Iraq. And once again donald trump didnt do it. Instead, he said captain khan would be alive today if donald trump had been president then. Captain khans father will join us with his response, and we will also be joined by an army veteran who served with captain khan in iraq, but first, the biggest thing that the political media chose to pretty much ignore about last nights debate, and it was also the single strangest, most inexplicable thing that we have ever seen or heard in a president ial debate. Did anybody see that debate last night you never saw anything like that before. She was flabber fwasted, i can tell you. [ sniffing ] when he was pressed about how he behaves, he just doubled down on his excuse. This was locker room talk. A really weak excuse. [ sniffing ] i brief in redemption. I believe in second chances. Its just awfully good that someone with the temperament of donald trump is not in charge of the law in our country. Because youd be in jail. Lock her up, lock her up special prosecutor, here we come, flight. Winning candidates dont threaten their opponents with jail time. House Speaker Paul Ryan telling his colleagues on a Conference Call he wont defend donald trump anymore. He alone did not make himself your partys nominee. All of you have consistently supported him. Hanging a [ bleep ]. You knew damn well i was a snake before y took me in. [ sniffing ] this is the last word on campaign 2016. Nothing brings out the worse in the president ial Campaign Media like a debate. The dirty little secret is that most of them dont care about policy, but thats just too obvious, and its been too obvious for too long, so it really isnt any kind of secret at all. Most of the media covering campaigns do not care about candidates positions on the issues. They only care about polls and performance, onstage performance, and they care about those things more than policy for a very simple human reason, something were all guilty of. Its much easier to care about polls and performance. It doesnt require any homework at all. No studying the intricacy of tax policy or International Trade or the exact locations of possible nofly zones in syria. You can just sit back and watch the debate and judge it on performance skills, not content. That is, of course, not fair. To whatever percentage of voters cares more about policy than performance. And its not fair to candidates who care more about policy than performance. But the media, in favor of judging, the media bias in favor of judging performance over policy was worse than ever last night, because the media rigged the judging standards for the debate. The performance judging standards. They rigged them, even at the most superficial level. They rigged them at the performance level. The media spent 48 hours since friday night, when donald trump was heard on videotape admitting to Sexual Assault, lowering expectations for Donald Trumps debate performance, and by the time the debate started, the media had set their expectations for donald trump so low that the only way he could possibly have met those low expectations would be to greet Hillary Clinton the way he told billy bush he greets women. When youre a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Whatever you want. Grab them by the [ bleep ]. You can do anything. Donald trump exceeded most of the political medias expectations by sounding better than that. By not using any slang terms for the female anatomy and not describing any methods he would use to assault women. And so, for the political theater critics, donald trump, quote, did what he had to do, end quote. Thats their favorite valuesfree judgment of a candidate. That kind of language allows them to feel dispassionate about their analysis, that the candidate who, on friday, was heard bragging about Sexual Assault had a good night at the debate. And here is the truly, deeply weird thing about that last night. Something we have never seen or heard before at a president ial debate happened last night, and it was virtually ignored by the political theater reviewers, and what is so profoundly weird about that is that it was not a policy item. It was not something complicated. It was something purely superficial. It was something perfectly suited to their analysis of atmosphere ickes and performance skills, it was simply the worst failure in the performance skills category that we have ever seen at a political debate. And this is the same media that got hysterical in 1982 when former president bush checked his watch. If thats enough to lose a president ial debate, what is this . [ sniffing ] what is it . Now ive never heard a rhino up close, but maybe they sound like that when theyre napping. Ive heard farm animals that sound like that. Pigs sound like that sometimes, but not exactly like that. Those are sounds ive never heard before from a human or animal source. Ive never heard those sounds anywhere. And no one has ever heard those sounds in a president ial debate until last night. [ sniffing ] and that is but a tiny fraction of the number of times donald trummade those noises during the debate. Everyone who said donald trump did well in the debate based that judgment not on policy, remember, they based it entirely on performance. And everyone who says donald trump performed well in the debate ignored the strangest sound we have ever heard in a debate, ever. Now i know everything ive said about the debate so far is superficial, but if were going to judge a debate on the superficial stuff, on the performance stuff, how can you possibly ignore this . [ sniffing ] imagine once again, just imagine if Hillary Clinton had made a sound like that once, just once. The Trump Campaign would be insisting today that shes dying of emphysema or shes a cokehead. The political media would be wondering whats wrong with her. Imagine if barack obama had ever made those noises or mitt romney or anyone whos ever been on the president ial debate stage. Thats all the political theater critics would have been talking about. But the deviancy of the trump candidacy is so extreme that the news media has twisted its own analytical tools so conform to this twisted candidacy. And so they actually found a way of saying donald trump performed well. Exceeded expectations. America didnt see it that way. A real scientific poll found that 57 of debate watchers said Hillary Clinton won the debate, and 34 said donald trump won the debate. A new nbwa street journal poll shows that Hillary Clinton went into the debate last night with a commanding lied. This poll was taken between the time the video emerged on the bus in hollywood and the debate. It shows the Trump Campaign in free fall. It shows donald trump as a candidate, with nothing to lose when he took the debate stage last night, because he already lost. So donald trump had nothing at stake last night. Hillary clinton did. The presidency. The presidency is hers tonight, assuming she can run out the clock between now and november 8th without trump scoring any points against her. So she did what a professional would do, she played it safe last night, knowing she didnt have to reach for a knockout punch for a candidate who is already knocked out. Joining us, rick tyler and spokesperson for the Cruz Campaign and Maria Theresa kumar. The theater aspect of stuff drives me a little crazy. But i was stunned that in all the theatrical analysis, very few words spoken about the one thing that seemed to have been left out of trump debate prep, and that is how to breathe. Well, not only how to breathe, but also this idea that the moment hillary got into his space, he almost seemed like a cage animal and started pacing back and forth, for whatever reason, twitter has been an incredible avenue of bringing in new voices and last night after trump was telling Muslim Americans to see what basically, to basically say what they see, a hash tag was created and it said muslims see this, and the kicker was someone is watching you, hillary. And it literally tore through the internet, because it was one, very funny, but two, it was this idea, is anybody else watching how close his proximity is . He looks like a caged bull. And there was very little analysis on that point. Lets listen to what donald trump said today about the possibility of more damaging video coming out against him. I was gettin beaten up for 72 hours on all the networks for inappropriate works 12 years ago, locker room talk, whatever you want to call it, but i said to myself, wait a minute. I just saw very inappropriate words, but bill clinton sexually assaulted innocent women, and Hillary Clinton attacked those women viciously. One of them said more viciously than he attacked them. If they want to release more tapes saying inappropriate things, well continue to talk about bill and Hillary Clinton doing inappropriate things. There are so many of them, folks. Rick tyler, when the candidate is up there saying, in effect, predicting by saying if they want to release more tapes. That sounds like someone who knows more tapes are coming. It seems like they are. As you know, lawrence, usually the worst tapes come closer to the election, and its hard to imagine there being a worse tape than the billy bush tape released on friday, and yet here we are. Whats interesting about what trump is saying, on the one hand hes saying what i said 11 years ago doesnt matter, but he wants to go back 22 years and say that what bill clinton did does matter. I was offering the view that donald trump was going into this debate last night just trying to prove that he was not as bad as bill clinton. That was the only objective he had in the debate. I hed you offering a theory of the postelection trump objectives here which i find absolutely fascinating. Give us that. I think the trump candidacy is over, effectively. I think they know it. Kellyanne conway knows it, shes their pollster. And now you have a group of people whove made an enormous amount of money being antidemocrat and particularly antihillary. And a hillary presidency would be a very lucrative business for the group at that cap turls the antihillary movement. So last night seemed to be more about setting up or coalescing, thats why he was retrenching with his base, a group that would be a very lucrative business proposition to, for a clinton administration. So Maria Theresa, if it cant get you elected, it might be able to make you a lot of money starting november 9th. The thing is, if we thought president obama had a problem with the tea partiers, we have seen nothing yet with the trumpetes, folks going after Hillary Clinton. Theyre nasty, mean, and all about trying to break government. The fact that we werent sounding bells yesterday when he basically threatened to jail a political opponent, he did the same thing when he went after a federal judge, judge curiel, saying if he was in the oval office, he was going to make sure that the judge would get investigated. He also started saying that the media, that he was going to investigate the media, so he has very clear what kind of thug he is. And he says, well, if i cant have the white house, im going to make sure that im going to make the person at the white house, Hillary Clinton, almost impossible for her to govern in this country, that for me is something we should all be very clear at the end ever the day when it comes to the sanctity of the voting booth, to make sure no one threatening, but to make sure that he ces about america just as much as everybody else. Kellyanne conway says it was just a quip when donald trump said if he was president he would put Hillary Clinton in jail. Lets listen to the way donald trump talked about it today. Lets listen to it. Crooked Hillary Clinton, oh, shes crooked, folks. Shes crooked as a 3 bill. Okay. Heres one. Just came out, lock her up is right. No. So rick, this quip thing is getting harder to pretend is a quip. I mean, it didnt look like a quip there, hes saying yeah, its right. Hes absolutely playing to his base. And there are a lot of people, you heard them last night in the audience who dont like Hillary Clinton. And so hes playing, hes definitely playing to his base. But dont misunderstand it. It is not just antihillary. I think this same group intends to split the Republican Party. Youre actually seeing it now. All the people who peeled off of donald trump over the weekend. That represents one side of the party, the establishment, a lot of conservatives like me, and against the breitbart wing of the party, and they intend to organize and be the most influential part of the gop. I think they will go around the country and try to win over counties, committees, state committees and then ultimately the rnc. So theyre going to try to organize top down. And i think, you know, what youre witnessing is really historic. It will be the split of the Republican Party. And i think what go ahead, maria. I think what he is saying is absolutely right. The biggest concern is that all of a sudden theyre going to have a bunch of mini trumps running for office. Thats why you dont see the rnc chairman alienating trump, and while paul ryan says im feet going to unendorse him, im going to try to keep my party as close as i can so basically you dont have a complete revolt from the base. The split in the Republican Party doesnt mean that they are ever going to create the white house. Right now they are fighting against the demographics of this country. There is no way that they will be able to get Higher Office than possibly the congress. But definitely not the senate or the white house. Thank you both for joining us tonight. Thank you. A new nbc news poll shows very bad news for donald trump and republicans in congress. Charlie cook will give us the read of all of it, and khazir khan will join us about comments donald trump made about his son last night. Its the phillips l anyone ever have occasional constipation, diarrhea, gas or bloating . [ simultaneously ] she does. Help defend against those digestive issues. With three types of good bacteria. 400 likeow phillips. Be good to your gut. 400 likeow can this mh love be cleaned by a little bit of dawn ultra . Oh yeah one bottle has the grease cleaning power of two bottles of this bargain brand. A drop of dawn and grease is gone. Were going to take a close look at the new polls showing Hillary Clinton polling into a big lead over donald trump, and these polls were completed before last nights debate. Those polls are next. If youre going to make a statement. Make sure its an intelligent one. The highlydvanced udi a4, with available virtual cockpit. Upgrade your phone system and learn how you could save at vonage. Com business the last word with Lawrence Odonnell is brought to you by Liberty Mutual insurance. The nbc news wall street journal poll taken after the release of the donald trump video on friday, but before last nights debate has ominous news for the Republican Party beyond the collapsing support for donald trump. It shows that more americans now say they would prefer congress to be controlled by democrats than at any time since the 2013 government shutdown. 49 favor democratic control to 42 who say they want republicans to maintain their majority. Heres how democrats are attaching donald trump to Republican Senate candidates. Im automatically attracted to beautiful, i just start kissing them. Its like a magnet. I moved on her like a bitch. Grab them by the [bleep]. I intend to support the republican nominee. Im sure once President Trump takes over it will be fine. Im not in the business of critiquing. [ inaudible ] would you tell a child to aspire to be like donald trump . Ask absolutely, i would do it. When youre a star, they let you do it, whatever you want. Joining us now, charlie cook, nbc news political analyst. Charlie, lets take a look at the big numbers in the nbc poll. First of all, the one on one clinton versus trump version of the poll shows Hillary Clinton at 52 and donald trump at 38. And the fourway has Hillary Clinton at 46 , donald trump at 35 . If this poll gets confirmation with other polls coming up, this is, this is a really big lead thats opened up. Well, it sure is, lawrence, but the thing is, coming out of that first debate, this thing was starting to head south for trump. And then the tapes were just the tip of the iceberg. And i dont think the second debate undid any of that. So, you know, its bad luck a month out to say somethings over, and its bad luck and poor taste, but, you know, when you see the nate silvers putting it at 79 to 82 or 83 . I dont get into that. But those big numbers do reflect that this thing looks, you can almost put a fork in it. Lets talk about what it means for the socalled downballot races, senate and house, and i want to listen to what representative charlie cook in pennsylvania says, about what it might mean to the senate race in pennsylvania. Lets listen to this. Toomey. If donald trump were to lose the state by five or six points, if he keeps it competitive within that range, i think pat toomey can run that. If donald trump is beaten by more than six points i think it would be very difficult for the senator to win. Of course we meant charlie dent, and i said charlie cook because thats what it says on this piece of paper. What do you make of that math where we can get away with this if trump loses by five. Theyre making that calculation in each state. Its not necessarily a calculation as an educated guess of how many votes do you have, how many clinton voters does pat toomey need to pull over in order to beat katie mcginty. And the bigger that number is, the harder its going to be. Its just a simple laws of arithmetic. The thing is that the republican majority in the senate was teetering on the edge without donald trump. You know, its, it was more one of exposure of republicans just