in north florida. so i m not daunted by much these days. i m used to a challenge. listen, a poll is a one snapshot in time. i mean, if you go back to this point in 2007, i think hillary clinton had nearly a 30-point average lead over barack obama in the polling. so meanwhile, people like you and i are living this stuff every single day. the reality is voters are just paying attention and if biden gets in the next few days or week or so he ll have a bump from that and there will be a forum in november, there will be a debate in november and we ll see where we are then. steve schale democratic strategist, adviser to the draft biden effort and a good sport for letting me badger you on these issues. thank you, rachel. there is it turns out big and late-breaking news tonight from the obama administration. i previewed this at the top of the show. this is an announcement that environmental groups i think did not see coming. certainly didn t see it coming today. but it has at least one e
asking a final round of detailed questions about how, not whether, to launch a 2016 presidential campaign. according to cnn, he s asking these people to work for him if he runs. the vice president has been making clear in these calls that his family is fully supportive of him jumping into the 2016 race. and family support, vice president biden said all along, would be the key issue for him in deciding whether or not he would run. truth is whether vice president biden is running or not is absolutely unknown. and yes, we have a fresh batch of maybe clues today. if the vice president does decide to get in the race, if he does decide to take the plunge, one of the first people to know will be my next guest. joining us now is steve shale. he s a democratic strategist and adviser to the draft biden effort. mr. shale, it s really nice to have you here. thanks for being here. thanks, rachel. good to be back. so just tell us. i know you know.
thank you. vice president s younger brother frank told the palm beach post that biden s decision will be based on a dialogue between his head and his heart. for more on that, steve shale, democratic strategist in florida, he s helped president obama carry florida in 08 and 2012 and is one of the advisors to the draft biden super pac. we have the nbc news online poll conducted by survey monkey, 56% say hillary clinton won that debate. so do you see an opening going forward for vice president biden, the rationale for him to put together a bid? absolutely. first of all, the opening is he s the vice president of the united states of america. he s got 100% name i.d., a national network of friends and donors ready to go to work for him. anybody of his stature has an opening on the stage to get in. listen, secretary clinton had a great night. there s no question about it. but we believe, i believe that the vice president first of all, his record as vice president, virtually every consequ
enters the plea. but the government said it could have a draft of the necessary documents by monday with a subsequent hearing, if this holds, by october 28th. although hastert s lawyers did say, as lawyers usually do in these cases, that they reserve the right to back out at the last minute. but that s typical in these cases. but the main point here is it does appear that he will plead guilty to charges as early as next week. pete williams, thank you very much. one of the top aides of hillary clinton huma abedin is scheduled to testify today. but the investigation which has come under scrutiny recently for its motives is once again making headlines for being specifically designed to damage hillary clinton s campaign. msnbc host and political correspondent steve kornacki is here with more. steve. yeah, jose, well, another republican is speaking out on this issue. this is something that hillary clinton s campaign now is trying to get as much attention to as
hillary clinton s poll numbers. it also comes after a former staffer on that committee who was fired by that committee publicly stepped forward to allege that his firing came about because he refused to focus enough of his energy on hillary clinton. we should stress that is an allegation that the committee s chairman, trey gowdy, vehemently disputes. he says that that former staffer only raised the hillary clinton issue after he had been fired and after he had left the committee. hillary clinton s campaign, for its part, is out with a statement on this latest comment from richard hanna, the republican. they say that hillary clinton will still be at the benghazi committee next week when she is scheduled to testify but, quote, at this point, trey gowdy s inquiry has zero credibility left. that is from hillary clinton s campaign. again, hillary clinton will still testify, though, before trey gowdy s benghazi committee next thursday. you can imagine, though, a lot of these comments we re t