Can you trust him, if you were president of the united states. If this is the way he treated the people who gave him money for a service or product, then its not it doesnt become him very well as a president ial candidate. Thank you both for joining us this hour. That wraps it up for me. Hardball with Chris Matthews starts right now. Hillary makes her pick. Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews back in washington after covering the Republican National convention in cleveland. Were here live right now awaiting the big announcement from the Hillary Clinton campaign of who will be her running mate. Nbc reports that the news is expected to come at any moment. Believe me, we are on this. Lots of chatter secretary clinton will choose virginia senator tim kaine and selecting a moderate like herself would be
a sign of confidence on the part of secretary clinton. It would show her readiness to pick a Vice President ial nominee with whom she is comfortable personally as well as politically, that she doesnt need to accommodate the pressure from the partys left. Nbcs Andrea Mitchell is with the campaign in florida. Ed rendell, a clinton supporter, close friend of the clintons is with us. Andrea, what is the timing look like right now . We are expecting a text message to supporters. Thats the way they want to announce this. Then you would see her in miami tomorrow with her choice, all indicators are that it is tim kaine, the virginia senator, former governor, former mayor. He checks a lot of boxes. There has been pushback from some progressive more liberal democrats who dont like his past position on abortion. They dont like his position on bank regulation, concerned about his support for trade agreements. That said, he does have the one
qualification of any of the possible candidates other than military choices of having more Foreign Policy experience. That became first of all, that has always been her first criteria, somebody who is ready to step into the commander in chief role. Hes on foreign affairs, foreign relations, i should say, and Armed Services committee so hes been very active in both afghanistan, the counterterrorism policy against isis in syria as well as iraq policy. Thats a very important component. It became more important when mike pence was chosen and became even more important late this week when donald trump sounded off against nato. That really sealed the deal for this choice. Because that shows that there was an opening, a vulnerability on the part of trump on Foreign Policy. Andrea . I guess we are i apologize. Let me go to chuck todd. My premise here is that she
picked tim kaine because she wanted him. If she picks him, thats because she wants him, personally she wants him across the hall from her if shes president. She expects to be president. Shes picking a Vice President , not just someone to run with. 100 . This is a governing pick. I think, look, this is not about a specific Constituency Group in the Democratic Party. If she were worried about a specific Constituency Group, perhaps she would have picked a latino or picked somebody more progressive in a Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, maybe decided on somebody else. Look, this is a governing pick. This is somebody that is in many ways, who Hillary Clinton i think views as sharing a similar personality. They are both kind of midwest, have that sort of midwestern reserved nature to them, instinctively reserved nature. Tim kaine not a native of virginia. Moved to virginia. Grew up in missouri. Grew up in kansas city, i
believe. So theres that. And i think its somebody who is seen as just a steady guy. Doesnt make a lot of mistakes. You know hes not going to make a lot of unforced errors on the campaign trail but hes seen as a pretty loyal guy, when hes governing, and doesnt let his own i think, look, most president s are concerned about somebody letting their own ambition get in the way of them being a partner. Thats not tim kaine. You mean he doesnt see his way to the presidency . Im not saying he doesnt see, lets back that up. Hes ambitious. But not to the point where it would blind him from not being loyal to the person that picked him. You know, its amazing, you and i follow this political thing, not just in terms of whats in the headlines but whats the back story. Mitch mcconnell, republican leader, once said ive got an entire caucus of class president s. When you come across the fact that tim kaine was class president in high school, you go bulls eye. Talk about checking the boxes. Thats one more thing you can look for. You want to find a future president , look for a class president. I want to bring in anne guerin. Hillary clinton, first woman president. Plausibly potentially and perhaps shes the favorite at this point. She has to have a working relationship with a guy whos a guy. Who knows what that means but its the first time so its an interesting kind of chemistry decision here. Shes had lots of experience. With bill. Shes had lots of experience, period. As the first woman to do all sorts of things. Sure. But now she has this partner thing. Yes. And i agree exactly with chucks analysis of why he would make a good partner. Shes not looking specifically for someone who can help her run, although they think tim kaine can do that. He can be an attack dog, he can do many of the things that shes gotten somewhat better at doing herself but still needs some help in doing, which is zeroing in on his weaknesses and being able to rally democrats and now
go beyond rallying democrats to get other people, any undecid s undecideds, any disaffected republicans to start to think differently about trump. They think that tim kaine has skills in that way. Shes really looking beyond that period to someone who she thinks would be able to work in congress. He has a good bipartisan record and who could do fill in around her on Foreign Policy. Governor rendell, it seems to me the vice presidency has emerged as a major office in this country. It began to really emerge under lbj because of its political importance in winning that election. Under mondale, when you get an office two doors from the oval office and youre right there all the time, you talked to joe biden, he gets called into the office a lot. The president says lets talk about this thing. Its very much a partnership. No question. One of the reasons i love Hillary Clinton is i knew she would pick someone not by who could best help her win the
election, but by someone who would be ready to govern if something happened to her. Tim kaine has domestic experience. He was a governor, a terrific governor. He was a great party chairman. He is really liked and respected by democrats all over the country regardless of where they are on the political spectrum, and most of all, hes got experience with terrorism and the military. An excellent choice, a guy who could be president literally on day one. He helps a little bit i think in virginia, maybe more than a little bit, but there are other people who might have been better as campaigners in helping Hillary Clinton win the election, but she takes it seriously. Just like she takes the job of president seriously. She also what do you think about the lift she seems to be operating under . I watched her just perform, we all did a few moments ago. You can usually read people. She looks like shes happy. We all show our attitude. She looks like shes had a good week thanks to trump. Well, i think the republican
convention was a series of unexpected disasters. The plagiarism on monday, ben carson saying hillary meets and talks to lucifer at times, ted cruz on wednesday, manafort dissing governor kasich in a state that no republicans ever won the presidency without carrying the popular republican governor, and i think its a speech that i know a lot of analysts think it was a good speech. It was a good speech for the people in the room. It was a good speech for the base. Its going to get them excited and theyre going to turn out. But i think for anybody who was undecided that was a very odd way to approach getting their votes. Just a few moments ago, Hillary Clinton, former secretary of state, reacted to what happened in cleveland this week and had a rare word of praise. Here she is, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This proves that point. Lets watch. Did any of you watch that
convention in cleveland . Well, you know, it was kind of perversely flattering. Something has gone terribly wrong when one speaker says vote your conscience and gets booed. I mean, i never thought i would say these words, but ted cruz was right. Well, thats a stretch. Anyway, let me ask you about the parallel. I go to anne first, then governor rendell. Bernie sanders is not ted cruz. Bernie sanders stood up for a party hes not even a member of which is Pretty Good Party loyalty. Hes not actually a democrat. And he came out and said a week or so ago im with hillary. End of story, shes my candidate for president. Ted cruz said the opposite. He said he was absolutely standing against the history of donald trump. Im betting this guy goes down bad. Im going to stand on his grave. Thats basically what he said this week. Hillary isnt worried about bernie being with her. Bernies with her. Whereas cruz is clearly against trump. Yeah. The democrats are judging that the republicans have a worse probably problem of disaffected membership than they do. They have a ka chasm. Bernie is with her, will say the right things about her, will campaign for her. There are diehard bernie supporters who maintain now that not only is she the wrong choice but that bernies making what are their options . On the floor next week in philly . Their options on the floor will they put a candidate on the floor . Will they nominate someone against tim kaine . I think they will complain
about tim kaine loudly, louder even than hillary, particularly because of his stance on banking and also trade. Hes actually been a stronger proponent of tpp in recent months than she has since she disavowed it. He hasnt 100 said that hes super excited about it still but he maintains greater affection for it and then this week, he signed on to these two letters that a lot of deckic a democrat progressive activists see as thinly disguised lobbying on behalf of banks. He says thats not what it is at all but it will cause him some problems. Is there anybody who sort of had the diagram saying you had somebody hillarys close to and feels comfortable with cogoverning with, and also meets the terms of the left . I kept thinking you know, it might have been, i dont know who it would have been, but it was certainly not bernie. Hes not going to be Vice President. He doesnt have the soul of Vice President. Nor does Elizabeth Warren. They dont think like Vice President s. Go ahead. Your thoughts on that . You know what im trying to do. Is there anybody hillary would have liked that the left would have liked . I think Sherrod Brown would have been perfect except for the fact that if he got elected Vice President , john kasich would appoint his successor and it would be a republican and that could have decided the balance of the senate. But i think Sherrod Brown was someone that hillary would have been comfortable with and certainly would have been more acceptable to the far left than tim kaine is going to be. I think tim kaines vote on tpp is a problem. Theres no question about it. No ifs, ands and buts about it. I give hillary high marks for political courage and picking someone she felt would be a good Vice President. Do you think its because chuck schumer, the likely democratic leader of the senate coming up next year, is still worried about getting the 50 votes he needs, the 50 members he needs from 46, hes still not sure of getting that fourvote increase that he needs to keep
ohio . Absolutely. If you have ever been on the receiving end of a call from chuck schumer, you know how difficult that can be. One of the hardest things in life. I have said many times, Chuck Schumers an acquired taste. I have managed to acquire it. Im not sure thats a permanent condition. Anyway, thank you all. We will stick with this story. Hillary clintons pick for vp running mate could come any minute. Look, we think it will be within this hour. Stick with us. Leave the tv on. Still ahead this hour, in addition to that, donald trump took the opportunity to use his first appearance after becoming the republican candidate for president to go back and fight with ted cruz. Hes still fighting this other front war with the guy who has just been as nasty as can be and they are both being nasty. Why is he involved in another war with ted cruz . Take on any road with intuitive allwheel drive. The nissan rogue, murano and pathfinder. Now get 0 apr for 72 months, plus 500 bonus cash. I have an orcogram we for an owen. E. Thats me. You should hire stacy drew. She wants to change the world with you. She can program jet engines to talk and such. Her biggest weakness is she cares too much. Thank you. My friend really wants a job at ge. Mine too. Im a wise elf from a far off shire. And sanjay patel is who you should hire. Thank you. Seriously though, stacy went to a great school and shes really loyal. You should give her a shot. Sanjays a team player and uh. Big day in politics. We could learn Hillary Clintons running mate any minute. Donald trump is back trashing ted cruz. You both have a perfect driving record. Perfect. No tickets, no accidents. That is until one of you clips a food truck ruining your perfect record. Yeah. Now you would think your Insurance Company would cut you some slack, right . No, your insurance rates go through the roof. Your perfect record doesnt get you anything. Anything. Perfect. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Liberty stands with you. Liberty mutual insurance. Welcome back to hardball. Now to the developing story we have been following out of germany. Nine people are dead and 11 injured after a deadly shooting spree at a munich shopping center. Police are operating on the premise of a terrorist attack as they search for up to three gunmen who are on the lose. They say one gunman may be among the dead. The shooting began at a mcdonalds before the suspects made their way into the mall. That scene was captured on a cell phone. Wem, special forces in germany have been called in as munich grinds to a standstill. Police have told residents to stay indoors as they conduct the manhunt. Joining me from our new york newsroom is msnbcs cal perry. Also with us, msnbc terrorism analyst malcolm nance. I wish i didnt have to see you so often. This is another friday night here. Cal, give us a sense of who were the shooters . Who are the terrorists . We dont know at this point. There will be a press conference at the top of the hour by munich police. What we do know, im happy to say this, it doesnt bear any of the hallmarks of an isis attack. We know of one gunman who opened fire and you saw that very chilling video on a group of civilians outside a mcdonalds. He then moved to the mall where there was more shooting and then he seemed to vanish, whether or not hes one of the dead and thats something we are waiting to find out from munich police. Whether or not he then slipped away, there was some concern he went into the subway which is then why this city went into
lockdown. Thats still unclear. They are working on that part of the investigation right now. But you had 100 people go into that mall and you had the gunman go the other direction. We have also heard eyewitness reports saying that its quite likely this was some kind of xenophobic attack, the gunman was ranting about foreigners. That would seem to be in keeping with this kind of attack. It was not a large scale terrorist attack that ended in the deaths of many, many civilians with kind of a hostage situation and explosives which is what you would expect from an isis attack. We are not willing at this point to link it with an islamic extremist group. If this is nativist, why shoot other ethnic germans . At one point, thats a great question, at one point he yelled fing turks, something about turks. We understand, look, theres a large Turkish Community that lives in germany, they have been there since the 60s and this is, you know, europe is dealing with an immigration crisis. So thats where they are getting those reports from. Not clear who he targeted. There were some initial reports
that he maybe had targeted children at this mcdonalds. I will say this is the fifth anniversary of the horrible massacre in norway. Some people are wondering if theres not a connection there. We have to wait for the police investigation. Malcolm, thank you. Everybody thinks back to munich. That was the Steven Spielberg movie about that, the 11 israeli athletes killed at the olympics in 72. Munich still grabs us, malcolm. Well, you are absolutely right. Germany has had a long history of terrorism preceding even the black september attacks in 1973. They had their own internal forces, the red army faction. Denney the red. Absolutely. Surgents who were operating inside their own nation. Right now we have to be cautious. Some indications are that it was perhaps had right wing leanings and other indications are that
it may have been islamist. At this point we just know its an act of terrorism and this person shot children. We know at least one was a 15yearold girl who was murdered. It behooves us to be cautious, for everybody to be cool. We will all find out about how this is going to play out i certainly hope from the police when they come in at the top of the next hour and let us know precisely who the gunmen are and who they may still be looking for. Lets talk about patterns here. We dont know who it is. Cal, first to you, looking at this from an American