Thats it for this special report, fair, balanced and still unafraid. On the record with brit hume starts right now. Special report online begins in just seconds. The president ial race tonight is a near tie. Democratic president ial candidate Hillary Clinton loads Republican Donald Trump by three points in a twoway race and just 2. 1 points in a four way race. Thats according to the real clear politics average. One month ago tonight she led by nearly seven points in a fourway race. Good evening from washington, im brit hume. Tonight, one big question concerns undecided voters. Fully 13 of voters polled say they dont back either major Party Candidate yet at least according to a new wall street journal poll. Among them 52 are suburban voters. 52 whites college degree. 48 hope the republicans will continue their control of congress. 79 have negative views of
both Hillary Clinton and donald trump. For some thoughts on this tonight, we start with former Senior Advisor to george w. Bush karl rove who joins me from new york. Hi, carl. Hi there, brit. Listen, what do you think about . This looks like an unusually high number of undecides at this stage. Am i right about that . Absolutely. Since this summer we had half again as many undecided voters as we have had in any election since 1992. And we also have had two different kinds of undecided voters. We have traditional had in president ial election years undecideds who are not very partisan. They tend to be a little bit more nonwhite. A little bit less affluent. They look like the rest of the electorate generally except they dont take much information. They dont care about politics much and make up their minds very late and driven by the personal characteristics of the candidates. In this election we have a
second kind of undecided voter. Unconvinced undecideds. Well informed. Uneducated. Suburban areas and metropolitan regions. They have the dynamic that you described earlier. In this election they tend to be more republican than democrat. And they dont like either candidate. Eight out of ten of them. Northeasterly eight out of ten of them have negative feelings about donald trump and 8 out of 10 have negative feelings about Hillary Clinton. It will be interesting to see how they come out of this thing because they are more hikely to participate in the election than the traditional. The conventional wisdom about undecided voters is that its easy to under estimate their impact because most of them end up not voting. These people according to the profile we get from this poll look like the kind of people who do vote. Absolutely. They are sitting there, waiting to get the right kind of signal to vote. Interestingly enough, donald
trump has easier path to get to them. They tend to be republican. Regardless who gets elected president they want republican congress. Regardless hough gets elected they want democratic congress. Soft republicans in the suburbs. He has to reassure them that he is up to the job. She has got to persuade them that they ought to vote for her. Those are two different things. One the message of look i realize we have got differences but at the end of the day im the change agent that you can have confidence in. She has got to persuade them look, i know you want change. I know you dont like me. I know you distrust me. I know you are upset about the last eight years. You know what . Stay with us, continuity because is he too extreme. A lot easier to do what he needs to do than what she needs to do. In the end, karl. Its occurred to me as you suggest that a lot of voters just dont want to vote for her. Um. Um all other things being equal, this would be a year in which it would be a
pretty easy task for a republican to be elected. Donald trump is proving that its a difficult task. What is he basically, you know, really have to do here to get these people, a to vote and b, to vote for him . Well, lock, its like fine art. We know it when we see it i think americans saw it in mexico city. I thought that News Conference afterwards was president ial. He was not angry. He was not pounding the table. He wasnt calling people names. He looked and acted and sounded like a president. I thought the event on saturday morning in detroit he, you know, there was a guy who looked like a president. Thursday night, where he is playing to the crowd and angry and out of control at times, thats the kind of thing that i think causes this group of unconvinced, undecideds to say, you know what . Im going to be sitting on the sidelines a little bit more. With these numbers, karl, it does look like there are plenty enough of them that they could decide the election either way, right . Exactly. In the last month he has cut
that lead from 7. 9 to 3 points. And he has done so by after three terrible weeks following the convention and he has done so by moving those undecides in to his column. The kind of people talking about are the people that fueled that movement that has closed the gap. More by leaving her than coming to him but none the less coming to him. Yeah. I guess one his worries has to be that those voters wont go to you know, the other Party Candidates. Which i guess is a possibility. Karl, thank you. Great to see you. Great to see you. Hope to see you again soon. Absolutely. A little later we will be joined by former speaker of the house Newt Gingrich who has advised donald trump on many things to discuss with him how the republican nominee might prepare to debate Hillary Clinton. Stay with us. Today in philadelphia, donald trump put some more meat on the bones of his campaign as he made what was billed as a major speech on military preparedness. Here is a little of what he said. In 2010, the United States spent 554 billion on nonwar base defense spending. In the year, and i have to say, currently, were spending 548 billion, a cut of 10 . And that number is going down very rapidly, looking into the future. Unless i become your president. This reduction was done through what is known as sequester, which you have all heard about or automatic Defense Budget cuts. Under the budget agreement, defense took half of the cuts even though it makes up only one sixth of the budget. They put it all in defense. As soon as i take office, i will ask congress to fully eliminate the defense sequester and will submit a new budget to rebuild our military. It is so depleted. We will rebuild our military. [ applause ] we will build an active army
of around 540,000 as the armys chief of staff has said he needs, desperately, and really must have to protect our country. We now. [ applause ] we now have only 31 brigade combat teams or 490,000 troops, and only 1 3 of combat teams are considered combat ready. Thats not good for our country. Here to discuss military preparedness and the trump plan for it is an authority on the subject, retired army general bob scales, author of a new book called scales on war, the future of americas military at risk. Bob, hi, good to see you. Hi, brit. Good to be here. First of all, give me, if you can, the sense of what your book is getting at. My book is all about three numbers, brit. 81, four, and one. In wars fought since the end of world war ii the period we call the american period of war 81 of those who died at the hands of the enemy are made up of less than 4 of the total uniformed people in d. O. D. And they receive less than 1 of the budget. These are close combat soldiers, infantry men, not soldiers and marines, infantry men. Oh, by the way, most of our enemies have been infantry men. They though because they have a vote the surest way to end a war is strike our bulk center of gravity is dead americans. Our close combat soldiers and marines our most vulnerable, why dont we do more to protect those who are most likely to die. Lets look for a moment, bob, at the trump proposal, some of the specifics, active army 540,000 as you heard him say, marine corps based on 36 battalions. Navy approaching 350 surface
ships and marines. Air force of at least 320 fighter aircraft. Is that the kind of thing we need to do or is infamous in the wrong place. It goes a long way to fixing the problem. You cannot defend the nation in our future wars. You cant even defeat isis with a Ground Combat force, soldiers and marines that small. By the way, he wants to go to 540. What are we now about 480 something . 490 going down to. Marines 44 combat battalions he wants to raise it to 36. In addition, i think he wants to increase special operating forces elite fighting forces. All that is good. My only quibble with this idea is he hasnt talked about modernizing these forces. I mean, if we continue as we are now, my grandson will be commanding a battalion of reagan era tanks. Not just enough to increase numbers. We have continue to crease the quality of the force, i guarantee you the russians
and the chinese are rapidly at work doing that very same thing. Now, all this is going to cost a lot of money to do this. Yes. And the additional things that you think are need he had. Dot things that he has described strike you, policies likely to finance that . Boy, thats a good question. What he suggests cooking is cutting the federal bureaucracy to include the military priewk crazy. The question is this 40, 50 billion additional dollars, can you get that . You can squeeze the orange that much to get that much juice out of it . Im not sure about that. But i am sure that you cannot defend this nation on 2. 5 of our g. D. P. Devoted to fighting our cars. Our wars. You cant do it. You need a robust economy. It all starts with that doesnt it . Because if you decrease the budget to 3 . You grow the economy at 4. 5
a year, we are going to make those numbers easily. If we dont we are in trouble. Bob scales great to see you. Back on the campaign trail, lets look at arizona where a new poll shows the state is a tossup this election even though a democrat hasnt carried arizona in 20 years. The Arizona Republic poll shows clinton with a 1. 6 point lead in a fourway race that, of course, is within the margin of error. Same poll found 23 of arizona voters have not made up their mind on which candidate they will vote for. We turn to political reporter dan kno dan nowicki. Whats going on out there. We have a new poll come out today and shows arizona is a tossup. Its no longer the g. O. P. Strong hold that its been really since 1948. President bill clinton carried arizona in 1996. So before that you have to go way back to harry truman in 1948 before you find a democrat who was able to win
arizona. This year its really close. Our polls showed Hillary Clinton leading donald trump by about a percentage point. So it really could go either way. About 23 undecided. We talked about 23 undecided. What is the cause of that . I mean, we just talked about the fact that there is unusually high number of undecideds nationwide with karl rove. In arizona are there particular reasons for that . Is the fact that the people have misgivings about the candidates . Immigration issue is so important about arizona. Arizona expoit his reputation they have foe sis if i kitted view of immigration. Trump policy like we are going to build a wall and have them pay for it. It may play better in the country than arizona. Arizona hugely effected by immigration are not that
excited . Thats interesting. Even though we get the negative impact of illegal immigration we understand how it works and fits into the economy. The ears republic poll that came out today we ask questions and majority of borders didnt hulk building a border wall. They were very much opposed to the idea of mass deportation of all the undocumented immigrants in the country now. Now, how is john mccain doing . When i was out there not too many months ago he was having a big fundraiserrenned i saw half of the u. S. Senate in the hotel. These guys were clearly out there because they think he is in trouble . Is he still in trouble and how is it going . Senator mckin is going to be. Assume single digit race all
the way to the end. He is in better position now. For a while he has taken a beating from the right and left. Democrat trying to tie him to trump. He was being very delicate. Doing a delicate dance there didnt want to trump the trump hornet nest. I think he is in much better shape. Last poll i saw on senate race out there had it at about 8 points for mccain. Is that still the case . I think thats a pretty reasonable assumption. There is kind of a partisan poll that had it tied. And then there was a cnn poll that had a bigger lead for mccain that most people view as outlier. Probably somewhere in between. So probably 7 or 8 points is probably where its at. Okay. Arizona state to watch, dan, thank you very much. Thanks, brit. House republicans are investigation into the firm that deleted large amounts of Hillary Clintons emails after congress had subpoenaed the material. Fox news intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge is with us since he is covering that story. Hi, catherine, what do you know . Hi, brit. Based on our investigation today the key month is march of 2015. We have a graphic for you to look at the time line. March 2nd is when the New York Times first reported that clinton was using a personal email account. By the 3rd and 4th of that month. This is march 2nd of last year. Correct. By march 4th sent a preservation for the clinton email as well as a subpoena for the clinton emails. Did that go to the it firm. My march 9th plat River Networks in colorado had been notified there was a preservation order. Then on march 25th, clintons legal time David Kendall and cheryl mills have a conference firm with the itm in colorado. Then on march 1st the cleats the archive backup of
clintons emails. The case they are making there is an order torch delete the record there was a Conference Call and then the conversation was deleted. When it was issued to whom was it issued . To the clintonsen state department and Management Firm in colorado. That firm is called plat river. It had in the of this. Correct. It clearly would apply for them. This is the issue for the obstruction. This committee is so serious about the issue they are prepared to subpoena the engineer from that firm and bring them to washington. Now, that engineer was interview by the fbi, is it not. Thats correct. The name is redacted. So we dont know who it is. They must know. The fbi knows and not even the committee knows. They are demanding that that at least be released to them so they can issue a subpoena if thats required. Now, if i assume that the suspicion on the part of the Committee Members is
that this was done after a subpoena had been issued and notification gone out to hold the documents that that would have amounted to object destruction of justice . Thats right. Where do we go from here . The Congressional Oversight Committee has to move very quickly. As you can appreciate, they are now up against a very tight time line. They have to get all of this accomplished or whatever progress they can make really by the end of september. Come october, everyone is going to be out campaigning. They are moving very quickly on this issue. And the fbi director is also going to be back on the hill to testify about the investigation. Do you know when that might be . I believe its the third week of september. Everything is moving. Its like a train moving down the track very quickly. We have had a lot of trains running down a lot of congressional tracks in my experience and sometimes they derail and never get where they are going. Thank you very much. Thank you. New concerns how this
years election might be rigged. Our Political Panel will be here next. Also, the first president ial debate is just 19 days away. Newt gingrich is here to discuss how republican candidate donald trump may be getting ready for that big debate. Straight ahead. You owned your car for four years. You named it brad. You loved brad. And then you totaled him. You two had been through everything together. Two boyfriends, three jobs. Youre like nothing can replace brad. Then Liberty Mutual calls. And you break into your happy dance. If you sign up for better car replacement™, well pay for a car thats a model year newer with 15,000 fewer miles than your old one. Liberty stands with you™. Liberty mutual insurance. Afoot and lighthearted i take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me,
the long brown path before me leading wherever i choose. The east and the west are mine. The north and the south are mine. All seems beautiful to me. New concerns over possibility of a rigged election right here in the u. S. Ash carter warned russia to stay out of the u. S. Election. The fbi, meanwhile, is currently investigating allegations that the russians hacked the Democratic NationalCommittee Earlier this year. Mr. Cartedders stern warning to russia came as concerns arose in the u. S. The election could be rigged here as well. James carville, remember him . Said this earlier today. By and large, american elections are pretty much on the up and up. I mean, it is very, very i cannot tell that you somebody cannot rig a voting machine 100 votes here and 100 votes there thats possible. He went on to say, of course, that those kinds of numbers simply arent enough to throw elections, even local elections as a rule. Tracy, we have heard a lot of buzz this year it seems to me about the election being rigged trump predicting it might be rigged and all the rest of it what would it take to actually rig a president ial election . Youre right. Trump has paved the way for if he loses saying that the election is people cheated. And there is a it is a legitimate concern. There is a device out there. Its 15. Can you just plug it in to the voting machine when you vote and you can put cast multiple ballots. 73 of ballots are cast why paper and the rest are electronic. It is vulnerable. So you have got 27 chunk of the votes cast that could be influenced by this device or is it more than that . Swing states, pennsylvania, florida, virginia, North Carolina. These are the ones where there is no paper trail . Right. So there is no way to go back and determine whether the vote was honest or not by checking against the paper . R