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Hardball With Chris Matthews, Transcript 10/26/2016

Guests: Matt Schlapp, Susan Page, Cornell Belcher, Michael Moore, Heidi Przybyla, Catherine Rampell

Show: HARDBALL Date: October 26, 2016 Guest: Matt Schlapp, Susan Page, Cornell Belcher, Michael Moore, Heidi Przybyla, Catherine Rampell

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: Up in the air.

Let`s play HARDBALL.

Good evening. I`m Chris Matthews in New York.

Well, 13 days to go, and Hillary Clinton has opened a big lead in two national polls heading into the final stretch. Clinton is up 9 points in the latest "USA Today"/Suffolk University poll, 47 to 38 in a four-way race. In a brand-new poll from the Associated Press, Clinton leads by 14 points, 51 to 37. But as a counterweight, Fox News, which has a good poll out this evening that shows the race closer. Clinton has just a 3-point lead nationally, 44 to 41 in that Fox poll.

But the polls that will decide the election, as we all know, are in the battleground states themselves, and there the picture`s also mixed, suggesting the race is still to be decided. A new Bloomberg poll down in Florida shows Trump ahead by 2 points, just 2. Most other polls down there show Clinton ahead. The RealClearPolitics average, by the way, down in Florida has her leading by just a point-and-a-half. So Florida is very much in contention.

In Nevada, the candidates are tied -- actually tied, according to a brand- new NBC News/"Wall Street Journal"/Marist poll. And in New Hampshire, that little state up there, the NBC poll has Clinton up by 9, while in another poll, Monmouth, shows her lead in New Hampshire just 4 points.

Anyway, Clinton campaigned in Florida today. She warned supporters not to get complacent. And at one stop, she mocked Trump`s debate performance.

Let`s watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: I stood next to Donald Trump for four-and-a-half hours in those three debates, proving, I think, once and for all, I have the stamina to be president!

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: No matter what he did, no matter what he said, no matter how he stalked me and lurked over me...

(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)

CLINTON: ... I just kept thinking about what Michelle Obama said. When he goes low, we go high!

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, meanwhile, a stand-off between one of Trump`s top surrogates, Newt Gingrich, and Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly marked the campaign trail today. Here`s that Fox exchange from last night.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MEGYN KELLY, FOX NEWS: If Trump is a sexual predator, that is...

NEWT GINGRICH (R), FMR. HOUSE SPEAKER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: He`s not a sexual predator! You can`t say that!

KELLY: OK, that`s your opinion. I`m not taking a position on it.

GINGRICH: You cannot defend that statement!

KELLY: I am not taking (INAUDIBLE)

GINGRICH: I`m sick and tired of people like you using language that`s inflammatory that`s not true!

KELLY: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker.

GINGRICH: Donald -- Donald Trump...

KELLY: You have no idea whether it is true or not. What we know is that...

GINGRICH: An neither do you!

KELLY: That`s right. And I`m not taking a position on it, unlike you.

GINGRICH: Yes, you are! You want to go back through the tapes of your show recently? You are fascinated with sex, and you don`t care about public policy!

KELLY: Me? Really?

GINGRICH: That`s what I get out of watching you tonight!

KELLY: You know what, Mr. Speaker? I`m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by the protection of women...

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, today Donald Trump congratulated his surrogate, Newt Gingrich, for that performance. Let`s watch Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Congratulations, Newt, on last night. That was an amazing interview. We don`t play games, Newt, right? We don`t play games.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: I`m joined right now by "USA Today`s" Washington bureau chief Susan Page, Trump surrogate Matt Schlapp and the chairman of the American Conservative Union -- he has both those hats -- and Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher. His new book`s called "A Black Man in the White House."

Thank you all for joining us. I want to go right now with Susan Page, who I rely on a lot for common sense reporting here. And this is this -- Newt versus Kelly. Why on earth would Trump want to -- he -- the polls are mixed right now. They`re bouncing all over the place. I trust this Fox poll. Who knows if he can still win this thing.

But he ain`t going to win this thing if he focuses on battles with Megyn Kelly. He`s got to keep saying over and over again, If you like the way things are in this country on trade, immigration, on wars, vote for Hillary Clinton. That`s the status quo. He`s got to say it every minute of the campaign, and maybe he streak -- what -- find a victory in all this mess.

But if he keeps wasting his firepower on these intramural battles with the media -- I don`t get it. I don`t know why he cares about Newt Gingrich`s peeing match, basically. Why does he get involved in these things?

SUSAN PAGE, "USA TODAY": You know, and it`s not only a distraction from a message that would be more productive for Donald Trump, it also is not appealing to the voters he needs to get back, which are women.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

PAGE: You know, this kind of language...

MATTHEWS: Exactly.

PAGE: ... "You`re fascinated with sex" to a highly respected journalist is not really designed to appeal to some of the college-educated women who have been moving away from the Republican Party this year in a big way.

MATTHEWS: And I think people who would like to get ahead in life, like Megyn`s gotten ahead, they`re thinking, Well, here`s a successful person and he`s dumping on her. What would he do to me? You know, I don`t have the firepower that she has.

Anyway, let`s go to Matt Schlapp on this. Why is Trump fighting these stupid -- I`m not knocking -- certainly not knocking Megyn Kelly. She`s a pro. But why is he getting involved with these fights? I don`t get it.

MATT SCHLAPP, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION CHAIRMAN: Well, I think when he talks about the issues, and I think his speeches have been focused like a laser on...

MATTHEWS: When is he going to do that?

SCHLAPP: Oh, I agree with you. I think he did it in North Carolina. I think it`s a much smarter way to do things.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

SCHLAPP: I mean, he focuses on the issues. This race should naturally tighten. He is the candidate of change, and the American people want change. And when he doesn`t talk about those key issues of terrorism, the economy, and change in Washington, it`s a day he loses.

MATTHEWS: I agree with you. I think the country`s 50/50. It could be a close election, if he were together as a candidate, didn`t have that history that he keeps bringing back up.

Every time he fights on the front with -- on one of these sex discussions, he`s just reminding everybody of the "Access Hollywood" stuff.

Anyway, Cornell, I don`t know whether you agree or not, but I think this country is divided politically fairly closely between left, right, between now and something different than now, and that Trump keeps wasting his time, in fact, deluding himself into himself into thinking the real battle is between him and some -- a woman -- anchorwoman. What`s that about?

CORNELL BELCHER, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Well, at some point, we`ve got to -- you know, Trump is exactly who he keeps showing us he is, right? And you know, we can talk about him wanting to sort of talk about issues and be a change agent. But consistently, he shows us, in fact, who he really is.

And it`s absolutely ridiculous for him to be getting into these back-and- forth fights that actually expand sort of his problem with women.

But you`re right, Chris. The problem is that, structurally, we are a country that is going to be hard for one candidate to blow another candidate away in the battleground states. At the same time, we`re seeing Clinton expand her overall lead nationally. We know in the battleground states -- you know, go to Nevada. Go to Florida. Go to North Carolina. Structurally, it is really hard for -- experience for a Democrat structurally to open up a 6 or 7-point advantage in those states. So it`s going to be 3 or 4 points.

So you know, what he does now and what she does right now sort of on the issues and generating turnout is really important in these battleground states because it`s not going to be an 8-point race in Florida. It`s not going to be an 8-point race in North Carolina and Nevada.

MATTHEWS: Anyway, I just think there`s a couple things we`re learning in the biographies of both these candidates, one that Trump -- we`re getting focused on his biography, which is a very important thing to do, but it`s killing the message that could be coming as a protest in this campaign over trade and war and a couple other things. We`re losing that message of protest. And Hillary Clinton -- you know, Trump`s doing her the best favor in the world. He`s keeping the focus away from her.

Anyway, in an interview with Bloomberg`s Mark Halperin today, Trump said he liked his chances heading into the home stretch. Let`s watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MARK HALPERIN, BLOOMBERG: What`s your general sense of where you are in the battleground states, Florida, Iowa, Ohio...

TRUMP: I think we`re winning. I think we`re winning Iowa. I think we`re winning Ohio. So do you. I think we`re winning Florida. I think we`re winning Florida, actually, by much more than your polls. You have us 2 points up. I think we`re going to do fantastically in Pennsylvania. I think we`re winning North Carolina. I think we will soon be winning New Hampshire.

It`s jobs. It`s fix our military. It`s take care of our vets. It`s don`t let the world take advantage of us. I mean, I don`t know if I`m a great messenger, but the message is absolutely the right message.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Susan, what`s the smart aspect of saying he`s way ahead in Pennsylvania?

(LAUGHTER)

PAGE: Because...

MATTHEWS: Nobody...

PAGE: Yes.

MATTHEWS: No poll finds that at all.

PAGE: Well, he said something that`s true. I mean, Iowa, Ohio, Florida -- those are states that are very close and that he could definitely win. Pennsylvania seems to be pulling away for Hillary Clinton, and so does New Hampshire.

MATTHEWS: So is North Carolina.

PAGE: And North Carolina also. And maybe Nevada will be close. I mean, the race has been a little scrambled by -- by the -- his candidacy and some of the changes we`ve seen in the demography (INAUDIBLE) in the two parties. But it is now hard when you put together the states where he`s competitive -- it`s hard to see how he gets to 270 electoral votes. That`s been tough for some time. It gets harder now as we get in the home stretch and some of these states open up leads for Hillary Clinton.

MATTHEWS: How do you explain the difference between a Fox poll, and it`s a good Fox poll generally, 3 points today, just came out, and a 14-point difference on AP?

Matt, you want to answer this? How can two polls be that different, 14 and 3?

SCHLAPP: Well, there`s the endless...

MATTHEWS: Why do we bother reporting them, they`re so different? Your thoughts.

SCHLAPP: There`s this endless chatter about what the model is and are they skewed, asking too many Democrats. And will the Democrats turn out, certainly, the African-American vote and Hispanic vote, like they did for Barack Obama? You have all of that.

But I do think there`s a big dynamic that we don`t know how big it is this time, but because Donald Trump has been so excoriated for the last four weeks, and he`s had an October in presidential politics -- we`ve really never seen anything like it.

I do think there`s a lot of voters who like to put him in time out, and there`s a lot of things about Donald Trump they don`t like. But in the end, do they move back to him when the coverage of the race is more serene, or at least as serene...

MATTHEWS: I agree with you.

SCHLAPP: ... as this race could possibly be? So I actually think he`s much closer. This race is going to get tighter. I think that Fox poll, that Investor Business Daily poll, which called it right last time, which says Hillary Clinton is up 1 -- I think that`s much more indicative of this race than these double-digit polls.

MATTHEWS: Cornell, I had this sense watching this thing, like all of us have been doing now for so long, that there`s a sort of a situation that develops. If nothing bad happens to Trump for, like, two or three weeks, or two weeks, and it settles down, it gets much closer.

It`s like his bad behavior, whether it`s historical or current, is what makes the race easy for Hillary Clinton. The minute he doesn`t screw up for, like, a week or two, it seems like it gets much closer. He hasn`t screwed up now since, what, a while ago.

BELCHER: Well, I think that`s right, Chris, because part of the problem is if you look at that "USA Today" poll that came out right now -- I mean, he`s running 9 points behind among Republican performers where she is among Democratic performers. So a lot of the vote that`s left him -- I mean, it`s not like, you know, Hillary Clinton`s all -- all of a sudden winning, you know, over vast majorities of voters who`ve been breaking Republican for all this time because she`s not. She`s doing a little bit better.

But his problem is, when you look at -- you know, go to -- he talked about Philadelphia. Go to Philadelphia and look at the suburbs around, you know, in Pennsylvania, where those college-educated white voters, especially those college-educated white women are so critical. And the college- educated whites, they`ve been -- they haven`t been voting Democrat for the last couple of years. They`ve been voting Republican. And he`s struggling with them right now.

But the moment -- if he can get them back, the moment he gets them back...

MATTHEWS: Didn`t help him today, though.

BELCHER: ... it`s a tight race...

MATTHEWS: Didn`t help him today.

BELCHER: No.

MATTHEWS: I think Susan`s right, Cornell. Susan, I think you`re dead right. Picking fights with successful professional women, like Megyn Kelly, says to a woman in her 20s, 30s or 50s, or one who missed the opportunities in her generation -- they didn`t have the opportunity there are today in larger form -- that person says, That guy doesn`t care about people like me. In fact, he`s against people like me. Susan?

PAGE: Yes. I think that`s true. And Cornell made a great point. In our poll that came out today, 89 percent of Democrats are supporting Hillary Clinton, 80 percent of Republicans are supporting Donald Trump. Now, that`s also an opportunity for him...

SCHLAPP: Sure is.

PAGE: ... because if he doesn`t have some turmoil, self-created wounds over the next 12 days, you would naturally assume some of those Republicans to come home to Donald Trump, and that would tighten up this race.

MATTHEWS: Well, here`s more mishegoss, a new Yiddish term I`ve heard (INAUDIBLE) this year. Here it is. On CNN today, Trump had a strong reaction to a reporter who dared to ask him why he wasn`t out campaigning but was attending the opening of his new hotel in Washington, D.C. Let`s watch that fight.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DANA BASH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: To people who say you`re taking time out of swing states to go do this, you say?

TRUMP: I say the following. You have been covering me for the last -- long time. I did yesterday eight stops and three major speeches. And I`ve been doing this for weeks straight. I left here -- I left the airport, and I don`t have -- I`m going to North Carolina right now, then I`m going to Florida, I`m going up to New Hampshire.

For you to ask me that question is actually very insulting because Hillary Clinton does one stop and then she goes home and sleeps. And yet you`ll ask me that question. I think it`s a very rude question, to be honest with you. And what I do is I want to back my children.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Matt, bingo. Why`d he do that today?

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: I mean, it is a tough question, but it is interesting...

SCHLAPP: It is.

MATTHEWS: ... that he took time out for a commercial enterprise in the middle of a -- within two weeks of a presidential election. He`s got something better to do? OK. Fine...

SCHLAPP: You know, let me tell you, I worked for President George W. Bush. And one of the things we all complained about is he kept saying, I want to have my head on my own pillow in my own home at night. And we were like, Jeez, if he`d just get out there and spend the night and so some of what we call RONs (ph), we could be in more cities.

And Donald Trump has done twice as many events with three times the crowds. So he does have a fair point to make that nobody can look at Donald Trump and say, you know, you`re not having enough events with the people. Of course, as someone who supports him, I think he needs...

MATTHEWS: OK, you`re missing my question.

SCHLAPP: ... every minute possible out there.

MATTHEWS: I`ll try again, Matt.

SCHLAPP: OK.

MATTHEWS: Why did he accuse her of insulting him? That`s what he did in that conversation. He said, You`re insulting me by asking that question. That`s not an insult!

SCHLAPP: Chris...

MATTHEWS: He could have -- he could have -- he could have spun that back - - You know, what? I still have a responsibility to my company, and this is one of the Republicans I have to meet even when I`m running. He could have said that.

SCHLAPP: Yes, no, look, he`s -- he`s thin-skinned right now with the press. He feels like he`s not getting the fair coverage, and it comes across in those kind of prickly answers.

MATTHEWS: Well, he`s not getting positive coverage, and that`s not helping. Anyway, Cornell, your thoughts in that last minute. Why does he keep picking fights with whatever woman`s nearby?

BELCHER: Because that`s exactly who he is, Chris! I mean, I`m sorry, Matt, but -- but he`s not a disciplined candidate. And the narrative about him not being a disciplined candidate and him being so a little unhinged and particularly prickly with women -- when he -- he keeps reinforcing that narrative over and over and over again, and it`s absolutely killing him with women voters.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: ... unhinged is being used a lot lately, and it`s not helping. It`s not a word we hear a lot in politics at the presidential level, "unhinged." Anyway...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: OK, thank you, guys. Thank you, Susan. You`re so smart, and you know the history of this stuff. Anyway, thank you, Matt Schlapp. You`re a reasonable guy. And Cornell, I`m looking to you for brains.

Coming up, new revelations from those hacked e-mails show the Clinton campaign in turmoil now over Hillary Clinton`s penchant for privacy. Even if she wins the election, this could be a hard issue to put to bed.

Plus, Vice President Joe Biden took aim to his own party yesterday with me for not doing enough to reach out to white working class voters, well, voters that traditionally have voted Democrat in the past. Well, tonight Michael Moore joins us to talk about how Democrats can reconnect with those voters.

And much more on Newt Gingrich and his fight with Fox`s Megyn Kelly. That`s -- can`t get away from that one for tonight. Why is Newt, a big Trump surrogate, going to war with one of the most popular people in the media?

Finally, my "election diary" for tonight on the strange direction of this campaign, a big Clinton lead nationally, but a tighter, much tighter fight in the battleground states that will decide the Electoral College.

And this is HARDBALL, the place for politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Well, there`s some evidence out there that Donald Trump`s talk about a rigged election`s having an impact. In that "USA Today"/Suffolk University poll, a majority, 51 percent, of likely voters said they are either somewhat or very concerned there will be violence after the election.

Well, meanwhile, among Trump supporters, 4 in 10 say if Clinton wins, she shouldn`t be seen as legitimately elected. That`s 2 out of 6. 68 percent of Trump voters say they are worried the election results could be -- I love this phrase -- manipulated.

Anyway, the revolutionary rhetoric continued today with Trump supporter Joe Walsh, a former Republican congressman from Illinois. He tweeted, "On November 8th, I`m voting for Trump. On November 9th, if Trump loses, I`m grabbing my musket. You in?"

We`ll be right back after this.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL. As of Tuesday, Wikileaks has published more than 31,000 e-mails they say belong to Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta -- one guy, 30,000-some e-mails. Anyway, the cache of illegally obtained e-mails appear to provide a real-time view of how a political campaign is run, especially this campaign, the Hillary Clinton campaign.

This morning, "The Washington Post" wrote that "Wikileaks reveals fears and frustrations inside Clinton world. One e-mail exchange highlights that struggle. In the alleged exchanged, a close Clinton ally, Neera Tanden" -- we know her -- clashed with campaign chairman Podesta over Clinton`s e-mail server.

In the e-mail, Tanden allegedly fires off an e-mail writing, "She," meaning Clinton, "start making some other more positive news soon."

Well, Podesta allegedly responds by calling out some of Clinton`s closest staffers, saying: "Speaking of transparency, our friends" -- he`s being sarcastic -- "David Kendall, Cheryl Mills, and Philippe Reines, sure were not forthcoming of the facts here."

Well, Tanden, who worked with Clinton during her 2008 campaign, wondered why these allies didn`t get information about that server out earlier, writing: "I guess they wanted to get away with it."

Well, that`s pretty strong.

Again these e-mails have not been independently authenticated by NBC News. And according to U.S. intelligence officials, Russians are to blame for the cyber-attack.

Anyway, the Clinton campaign is not authenticating -- well, they`re not going on authentic the e-mails either.

Anyway, for more on these, I`m joined by Annie Karni, political -- politics -- actually, politics reporter for Politico. That`s redundant. And Anne Gearan is national political reporter with "The Washington Post."

Anne, I have got to get to you. I wanted you on so much because you`re a straight reporter.

What are we learning? Just if you were like studying a small island in the Western Pacific, and you wanted to know what can we learn about their anthropology, what are we learning about the Clinton world inside?

ANNE GEARAN, "THE WASHINGTON POST": Well, this is Clinton campaign and the Clinton allies that are outside the campaign in their natural habitat, so, to carry your analogy forward a little bit.

We`re sort of studying their folk ways, how they speak to one another, what they`re worried about. And I think a lot of reporters certainly are interested in how they, the campaign, was assessing her strengths and weaknesses and what they considered to be various kinds of outside threats to her candidacy.

One of the interesting things we know, which we see here, something we knew to be true otherwise, but we see it unfold, the way the campaign actually was functioning as a campaign, long, long before she announced and well before her announced date that she said she would decide whether she was running, by January of 2015.

Through the fall, we see John Podesta acting as air traffic control for all kinds of people who were involved in what would become that campaign. So, that`s the kind of thing you can see from this. Nothing terribly surprising, but interesting.

MATTHEWS: Annie, the good news is -- and I think it`s something you have to watch -- is, I`m glad that it looks like not everybody drank the Kool- Aid, that there are people who go -- who see the problem of Hillary Clinton like most objective observers, her penchant for secrecy. It is not a crime, but it is a penchant that has to be observed.

And the others who will say -- who seem to be the ones who help her keep everything secret, and then the newbies that come along like Podesta and Neera, who has been around. But they also see the problem and try to fix it. They say, how come we didn`t put this out about the server? Why didn`t we get ahead of it? Why did we wait for the press to grab us?

ANNIE KARNI, POLITICO: Well, I think there`s two things going on there.

One is, I think you`re right that a positive spin on this critiquing that we`re seeing from Neera Tanden and John Podesta is that Clinton does have aides around her who are very aware of her biggest flaws and weaknesses and can identify them. And now that they`re out there, it seems like that they`re willing to say that to her face as well.

So, she doesn`t just have yes-men around her. It is easier for them to criticize how Cheryl Mills and the old guard from the State Department handled the e-mail server issue because they were not part of that.

MATTHEWS: Oh, I get it. It is easy to blame the guilty.

(CROSSTALK)

KARNI: They can say our friends in the State Department did such a bad job of it.

They -- Neera Tanden and John Podesta were not part of that decision-making process. So it is always easier to critique from the outside. But we also are seeing from the outside of covering this campaign, it seemed like a big difference from `08.

There hasn`t been a shakeup. The same team that was there in place 18 months ago is ending the campaign at the same jobs.

MATTHEWS: Well, she won. If you`re winning, you keep the team.

KARNI: Yes.

But this shows us that, behind the scenes, there are still -- people still think of the State Department people as a clique. And there is some distrust among the levels of aides from different parts of Clinton`s life.

MATTHEWS: I think it is great. I know we got it in the rotten way, through the Russians, but it is still great to learn things.

Anyway, in alleged e-mail exchange from September of 2015, John Podesta purportedly e-mailed Neera Tanden about some concerns he had about the candidate.

He wrote: "We have taken on a lot of water that won`t be easy to pump out of boat." He added that: "Most of that has to do with terrible decisions made pre-campaign, but a lot has to do with her instincts."

Well, Tanden allegedly -- I love this alleged -- well, responded -- you can put the alleged or not there -- responded by writing -- quote -- "Almost no one knows better than me that her instincts can be terrible."

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: Anne Gearan, I just find it amazing that somebody I always thought was 100 percent loyal, and she probably is still 100 percent loyal, is still able to see her candidate`s flaw, her bad instincts, bad instincts for secrecy, whatever you want to call it, keeping things under the covers, keeping things back.

Whatever it is, it is a flaw she sees and shares with somebody else who is trying to get her elected.

GEARAN: Well, sure.

Well, Neera Tanden had direct experience with that as deputy campaign manager in 2008. She was part of what really became a pretty dysfunctional campaign. And part of what she was battling against during that campaign was the sort of cabal around Clinton that helped her keep secrets, and certainly, in Tanden`s view, as you see expressed in these e-mails in different contexts.

Now her view is that there is a group of people around Clinton who reinforce her worst instincts. And she is trying to go around that and encourage Clinton to be more forthcoming.

In fact, Podesta writes back to Tanden at one point and says, why don`t you e-mail her? Why don`t you call her and tell her that? And we don`t know what happened, because we only have the Podesta part of this.

MATTHEWS: Easier said than done.

GEARAN: Yes, right.

MATTHEWS: Well, I worked for politicians. I got to tell you something. Nothing is tougher than critiquing the boss, because the boss doesn`t want to hear it. They want to hear you say, nice job. Really good work tonight.

That`s what they want to hear. When you say, you know what, I think you could have sped it up or slowed it down or spoken English or stop hiding stuff, that`s very hard to tell them that.

Anyway, great having you on, Annie Karni.

KARNI: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: And thank you, Anne Gearan, as always. I wanted you and I got you tonight. You`re our best guest on this.

GEARAN: Thank you.

MATTHEWS: Up next: Vice President Joe Biden told me yesterday that the Democratic Party needs to do a better job connecting with the kinds of voters that have flocked to Donald Trump, the kind of voters like Joe Biden.

And when we return, filmmaker Michael Moore will be here to talk about what Democrats need to do about that problem.

There he is. I had a great time with him yesterday. Look at him. What is he preaching at me for?

Anyway, this is HARDBALL, the place for politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MICHAEL MOORE, DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKER: We`re all Americans, right? Let`s just start there. Regardless who we`re voting for, right?

We`re all in the same boat. And we`re going to sink or swim together. And I would rather we swim, because I believe we have more things in common than not. We believe in the same things. First of all, we want the best schools for our kids, right, Trump voters, right, right? You want the best schools for your kids.

That`s not -- I know there is a rule don`t agree with Michael Moore on anything.

(LAUGHTER)

MOORE: But I`m trying to come out and meet you halfway.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

That was filmmaker and liberal activist Michael Moore in a scene from his new documentary just released this week. It`s entitled "Michael Moore in TrumpLand." And it really is. It`s a one-man show performed on stage before a bipartisan, a lot of Trump people there in a Trump stronghold of Wilmington, Ohio, where a lot of Trump people live.

But the film is not the daunting indictment or the damming indictment of Trump that some might expect. Instead, Michael Moore makes a proactive case for Hillary Clinton, someone he readily admits he`s never supported before by voting for her, until now.

It`s Moore`s appeal to the working-class voters who make up Trump`s base in an effort to persuade them that Clinton is the answer of this.

I`m joined right now by himself, Michael Moore.

OK, I`m going to give you a couple minutes here. No interruptions. Why have you fallen in love with the political possibilities of President Hillary Clinton?

MOORE: I have been in love with her for 23 years.

MATTHEWS: But you never voted for her?

MOORE: No, no, because I`m able to separate my personal feelings and my forbidden love from the political issues.

MATTHEWS: Seriously, come on. Tell me why somebody out there should support Hillary who...

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: No, I am serious. I am serious.

In 1993, this woman decided to risk everything and put it all out there so that we could all have universal health care. And she went for it. And she was attacked and humiliated.

MATTHEWS: By a lot of people, including John Dingell and Pat Moynihan. She faced a lot of headwinds.

MOORE: Correct. She did.

MATTHEWS: Rightly or wrongly.

MOORE: Well, it wasn`t wrong to those of us who believed in universal health care. She was the first one out there trying to do that.

MATTHEWS: No, I meant her critics, rightly or wrongly.

MOORE: Right.

MATTHEWS: Because some of them had arguments. But go ahead.

MOORE: Well, you know, I just think I have felt for a long time that she was a force for good, that what she believed in, and the things, the people that she cared about.

Now, I have my disagreements with her politically, and that`s why I was for Bernie and I was for Obama in `08.

MATTHEWS: So who would you prefer were the nominee right now? You prefer it was her or...

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: Right now, tonight?

MATTHEWS: You prefer Bernie right now?

MOORE: No.

MATTHEWS: Why?

MOORE: Hillary Clinton.

MATTHEWS: You voted for him. Why did you vote for him if you don`t want him?

MOORE: Because he lost.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Would you like him to have won?

MOORE: He, as far as I`m concerned, by winning 22 states, a socialist...

MATTHEWS: OK.

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: No, no, no, listen, that was a huge -- you don`t understand what is going to happen after 2016.

These young people, these 18-to-35-year-olds, remember, there are three million new 18-year-old voters every single year.

MATTHEWS: So?

MOORE: By, the next election, that`s 12 million more of them. They favor socialism over capitalism. The whole Bernie thing is absolutely...

MATTHEWS: OK, fair enough. Do you?

MOORE: Absolutely. Yes, because...

MATTHEWS: But Hillary is not a socialist.

MOORE: Well, she is a Christian, so it is the same thing.

It`s all about making sure everyone has a seat at the table and the pie is divided, so that everybody gets a slice. Isn`t that what Christianity is? That`s what she is about, so...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Tell me about -- I don`t want to get in a fight with you. So, I`m not going to...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I`m stopping right now.

MOORE: Yes, OK.

MATTHEWS: I will let you talk.

MOORE: No, no, you said I was going to have two minutes. You gave me 20 seconds. But I`m happy. I`m happy to be here.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Give me the personal case for Hillary. Take more. Take more time.

MOORE: The case for Hillary?

Hillary Clinton, sitting in that -- well, first of all, on a macro level, the fact that we`re -- it isn`t being said enough that we are going to elect our first woman president. This is huge for the country, for the world, for the future, for our young girls, our daughters and granddaughters, all of that.This is a very, very positive, great moment.

When she is in the Oval Office, she is not going on harm the planet. She is not going to harm children.

MATTHEWS: You don`t think she is more hawkish than Obama?

MOORE: She may be more hawkish than Obama. I hope not.

MATTHEWS: Does that worry you?

MOORE: Of course it does, yes, yes. That`s why I was for Bernie.

I mean, she voted for the war. So, this is something that we have -- but she has said that she was wrong. She wrote in her book she had never been more wrong about anything. What more do you want? I mean, she said that she was wrong.

And I think that if the Bernie revolution stays intact, and everybody who is organized behind Bernie, on November 9, after she is in the White House, we will be there to support her in the good that she`s going to do and make sure that, if she doesn`t...

MATTHEWS: We all agree that women have a different advantage in life and perspective you and I don`t have. They know things we don`t, childbearing, child raising in many cases.

MOORE: Oh, no, no.

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: It is not just that. It`s that they have not caused climate change. They don`t build factories. They don`t build atomic bombs. They don`t start wars. They don`t -- how many school shootings have...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I am asking you.

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: ... go in there and shoot up the school.

MATTHEWS: Do you think women are less warlike? Are women less warlike than men, to start?

MOORE: Absolutely.

MATTHEWS: Like, give me an example of a national leader in the world who has been less warlike.

MOORE: Well, because women haven`t been able to...

MATTHEWS: Margaret Thatcher.

MOORE: That`s the outlier.

MATTHEWS: Golda Meir? Golda Meir?

MOORE: Whenever you have -- if you have watched my last film, Chris, whenever you have just one or two women, just as when you have one African- American on the Supreme Court, you end up with that token who has to appease the other side to get in there, so you have Clarence Thomas.

But what you have, now that we have had over 80 countries that have elected a woman, how many of those have gone to war?

MATTHEWS: You think Thurgood Marshall kowtowed to the other countries?

MOORE: No, but we lived in a different time then.

MATTHEWS: OK, I`m just challenging them.

MOORE: When we had presidents -- when we had presidents -- when we had Republican presidents that weren`t willing...

MATTHEWS: I get your point, and I`m inspired by it.

Look, Vice President Joe Biden told me yesterday the Democratic Party has not spoken well enough to the concerns of working-class voters. Let`s watch this, because I think you had a shot at him for putting those boxing gloves on, that sort of thing. Let`s watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We don`t associate with their difficulty anymore. And it`s almost like -- like, somehow, they`re in good shape. But they`re not. They`re not.

And so we just started getting back to the point we could talk about actually beginning to rebuild the middle class. Wages are actually up. Real wages are actually up for the first time in a long time. But we don`t talk enough to their concerns.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Do you think Biden could have beaten Hillary Clinton in the primaries?

MOORE: I don`t know.

MATTHEWS: I think he thinks he could.

MOORE: You don`t have me on for that kind of talk.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Yes, but you were for Bernie. You were Bernie, and now you`re with Hillary. You said you`re a socialist, but you like Hillary.

MOORE: I like Joe Biden, of course. What`s not to like about him?

MATTHEWS: OK, let`s talk about Hillary positively. Let`s see the first six months of her administration, first 100 days. What would you like her to do, get done?

MOORE: Replace the pipes in Flint, Michigan, so people can stop drinking poisoned water.

MATTHEWS: OK, go direct to that, your town.

MOORE: Yes. Yes. My initial concern is with friends and family who live there, absolutely.

She could do a bunch of things with executive orders in terms of with immigration, with the FDA. Ban high-fructose corn syrup. How about that for an idea? How about let`s starts nonviolent drug offenders from prisons, at least the federal prisons, that Obama has already started to do?

There`s a number of things that she can do without Congress. My fear and my hope, both, is that she doesn`t begin her first 100 days like President Obama did, bringing in the Wall Street guys to run the Treasury Department, going, holding the olive branch out to the Republicans.

We have been through enough of this. We need somebody like her.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How do you get the 60 votes that you need in the Senate to get anything done? You got to get some Republicans.

MOORE: I thought it was 50, 51. I thought it was the majority.

MATTHEWS: No, well, they will just stop the vote.

MOORE: Oh, they will stop the vote we so don`t do anything, right? Yes.

MATTHEWS: That`s right. It`s a fact.

MOORE: Yes, that started because...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: How do you get rid of that?

MOORE: ... Democrats don`t have the courage of their convictions.

MATTHEWS: How do you get rid of that?

MOORE: Republicans never would have done that math. They would have said, damn it, it`s 51. Get the hell out of here, right?

MATTHEWS: You`re right. The segregationists did it. I know who did it.

MOORE: But the Democrats...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But in the real world, how do you get rid of it?

MOORE: Well, 51 is the majority. But we need 60. Oh, we don`t have 60.

MATTHEWS: What do you think? It`s just namby-pamby?

MOORE: Yes, the Democrats have been namby-pamby and not just standing their ground and saying, damn it, this is what the American people

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: The majority of Americans are liberal. They`re liberal on all the issues.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

MOORE: The only reason Republicans have any house in Congress is because of gerrymandering and voter suppression. And those days are coming to end. And that`s why you hear...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: But the Senate is two votes automatic. It`s not about gerrymandering in the Senate.

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: It`s about voter suppression.

And, yes, it is about, within the states, the districts in the states get gerrymandered. And Congress...

MATTHEWS: Of course that is true. I know that.

(CROSSTALK)

MOORE: So, when are we going to stop that?

MATTHEWS: How do you get something through the Congress?

MOORE: I believe Hillary Clinton is going to make...

MATTHEWS: The nuclear option. She is going to go all the way and just go with it, and go with 50 votes? She doesn`t even need 51, by your counting.

MOORE: I think that she -- as I said in my piece, she is going to put on those, I can`t say the word, kicking boots that Beyonce had on at the Super Bowl, and she`s going to kick some ass.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Tim Ryan (sic) can break the tie in the Senate with 50 votes.

MOORE: That`s right, 50. We don`t need 51. We only need 50. Come on.

Come on, Chris. Have a little hope.

MATTHEWS: Michael Moore, that`s the world he lives in.

Anyway, thank you. He`s an idealist. He`s...

MOORE: Oh, how horrible that we still have some idealism left.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: I didn`t say it horribly.

MATTHEWS: Michael Moore, who always likes to make everybody else into a conservative.

Anyway, Michael Moore...

MOORE: Not you, Chris.

MATTHEWS: He did a good job in "TrumpLand." I watched the movie. It is really good.

It shows how you can appeal to people who normally don`t like you if you do it right. And that`s not about left or right. It`s just smart.

Anyway, up next -- see?

MOORE: Thank you.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: It`s a very interesting movie.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Why is the Trump camp back at war with Megyn Kelly? This is Doofus! Why are they fighting with Megyn Kelly and fighting with Dana Bash? They picked any woman reporter that gets within five feet. They start a fight with them. What is this about?

This time, top surrogate Newt Gingrich picked a fight with her. And that`s ahead.

You`re watching HARDBALL, the place for politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

As we showed you earlier, unbelievable, FOX News` Megyn Kelly tangled with Donald Trump`s surrogate, the former speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, last night.

Let`s watch this thing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLY: If Trump is a sexual predator, that is --

GINGRICH: He`s not a sexual predator. You can`t say that --

KELLY: OK, that`s your opinion. I`m not taking a position on it.

GINGRICH: You can`t defend that statement.

KELLY: I`m not taking a position on it.

GINGRICH: I`m sick and tired of people like you, using language that`s inflammatory, that`s not true.

KELLY: Excuse me, Mr. Speaker --

GINGRICH: Donald Trump does not --

KELLY: -- you have no idea whether it`s true or not. What we know is that there --

GINGRICH: Neither do you.

KELLY: That`s right. And I`m not taking a position on it, unlike you.

(CROSSTALK)

GINGRICH: Yes, you are.

Do you want me to go back to the tapes of your show recently. You are fascinated with sex and you don`t care about public policy.

KELLY: Me, really?

GINGRICH: That`s what I get out of watching you tonight.

KELLY: You know what, Mr. Speaker? I`m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by the protection of women.

GINGRICH: Do you want to comment on whether the Clinton ticket has a relationship to a sexual predator?

KELLY: We on "The Kelly File" have covered that story as well, sir.

GINGRICH: I want to hear you use the words. I want to hear your words, Bill Clinton is a sexual predator. I dare you. Say, Bill Clinton is a sexual predator.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, that wasn`t going anywhere.

NBC`s Hallie Jackson caught up with Newt Gingrich this afternoon and says Republican women are thanking him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HALLIE JACKSON, NBC NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Mr. Speaker, what do you say to the Republican women who saw that interview last night and are upset by it, frankly? What`s your message to them?

GINGRICH: I haven`t seen that in Twitter. I haven`t seen that anywhere. I`ve had a lot of Republican women write me and thank me for standing up for the baloney that is thrown at us by people who excuse Bill Clinton, ignore Bill Clinton and then explain to us how shocked they are by Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Let`s bring in the HARDBALL roundtable tonight. Heidi Przybyla is political correspondent with "USA Today", and Catherine Rampell is opinion writer for "The Washington Post". I read her column all the time. And Raul Reyes is a contributor to NBCNews.com.

So, we have to start with the women because this is -- this seems like a festivity of craziness by this guy. Why doesn`t he -- doesn`t he know, that he only gets one headline a day and he chooses this one?

HEIDI PRZYBYLA, USA TODAY: And the weird part is they just doubled down on it and don`t realize that was such a losing position to be in. They think they won that.

And I think what`s coming out of this is that we`re seeing that there`s not just a civil war within the GOP but there is -- the hot, white war and debate within the party on gender lines, because conservative women are starting to rebel. And Megyn Kelly is in many ways the face for that. This is kind of bookend, Chris. If you remember how this entire narrative started --

MATTHEWS: Of course I remember. The starting gate (ph) --

PRZYBYLA: Right, was with Megyn Kelly`s questions.

MATTHEWS: OK. Here`s a question, John Silber, a former Boston University president, had a good shot of being governor up there. He picks a fight with a very popular, local anchor woman, who gets blown away.

Why do these guys pick fights with people that seem to be politically likable, popular and trusted? Why pick a fight with somebody like that?

CATHERINE RAMPELL, THE WASHINGTON POST: I don`t think it`s so deliberate or strategic. I think what`s happened is that you can`t defend defensible, right? You can`t really defend any of Trump`s behavior or comments, at least on this issue. So --

MATTHEWS: The taped stuff, you mean?

RAMPELL: Yes, yes.

So the knee-jerk reaction is to impugn the motive or the neutrality of the person asking the question. And this is an effective strategy for the most part when you`re dealing with non-conservative media, right? This is what Republican dozen all the time. This it`s what Trump and his surrogates have doubled down.

MATTHEWS: Yes.

RAMPELL: It doesn`t work so well when you`re dealing with a very popular, well-respected conservative journalist.

MATTHEWS: Raul?

RAUL REYES, NBCNEWS.COM CONTRIBUTOR: And look at the dynamic -- look at the dynamic that was in play in this interview. When she is addressing him, she calls him Mr. Speaker. She refers to him as sir. When he talks back to her, he is saying, Megyn, he is wagging his finger. And he tries - -

PRZYBYLA: Pointing his finger.

REYES: -- pointing his finger. And then he is telling her how to do her job.

Now, first of all, you never get in a fight of someone -- with a host when it`s their show, as you know. You cannot win.

MATTHEWS: Don`t fight with somebody who has a barrel of ink. The old argument.

REYES: Right. And second of all, he is doing that thing, that mansplaining thing which --

MATTHEWS: What is mansplaining?

REYES: That is when a man is trying being condescending and arrogant, trying to tell women what they think they should know. Women don`t like it. Anyone who is evolved doesn`t like it.

MATTHEWS: That`s a new term, mansplaining?

REYES: Not that new.

MATTHEWS: New reality.

RAMPELL: I think the best part of all this is when the guy who had the affair --

MATTHEWS: Bingo!

RAMPELL: -- who was supposed to be replaced by someone who had an affair, but was instead replaced by somebody who was a pedophile, who happened to have impeached someone having an affair.

MATTHEWS: You`re describing the order of succession of House of Representatives on the Republican roll.

RAMPELL: He is accusing this journalist of being fascinated by sex. It`s like a comical lack of --

MATTHEWS: Who are you to keep memories of all this alive is this?

(LAUGHTER)

MATTHEWS: It`s all true.

PRZYBYLA: Republicans, they will quietly tell that you they have had their minds blown throughout this entire episode looking at the guys who`ve been put up as Trump`s character witnesses on his women problem.

MATTHEWS: You mean the nine wives club?

PRZYBYLA: Yes. Yes. You got Newt and Rudy.

MATTHEWS: I know. Nine wives among three guys. You have a baseball team out there.

Anyway, our roundtable is sticking with us. And up next, these three will tell me something I don`t know. They keep doing it.

Anyway, this is HARDBALL, the place for politics.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Well, that new "USA Today"/Suffolk poll with Hillary Clinton in front by nine points has some other interesting nuggets in it. The poll found that 51 percent of voters say they believe the women who have come forward to accuse Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. They believe them. And more than four in ten say those accusations make them less likely to support Trump for president.

We`ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: We`re back with the HARDBALL roundtable.

Heidi, tell me something I don`t know.

PRZYBYLA: Chris, you just referenced the stratosphere of poll numbers that we`re seeing. I talked to one of Hillary Clinton`s top strategists yesterday just to see kind of where they are in terms of the math. And they`re being very, very conservative. I know they`re not just spinning me.

They told me, look, we can see a scenario where we actually lose Iowa. You know, we don`t get the Obama map. We don`t get even get to --

MATTHEWS: They don`t get Ohio or Florida.

PRZYBYLA: Yes, and don`t pick up North Carolina, don`t compensate for that.

And they aren`t just spinning me because then today I looked at where they`re running their final round of ads and they`re playing it in all the conservative states. We don`t see them going into Arizona. We don`t see them going into Georgia. That could change. You know, we`re going to start --

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: They`re running just what they need.

PRZYBYLA: The most basic battleground map, yes.

MATTHEWS: Catherine?

RAMPELL: So, there was an interesting poll recently of millennials conducted by NORC. And --

MATTHEWS: Are you still a millennial?

RAMPELL: I am still a millennial.

MATTHEWS: I`m reading your column, you`re about 55 years old. I think you`d been in the business about 25 years --

RAMPELL: I like to project maturity but I`m actually very mature.

MATTHEWS: Through your writing, I`ve got to tell you.

RAMPELL: Well, thank you.

MATTHEWS: You don`t seem like a millennial when I`m reading you.

RAMPELL: Well, in any case, this poll of millennials asked among other things, what are the most important problems facing this country. And there was a huge divide based on race. So black respondents again age 18 to 30, they were most likely to name racism. Hispanic respondents were most likely to name immigration. Asian --

MATTHEWS: What do you mean by immigration?

RAMPELL: That`s just the catch-all capper, I don`t know exactly. The Asian-American respondents were most likely to name education.

MATTHEWS: How did I know that? I knew that was going to be it.

RAMPELL: And white respondents were most likely to name terrorism. So, there`s a little bit of a difference here.

REYES: Lionel Sosa, he`s one of the most influential Latino Republicans in Texas. Now, this is a guy, he pretty much created what we call Hispanic outreach. He was doing it for Reagan, H.W., George W. Bush. So, he is decades before everyone had a person going out to Latino community, he was the strategist, he created ads, he`s a big league Republican player.

He, so now -- now, for some time he`s been dissatisfied with the direction of the party. He just announced he is voting for Hillary Clinton. So, that`s just one guy.

But if someone like him who decades in the GOP is finally saying he`s throwing in with Hillary Clinton, that just speaks how far Trump has taken the GOP away from --

MATTHEWS: It may be temporary. I think Republicans will do well in your community eventually. I think entrepreneurism --

REYES: But losing someone like him, that speaks a lot.

MATTHEWS: Yes, I think it`s Trump himself, not the party.

Heidi Przybyla, thank you. And, Catherine Rampell, thank you, and Paul Reyes.

REYES: Raul.

MATTHEWS: Why do I keep reading Paul? Get my head into this. Raul, thank you so much.

We`ll be right back.

REYES: Thank you.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

MATTHEWS: Election Diary, Wednesday, October 26.

Well, I have a sense that this election for president is being pulled in two ways. I`m not talking about the tension between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. That`s natural. No, there`s a different tension at work right now that`s remarkable. It`s the attention between a voter`s impulse to vote their beliefs right now about the country and the tendency to vote for or against a candidate based on his or her fitness for office.

I believe if Donald Trump did not have his history of personal behavior or misbehavior, we all know the allegations, if he were merely judged by the three main issues he`s raised, 11 million people in the country illegally, the massive loss of the country`s manufacturing base and the bad war decisions especially Iraq, he would be running very close to if not ahead of Hillary Clinton.

So, here`s the danger, if Trump loses and Hillary wins, the message of the Trump campaign will be dismissed. It shouldn`t be. People are not happy about it. But we don`t have an upstanding immigration system we`re proud of, not happy with the loss of manufacturing jobs, not happy with the wars that damaged the lives of so many young Americans. The fact that a candidate with Trump`s personal baggage is still getting the support he is should tell the winner, if it`s Hillary, to take seriously the message Trump was sowing to so many despite himself. Don`t lead the rejection of Trump lead the next president to reject his entire message.

And that`s HARDBALL for now. Thanks for being with us.

"ALL IN WITH CHRIS HAYES" starts right now.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END