Of Gen Z that could be a Boom for democrats. And hundreds of homes flooded. Hundreds of thousands without power after Hurricane Force winds and Record Rainfall Pound the gulf coast. The latest on what is now tropical Depression Francine still packing a bunch down south. But we start with Donald Trump. Set to speak in arizona this afternoon, a state where immigration is consistently top of mind for many voters. Its an issue key to his election strategy, but even allies now worry that his unsubstantiated claims about migrants eating peoples pets has weakened his cause. It is part of a pattern. Trump brings up what he calls migrant crime or the migrant invasion in almost every single rally he does, but his decision to embrace this particular Conspiracy Theory has taken on a life of its own. Even germanys foreign ministry, in a statement about renewable energy, included a ps, we dont eat cats and dogs. A headline in the british paper, the standard, calling him a laughingstock. Harris plan, meantime, seems to be to let trump keep talking. The thinking being hes only hurting himself. And, in fact, a Focus Group by Fox News may bear that out. It found that when trump made his claims about migrants eating pets, approval from all groups, republicans, independents, and democrats dipped with the strongest dips coming from independents and republicans. I want to bring in nbcs vaughn hillyard, live in tucson. David jolly is a former republican congressman from florida. Ashley parker is Washington Post senior national political correspondent. Both David And Ashley are msnbc political analysts. Welcome to all of you. So, congressman, The New York Times says that trumps particular political goals in this case appear to be the same as theyve always been. You stoke anger, give someone people to blame for their misfortunes. Did he overstep this time, though . He did. This was an idiotic moment by Donald Trump, truly an idiotic moment, and as the Focus Groups show, democrats, independents, republicans all are scratching their heads, saying, why is Donald Trump doing this . I think part of what is so unsettling is we also see a former president trying to regain the White House by paying attention to Internet Conspiracies and Social Media conspiracies and by being the likes of Laura Loomer and others going into this debate, so we see someone lacking the capacity to return to the White House if he didnt have it in the first place. I do think, though, it reflects, as you said, in the opener, chris, that the real goal here for republicans because they really have nothing to offer substantively on behalf of a plan. Donald trump is not a policy wonk. It will be ultimately to tie immigration to crime, to conflate the two, even though statistically, those numbers are upside down, but to run a Willie Hortontype Campaign down the stretch, try to tie Vice President harris to rampant immigration, conflate immigration with crime by Brown People and black people. We saw it in the best example was katie Brits Response to the state of the union, when she basically said, you have brown and black people coming into your white gentrified neighborhoods, and you should be scared, i suspect that is what Donald Trump will hone into on these last 50 days or so. Vaughn, tell us what we know about what we might hear from the former president in arizona today. As weve said, key Battleground State and one of the most important states when he talks about immigration. Reporter right, chris. At least the campaign is billing these events, these remarks that he is set to deliver here in southern arizona, as a focus on the economy and on americas Housing Crisis. Of course, usually, with the campaign Bills Something as a certain theme, we see Donald Trump spend a significant amount of the time talking about other issues here, but the idea of the economy and the Housing Crisis, you know, i was just talking to a couple of trumps loyal supporters who said they watched the debate, and one woman, she told me that one of her frustrations with trump or concerns out of that debate was his focus on repeatedly coming back to immigration as the cause or also the solution in stemming Immigration Flow for every issue that he brought up, saying that she was eager and was hoping to hear something else besides him continually coming back to immigration. Well, she said that she knows and understands as somebody who lives in southern arizona, the importance of it. I was talking with another voter here, who told me that she was her head turned when the eating Pet Comment was made by Donald Trump on the Debate Stage. She hadnt heard anything about this theory or this narrative, and then she went on the Internet And Couldnt find any facts to back it up there. She said she is still voting for Donald Trump, and she wishes that he would have greater focus on issues like the economy and Housing Crisis here, but as we have seen from Donald Trump, time and again, he often weaves between, you know, some policy tangential discussion and other Conspiracy Theories like eating pets that, frankly, a lot of allies that he listens to and rightwing media or sometimes even surrounds himself by, like Laura Loomer, are those those are the issues they so often bring up directly to him, and we see that play out on Debate Stages and in places like here on Campaign Rally stages, chris. The thing, ashley, is the people who want to win, in fact, the people who said to me, and im sure said to you, republicans, after Joe Biden stepped down, was, he can still win this. He needs to stick to the issues where hes strongest, the economy and immigration. Obviously, hes gone off on a tangent on immigration. Have you heard anything that he is willing or able to recalibrate his message to get back to where its effective for the voters he needs to win . Well, again, i think if you just look at the debate, our reporting is that his team had worked to prep him to stay on message. They had prepared him that Vice President harris would levy personal attacks against him for his criminal indictments over his Rally Crowd sizes, all of the sorts of things that she did, and in that moment, for those 90 minutes, as we and much of the nation saw, he was either unwilling or unable or some combination of both to maintain the selfdiscipline that his advisors and aides hoped he would have to get through that debate. Now, having covered him from 2015, is he capable of recalibrating . Look, theres moments where he is capable of changing his behavior for a stretch of several days or even a week at a time. He can sometimes stand up and read from a teleprompter, so theres a World Tonight that vaughns out there in arizona, and Donald Trump could read a message that is prepared by his aides and advisors on a teleprompter about the Housing Crisis and the economy. Will he be able to do that between now and Election Day without interruption . Historically, he has never once done that before. So, im skeptical he will suddenly become an entirely different human now. So, lets take the first part of ashleys theory, then, congressman, that he might be unwilling. Do you think trump and some of his supporters believe that the key to victory actually is, i dont know, painting such an apocalyptic vision of where the u. S. Is right now that he becomes the change candidate, he becomes the one who can make it all better . Yeah, the textbook theory, dispassionately, is called negative partisanship. He would run a campaign saying, Vice President harris is worse than i am. You should be scared of her leadership. But trump turns that into some racist, Xenophobic Narratives that reach for some of the darker elements in american culture, and then he also does the Chicken Little theory of, american carnage. Chicken little worked in 2016, but Chicken Little, by Donald Trumps, not working right now. And i would love to see more of a debate over the economy. We didnt see a lot of debate on the economy because i think Vice President harris and the biden administration have such a strong response to that. Donald trump wants to play on inflation. The entire world suffered from historic inflation coming out of the pandemic, and u. S. Policymaking around it. But the u. S. Is the envy of the world in its recovery. More people went to work this week than ever before. Home ownership remains at historic highs. The Stock Market is breaking records. Inflations coming down and real wages are going up. Access to Health Care and education has hit historic highs and investments in infrastructure are unlike anything during the trump years so if Donald Trump wants to have a Policy Debate on the economy, i think Vice President harris should welcome that, and i would also suggest theres a lot more room for Vice President harris to run on that. We didnt see that on the Debate Stage when she took the question, are you better off today than you were four years ago . Yes, we are, for reasons of the biden harris administration. It would be a wonderful debate for this country to have in the last six weeks of this race. Well, let me go to yamiche in ohio where these claims about people eating cats and dogs originated or at least thats the first time it was, like, tied to springfield. Whats the latest from there . Well, good afternoon, chris. What i can tell you is that the tension here in springfield, ohio, is really palpable, and this all goes back to a rumor about, of course, Haitian Immigrants, a basisless rumor, baseless claim that Haitian Immigrants were abusing and eating animals. The Pet Rumors are connected with an unrelated case in a different part of ohio where a u. S. Citizen was arrested for a grim incident dealing with a Sort Of cat and just Sort Of a graphic incident there, but that had nothing to do with springfield, ohio, and then that turned into, though, people taking that and marrying it, people think, with their own biases against these hiegs immigrants who have come here by the thousands. Legally, about 15,000 over the last few years. State officials tell us. And now, residents are really saying, longtime residents, some of whom are believing these debunked claims and these false claims, theyre saying this is part of a larger issue here and that they dont want the Haitian Immigrants here. I talked to one of the residents here. Take a listen to what he told me. I would say, by, you know, even just current birthrates, i would say that haitian, you know, the 2040 Graduating Class is going to be twothirds first or second generation haitians, and its going to be a very different town. So, chris, he told me he feels like springfield is going to be lost because its going to go from being what he called an american community to being a haitian community. Of course, people who dont agree with him would say, maybe its going to be a Haitian American Community and thats what america is all about. I should also tell you the Haitian Immigrants are really heartbroken. So many of them fled Violence And Insecurity in haiti, came here, legally, because the city of springfield was advertising new manufacturing jobs as well as affordability, saying they wanted people to come here to revitalize this town because the population numbers had been going down, and now those Haitian Immigrants said, i fled insecurity, one of them told me, in my Home Country and now im feeling insecure and worried i might get targeted and might be the victim of violence here because of these false accusations. A tough time for these Haitian Immigrants, but some of them are telling me they still want to be here, while others are saying they might leave because theyre so heartbroken. Yamiche alcindor, Thank You for your great reporting. So, ashley, its clear what Donald Trumps message is, right . And were seeing the effect of that. Meantime, you have the harris strategy, which seems to be, Let Trump Be trump, and i want to show you a few clips of Donald Trump. This is in the hours after the debate, and it was compiled by our friends at all in with chris hayes. What made you come to the Spin Room . I just felt i wanted to. I was very happy with the result. Were looking at polls, the worst poll that we have had was 71 that i see. We had a 92 rating in one poll. 80 to 20. I told that to brett bayer, and we sent him a lot of polls, and we sent you a lot of polls this morning. We had an 86 rating on another. We had 77 . One poll is 92 to 6. Its 92 to 7. Mr. President, speak louder. 88 to 11. All of the polls are 60, 70, and 80. 863. But every single poll last night had me winning, like, 9010. 71 to, like, 24 or 25 . Why dont you do a shoutout poll, who they thought won the debate last night . It would be great. You know we always do the poll at the end, mr. President. I think you why dont you do it while im on the phone there . The polls are indicating that we got 90 , 60 , 72 , 71 and 89 . Where are you getting these numbers from . So, ashley, i think we can say that those numbers are contradictory, at best. Ill leave it at that. Does the harris team, i wonder, think now because you know, The View from a lot of folks in trumpworld was, Let Trump Be trump. If The View in Harris World now, yeah, do that, because then he becomes one of our strongest surrogates . Yeah, and i would say its not just Let Trump Be trump from Harris World, but its actually encourage trump to be trump. She went into that debate with a very deliberate strategy, one of her Campaign Adviser told me, to ensure that Donald Trump stepped on that Debate Stage as they put it, triggered. From that Opening Handshake which, again, was described to me and others as a Power Move where she confidently walked over into his space, introduced herself, said her name, pronounced it correctly, to subtle little digs. She had throughout the debate, the most Sort Of obvious and the one that did lead to that cats and dogs diatribe about his Crowd Sizes and his rallies. That was all very concerted to get under his skin and to encourage him to be the version of himself that voters, even voters who have said they will still go to the polls in november and vote for him, have also said they do not like. Vaughn hillyard, former congressman David Jolly and ashley parker, Thank You all. In 90 seconds, Hurricane Francine slams the gulf coast, and its left hundreds of thousands of people without power. The damage were now seeing and where this storm is heading next. Seeing an