Starts right now. Hi, ari. Hi, nicole. Ill share what we talked into the hallway late into the night. Everybodys working. Im watching. You made this great point that there are so many ways we are limited sometimes and the Taylor Swift endorsement matters to her fans and it matters to her listeners and you haveinvolved, involved and its tailor made for Girl Dads and i stewed in the hallway and ill tell the viewers, you are so poetic, taylormade and you said my synapsis are no longer firing. Id been on tv since 4 00. You know whats funny . I peaked in the Ride Home to see what folks are saying about the Coverage And Taylor swift fans were so mad, her fans are not young. No, i didnt mean theyre all wrong and i said her massive and vast base of super fans also includes my friends kids, because im old enough that my friends are buying tickets for their kids to go to Taylor Swift concerts. So its a Family Affair for just a sliver of her fandom and that is the young fans, but i am not i am a lot of things. I am not poetic. It was accidental poetry, and then but also the point youre making, there is something that happens with people that are unifying. We hear the word thrown around. Michelle obama has high numbers and we can assume shes unifying and Taylor Swift is unifying and if you have hundreds of millions of people who look to you for what you do, you are spanning some sort of bridge. With your synapsis as they are, ill let you go. Good to see you, nicole. Good to talk to you on and off tv. Thanks to nicole wallace. Our top story is Kamala Harris at the debate, taking control and the visuals and the atmosphere, and it all showed trump unmoored and he was inaccurate and sometimes unhinged and the collective result is a display where harris put trump on defense. Thats the Washington Post headline. The reality was palpable. The split screens that often contrasted trumps seething anger with harris more composed approach, the smiles and her rejoineders and no candidate wants to be on defense in the debate, especially not trump, a politician, who stakes his whole career of his supposed version of dominance, of going on offense. Thats more about what trump is according to his followers, what they say they like about him than any particular policy or promise. So this was uncomfortable turf for him and people saw it live. We can tell you tonight, 67 Million people watching, a higher number, for example, than the bidentrump debate. What happened Last Night matters because it reached so many more voters than any other political event this year, more than the conventions or president bidens big address announcing his exit and what is happening today, were seeing, is being burned into the public imagination. The idea, the view, the conclusion that harris won, and winning builds momentum, and people famously ditch losers. One day out i can show you the Trump Loss was on times cover, and the coverage has basically said harris bested trump and he was off balance and out of control. I think your adjective, i would go with fiery to begin. You had one candidate that was completely unhinged, just completely off his rocker. Kamala harris pitched a shot. The republican who called former President Trump wild and uncontrolled. Vice president harris had a plan. She stuck to her plan. Clearly Vice President harris kicked some butt. Ive never seen a starker contrast in presentation from two candidates in any debate in any type of contest in any political race. Thats the interpretation. Heres what they were interpreting. Donald trump was fired by 81 Million people. People start leaving his rallies early out of exhaustion and boredom. People dont leave my rallies. We have the biggest rallies, the most incredible rallies in the history of politics. Theyre eating the dogs and used for food. Springfield City Manager says theres no evidence. Well find out. They say youre a disgrace. You are a disgrace. It is well known that he admires dictators. Viktor orban, one of the most respected men, they call him a strong man. I know putin very well. A dictator who would eat you for lunch. Are you now acknowledging that you lost in 2020. No, i dont acknowledge it at all. We lost by a whisker and that was said sarcastically. I didnt detect the sarcasm. Clearly, he is having a difficult time processing that. Harris set the tone from the start. In a moment well show you, trump was going straight for his lectern apparently trying to avoid the traditional she crossed over into his area forcing him into the handshake. He found himself relitigating his record rather than picking apart harris and you may have seen the coverage and watched the debate, of course, he has a lot to defend, but remember, thats not automatic. Harris is still in the incumbent administration, and trump has previously turned many debates and other tv moments into attacks of his rivals and it is a function of how she performed and perhaps also where we are now after having dealt with trump for so long that he wasnt able to pull off those tricks Last Night even if he didnt steal or take more of the talk time. That same theme of defense was blasted in headlines in swing states. Heres Las Vegas Las Vegas sun. The national papers reported the same. Harris knocking him off course, trump in the spotlight in the worst way. Those are reports and accounts. There were also other indications about trumps poor performance from him. In contrast to the biden debate which we all lived through recently, Donald Trump got off the stage and began complaining about the abc moderators, complaining the network should have its whole license revoked which is not something you say when you are winning if you thought or won or did very well you would want to buck up the debate, not discredit it. And then theres the odd, but very Americana Tradition of the Spin Rooms. Weve shown you here file footage from back in the day. Im sure youre familiar with the custom, the Campaign Staff and the allies go into these socalled Spin Rooms and you say your side won no matter what. Its kind of an odd tradition well, trump was the first Debate Participant to ever drop in on one of the Spin Rooms himself in 2016 and he hadnt done it since then until Last Night. The post reporting Donald Trump showed up in the Spin Room after the debate, a rarity and obvious sign of his need to try to make the case to reporters that he had failed to make on the Debate Stage. You can see trump in Last Nights Spin Room, again, this is unusual and it hasnt happened in a long time and that same Post Article as you look at this visual said trump may have recognized he fell short and he tried to tell a much smaller audience in that Room Something different than what a much larger audience just saw on the stage, that he was on defense, that he lost the night. Trumps aides, they did the spinning, and some of his allies would also spin again, some of these people are literally paid to say he won, but i want to show you something really interesting here. Even his own allies conceding it was a bad night for trump. Senator Lindsay Graham said as much, conservative commentators who might have a bit more daylight between their careers and the future of trumpism went further. These are damning statements youre about to hear. Ill show them to you in a second. Big picture, the consensus is not only that harris won the debate, but she won it at this critical time. Thats the best thing a candidate can aim for in any debate and some years we know there are many and they all happen, but when you win the only debate scheduled right now between today and the rest of the election, you have a crucial edge. Her allies, though, at the same time amidst all of this admit nothing Last Night tells you who will win the election, as for the video i promised you we have the republican lawmakers from fox to voter panels, admitting, conceding, saying trump had a bad night or lost. Foxs Sister Publication the Wall Street Journal published a Piece Today saying harris clearly won the debate. And now i want to bring you a little Beat Video special. Pulled together if you were watching on another channel, we may not have seen this, some of the republican and conservative voices that have been much of this presented to viewers. Think about it. The Debate Prep for Donald Trump should be fired. This is pretty much her night. Youre saying she had a good night. Im saying she certainly did. Talking about migrants were eating dogs and cats, Thats Something Saturday Night live would do. He was awful tonight. She, on the other hand, was very well prepared. He was terrible tonight. Former President Trump did take a lot of the bait. He took all of the Bait And None of the opportunities. She pivoted better. She bated a former president of the United States to chase every rabbit down every hole. He was childish. He was creepy. He was cringy. We heard so many of the old grievances that wed long thought that trump had learned were not winners politically. He was wholly unprepared. Vice president harris was clearly well prepared, practiced, on the offensive much of the night. He went down a few Cat And Dog holes rather than Rabbit Holes tonight. I guess there are avenues worse than Rabbit Holes and even viewers went to hear alternative explanation of what happened on fox ended up hearing that. So if it was that bad, how does it shape the race . Well, someone who has been on Debate Stages, howard Dean And Obama Vet Amisha Cross when we are back together in 90 seconds. E are back together in 90 seconds. Nursing for 24 years. I had a fear that i wouldnt be able to keep up. I wanted all the boost i could get i heard about prevagen from a friend. I read the clinical study on it and it had good reviews. Ive been taking prevagen now for five years and its really helped me stay sharp and present. Its really worked for me. Prevagen. At stores everywhere without a prescription. Citis industry leading global payments solutions help their clients move money around the world seamlessly in over 180 countries. And help a partner like the World Food Programme as they provide more than food to people in need. Together, citi and the World Food Programme empower families across the globe. How many of you say Kamala Harris won after everything you saw tonight. Raise your hands high. How many of you say Donald Trump won, raise your hands high. One, two okay. So most of you say Kamala Harris. And thats on fox. We are joined by howard Dean And Amisha cross. Howard, what do you think happened Last Night . A lot of very good things from Kamala Harris. First, she did well. Of course, shes an articulate person and has been in the Vice Presidency for three and a half years and the thing that impressed me the most are the people who prepd her. Ive seen a lot of these and have been in some myself. She was so well prepped. What she did really was Help Trump to do the damage to himself and that is a double win for her. You know, and then, of course, he went off The Deep End with eating the dogs and the cats in springfield. The other thing is i will say the moderators, the abc moderators i thought did a very good job trying to hold trump to some modicum of fruitfulness which is incredibly important and the last thing ill say is he looked like an old man that wasnt ready for Prime Time that didnt know what he was talking about and thats exactly what happened to Joe Biden and Last Night went a long way to getting rid of Donald Trump. Amisha . I think thats exactly right. We know going into this it was the ceiling that had to be cleared was a lot higher for Kamala Harris and the expectation were higher and she exceeded all of them. She not only prosecuted the case, made him get off of message. Immigration was supposed to be his thing upon the economy was supposed to be his thing. She got him to walk into spaces where he was going to be accusatory and he would be defensive and usher in things from the dark web like what we saw about haitian migrants and crowd size. She came into this strong and show cased that strength with the handshake at the very beginning, but in addition to that, she knew her Talking Points and knew them well and did not get flustered and she was ready in a debate in a way that he thought it was going to be easier to play. She was there ready to play ball and she rattled that man and kept taking jabs over and over again and he fell for it every single time. Howard, i imagine the Spin Room, and we are so accustomed to the lies in d. C. In general and the gaffes Tell The Truth and Donald Trump on the one hand is a known, proven liar, and he does this thing and i followed it throughout our work here in journalism where on the big stuff sometimes he cant help it, so i showed he went into the Spin Room. He attacked the moderators and doing all of the things you do if you honestly thought he did poorly or lost. You were just on with 60 Million people, if you said it right and did it right, you would not need i follow up. Heres how he sounded on fox this morning. Last Night Fox News offered sent letters to your campaign and her Campaign Offering three dates of debates moderated by Martha And Brett. One is October 9 nothing arizona. I wouldnt want to have Martha And Brett. I would want someone else other than Martha And Brett, i would love to have frankly, Sean Or Laura lets give someone else a shot, but i dont think Martha And Brett were good Last Night. Howard, what do you make of trump and people around him, as we just showed, and some of the fox folks admitting reality . Well, you know, i think you have to understand this is related to the fight going on in the Murdaugh Murdock Family after murdock goes. Murdock and trump have had bad blood. This is what trump does. Its incredibly unpresident ial. I was thinking Last Night as i was watching if thing, who would vote for a guy like this . Obviously, hes going to get some votes, but hes not going to get votes about people who think carefully about the issues and the future of the United States. Hell get votes of really angry people, and as ive said all this whole campaign, this is a campaign about Hate And Rage in the republican party, and i think that Kamala Harris actually represents somebody who knows how to run the country and theres a lot of comfort in that. Amish, i want to read one of the lines that i think was striking. Quote, by any conventional measure harris won the debate by getting him to do her work in politico. Trump thrills his supporters by Shredding And Operative class assumptions about and adds by conventional standards won over clinton in 2016. Quote, harris plainly accomplished her objectives, and its hard to imagine shed begrudge him the extra five minutes. Amisha . We think all those things are true, just like polls are a snapshot in time. For Donald Trump he came Last Night and he was just not ready and even though he interjected multiple times and even though they were muted and magically became unmuted, every time he couldnt help himself, any it was about the exonerated five, haitian migrants or January 6th and trying to eradicate or erase what happened on that day. This is a guy who wont take responsibility for anything and a guy on a Vengeance Tour and all of that darkness about america and our future came out Last Night even for his closing statement. He couldnt it will you what his vision for america is because he was trying to throw all types of smad on Kamala Harris who gave us a clear vision for what a Harris Administration would look like. Donald trump became unravelled and he wasnt able to land any of the barbs that he was typically used to doing. He praised dictators and didnt want to stand for ukraine. I think that this is a guy who showed us himself what the contrast happens to be. He could not keep himself steady and his Talking Points and i dont think any on the right advised him to say half of the things he said when he got up there. This is the Donald Trump that he is and expecting him to show up as Anything Else was a disappointment. There was a lot of talk about pets, howard. Theres an old line that why do i tease the cat . Nothing, but the dog in me and the problem was Donald Trump was trying to cast these aspersions, lies, about other, but he ended up looking like the dog, like the idiot. Honestly, how do you defend the things he was saying and if youre a immediate voter looking at it, and that ing brs me to another thing i want to ask you about, howard. There are platforming and Fact Checking and when do you cut away and if were being honest. Theyre complicated. I thought it was a striking development to hear Kamala Harris suggest go to his rallies these days. Basically, platforming that experience which also did, in a way so that people can see where hes at now and people who have nostalgia or fond memories of what they thought he was like in 15, rather than debating that, its, look at what high is right now. Look at what he stands for, how he sounds, what hes saying about the world in reality. What do you think about that point, howard . I think that was the whole critical thing and she bated him into showing us who he really was and i think theres an awful lot of people they have who want to find out that. They cant quite bring themselves to vote for trump, well, me show us who he is Last Night and im pretty optimistic about this race. We have 56, and Kamala Harris proved she could do a damn good job of rung the country and Donald Trump is past his prime and psychiatrically ill as ive always thought. Howard and amisha, thanks to both of you. Taylor swift using the night to endorse and how thats helping the harriswalz campaign. There were fact checks and the public needs to know why trump lied Last Night and why it matters in the week ahead. Also an update on Hurricane Francine making landfall moments ago inside louisiana as a category 2 storm and 4 coming ashore. Heavy rains and winds estimated to be near 100 miles per hour. Forecasters warn of flash floods, possible tornadoes tonight. We are monitoring that in our newsroom and on the ground, and we will bring you any important updates in this and the hours ahead