Shape. Why all eyes are now on a key race in montana. Trumps Election Interference Case is finally back in court. What the judge is now saying about the timeline is the 11th Hour gets underway on this thursday night. Good evening. Once again, i am stephanie ruhle. Can you believe that we are now just 61 days away from the Election And Campaign donations are still pouring in, at least for Kamala Harris. The Vice President raised more than 300 Million in the month of august. It is over twice as much as the Trump Campaign, which raised also a whole lot of money, 130 Million in the same time period. Today, harris arrived in pittsburgh, pennsylvania. The city will be her home for the next four days as she prepares for her first debate against trump on thursday night. This, as new reporting says the Trump Campaign is changing their strategy. Axes reports trump is scaling Back Campaigning in new hampshire, minnesota and virginia, three states he was targeting just six weeks ago and he is also revamping his economic message in a last Ditch Effort to slow Harris Momentum ahead of the debate. Von hilliard had a difficult challenge of digging into that policy. Here is more. Reporter tonight, just days from his critical Face Off with Vice President harris, former President Trumps zeroing in on the top issue for voters, the economy. We delivered an economic miracle which, and joe turned into an economic disaster. Reporter among trumps plans, increasing tariffs on imports and eliminating taxes on Social Security Benefits and tips. Harris recently adopted his No Tax on tips proposal. She is actually copying a lot of my plan in fact were going to send her a Maga Cap sometime in the next week. Reporter trump revealing he created the suggestion from Elon Musk to create a government efficiency commission. Elon, because he is not very busy, has agreed to head that task force. Reporter trump signed an Executive Order in 2020 that wouldve allowed for his administration to fire a segment of the federal civil workforce and hire his political appointees in their place. Today, musk writing, i look forward to serving america if the opportunity arises, but that could raise conflicts of interest since he owns companies regulated by the government. Meanwhile, the Harris Campaign also focusing on the economy in this new ad. While corporations are gouging families, trump is focused on giving them Tax Cuts but Kamala Harris is focused on you. Building up the middle class will be a defining goal of my presidency. We have a lot to get smarter on and you are in luck because we have a fantastically enough panel. Nbc News Correspondent Von Hilliard was not just with Donald Trump today. He is with us tonight. Senior national Politics Reporter John Allen and bloomberg white House Correspondent Michaela Gardner is with us. Donald trump is painting a very dark picture of the economy. He is claiming Biden And Harris are antienergy and he is blaming them for the Stock Market Crashing so lets get things straight. This administration is producing record amounts of Oil Mvp harris just pledged not to ban fracking and look over at the stock market. The dow is up nearly 18 over the last year. There is a lot of nonsense in this speech. Much of it, and im not speaking subjectively, it is fair to say much of it was incoherent. There were not even complete sentences. What am i missing . Thats a really good point you make. For more than an hour, he outlined what was billed as an economic speech. He was asked by one of the individuals by The Economic Club Of New York about his Child Care policy. It was not coherent. There were no exact policy details that were provided. He went back to suggesting tariffs on all imported goods. He called for the rescinding of Carbon Emission standards. He called for the rescinding of Tax Credits for electric vehicles. He went on to call for a corporate Tax Rate staying at 21 , extending the 2017 Tax Legislation that he and republicans on Capitol Hill Past but by and large there was little in the form of New Economic Policy introduced. Of course you heard him there suggest he was going to put Elon Musk in charge of this commission that would audit the federal government but there is no details, no actual substance or specifics on what that would look like and they say Government Waste but this is a republican party that is very answer specific about Government Waste and it was the Trump Administration that added more to the deficit. I think often times we are looking for answers and we dont always get them. People are like well if he cuts corporate taxes more it will goose the Tax Market and he has yet to explain how he would pay for it. This speech was an absolute Word Salad. They serve Word Salad for lunch at the New York economic club but the thing that was most galling, that was not a low information room. Those are highly financially literate people. It was just reported Today Howard let mick, the ceo of Cantor Fitzgerald is now the key Wall Street Person speaking to Wall Street on trumps transition team. Every person in that room knew it was pure nonsense. He was spouting. Some of them even applauded. What is going on here . These are people who dont give a salad about whether Donald Trump is going to do X Policy or Y Policy as long as the taxes come down. It does not matter whether hes got a Veggie Medic where his mouth should be just spitting out vegetables all over the room if hes going to cut taxes and he says hes going to cut taxes and he has a record of cutting taxes these guys are going to be happy. He comes up with this government efficiency commission. The idea here is to figure out where there are improper payments and fraud. Hes going to audit the federal government. Its a brilliant idea. The founders came up with it. Its called congress. Thats what they do for a living. Its not necessarily a bad idea because the government spends too much money and does not have the discipline and proper audit but Elon Musk is going to be the guy doing it . Look, tesla is successful and in large part because of the subsidies it got from the federal government. Im not saying he committed any crimes but this is like the rob regarding the bank. He is somebody who has benefited from Government Largess is much as anybody in this country. This entire spacex built on the backs of federal tax dollars in the Space Program we used to have so thats not an attack on Elon Musk but simply like he is somebody who very much has taken advantage of things [ inaudible ] i wonder if youll audit those big government contracts that he has. Michaela, Kamala Harris has been messaging a very pro Business Agenda to voters. What reporting do you have on her economic plan . 41, harris is talking about the economy a lot different than biden. Really, biden was focused on defending his record. He constantly touted the 15 Million jobs added to the economy since he took office. She is starting from the Basis Point that many americans are feeling which is the economic pain and often bidens messaging felt detached from that but we saw the first sign this week that shes going to have a more [ inaudible ] approach when it comes to policymaking. We saw that with her Small Business proposals, potentially increasing taxdeductible expenses and still increasing capital Gains Tax from 20 to 28 on earnings of more than 1 million, but that is far less than what biden had proposed in his Budget Proposal which would be almost a 40 rate so she is definitely taken a different approach than biden is starting to show how she is differentiating herself from the incumbent. So, where does the narrative come from that she is less pro business than Joe Biden was . Or actual numbers and her policies are mow probusiness than biden. Why is there this narrative that she is super progressive, she is Borderline Communist . The numbers dont bear any of that out. It comes from the campaign she ran in 2019 when she was trying to win the democratic primary. In the course of time since then she joined biden administration that was much more moderate than she had campaigned and she is now effectively continuing, with adjustments here and there, what biden has laid out. We talk about the Tax Credit expansion, Joe Biden also wanted to expand the child Tax Credit. We talk about firsttime homebuyers, her number is a little bit bigger than Joe Bidens. Look at these policies and its basically moving in the same direction and to your point at the very beginning of the show you pointed out all these numbers that say the economy is in pretty good shape. The problem comes in telling people the economy is in good shape and the no prices are hurting their wallets and whether you are buying beans at the Grocery Store or a yacht, you feel inflation. Everybody in this country knows things cost more than they did two, three, four years ago and part of Kamala Harris job is to explain to them things will get worse of Donald Trumps president and better if she is president. That is sort of the point that yes, inflation is a problem but Donald Trump is not explained one single thing that would help this country with inflation and in fact, you have economists across the country saying his policies is inflationary. Tariffs, for example, make Everything Cost more. When we had the tariffs during the Trump Administration, it put farmers in a hole and then we ended up with a huge Farm Aid program. Can we go back to Elon Musk, the . His response to Donald Trump giving him this big post in his administration he tweeted he said he looks forward to serving america if the opportunity arises, but no pay needed. This isnt about salary. The power of the presidency is worth more than musk could ever be paid. Lets be clear. It is not about a salary, but if Elon Musk is in a position to be a Shadow President , to sit behind a wall and get whatever he wants from Donald Trump, that is worth far more than any salary. Is he actually fooling people with this idea that no no no, im just here to help . I mean, come on. I think there are two parts to it, Number One that there is a legitimate story to be told but Elon Musk and his own move to the right. If you follow his own Twitter Or X account, he is somebody that basks in Conspiracy Theories and he is the one at the forefront of pushing the ideas that there are undocumented immigrants coming into the country at the hands of democrats to vote. This is someone who has found the popularity that Donald Trump found with the right Wing And Tucker carlson and has embraced that moment at a point in time at which you see the amount of the workforce he laid off at Twitter Or X, and the way they i use the word basket, and the idea that somehow x is working more efficiently or working at least as effectively when if anybody is on that program clearly knows that it is not in yet when you look at what the Trump Administration did two weeks before the 2020 election when they did that Executive Order creating Schedule F that would allow the Trump Administration if there was going to be that second term, to go And Reclassify Thousands Of Civil Servant workers and turn them into political appointees, effectively firing career employees. Its not clear what their plans were. 5000 employees, 10,000 employees, 100,000 employees, million employees . That is an outstanding question and if you are tapping Elon Musk who effectively was basking in the idea that he was able to consolidate the workforce at his private company and would be able to do the same in the federal government that is what folk should take seriously because Donald Trump tried to do that at The End of his first administration with every intent to fire potentially a large segment of the federal workforce in his second administration. Akayla, what about taking seriously what Elon Musks actual intentions are . He cares deeply about what the next frontier is in the next most significant thing in all of our lives will be the development of Artificial Intelligence. Whoever is the next President Of The United States is going to have huge oversight over what that will look like in the united states. Should we not be paying attention to the fact that Elon Musk could have a very good hand and who that president is . Yes, it is notable that you say this because Elon Musk is posted and shared many videos that have been produced cleanly by Artificial Intelligence and he is often not noting that fact and widely spreading what people see as misinformation here but i will say Vice President harris has really focused her time before she was running for president , on Artificial Intelligence. She has represented the united states going to london in the ai summit. This is something she is very familiar with. She has said that she supports innovation but at the same time is going to be looking at bias to marginalized groups in all these different people that could be disadvantaged by the impacts of ai. John, the debate. The last president ial debate was possibly the most consequential president ial debate in our history. It broke a candidate, essentially. How high are the stakes next week . Enormously high. Everybody knows how they feel about Donald Trump. Hes been on the stage for 10 years. Kamala harris, that is different. There is variability to her. She is somebody who could potentially gain tremendously from a debate where she shows herself to be in command, where she shows herself to be agile, where she is able to explain her policies and the contrast with Donald Trump or if she has trouble doing that, you could see support for her fade. So far, shes had a very long honeymoon and really has not tripped up on the campaign trail. A debate is an adversarial situation, the first time we are going to see her in this role as a president ial candidate the stakes are huge. All that said, i think it is unlikely that we are going to see a Debate Break a candidate and certainly not a second democratic candidate but i mean, the bar that Joe Biden set is low enough that im pretty sure Kamala Harris can clear it with flying colors. Youve covered the Trunk Campaign for quite some time, ups and downs. There has certainly been a shift since Kamala Harris talked in the race. What is the mood like right now . Is going to North Carolina tomorrow. This will be the fourth trip in four weeks to North Carolina. That is the one Battleground State Trump won in 2016 and in 2020. That is a significant amount of resources for a candidate who should be confident about winning a state that is a necessity to his path to victory at 270 electoral votes. When youre talking about this campaign here, this is one that increasingly, you see as being dictated uncontrollably by Donald Trump. We have been covering this since November Of 2022 when he jumped into this race and time and again, his top campaign advisers, cocampaign managers, they have been effective this campaign because they have allowed him to say and do whatever he wants. Donald trump has nobody to blame this campaign except himself because he has been the driver of his messaging and for his campaign has focused its resources. He did not want to spend money on the ground effort. He said it out loud. He wanted to spend it on legal fights and that is what his campaign is executing on, and unlike in 2016 and 2020, we saw palace intrigue. These cocampaign managers are not keeping the Stephen Millers away or steve bannons away. They have allowed everybody into the fold, everybody to get into Donald Trumps ear so what you hear from him as Donald Trump running his campaign. By the same token, all the Problems Trump has to blame on himself but hes also the only reason hes in this. No one got Donald Trump to this position of being the president , of running for president again but him. He did this. You should expect more of the same in these final two months because that is the only direction lived on the final two years and thats the only direction Donald Trump will allow it to go. All right. Akayla, iou and apology. These two handsome devils are sitting next to me and they just talked , talked, talked. When they are here, they win me over. I will definitely have you back and hopefully we will have more time together. And of course were going to have special coverage of Tuesday Nights president ial debate. I know you will be watching. It will be hosted by Abc News but you can watch rachel, me and the rest of the Prime Time crew starting right here at 7 00 p. M. Eastern. When we return we break down the fight for control of the senate, how one race could end up handing power to republicans. Later, trump unveils a policy to address rising childcare costs. The 11th Hour just getting underway on a thursday night. With just one pill a day. Choose acid prevention. Choose nexium. Why do couples choose a Sleep Number Smart Bed . I sleep great now that my side is as firm as my Heart Desires. Choose acid prevention. My Heart Desires soft. Sleep number does that. Your Ideal Firmness and effortless comfort, all night. During our biggest sale of the year, save 50 on the Sleep Number limited edition Smart Bed. 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