Polls . Our team of road warriors is out there with the early voters. And we are definitely taking stock this morning after another chaotic day on wall street, the president now saying that businesses, theyre using him as an excuse for slower earnings. He told the wall street journal we dont even have t tariffs before once again blasting his own fed chair saying his instinct is that Interest Rates are being raised too quickly. He didnt have that instinct when obama was in office. Well begin this morning with the president doubling and tripling down on immigration as the issue he wants to focus ahead of the midterms. With just 13 days to go, are the candidates following his lead . I have a great team this morning to break it all down. First, were going to go through this. Voting is now under way in a total of 31 states and thousands of ballots have already been cast. That is good news. Even with election day still officially 13 days away, all over this country, candidates are fine tuning their pitches to local voters and taking cues from party leaders. For republicans that, of course, is the president. He has been talking immigration or more specifically tweeting about it. We are a great sovereign nation. We have strong borders and will never accept people coming into our country illegally. He then said that anyone who wants illegal immigration should take lessons from europe. Hes talking about the Migrant Caravan traveling through Central America. He wants people to fear what he describes as a parade of terrorists and criminals ready to pour across the border. Now, there is no, zero, zippo, zilch proof of that, of course, but that is not stopping republicans from working it into their closing message. We should point out that few, if any, republicans are repeating the president s allegations that middle eastern terrorists are hiding in the caravan. Nevertheless, democrats seem intent on trying to avoid the issue entirely. Overnight nancy pelosi sent a letter to democratic colleagues to remind them to stick to the plan. Running hard on health care. They think if youre rich, you should be able to have health care. If youre poor, good luck, dont get sick. We need to Lower Health Care costs and protect coverage for preexisting conditions. Jean haller wants to talk about experience. Okay, im working with both parties to find a solution to Rising Health care costs. Im the only candidate with a comprehensive proven solution that is bipartisan and will cover half a million georgians to give everyone access to health care they need. Everyone wants health care, they care about being healthy, not getting sick, protecting their families before they care about politics. Of course you knew President Trump was not going to let democrats have the issue all to themselves. Just 20 minutes ago he tweeted republicans will totally protect people with preexisting conditions, democrats will not vote republican. Interesting side note, this week the Trump Administration took new steps that let states offer more Health Care Plans that do not cover preexisting conditions. So, please listen to me, the president can spout anything he wants, write complete lies in his oped in usa today, but the actual policies they are trying to put forth dont align with that. So how is all of this playing out on the ground . That leads me to two of our very own road warriors joining me now, katy beck from nbc following the road race, and Shaquille Brewster in noblesville, indiana, two Senate Candidates in a dead heat. Katy, to you first, President Trump endorsing kemp, saying Stacey Abrams will destroy the state. Aggressive statement. How do you see the race breaking down . Reporter this is an aggressive race, one that georgians are interested on and what is motivating so many people to get out and vote early. We are here in cobb county where just last week when early voting started lines were as long as three hours, people pulled into the parking lot and said i simply couldnt find a spot so i had to leave. Behind me, you can see the line is pretty impressive this morning. Its about 45 degrees in georgia right now, and that line is wrapped around inside that breezeway, were told on average about 90 minutes is what people are going to be waiting to vote already. That race is whats driving a lot of this interest, a highly contested race, one thats got national attention. And certainly the president s tweets are just adding to that, stephanie. The very good news is here we are 13 days out and there you have it, people in line this morning as they have been for days, that is our democracy working. Shaquille, how are folks in indiana making their choice . Reporter well, officially record breaking turnout, eye popping turnout. If you see behind me you have people early voting. I want to show you this over here, across the state about 54, or 5,400 people have already voted. If you see here, these are where the mailin absentee ballots, 54,000 people have already voted, Officials Say 6,000 of those votes have come from this office. To give you a comparison, in 2014 that number was 922. So a dramatic increase in voting from what they saw in 2014. These, again, are mailin absentee ballots. Mailin absentee ballots are rivaling what they saw in 2016. People are extremely excited. As you mentioned theres an extremely Close Senate Race in indiana. Democrat joe donnelly is taking a hard fight against mike braun, a republican, in a state trump won by nearly 20 points. Voters are excited and theyre trying to get their vote in. Indeed they are. All right, thank you both so much. Our road warriors. I want to bring my panel in. Phil rucker, White House Bureau chief at the washington post, mark thompson, radio host. And bret stephens. Philip, to you first, were hearing a lot of rhetoric from the president , from republicans. Is the rhetoric, the president s message whats actually the focus here, or is there a different message locally . I want to share what the president s been saying. The caravan looks, you know, frightening when you see what looks like an armada heading your way, its symptomatic of the fact weve not put any discipline on the border. We struggle because there are many people in congress prwho a afraid to address and secure our border. I get sick and tired of people believing theyve got ownership over compassion in the name of open borders. When i believe that is the exact opposite of compassion. Okay, walk us through whats going on here. Im totally confused, phil. Yeah, well, steph, you have this caravan moving through Central America and President Trump is trying to use these images that have been playing out on the internet and in the media as a way to fear or to stoke fear in his base, to give people Republican Voters who are loyal to him a reason to come out and vote to create anger and to use this issue as a sort of cultural wedge issue that will really rally his supporters. Its the playbook from 2016, what hes been what President Trump has been saying on the campaign trail the last few days is almost word for word some of the lines he was using in the closing end of his own campaign two years ago. Hes trying to use this immigration issue, Border Security to create a sense of fear among Republican Voters. And quickly, make people forget about his failed zero tolerance policy. And we have to remember, if things arent working, hes the president and hes been in office for almost two years now. Bret, lets talk about the president and what he has had to say about this idea that there are middle eastern terrorists on the caravan. I want to share how mike pence works into all this. Take a look. Where is the evidence, if any . Well, its inconceivable that there are not people of middle eastern descent in a crowd of more than 7,000 people. There could very well be. Theres no proof. Theres no proof of anything. But they could very well be. So first of all, earlier i heard my friend willie geist say mike pence was forced to defend the president. Mike pence wasnt forced to do anything. He can do whatever he wants. Its also not inconceivable there wouldnt be a person of middle eastern descent. Its extraordinarily conceivable that mike pence is playing the role hes assigned to himself as the president s boot licker. Theres hardly another way of putting it. Its extraordinarily obvious that there are very few people of middle eastern descent in that caravan. There are hundreds of south american origin, relatively few of them with a middle eastern background. Thats the role the Vice President sees for himself, whatever trump says hes going to sort of nod his head sagely as if this is a kind of gospel truth. That is the bargain hes made. Hes a representative of what became of the Republican Party. The same guy who in the spring of 2016 said to a friend of ours donald trump must not be allowed to be the nominee of our party. Reprehensible as this all may be, is it working for the republicans . Is it working for the president . Its hard to tell. Were two weeks out. I cant believe that many people havent already made their decision. There may be a handful out there who are affected by this in buying into the fear mongering. People might not have changed their decision on who to vote for, but they may feel inspired to go out and vote. Thats true. Thats possible. And so in that regard it may be helping him because hes hes fear mongering, hes putting a racial overtone into this, if you will putting black face on this midterm race, or brown face if you will because were specifically talking about our latino sisters and brothers. But, you know, for him to say democrats are favoring this or democrats are behind it or soros is financing this, all of that son speconspiratorial stuff is crazy. That type of rhetoric and division democrats need to get smart about this issue. Its not a question of pitting fear versus compassion. Of course we should be compassionate. A lot of Central American companies are in a terrible issue. Do you think democrats are open borders, theyre not . Theyre giving the impression they are. Of course we should have regulated borders. They do say that. Of course we have to defend them. And we need a Foreign Policy to assist Central American countries that are in this position. We need to be helping our ally in mexico defend and protect its own southern border. We need to they do say that. They dont say it in crazy town. What you hear a lot of democrats saying is we need a sort of sense of compassion. Compassion is great. Im 100 in favor of it, but the reason there is a reason why these images are effective, why they are motivating voters. Good point. It seems like these are just people coming willy nilly trying to force an issue force a situation on the United States. I think democrats have to be really smart about saying heres what were going to do to make sure that we are both following a humane policy, but have a policy. Phil, well get to you in a second. Mark, to that exact point, those images are strong. While compassion is important, dont democrats need to lead with terms like strong and protecting america . Because when the average american sees that picture, even with the president s lies, it can make them feel uneasy. Well, democrats can say that, they also need to call out the fear mongering trump is doing. One other thing to add, what democrats should and ought to say is that people fleeing some of these countries are fleeing some of these countries because of conditions created by republican Foreign Policy, particularly in the reagan administration. So you have a problem with those images, we can go back over time and see why these countries are in the condition theyre in. Yes, but people arent necessarily looking back on history, theyre looking at this specific moment. Phil, you actually did an entire article on how much this administration how much time they spend trying to create policy around the president s whims, or try to find facts that support his claims. Please speak about this for us. Yeah, steph, its remarkable. Just to drill down on the comment President Trump made monday morning about there being middle easterners in that caravan coming through Central America, that was a baseless comment. There is no evidence to support that. But he made the comment, and then his government went into gear to try to find the evidence to support the statement that the president made. You heard all day long the administration could not provide any statistics or evidence supporting it. By the end of monday the White House Press secretary Sarah Sanders said, absolutely, theres evidence there, but pointed to a statistic thats not really related. By tuesday morning, as you showed, Vice President pence, you know, said its inconceivable there werent middle easterners there. That was not evidence. By tuesday afternoon President Trump himself admitted there was no proof, and had just sort of made the effort of, you know, his government aides seem pretty, pretty worthless. They went on a limb with their credibility by saying there was evidence and nobody to this date has shown any sort of evidence. Bret, the president was asked yesterday about what he meant when he called himself a nationalist. Lets take a look. Just to follow up on your comments about being a nationalist, theres a concern that you are sending coded language or a dog whistle to some americans out there that what you really mean is that youre a white nationalist. I never even heard that. I cannot imagine that. You mean you never heard that expression . Never heard that theory about being a nationalist. Ive heard them all. Im somebody that loves our country. When i say a nationalist okay, its tough for me to believe hes never heard of that theory before, especially given hes the president of the United States. But i also want to share what two republicans said about the idea of nationalism. Former president george bush and the late senator john mccain, two patriots. Weve seen our discourse degraded by casual cruelty. At times it can seem like the forces pulling us apart are stronger than the forces bringing us together. Weve seen nationalism distorted into nativism, forgetting the immigration has always brought to america. To abandon the ideals we have advanced around the globe, to refuse the obligations of International Leadership and our duty to remain the last best hope of earth, for the sake of some halfbaked, spurious nationalism, cooked up by people who would rather find scapegoats than solve problems. Bret, why is the president doing this . In a Perfect World one could say a nationalist and a patriot are the same thing. We are living in a far from Perfect World, in a president whos been touting dog whistles for years. Im looking at john mccain and the Republican Party that i used to believe in and had a sense of honor. Nationalism makes sense in the context of european politics because European Countries are organized basically around the concept of the nation. United states is exceptional, precisely because it isnt organized around that concept. Its organized around an idea of that anyone from any national background, from any racial background can belong, can be fully american. The right american creed isnt nationalism, its patriotism. You see trump doing exactly what mccain said he is reducing nationalism into nativism. He is taking the Republican Party into the direction of a blood and soil party of a kind that we saw in a previous generation in europe. Id love to give the president the benefit of the doubt, nationalism, patriot, whats the difference . But xenophobia, racism on the rise, voter suppression, in places like georgia, where we could see Stacey Abrams, the first africanamerican woman to lead her state, what do you see in the president s comments . We look back at charlottesville, where White Nationalism many sides. Many sides, at worst, he minimized charlottesville, at best he justified it. Theres only one type of nationalist in america and thats a white nationalist. Thats what hes representing. That appeals to that base and that lowest common denominator. He knows what that is and he knows precisely what hes doing. Theres all this talk about things getting close and there may not be a blue wave. But all of these things to me seem to be acts of desperation, exploiting or the socalled caravan if you will. Floating the idea that republicans, those loyal to him all the sudden trying to preserve preexisting conditions. If theyre acts of desperation, what does it say about our country if it works. Well, it says two things. It says that the people of light, as dr. King would call them, need to come forward and not be apathetic. Thats one thing. It also says that we still have a great many people of darkness we need to be concerned about. Each and every one of us has a role to play in that to decry this. Bret can say this is not the Republican Party it ought to be and he ought to be the one to say that because he is a republican. Was. Well, was, im sorry. If there are a great many people in the dark they have the opportunity to find the light. Weve got breaking news. Multiple senior Law Enforcement officials tell nbc news a suspicious package has been found at the clintons home in new york, north of new york city. Well bring you any new details as we g