Tim walz's record is a joke. Mind your own damn business. Donald trump's second running mate. I smile at a lot of things including bogus questions from the media. And the governor of minnesota these guys are creepy and weird as hell. With the election five weeks away, the campaigns meet facetoface for what might be the final time. We have people power on the side of donald j. Trump and that's going to carry the people. This is not about power. This is about public service. Tonight, team coverage with rachel maddow, nicolle wallace, joy reid, chris hayes, lawrence o'donnell, ari melber, stephanie ruhle, jen psaki. Symone sanders townsend, and steve kornacki at the big board, alex wagner at the debate in new york city, and senators mark kelly of arizona and amy klobuchar of minnesota. Msnbc's special coverage of the vice presidential debate begins now. Hello there. Welcome. It is great to have you here. We know you have every choice in the world for where to watch the big debate, so we're super grateful you're here with us. We'll try to be worth it. We're all very excited. None of us have slept a wink. We all look ten years older than we actually are. I'm joined by some of my beloved colleagues. Joy reid is here, chris hayes, jen psaki, stephanie ruhle, alex wagner is in the spin room at the debate. We have jacob soboroff standing by in michigan with a bunch of voters at a watch party. We'll be joined by lots more of our colleagues over the course of the night. There is a lot coming up. As we settle in for tonight's vice presidential debate between democratic minnesota governor tim walz and republican ohio senator jd vance, we are conscious of the fact this is happening in not at all a swing state. The debate tonight is happening here in new york city, at cbs news headquarters. Cbs news is hosting this debate. There's no audience, just happening on their studio set. Even though cbs is hosting, you'll be able to watch the whole thing on msnbc plus our reaction and analysis after the debate is done. This is the only scheduled vice presidential debate of the whole campaign. As of right now, it is the last scheduled debate of any kind before the november election. And in fact, this is kind of a last thing before the november election. It's october already, as of today, which means we're 35 days out from election day. Tonight's debate is essentially the final big scheduled event on the campaign calendar before election day itself arrives. With a race that is essentially tied, this close to the end, that makes tonight a big deal. The potential impact of any one debate is impossible to predict in advance. But this is the only time in the modern era of televised presidential campaigns where the two presidential candidates only debated once. Since harris and trump debated last month, harris has made clear she would love to have another debate with trump. So far, he has said no way. The democratic national committee is capitalizing on that fact right now by using a projector to look like trump is a chicken on to the outside of trump tower in new york city. They're goading him as if he might change his mind and say yes to another debate. I think basically no one expects he will, but who are we to say what could happen? none of us know. We're all just being buoyed along by an unpredictable tide. The vice presidential hopefuls tonight are going to have a lot to talk about. They could probably fill the full 90 minutes even if they were just talking about news of the day. There's a lot going on. Hours ago, iran fired a barrage of nearly 200 missiles toward israel. No casualties have been reported, but those israeli and american officials are saying iran should expect to face consequences for the missile attack. Just as the iranian assault got under way, six people were killed by gunmen in the israeli city of tel aviv, responsibility for that attack was claimed by a palestinian militant group. This all comes as israel continues its new invasion of southern lebanon, which started yesterday. And of course, as the war in gaza continues now for almost a year. Meanwhile, here in the united states, recovery efforts continue across the southeast, in the devastating aftermath of hurricane helene. Tomorrow, president biden is headed to both north and south carolina to survey the damage, to meet with local officials there. Vice president harris is going to be doing the same thing in georgia tomorrow. We're also looking at east coast and gulf coast ports from maine all the way to texas. The ports are effectively shut down on the east and gulf coast in the united states. After 45,000 dock workers went on strike at midnight last night. These ports handle over half of the nation's cargo containers. We do not know how protracted this standoff is going to be, but a long shutdown of all of these ports could have absolutely huge implications for the u. S. Economy, and again, we are 35 days out from the presidential election. But again, that is just some of the news that is developing today, as the vice presidential candidates meet for tonight's debate. Stephanie, let me go to you first on the ports issue and on the strike. I don't know how long this standoff is going to go. I have heard estimates that the expected economic impact is on the order of $4 to $5 billion a day. How do you see this and what are you expecting? such a political tightrope for this administration because president biden has done a lot, has worked a lot with unions, from a policy perspective, labor has had huge wins over the last four years. The longshoremen are no fools. They know they're putting this white house in a position, and think about what this is going to mean for consumers. The next timia go to the grocery store over the next few weeks, the produce department is wiped out, if there's no bananas, if you talk to people, they're going to say is it the president's fault? it's really tricky because the president could walk in and say we have to get something done. We have to end this strike immediately. But then isn't he the guy who stands with labor? and donald trump sitting back with his arms folded because the crazy thing is, in 2016, many, many people in the union space connected with donald trump because he connected with them emotionally. From a policy perspective, joe biden is the one who delivered. The most prounion president in history. The only one we have seen stand on a picket line with union members. You saw the teamsters did not endorse kamala harris. Many other unions have, but this is politically fraught, and it's going to be interesting to see how both campaigns work with this news. And practically, there's a question as to the president's leverage. He could get in there and force an end to it, but more realistically, what he can do is exert leverage on the labor side and on the other side. And the question as to what the incentives are there is very dicy, very highstakes moment. The union knows the white house is watching. Joy, vice presidential debates are the red headed stepchildren of hey. Sorry. I see what's happening here. I would like to recall the previous message. I apologize. Vice presidential candidates get no respect. Rodney dangerfield. The family is going to come to me. They're on twitter right now. Vice presidential debates are one of the scheduled things that happen every presidential election, and every once in a while, something interesting happens. You get a fly in somebody' hair, or sarah palin does some weird stuff, but often, they're seen as having sort of the common advice is do no harm, just don't mess things up for your running mate. I feel like with 35 days to go, with only one debate having happened between harris and trump, with these candidates being so different, and also so new to the american public, this feels very high stakes for me in a way that most years it doesn't. I agree. I think most of the time vice presidential debates don't matter. I would argue that there were two times in our sort of political lifetime that that matters. 2008 and joe biden was the vice president on that stage, the vice presidential candidate on that stage, and now. I think in 2008, it was because the country was trying to get used to the idea and comfortable with the idea of a guy named barack hussein obama who was black being president. The same thing happens now but it's a black woman. Can people get comfortable with that? and what a vice president can do is say, well, i'm her first chief hire, and i'm their most senior partner. You can feel comfortable with me and i will make you comfortable with them. That's one of the things that can happen, and to the point stephanie was making. It's a chance to ask yourself as a voter, who do you want negotiating with that union and with labor? jd vance, who comes from peter thiel's camp and his running mate who says he hates overtime and doesn't like paying people? or this guy, who seems like a normal guy who is relatable to the average working person. I think he can do a lot of good for vice president harris in that regard. I think the strike and the situation of the ports come up, we'll hear a lot from tim walz about jd vance being a venture capitalist. No doubt about it. To your point, it's usually do no harm. That's what usually these debates are. I remember being on air force one with barack obama watching joe biden debate in 2012 and him saying, this is really stressful to watch. I thought t is stressful to watch. And he's thinking, he's been the vice president for four years, but really, you typically don't want to do any harm. Tonight, beyond what joy said, i think it's different, too, because with everything going on that you talked about, the ports, obviously the recovery in north carolina, everything happening in the middle east, it's all this reminder that government and stable leadership actually matters. I mean, and it is who do you want sitting in the situation room leading a meeting about recovery or leading a meeting about the middle east? and trump, and this is what i think walz, one of his assignments for tonight is, is to remind people about the differences between how they see government working for people or not. And what the difference in leadership is and isn't. Because ultimately, it's a proxy, these always are. This is going to be entertaining to watch. How awkward will jd vance be? we don't know, we'll see. Tim walz, will he be folksy and talk about weird? yes, but it's about the topics. What i think is interesting here is you mentioned sarah palin. Vance coming into this with the highest unfavorable since sarah palin. B, his approach to this position politically has not been do no harm. It's been do a lot of harm in both directions. He's a wrecking ball, and i think this is a tactical choice they made. His point is to drive home negative messages about the opponents even if it makes him look like a jerk. That has been the role he's played. It will be the role he plays tonight. I'm looking for that. The second thing which i think he has skated by on, this guy has less experience than anyone in this role in my entire life. He was a senator for two years. Okay. And he wrote a book. He wrote a book and he's on the ticket with a guy who is 78 years old, the oldest man ever to seek this office, and he's very, very close to being president of the united states. Is he prepared to be the person making the decision about these incredibly high stakes decisions? i think he has to answer that and meet that bar, and i think walz's job is to press him on that question, which is like, this guy is pretty close to having the nuclear codes. I think that's right. I think a lot of the attention to jd vance because he has this very rich record of talking incredibly detailed trash about donald trump, and it's been very tempting to a lot of people questioning vance to get him straight on what do you think about trump, but the most important thing about jd vance is what if trump is not here? then we no longer care what you thought about trump. We care about how you have basically had this record of talking about how the entire american way of life and system of government needs to be abolished. His words, not mean. We need to rip out the american system, quote, like a tumor. So i don't know if you want that as your stable leader after donald trump. But i do feel like a lot of the focus on him has been trump adjacent. Maybe that will change tonight. Let's bring in alex wagner in the spin room covering tonight's debate. Alex, what are you hearing there tonight? what are you expecting to see tonight? reporter: well, you call it a spin room, rachel. I call it a spin broom closet. A safe room, because it is literally the size of some walkin closets, which is fine for members of the media, but as you know, a spin room is where teams of, you know, candidate surrogates come to spin. And each campaign has seven surrogates coming. Elise stefanik was in here an hour ago, and the whole room was half filled with just the elise stefanik excitement. When you think about this little room with katie britt and jason miller and jd vance, who is also showing up postspin, that's what we're hearing about, to talk about how he did, and also in the same space, you'll have amy klobuchar and mark kelly and jared polis and governor pritzker. You talk about trash talking, it's good that everybody has to go through security to get in here because if this doesn't go well, people are going to be mashed up together, which will make interesting political dynamics among everything else. We know that tom emmer, the house majority w. H. I. P. has been doing some debate prep playing governor walz for jd vance. And you guys have touched on all the major themes of i think what we're going to hear tonight, but it will be super interesting. I'm personally interested to see how this convention of very, very people who have very different world views is going to play out in a very, very small space after what you guys have noted is the last big event of the 2024 campaign. Alex, i feel like you could be try to make yourself like a universal donor of good chemistry simply by walking around handing out breath mints. If everybody is going to be in the room totally. A universal blood donor. Very good. Reporter: for the record, i am opositive or onegative, i am in case it comes to that. Between that and some tic tacs we're sure you're going to take care of all the neutralizing all of the relevant odors. We'll be back with you. Thank you. Joining us now is somebody who has contended with jd vance in ohio politics for as long as jd vance has been in ohio politics. Which it turns out is