To win the governors race. All of it as the 11th hour gets underway on a thursday night. And good evening, once again, from our nbc news headquarters here in new york. Day 651 of the trump administration, and five days ahead of election day, the president said tonight that although two maniacs had disrupted the momentum of the midterm campaigns, one with pipe bombs, the other with an ar15 in a synagogue, he feels the momentum coming back. More on that in a moment. But first tonight we begin with the looming existential threat that hangs over this administration. That would be the russia investigation, and specifically this latest reporting from the New York Times that may further connect the dots between the Trump Campaign for president and russia. This is new reporting about veteran Trump Advisor Roger stone, friend of the president for 30 years, and his links to wikileaks and the Trump Campaign during 2016. One of the coauthors, Michael Schmidt, is standing by to join us. The times is reporting on a newly revealed email exchange between stone and Campaign Head steve bannon that, quote, underscores how mr. Stone presented himself to Trump Campaign officials as a conduit of inside information from wikileaks, russias chosen repository for documents hacked from democratic computers. Mr. Bannon and two other former senior Campaign Officials have detailed to prosecutors for special Counsel Robert Mueller how mr. Stone created that impression, according to people familiar with their accounts. One of them told investigators that mr. Stone not only seemed to predict wikileaks actions, but that he also took credit afterward for the timing of its disclosures that damaged Hillary Clintons candidacy. According to the times, after roger stone tweeted about predictions of an october surprise from wikileaks founder Julian Assange, a reporter from breitbart emailed him, quote, assange, whats he got . Hope its good. Stone writes back, it is. Id tell bannon, but he doesnt call me back. The breitbart reporter forwarded the emails to bannon, he seemed to brush them off. The next day assange held a press conference promising weekly dumps of documents. We hope to be publishing every week for the next ten weeks. We have on schedule and its a very hard schedule all the u. S. Electionrelated documents to come out before november 8. After that, steve bannon reached out to roger stone to ask about it, writing, what was that this morning . Stone responded, a load every week going forward. The New York Times reports, quote, in an interview on wednesday, mr. Stone insisted he did nothing more than posture, bluff, hype based on wikileaks twitter feed and miscellaneous tips. Stone has issued similar denials about alleged ties to wikileaks in recent months, while also lashing out at mueller. It is not inconceivable now that mr. Mueller and his team may seek to conjure up some extraneous crime pertaining to my business or maybe not even pertaining to the 2016 election. But i had no advance notice of the content, source, or the exact disclosure time of the wikileaks disclosures. Its now abundantly clear that the special counsel seeks to go through every aspect of my personal, business and political life, try to conjure up some offense to pressure me to testify against the president. I know that there exists nowhere evidence of russian collusion or wikileaks collaboration or any nonsense pertaining to John Podestas email. But im also mindful of any prosecutors ability to squeeze underlings to get them to compose testimony against a bigger fish. A number of stones associates have been questioned by muellers team, and stone is also firming back firing back, rather, at steve bannon in an oped in todays daily caller. Hes accusing bannon of leaking their email exchange to the media. Stone writes, quote, bannons animus toward me stems from a column a wrote for the daily caller writing he outlived his use in the Trump White House and should be fired. The next day he was. On that note, lets bring in our leadoff panel for a thursday night. Frank figliuzzi, former fbi assistant director for Counter Intelligence who in the past worked for robert mueller. Cynthia oxney, federal Rights Division who worked with among others robert mueller, and jeremy bash, cia and pentagon, former chief counsel house intel committee. We also asked Michael Schmidt to join us at the top of the broadcast here. The Pulitzer Prize winning writer for the washington times. People arriving late to home, having had a chance to read and digest this work you contributed to, what do you view as the take away concerning the role of messieurs stone and bannon . What these new emails we brought forward today show is the central question of stone in the Mueller Investigation. Was stone someone who was simply trying to boast about contacts with assange and wikileaks to give him extra relevance, to give him better currency in the Trump Campaign and around the president . Or was he truly in touch with them . Was he truly a cutout, truly a conduit . And the campaign wasnt really sure. Several people have from the campaign, including bannon, have told mueller that bannon represented himself as in touch with these with assange and with wikileaks. But who really knew what he was doing . The campaign was also not really sure what to make of stone. They didnt want to alienate him. Stone is someone who, you know, has openly says hes gone out and created political problems for other people. Hes someone that the president trusts, and he was someone who, on the outside of the campaign, was doing a lot of work for the president , really trying to undercut Hillary Clinton publicly, and leading those efforts in a way that maybe the campaign thought that they couldnt. So, what these emails show is that difficult balance that the campaign had with dealing with stone, giving him attention, and trying to figure out what assange really had coming into the election, and what mueller is looking at in the larger sort of sense of the investigation, where stone fits in. Michael, you are fond on this broadcast of describing the mueller effort in terms of buckets. And we are in your debt, because its a good word picture to paint. Where do you, in light of that view, those various buckets, in terms of completion based on what you know . Well, in terms of buckets and the president , its probably best to look at it with the president. In terms of this, this falls in the collusion bucket and what does the president know. Was this information that trickled back do him . Did stone tell the president about his contacts with wikileaks . Did anyone in the campaign who stone spoke to talk to the president about did . What did the president know . That is even a question that mueller has for the president. When we learned the various questions mueller wants to ask the president , this is part of it, how much of that information got back do him. These are collusion questions. The thing about the buckets is many of the president s problems are in the obstruction bucket, things he has done since he came to office, his interactions with the justice department, his treatment of jim comey, his treatment of his attorney general jeff sessions. This is much more in the collusion area where there are fewer questions about the president. Mike schmidt, the creator as far as we know of the Mueller Investigation and the coauthor of today apartments piece of work by the New York Times. Mike, thanks for staying up with us. We know its been a long day. Thank you for being on the broadcast again. Lets go to our panel to start off, and that would be frank. Frank, tell me how it is that mr. Stone can rightfully contend that he has taken and passed a Lie Detector Test . Tell me how it is he can contend with such surety that he was never in touch with any russians on the other side. Well, a Lie Detector Test is garbage in, garbage out. So, the questions have to be the right questions. So, if youre paying for your own Lie Detector Test, you can pay for the right questions to be asked, and you have the right answers to those right questions. If the examiner is asking you, did you ever talk to anyone at wikileaks, and the true answer is no, youre okay. You can say no. But hes not asking you the questions that really matter, like, were you in contact with the russians who were in contact with wikileaks . Or maybe you werent in direct contact with wikileaks, but credit co was or someone else was. You shape the questions and you pronounce to the world that youve passed your own polygraph. Thats the way thats done. As a friend of mine likes to say, frank, there is nothing that will serious you up in a hurry quite like sitting across from mueller and or his investigators. What is likely to happen in that room with roger stone . Well, lets understand this. The person that knows more than roger stone even realizes is mueller. Why is that . Were talking about wikileaks. Were talking about the russian intelligence service. The u. S. Intelligence community has those entities covered like a blanket. That means that mueller has the answers to the test. He has both ends of the equation. So stone needs to make a decision. Im either going to lie to the fbi and be charged with that among other charges, or i have to realize they have the answered to the test, they know the other end of the communications. So, when you get to this point in an investigation, brian, its coming to the end. Theyre asking you questions to see if youre going to lie about what they already know to be true. Well, sounds like that would serious up most people. Cynthia, with your former trained federal eye, what do you see in todays reporting by mike and his colleagues . I dont think we know because it is one or the other. Either, you know, he calls himself the king of dirty tricks. He has a tattoo of nixon on his back which is just as creepy as can be. I wasnt going to mention that. Just wow, ooh, too even late to talk about it. Anyway, and it could be it reasonably can be that he was completely bluffing, or it can be that he did know everything. And when the access Hollywood Tape came down, he used some secret way to communicate with assange and said, please drop emails. And we just dont know that. Mueller knows that but we dont. Something else that we know. We know two other things. One, hes a serial liar, because remember, he said originally, i never spoke to any russians. That turns out to not be true because there are texts that show he did talk to a russian who offered to give him dirt on Hillary Clinton for 2 million, and he remembered in the texts what the guy was wearing. He called him the crazy russian. He said he had a russian accent. So that was a complete lie. And it was just this week he said there are absolutely no emails which suggest that i ever told anybody in the Trump Campaign about Julian Assange and what was going on with wikileaks. But, in fact, we have this email today. So, we know hes a serial liar. Thats one thing we no. The other thing we know is during the campaign, after he left the campaign and during the general election, he had several Campaign Committees that were going on that mueller is also investigating. He was making a film at some point about bill clinton, which was very negative, and he also had another campaign. And the person who was working in that other campaign, it had about 350,000 in it in a c4, has been talking to mueller. So, it may be one of those situations where he bluffed and said he was so important, which got himself investigated by mueller. The end result may be that caused mueller to find out about other things about him, which may be true. And we just dont know that yet, but we will know reasonably soon. So, jeremy, we have been talking with mike and frank and cynthia thus far about mr. Stone. Let me lead you to mr. Bannon. As we like to say, callbacks are only good in auditions. Theyre not good when its mueller, and youve already spent 20 hours, and now bannon has gone back again. What do you think the risk is in this time line that were seeing so far to mr. Bannon . Well, i think the big picture, brian, is that there was a trump tower meeting in june. At that meeting, the russian government sent a delegation, and they informed the high command of the campaign manafort, trump junior and kushner that had, in fact, the russian government would be interceding in the election with hacked emails by dumping them into the campaign. They were informed of that in june and the conversation was about what policy trades they would get if trump were elected president. Following the indictment of the russian intelligence officials, the russian Intelligence Officers moved those hacked emails to wikileaks. And now we see that roger stone got a heads up about those, that dumping of those emails and he informed the campaign manager, steve bannon. So now we have the following individuals on the Trump Campaign witting of the russian plot. Bannon, kushner, manafort, donald trump, jr. To believe that donald trump, our current president , didnt know anything about it, you have to believe none of those people mentioned anything about it over a span of several months. Several individuals mentioning nothing to donald trump about this . I just find that absolutely hard to believe and i bet bob mueller does as well. Frank, do i have it about right, callbacks are great if youre looking for a part in the lion king, not so great if its mueller calling . Yeah, that means hes got something more that you havent shared with him and hes giving you an opportunity to come clean on that. And i think bannon should be worried about that. Look, if you rob a bank and if you know someone is robbing a bank, they give you the proceeds of that bank robbery, you know where the money came from. Youre benefiting from it. And or the person is paying your bills off with the proceeds from the bank robbery, youre likely going to prison. Bannon and stone appear, or at least are being investigated for having prior knowledge of a bank robbery. In this case, the hacking of emails. If they benefited from it, the campaign, and they knew about it and did nothing about it, theyre looking at prison time. Cynthia, by definition, did trumps legal risks go up today based on what we know . I think its about the same. I will say this. The only thing worse than getting callbacks to bob mueller is not getting called by bob mueller when youre stone. Good point. The people who havent been interviewed by bob mueller right now are the people who are really in trouble, and that is stone, kushner, and don junior. Those are the people who are really in the crosshairs, and they arent getting interviewed, and they should be very worried. It will be interesting to see what happens as we move forward with stone. I mean, maybe he gets an invitation to come to the grand jury. When somebody moves into target status, we instead of subpoenaing them, they get an invitation and they have to make an election. Is he going to try to b. S. The grand jury or is he going to take the 5th amendment. And that will be an Interesting Development on that day. Jeremy, we appreciate that folks are trying to wind down at the end of the day. We try not to scare folks, but this quote got our attention and it speaks to your background in national security. So i have to ask you. This is from david sanger in the New York Times. While some say they believe president Vladimir Putin of russia is sitting out this election, the scrutiny is intense, the argument goes, and 470 house and senate races make it just too hard for the russians to figure out their interests, much less manipulate the outcome. Still, others find the quiet deeply disturbing, perhaps a sign of a plan to make a lastminute effort to the voters that their ballots might not be counted or counted correctly. Jeremy . I think when the full tally of this election season is rendered, were going to see if the russians are very active. Theyve probably been very active on social media. They paid absolutely no price for doing so the last go around. We dont know yet the extent to which they have been able to somehow get into the election systems or somehow play some other role with their active measures, their covert action our election season. That is going to be a big job for the u. S. Intelligence community the following months. Our thanks to Michael Schmidt at the top of the broadcast and our friends frank figliuzzi, Cynthia Oxley and jeremy bash. Coming up, the competing messages on the campaign trail today. Oprah enters the fray down south in a race the democrats badly want. And later the president gets called out for calling the media the enemy of the people, and offers his explanation. The 11th hour just Getting Started on a thursday night. Place, the xfinity xfi gateway. And its strengthened by xfi pods, which plug in to extend the wifi even farther, past anything that stands in its way. Well almost anything. Leave no room behind with xfi pods. Simple. Easy. Awesome. Click or visit a retail store today. I called Stacey Abrams, and i said, stacy, this is oprah. [ laughter ] you know what she said . She said, girl, let me pullover the side of the road. [ laughter ] and i told her that i wanted to come to georgia and lend my support. And she said, that would be all right. [ laughter ] democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams got some help as we saw from Oprah Winfrey today in georgia in a pair of town halls, oprah made it clear this is not about her running for anything. Rather, she said it was a trip to georgia to help elect a president who could be the nations first black woman governor. Im here today because of Stacey Abrams. [ cheers and applause ] and im here today and im here today because of the men and because of the women who were lynched, who were humiliated, who were discriminated against, who were suppressed, who were repressed, and oppressed for the right, for the equality at the polls. And i want you to know that their blood has seeped into my dna, and i [ applause ] refuse to let their sacrifices be in vain. Dwarfing even the publishers clearinghouse, some folks later got the surprise of their lives when oprah went door to door briefly campaigning for abrams. This is the race democrats badly want down south. Abrams is running against brian kemp backed by donald trump in a close race where Voter Suppression is already out front as a major issue. Barack obama, for good measure, heads to georgia to campaign tomorrow. In contrast, the president s rally in missouri tonight, again playing up immigration, especially that caravan making its way north through mexico. These are tough people. These are not angels. These are not little angels. These are tough people. And were not letting them into our country. Theyre not coming in illegally. Here to talk about it tonight, a. B. Stoddard back with us, columnist and associated editor at real clear politics. Jill colvin returns, White House Reporter for the associated press. And we welcome to our broadcast, tia mitchell, reporter for the Atlanta Journal constitution. Tia, how did oprah change the race, if at all, today . I dont know if oprah changed the race, but i do think oprah is another tool that Stacey Abrams has to get her base riled up, because she needs democratic turnout to win the race on tuesday. She needs democrats across georgia if shes going to turn georgia blue. And i hate to talk about her like shes a product, but she is a political asset. How did they deploy the political asset that is oprah . Well, it was twofold today. There was oprah the surrogate, who got on stage and talked about why she thinks Stacey Abrams is good for georgia, and why she wants Stacey Abrams to win the race. But it was also classic oprah. So, they sat down in plush arm chairs and just kind of had a one on one conversation. They talked about Stacey Abrams and her personal life and her family and her story. And so i think it was that twoprong approach. So, it wasnt just oprah on the campaign trail, kind of the way that vicepresident pence and brian kemp have kind of said, you know, we dont need people coming from here just to say who to vote for. But it was also like that one on one oprah interview that shes known for. A. B. , in your opinion, does this kind of thing get votes . I think that what she did was so counter intuitive, just injecting this positivity into the campaign, saying this is about discernment. Were going to turn our backs away from fear. This is about the privilege of voting, the power of voting. Were all the same at the ballot box, all of us. We live in the best country on earth. We get to do this. Just absolutely the opposite of what everyone would expect. Obviously drawing a sharp contrast with president trumps message. It was up beat, it was inspirational, it was energizing. She said to the people in the room, of course youre going to vote, but i need you to go out and get other people to vote for Stacey Abrams. She didnt talk about president trump. She didnt complain. She didnt name drop. She didnt name call. It was everything you dont expect in a political rally. And because of that, even if you didnt know who Stacey Abrams was this morning and you were a georgia resident, this went viral and its exciting and it just is theres just all up side for Stacey Abrams, i think. Well put indeed. Hey, jill, because you play the hard news role here all the time, we have to snap the conversation back to the president talking today about the caravan. Well do that and talk about it on the other side. Theyre throwing rocks viciously and violently. You saw that three days ago, really hurting the military. Were not going to put up with that. They want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back. Were going to consider it i tell them consider it a rifle. When they throw rocks like they did at the Mexico Military and police, i say consider it a rifle. Jill, i heard paul rieckhoff, the founder of iava, iraq veteran on another network saying, they got rocks thrown at them constantly in iraq. They never emptied their clip at someone in return. You couldnt ask for more of a broad contrast between these two events today. Absolutely. The contrast here could not be clearer. Look, the president is planning a trip to georgia on this weekend. Mike pence was there today campaigning, but the split screen image that everyone saw today was Oprah Winfrey up on stage there versus the president delivering this very hardline speech and the white house in the roosevelt room delivering his vision on immigration. The president in the final days of his campaign is focused on a campaign of fear and zeroing in on illegal immigration. Today he talked about a plan. He said he plans to sign an executive order next week that will crackdown on Asylum Seekers. He says his plan is to prevent any Asylum Seekers who try to enter the country illegally between ports of entry claiming those people will not be allowed into the country period and saying he plans to erect tent cities of thousands of tents along the border in the southwest, full of Asylum Seekers. These are people coming to the country. These are people who fear for their lives, who fear for their safety, who are trying to take refuge in the united states. The president has clearly tried to season these people trying to paint them as dangerous, trying to paint them as people who will bring crime and danger to the families of america as he tries in the final days of this campaign to energize Republican Voters and get them to come out using the same play book that he did in 2016, a play book that for him was successful. A. B. , react for me, please, to what Steve Schmidt said on twitter tonight. And i quote. The deployment of active duty u. S. Armed forces to the u. S. Mexican Border in an operation named faithful patriot, with lethal force authorized, is a scandal. This is a shameful misuse and abuse of the u. S. Military. In service of trumps desperate political stunts. Well, i think that many people in the military feel that way, but this is not an illegal deployment. It was used the same type of operation was used smaller scale by president s bush and obama. The military says yes to their commander in chief, and no one is going to resign over this as much as this is making people all the way up to secretary mattis uncomfortable. This beyond this is the layering over of the birthright citizenship executive order, and now this other fictional executive order about minimizing the excuse me, restricting the criteria for asylum. Its very surreal, even by the trumpian threshold. Hes gotten into this frantic sort of manic thing where each day he has to add a new layer of action to the caravan Fear Campaign theme. By Tuesday Morning it could be 60,000 troops because he keeps elevating the number. But what i wonder if terms of its effect, brian, if you are a trump voter and hes raised the stakes with all this fear, but now hes told you theres all these executive orders and theyve sealed the border, are you actually motivated to vote on tuesday . Or have you had your fears assuaged by all these promises, these quoteunquote solutions, people with rifles, no one is coming in, birthright citizenship is about to be ended, and asylum is going to be extremely narrowed down. I just dont know what these people believe. Jill, indeed today, under the cloak of new policy which didnt materialize, the president used, as you know, the backdrop of the stature of the roosevelt room in the west wing across the hall from the oval office for todays announcement. There was a lot of talk about that. And to a. B. s point, how much more can he ratchet it up in these remaining rallies . Exactly. The question is its almost every day the president has tried to unveil one of these new sort of shock and awe proposals, from claiming yesterday that he was going to increase the number of troops along the borde to extraordinary n annou revoke the birthri citizenship right. Every day we have had this build up as the president attempts here to increase the stake. Also as hes described it, really focus attention on the issue. We heard the president tonight in the rally talking about how he felt like momentum had been diverted by the incidents that we had last week, speaking about the person who sent the suspicious packages to those people, the president s critics, and then of course the synagogue shooting on saturday and the president talking about how hes interested in now reclaiming that momentum in the final days leading up into this race. Our thanks and again welcome to the broadcast tia mitchell who suddenly is living in the most powerful state in the union in terms of politics. You got the former president tomorrow. Thanks very much for coming on tonight. Thanks as well to a. B. Stoddard, and jill colvin for returning to the broadcast. Coming up for us, trump, when confronted, gives his defense of that phrase of his enemy of the people when we continue. This is matt. The little freak matts a super fresh lettuce freak slicing it daily to three thirtyseconds of an inch the tastiest width for lettuce freaky fresh. Freaky fast. Jimmy johns. Now try your favorite on our new ninegrain wheat sub. Wheat yeah. Freak yeah. Im talking about the fake news media. They are truly an enemy of the people. The fake news, enemy of the people. They interviewed ten women on one of the opposing networks, you know, the enemy of the people like all of them. 33 of the people in this country believe the fake news is, in fact and i hate to say this in fact, the enemy of the people. [ cheers and applause ] just some recent examples of the charge from the president so sadly by now, calling the news media the free press, and the free society, the only profession with rights enshrined in the constitution, calling them the enemy of the people. The president has been asked about it, asked to defend it, but never quite like this, and were going to show you how its done. This is jim van dehi, a veteran washington reporter now with axios confronting the president on his use of this inflammatory language. To be honest, what scares the crap out of me is if youre saying enemy of the people, enemy of the people god forbid, you have fervent supporters, they love you, they listen to you they like me more because of that. They like me more doctor what if someone shoots one of these reporters . Look, i dont think you think were the enemy of the people, do you . I dont. But if you give me false reports, i would say thats not a good thing for our kwun dri. Do you worry at all, you are the most powerful man in the world. If you say that word, enemy, enemy, literal tens of thousands of people going to a stadium to listen to you and then people go on social media and they get themselves so jazzed up, theres got to be a party thats like, im scared someone is going to im alex trebek here to tell you about the Colonial Penn program. If youre age 50 to 85 and looking to buy Life Insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. What are the three ps . The three ps of Life Insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. A price you can afford, a price that cant increase, and a price that fits your budget. Im 65 and take medications. Whats my price . You can get coverage for 9. 95 a month. I just turned 80. Whats my price . 9. 95 a month for you, too. If youre age 50 to 85, call now about the number one most popular whole Life Insurance plan available through the Colonial Penn program. It has an affordable rate starting at 9. 95 a month. No medical exam, no health questions. Your acceptance is guaranteed, and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock, so your rate can never go up for any reason. And with this plan, you can pick your payment date, so you can time your premium due date to work with your budget. So call now for free information. And youll also get this free beneficiary planner, and its yours just for calling. So call now. We have gotten tremendous numbers, tremendous numbers of republicans are going out to vote. Now, we did have two maniacs stop the momentum that was incredible, because for seven days nobody talked about the elections. It stopped the tremendous momentum and the president said that out loud tonight. Two maniacs upset the midterm momentum. Between them, those two maniacs, you recall, sent out 15 pipe bombs and killed 11 innocent souls in pittsburgh. With us tonight to talk about where we are, mike murphy, veteran republican strategist and longtime advisor to mitt romney, jeb bush, and john mccain. And, mike, i thought of you when i heard that tonight. Its bracing and, in fact, you tweeted something about these trump rallies and about Ronald Reagan, the former republican standard bearer. If Ronald Reagan suddenly came to life and saw this rally, he would look around and ask where trumps straight jacket is. Expand on that for me. Well, i watched a bunch of the rally in a digital feed today, and its just unhinged. Theres no empathy, theres no understanding of the job of head of state. Not just head of political campaigning. To look at the wider picture and understand whats going on in the country right now, hes just so tone deaf. Also the meandering sentences, he did this one whopper where he started with the evil foreign dictator would get his wife and somehow come to the u. S. For three minutes and have a kid, and that child, under birthright citizenship, would be that boy or girl should be an american citizen would bring down the country. It was such a crazy non sequitur. I think if Ronald Reagan, god bless him, were to wake up and suddenly see that in the Republican Party that he loved and helped build, he would be horrified. One of the things were going to talk about with Steve MariucciSteve Kornacki is the suburbs. There are a few moderates left in suburban districts who want very much to put a little distance between them and this president right now. Yeah, this is an amazing election because a lot of things are happening. The Republican House candidates, the ones having the most trouble that is putting our majority in tremendous jeopardy, is in the wealthier suburban districts with College Educated voters who tend to be economically conservative and in line with the republicans, but are not having the election about the economy, even though we have a case to make. Because the president injects himself into the daily dialogue with just crazy antics and now increasingly, ill say it as a republican, pure out race baiting, hes turning those voters off, particularly College Educated women. Its crushing us in the suburbs. Its almost like hes trying to lose. Hes just narrowed down to this republican primary appeal. By the way, the disease is not just there. Those midwestern states im from michigan. Those are the states that elected president trump. Now those governorships are all in tremendous danger and theyre mostly republican. I dont think there is any rhyme or reason to this. I think its just he wants a crowd, wants applause. He feeds on the crowd, the crowd are hard core base primary voters. And he just ramps up this stuff and hes crowding out any messaging that might help save some of ours. Instead, theyre getting what some might call a karmic punishment for being passive. And the president is doubling down on all that stuff. My goal is never to put you on the spot. But i want to ask you a question people stop and ask you in the airport. Where do you see this, where do you see the house five nights from now when we start our coverage tuesday night . Well, what we know is were going to have a big turnout election. Rather than 85, 90 million votes cast, i think were going to be more over 100, which would be an abnormally high midterm. That probably will benefit the democrats more. The fact that independents are breaking toward the democrats and against the president will help them as well. So, if i had to bet, i would bet a fair amount of money that were going to majority, probably 20s to the low 30s, it could be worse in terms of number of seats. Im very worried about governor races, that were going to have a really bad night unfortunately and a lot of republican governors sucked into this trump disaster, even though they tend to try to run on their own agendas in the states, where in real races like ohio or real trouble in michigan, real fight in wisconsin, all republican incumbents, not to mention florida, i think we will hang onto the senate, but this is a year, if it were at all normal, which its not, where the republicans would build on their majority. Instead, were going to have to fight to defend it, probably be successful, but have a lot of opportunity costs. Again, the governors are the story of real political power, in legislative power in midwest states. It will be a bad night. Should be tragic for the party and ill lay it at trumps feet. He got us here. I think people have been too come place ept going along with him. Live by trump politically, die by trump politically. Its powerful hearing you say that given your expertise and past in this party. Tell you what, were going to take a break. To our audience, mike is going to stick around and return at the end of the broadcast to talk about something unique to this day, thursday before a tuesday election. So, mike, well be back to you. Our break. And when we come back, to Steve Kornacki and the latest numbers tonight. Because were a family around here, and we try to run a family operation, im going to be honest and tell you that our big board is, shall we say, having a moment tonight. And better tonight than five nights from now when the big board is just going to be overheating and used every second by our guest tonight Steve Kornacki, National Political correspondent. This gives us some me time, us time. Sitting down, im not used to this. You have your regular graphics. Tonights task is to take us through the suburban districts. Yeah. A couple new polls we can show you districts here. They all have one thing in common. Theyre republicanheld congressional districts up in a couple days in districts that Hillary Clinton won in 2016. So suburbs that already didnt like trump, republicans trying to defy that tide. This is right outside washington, d. C. And northern virginia. That is barbara comstock. This district went for Hillary Clinton by ten points. Comstock survived in 2016, but now in the trump midterm, her number looks just like Donald Trumps did in this district two years ago. You can look in new jersey. This is actually the 7th district of new jersey. I think we have that. Ive been watching this one. Yeah. This is leonard if youre from new jersey, that name is associated with the old moderate wing of the Republican Party there. Goes way back. There was a thought at the beginning of this cycle that reputation would succeed trump. That district as well, suburban new jersey. Kansas, you dont think kansas is suburban. Right outside kansas city, kansas city, kansas, and the bedroom communities of johnson county, little yellow splotch there in the corner. Again, look at this, republican incumbent, clinton won the district, and now that republican incumbent, it seems like the voters in that district are saying that they view the republican incumbent in the district as a proxy for trump and theyre voting that way. I always say this. So Many Companies test products in oletha, kansas, and the suburbs around kansas city. Its considered so robustly centrally american. Yeah, and this was the kind of district republicans the bedroom communities outside kansas city, republicans dominated. And youve got trump youve also got in kansas that statewide factor chris kobach, not necessarily resonating there. Kobach in kansas. Culturally moderate pocketbook republicans if you want to call them that in these bedroom communities in these polls, certainly, not for me. Proving, again, the phrase around here, if you got kornacki, you dont need the big board. No offense to the big board. The big board will be back in action tomorrow night. Steve, thank you, as always. Mike murphy is going to come back again to tell us why the final thursday before election day is a big deal in the political business right after this. Im alex trebek here to tell you about the Colonial Penn program. If youre age 50 to 85 and looking to buy Life Insurance on a fixed budget, remember the three ps. What are the three ps . The three ps of Life Insurance on a fixed budget are price, price, and price. A price you can afford, a price that cant increase, and a price that fits your budget. Im 65 and take medications. Whats my price . You can get coverage for 9. 95 a month. I just turned 80. Whats my price . 9. 95 a month for you, too. If youre age 50 to 85, call now about the number one most popular whole Life Insurance plan available through the Colonial Penn program. It has an affordable rate starting at 9. 95 a month. No medical exam, no health questions. Your acceptance is guaranteed, and this plan has a guaranteed lifetime rate lock, so your rate can never go up for any reason. And with this plan, you can pick your payment date, so you can time your premium due date to work with your budget. So call now for free information. And youll also get this free beneficiary planner, and its yours just for calling. So call now. Last thing before we go here tonight, how a smart guy not me looks at the midterms in a way that will make us all smarter as we watch these races next tuesday night. Mike murphy, the veteran republican strategist, remains with us for this final segment. And, mike, why is tonight right now, the final thursday before the tuesday midterms, why is tonight an important night in your business, the business of politics and elections . Well, today, thursday, is the last day where you can make any kind of big meaningful decision about messaging. New ads going up for the final weekend, you know, tweaking too much of what you do in terms of big strategic way. Tonight is also the last night where you can really do any phone polling. Tomorrow is the last time you look at the radar. Its like landing a plane. Tomorrow morning theyre 100 feet off the runway and its all about turnout and get out the vote operations. The big Strategic Moves are over and the radar screen is switched off. So people get very nervous the last weekend and there is not a lot they can do. Ride it out and turnout the vote. We have been looking at these congressional districts. Perhaps you heard our segment with Steve Kornacki. Give us a viewers guide. If we were sitting with you, is there one early bellwether that youre going to do you have a favorite district, favorite race youre going to look at for some indication of how the night is going to go . Yeah, i think in virginia, barbara comstock, my friend, has a tough district. Shes in trouble. Dave is dead even, abigail, im going to mispronounce her last name. Dead even. If she wins its going to be a good night for the democrats. Id also watch the Indiana Senate race, tight race, reports quickly. Any of the governors you ran through quickly, is there a governors race that is a bellwether for you . Ill be watching ohio. If mike de wine cant make it out of ohio, that will be a big beat. Michigan is gone. Scott walker is fighting for his life. Michigan and ohio and of course florida, the big prize where it looks like the ddems are a point or two ahead. One of the republican pros when it was the Republican Party. Our friend mike murphy. Thank you. Its always a pleasure having you on with us. Appreciate it. Thank you, brian. That is our broadcast for this final thursday before the midterm elections. Thank you so very much for being here with us. Good night from nbc news headquarters here in new york. This morning, the president continues his Campaign Blitz with just four days to go until the midterms. Last night he blamed two maniacs for stopping republican momentum. Plus Oprah Winfrey campaigns in georgia for Stacey Abrams as mike pence vies for the spotlig spotlight. And the president has two new immigration measures but the two could face challenges in court