molly ball, you're a reporter.pect you feel like i dorks i have a keen interest in seeing those notes and exactly what was said between the fbi and hillary clinton. >> absolutely. i'm going to be very interested to see what they say. you had someone from the clinton campaign on earlier saying we wanted this, it's going to vindicate us, et cetera, et cetera. that may be true. there's no question that the clinton campaign would prefer this issue is not continually in the news. the fact we continue to get more information about this, which of course we want, we want more transparency, more information. in political terms, the clinton campaign would like the entire next two months to be a referendum on donald trump. the more this issue surfaces and the more information we get about it, the more it underscores the problems for her with this e-mail situation. >> i think that's exactly right. i take them at their word, that they want this out there. every reason to believe that the clinton campaign doesn't want just repub

back with michael steele, eugene robinson and joined by molly ball, staff writer for "the atlantic." molly, your thoughts on this. take your time. i think trump has a strong brand first of all. i think it appeals to people i know in pennsylvania who do like that shove back. they have been shoved around as a working person and shove back. that has a lot of people for working people. until this week he's been running evenly with hillary on just that. your thoughts on whether that supports that brand or hurts it? >> i think it's totally consistent. i think the nationalism that donald trump espouses is not the sort of abstract patriotism of like the american idea and the founders and the constitution as much as some republicans wish he would talk more about those things. it's about muscularity, about strength, about not being a victim, not being kicked around. if you are a working woman, you don't let yourself be a victim of sexual harassment. you're too tough for that. if you are the american leader, you sympathize with putin because he's strong, he's tough, he doesn't let anybody boss h

. >> joining me, michael steele and molly ball. the question about this, trump tweets, many people are saying, which is always as soon as you see those words, you know something is coming. many people are saying the iranians killed the scientist who helped the u.s. because of hillary clinton's hacked e-mails. a reference to an iranian scientist who did face the death penalty. a specious claim, it had nothing to do with him discovering the e-mails. this is the sort of off script trump we're used to. >> we're used to it. there is that back door way getting into what could be a very interesting story around hillary clinton's campaign a little later on. we'll see how that plays out. but the fact of the matter is, look, trump is trying his best to kind of move beyond where he's been. he recognizes now, and really, simply, his recognition that he's getting slammed in the polls. and that's the ultimate driver. that's the ultimate indicator of success, and so i think the reality for him has come home in a hard way. and you raise, i think,

we want to fwling poot rick heely and cnn political analyst and dana bash and molly ball, political writer for "the atlantic" >> dana, i know you've been reaching out to your gop sources, does anyone think this isn't personal? because trump's spokeswoman says donald trump is not getting involved in the republican primaries. >> no. i have not found anyone who doesn't think this isn't personal and i've heard her say and she is right that there are times when republican leaders and donald trump is the, you know, one of the leaders if not the leader of the republican party now because he is the presidential nominee. and they don't get involved with primaries, but this is different. it is different for a number of reasons and number one is because when it is the speaker of the house, it is kind of expected and tradition for other like-minded leaders to get behind him and not the challenger from the right, but also as i was reminded by a senior republican here in washington a couple of hours ago, anderson, paul ryan nominated mike pence, trump's vice predential running mate at the convention. he

molly ball, kevin kellum, steve mcmahon. >> can we talk about taxes?e's protesting. maybe the rent is too damned high. >> for the tower, is too damned high. >> one thing i think we can safely say is unprecedented is a presidential nominee having his skyscraper climbed by a person. >> and by the way, as much as we're being -- this all seems silly and all of this, this is dangerous. this is dangerous to the man running for president. this is dangerous in like, this campaign has gotten out of whack. it does feel as if people are -- that -- i can't tell you how many people i've come into contact, in both campaigns, and even some in the press, feel less secure than ever, because there is this sense of chaos out in the electorate, that people will do crazy things like this guy. >> yes. less secure, more angry, more frustrated. and more willing to act out in ways that, you know, i said earlier, unusual and uncommon. fortunately, for this person, the only person in danger here appears to be the gentleman who's climbing the trump tower. >> and -- >> and hope th

covering the week, molly balz, national political -- molly ball national political correspondent for the atlantic. dan balz chief correspondent for "the washington post." jackie calmes national correspondent for the "new york times." and michael scherer washington bureau chief for time magazine. >> award winning reporting and analysis, covering history as it happens. live from our nation's capital, this is "washington week with gwen ifill." funding for "washington week" is provided by -- once again, live from washington, moderator gwen ifill. gwen: good evening. since no one at this table has ever seen an election quite like this, i thought we'd try to divide tonight's analysis into two categories. the conventional and the unconventional. the conventional includes the latest polls. an nbc news/marist poll out this afternoon shows donald trump struggling in states he needs to win. down by five points in florida. down by nine points in north carolina. down by 13 in virginia. down by 14 points in colorado. trump campaigned in three of the four states just this week. any number of polls

molly ball, political reporter for the atlantic. i want you to get into this scrum and i want to ask you, what do you think is the likelihood that we'll break from our normal pat western the 50/50 elects. that this could be a big one for hillary. >> well, a lot of the polling that's done after the convention is typically predicted. it has been the trend in recent cycles. and hillary clinton has pulled ahead by as much as double dig knits key battle grounds. it has reached where states are in may and he is underperforming, among several. it's hard to imagine when you take that and you couple with it the advertising advantage hillary clinton has, the organizational structure that she has which donald trump has not shown how he can possibly turn it around with less than three months to go. >> she has disproportionate leads in the swing states. she is running tens of millions of ads and he is running almost no ads. she has people out to vote for her. trump doesn't have that. it means even if trump turns his message around. it is hard to

molly ball, political writer for the atlantic. and ryan lizza a washington correspondent for the new yorker. so let's try to get to the bottom of this when it comes to the foundation. you listen to donald trump and he says the clinton foundation is the most corrupt charity of all time, basically. then have you hillary clinton supporters, ryan, saying this is a charity that helps combat hiv aids and that without it people would die. where is the truth in here? >> yeah, look. and that has gotten lost in this. no doubt. and you just look at the independent charity watch dogs and what they say about the clinton foundation. and it is generally prized for its work. it has done great work all off the world. and it is surprising that the clinton foundation and clinton campaign hasn't done much of a job explaining that. on the other hand, when hillary clinton was first being looked at for secretary of the state, everyone that looked that new relationship between the obama administration and the clinton foundation said wait a second. there

john fehery, molly ball, and jonathan capehart hosts a new podcast, cape up.s also an msnbc contributor. let's start with the fifth most offensive trump description. it's of the sacrifices he made for the country. the poll finds that trump's statement that working hard is a sacrifice bothered 73% of voters. let's take a look at what he said on abc two weeks ago. >> i think i made a lot of sacrifices. i work very very hard. i have created thousands and thousands of jobs, tens of thousands of jobs, built great structures, i have done -- i have had -- i have had tremendous success. >> those are sacrifices? >> oh, sure. i think they're sacrifices. >> what did you make of that? he was comparing himself to captain khan, who was killed in action in iraq. >> to the parents, i believe, who have sacrificed. i think obviously, to denigrate the sacrifice of the parents of a fallen soldier is offensive on its face but beyond that, plenty of americans are willing to believe that donald trump has contributed something to this country, has worked hard. >> why is the word sacr

cnn's jeff zeleny ed o'keefe and the atlantic's molly ball. on tuesday this past week it sounded like immigration was the issue on which he was trying to make a genuine pivot to the middle. >> they'll pay back taxes. they have to pay taxes. there is no amnesty as such. there is no amnesty. we work with them. i meet thousands and thousands of people on this subject, and i have had very strong people come up to me, really great, great people come up to me and they've said, mr. trump, i love you, but to take a person that's been here for 15 or 20 years and throw them and the family out, it's so tough. >> that made a lot of conservatives nervous. sarah palin among them saying she was worried trump was going all wishy washy, in her words. it sounded like a flip-flop by the candidate who speak of a deportation force in the primaries and praised what was called operation wet-back. on tuesday trump retreats. >> there is no path to legalization unless they leave the country and come back. >> so you could call it a softening. now it's a hardening. they

around the inside politics table and ask our reporters to get you out ahead of the important news molly ballarty about their convention this weekend, officially nominating jill stein to head the green party ticket. she went hard at hillary clinton in her speech in addition to donald trump and made appeal to the bernie sanders backers. there will be criticism on the left trying to convince all the bernie sanders supporters that there is an alternative. may or may not be a big factor. she'll have a hard time getting into the debates. there was a lawsuit this week trying to get the third-party candidates into the debates that was rejected. she has some less mainstream views, you might say, on some issues. the idea that hillary would get through this without that voice on her left continuing the critique is not that number. >> she starts to move up a little bit, you know where it's coming from in the case of the green party. >> the party establishment has had its hands full with the tea party and the conservative insurgents in congressional primaries. since 2014 they've struck back effectively b

. >>> joined now by philip rutger from "the washington post" and molly ball from "the atlantic." >> philip, you conducted an amazing interview with donald trump. walk me through. if you read the transcript, it reads like someone who -- and i'm not saying this is a person who is on some sort of substance or amphetamines, but it reads like someone who is on something. they are sort of incapable of holding attention on a single thing for more than a sentence or two. >> i'm not a physician, so i'm not going to make any judgment there. certainly he was distracted during the interview. routinely was looking at a television screen playing fox news behind us. but i tried to steer the conversation and he gave answers on a range of subjects. especially his disdain for leaders of the party, paul ryan, john mccain, and kelly ayotte. and he's not endorsing them at this point. >> he said he had better numbers than her, which from a favorability standpoint is not true. here's the problem for reince priebus and there are many problems. we could spent 15 hours talking about reince priebus's problems. here'

matthew kontinetti, molly ball with the atlantic and chris is a democratic strat ju ii iic stra. thanks for being here. matthew, let me start with you. you heard katy tur say this is a little up in the air right now. we've been trying to really pin down the trump campaign on what specifically he is planning to do on immigration. but this has been the centerpiece of his campaign since the day he announced. what do you make of this strategy? is it about reaching out to moderate republicans and do you expect there's going to be a real shift here? >> i'm not sure you can describe it as a strategy. i think there's a lot of internal negotiation happening within the trump campaign now because he has a new team, a new set of advisers. he's listening to people outside the circle of the campaign staff even now. and they're telling him conflicting things. the time to roll out policy is during the primary. and that's when donald trump indeed unveiled his key immigration policies. the muslim ban, building the wall and deportation force. if he were going to revise those policies, the time to h

. >> molly ball and sam seeder are here. here's what i find fascinating watching trump over the last two weeks, as he has been clearly more contained than at other periods. it's watching someone walk very slowly and clumsily up a very obvious learning curve and realizing there are people do things a certain way. so all of the disparagement of the teleprompter is now by the boards, because he has learned if you speak off the top of your head, you get into trouble. and i'm curious to see if that lesson is imparted to him before he gets to the debates. >> well, i don't think we with can say for sure that that lesson has been fully learned and internalized. i think there's still a chance that trump gets bored of the teleprompters, or get stir crazy at the fact that he's not getting let out of his box these days and decides to go for it again at one of these rallies. i think you may be giving him too much credit for impulse control. and all that we know, you know, from my reporting, from others' reporting about the way he's prepa

. >> kristal ball and a.b. stoddard. molly, hit by a titanic tidal wave. >> it's certainly true that donald trump has had a horrible week of campaigning and that's mostly self-inflicted. at the same time, the media is going way overboard and they are losing any semblance of objectivity. it's a major talking point of the hillary clinton campaign to present donald trump as unhinged and whatnot. they shouldn't just be going along with that. >> are you saying that the mainstream media are echoing hillary clinton's talking point or they happen to share the same opinion of the trump candidacy? >> again, donald trump shouldn't be giving them so much ammunition. >> okay. so he's made some mistakes and slipping in the polls and the press likes to pounce on that. but is some of this flat-out media bias? >> i mean -- okay. some of these stories were silly, like the baby story is silly. >> what, that he threw a baby out of his rally. >> i had trouble fitting on a single sheet of paper the list of really out there offensive things that he

ball park or anything else. it's a great experience for the community. >> reporter: molly hendrickson, denver 7. >> you know, molly is actually a really good athlete, but if you want tot try it out the official opening is august 25th. >> you have to bring your own gear, including a helmet and life jacket, but no life guards on duty. but also no sharks. >> love it. tonight not is peak of the meteor shower, but still going on, and the effecter is passing through -- earth is passing through cosmic dust. that happens every year in august, and the size of the things are really tiny, like grape nuts. burn up about 50 miles above the earth. get away from the city lights, look to the northeast, that's the area they come out of, and you may see a meteor a minute and -- 4:00 a.m., and you should be good view conditions. just a few scattered clouds. radar right now, there are storms down to the south of us from the springs to pueblo. brief heavy rain out of them, but for the most part they're leaving us high and dry in the metro. temperatures very comfortable. 67 downtown, 64 at the airport. wind from the southeast at 7. top

it's just like a park or ball i think just a really unique experience for the community. >> reporter: in arapaho county molly hendrixson denver 7. >> did she get up once? % she did. she got it. the official opennng is august 25th. you have to bring your own gear though. that includes a helmet and life jacket since there is no life guard. >> i think that would be pretty tough to get up and surf on a very small stretch of river. >> but if you have done the one at water world. you can >> does that mean you can or can't do it? >> belly board. i'm not going to try to stand. >> i don't know if that counts. >> i will hurt myself if i stand. [ laughter ] >> it won't open until august 25th. in the meantime if you are out and about today, it will be a great day to be by any body of water. it will be hot across the front range. obviously a little cooler in the high country. right now looking at the radar corner of the state. that will clear from west to east as we head into the afternoon hours. we do however have a fire warning. this is in effect for much of the western slopes. spring creek, two fires is what they are

as molly mentioned and we're talking about who will be the starting quarterback for the broncos team. >> trevor siem runner. if he's healthy and takes care of the ball, it should be his job on september 8th. >> and they all practiced this week and paxton lynch got some time. >> and there was a lot of news. all of this came while he was on the scout team. will he be the second guy in. even if he's not. he's going to get a lot of reps.

as molly mentioned and we're talking about who will be the starting quarterback for the broncos team. >> trevor siem runner. if he's healthy and takes care of the ball, it should be his job on september 8th. >> and they all practiced this week and paxton lynch got some time. >> and there was a lot of news. all of this came while he was on the scout team. will he be the second guy in. even if he's not. he's going to get a lot of reps. watch. trevor siemian gets the start. and one thing he says is he's not going to overthink this. >> i'm not reading too much into this. i think we're putting together some good things. just another week to build and try to get better. >> we're just doing it for you guys to keep it fun. it's the defending super bowl champion team and you probably get welcome. >> interesting, mark found a joke there. we appreciate the opportunity to talk about something else. but with prosecutor season game number 3, something needd to be decided. somebody's got to separate themselves. >> if siemian is able to do something he's done all camp which is show leadership abilities, he takes care of the football, it's his job. of a job. >> that