Rose we continue with David Barstow an susanne craig. That is what is significant about this, its not that he did something il league illegal or improper but unbeknownst for most people, what has been baked into the tax code over many decades is this set of special quirks and loopholes, et cetera. Rose donald trump and his tax returns, and other political news for this day, next. Funding for rose funding for charlie rose has been provided by the following and by bloomberg, a provider of multimedia news and Information Services worldwide. Captioning sponsored by Rose Communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. Rose we begin this evening with politics. And we talk to, who else but Mark Halperin and john heilemann, they are the managing editors of bloombergs politics and cohosts of all due respect an also the circus which is on showtime. Im pleased to have them any time at this table as we take through this campaign, a snap shot of what the forces are that are causing the Forward Movement or the backward move am depending on which side youre on. I read from the New York Times, to begin this, talking about the speech that trump made after the revelations about his income tax returns. And we will, in fact, have in this broadcast two New York Times reporters who were responsible for that. We just had a conversation with them and will you see this as part of this hour. This is New York Times today, a kind of sum are of what happened in the past week. Mr. Trump seemed jarred by the pending revelations from topic to topic mocking his democratic rival Hillary Clinton for having had pneumonia and insinuating that she might have cheated on her husband. The performance capped a bruising week for mr. Trump who went from a widely panned debate performance grens mrs. Clinton on september 26th to repeatedly mocking allies Alicia Machado a former Miss Universe who is hispanic, including with a string of twitter posts around 5 a. M. On friday. That twitter storm raised new questions about mr. Trumps temper am for which mrs. Clinton has often criticized him. Mr. Trump is now limping into the final five weeks of a race in which he has lost the momentum, some of his allies acknowledged. Is that a pretty accurate snap shot of how you see where we are at this moment. Limping is one metaphor, david plot, Barack Obama Campaign manager has a ex expression, your turn in the barrel. When are you in the barrel it is hard to get out and you get negative coverage and things feeds on themselve, trump has been in the barrel since the debate. He has had a terrible time, almost selfinflicted. The Clinton Campaign defendantly moved to exploit his errors. The New York Times story on his taxes is another day where he is on deence if. Trump is behind. He was behind going into the debate. Rose he was moving up. But he was still behind. Is he now further behind and he has no momentum. And. Rose in fact maybe going the other way. Certainly going the other way. Certainly when are you behind, even if you are standing still, as the clock ticks, are you having a bad time. Hes at best standing still. Hes probably lost a little bit of ground. That having been said, he can still win. He will get 42 million americans minimum who will vote for him. He needs to change the dynamic. He needs to win probably both we dates. He needs probably Hillary Clinton to get back in the barrel with some exposes and disclosures about her. And he needs his support to his supporters to be more enthusiastic than hers through a combination of his successes and her failures. So he needs a lot to win. And the current period is not one where any of those things are likely to happen. Rose part of the reason its not likely to happen if you want to make that argument is that he is incapable of not getting in the way of himself. Of himself. Yeah, of himself. He cant get out of his way. And getting in the way of what the natural dynamic of this political year, having to do with change and having to do with not necessarily a very Popular Democratic nominee. We say at the end of our show, we always say sigh nara at the end of the show, a japanese phrase there is another jeez praise tepoku, like hari cari where you are stabbing yourself over and over again. He does this all the time and he seems to do it at at every moment where he gets momentum. He finds a way. Rose why does he do that. I really think you would need a degree in psychotherapy to understand it. I think he wants to be president. I think he does. I mean i dont know that he wants to be president as much as she does. And he obviously hasnt tried, he hane had that in his sights for as long as Hillary Clinton and maybe has a more cavalier attitude about it. But there is no universe in which it makes any sense what he did last week, right . I mean he actually on the debate stage on monday night when Hillary Clinton brought up miss machado at the end of the debate, she wanted to get that hit out there, he was relatively restrained. He took on Rosie Odonnell but he didnt attack her, miss machado, the private citizen. He got on television the next mork, and decided to to attack her and for days after that and this crazy thing on friday in the early predawn hours. All of them, against the advice around him and against all common sense. He has gotten himself in political trouble most acutely when he has gone after private citizens. Something we dont see very often. There is a high tolerance with people in the electorate for politicians attacking each other. There is not that high a tolerance for going after private citizens. So why attack the chan family, judge cu rial, miss machado when are you trying to make up ground with women, you need to win female votes in order to overcome what mark said, which is correct. He has never been ahead in the race. Not one day. And if he is going to inwith he has to attract a bunch of independent, republican leading suburban College Educated women. Attacking another woman calling her fat, over and over again and insinuating that she is part of a sex tape. There is no universe which that that advances his goals. None. It is a first time candidate. He is thinskinned, to an extraordinary degree. And the polls have gotten worse for him. But theyve not gotten so bad that they overcome what is the signature dynamic of the entire election cycle, which is the trump rallies. When he goes to rallies and he sees 10,000 people and is told there are 3,000 people who couldnt get in, all is right in the world. He does for him. He doesnt, he doesnt accept any data to trump the fact that 10,000 people are in there cheering for his bits of comedy, his bits of rhetoric, his bits of attack. And so between now and the debate. Rose he is intoxicated by it. He is intoxicated by t and he sees it at all candidates when they go to events at this stage, go to event they are swayed by that. Trump is swayed by that throughout and since he won the primary with that data, i think he still thinks is he going to do well. This is not my theory, this is a theory they say as long as the polls have not collapsed trump will be reluctant to change. But i dont think anybody believes and him despite their public position that he won the first debate, i dont think anybody believes that he can do anything but win that next debate, or his chances of winning go down dramically, it is his last big chance to show that he can be something of a comeback kid. This is also just the psychology of it. The trump seems to enjoy, if we look at him over the course of the time he has been a can the darks he seems to enjoy winningment being ahead of the polls, and he cites them all the time. Rose polls and ratings are his bench mark. And this other thing he seems to enjoy which is fighting with people. The quote in the New York Times at the end of last week with the interview with the times, i can be nasdaqier than her, proudly saying he can be nasdaqier than Hillary Clinton, again a strange thing to say for somebody aspiring to be president of the United States. It seems there is a tug a war between the dope mean hits he is ahead in the poll. Ts whennd rose like a runners high. It seems to be the case. The key important thing that mark said at the beginning, he was as close to being ahead or at least being even on the night, the morning of the debate last monday, and hes gone, there is no doubt he is further away from being president now than he was then. How far we cant really judge. The polling is still coming in. But there is no doubt he has taken a step backward ward if only the thing that is so important that mark mentioned, which is time. There is just not that much time left. We are now five weeks out. And he is now because of this New York Times story and other things, he will spend i think, i would predict, much of this week on defense. When are you on defense are you not marching toward your goal. So the time the clock vunning down. Rose as political observers s it likely we will look at the past week and say the week that turned the campaign . Not if he wins the second debate. Rose how does he win the second debate. I think he he nug a bigger hole, hes going to have to do even better than he would have had he done well in the first debate. It starts with havings demeanor that is calm and relaxed and president ial and gracious. And he didnt pull that off in the first debate. He did on monday he did monday morning he did this practice session basically with some veterans where he took questions the in a townhall style and clearly was trying out the demenner of calm, relaxed. Not failing to criticize Hillary Clinton but not dg it in a trumpy an over the top way. I think if he it is a townhall style, he talks to the voters in a way that seems gracious and dignified and listens and asks followup questions, i think the clinton people will mock that and say 90 minutes cant erase a lifetime of insults and a certain way of behaving. Right now, you got to look at their floors and sealings. In the National Polls but also in the battleground state polls. Because the two Third Party Candidates are not doing as well, trump probably needs to get to 47 to win the states. Right now he is rarely above 43 in any of them, sometimes 44, so he needs to win over additional people. With respect to Hillary Clinton, has she primarily damaged him but not necessarily enhanced her own self with respect to how voters perceive her . Yes, but i thought since this became a general election matchup for her to win she needs to damage him and eliminate him for i dont think there is space in her repertoire or time to do both. So while they are trying to build her up, it is largely about eliminating him. I think she did a great job of that in the debate and i think her Campaign Apparatus an performance on the trail has kept that out there, putting pressure on trump to perform and hes failing. Rose are was there any evidence of what roger ailes wanted him to do that he didnt do . Do we know what the ailes recommendation was . Well, i think one of the most strike striking things about the debate was the degree to which he did not make the arguments that one would have made against her. If he had been on offense. The whole thing of how you do a debate is when are you on defense is you answer the question as quickly and cleanly and crisply as possible and pivot on to an attack point. He left millions of things on the table. He didnt talk about the clinton foundation. Things we want to talk about. Didnt talk about those things. He didnt talk about shall did shall did he didnt talk about the Affordable Care act. He didnt talk about a million things that would have been, like the most obvious hits from what should have been his plan of attack or left on the table. And thats putting aside the degree to which he took the bait although theyre con joined in some ways. The degrees to which he got trapped by talking endlessly on defense in a kind of unpersuasive way. The main thing he left, im sure roger ailes would have told him to do. These are the things you need, the messages you need to hit her with. Rose he is the one that gave her. How many of those did you hear, effective oneliners did you hear from him, none. All trumps memorable lines from the debates were horrible. They werent offense lines. Rose why do you think Affordable Care is not an issue in this campaign . Well, trump has no great specific plan to propose to change it trump is also for universal health care. Rose right. An she doesnt want to talk about. Even when, now that he repeated sijer payor he still says is he for Universe Health care. And she i think doesnt want to take on the baggage of the negative aspects of the law. The law is popular with some people but still more unpopular than popular. And i think the specifics. Rose it is certainly not popular with republicans. Right. And a lot of independents. I dont think she wants to pick fights where shes forced to talk about repudiating barack obama because she wants to be seen as trying to carry on his legacy for democrats. And he is awhilely imperfect messenger for taking the case for reasons mark suggested. Your earlier point, if trump loses the election which i think right now is the by far the more likely outcome is he is going to lose. I think this last week will be important in the narrative of it. I think again, because of the fact. Rose if he does better. Because of the fact he had never been ahead and because of the fact literal leigh never ahead in one day of the general election, you can never point to this week and say that is where it all turned because it never turned in some sense. But it was the moment as i said where he got closest to being in striking distance of her an had the momentum and so on. And this last week really was a huge setback for him. So you know, again, if he performs better in the second debate, better in the third debate he will still be the underdog, even if he does those things, he has to do those things to win. But that will, he will still be the underdog until the day comes when we look and see him over a span of days where we see him clearly ahead, in ohio, North Carolina and florida. Until you see polls that put him ahead in a consistent way in those three dateds states which he must win in addition to winning a bunch of others that will be hard for him. Until that day is he the underdog. Because he has to win all of those three, and she literal leigh has no single mustwin state. He has three. So you know. One other thing. But i think if he loses will you look back on this week you will say that was the moamentd he squandered his best opportunity to win. Rose because he had momentum. Yes, one thing about health care and policy in general. Our show on bloomberg we asked Trump Campaign regularly, we want to do a thing on health care or on tax cuts or on isis, you can give us an expert from your campaign to talk with the clinton. They wont give us anyone. The clinton people off earn wont give us anyone. That problem from the candidates side not withstanding, the press has failed. We have every day nolled followed the drama that done all trump, to some extent Hillary Clinton creates about insults and process. Rose right, right. And i believe its not too soon. And were as guilty of this as anyone, so im not being holier than thou about this. The press has failed to just basically say, at least on some days, you know what, people are concerned about health care. Taxes, jobs. Education. We just have to ignore the candidates to some extent and talk about these issues. Rose why dont you take, we should do this too. Why dont you take ten minutes of your show, i have an hour, you have 30 minutes. You have an hour, the problem is, hes gotten. Rose say were going to do this. We should, we should, and if i could turn the clock back and do more of it. It is hard to do at the en. But the problem is, he has got almost no policies on almost anything. He has some but theyre not very specific. She has got fewer specifics in her campaign pretends. And its hard if the campaigns wont talk about it. If they wont put forward their experts, its very hard to have meaningful discussion about it in the context of the president ial campaign. At hes not an excuse, i wish i could turn the clock back six months and fore see how this would go and say everyone in the media should figure out ten minutes a show, figure out a way to do something on policy. Or even just ten minutes a week because most of vus done less than that. And we all found it irresistible because they both do especially trump, make so much news. And its hard to say im going to ignore this thing that happened today and focus on this thing that Neither Campaign wants to talk about. It is really hard. I agree with mark, we collectively, all of us, have not done a great job in this campaign on that matter. Every four years there is reason to look at the job the prises did. And to find fault and vow to do better. This has been just a national tragedy. And again im not exempting myself at all. Trump, particularly, but also the clintons just create so much as rick perry would say cirrus, so much stuff, daily back and forth that its hard to find room to cover issues. When theyre not really talking about issues very much either. But i will say, Hillary Clinton talks about issue, she talked about National Service last week. Later in the day she talked about trumps tweets. And her campaign new full well the minute she did that, any examination of her proposed of National Service, out the window. Rose why did they do it . Because theyre in battle. And trumps tweets were a big, irresistible tar