Strategy is helping the gop state of play. Weve got your fact check and reality check with our road warriors spreading across the country. A day of rest for that Migrant Caravan. Their journey a political weapon for the president. Were live on the ground. Later in the show, shes one of the leading voices in the Trans Community, Actress Laverne Cox joins me live this hour to talk about the Trump Administrations reported antitrans proposal. We have a lot to cover this tuesday morning. Lets start with my colleague jeff bennett on the white house lawn. Jeff, the president is in this final push to the midterms, framing up the strategy that he will be using in this last sprint, right . Reporter yeah, thats right. Last night, hallie, the president proudly labeled himself as a nationalist. Its a phrase, frankly, that some of his top critics have tried to use against him as they attack what they perceive to be some of his more nativist the rap of the show is policies. If it wasnt entirely clear always on a check with what our before, President Trump is now fully embracing his political sources are telling us . Despite jordan of ohio one of identity, that of a nationalistic culture warrior. The founding members of the take a look at what he told supporters last night in texas. Freedom caucuses excitement in august saying he was going to you know, they have a word. Run for speaker and challenge it sort of became oldfashioned. Mccarthy and if the president its called a nationalist. Should shut the government down and i say, really . Over border wall funding hes were not supposed to use that word. You know what i am, im a kind of retreated on that. Nationalist, okay . Republicans are saying he will im a nationalist. Only challenge mccarthy for minority leader if they lose the house and the democrats win. Reporter this explains at least in part why the president why will that get ugly . Keeps talking about, keeps because President Trump could tweeting about this migrant take jim jordans side. Caravan, these people coming absolutely because he likes from Central America hoping to kevin mccarthy. All this is contingent on how make their way north. The president casting them as an the midterms are going. One of the things for the imminent security threat. Midterms is the president s it certainly helps that his talking more about taxes. Entire 2016 campaign was he did this in nevada a few days propelled on this issue of ago saying to us he was going to immigration and hes trying to have some kind of a new middle capitalize on that again but class tax cut by november 1st. Setting aside the substance of the issue, people close to the then yesterday on the south lawn president tell me that he views he was talking to reporters these images of these people in again and said, yes, were doing Central America as being something on the middle class. Politically potent for its going to be 10 . Republicans and damaging for i talked to a couple of sources at the white house who said this democrats. That will certainly be part of his closing argument, hallie, as really isnt a thing. The Midterm Election draws it caught some of them off guard. Near. Jeff bennett in the briefing there might be something coming up, but not in time for the room, thanks. Election. As we watch the president ramp interesting stuff. Great to have you on set with me for the hour. Thank you. Up his midterm travel, were that does it for us this hour. Ill see you at the white house also watching the growing number later on today. More news with my colleague of misleading or false claims craig melvin in new york. Repeated by the president. Good to see you, craig quick context check here to set melvin here msnbc headquarters up the rest of the conversation. In new york city. Youve got claim number one from the president. Watch. Here falsehoods and fact checks. We are officially two weeks from the midterms, and as president go into the middle and search. Youre going to find ms13, Trump Campaigns for republicans, he talks of riots that dont youre going to find middle eastern, everything. Exist, makes unsubstantiated a former Senior Intelligence comments about who was in that official who continues to be Migrant Caravan, and screams briefed on current intelligence tells nbc news theres no congress will pass a tax cut before november even though evidence middle eastern lawmakers arent in session. Terrorists are hiding in the separating fact from politics. Also, star power, trump hits the caravan. Claim number two, tax cuts. Congress isnt even in trail, there is clear enthusiasm among his base for him, but will session, how is that possible . Were putting in a resolution that transfer to candidates hes some time in the next week, week stumping for. And a half, two weeks. Well look at that. A resolution where . And pot politics, during one were giving a middle income of the most divided times in our tax reduction of about 10 . Congress is not in session. There are multiple reports republican congressional leaders have been blindsided by the president s claims. Theres no way a tax cut could be passed before election day. Claim number three on the Migrant Caravan. Here it is. You know how the caravan started . Does everybody know what this means . I think the democrats had something to do with it, and now theyre saying i think we made a big mistake. Nbc news is reporting there is no evidence the caravan is being led by anyone other than hondurans, no evidence democrats are paying for all of this. So joining me now is david jackson, White House Correspondent for usa today, who by the way, just interviewed President Trump on air force one. Joining me on set, michael steele, a. B. Stoddard, and jeff mason. David, let me start with you because you just had a chance to be facetoface with the president on the plane as he was heading out to houston. Pull back the curtain a little. What was he like, what was his mood, how was he feeling . He was in a very good mood and very relaxed, very confident. We wanted to talk more about saudi arabia and immigration but he wanted to talk about the republican polls, how republican candidates are moving up in states like north dakota and missouri and tennessee and how he thinks he should get credit for that because of the rallies. Does he feel like this message, this strategy, is working then . Absolutely. Particularly what you just refr referred to, the socalled caravan coming from Central America. He feels like thats a big win for the republicans. Republican allies of the president that we talked to know that immigration has been a political winner for the president. Thats how he got elected in 2016. Whats your sense for the president s gop allies . They feel the same way. Political gift, that seems to be the mantra people are talking about. They cant believe their luck and they feel like its going to be a big winner, particularly in Southern States like tennessee. They feel like its locked in, ted cruz in texas. They feel good about it. Interesting, david, and let me bring in michael if you dont mind hanging out on the north lawn as part of the conversation for us. Never. Thank you. So heres the thing. You got new numbers out from, for example, the Washington Post looking at these key battleground states in some of these house races showing that, in fact, things are pretty tight. Democrats dont have this huge lead. The president is looking at the same polling that weve been looking at and seeing this, michael, and clearly, based on what david is telling us on his conversation from air force one, there is enthusiasm from republicans here. There is. You can take it back to the kavanaugh hearings part two which is the whole blasey ford portion of the hearings in which the president just stepped right out there and started doing the throwdown and getting the base behind the nominee. That seems to have continued, that energy seems to have continued. Its translating at the polls with early voting. Its translating in terms of what we see with this caravan. On early voting nbc news is out with this report talking about how republicans are outpacing democrats. Theyre outpacing democrats. Now, thats interesting, id be curious to peel that back and see how those republicans were voting because i know a lot of republicans who arent necessarily supporting republican candidates in certain states, but the president has that kind of wind in his sails right now. Kind of a mixed bag when it comes to the local folks. The president is going to be in charlotte, in wisconsin, a couple other places in week. He was in texas. We pulled the front pages of those papers. Its a segment we like to do every now and again on the show taking a look at what is on the front pages of the place where the president is traveling. Kind of a mixed bag. Half the papers have donald trump rally coverage on the front pages, half have local issues. The president is breaking through this message as hes trying to nationalize this race, jeff, so how do democrats counter that . Id start by saying last week i was on the president s trip out west to nevada, montana and arizona, and after one of those stops, i think it was after montana, a couple white house officials came back on air force one and handed us pictures of the front pages of the local newspaper and it was a front page picture and article of the president having done that rally. So i do think that they believe and that the president believes that he is having an impact by going into those states. When it comes to how the democrats counter this, we heard some of that strategy from senator cardin who was out this morning referencing the sound bite that jeff played for us, calling himself a nationalist, a comment that you scoffed at a bit, mr. Steele, which well talk about in a bit. Heres senator cardin. Youre suggesting theres some kind of dog whistle there. It is. It does provoke hate activities. It does provoke discrimination. Weve seen a rise in crimes in america based upon race, based upon religion. All that is provoked by the language we use when we say America Needs to be of a certain demographic. A. B. . Democratic voters have made up their minds. Independents who turned against the president have made up their minds. That all shows up in the polling. Polls are not votes. If democrats did not accept in 2016 that their voters of color or their young voters stayed home and thought someone else would help them out and vote for hillary, they dont vote in midterms. Unless that changes theyre going to lose again. All the mobilization efforts have to start. If they dont get those people out, forget it. They tend to not be early voters. They could make this up on election day but if they dont change their model they wont have a coalition to overturn a whiter, more conservative midterm. Exactly right. Thats the sort of hard part for democrats from the very beginning. Its to not just get that energy level up and sustaining it but translating that on election day, whether its early voting or at the polls on november 6. Former president obama is out along with former Vice President joe biden. Barack obama is making exactly that point. Watch. This novembers elections are more important than any i can remember in my lifetime, and that includes when i was on the ballot. Thats saying something. Politicians say every time, this is the most important election. This ones really that important. Is it possible that democrats when they see where these numbers are which you described, a. B. I think correctly is a boom here, a little bit of a surge in republican enthusiasm, does that on the flip side help motivate democrats too . Theres still time to scare everyone on the ground and mobilize their turnout operations but they have to understand it was amazing, the political adviser to the president is quoted as saying, voter satisfaction is the enemy of voter turnout. So they have to say what president obama is telling you is real. If you think that someones going to get in a car for you that day because youve all seen it on facebook, how energized everyone is, its not going to be good enough. Everybody has to vote. Health care, obviously a huge thing for democrats. Youve seen it in the campaign ads. Morgan radford, one of our road warriors, talked to some folks about this particular issue. Watch. How does having diabetes and a preexiexisting condition aff the way that you vote . Preexisting is the most important thing because they say theyll cover preexisting but they cover preexisting at a much higher rate. How many of you voted or will vote democrat for this election . Undecid undecided, undecided, democrat, democrat, republican. Show of hands, how many of you would be willing to switch parties based on the issue of health care . You would be willing to switch . You would be willing to switch . Health care is a big deal for a lot of folks. And it just keeps coming back. It was a huge deal in 2008, 2012 and 2016. The fact that the president is also talking about it now and sort of trying to co opt the issue of preexisting conditions away from the democrats is fascinating because its the republicans of course who were have been attacking obamacare which one of its main tenants was bringing in a Health Care System in which preexisting conditions would be protected. But hes saying i want to keep doing that while attacking the very program. His administration is back in a lawsuit right now. In 20 states that would not guarantee the coverage for that. So obamacare is more popular than the tax cut. If democrats win it will be because of this issue. Stay right there. Michael steele, pleasure having you on. David jackson, thanks for hanging out for us. Breaking news on wall street. Stocks in the red this morning after new concerns about this ongoing trade war with china and its impact on the bottom lines of u. S. Companies. All three major indexes lower in this first hour of trading. You can see the numbers there. But then just the last couple of minutes President Trumps chief economic adviser, larry kudlow, dismissed worries about the trade war. He blamed this market turmoil on the midterms. I think the stock market is worried that congress will change and will overturn these progrowth policies. I really believe that. I think that the socalled correction and ive said before as you know these things come and go, that correction has to overcome the uncertainty about this election. Kudlow also confirmed President Trump and the chinese president will meet on the sidelines of the g20 summit at the end of next month. Coming up, how is that Central American Migrant Caravan affecting what voters think in the u. S. . Were live on the ground in texas for reaction there. See you in a sec. Oh milk. Am i willing to pay the price for loving you . Youll make my morning, but ruin my day. Complicated relationship with milk . Pour on the lactaid, 100 real milk, just without that annoying lactose. Mmm, thats good. This just in. New developments regarding retired Supreme CourtJustice Sandra day oconnor. Pete williams is joining me live now from our washington bureau. Pete, whats going on . She has sent a letter, a public letter through the Supreme Court saying basically that she has dementia and explaining why she has decided to withdraw from public life. Let me just share a couple of lines from it with you, hallie. She said some time ago doctors diagnosed me with the beginning stages of dementia, probably alzheimers disease. As this condition has progressed, im no longer able to participate in public life. She says people have been asking her about her current activities and her health, so she said, i wanted to share, i wanted to be open about these changes while im still able, share some personal thoughts. She retired from the court 12 years ago and of course the reason she retired at the time is that her husband of some 50plus years, john oconnor, had developed alzheimers disease, and she wanted to be able to care for him full time. He eventually shortly after was in a medical facility and died about four years later. But she says shes withdrawing from leading her program to encourage Public Schools to develop more civics education. She says i can no longer help lead this cause because of my physical conditions, but she says shes surrounded by friends and family and she says, while the final chapter of my life with dementia may be trying, nothing has diminished my gratitude and deep appreciation for the countless blessings in my life. Pete, thank you for that update. She may be stepping back from public life but her mission of Civic Engagement is front and center. Pete williams in our washington bureau, thanks. A live look at whats happening in southern mexico. Thousands of migrants are making their way through the country in search of a better life. The president telling usa today he will send as many troops to the southern border of the u. S. As necessary. This migrant journey started earlier this month in honduras, then wound through guatemala. Many of the caravan hope to reach the u. S. To seek asylum, although the timing of when that might happen is not clear, depends on transportation and so forth. Lets get to mariana in mexico with the caravan. Theres a lot of myths floating around about this caravan. Take us inside on what i understand is a day of rest today, right . Reporter thats exactly right, hallie, a day of rest for the men, women and children of this caravan. Kids like 8monthold kenny, 3yearold lenny and 10yearold alexander waking up in this public plaza after an 8hour walk yesterday. Weve been walking with them, hallie, for over two days now and weve already started to see signs of exhaustion. Yesterday a caravan organizer fainted before our cameras, was whisked away unresponsive in a car. We called 911 and thankfully we checked in on her last night and she was doing okay. But a man also died yesterday, hallie. He fell off one of those moving trucks because this journey is so grueling that these families are trying to get on whatever vehicles they can to ease the journey. As you said, theres been a lot of myths about that caravan, and i want to help debunk some of them