White house in 2016. In the past few days, the president has hit the campaign trail with a list of claims for which he has offered zero evidence. He said criminals and unknown middle easterners were among the migrant caravan. He said democrats want to turn american into venezuela. He said californians have been, quote, rioting over sanctuary cities. The Washington Post framed it this way. Quote, President Trump has settled on a strategy of fear, laced with falsehoods and racially tinged rhetoric to help lift his party to victory in the coming midterms. For trump, thats meant abandoning any attempt to sell voters on his administrations achievements and instead engaging in one of the most inflammatory campaigns in modern political history. And hes not alone. In their final push, republican candidates are following suit. According to the New York Times, quote, as the Congressional Elections have approached, a number of republican candidates and political committees have delivered messages plainly aimed at stoking cultural anxiety among white voters, and even appealing to overt racism. Its a strategy the party hopes there help them defy current political wins and their plan to divide and conquer is playing out in ads across the country. Theyve often painted their opponents as others with the ultimate goal of ginning up their political base. Big city rapper Antonio Delgado supports the radical government takeover of health care. [ speaking Foreign Language ] hes working to infiltrate congress. Hes used three different names to hide his familys ties to terrorism. So the big question that were asking today is, will the politics of fear be a winner for the Republican Party . Joining me now, Nbc News National Correspondent peter alexander, Bloomberg PoliticsNational Political reporter, sahill kapoor, and tiffany cross. Peter, i will start with you. The president was pressed by some of our colleagues yesterday on a few of these false comments hes made over the past few days. Here was his response. Going to the middle of the caravan, take your cameras, and search, okay. Search. No, no, take your camera, go into the middle, and search. Youre going to find ms13. Youre going to find middle eastern. Youre going to find everything. You said that you wanted tax cuts by november 1st. Congress isnt even in session. How is that possible . Were putting in a resolution sometime in the next week or week and a half, two weeks. You said californians were rioting over the sanctuary city issue. Where . Take a look. They want to get out of sanctuary cities. Many places in california want to get out. But you said theyre rioting. It is rioting in some cases. Peter, is there any concern among those around the president that this is a strategy that he shouldnt pursue in the final weeks or at this point are they just doubling down . Well, i think when you speak to people close to the president in the conversations ive had and my colleagues have had with those allies of the president , they believe that this is something that worked for the president in 2016, and they feel strongly, frankly, trusting his instincts that it will work for him again here in 2018. We should note with all those examples that you showed there, i reached out to the white house again today with each of them, asking for any evidence that would back up this idea, the idea there was rioting in california against sanctuary cities, that he was going to, in any form, put forth as he described it a tax cut for the middle class before november. Remember, congress is not in session. And this idea that there were unknown middle easterners in the middle of the caravan. We have not heard back from the white house on any of those specific topics. Related to the idea of middle easterners, theres a Conference Call that the white house is holding now where theyre being pressed on this. But mike pence, the Vice President , was pressed on this very topic earlier today, where he said its unconceivable that there arent people of middle eastern descent among the caravan. From a 2017 report by the president s own state department viewing the year 2016, that report said that there was no evidence that any terrorist or terrorist Group Members had traveled through mexico to enter the United States. So to this point, its clear the president is trying to stoke fears. He knows division can be a winning strategy. Obviously there are fears of complacency by some republican allies of the president , by his base. The hope is by stoking up this issue of immigration, he can help sort of bring them back to the polls in advance of the midterms. And peter, can i ask you also about his using the word nationalist, saying, you know, out loud, i am a nationalist . How does the president kind of conceive of that term . Because it doesnt, in many ways, have racial undertones. Yeah, it definitely does, undertones that are not just racial but xenophobic. This is something the president has shied away from in the past. Obviously nationalism was a phrase steve bannon embraced over the course of the campaign. A lot of the president s opponents tried to pin this idea on him, that he was someone that was putting sort of America First but not in a good way, in ways he was trying to put cultural identities of americans ahead of the identity of other foreigners, this sort of xenophobic idea. The president obviously sort of changing his tact in these waning days, embracing this idea. Again, the idea some of these people in red parts of the country have embraced, this idea of us versus them. The president is clearly siding with the us in the eyes of the people that surround him at these rallies. Nancy, peter mentioned the Vice President doubling down on the claims about the caravan. I want to look at that and well talk about it. Well, its inconceivable that there are not people of middle eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people advancing toward our border. Inconceivable . Let me tell you statistics on this. In the last fiscal year, we apprehended more than ten terrorists or suspected terrorists per day at our southern border from countries that are referred to in the lexicon as other than mexico. That means from the middle east region. So nancy, obviously hes President Trumps number two so nie hes in a difficult spot. However, pence is usually someone who tries to follow some of the more traditional rules of factbased politicking, if you will. Were still trying to figure out where this claim of ten terrorists per day came from. Yeah, i dont have any evidence of where that comes from. The white house is just sort of doubling down on the message without necessarily providing the facts and figures behind it. But i think that the white house really feels like its under a crunch right now. They really feel like the midterms are crucial. Theres internal polling that theyre looking at, thats showing the Border Protection and immigration are key issues for them. The president is doubling down on that. Part of being on the president s team, as i think weve seen pence show, is just loyalty and sticking to that message. Thats what pence is doing. Hes doing his job. And tiffany, in many ways, this caravan and the images that are coming from the southern border plays it right into republican hands just two weeks before this midterm. Right. And the president is doing this for a clear reason. This is what helped him get elected in 2016. You say nationalist has racial undertones. I would argue it has racial overtones. When you hear that term, theres no confusion about what that means. Its also very consistent with rhetoric we heard overseas in europe during the brexit and some of the xenophobia weve seen from across the pond. I think we can say there are not ten people crossing the border every day who are middle eastern. Theyve not been able to produce that. Theyre never held accountable to it. Theyre comfortable with stating these mistruths when being pressed on it. I would also add that some of the though were hearing this rhetoric out of the white house, some of the candidates have tried to distance themselves from some of this rhetoric. You saw that in the desantis debate out of florida with gillum. He has a lot of latino voters he has to appeal to in florida. Hes tried to kind of walk the line. You see this in the Duncan Hunter race. That was that ad that suggested this candidate whos actually a former Obama Administration staffer like hes some sort of secret muslim brotherhood. Never mind Duncan Hunter is the subject of several ethics probes right now where he and his wife are spending tons of money at sams club and on vacations. The challenge for the democrats is to combat this. You do see Trump Supporters who will take this as the gospel. Theres a study out from ucla last week that showed for all these mystical voters that voted for obama and then trump, the defining issue was race. So to disagree with james carvill, it was not the economy, stupid, it was racial issues. That was the clear divide we saw. I think trump is betting that will happen again in midterms. I think were seeing in realtime the evolution of the Republican Party from a conservative party to more of a nativist party. This is less and less a movement driven by convictions about fiscal policy and the size of government and more driven by cultural fears, cultural anxieties about the country becoming young wither and more socially liberal. Its becoming less white, more immigrants here. President trump played on that very effectively in 2016. Its unclear if he can mobilize the same group of voters to show up and pull the lever for down ballot candidates. Hes brought the entire party along with him. Thats one thing thats different from 2016. Instead of having others who are campaigning alongside donald trump kind of pushing him away from them, they are embracing him. Exactly. And these tactics. Absolutely. A number of Republican Leaders who wanted to run on their fiscal accomplishments, namely the tax law of december 2017, have now tilted, and theyre now also playing on some of the same rhetoric and some of the same issues and fears that President Trump is talking about. Immigration, crime, ms13. This caravan has become an allpurpose flash point for everything President Trump is asking voters to be afraid of. Hes not letting facts get in the way of whats a good closing message in his view about this. There are many things hes saying that are just not substantiated about this. The question, of course, what are democrats going to do . You wrote on bloomberg. Com, quote, trumps rhetoric against ilLegal Immigration and attempts to cut Legal Immigration have stoked his Republican Base and in the final weeks before the election hes returned to the issue. Nancy, ill ask you to weigh in on the reporting here. We have heard democrats talk about having a latino problem. Despite the environment that this president has created, its not necessarily driving hispanics to the polls for democrats. Why . Absolutely. I just feel like the democrats have had a hard time this cycle and just in past cycles coming up with a coherent optimistic message. Theyve had a hard time playing against trump and the politics of him. Trump is playing this game where hes really betting the whole midterm strategy on fears and basically falsehoods, things like a major tax cut is coming, which is not true. The democrats have just had a hard time getting down and dirty like they need to, to counter that. I think they have talked always about going high, but they havent figured out a good foil. I want to weigh in and say thats absolutely true. I think it was a study that said over 90 of latino voters have not been contacted by a major campaign. I think the democrats have a problem because they have focused so much on reaching white rural voters. But there are a lot of black rural voters, latino rural voters, native americans in north dakota who have not been contacted by the democratic party, which is going to be a challenge. There are many races across the country where some of these marginalized communities will make a difference. You see it in georgia. Doug jones learned this lesson very well. This is a very difficult group of people to turn out. Democrats are anxious about this. There are certainly groups maki making efforts. It could be decisive in races like arizona senate, nevada senate. Hispanic voters are key there. It could also be decisive in house races in Southern California and south texas, potentially in florida. Its extremely pivotal to the outcome of the election, whether hispanics show up. A message to all of those who c can, vote. Its just two weeks away. Have your say this in process. Thanks to all of you. Really appreciate it. Still ahead, should middleincome americans expect a tax cut before the midterms . Answer, no. Then what is the president talking about . Plus, when we got to election day, minnesota could be the state that decides which Party Controls the house. Its a delicate dance for both party there is when it comes to donald trump. Right after this break, turkeys president demands justice in the murder of Washington Post columnist jamal khashoggi. And its not just for the killer but for the person who ordered it. Do you want the same tools and seamless experience across web and tablet . Do you want 4. 95 commissions for stocks, 0. 50 options contracts . 1. 50 futures contracts . What about a dedicated service team of trading specialists . Did you say yes . Good, then its time for power e trade. The platform, price and service that gives you the edge you need. Looks like we have a couple seconds left. Lets do some card twirling twirling cards e trade. The original place to invest online. There are new details in the murder of journalist jamal khashoggi. Turkish president erdogan formally challenged saudi arabias official version of events. He called the journalists death premeditated. Vice president pence appeared to endorse that earlier today. The word from president erdogan this morning, that this brutal murder was premeditated, preplanned days in advance flies in the face of earlier assertions that had been made by the saudi regime. Again, it underscores the determination of our administration to find out what happened here. Nbc news has obtained a video of a man turkish authorities identify as a man entering the saudi consulate where khashoggi was killed and exiting as a body double, wearing the dead journalists clothes. Joining me now, Richard Engel, and nbc News National political recorder josh letterman. Richard, can you give us the latest from the ground there in istanbul . Try to explain for some of our viewers why it is that turkey is motivated to take such a strong stand against saudi arabia here. Reporter all right. Let me start with the second part because theyre completely related. Turkey has long seen itself as a regional rival to saudi arabia. Saudi arabia, home of mecca medina. Saudi arabia likes to present itself as not just a country, but the leader of the islamic world. Thats also the way that turkey, which has a long ottoman past, likes to present itself, as a leading, shining light of the islamic world and of political islam. These two countries have long been rivals. The rivalry between the crown prince, mohammed bin salman, and president erdogan is even sharper than this Historic Division between the countries. Erdogan sees himself as an advocate between moderate political islam and salman as this different kind of project, pushing a more secular agenda, pushing military strongmen, backing up the government in egypt. So they also have some real ideological and personal differences as opposed to the wider historical context. And i think it is because of this division that is personal, that is historic, that is religious, that is regional that were seeing so much attention being paid to this case of jamal khashoggi, who is killed three weeks ago. The saudis initially said that they didnt know what happened to him, that he left the embassy, he was perfectly fine. We know now that because they had sent this body double out to try and convince make that story sound more convincing. Then the saudis came out and said, yes, in fact, he was killed inside the consulate by our officials, but they were acting inappropriately. They went rogue. They got into a fight and khashoggi ended up dead. What we saw today was president erdogan of turkey going after that argument, saying that argument doesnt hold water. This was premeditated, that it was organized at least four days ahead of time and that the agents who flew in specially for this mission had already been scouting locations to ditch the body before khashoggi showed up on that fateful day. Absolutely gruesome details. Josh, you obtained this video of the body double walking out of the embassy for nbc news. What kind of position does this put the Trump Administration in now . Because quite frankly, they had been more accepting of what the saudis had seemed to offer as an explanation. Certainly. The growing amount of evidence that has been amassing, leaked by turkish shorauthorities, andn some of what the saudis have acknowledged, has really put trump in a bind and put a lot of pressure on him. Remember, it was President Trump that was the first person to float this theory of rogue killers. He made that comment after he had a conversation by phone wit lot of credence to what the saudis have said is their explanation for this. So as new details come out that suggest this was a planned, meticulous operation, and as the president of turkey, a nato ally, is saying this story is not credible and we expect more, its put trump in the position of looking like he accepted a situation that was not actually co