Uncertainty. What we do know is Hillary Clinton has more paths to 270 by a lot. Yeah. I have never felt the intensity since the first week. We say to you sayonara. Hardball with Chris Matthews is next. Two months left. Lets play hardball. Good evening. Im Chris Matthews back in philadelphia. Its the day after Hillary Clinton and donald trump both appeared before veterans and answered questions about protecting our country. Donald trump made the most news and stirred up the most heat. He ridiculed American Military leaders saying the generals had been reduced to rubble and he suggested he would fire them. He praised vladimir putin, calling him quote, someone who has very strong control over his
country. He said he could tell based on their body language that National Security officials giving him his intelligence briefing were not happy with president obama and today, Hillary Clinton reacted to that. He trash talked american generals, saying they had been quote, reduced to rubble. Meanwhile, bizarrely, once again, he praised russias strong man, vladimir putin. Even ting the astonishing step of suggesting that he prefers the russian president to our american president. What would Ronald Reagan say about a republican nominee who attacks americas generals and heaps praise on russias president . Every Republican Holding or seeking office in this country should be asked if they agree with donald trump about these statements. Traveling overseas, president obama was also asked about
trumps performance last night. I dont think the guys qualified to be president of the United States and every time he speaks, that opinion is confirmed. And i think the most important thing for the public and the press is to just listen to what he says and follow up and ask questions about what appear to be either contradictory or uninformed or outright wacky ideas. For his part, donald trump slammed Hillary Clinton for her performance. Lets watch. The whole country saw how unfit she was at the town hall last night, where she refused to take accountability for her failed policies in the middle east, her policies unleashed isis, spread terrorism and put iran on a path to nuclear weapons. Joining me now is one of Donald Trumps top advisers, former mayor Rudy Giuliani. In recent weeks you said the following about Hillary Clintons health. Lets watch that. She has an entire media empire that constantly demonizes donald trump, fails to point out several signs of illness by her. What you got to do is go online her campaign and a number of people defending her saying theres nothing factual to the claims about her health. Go online and put down Hillary Clinton illness, take a look at the videos for yourself. I think hillarys tired. I do. When i saw hillary at the press conference sitting down with the police, with the democrat appointed police chiefs, pretending shes propolice, one of the most pathetic press conferences i have ever seen. What do you mean . First of all, she looks sick. Mayor, you had a good look at Hillary Clinton last night. I guess you saw the performance by her and then by her opponent, mr. Trump, who you back. Did you think there were any signs of illness last night by the former secretary of state . Signs of illness . No, but i thought there were the day before when she coughed for about, i dont know, 15 minutes and then coughed on the airplane and then spit something up. I dont know whats wrong with her but they kind of hide her mayor, mayor, mayor, have you got any evidence besides do you have any evidence that shes ill . I dont. What is the evidence . The evidence is you have no evidence shes ill but you say shes ill. You dont think like that. Chris, chris, let me answer the question, okay . Sure. Go ahead. I have eight times online since january where shes had massive coughing spits in which she couldnt complete a speech. I saw her lift orded on to airplanes. I dont know whats wrong with her. On the fbi report it says she cant remember her exit interview from the fbi because of her concussion because she didnt have a memory but she was acting as secretary of state at the time which means we had a
secretary of state who was acting who doesnt have a memory of what she was doing. So these are not illegitimate issues. Beyond that then you were surprised, you must have been surprised then, mr. Mayor, to watch her performance last night when she was quite professional, quite smooth. She didnt sweat. She didnt seem to act in any way harbored by illness at all. Were you surprised how healthy she looked like night . I was surprised how angry she was last night. How healthy she was. Did you think she was healthy last night . Look, i dont i dont i dont know whether shes not whether shes sick or shes not. I do know that there are 14, 15 videos of her that show her in very very strange condition. I dont know what it is. But thats not my real issue. My real issue is that the woman exposed thousands and thousands of classified documents which if i exposed one of them when i was in the Justice Department, they would have put me in jail. Thats what i know. Lets okay. Im not getting anywhere with you. Mr. Mayor, you are adamant on this subject. You are adamant. I just want to end this. I want to end this. You are adamant theres a Health Concern with the candidate for president of the democrat party. You say theres a Health Condition problem. I dont know. What are you saying . What are you saying. All i do is see all these incidents of her coughing all the time. I dont know what it is. I have seen her in several other situations where she didnt look healthy and then i see in the fbi 302 which was put out on memorial day weekend in print about this big where you needed to use a magnifying glass to read it but i read it twice, i saw something that really concerned me. It said she cant remember her exit interview from the cia because she had no memory for a period of time after she had a concussion. She was secretary of state when she had no memory. Now okay. You think these next debates will be a test of her health . The three hour and a half
debates coming up . Will they be adequate to test her health . I think these debates coming up are going to be a test of who the American People like better, who they want in their living room more, who they think is better capable of being president of the United States and i dont think a woman who has revealed numerous classified information, doesnt know that the letter c means confidential, god almighty, chris, i was in the Justice Department for three years. I remember my entry i can tell you the date of it, i can tell you my exit interview from the cia. I remember c in parentheses meant confidential. She thought it meant alphabetical order. If i were crossexamining her i
would have asked her. Lets go to the comment arkans of your candidate last night. Lets watch this point. When referring to a comment that putin made about you, i think he called you a brilliant leader, you said its always a great honor to be so nicely complimented by a man so highly respected within his country and beyond. Well, dohe does have an 82 Approval Rating according to the different pollsters who by the way, some of them are based right here. You want to be complimented by that former kgb officer . I think when he calls me brilliant i will take the compliment, okay . The man has very strong control over a country. Now, its a very different system and i dont happen to like the system but certainly in that system, hes been a leader far more than our president has been a leader. Now, theres two ways to address the question of what do you think of putin. One is what do you think of him as a leader in the sense im now putting a scale together of toughest world leaders. Okay. Putins up there. In terms of our relationship with him, should we salute him as a great leader or should we be telling the American People we have challenges from this guy who may be threatening nato, may be threatening the baltic states, may be causing us trouble in the middle east instead of saluting his grandeur . What you left out of that was he went on to say that all that praise wouldnt mean anything to him in negotiating with putin. Plus that day, he gave a speech in which he said hes going to take our navy which is now at world war i levels, hes going to take it up to 350 ships. Hes going to take our army up to 6,000 and obama and hillary will take it down to 4200. He will take our marine corps from 23 battalions to 35 battalions and hes going to reestablish a modernize our nuclear program. Ronald reagan is going to go into negotiations with putin
from a position of strength. Hillary clinton and barack obama gave up the game on day one when they re set the relationship with russia and gave up the Nuclear Defense of poland and the Czech Republic. Putin took a look at them and said i can push these guys around the world. These are children compared to me. Donald trump is not a child. Like thats a decent argument. You didnt mean Ronald Reagan. You said Ronald Reagan a minute ago. You meant donald trump. Let me ask you about trump last night. Because i see a comparison between the two. Peace through strength. What you dont grasp is that day he gave a speech in which he said hes going to build the u. S. Military up to Ronald Reagan levels. If we build our military up to Ronald Reagan levels, putins not going to push us anywhere because he cant match us. 6 , 5 of our gdp for him to match us, he has to spend 25 of his gdp and it will bankrupt his
country. Lets talk about something else. Donald trump thats all right. Knows how to use leverage in negotiations. Hillary clinton and barack obama never being in business, never really negotiating, give away for nothing things they shouldnt give away. They gave away the defense of the Czech Republic and poland to reset the relationship with russia for nothing. The day they did that, putin, who the kgb killer figured out i can push these guys around the world. They will not he will not be able to push donald trump around the world. Believe me. This guy is not going to get pushed around. You say we have given up our support of the Czech Republic and slovakia, those countries in poland. Why so . Because we didnt put monitors there, nuclear monitors. Why is that giving up on defending europe . Where have we done that . Wheres obama done that . If you read history, if you
read gorbachevs memoirs, he said the key to winning the cold war was they knew they couldnt match us. We have proven with israel that Nuclear Defense works. Iron dome works. And star wars was never proven but youre right, it was a brilliant bluff. Not a brilliant bluff. Well, we didnt do it. We dont have a shield. Nuclear shield. Let me make the following point. Heres why Nuclear Defense makes sense. I know something about this. A missile can take an airplane out of the air. A better missile can take a missile out of the air. We are technologically ahead of russia and china. We can develop a nuclear shield for the United States for poland, for the Czech Republic. Russia is deadly frightened of that. They have been trying to get us
to give that up since reagan. Clinton wouldnt give it up, bush wouldnt give it up. He gave it up on the first day. We dont have a strategic defense system. Ask secretary gates what they get in return for giving up the nuclear shield of poland and the Czech Republic. Know the answer . Nada. They got nothing. Let me ask you one last i have to ask you one last question. I know you dont like this question but i think its appropriate given you are a major as you just demonstrated, strong surrogate and defender of the candidacy for president of donald trump. Couple of his people, including his Vice President ial running mate, mike pence, the governor of indiana, and of course, dr. Ben carson, have both come out in the last days, hours, practically, and said they believe president obama is a legitimately elected president of the United States. In other words, he was born in the United States. Do you confirm that . Do you agree with that . I confirm that and donald trump now confirms that. When did dhe do that . When did he do that . When did he could that . Two years ago. Three years ago. He has now accepted that birtherism was nonsense . When did he do that . Chris, Hillary Clinton he did not do that yet. Im waiting for him to do it. Hillary Clintons Campaign was the first to bring up the fact that there was a question where did they do that . Where did they do that . Donald trump has said that give me the example when they did that. You just said Hillary Clinton accused has Hillary Clinton ever accused the president of being foreignborn, ever . Her campaign did in the primary. Hillary for President Campaign did this . Yes. No, it didnt. Theres no evidence. I was always responsible for i want to know whether you believe your candidate for president believes he would succeed as legitimate president or not. Does he believe he would succeed a legitimate president . Donald trump believes now that he was born in the United States. But that issue when is he going to say it . That issue was raised originally when is he going to say that his president is legitimate . This is a fundamental question, mr. Mayor. Is the president of the United States legitimate or not. Do you believe it . If you believe it, why doesnt your candidate state it . I believe it. He believes it. We all believe it. He does . Are you speaking for him now . Are you speaking for donald trump tonight, on Live Television . Are you saying for him, im saying hes about to buckle and say finally, that barack obama is a legitimate president of the United States . He is the one who got him to finally produce the birth certificate. Hillary Clintons Campaign first raised this issue. Okay. He picked this up from Hillary Clinton. He subsequently said he does not accept that as the final word. Okay. Can you commit to your candidate saying within the next 24 hours that president obamas a legitimate president . Can you commit for him that he will say that . He has said it already. And the fact is no, he hasnt. Thats an issue you are wrong on the fact here, mr. Mayor. Every once in awhile, i am. I think he did. The fact is i believe i think youre wrong. Okay. But you say, all i can ask you okay. The point is Hillary Clintons campaign is the first one to do it because all she does is engage in negative campaigning. Against barack obama and against donald trump. First of all, she has never said that. Your candidate has on numerous occasions and im asking you the final word, we will end this back and forth. Can you say authoritatively on behalf of donald trump he was wrong in saying the president was born in another country . Can you say that now . I believe he picked up on what Hillary Clintons Campaign Said first. Obama, obama finally produced the birth certificate and it showed he was born in hawaii. Therefore . Therefore hes an american citizen. As per donald trump. As per donald trump. Donald trump says so . Hes told you that . Has he ever told you this privately . That he believes this president is legitimate . He has told me that he is proud of the fact that he finally got obama to produce his
birth certificate. Fine. I think we have it on the record, mr. Mayor. Im glad you came on. I do want to put this to rest. I dont think this is funny. I think when you accuse the president of the United States of being someone who snuck in the country and assumed an identity. Thats what trump has been doing for years now. Not when your opponent in the democratic primary, Hillary Clinton, who has lied probably 1,000 times over emails let me tell you, theres no record at all on the record right now, we checked this before you came on because one of our senior producers thought you might say this, there is absolutely no record ever of Hillary Clinton or anyone in her campaign ever saying that president obama is not legitimate. Her campaign raised it. No. Originally. Youre wrong. Im not wrong. Im right about that. Look, anybody can say anything they want. She can control her own campaign. Shes never said so, nor has anyone speaking for her. Now you are speaking for donald nding this now because we are spending a lotf time on it but i think it is important. You say this president s legitimately elected president
of the United States and you say your candidate agrees with you. And instead of talking about the fact that Hillary Clinton violated probably about 40 different federal laws, we are talking about this. Which is ridiculo