Show: HARDBALL Date: September 6, 2016 Guest: Heidi Przybyla, Eli Stokols, Yamiche Alcindor, Megan Murphy, Rosalind Helderman, Christopher Dickey, Tom Hanks
CHRIS MATTHEWS, HOST: Lady and gentleman, start your engines!
Let`s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I`m Chris Matthews up in New York. And after a week with Kathleen, Michael, Sarah (ph), Thomas, Caroline, Julia (ph) and Brendan (ph), I`m back to HARDBALL.
We`ve got an exciting show tonight, starting with the brutal challenge now facing Republican candidate Donald Trump. Also tonight, the negative stories about now breaking on former president Bill Clinton and on Trump. Plus, the fear that Russia -- meaning Vladimir Putin -- is playing mischief with our presidential campaign.
Also, I`m going to talk tonight here with Tom Hanks about his new role playing the courageous airline pilot -- you know, the guy who landed that plane in the Hudson River, saving all 155 passengers aboard.
But let`s get started. Here`s how this presidential campaign looks right now back at my arrival. Even though polls show the race getting tighter a bit, the fact staring at us and certainly at the two major candidates is that Hillary Clinton has a solid lead over Donald Trump where it matters most, where it will decide the election.
In fact, it shows her winning the election even if Trump wins every one of the states viewed right now as tossups. He wins all the tossups, she still wins, according to current numbers, which is damning for the situation he now faces.
A brand-new NBC News battleground map, in fact, gives Clinton 272 electoral votes to Trump`s 174, meaning if the election were held today, again, she would win the necessary 270 votes in the Electoral College right now.
Well, states accounting for 200 electoral votes are now categorized as likely Democratic. Another 72 electoral votes are counted as lean Democratic. And that compares to 133 electoral votes that are likely for Trump and another 41 that lean toward Trump. Anyway, 92 votes right now are seen as tossups.
What all this means is that Trump`s at the bottom of a very steep mountain tonight. And one route for him to climb that mountain is an historic victory in the upcoming debates, perhaps Trump`s great daunting hope to turn this race around. Obviously, Hillary Clinton and her team were going to try to crush that hope, to paint Trump as a dangerous commander-in-chief. And that`s what she did today in Tampa with a message geared to veterans.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY CLINTON (D-NY), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: His companies, Trump companies, have fired veterans because they had to take time off to fulfill their military commitments. And when asked why he would insult a Gold Star family, he suggested that his sacrifices are somehow comparable to theirs.
He`s talked about letting Syria become a free zone for ISIS. Look at the map, Donald! He`s talked about sending in American ground troops. Not on my watch! That is not what we are going to do.
He says he has a secret plan to defeat ISIS, but the secret is he has no plan.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, the Trump campaign, of course, came back at that. In a statement, Jason Miller, the senior communications adviser for Trump said, quote, "Hillary Clinton`s remarks today in Tampa are exactly what you would expect to hear from a candidate who took off the month of August and woke up in September losing the election."
Well, who exactly is losing this election right now? Michael Steele is the former chairman of the Republican National Committee and an MSNBC political analyst, of course, Howard Fineman`s global editorial director for the HuffingtonPost, also an MSNBC political analyst. Heidi Przybyla is senior political reporter for "USA Today."
Heidi, I want to start with you, and this numbers game that we`re looking at right now. It is kind of daunting if you look at our battleground states, you look at Hillary already past the 270 number. She at 272. Trump, if he wins every one of the 92 tossup states (sic) -- that`s across the country starting in Nevada all the way over to Florida, if you look at it sort of west to down east, down in Florida -- he has to win all of them, and even if he wins all of them, Hillary still wins.
Bad situation right now.
HEIDI PRZYBYLA, "USA TODAY": Right. And this is coming at a time when, arguably, he`s had a big lift over the past couple of weeks from Hillary Clinton getting knocked down a bit. And we`re seeing that in the polling averages.
But it`s not only, you know, just in terms of these key swing states, but also when you look further into the polling data, Chris, you look at the demographic groups, and I can`t see evidence of him really expanding his base in any of these other key demographic groups, other than white males, where he continues to be dominant.
So it`s in terms of the polling averages, it`s in terms of the demographic groups, and it`s in all of the key battleground states. Essentially, his Rust Belt state strategy that he sold from the beginning or that he said he would rely on from the beginning isn`t working if you have Michigan -- states like Michigan and Pennsylvania going blue, and then you`re not making it up in some of these newer swing states...
MATTHEWS: Right.
PRZYBYLA: ... like Colorado and Virginia.
MATTHEWS: Anyway, a brand-new NBC News on-line poll shows Clinton holding a 4-point lead over Trump nationwide, 41 to 37. That`s not much. But Libertarian Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Jill Stein are still a distant third and fourth.
Meanwhile, a new CNN poll -- catch this one -- it`s also out today. It shows Trump pulling ahead with a 2-point lead nationally, 45 to 43. In this poll, Johnson has less votes. He`s 7 percent and Stein is down to 2. They both do much better, Johnson and Stein, in our own poll.
Let me go to Michael on this one, Michael Steele. It seems to me Trump has a mountain to climb right now because if he wins all the tossup states, all the jump balls, he still loses. He`s got to win all them, and then he`s got to go on and win Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, those -- then to win the election.
MICHAEL STEELE, FMR. RNC CHAIR, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, and...
MATTHEWS: It`s really tough for him. Now, does he throw the long ball? Does he go for a Hail Mary? You know, what does he do?
STEELE: No, he does -- he has to do all of it. He`s got to throw the long ball, he`s got to do the short game on the ground with turnout, he`s got to find new constituencies, which you`ve seen him try to do with African-Americans, for example, not so much to win that constituency but to pull those numbers down a little bit, as opposed to, you know, losing 80 to 20, you know, you`re losing a little bit less than that, a lot less than that.
But that`s the reality for him. But look, Chris, going to what Heidi just said, this is no surprise. This blue wall, so to speak, has been here for quite some time. Four out of the last six presidential elections have landed for Democrats because of the way the demographics are set up nationally.
Republicans have focused on congressional races. Redistricting doesn`t fix this problem. This goes to a broader view of the party, a broader view of the presidential messaging by a candidate, et cetera. So this is going to be a long Hail Mary pass for the Trump campaign starting right now.
MATTHEWS: So the bunching of liberal voting -- not just minorities but liberal voting generally -- in the big cities hurts the Democrats in terms of redistricting but it certainly helps them win the big states.
STEELE: That`s right.
MATTHEWS: Howard, let`s take a look at this one, Howard. In a new ABC interview aired this morning, Trump explained why he doesn`t think Hillary Clinton -- here`s a personal knock -- doesn`t look presidential. Let`s catch this action by Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS: Let me ask you -- you`ve often talked about Hillary Clinton`s stamina.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Right.
MUIR: You`ve even said she doesn`t look presidential.
TRUMP: I really do believe that, yes.
MUIR: Well, what do you mean by that?
TRUMP: Oh, I just don`t think she has a presidential look, and you need a presidential look. You have to get the job done. I think if she went to Mexico, she would have had a total failure. We had a big success.
MUIR: When you talk about her not looking presidential, are you talking about aesthetics here?
TRUMP: I`m talking about -- hey, by the way, she says things about me that are horrible. As an example, the single greatest asset I have, according to those that know me, is my temperament. It`s like she came up with this Madison Avenue line, Oh, let`s talk about his temperament. The single greatest asset I have is my temperament.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, anyway, the Clinton campaign responded, quote, "This isn`t the first time Donald Trump has had a problem looking at someone different from himself and actually seeing them. Well, this cycle, voters know all too well what`s not presidential, Donald Trump and his narrow views and divisive rhetoric."
Sometimes, Howard, you and I are used to staff writing back and forth. It is so dull and boring, this back and forth, these lines. Trump -- his problem seems to be he`ll never take back anything. Even when David Muir feeds him a line, he has to go along with it, that she doesn`t look presidential. He goes, yes, yes, I can`t take back something I might have said once...
HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTON POST GLOBAL EDITORIAL DIR., MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well...
MATTHEWS: ... even if he never said it, doesn`t remember saying it.
FINEMAN: He`s all too happy to do it. And every time you think that Donald Trump has been schooled by someone like Kellyanne Conway, his pretty smart campaign manager, to cool it on this kind of thing, he does it again. Now, that was muted by Donald Trump standards, but still, it was vaguely sexist, it was -- it was every uncouth type of remark in the book.
But here`s the thing. Donald Trump`s problem is two-fold right now. Over the weekend, he was advertising heavily -- we talked about football before. He was advertising heavily on college football games. Who`s watching that?
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: A constituency that should already be his. And in terms of the Republican Party, right now, it`s about three quarters of the Republican Party is either enthusiastically or reluctantly supporting Donald Trump. That isn`t nearly enough.
He`s going to Detroit not in expectation of getting huge numbers of African-American voters. He`s going to Detroit to try to get some undecided suburban voters who think he`s nothing but a flat-out racist.
MATTHEWS: Yes, beyond the eight-mile line. Anyway, Donald Trump did more than anyone to take the birther attack against Obama mainstream. Well, today, one of Trump`s biggest supporters, you might expect, Dr. Ben Carson, being reasonable here, was asked about Trump`s birther history. Here he goes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you think it`s time for Donald Trump to acknowledge that all that birther nonsense was a mistake and to apologize, so that African-American voters to whom he`s reaching out might be more willing to listen to his message?
DR. BEN CARSON (R), FMR. PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think that would be a good idea. Absolutely.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: You know, Michael, he said that so casually!
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: He took away this guy`s original sin and said, Confess, brother, confess. I mean, it`s astounding how casual he was. Trump`s not going to take back birtherism!
STEELE: No!
MATTHEWS: That`s his stock in trade.
STEELE: But he should. He should! You cannot go and sit down in a room of African-Americans, I don`t care what their political stripe is, and not know that that hangs over that conversation.
Look, you know, whether you`re Republican, conservative, Democrat, liberal, if you`re African-American, there was pride in the election of Barack Obama, all right? So to put him through and question his lineage and the nation in which he was born -- yes, that matters to a lot of folks. It`s not going to be dispositive of, you know, general election support per se, but it taints the conversation.
And that`s what Ben Carson was getting to. Yes, he should because it makes the conversation easier if you do.
MATTHEWS: Well, let`s go into crazy land, Heidi, the crazy theory of birtherism. Now, does Trump deny that his mother is his mother? Does he deny that Obama`s mother is his mother? I think he would probably accept that fact. In which case, he is an American citizen, by most standards. He just isn`t native-born American, right?
I mean, because you get to this crazy world where he`s illegally here. And if you go that far, he`s somehow -- he should be deported, not just not recognized as president. The whole birtherism thing is a road to crazy land.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: How`s he going to drive back on that road from crazy land? It`s hard to come back from that.
PRZYBYLA: The people who are listening to this, though, and the core audience that actually still believes in some of the birtherism line is his base, and they don`t care for those type of details.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Who`s your mother?
PRZYBYLA: Right.
MATTHEWS: Those details.
FINEMAN: But Chris, the problem -- the problem is, though, to be competitive in those big states he needs, like Pennsylvania, to take an example, in the collar counties around Philadelphia...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: ... those cross-pressured, especially women professional moderate Republicans and others like that who -- that one fourth of the Republican Party that is saying, I`m not getting anywhere close to Donald Trump...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: The Trump campaign`s objective, Kellyanne Conway`s objective, has to be to remove things somehow...
MATTHEWS: I get you.
PRZYBYLA: I don`t think...
FINEMAN: ... that are preventing those people.
MATTHEWS: Go ahead.
FINEMAN: But I don`t think -- I don`t think it`s possible. What the poll is showing right now on...
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: ... on a state-by-state basis is that it`s not possible.
MATTHEWS: Heidi?
PRZYBYLA: I don`t think it`s possible, though, to -- I don`t think you need to take back the birtherism angle. There`s so much more that you would have to take back in addition to that to appeal...
STEELE: Right. Right.
(CROSSTALK)
PRZYBYLA: ... it would be a good place to start...
(CROSSTALK)
PRZYBYLA: ... stop saying these things, like today, like he said about Hillary Clinton not looking presidential.
MATTHEWS: OK, speaking of Hillary Clinton...
PRZYBYLA: Just stop.
MATTHEWS: I want to -- I`ve been saving this sugar plum for Michael. The pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA is out with a new ad attacking Trump for his past statements on the issue of war and on his statements about nuclear weapons, which this ad puts together. Let`s watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I`m really good at war. I love war in a certain way.
Including with nukes, yes, including with nukes.
I know more about ISIS than the generals do, believe me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: "I like war in a certain way," "including nuclear," tight (ph) together, married together, those two different thoughts to make it sound like this guy is Dr. Strangelove!
STEELE: I know. I know.
MATTHEWS: Your thoughts, Michael.
STEELE: It`s just -- it`s just -- we`re in the land of never- neverland here on crazy commercials and...
MATTHEWS: Should she take that one back? Should her PAC say, This is outrageous, to call Trump a lover of nuclear war?
STEELE: They are no more going to take that back than Donald Trump is going to take back his birtherism comments because here we are. And this is why turnout this election is going to be hard for a lot of voters because of the way these campaigns are pushing the voters right now into this dark corner that they`re just going to, like, You know what? I don`t want to play. No mas.
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: Here`s the problem for the Clinton campaign on this type of advertising. This is only the day after Labor Day, and they`re already exploding nuclear weapons.
MATTHEWS: This is the daisy ad already!
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: ... the day after Labor Day. Where do they go from here?
STEELE: Right.
FINEMAN: And that is the one danger I think that Hillary faces here, to go from here to November with primarily, if not almost exclusively, an attack program on Donald Trump. I don`t know -- maybe that`s the way to win the election. They certainly seem to think so at this point.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I`ve got to go to Heidi, last word.
STEELE: OK.
MATTHEWS: Why is Hillary, when we show her in pretty damn strong position tonight -- in fact, if things hang the way they are, she wins -- why is she going to the nuclear button here? Why is she going to accuse the guy of liking nuclear war? (INAUDIBLE) tell us that.
PRZYBYLA: Because it`s part of a broader shift, right, trying to shift the narrative back to her credentials, her background, you know, her experience on national security. She`s going to have your forum tomorrow night, and again, she just wants to keep driving up his negatives. She`s got all these national security advisers, GOP advisers, who are coming over to her. She wants to keep the focus on that and on Donald Trump in a negative way. And this does it.
MATTHEWS: Well, they`re not that nutty, these neo-cons.
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: I don`t think they`re for nuclear war.
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: No, she`s accusing Trump of fomenting war, and of course, he`s going to say that a lot of people now advising Hillary are the people who got us into Iraq.
MATTHEWS: Still, if the hawks join Hillary, she accuses him of being...
(CROSSTALK)
FINEMAN: ... another level. Another level.
STEELE: There`s a problem on her left flank, by the way, because those hawks that are joining Hillary are causing some real concerns for Bernie`s progressives.
MATTHEWS: As they should. We can agree on that. Thank you so much, Michael Steele. Thank you, Howard Fineman. And of course, thank you, Heidi Przybyla.
Coming up -- Hillary Clinton continues to face questions about why her husband should have received $7 million from a for-profit college group for five years of -- well, we don`t know what.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump`s now being grilled about a campaign donation his charity made to the attorney general of Florida`s political action committee when her office was considering whether to investigate Trump University. Interesting combination there.
Plus, the FBI`s investigating what it`s calling a broad covert Russian operation to undermine our presidential election. What is Moscow up to? And what are we doing to stop them?
And the Academy Award-winning actor, the great Tom Hanks, is coming here tonight. He stars in a new movie, "Sully," about that courageous airline pilot who heroically landed his plane right there in the Hudson River, saving all the lives of all those aboard.
Finally, something new here on this show, my "Election Diary," a nightly look at where the presidential race stands as of tonight. And tonight, it`s dire for Donald Trump.
And this is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Join me tomorrow night at 7:00 Eastern from the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum here in New York City and what will be a big night in politics. It will be the first candidates` forum of the general election campaign featuring both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump live tomorrow night. NBC`s Matt Lauer moderates that forum beginning at 8:00 Eastern here on MSNBC.
And we`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
With two months before the election, both sides are facing negative headlines today.
This morning, "The Washington Post" published a detailed report on how Bill Clinton, the former president, was paid nearly $18 million as something called honorary chancellor of a for-profit college group called Laureate. Quote: "The Baltimore-based company," "The Post" reported -- quote -- "had much to gain from an association with the globally connected ex- president and, indirectly, the United States chief diplomat."
At the same time, Donald Trump is also dismissing allegations of impropriety. The campaign, his campaign confirmed to NBC News that the Donald J. Trump Foundation paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS after it was revealed that his foundation had improperly donated $25,000 to Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi`s political action committee about the same time that her office, the A.G.`s office of Florida, was considering a fraud allegation against Trump University.
Campaign spokeswoman for Trump Hope Hicks to NBC quoted this today. She said: "This is a minor issue that was brought to the attention of the foundation and addressed immediately."
While the donation violates the law governing political activities by foundations, Trump has reportedly reimbursed the foundation. We will see where that one goes.
Hillary Clinton has said this about the story.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: He has been accused repeatedly of fraudulent behavior. We have recently learned that his Trump Foundation has been fined for illegal activity when it made a political contribution to the attorney general of Florida at the time she was being asked by her constituents to investigate Trump University.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, let`s balance this out, because we have got two dirty stories here on both sides.
For more, I`m joined by Eli Stokols, national political reporter for Politico, and Rosalind Helderman. She`s a political reporter with "The Washington Post."
Rosalind, let me go to you on this one. Bill Clinton has been paid, according to the records, over almost $18 million over the space of five years for services rendered. Now, in life, even the most expensive lawyer or a consultant charges by the quarter-hour. How many quarter-hours did he give to the Laureate group to earn $17.6 million?
How many quarter-hours did he work? Is there a time sheet on this? How do you get this, or is this some sort of international kissing booth he`s running here? Just to be seen as intimately involved with a company, somebody pays you $17 million. Is that what is happening here? Which is it, work or simply selling his name? Which is it?
ROSALIND HELDERMAN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, the for-profit company says he definitely did work. They say that he visited 19 campuses over five years all around the world.
This is a company that`s mostly based in other countries, and spoke, gave speeches, did Q&As, that sort of thing. But certainly I think it would work out to a very high hourly rate. And, you know, they said that this was about student engagement.
This was a company in a very controversial industry that was under scrutiny both here in the United States and around the world, that certainly was happy to market their tie to Bill Clinton. It gave them legitimacy. It gave them credibility.
MATTHEWS: How did you find out about this? Give me the facts. Was it the tax returns? Was it the e-mail? How did you -- what was your tradecraft here?
HELDERMAN: Yes, all of that. There has been some reporting about this previously. The Clintons reported this both in Hillary Clinton`s financial disclosure forms and then the exact figures for the salary were in their tax returns. And it`s important to note that she has released them. Donald Trump has not.
And then a variety of additional reporting techniques, looking at e- mails, looking at documents that have been released out of the State Department.
MATTHEWS: Eli, first your thoughts on that, and then I want you to go to this other question about Trump, which is this Trump thing of giving a $25 tax -- they had to pay a fine to the IRS for giving foundation money to a political action committee. They said, oh, we accidentally sent it to that Florida political action committee that was associated with the attorney general down there when she dropped the case -- or they dropped the case in that office on Trump U.
But accidentally -- we really wanted to send it to this group that helps women who find themselves pregnant who seek alternatives to abortion out in Kansas City, because it has a similar sounding name, and they messed up.
It doesn`t pass the smell test that Trump would be involved in an organization like that, a religious organization out in Kansas City that had a similar name. But that`s their alibi. How do you read this? What is your smell test?
ELI STOKOLS, POLITICO: No, it doesn`t pass it at all.
And I think you have to view it in the context of a campaign and a candidate who from the beginning was bragging to all of his supporters throughout the primary that, hey, I know just how rigged the system is because I used to be the one doing the rigging.
I used to write checks and people would do things for me. And here we have a situation...
MATTHEWS: Is this a case?
STOKOLS: Well, three years ago, before he was a presidential candidate, he makes a donation to the attorney general who is investigating a Trump University -- claims of fraud in Florida at Trump University. And what happens? She drops the suit.
Now, is there a direct connection? Very hard to say. Right? There`s no smoking gun here, just as there`s really no smoking gun in all the allegations about the Clinton e-mails and everything else, but there`s at least as much smoke here with Donald Trump here as there is on the other side.
MATTHEWS: Let me add to that.
She said they talked about a donation to her PAC. He says, we never talked about a donation to their PAC.
Let me go right now to Rosalind here.
You get in these cases with these excuses. Is that what campaigns are about, hit the other side where they`re vulnerable and make up excuses on your side when they hit you?
HELDERMAN: Yes. And it`s up to...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: These alibis are absurd, the kind of stuff you hear in a local court when some desperate kid is in trouble and the public defender comes up with some absurd case just to make it look he or she believes the guy. You know, I mean, it`s terrible.
HELDERMAN: Well, and it`s up to voters to be savvy consumers of media, to be reading about these things, learning about them and deciding what they think. And that`s sort of why we have elections.
MATTHEWS: Well, it doesn`t -- the smell doesn`t improve. The aroma of this campaign is not improving.
Thank you both. Great reporting, Rosalind. Thank you from "The Washington Post."
HELDERMAN: Thank you so much.
MATTHEWS: And thank you, Eli, for coming in on this one.
Up next: The FBI`s investigating whether Russia is trying to interfere with our presidential election through a covert campaign of hacking. Looks like it. The question is, what are they up to, if they`re not trying to swing this in one or the other direction?
This is HARDBALL.
Maybe they`re just trying to stink it up more.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MILISSA REHBERGER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: I`m Milissa Rehberger. Here`s what`s happening.
Bill Cosby will go the trial in June of 2017. He has pleaded not guilty to three counts of felony aggravated indecent assault involving an employee at his alma mater, Temple University.
Pediatricians rejecting the only needle-free flu vaccine on the market are saying FluMist did little to protect against influenza. Instead, kids will have to get their immunization the old-fashioned way with a flu shot.
Trouble from Hermine is still lingering off the East Coast, but the storm is expecting to turn out to sea and weaken tomorrow and Thursday -- back to HARDBALL.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Professionals said there was credible evidence for them to pursue an investigation into Russia`s efforts to interfere with our election, hacking the Democratic National Committee, and, when Putin was asked about it, didn`t deny it. In fact, he said it was probably a good thing it happened. And this is the person that Donald Trump praises.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: A very strong statement by Hillary Clinton. Welcome back to HARDBALL.
That was Clinton, of course, on the campaign trail just yesterday out in Illinois reacting to the investigation of the potential hacking, political hacking by the Russians.
A report out from "The Washington Post" says U.S. intelligence and law enforcement officials are investigating whether Russians are in fact trying to interfere with our upcoming presidential election through a covert cyber-hacking effort.
Officials told "The Washington Post" -- quote -- "The Kremlin`s intent may not be to sway the election in one direction or the other, but to cause chaos. In fact, one intelligence official cautioned that the intelligence community is not saying it has definite proof of tampering, but told the newspaper, `Even a hint of something impacting the security of our election system would be a significant concern.`"
Megan Murphy is Washington bureau chief for Bloomberg. Christopher Dickey is world news editor for The Daily Beast and an MSNBC contributor. And Yamiche Alcindor is reporter with "The New York Times."
Let`s go right to left, right to left. Let`s go right to left.
Megan, about this thing, what would the Russians want to be doing with us?
MEGAN MURPHY, BLOOMBERG: Look, Vladimir Putin was asked about this explicitly in an interview with John Micklethwait last week, and he said, look, we are not trying, we weren`t involved, we didn`t do the DNC hack.
And I think we have to separate actually trying to throw an election to get that enmeshed in the electoral process and trying to actually destabilize it, to actually be able to go out and say, look at the vulnerabilities here, in an effort, as Russia has done, to get -- to destabilize the U.S., to attack sort of the rise of Democratic policies and to...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Yes, that`s what I think.
MURPHY: And so it isn`t so much an overt attempt to steal an election or hack an election, which would be incredibly difficult. It is certainly an attempt to further their efforts to destabilize, to disrupt and to make us look bad, frankly.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
Yamiche?
YAMICHE ALCINDOR, "THE NEW YORK TIMES": We are in the midst of this kind of unprecedented election cycle. And the idea that you could just kind of create chaos when you already have a candidate who is already saying we need to go out to these election polls, we need to watch who`s voting -- that`s Donald Trump, of course -- talking about that.
So, people are already on edge. Even Bernie Sanders supporters just yesterday when I was hanging out with them, they are also feeling like this election was rigged. So, this idea that...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: You`re not getting by with that one. You can`t throw that one at me. They feel it`s rigged. What does that mean, to feel it`s rigged?
ALCINDOR: They feel it`s rigged.
MATTHEWS: What do you mean? I like that -- that`s a verb. What does it mean, feel?
ALCINDOR: It means that they truly believe that the election somehow was...
MATTHEWS: Somehow.
ALCINDOR: Was somehow...
MATTHEWS: That their guy actually won?
ALCINDOR: Yes, that their guy would have won had the election somehow been different and had all the votes...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Yes, if the results had been different, he would have won.
(LAUGHTER)
ALCINDOR: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I`m being tough here, because I think it`s so Third World, Chris, so Third World, to blame election results on cheating, when 99.99 percent is you lost, buddy. You just lost.
You got less votes than the other guy. He ran a great campaign, but Hillary ran a better one.
CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, MSNBC ANALYST: Well, if the idea is to sow chaos, then the best thing you can do is have people like Bernie Sanders supporters saying that the election was stolen from them.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DICKEY: In fact, the whole idea is to take credibility away from the elections.
The...
MATTHEWS: Is that because he does feel a little bit below us in terms we actually have elections?
DICKEY: Well...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: Is he competing with the democracies?
DICKEY: I would like to think so, but if we roll the clock back a little bit, I think the Russians see themselves as victims of all kinds of manipulation.
They have a fixation on the color revolutions, like the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, all these color revolutions that have taken place. And they see that as covert influence by the West on their political processes.
MATTHEWS: Is it?
DICKEY: To some extent, it is.
The Russians have been hacked a number of times.
MATTHEWS: I know.
DICKEY: Medvedev, you know, his accounts were hacked.
MATTHEWS: OK, because you know this game better than I do. But all I remember is, when the Soviets got their -- with the Soviets, who got their embassy -- they had to put it up on that promontory near the National Cathedral, because they had the highest direct line of sight with the White House, so they could do direct surveillance from that one point.
We also know, when our embassy opened in Russia, we found out it had already been compromised, had all the bugs all the way through it.
(CROSSTALK)
DICKEY: I`m not justifying what Putin`s doing and what the Russians are doing.
But I`m trying to see the world as they see it.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
DICKEY: This is pushback. If it`s them doing it, this is pushback to the Americans: Don`t screw around with us. Don`t encourage democracy in Ukraine. Don`t do all these things.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Yamiche, I believe that they want Trump to win, that Vladimir sees a similar kind of guy with a similar cut of his jib, a macho man, and he doesn`t want Hillary to win. What do you think?
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: I think that`s what he`s up to.
ALCINDOR: If you listen to Hillary Clinton, I think that she is hinting at the fact that she also agrees with you.
There`s this idea that they know Hillary Clinton. Vladimir Putin has worked with Hillary Clinton, so he knows what he`s getting out of this. So, I think that there is this feeling that Hillary Clinton is feeling like, this guy doesn`t want me to be president because he don`t want to be in a room with me, because the last time he was in a room with me, he remembers what I did then.
So, I think that there is this...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What was that?
ALCINDOR: Which I can`t -- I was obviously not in that room, but I think there`s this idea that she may be forceful, she might have policies.
MATTHEWS: Yes, OK.
Here`s how Trump sees it. There`s a little sexism perhaps here, just looking at it.
Earlier this afternoon at a campaign event in Virginia, Donald Trump said, Putin laughs at Hillary Clinton and smiles at the thought of her being president. This is Trump. I`m sorry. This is Vladimir Putin, as per Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Russia, you know, Hillary likes to play tough with Russia. Putin looks at her and he laughs. OK? He laughs.
(LAUGHTER)
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Putin. Putin looks at Hillary Clinton and he smiles. Boy, would he like to see her. That would be easy, because just look at her decisions. Look how bad her decisions have been. Virtually every decision she`s made has been a loser.
But -- but wouldn`t it be nice, honestly, because Russia -- Russia doesn`t like ISIS any better than we do. Wouldn`t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia and you could knock them out together? Wouldn`t that be a good thing?
(CHEERING AND APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: This is nonsense, because everybody who study politics knows that Hillary is as hawkish as a Democrat can be.
MURPHY: I mean, it`s just not the way Putin operates either.
MATTHEWS: She`s a hawk.
MURPHY: He`s not going to look at Hillary Clinton, someone who actively called -- who he`s accused of having protesters try to overthrow him. He looks at her and sees a formidable opponent. There`s no question about that.
MATTHEWS: No reset button when she comes in.
MURPHY: When he looks at Trump, what he sees is someone who can probably, likely be manipulated.
MATTHEWS: You`re over there, Chris.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: What do you think? You are closer to Paris than we are.
DICKEY: I think the term for Trump would be useful idiot.
(LAUGHTER)
MURPHY: I couldn`t agree more.
MATTHEWS: I think Hillary`s tough.
What do you think, Yamiche? I don`t think she`s any dove.
ALCINDOR: I don`t -- I think she would be tough. And I think that that`s why Vladimir Putin doesn`t want to work with her.
He -- I think he already knows how she works. This is not something as if he has never done a deal with her, he`s never lived in a -- sat in a room behind closed doors with her.
MATTHEWS: Yes. Well, we will see.
Anyway, the roundtable is sticking with us.
And up next, these people tell me something I don`t know, which should be easy, because I just got back from time with my family.
You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: We`re back with the HARDBALL roundtable.
And I want to start with Yamiche. Tell me something I don`t know.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR, THE NEW YORK TIMES: What you do not know, if you haven`t been watching the news, Donald Trump went to Detroit church on Saturday and made his spiel and try to pitch and most people think, oh, my God, no one would listen to him, no one would want to vote for him.
I actually talked to several people who are Clinton supporters who said, I`m not really that sold on Clinton and if I had seen this three months ago, six months ago, I might have voted for Donald Trump -- which to me was remarkable.
MATTHEWS: Did he mix with the people or just with the pastor?
ALCINDOR: From my understanding, he had a meet and greet for 30 minutes with the congregation. So, he also mixed with the people.
MATTHEWS: OK.
Chris Dickey?
CHRISTOPHER DICKEY, THE DAILY BEAST: Well, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, do you remember him? Crazy, ultra right wing politician.
MATTHEWS: In Russia?
DICKEY: In Russia. Zhirinovsky.
MATTHEWS: It sounds like a Russian to me.
DICKEY: He had a DNA test done because he wanted to establish that he was related to Donald Trump.
MATTHEWS: And?
DICKEY: It came back negative. But he still says he loves Donald Trump and sees a lot of similarity. And in Russia, they call Trump the Zhirinovsky of the United States.
MATTHEWS: Oh my God.
MEGAN MURPHY, BLOOMBERG NEWS: Staying in Russia --
MATTHEWS: Like another Mayor Ford of Toronto. Yeah.
MURPHY: Staying in Russia, Putin said that they had nothing to do with the DNC hack, but what he also said was that Russia is a place where these things do not happen and he said that he made that on the appearance as the campaigns may say that they don`t like him but in between in back channels they`re actually --
MATTHEWS: Just remember the old Soviet rule. You say anything that advances the cause. A big causes. Anyway, thank you. You`ll say anything.
Megan Murphy, Christopher Dickey, Yamiche Alcindor, thank you all.
Up next, Academy Award-winning actor Tom Hanks is joining us here. He`ll be here to tell us about his new movie "Sully". That`s about the great pilot who landed the plane in the Hudson River, saving all aboard. What a story. What a great actor, the talent to play the guy.
And this is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Donald Trump just ramped up his attack on Hillary Clinton over her e-mail server and what she told the FBI about it. Here he is just moments ago at his rally in Greenville, North Carolina.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: By the way, if she really can`t remember, she can`t be president. She doesn`t remember anything. She doesn`t even remember whether or not she was instructed on how to use e-mails. Were you instructed on how to use it? I can`t remember.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: We`ll be right back after this.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Air traffic testified that you stated you were returning to LaGuardia, but you did not.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I realized I couldn`t make it back and it would have eliminated all the other options. Returning to LaGuardia would have been a mistake.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let`s get into how you calculated all those parameters.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There was no time for calculating. I had to rely on my experience of managing the altitude and speed of thousands of flights over four decades.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You`re saying you didn`t --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I eyeballed it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You eyeballed it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, that was a scene from a new film "Sully" starring Tom Hanks as Captain Chesley Sullenberger and he was the pilot, of course, who in 2009 successfully landed U.S. Airways Flight 1549 on the Hudson River up in New York, and directed by Clint Eastwood.
The movie is the untold story of the life or death split decision that Captain Sully was forced to make minutes after takeoff from LaGuardia. Here`s more of the movie.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Mayday, mayday. This is 1549. Hit birds, we lost thrust on both engines, and we are turning back towards LaGuardia.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which engine did you lose?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Both. Both engines.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ignition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ignition.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thrust levers confirmed idle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Idle.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Check 1549, if we can get a few, you want to land on runway 113?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We are unable. We may end up in the Hudson.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It`s going to be left traffic runway 31.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Unable.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What do you need to land?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No relay after 30 seconds. Confirmed off.
AUTOMATED VOICE: Too low. Terrain. Too low, terrain. Too low, terrain. Too low, terrain.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is the captain. Brace for impact.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Brace for impact. We all fear that.
Anyway, all the passengers and crew walked away with their lives, everybody got off that plane. But as the film shows, the story did not end on that frigid day in January.
I`m joined now by the star of the film, legendary actor Tom Hanks.
TOM HANKS, ACTOR: Stop shouting at me, Chris. Stop shouting. I`m with you, baby. I`m right here.
MATTHEWS: I got to sell, you know? I think everybody when we heard about that event that we say, well, things always go wrong, that went right, because of one guy.
HANKS: It was one guy and he had about -- the birds hit about minute 100 and he landed, excuse me. Second 100, and he landed -- he was in the water at second 208. So, I think he had about 35 seconds to decide what he was going to do and the remaining of that to actually do it safely.
MATTHEWS: And the choices would have been to try to fly over New York City, probably the most densely populated part of the country, risk the lives of all the people he could have crashed into and not made it.
HANKS: Well, I think actually that would have been the standard operating procedure. If an engine had thrust, if he had had power, he would have done that. But he did not know what the status of anything was at that point and so, in talking to him, him, he told me that he just felt the physics of it. He felt his body go forward, he realized -- he processed all the information, all the years of experience and said, we have no engines, if we have no engines, I need a big flat space to put this plane down, because I can`t make it to Teterboro or LaGuardia.
MATTHEWS: Isn`t that the thing we all hope for when we were in an airplane? That the pilot -- you know, any pilot can probably fly in nice weather and everything`s fine. But when you`re hit by sheering or something like that, you want the pro in there, the guy or the woman who`s been through it all.
HANKS: I believe you do. I think you want to see some gray hair and a paunch on those guys that walk into the captain`s cockpit.
MATTHEWS: So, was it an easy ride for him once he saved all those people`s lives? The thing that grabbed me is how -- when the plane was in the water, before it sank, he`s walking down the aisle, as captain, he`s pulled off his ear phones and everything. He`s walking down the aisle, all the way to the end of the plane and then back up through the plane. I`m watching every moment of that, making sure there`s nobody left on that plane. He wanted everybody alive.
HANKS: Well, if anybody`s crippled, if anybody dies of hypothermia, if anybody drowns, it`s on him. He`s the captain of the plane. His decision would have meant the death of that person or any number of people.
So, yes, after it was in the water, he had to rely on being saved, quite frankly, because there`s nothing he could do. He had landed the plane and he just wanted to hope that people were going to show up and pick everybody up out of the water. And they did.
Everything that happened to him after was waiting for the shoe to drop of the official investigation that was going to determine the cause of the forced water landing, and if he had anything to do with that cause, he was toast.
MATTHEWS: Well, watching the movie, if you don`t get stunned and excited by the thrill of watching this near-death experience, for all those people, you`re just not alive, because I was overwhelmed by it.
Let`s watch another scene from the movie. Here`s Captain Sully with NTSB investigators.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The best chance those passengers had was on that river. And I`d bet my life on it. In fact I did. And I would do it again.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Aviation engineers are theorizing you would have enough to make it back to a runway.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Engineers are not pilots. They`re wrong. They weren`t there.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You stated a dual engine failure due to multiple bird strikes.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That would be unprecedented.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, everything is unprecedented, until it happens for the first time.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: You know, you remind me, in all the movies. I`ve seen like every one all of yours, starting with "Splash", by the way, another movie about going --
HANKS: The water.
MATTHEWS: In the Hudson River.
HANKS: Yes, water is frequent in my career.
MATTHEWS: "Sleepless in Seattle", "Charlie Wilson`s Wars", "Bridge of Spies", "Saving Private Ryan", "Philadelphia", of course, all those great movies. You come across as the guy like everybody else. You`re not a John Wayne character, but more of a Jimmy Stewart, a guy that all of a sudden, a regular, straight arrow stuck in a situation he`s not use to.
HANKS: Well, my countenance is what it is. I mean, I got this voice and I got this body, there`s nothing particularly dynamic or no one --
MATTHEWS: Really?
HANKS: No one fears me, except my crack staff --
MATTHEWS: You must not be in the news business.
HANKS: Well, you know -- but I think -- look, when I go to see movies, I always wonder, well, I could be in that position, almost no matter, except maybe James Bond movies, I think, what would I do in the same circumstance? I`m a blank canvas, man. This is all you get.
MATTHEWS: So much remind having been in movies all my life, thanks to my parents, we were always movies fans, like "Man Who Knew Too Much."
HANKS: Yes, yes.
MATTHEWS: It was like, all of a sudden, what`s going on here?
HANKS: I`m intrigued. And I must say, this is another of -- although he`s a very accomplished guy, Sully, but the question, what do I do now? How do I get out of this? That`s --
MATTHEWS: He wasn`t ready for celebrity.
HANKS: Oh, no. He wanted to do his job perfectly and get blamed for baggage claim. Not returning the suitcases in time. That -- he -- this was not an enjoyable process for him. He made his peace with it.
MATTHEWS: Well, this has been enjoyable.
HANKS: Well, all right.
MATTHEWS: Thank you, Tom Hanks. The movie is called "Sully," it`s out coming this Friday, an exciting movie about guts. And sort of the way society deals with a guy of incredible guts, not quite comfortable, they`re not ready to meet a guy this great.
Anyway, when we return, my election diary. Where this race for president stands just nice weeks to go.
You`re watching HARDBALL -- yes, I am shouting -- the place for politics!
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: As I said at the beginning of the show, it`s great to be back. And from now until Election Day, I want to do something special. I`m calling it "Election Diary." And here it goes.
Tuesday, September 6th, nine weeks to go to the Election Day, and the situation for Donald Trump looms from dire to desperate. You can see the reason in the numbers.
I`m using the NBC/"Wall Street Journal" numbers here. Looking at the states which are headed toward, leaning toward, likely to go to Hillary Clinton, she has already reached the 270 electoral votes needed to take the presidency. This means that even if, and that`s a huge if, Trump pulls a win in every one of the toss-up states -- that`s winning Nevada, Nebraska, North Carolina, Iowa, Ohio, Maine, Georgia and Florida, even if he gets every one of those 92 tossup electoral votes, he is still short, still a loser.
To repeat, if Trump runs a very good campaign for the next nine weeks, does most things right, few things wrong, wins on points, in other words, he`s still out of the money. Still has to stand there election night, saluting the next president of the United States, Hillary Clinton.
No, to win this election, it`s now clear today, Tuesday, September 6th, that Trump cannot count on doing well this month and next. What he needs is a man-made miracle, a game-changer. What he needs is the long ball, the Hail Mary, the event that, to use the old language of Superman, that changes the course of mighty rivers.
Well, to me, what comes to mind is the first debate now set for September 26th, when Trump stands just a few feet away from the rival he calls "Crooked Hillary". What will he do that night that changes our perception of the choice between these two candidates? What will he say that stuns the voters, who are still listening, the one still budgeable, that his central message is true?
That no matter what else is out there, the voter faces one simple question, are they happy with the country`s direction? Are they ready to sign their names to one more underwriting of the country`s establishment, or are they ready, given the chance, to take a choice on shaking up the American political system to its roots, to its foundations, to make the politicians of this country, of both parties, shutter? To take a chance at putting a man like Donald Trump in Lincoln`s chair?
And that`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.
"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.
END
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END