Shameful. Donald trump doesnt have much of a choice at this point. Tomorrow night at that debate he needs to throw himself on the mercy of the American People. He needs to take full responsibility for his words and for his actions, and he needs to beg for their forgiveness. Good morning, and welcome to a. M. Joy live from Washington University in st. Louis, site of the second president ial debate. Less than 12 hours from now, look at those beautiful people. The debate comes as more than 50 republican elected officials have withdrawn their support from Donald Trumps campaign, many of them calling for him to leave the race. Since predatory remarks he made in 2005 were made public friday night. But trumps response, defiance. He tweeted, quote, the media and the establishment want me out of the race so badly i will never drop out of the race. Well never let my supporters down. In fact, the nominee left his trump tower fortress for a few minutes saturday to glad hand supporters gathered outside the building, but as elected republican supporters continue to defect, trump still has a debate to prepare for tonight. Trump will square off against Hillary Clinton here in st. Louis at 9 00 p. M. Tonight. That creepy conversation on the bus with billy bush will surely come up, and trump will undoubtedly also have to address the fact that so many in his party are fleeing from him. Lets bring in msnbc contributor e. J. Dionne and a supporter of hillary for america and hugh hewitt. Im coming right to you, my friend. You are among the republicans who have defected from Donald Trumps support base. Is there anything that he could say tonight during this debate that would change your mind . No. I believe he should leave the race for the benefit of the country, the party, his family and himself. Tom cotton, the senator whose clip you opened with, is perhaps one of the people i most respect in politics, combat veteran of the slums of baghdad and harvard law, harvard undergraduate, smart man from arkansas. His tone i was with donald trump on friday, but the collapse that has occurred is complete, and among mass attending catholics, mormons and other people of faith its a wholly different feel over the last 48 hours than it has been. E. J. , ill come tyou on that. Lets look at the people who have turned on donald trump. There are more than 50 at this point and counting. Sort of keeping a running taggy of people who have changed their mind since the tape came out, but were also finding, politico has a piece out this morning, a Morning Consult poll shows these guys may not be getting the benefit of switching from donald trump from voters and they may actually be punished from it, because republican numbers in these numbers would prefer that these, you know, candidates had stuck with donald trump, so could this be a doubleedged sword for people like tom cotton and john mccain . Republicans have a slew of people. Trump leading trump apologists and enablers two days ago suddenly have religion and say, whoops, none of that other stuff mattered. It didnt matter that he went after africanamericans or latinos or disabled people. That was okay, but now weve got to make the switch. Thats a problem for them. I think, secondly, the flipflopping thats involved on the parts of some candidates, kelly ayotte up in New Hampshire the most prominent case where she had to switch within hours of a debate where she said, yes, hes a role model, no he isnt. Thats going to be a problem, and then its still true that donald trump has some real support in the republican electorate. That poll suggests that he won more than half of the primary vote, and those republicans are going to be dispirited. What the republicans are most worried about is turnout. Is republicans who will stay home and these Close Senate Races will flip the other way because republicans just wont show up if trump is still on the ballot. Yeah. I mean, you do have, this is the Morning Consult poll that i was referring to, should the Republican Party stand behind donald trump . 74 of Republican Voters saying yes. Only 13 of them saying no on the question of whether donald trump should end his campaign. Only 12 of Republican Voters saying he should. 70 of democratic voters saying he should, but to e. J. s point why not . Right. Its not as if there havent been ads running that show Donald Trumps comments about women really running for several months. Had you what he has said about mexicans to open his campaign, and you now have this sort of deluge of republicans leaving. What do you make of it . Well, we knew who donald trump was back in 1989 when he put out the central park five ad demeaning teenagers for crimes they didnt commit. Which is why africanamericans have never been interested in him at all . Africanamericans and women have been trying to tell the American Public now and perhaps now they believe us. What you have is a party that doesnt seem him as unacceptable but unelectable. If that gets him to drop the support, fine. Were trying to avert a catastrophe here so weve got to take, you know, any conversions that we can get. What can we expect in terms of what Hillary Clinton will do to respond . Hillary clinton really expertly trolled donald trump during that first debate with Alicia Machado which he reacted to in predictable fashion and then you have this surprisingly smart strategy by tim kaine quite frankly all the interrupting, got pence on the record essentially denying donald trump over and over and over again and saying trump hadnt said that he hadnt said. Will bill clinton tonight during the debate use what we now know, the new information about trumps predation quite frankly, about she use that on stage . I think that shes going to speak for herself tonight and im looking forward. I think all americans should tune in to hillary speak for herself because i think when we watch the tape, when we listen to what is said on the tape all americans can listen to that and think for themselves and understand that what was said is completely inappropriate. I think that the dehumanizing and demeaning words hes used all throughout the campaign, hes dehumanized mexicans and women and dehumanized black people and dehumanized a mexican judge saying he wasnt able to be fair because of his heritage. This is mart of a pattern, and i think hillary is going to speak to the fact that this is not new. We didnt learn new information on friday. It just confirmed what we already knew. I want to stay with you one second and ill come back to you, e. J. I wonder if it is the specific word which im not going to word on a sunday morning because i dont know if my pastor in florida is watching. My parents are pastors, i hope not. The is it the word, because you were a member of the Hillary Clinton campaign you were quite a strong and forthright advocate for women, particularly young women, you and i have talked about issues of Sexual Assault, campus rape, what women have gone through, everyone has had that encounter with an aggressive man . What do you think is the difference with this particular tape and youll the previous things that donald trump has said about women . I think theres something really powerful when its not a reported a. P. Piece where they are quoting other people talking about what they heard donald trump say. We are hearing it from him, and we see him essentially come off the bus and we know its him, and i think confirming what we already knew is something very powerful, something visceral. All of us had a very visceral effect about that, something very ehuman nigz, an emotional reaction and response to the dehumanization of women, of people of color, and i think that thats a trend that has been consistent throughout, and its something that is very disturbing and hopefully will be unacceptable for american voters. And to see them sort of walk with the woman after as she she has been set up. I think the striking thing is trump talking one way here on the bus and looking completely different off the bus which only underscores that this guy will say anything at any time and you have no idea what you can believe from him. Particularly you cant believe the sort of good guy up front, but i think Hillary Clinton has an interesting double strategy to pursue tonight. She doesnt want she doesnt have to say too much about this. Everybody knows about this, and she doesnt need to press him on this. Hes already ready to go crazy. I think in the back of her head she has to have the idea that maybe the republicans will force this guy to drop out, maybe. He doesnt sound like that now. Yeah. In which case she also has to use the town hall format to make herself more attractive to voters. Shes actually really good at this format. Shes done hundreds of town halls. She basically passed barack obama in New Hampshire when everyone had written her off as dead in 2008 partly by doing one town hall after another after another so shes got to keep in main her main target is trump, but shes got to sort of keep in the back of her mind maybe this race will look different in a week or two from now. Let she go to my never hillary on the end something at the debate tonight my hope would be that mr. Trump because hes coming would begin by opening up with huma abedins dismissiveness of the American Israeli Political Action Committee that came out in the podesta email and move on to Hillary Clintons secret speeches to Goldman Sachs and move on to the other Podesta Emails where he demeans jake tapper and others and lay out an indictment and bring up egypt, syria and to what end . You said he should drop out . And because its so important she not become the president. United states and not destroy the Supreme Court for 40 years im withdrawing and asking you to vote for mike pence. That would be a historic moment. It would redeem his family and save his brand which is on fire. It would give him some dignity at this point because more is coming, and i dont know about what youve seen, but ive seen a guy benson report from townhall. Com that at least two more hits are coming. So if you think its bad today. If he throws fire and brings up former president clintons indiscretions tonight which is a disaster and argued, answered, impeached, embarrassed, disbarred, but if he brings it up. Ill ask you that. What would Hillary Clinton do in response if the response of donald trump is to essentially open his remarks with a barrage of bill clintons fast foibles from the 90s and just go full on in that direction. I think that theres a risk that that would turn off Many American voters who dont want to hear about what happened in their personal life. Thats something that happened in a marriage. I think we understand that their lives and that we should get back to the issues. I mean, a lotf this is important because were not that you canning about the issues. Were not talking about what our vision is for the country, how we want to make peoples lives better, but at the same time some of the things that donald trump is saying are about the issues, right. If youre dehumanizing women and also legislating and taking away their rights and their freedom to make Reproductive Health care choices those things line up pretty clearling, and i think that its just its an unfortunate turn of events here that were reaching right now. To say nothing of the fact that donald trump has taken on new meaning. And also you have there in donald trump someone who is not likely to protect victims. Just had a Sexual Assault bill of rights signed on friday by president obama. Yeah. And you have here a guy on tape bragging about committing Sexual Assault. Yeah. I think what we need to do is recognize thats what it is and also understand that this maybe hopefully can lead to more women being believed when they tell you that these things are happened. Surrounded by people like steve bannon and Rudy Giuliani, their own records of how they operated with women does not exactly make you hopeful. Thank you all for being here. Well be back later in the show. After the break, its supposed to be a moment of matter unity. With Speaker Paul Ryan standing with donald trump for the first time but thats not what happened. More from the scene in wisconsin next. Using 60,000oints from my chase ink card i bought all the framework. Wire. Anplants neededo give my shop. A face. No one will forget. See what the power of points can do for your business. Learn more at chase. Com ink no one will forget. Heytheres a more enjoyabley way to get your fiber. See what the power of points can do for your business. Try these delicious phillips fiber good gummies, a good source of fiber to help support regularity. Mmmm. These are great. My work here is done. Phillips. The tasty side of fiber. Keeping the power lines clear,my job to protect public safety, while also protecting the environment. The Natural World is a beautiful thing, the work that we do helps us protect it. Public education is definitely a big part of our job, to teach our customers about the best type of trees to plant around the power lines. We want to keep the power on for our customers. We want to keep our community safe. This is our community, this is where we live. We need to make sure that we have a beautiful place for our children to live. Together, were building a better california. Let me just start off by saying there is a bit of an elephant in the room, and it is a troubling situation, im serious, it is. I put out a statement about this last night. I meant what i said, and its still how i feel, but that is not what were here to talk about today. A bit of an elephant. Saturday night was supposed to be a high point for Donald Trumps campaign. The first time house Speaker Paul Ryan backed up his endorsement by publicly campaigning with him. Instead, it turned out to be one of the campaigns lowest moments because after hearing the audio recording of trumps sexually aggressive comments towards women ryan disinvited him from the wisconsin fundraising event where they were scheduled to appear together. Then, after trump said mike pence would be going in his place, pence promptly backed out. Now i want to go to milwaukee and bring in scott ross, executive director of one wisconsin now and charlie sykes, editor and chief of rightwisconsin. Com. Charlie, let me go two for this. What was the reaction of conservatives and republicans in wisconsin when donald trump didnt show up and mike pence didnt show up . Yeah. Well, its too bad nobody warned them this might work out badly. Look, i think that paul ryan and other republicans recognized this was going to be the photoop from hell. Obvious this was not going to take place and came up with a facesaving way of finessing this. That statement that paul ryan issued was cold and harsh was the breaking point. When you go back and you look at this campaign, i think our going to see that moment in which paul ryan said im not going to stand with the nominee of my party was really the signal for republicans to abandon ship, and what had been a trickle became a flood after that. The question is, you know, is it too little too late . You know, are people really, really surprised to find out that donald trump was who donald trump has been . Did they really not know who this man was . But i think at this point the recognition is this president ial race is pretty much over so republicans have to decide how many of them are they going to save and will they be able to distance themselves from this train wreck between now and november 8th and im not sure they will be able to. Charlie, you know, youve been a never trumper from the very beginning, and its not as if people like you who are conservatives who were warning the party. Why do you suppose paul ryan stuck with donald trump all this time . I mean, hes seemed tortured and tormented and stuck with him through thick and thin. Didnt need him for his own primary. He walloped the trump supporter who ran against him. Why do you think he stuck with him, and do you give replicans who are only now defecting credit for walking away only now when they have been with the guy all this time . Thats the question. I mean, you know, paul ryans position has been untenable for a long time to say this is a textbook example of racism and i still support him for president. No, i dont want to stand next to him in my own state and lets make him the most powerful man in the world. I think paul ryan made a bad political bet. I think he figured that as speaker of the house he needed to protect his majority, that this was his job to be able to do this, maybe that maybe in some alternative universe donald trump would pivot and become president ial and, you know, would be the person that he obviously is not, but now i think hes got to make the decision. This is a real test, and i do think its probably going to be too late, but here is the real test. Do you want to go down with this guy . As hugh hewitt mentioned, this debate is likely to be a disaster. There are more oppo hits to come. The question is are you still going to be held hostage to all of that, or are you at least going to say, look, at the end of the day, no, i dont want to i dont want to be, you know, tainted with this support. Yeah. But scott, as as a representative of probably the contingent thats going to stick donald trump to Wisconsin Republicans for the end until the end of time, are democrats going to allow any republican out of wisconsin to slither away from donald trump unscathed . Well, joy, i would say this. You know, wisconsin has been this isnt chickens this is chickens coming home to roost. Wisconsin has been a laboratory of the dehumanizing of political opponents and the verdictization and the vilification of really of people in order to achieve republican political ends.