Right now for more on the clinton bus tour. Well be back monday. Thanks for watching. Get some rest. Sayonara. Hardball is next. War drums. Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews back in washington. Tomorrow is saturday, marking the hundred day mark to election day. Today marked the unofficial start of the president ial campaign. For donald trump it was another turning point. Campaigning in colorado amid chants of lock her up trump promised a hardhitting campaign. You know what . I have been saying i have been saying lets just beat her on november 8th but you know what . You know what . Im start ting to agree with yo. Every time i mention her, everyone screams lock her up, lock her up, they keep screaming. Know what i do . Ive been nice. But after watching this performance last night, such lies, i dont have to be so nice anymore. Im taking the gloves off. Right . Yes . Take the gloves off. Take the gloves off. Just remember this. Trump is going to be no more mr. Nice guy. Well, this week showed that the Democratic Party has under gone a Seismic Shift in position. Hillary clinton and her supporters displayed an unabashed upbeat patriotic optimism about the country. Lets listen. Now, we are cleareyed about what our country is up against,
but we are not afraid. We will rise to the challenge just as we always have. Well, secretary clinton and tim kaine her running mate took that message to the people in the heart of steel country today. The folks in western pennsylvania and eastern ohio. Some of the hardest hit, by the way, by the recession. They kept up the optimistic theme of the week in philly. The Republican Convention was like a twisted, negative tour. It wasnt a tour of this country. It was a journey through Donald Trumps mind and that is a very frightening place. That is a very frightening place. Donald trump painted a picture, a negative, dark, divisive picture of a country in decline. Im not telling you that everything is just peachykeen. Im telling you we have made progress but we have work to do if were going to make sure everybody is included. Isnt it great the words the democrats are using these days . Peachykeen and malarkey . Im joined by nbc news correspondent kasie hunt who is on the Clinton Kaine campaign bus. A new phrase to master. There you go. I can see the world passing right by you. Reporter you can, chris. We are in your native pennsylvania. We just stopped in hatfield, where they make, factory where they make lincoln logs which you may or may not remember. This is as you said, all about White Working Class voters, particularly men who of course have broken for donald trump lately in polling, and democrats acknowledge privately that pennsylvania is frankly more up for grabs than it has been in any of the more recent modern campaigns that we have experienced and that there is a risk for her in letting this state go. Of course, you know well that eastern ohio is similar terrain to western pennsylvania. This bus tour is going to take
us through harrisburg to pittsburgh, youngstown, cleveland, columbus. You and many of our viewers know the issues there well. They are places that are frankly, their economies have been structurally changed. Theres a lot of people that cant find the manufacturing jobs they used to be able to. The pitch here from Hillary Clinton, she has to be a little careful. On the one hand she has to acknowledge the pain all these people are feeling. On the other hand, she feels like the message is more optimistic than trump. She is criticizing trump for being dark about the future of the country and is trying to send a more uplifting message. Thats what we have seen here on the trail. She is also out of course with tim kaine. The two of them actually look pretty comfortable together on the stump. I noticed. Reporter i will be interested to hear your take on that. Ill tell you. I will give you my take. I have been watching like all of us, i have been watching for 40 years now. I can usually tell the difference between a political smile and a real one. Tip oneill was a different smile, the phony smile. They all have political smiles. But she seems to get a kick out of this guy. When he makes some comment about a weird journey to the mind of donald trump, she hears it as a fresh new political line that shes just not heard before and she seems to giggle at. Like this is great. Because shes heard all the old political malarkey. Theres a phrase, a term not used in 30 years until joe biden used it. Malarkey. Whats the other one i heard . Peachykeen. Reporter peachykeen. I havent heard malarkey in awhile either. I think thats right. I think you could see onstage today in philadelphia, they are at ease, kind of physically with each other, and ill tell you, it was really interesting to see bill clinton and anne holton, tim kaines wife sitting on the corner of the stage. Bill clinton not speaking at the podium, really kind of interesting optics to see that evolution of potentially if they win the white house, bill clinton as the first first gentleman. Guess who rode along with bill clinton in his bus tour,
first bus tour coming out of new york in 1992. Guess who was riding with him and interviewing him . Me. Me. In 1992. It was great. It was clinton and gore. Thank you, kasie hunt, for the lively on the road reporting. With me, radio talk show host hugh hewitt and Washington Post political reporter robert costa, both msnbc political analysts. Hugh, i am always trying to figure you out and your interesting political positioning because you always talk to conservative radio listeners out there. Where are you after these two i was overwhelmed by the democrats manifest patriotism. There are patriot democrats of course and most of them are i assume, but i have never seen such a display. Go ahead. I think they are positioning go ahead. At the start of these two
weeks i didnt know we would be at the end of the two weeks and after the first lady spoke and was off the charts, that turned out to be the peak. I thought mrs. Clinton gave a serviceable workmanlike, lumbering speech and donald trump outranked her in the ratings, then today comes the breaking news her campaigns been hacked across many news cycles. She got out of philadelphia but barely. I think donald trump is feeling very good about winning the ratings and winning the news cycle. I think captain khans father and mother were the hit of the campaign so far. Yes. In fact, very emotional, very connecting. I believe that every civilian owes every gold star mom and dad a great debt of gratitude and great deal of respect. They connected in the way that very few people could connect. I dont think it changes votes. I think when you get to hillarys speech, shes saying listen to what i say, dont look at what i did in egypt, in libya, in syria, in iraq. Dont look at the russian reset
button. Dont look at my server. Listen to my words and i dont think that will last long. Well see who gets the bump. I dont think it will be very much for Hillary Clinton. Youre a rough talker but you may have some truth there. I mean it. Im listening to it, too. I didnt think it was a great speech from Hillary Clinton. I wondered almost let me go to robert. Is there a theory about why she gave a plainspeaking, lets put it this way without value judgment. It was plain speaking yesterday. It didnt have, which she could have easily gotten from a speech writer, more lyricism, more uplift, more eleloquence. Is there a reason she gave such a talk yesterday . Most democrats i spoke to in philadelphia are not framing it as plainspoken. They talked about the tone and temperament and delivery as something to directly appeal to these moderate republicans, these independents in the suburbs here in philly and elsewhere who may not like the way trump speaks, the way trump
comes across. So what clinton wanted to do according to people close to her, her allies, is to protejec steadiness. It wasnt meant to be flowery, right . Theres also an understanding i think around people close to clinton that flowery rhetoric, soaring rhetoric, thats never been her style. For someone who in politics has long been questioned in terms of her authenticity and how she comes across, this was a speech that was Hillary Clinton, who she is. Someone who is seasoned in elected politics, seasoned in experience and presenting herself in that way. More workhorse than show horse. As you might expect, donald trump didnt like the speech. He probably did like it but didnt want to say so. Here he is dumping all over Hillary Clintons speech last night. I watched last night. I watched Hillary Clinton. What a sad, what a sad situation. And by the way, theyre going to
let some of these people i just was informed, they are going to let some of them meander in. Meander. Too bad. But i watched her last night giving a speech that was so average. Lets try to get the theme of the country. Lets try to do this completely down the middle. This is my question. I think they got it wrong. I think everything the Democratic Convention this week was beautifully choreographed. Somebody ought to give credit to Debbie Wasserman schultz because everything this week from the elevation of the whole tone by michelle on monday to the character witnessing including that by her husband on tuesday, to the beautiful speech given by barack obama on wednesday, all the way up through until obviously the very strong Closing Argument by the secretary of state. All that was very well put together. Yet, i think they missed on one truth. I dont think the countrys afraid. I think its angry. You are so right. I think they made a decision
not to address anger and grievance. Right as well as left. Why do you think they chose the ground of we have nothing to fear but fear itself . Rather than go after the anger which is incipient, i quoted William Allen wright, the dissatisfaction of the American People is manifest. The anger is at insiderism and the clintons represent that. There are two big experiments under way. The democrats are trying a transference experiment. They will try and transfer the passion of the bernie people to secretary clinton. They will try and transfer but thats anger. Love and affection of the people but thats anger. Doesnt work but they are trying it. On the republican side they are trying to transplant economic populism into the party of reagan and paul ryan and they are got the antirejection drug of mike pence bathing the kidney transplant going on there. They are both big risks because i dont think you can get hillary to transfer over the
bernie passion or the obama love. She is competent. Thats her argument and her record belies that. Go ahead to you. What about the mood . Zeitgeist is everything. Always trying to look ahead, say what would you guys write in the first and second paragraph if trump won the national election. You would say responding to an overwhelming nationalistic urge based upon dissatisfaction with the direction of the country as manifest in all the polls including our own, twothirds of the country dont like the way the countrys going, sense we are being taken by foreign governments, being taken by illegal immigration that isnt regulated at all and taken in to stupid wars, all of that would be the reason for trump to win. I wonder why brilliant people, why do they address those impulses in the democratic message of this week . Because democrats realize thats kind of the swirling storm of this campaign but when i talk to my Trump Associates today, my trump sources, i say
how do you see this, what do you see the democrats doing here. They say look, at the core here is not just about fundamentals on economic populism. Trump has to be seen, they say, as change. He has to be seen as different than the Democratic Party thats been in power for eight years. My trump sources keep telling me if trump can just be change, Hillary Clinton and the way she embraced president obama and his administration and his record over the past week, they think that enables them to maybe make that argument in spite of trumps missteps and in spite of his controversies. To make that point, did you notice the imitation is the greatest form of flattery. On wednesday night or tuesday night, i get the nights confused, one of the nights, they passed out a bunch of placards to all the delegates say making change. All of a sudden hillary decides oh, no, im not the guy that everybodys endorsed, im not obamas ally, im this new kid on the block, im the newbie, i didnt think that fit into the theme of the week at all because its not true. If i can sum it up, donald trump is the imperfect messenger of the perfect storm in american politics. Everything is up in the air and completely chaotic and hes the imperfect messenger of that perfect storm. Hillary clinton is the fivetime winner of jeopardy and she knows a lot more and do you think she knows popular stuff like that . Do you think she knows all these Little Things about movie lines and everything . Oh, my goodness, yes. She probably proofread her own book. I think you have touched on it. They did not address this boiling whitehot anger with insiderism and privilege. Peggy noonan has written about this. The two americas. People who are connected and those who are not and donald trump is the tribune of the latter. You talk to democrats here, they are saying you dont need to appeal to the angry voters. Look at Mike Bloombergs speech. Look at general allen. They are looking at the voters, National Security types who are moderates, maybe intrigued by trump and saying look, we can be the party of the hawks, we can be the party of security, too. So the democrats will be the neocon party now. Isnt that great. This is great. Never mind. Hugh, thank you, brother. Thank you, robert. Sometimes robert has to give me the bad news. Coming up, now that the conventions are over its a sprint to november. It really is now. Nothing between us until the debates in september. Can Hillary Clinton defend the Northern Industrial states where trump is trying to make inroads . Pennsylvania, ohio. That could be the key to this election. I think if the republicans cant win ohio they cant win an election. Thats history talking there. Our strategists will talk about that from left and right. Plus the fbis investigating reports of new hacking, this time at the Clinton Campaign itself and also the Democratic CongressionalCampaign Committee which house members elected. This week donald trump seemed to encourage, come on, he did, Russian Hackers to find clintons email. He now says he was being
sarcastic. Thats not true. He was serious. But the political damage is already there, obviously. Now also a tale of two conventions. Werent they different . The upbeat optimism we saw from democrats in philadelphia versus the doom and gloom we got from trump and the republicans out in cleveland. Boy, it was manifest. It was so clear. Finally, let me finish with a caves politics repeating itself. You will love this stuff from Democrats Campaign against goldwater. When it comes to healthcare, seconds can mean the difference between life and death. For partners in health, time is life. We have 18,000 people around the world. The microsoft cloud helps our entire staff stay connected and Work Together in real time to help those that need it. The ability to collaborate changes how we work. What we do together changes how we live. One coat, yes one coat guaranteed marquee interior. Behrs most advanced paint. Come find our top rated paints, only at the home depot. A federal Appeals Court struck down the voter id law, saying the states General Assembly enacted it with discriminatory intent. The law enacted in 2013 required voters in North Carolina to show a photo i. D. In order to vote and eliminated same day voter registration. The Court Decision overturns a Lower Court Ruling from april, saying quote, a failure of perspective led the court to ignore critical facts bearing on
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and if youre pregnant or planning to be. Ask your dermatologist about otezla today. Otezla. Show more of you. Welcome back to hardball. Hillary clinton and tim kaine are hitting the road in pennsylvania and ohio looking to sell the economic message secretary cli secretary clinton laid out last night. In my first hundred days we will work with both parties to pass the biggest investment in new, good paying jobs since world war ii. Now, were not only going to make all of these investments. We are going to pay for every single one of them and heres how. Wall street, corporations and the super rich are going to start paying th