The political storm picking up strength. We have republicans in this hour as they call on their president ial nominee to step aside following the comments he made about Sexual Assault. The other storm a serious one for many across the eastern seaboard. Hurricane matthew did make landfall in South Carolina and left a trail of destruction up the southeastern coast. We updates on the areas feeling the effects we begin with Donald Trumps president ial campaign in what is clearly i think objectively the greatest crisis its ever faced. Trump vows today to stay in the race. The fact that he has to talk about that in october shows you how dire it is. Just last hour, this was the scene outside of trump tower in midtown manhattan, came out to greet supporters who came to gather in an impromptu rally of support. In the upper echelons of the gop, we can tell you there are calls coming up and down for trump to step aside, publicly and privately. All of this of course after that infamous audio leaked yesterday of offensive comments that trump originally made about several women back in 2005. It was on a hot mic during a recording for access hollywood, a show owned by nbc universal, which is the Parent Company of msnbc. I have to use some tictacs in case i just start kissing her. Im automatically attracted to beautiful women. I just start kissing her. When youre a star you can do anything, including grabbing them by the [ bleep ]. And mike pence weighing in in an unusual statement saying he cannot condone or defend donald trump. And john mccain said he is now withdrawing his support for donald trump. Trump did apologize last night in a 90second video posted on facebook at midnight. Ive never said im a perfect person nor pretended to be someone that im not. Ive said and done thing i regret and the words released on this more than a decade old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me knows these words dont reflect who i am. I said it, i was wrong and i apologize. According to an msnbc reporter, it is the first time donald trump has apologized. We just got into our newsroom a statement from Condoleezza Rice saying enough. Donald trump should withdraw. He should withdraw. As a republican i hope to support someone who has the dignity and stature to run for the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth. The way you let off is the way i think about a lot of trump controversies. You have republicans and people in the conservative groups responding to trump reacting, mostly negatively, especially on this controversy, theres been the most condemnation and distancing from trump that weve seen. And then you also have his supporters. Im standing outside trump towers with dozens of supporters to cheer him on and rally for him and we talked to a few of them out here. I want to you hear what they have to say. It espouses the kind of reaction we get oftentimes when we hear these controversies. Take a look. What he said 11 years ago with a bunch of guys in a private conversation Means Nothing to everybody out here. I think what he actually did was nothing. He introduced a young man to this professional woman, he obviously mentioned his wife. He was being a young banter locker room kind of guy, which weve all seen. Reporter so when you hear these people rationalizing away these comments, it was only earlier last week that we started talking about the tax returns by the New York Times and the week before that was it the machado comments and the comments about the judge. They still really feel he is the choice. Whether it be that theyre against Hillary Clinton that much or they still really like donald trump. Were seeing republicans distancing themselves and withdrawing their support. You have to think of what they endured to get to this point where they final said enough is enough. All of those controversies yielded tons of republicans saying, no, this is not how i feel, lots of condemnations from republicans saying this is not my sentiment but at the same time they stuck with him and remained endorsing him. This is really a telling point for republicans. Is this the time they actually say enough is enough . For those of us watching a while, its amazing to see this is actually the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. As you pointed out, ali, that may be something a lot of his core supporters stand by. The party is nervous because he is on path to lose with those core supporters at 44, 45 . So anything between now and november has to build rather than draw from that coalition. Ali, thank you for your reporting today. Trump was supposed to be with paul ryan but ryan disinvited him yesterday in wake of the story. Heres how the speaker tried to address the controversy at the event today. Let me start off by saying there is a bit of an elephant in the room and it is a troubling situation. Im serious, it is. I put out a statement about this last night. I meant what i said and its still how i feel, but that is not what we are here to talk about today. Nbcs jacob rascon was at that rally in wisconsin. Ill give you one response to that paul ryan sound bite there, jacob. That is what everyone was supposed to talk about. But for him disinviting trump, donald trump would have been the star attraction. And whats more political than a politician saying its troubling but and whats left hanging in the air is paul ryans support this hour. Reporter he didnt mention trump by name today. To see pence until they learned he wouldnt show up either were obviously upset. They were heckling the speakers including ryan, calling out things like what about trump . Why did you not invite trump . I think this is going to be an interesting story Going Forward is these hard core Trump Supporters that ali talked about. I havent heard from any of them and i communicate with many by text and i expect as we go to other rallies next week, i dont expect that any of them will because of this unendorse. And for people, these 38 or so list of republicans, for some of them to say what about mike pence, i dont think these thousands and thousands of supporters in every city about that we go to would accept that. They voted for donald trump and they fully expect him to go the entire way. So when trump says he getting a lot of support, he may be from them. And these supporters would say things like, well, these 38 people or so condemn being trump or telling him to drop out or reversing their support, theyre all part of the establishment and this is what we ran against. I know theyre going to say that. Some have already said that to me through text. Heres one one of them said in response to the video and paul ryan. Im disappointed in paul ryan. Paul ryan is not with trump and hes with trump and then hes not with trump and i just think we all need to stick together. Weve all said stuff. I know i said stuff. Reporter but youre not running for president. Does that make a difference in his conduct behind closed doors . No, no. Reporter hes with trump and then hes not with trump. A lot of supporters feeling the same. Trump made it clear hes not stepping away from this president ial race. We turn to boris ephstein. Im going to take a tictac in case i just start kissing her. He already apologized twice. His wife said this is offensive to her and its not the man she knows. I think we should talk about the real issues that face america today. I guess one of the questions a lot of them are calling on him to answer including republicans is this Sexual Assault that hes referring to because of nature of the way he describes it . Thats how john mccain describes it. We condemn all kinds of Sexual Assault and theres nothing in those statements that youre implying there whatsoever. So mr. Trump has apologized to the statement, agreed that they are offensive, so has his wife. Im a father, im a son, a grandson very powerful, strong women. Those words are not something i like to hear. Weve dealt with it now, mr. Trump has apologized publicly and its time to move on and deal with the issues at hand, which are very stark. Senator john mccain as well as former National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice coming out saying donald trump should withdraw. Are you sorry to lose their support . Were counting on the support of our every day voters. People writing in saying in Barbra Streisands word, were not voting for a priest, were voting for a president , people saying were not rattled, keep going, concentrate on the issues. 14 Million People voted for trump in the primaries. Tens of millions are voting for him now. Mr. Trump ran as an antiestablishment candidate. Even by the standards of Republican Party politics, were seeing people calling donald trump to withdraw who are not part of the grass roots, people like mike lee, representative mia love calling on him to withdraw, colorado representative mike kauffman, missouri representative ann wagner, rodney davis, senator corey gardner, as well conservative thought leaders like hugh hewitt. In your view are you sorry to lose their support . Can donald trump do outreach to get them back or do you look at this basically growing calls and coalition of republicans saying your candidate should get out as their loss, you cant win them back . 90 of republicans are behind donald trump. As far as all these individuals, of course we want to gain their vote by november 8th and we hope to do so and will work very hard to do so by concentrating on the issues. We havent had 3 gdp growth in eight years. We need to secure this country. Eight stark choice between donald trump, who will secure this country. Boris, one political question is whether his campaign is equipped to deal with this. His campaign doesnt have Close Relationships with the party i never said that on your air. You have. The Campaign Take better word than a surrogate. Donald trump has repeatedly bragged he does not cozy up to these figures in washington and yet this is a moment today when it would behoove him to is there anything mr. Trump can do to prevent them from jumping ship today . The campaign has been working very closely with the rnc throughout this process. Dont put words in my mouth, please. I never said we dont work closely with the rnc. Ive never said so. We continue to do so and we will up until november 8th. Donald trumps facebook video ends with him saying he looks forward to discussing these issues and bill clinton tomorrow night. What does that mean . We look forward to discussing all issues facing america. Theres two parts of a campaign. You have to talk about the esh u issues, you have to talk about why your candidate, mr. Trump is the one to lead, the simplified tax brackets and securing our country. And you have to also talk about why the other candidate is not fit to lead. The wikileaks information that just came out yesterday showing she once again lied to the American People when she said she didnt support the tpp. As weve all known, she did support it. And the information that came out about her saying all Bernie Sanders supporters are children of the recession and live in their parents basement. She cannot be allowed to be president. Is there anything that youve learned in this process, in this campaign about donald trump, including the recent video thats given you pause . Absolutely not. Mr. Trump is a wonderful man, a strong man, a determined man and the right person to lead us into the next eight years. We have heard from many people in the party, including many critics of donald trump and we wanted to hear directly from the Trump Campaign. Well be back after we fit in a quick break. gasping are yoall right . I was in a room full of light. You werehere. You were financially sece it was glorious. How do you know that . I work at ally its my job to know about finances. What else did you see . Did i have a speedboat or anything . Toss me back in, ill check. Hes finding out if i ve speedboat nothing stops us from doing right by our customers. Ally. Do it right. Negative on the speedboat. vo stank face. Right. An expression of disgust caused by inadequate litter tidy cats is the cure. With new guaranteed tidylock protection, you wont have to face one more stank face. Tidy cats. Every home, every cat. Theres a tidy cats for that. Shes totally changed her look. Mr. Trump, women are going to be the reason youre not going to elected president. Casey, how is the Clinton Campaign reacting today . Ari, the Clinton Campaign i would say is trying to restrain their glee over what has transpired over the course of the last 24 hours. Frankly, theyre staying a little bit hands off in public. Theyre telling outside supporters theyre free to talk about it if they like but they think its probably more effective to just let Donald Trumps words speak for themselves and listen instead to the republicans that have been steadily jumping ship over the course of the last day. Now clinton has been in intense debate prep over the course of the last four days. And preparing for new lines of attack for donald trump is part of that, and especially in light of this news and the way trump has been talking more forcefully about bill clintons indiscretions in the past means they are focusing to a certain degree on how she would respond to that. She said she wants to talk about policy issues and thats where their focus wants to be. Look to them to turn to that. Clinton herself could get some tough questions in the debate tomorrow night because of the stories thats also broken and hasnt gotten as much attention but wikileak releasing what they claim to be John Podestas emails. They show among other things notes from some of those speeches that she gave to goldman sachs, other banks, independent groups that in some way paint her as saying Different Things in private than in public. Well seep how she answers those questions tomorrow night, ari. Kasie hunt, thank you. John mccain denouncing trump s lewd comments about Sexual Assault in 2005. Well take a look at what this fallout means with weeks to go until america votes. Im not a customer, but im calling about that credit scorecard. to dsure ve it. Its free for everyone. Oh well thats nice and checking your score wont hurt your credit. Oh to dog im so proud of you. Well thank you. Get your free credit scorecard at discover. Com. Even if youre not a customer. Welcome back. Just this hour Condoleezza Rice saying enough. Donald trump should not be president , he should withdraw as a republican i hope to support someone who has the dignity and stature to run for the highest office in the greatest democracy on earth. People are voting all this week, making this a hard time to chang anything. Viktctori victoria, i want to start big picture. Weve been going through the politics of this today and going piece by piece whats happening. One of the terms here thats been raised here is rape culture. I wonder if we can start broadly about what that means and whether you think these comments do fit into that part of this critique that americans are discussing all across the country. Very much so. And, ari, as a professor at u. T. , we see this being a very relevant topic on our college campuses. This is what young women are talking about and young men day in and day out of how do we deal with this greater rape culture. One thing ive been thinking about with the donald trump case, he can say racist things, against peoples religion and muslims, but when you Start Talking about Sexual Assault, thats when the line was drawn. Go back to todd akin in 2012 when he made comments about rape and abortion, he was winning that race against Claire Mccaskill in the senate and he lost it. And in 2008, a comment was made about rape you should sit back, relax and enjoy and that candidate lost to ann richards. When it gets to Sexual Assault, it becomes very serious and todays day and age when were really talking about rape culture, its even more so. We just got into our newsroom last hour. It doesnt just say im withdrawing my support or go through the litany of things that john mccain and donald trump disagree on, it says explicitly, Donald Trumps behavior this week and the disclosure of his comments about women and his boasts about Sexual Assault make it impossible to even offer conditional support. Rich, this seems to be john mccains line as well. Yes, i think thats right. As victoria knows, the next time ann richards ran for governor, she ran against george w. Bush and the richards people tried to goad bush into making a mistake and what kasie hunt was reporting earlier in the last segment was that the Clinton Campaign saying stand back, let the republicans chew themselves you for a while, thats a very smart strategy. As far as senator mccain, i was done with trump when he said he didnt think john mccain was a hero, that he thinks that people who didnt get captured were heros. Ive been off the trump train for a long time. Paul ryan, who was supposed to appear with trump today, heres paul ryan today. Let me start off by saying there is a bit of an elephant in the room and it is a troubling situation and im serious, it is. I put out a statement about this last night, i meant what i said and its still how i feel but that is not what we are here to talk about today. Victoria, what did you think of that . Oh, he is in a tough spot. Hes trying to balance his role as speaker but also his brand, ari, because he is a wholesome guy, hes a family guy, hes a christian, hes catholic, i believe, so when you see comments like those that trump made and aside from that his larger persona, thats very difficult. So i think i dont know what is going to happen but do i think that were going to see a very real distancing by ryan, whether or not its an official retraction of the endorsement, i dont know. But he is going to walk back and get away from trump as much as he possibly can. Which is really what all candidates have to do, right . Republicans now have to separate themselves, their campaign from donald trump. Trumps going to lose. Thats done. Now you have to say if im running for senate or congressman, state rep, how do i adjust to this and make sure i dont get swept under the rug with him. You and your old boss Newt Gingrich disagrees with you. We have disagreed over the years, that is not new to us. Newt gingrich is a loyal guy, hell do everything in his power to protect trumps campaign. I dont have any problem with newt doing that. Everybody makes up their own mind. You talk about republicans looking for space. Thats true even of mike pence who owes his current role to donald trump. He said as a husband and father i was offended by the remarks and cannot defend or condone them. Im the only person who thought tim kaine won the debate. Mike pence has a very difficult road to hoe and has to get out there and talk about whether trump should get out or not get out. In congress theres something called revise and extend, that once youve spoken on the floor, your staff can go up and fix grammatical errors. I expect mike pence would like to revise and extend just about every answer. Viktoctorivictoria, final wo . Women, you dont want to offend. He took a bad situation and made it worse. Thanks for joining our panel today. The other story is that Hurricane Matthew continues to wreak havoc. While the storm has slowed it, is still packing a powerful punch. I want to let you know we are prepared, we are ready for it, we are ready for this turn of events. This has the potential for North Carolina to see the worst flooding since hurricane floyd. . American express open cards can help you take on a new job, or fill a big order or expand your office and take on whatever comes next. Find out h American Express cards and services can help prepare you for growth at open. Com. Find out h American Express cards and services is ia profesr who never stops beg a student . Is it a caregiver determined to take care of her own . Or is it a lifetime of work that blazes the path to your passions . Your personal success takes a Financial Partner who values it as much as you do. Learn more at tiaa. Org turning now to Hurricane Matthew, North Carolina government pat mccrory announcing three people have been killed today. 4. 5 people still under flood warnings. We go to myrtle beach for more on Hurricane Matthews impact. Reporter we are on the back side of Hurricane Matthew now. You can finally again see some beach here. Earlier today the water at high tide was all the way up to these bushes. So it has retreated, which is good news for those b concerned about the storm surge here in South Carolina. Now the concerns are really threefold. One, all of this debris thats out and about, a lot of it is still flying around and a lot of loose things hanging on buildings. This is a piece of awning from the Hotel Next Door that flew out and there was a lot of this as you drive around, broken awnings, falling off the buildings. Power outages, hundreds of thousands of people up and down this coast still without power, crews working now to restore that power. And the third is street flooding. Its still going to be several hours before a lot of that water recedes and governor nikki haley is urging people to acknowledge that just because the storm has passed does not mean the danger is over. She pointed out a lot of death comes after the hurricane is over because as people go outside to inspect the damage, the debris falls on them. They are urging people to still use extreme caution. We have reports of the death toll at 11 people now. Thank you for that report. A growing number of republicans continuing to say donald trump should step down or get out of this race. Some basically saying they cant support him anymore no matter what he does. How would the Republican Party as a National Political force deal with that . Is it even possible to change course this late stage . We have a lot on this with a special Panel Straight ahead. Using 60,000 points from my chase ink card i bought all the framework. Wire. And plants needed to give my shop. A face. No one will forget. See what the power of points can do for your business. Learn more at chase. Com ink see what the power of points can do for your business. Remember when you said men are supeyeah. Ivers . Yeah, then howd i get this. Allstate safe driving bonus check . Only allstate sends you a bonucheck for every six months youre accident free. Silence. Its good to be ingood hands. It is your job, paul ryan, to endorse the republican nominee and you finally did that after you called him a racist. Now you heard him say a couple of controversial things about a woman in a locker room with a bunch of guys. Donald trumps an amazing man. The people who do not support donald trump, especially in our party, you support Hillary Clinton. A perspective on this issue. A donald trump supporter there. That was moments ago speaking about the nominee and despite the calls for him to step aside, donald trump came out of trump towers to cheers and high fives. For more perspective on all of the developments on an Unusual Campaign day, im joined by my guests. Molly, have you ever seen anything like this in a general election . No. Go ahead. No, ive nen receiver anything like this. Lock, the Trump Campaign was already in freefall ever since the last debate, its been one selfinfliebd wound after another. But this takes it to another level. We see by the number of republicans abandoning him and you see from that clip of a supporter that you just played and other reports weve gotten from Different Campaign events around the country that trump does have a hard core of supporters and thats whats putting them in a difficult position. Theyre caught between their base or their general election hopes in some cases and its really an impossible situation and its not going to get any better. Elise, one of the questions has been what is so new here to some of the republicans officials claiming theyve learned something about donald trump. Its not new to a lot of women around the country. Favorability with women, 64 negative, only 24 positive. Among that 64 , its uniformly extremely negative. This is what pollsters call, quote, very negative if they ask you if you feel just negative or very negative and as you know, you dont usually see that kind of concentration. So women apparently not learning that much new about donald trump. He needed to shift the narrative with the group of women who were on the fence about voting for him, women who want to vote for him but feel they couldnt do it because of lingering questions. Whats amazing is it new information . Everyones known for a long time that donald trump has shown chauvinistic, moisogynyistic trump. Its just been a complete freefall. It certainly has been. Whats interesting is that the Trump Campaign had to get independents and moderate republicans. Now we heard earlier on your show one of the trump surrogates saying how donald trump has 90 of republicans. He did. After this fiasco, i dont think theres going to be any poll that shows that holding. I think hes going to go back down to about the 75, 80 , which is where Hillary Clinton edges towards 50 when he loses that support. They will go to her or they will choose not to vote. The other part, molly, to bring you back in is donald trump has been heralded and criticized for the way he runs his campaign and how much hes on social media and how much is about him. Were seeing the same old pattern in his response to this. Here is a controversy about his statements about and treatment of people and so far he has not interacted with a person since all this broke. So we had the first statement released, they put it out. Then they had the video posted to facebook, which is just him to camera. So not even dealing with the questioning of any other person about treatment of people and then ill read you this certainly odd tweet where he writes, quote, certainly has been an interesting 24 hours whatever that means. Mol molly . It is something that his supporters like about him is that nobody controls donald trump but donald trump. Nobody tells him what to say and nobody can coach him or reign him in. Thats been clear with the way hes handled this controversy. A lot of people inside the campaign would like to see him handle this differently, certainly a lot of people in the Republican Party would like to see him handle this differently but nobody has the power over him to convince him to treat it any differently than he has treated anything else, which is to continue to be defiant, to continue to turn the conversation to Hillary Clinton, which even his aides feel is a mistake and to get on twitter and continue to blast away. This is the unfiltered donald trump, which is the only trump weve known for this entire campaign. You brought up a very good point about him not interacting with anybody thus far. The next time he will will be in a debate forum, a town hall setting with all these independent voters, undecided independent voters. And donald trump while hes very good at playing at the mass crowd, his connection oneonone that hes going to have to make is going to be very difficult for him if he decides he wants to also attack Hillary Clinton at the same time. So thats going to be a very interesting dynamic. And at this point donald trump likely thinks he has no other choice than to go straight at Hillary Clinton about bills infidelity. And i think its going to be a mistake if he chooses that tack first. If Hillary Clinton attacks him she doesnt have to bring it up. Presumably it will come up. But it will be much worse for him if he brings up bill clinton first without being attacked. Its going to already be a disaster. Hes going to already be on the Defensive Thinking every woman in that audience is already against him. Hes going to really start on his heels. It will be very interesting to see how he tackles that problem. Thank you very much. Turning back to other breaking news, officials confirm Hurricane Matthew has now claimed 11 lives. Were joined from aboard a Coast Guard Boat off the coast of South Carolina. Morgan . Reporter hey there, guys. We are on the first coast guard rescue boat to leave the city of charleston. Just to give you a sense of things, we are facing record storm surge, nine feet, thats the third in the history in the city of charleston. Weve even seen record breaking storm surge in the coast an areas. What were doing on this particular coast guard run is going through some of these overlying areas. I want to introduce you to our lieutenant. Lieutenant conscious you explain to our viewers what were doing on this mission right now. Were doing our poststorm recovery assessment, checking for marine debris, any aides to navigation that are off station and critical infrastructure. And what the lieutenant was also explaining to me today, im going to hold on to this railing here, what he was also explaining to me is that theres no commercial activity coming in or out of this port and hes checking to make sure that this port is safe and also the governor, you just heard the governor say were losing our balance because the water is so high here but we want to explain to you the governor has told people to stay inside torque stay hunkered down and its precisely because of the aftermath of this hurricane. Its storm surge like this, its flooding in these areas and there are now 11 confirmed u. S. Fatalities and that is precisely because of this Hurricane Matthew and thats still on u. S. Soil. There are tens of thousands people without power and who are in shelters. Were going to continue patrolling to make sure there is no unusual activity and thatais safety. Thank you. Many calling on donald trump to step aside, though we have new reports this hour that senator bob dole is weighing in as well. Well bring that to you, an update on the situation right after this break. Red 97 set red 97 did you say 97 . Yes. You know, that reminds me of geicos 97 Customer Satisfaction rating. 97 . Helped by geicos fast and friendly claims seice. Huh. Geicos as fast and friendly as it gets. Geic expect great savings and a whole lot more. Gary, gary, gary. I am proud of you, my man. Making simple, smart cash back choices. With quicksilver from capital one. Youre earning unlimited 1. 5 cash back on every purchase, everywhere. Like on that new laptop. Quicksilver keeps things simple, gary. And smart, like you and i like that. I guess i am pretty smart. Dont let that go to your head, gary. Whats in your wallet . Welcome back to msnbc. Weve been following the big trump story, the fallout from the leaked video. Senator bob dole taking a different tact than many republicans. Ill read to you the statement we just got from senator dole saying ive been a republican forever, the partys been very good for me, ive had many opportunities as a republican and i find it difficult to desert the party after trump received 40 of the vote. And in addition to our live coverage, at the top of the next hour, msnbc will air a special called citizen trump. That special was produced before trumps comments were made public yesterday. I got to use some tictacs in case that start kissing me. I automatically start kissing them. Its like a mag nat. And when youre a start, you can do it, can you do anything, grab them by the [ bleep ]. Its not the first time trumps Public Comments have drawn criticism. Youve called women you dont like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. Your twitter account only Rosie Odonnell. When he gave the line about Rosie Odonnell and megyn i think was very surprised that the audience didnt boo but instead they cheered, they laughed, they rallied, they were supportive, that changed everything. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president . I think a big problem this country has is being politically correct. And honestly, megyn, if you dont like it, im sorry. Ive been very nice to you, although i could probably not be based on the way you have treated me but i couldnt do that. Donald trump is obviously the opposite of politically correct. And that resonates with people and thats also what makes him a wild card, too. You dont know where hes going to come from on any given day. You can see there was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever. Thats a history that may look different in the light of todays disclosures. I want to turn back to ali vitali from trump power and mark lewis. Im going to start with you, mark. Ive spoken to many people including republicans and many experts who have denounced these comments on their own terms for what they say and what they mean and weve talked about rape culture, weve talked about a lot of the ugly side of this and what it contributes to. Having done some of that, i want to turn back to the politics with you and you are our politics guy. Walk us through how different this campaigns response is to a situation like this because of the campaign that trump has built. Because any normal campaign in either party dealt with the crisis of this magnitude would be calling in favor, calling in chips, working with the National Party and we have not seen any of this over the past day. Ari, when it comes to donald trump and the republican base, particularly the prime riary vo that made him the nominee, he can do not wrong and i think that gives him free reign to do whatever he wants to be able to do. Whatever the controversy hes able to either survive or thrive. The problem is this isnt a republican primary race anymore. This is a general election where you have still persuadable voters and female voters who have to even see these comments and even if they might consider voting republican have to consider these comments. This is a very difficult situation for donald trump. One difference how hes handled this versus previous ones is hes actually apologized. First time. Donald trump is someone who famously doesnt apologize. He did apologize. Melania trump put out a statement saying my husband apologized, please accept that. So that is new. What we still see is a devotion by donald Trump Supporters that here is someone who cant do any wrong and that is still fueling him, even though there are significant parts of the Republican Party now who want to go a different way and are trying to survive with the races they see ahead of them next month. So ali vitali, if this is different, does this show the people around trump, his aides, get it . Reporter absolutely. I think the staffers that i spoke to last night and the people in trumps orbit who i spoke to both last night and into today are all saying this feels different. Not only are they seeing republican establishment members not only distance themselves but also unendorse trump and say they wont support him but also theyre seeing it the way state volunteers have been responding. I spoke to one source and he said that they are seeing a shift in the way that volunteers have been responding to the campaign in these states and thats significant because usually what mark was saying holds true and its something weve seen time and time again on the campaign trail, that these supporters, really do stand firm with donald trump and they tend to see all of these controversies as mediacreated distractions and thats something donald trump tried to push in his apology last night and he called this a distraction, even though he was apologizing and it is notable. He did and that reporter its notable he apologized and he used that word. And it cut into a little bit into the apology. Mark, briefly, what happens at the debate . I think it has to be an absolutely mustwatch moment. There are going to be millions of americans tuning in. I think donald trump is expected to bring of bill clintons past of the 1990s, even before. This is going to be a key and pivotal debate tomorrow night. After the first debate was billed as the biggest ever, we do hyperbole in this business, but this might actually be bigger. Im ari melber. Straight ahead citizen trump with chris matthews. Im truly honored by your support. Trump is right and americans know hes right. Tonight we close one chapter in history and we start another. You may not like his policies but you got to like his guts. Were at this point in the race and nobody has any idea what his actual policies would be. Youve given me the honor to lead the Republican Party to victory this fall. The notion that the Republican Party wasnt ripe