weekend. also some disagreement behind the scenes about whether or not the fbi has been going hard enough on the clinton foundation. there's some agents who have been wanting to send subpoenas and do more investigative

joining us to discuss, cnn politics executive editor mark preston, cnn political analyst jackie kucinich, cnn senior washington correspondent jeff zeleny who comes with scoop. also, new york city councilman joseph borelli and doug thornell, senior adviser for the democratic national committee. mr. zeleny, we believe there were significant developments with the thrust of the clinton campaign just over the last 48 hours starting to focus on senate races and also starting to focus on maybe governing. >> exactly. the reality here is this race is locked in a direction. now the question is what is the size of the margin at this point. all the caveats, yes, things can change, but democrats now are tying to really run up the score down the ballot. you saw the president last night in las vegas, more than i have ever seen him before really pushing this. they are now campaigning, he's making phone calls. he is trying to reverse one of the biggest things that's happened during his time in office, his losing a lot of these seats. democrats have been just wiped out. >> the most ever. >> exactly. in th

also with us, jackie kucinich, washington bureau chief for the daily beast. know, kristin, this is serious, already obama had to cancel appearance in florida for hillary clinton to register voters. the registration deadline is next week. this is already having an impact on this race. >> yeah, though i don't think we can probably -- i think this kind of situation, unless something went terribly wrong in the way the president responded to it, for example, would probably have any impact on the race. i mean, right now, the president has very high approval ratings that just came out and he's about 55% and that obviously i think bodes well for hillary clinton. so barring something, you know, some sort of bad response to this, i don't see it having an effect on the race necessarily. >> but this late in the race, jackie, the fact that you've got, now -- i mean, what happens on the campaign trail for the next few days before the debate is -- could the race be just kind of frozen until sunday when they take to the stage? >> i mean, because this is happening right befor

we have washington bureau chief for the daily beast jackie kucini kucinich, heidi president bella and parry katherineham. i want to get to 2016 in a second. something is bothering me this week, jackie, the white house hosted mclemore, apparently a 9 is it 11 truther. here is a tweet. 9/11 bush knocked down the towers. is it acceptable, i say in the most leading question ever, for the white house which has a war against birthers and rightly so to have a truther come to the white house? >> yeah. this is probably not a good idea, by the white house. i'm sure they were kind of taken by surprise he was a 9/11 truther. it's hard to make the argument that the birtherism is this horrible thing when you have someone like that. >> a truther. >> a super cool truther, though. >> yeah. he wears those fur coats. >> and the anti-semitic masks. but we'll move more to talk about 2016. mary katherine, donald trump not really experienced when it comes to the town hall type format. >> right. >> he's having this event tonight. chris christie helping him out. is this something you can pick up, do you think

joining us, david chalian, cnn political director, jackie co kucinich and zeke miller, political reporter for "time" magazine. david, north carolina clearly a critically important battleground state. donald trump desperately needs to win north carolina. the rally so far seems to be sticking mostly to the script, the teleprompter. heard him say a new catch phrase, we have to drain the swamp. this is a key moment for him right now. >> i think that drain the swamp message is one he should be hitting every day from here on out. i think that is something that actually not only just works for his base and actually can begin to add some voters to his coalition at the end here. people who are so fed up with washington, that decide that he is -- the change that is needed. listen, north carolina is going to be a hard-fought battle from here all the way out 234that st is not going to move outside of that toss-up category. locked in. few movable voters. a huge test a huge test, of each side's ground game operation, data operation, when we see the results november 8th, wolf. and eight years ago presid