Show: MTP DAILY Date: November 6, 2016 Guest: Ben Ginsberg, Maria Teresa Kumar, Charles Benson, Marc Caputo, David Wasserman, Chris Cillizza, Amy Walter
[17:00:10] STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC ANCHOR: All right. That`s going to wrap up this hour. Again, this is a much busier afternoon than we were expecting. Chuck Todd, "MTP DAILY" is going to pick up our coverage now.
CHUCK TODD, MSNBC ANCHOR: Thank you, Steve. Good evening. I am indeed still Chuck Todd here at NBC`s election headquarters in New York. And welcome to an even more special edition of MTP DAILY. Frankly apparently we had a new "MEET THE PRESS" all over this morning. Huh? The Sunday nerd edition is what we originally were going to call that. And we`re still going to provide a show for political junkies out there who are tuning in for the blocking and tackling of an election over the actual blocking and tackling of Sunday football.
But obviously there`s some huge news right now. So look, we`ll break down the path to 270. We`ll break down and give you more of the NBC News/Washington Journal poll, but of course let`s begin with the breaking news out of the FBI.
The FBI has concluded its review of new e-mails -- of supposed new e-mails into the investigation into Clinton`s private server. And Director Comey sent Congress a letter today with his findings. And it read in part, "We reviewed all of the communications that were to or from Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state. Based on our review we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton."
In other words, they are standing by their original decision not to recommend pursuing a case against Secretary Clinton. According to our own Pete Williams, nearly all of the e-mails they found in this review were duplicates of e-mails they had already seen. And we`re going to have the latest from Pete Williams in just a few minutes.
The Clinton campaign obviously is breathing a big sigh of relief even though the damage may already have been done. Quote, "We are glad to see the FBI director has found, as we were confident that he would, that he has confirmed the conclusion that he reached in July and we`re glad that this matter is resolved."
The Trump campaign, well, guess what they did? They went back after the FBI when the FBI revived their investigation, even going so far as to suggest that Clinton would be indicted. The candidate himself didn`t mention the updated news today in his stop in the last hour in Minnesota.
And here`s Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway with my colleague Steve Kornacki just a few minutes ago attempting to put the best possible spin on this latest decision.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: Let`s be very fair and open about what all those conclusions were that will not be changed. Those conclusions include the fact that she was reckless and careless. She lied about the server, she lied about the number of devices, she lied about having classified information. The fact that she put yours and my security at risk does not change. It didn`t change on October 28th and it doesn`t change today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Conway also argued that the Trump campaign has not been making this news a centerpiece of their closing argument, but if you`ve been watching Trump`s rallies these past few days, you might think otherwise.
Joining me now on the phone with the latest is our own justice correspondent, Pete Williams.
All right, Pete. There had been speculation that many of these e-mails were likely to be duplicates and it does appear that way. They thought all of them -- most of them were. That does mean that they found some other e- mails. What were those?
PETE WILLIAMS, MSNBC JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chuck, what I`m told is, first of all, that the investigation is substantially done so that`s thing one. This is not an interim report. This is the end of the road for the examination of the server. What they say is that, as you noted at the beginning, most of what they looked at was duplicates of what the FBI investigators had already seen in looking at the Clinton e-mail investigation, looking at the documents on the server over the past several months. Some were unrelated to official business, social things, that kind of stuff.
There were some documents that were forwarding previously known classified documents. What I`m told is that the bottom line on the number of classified -- the number of documents containing classified information that were found on the server, that number hasn`t substantially changed. Now it`s not clear to me whether it went up by one or two but it`s not a substantial change and that`s why the FBI director says it doesn`t change the bottom line on whether the case should be prosecuted.
TODD: Pete, it was amazing that he decided to send a letter that he sent with 11 days before the election, and I`m equally shocked that he sent another letter with two days to go before the election. What was the thinking behind this inside the FBI?
WILLIAMS: Well, I think the thinking all along was that if they could say, having put that letter out there two Fridays ago, if they could say that they had reached a conclusion they would, they wouldn`t simply sit on it. If they had reached a conclusion they wouldn`t simply sit on it until after the election was over and then say oh, by the way, we did our investigation and we didn`t find anything material.
[17:05:04] So the decision all along was if they could get there, they would, that they wouldn`t put out an interim report, in other words, they wouldn`t say, hey, we`re 80 percent done. Most of the documents seem to be duplicates. They decided against that.
TODD: Some of the criticism from some very well-known Republicans including Speaker Gingrich implies he caved under pressure. How much pressure did Director Comey feel about getting something out before the election?
WILLIAMS: I don`t know if pressure is the right word. I think he just felt that that was the right thing to do if they could. Now I will say that I think it was self-imposed. The FBI wanted to try to get this answer before the election if it could.
TODD: Right.
WILLIAMS: And this was an all hands on deck, 24-hour a day kind of operation to get through this. But they insisted it`s thorough and that they always thought to themselves that they could say what the answer was, they would.
TODD: By the way, does this mean they`re almost done with the Anthony Weiner part of this investigation?
WILLIAMS: No.
TODD: That`s still a separate thing. All right. Pete Williams.
WILLIAMS: Yes, indeed.
TODD: I know you were trying to get yourself in front of a camera. I`ll let you go. Thank you, Pete.
Joining me by phone from Manchester, New Hampshire, is our own Kristen Welker, who just spoke with the Clinton campaign. And Kristen, describe the mood of the Clinton campaign on this news.
KRISTEN WELKER, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, Chuck, they are breathing a sigh of relief. There`s no doubt about that. This top Clinton official said to me this announcement effectively takes the wind out of Donald Trump`s sails. He`s had the rug pulled out from under him. He can no longer stand at the podium and suggest that Secretary Clinton is the subject of an investigation and that she might be indicted as we have heard from him in recent days. But I asked him about the political impact and they insist, look, we`ve seen a tightening of the polls, not only because of this announcement by Director Comey but because this is what happens in presidential elections.
And of course you and I have been watching these polls. Whether they are tightening because of Comey or otherwise, the bottom line is they are very tight. So could this push her over the edge in some key battleground states?
TODD: Right.
WELKER: It could, the campaign believes. And they make the point, you know, will this force some super PACs to take their ads off of the air that have been focused on this, that are running in all of these critical battleground states? What time of impact might that have? There`s no doubt, though, this is significant for the Clinton campaign. In terms of messaging, what will we hear from Secretary Clinton?
TODD: Right.
WELKER: They say she`s not going to dwell on it, she`s going to try to focus on her closing argument. You and I have been talking about this. She wanted to close out this campaign on a positive note. She`s been in full attack mode against Donald Trump in the wake of this announcement by Director Comey nine days ago.
TODD: Right.
WELKER: Only recently starting to speak more about her policy issues, her vision for how she wants to take the country forward. I get the sense that in these final 48 hours she`s really going to be hitting those notes.
TODD: Right. OK.
WELKER: And talking less about attacking Donald Trump. One final point, I`ve been talking to voters here in New Hampshire, Chuck. Clinton supporters who say their concern is the damage has already been done.
TODD: Right. All right.
WELKER: We`ll have to see, Chuck.
TODD: OK. Kristen Welker on the Clinton trail in New Hampshire. Kristen, thanks very much.
I want to bring in tonight`s panel very quickly. Let`s get a move around on this. NBC political analyst, Republican election lawyer, Ben Ginsburg, NBC News senior politics editor Beth Fouhy and MSNBC contributor and the president and CEO of Voto Latino, And Maria Teresa Kumar. Hello to all of you.
Beth, impact, Tuesday? What?
(LAUGHTER)
BETH FOUHY, NBC NEWS SENIOR POLITICS EDITOR: You know, we`re all so like - -
TODD: I know.
(LAUGHTER)
FOUHY: Spinning our heads all around and we don`t even know, like, we`re still processing the last news, now the new news comes. Look, the Clinton campaign has been trying to maintain an assumption that, you know, the e- mail stuff is baked and people have already made up their minds about it and that the polls were all going to tighten anyway as Kristen said. But you know that they were furious and really frustrated that this came to them the way it did at the time that it did.
So, you know, OK, now perhaps it`s off the table for them but if there`s been damage, it`s been done, they insist that they`re moving ahead with the strategy as it always was and it actually appears that they pretty much. And in our own polling we`re finding that it really didn`t make a lot of difference in battleground states` early voting.
TODD: You know, Ben, it does feel as if the peak negative for her was sometime Wednesday or Thursday last week and that there was this slow sort of -- she was re-stabilizing a little bit. Obviously this isn`t going to hurt. Do you think this moves the needle or is it at this point too late?
BEN GINSBERG, REPUBLICAN ELECTIONS LAWYER: No. And one of the interesting factors is the push for early voting and absentee voting. Locked people in, in the midst of --
TODD: In the middle of it. Yes.
GINSBERG: The middle of while Comey was doing the investigation. It also served to remind people of the fact they do not think Hillary Clinton is honest or trustworthy. That`s something Donald Trump will probably hit in the closing argument.
TODD: Well, Maria, that is something you -- you can`t re-stimulate.
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, VOTO LATINO PRESIDENT AND CEO: Any other candidate. Right.
[17:10:01] TODD: Can`t be stimulate either, though, that -- and if it had an impact, it could have already been felt down the ballot.
KUMAR: Absolutely.
TODD: That it helped Republicans unite around a message at the end when they needed a message to unite around.
KUMAR: But had it been any other candidate I think the Republican Party would have been able to capitalize on this last-minute moment, but he has his own issues. I was talking earlier with someone that in the last week of August you and I had a conversation and there were 13 headlines, any other candidate would have failed.
TODD: Right. Right.
KUMAR: But he has serious issues with not only the Latino voter that is going to be so significant in Arizona and Nevada and Florida, but he also has the other -- what I call the other voters that folks aren`t talking about, and that`s the Muslim-American and Asian voters where they`re going to make a difference in Ohio and Pennsylvania, even Texas when it comes to the Muslim-American community.
TODD: I want to talk about the person that may be in the real political fire here is not Clinton, not Trump but it`s Comey. Everybody is hitting Comey again. Still left and right. Here`s Kellyanne last hour -- Conway, during another part of a response on this to Steven Kornacki. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CONWAY: He`s mishandled the investigation from the beginning and this proves it yet again. In other words, why the dribs and drabs? Why the investigation is over, no, it`s not, I was just kidding, or we`re not pressing charges but let me go to Congress two days later and testify under oath all the things that she did wrong that might lead a different prosecutor to pressing charges? So I think that was the frustration and indeed the consternation for many people including Donald Trump.
Obviously, you know what, it didn`t change my mind today that the investigation has been mishandled from the beginning.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: Brian Fallon, spokesperson for the Clinton campaign, could have uttered that sentence there. Talking about most it. Newt Gingrich, by the way, tweets, Comey must be under enormous political pressure to cave like this and announce something he can`t possibly know.
Here`s a Democrat criticizing Comey on the news today. John Conyers of Michigan, longtime Democrats. "In the days that come we will have many questions about the FBI`s handling of this investigation. In the meantime, however, I welcome this news confirming again that no charges are warranted into this matter."
We have a political loser in all of this, it`s James Comey.
GINSBERG: Yes, I think that`s probably true. From his point of view, he probably will argue that he was doing the right thing in both cases, that he had to bring the information forward when he did the first time and he had to do it the second time, but he has put the FBI in the middle of a political campaign like never before.
KUMAR: And the fact that he wrapped it up literally two days before an election, it just seems unseemly. And at a time when people distrust government thinking that every single thing that is happening right now is for political gain, it really jeopardizes the FBI.
TODD: This is long term, yes. Long term damage.
FOUHY: There`s no sense anymore that anybody`s a straight shooter, that anybody`s a fair actor, that everybody is being influenced by politics, everybody`s drawing their own conclusions selectively based on their own perspective. And it`s for political gain. It`s a shame.
TODD: All right. So now -- by the way, Ben, do those super PACs -- I want to go to something Kristen said. Do those super PACs that have been using this, are they legally obligated to pull it down?
GINSBERG: I don`t believe they`re legally obligated to pull it down. As super PACs, they`re allowed to put the ads up, stations can pull them down if they find the information was false so it will come down to the wording that is in the super PAC ads. Again, this comes a little late to influence either the device or the messaging.
TODD: All right. Well, you guys are coming back. Stick around.
Coming up, the campaigns, we`ll get into some political handicapping, I guess you could call it. They`re crisscrossing the country as they search for various ways to 270. We`ll have the latest look at our electoral map. Plus deep dive into the final NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" poll as we head into the homestretch. And later we`ll have the latest on the high stakes battle for the House and the Senate. Does the Comey news have any impact there?
This is a special edition of MTP DAILY. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:17:08] TODD: Welcome back to MTP DAILY. Even before today`s November surprise that the FBI had concluded its review of the e-mails on Anthony Weiner`s laptops, both campaigns and their surrogates were in hyper drive, crisscrossing the country in a slew of battleground states. Mostly on the Trump side of things, they were doubling the number of states. With Clinton, there was definitely a little bit more focus. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have one chance. It`s our last chance. It`s on Tuesday. It`s the 8th. It`s our last chance.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Two days, Florida. Two days to decide the future of the country. And I need you to go vote.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will never, ever quit on you. No matter what.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TODD: A lot of Democratic big gun surrogates hit the trail today. Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Florida just to name a few where folks are. And just last hour, Hillary Clinton rallied with King James in, where else, Cleveland, Ohio, actually it could have been Akron.
Republicans blitzed the battlegrounds today themselves. New Hampshire, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota, yes, Minnesota. It comes in the final two days of campaigning. A blitz of swing states he`s got to win just to stay in the game plus some of those big blue wall states in the upper Midwest including Michigan where Trump and Pence have made four stops in just the past seven days.
According to folks inside the Trump campaign their internals are showing a dead heat in Michigan and they claim a three-point race in Minnesota.
Clinton campaign is taking Michigan pretty seriously in their final blitz along with stops, though, in Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Hampshire and North Carolina. As for, Minnesota, we`re calling Trump`s bluff on that one. The map still heavily favors Clinton but the Trump campaign is hoping to pull out a win.
According to our final NBC News/"Wall Street Journal" poll, before Election Day, here`s what we found. Clinton holds a four-point lead nationally among likely voters but that is down from an 11-point lead in October. Of course those numbers came out this morning. But yes, we have even new numbers this hour, and they paint a pretty dark picture about the future of American politics.
Look at these numbers. 64 percent of likely voters we surveyed say the election has made the nation more divided. 62 percent say that we`re on the wrong track as a country and that same number 62 percent say this election has made them less proud of the United States.
Whoever gets to 270 is going to face a potentially unmanageable political storm in this country. And these campaigns are looking at very different roads to 270. So let me do little refresh here with our map. First of all, there`s the Clinton campaign in our battleground map. We have her sitting at 274. We still have Michigan, not in tossup but in lean Democrats. So I`m going to walk you through a basic Trump scenario here. His shortest path sweeping those big three of Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio, still leaves him short.
[17:20:05] Needs to make sure Arizona and Utah. And I think he feels better about Utah these days. Not sure about Arizona. Even in New Hampshire. And everything on the board, you`ve seen me do this plenty, he`s short six. Yes, and Nevada would do it but the numbers don`t look good there. That`s why they`re in Michigan.
Michigan would be -- this is a plausible scenario for him sweeping but here`s the problem that Trump has. Florida right now is something that looks like if you believe this early vote data is somewhat in the leaning in Clinton`s column. So if that happens then he`s got to find 19 somewhere else. Pennsylvania would do it. But Pennsylvania, boy, that becomes a reach. So you do see here, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio. They all go red, then Michigan makes a lot of sense.
But if just one of these three ends up going blue of the big three, Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, then Michigan wouldn`t be enough. So it`s a narrow Trump path. It`s not unrealistic, but as you can say it`s precarious, especially as we`ve seen with the Hispanic vote.
I want to go around into some of these last-minute battlegrounds. We`ve got folks that we want to check in with in both Florida, Wisconsin, as well, and of course our own Kelly O`Donnell. So let me start in Wisconsin. Charles Benson, a veteran political reporter for our NBC affiliate in Milwaukee.
Charles, walk me through Wisconsin. Is it closing at all or is Wisconsin looking like it normally does every four years since 1988?
CHARLES BENSON, WTMJ MILWAUKEE: Yes, it`s looking like every four years in Wisconsin. Republicans have not won here since 1984 when Ronald Reagan took the state. Since then Democrats have won seven in a row.
But keep in mind, Chuck, you have to go back to the April primary. Wisconsin voters, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were not their first choices. And so when you look at these two candidates, they needed to -- when they came back into the state, they knew they had to try to regroup from that moment.
Donald Trump has been in Wisconsin five times. Hillary Clinton has been here zero times. But the early voting has been concluded here, so far one out of four Wisconsin voter has already voted and the two counties that have produced the biggest number of votes so far in early voting, Milwaukee County, Dane County, and that spells good news for Hillary Clinton.
TODD: Very quickly before I let you go, Charles. Ron Johnson has been making a furious comeback in this race. Total nail-biter at the end?
BENSON: Yes. Milwaukee was not in the World Series but if they`re looking for a game seven it`s going to be Tuesday night with Ron Johnson, the Republican, trying to hold his seat and Democrat Russ Feingold trying to win back his seat. So far in these final weeks they`ve spent $23 million in TV and digital ads mainly from the outside.
TODD: Yes.
BENSON: Look, they don`t even pay Aaron Rodgers that kind of money around here. OK?
TODD: I know.
BENSON: So this is all trying to move the needed and get out the vote.
TODD: And you just reminded me who we`re competing against with right now, at least as far as air time is concerned in Wisconsin.
Mr. Benson, go back to doing what you really should be doing, right, which is watching the Packers come back against the Colts. Thank you, sir.
BENSON: Good to be with you.
TODD: Let me bring in Kelly O`Donnell, she`s in Cleveland. A rally just - - she was there. We had Hillary Clinton, LeBron James. But Ohio here, it feels like it was moving Trump up until a few days ago, Democrats seem to have a renewed hope that they can somehow sneak Ohio back into the blue column. Can they?
KELLY O`DONNELL, MSNBC CORRESPONDENT: Certainly in Cuyahoga County where we are, where Cleveland is located. It is a Democratic stronghold. So you do get the sense in this part of the state that there is enthusiasm. When you add to the mix LeBron James, who is -- there aren`t enough superlatives to talk about how people here in Ohio feel about him as a native of Northeast Ohio and a lot of the good work he is doing through his foundation. He talked about that before introducing Hillary Clinton, and talked about being one of those kids in the community who one day thought his vote didn`t matter and now he does.
And trying to make that connection especially to the African-American youth and to drive out that vote, talking so much about the early vote here. And just down the street one of those polling places where they can go and cast their ballots. So it is a tougher state for Hillary Clinton because of some of the economic distress that this state has gone through in this industrial sort of decay that has set in here.
This is my hometown, of course, so I get it from that level. But there is a sense that as she closed Cleveland here that she felt good about where they stand and they`re looking to try to use this to block Donald Trump -- Chuck.
TODD: All right. Kelly O`Donnell, in her hometown of Cleveland, Ohio.
Kelly, thanks very much.
And finally let`s go down to Florida because everybody asked me, is there a one state-state this cycle or is it multiple states? [17:25:03] And I think we are now back to a one-state battleground cycle again. At least as far as checkmate is concerned. So let`s go to Marc Caputo of "Politico." He`s their Florida guru.
Marc, it seems like there is no path that the presidency without Florida for Donald Trump which then tells you if there is a checkmate state, it is Florida.
MARC CAPUTO, POLITICO: Certainly. And right now, it`s kind of anyone`s chess match. I don`t know -- I can`t really hazard a guess as to who`s going to win. I look at the early voting data it`s trending Clinton but then you realize it`s not as good as Obama. But then you would start to look at the internals of who`s voted and you realize well, if you actually adjust for the people who were Democrats who actually probably voted Republican in 2012 and independents who probably voted Republican in 2012, and vice versa for the Democrats, and then you add the number of Election Day voters that the Republicans have moved forward, Hillary Clinton is probably almost in the exact same position President Obama was in 2012 around this time of the election, where Democrats walked in with a big lead but then Republicans overperformed on Election Day and President Obama won by less than a percentage point.
I think a lot of the polls if you aggregate them together kind of show it`s a toss-up state. The data, when you really look at it, kind of shows it`s a toss-up state. You certainly would rather be Clinton right now because she`s got a lead. Her Democrats have a lead in casting early ballots. But if you`re going to bet on this race, I would not bet a lot of money on either candidate.
TODD: It seems like the unknown that every wants answered and why Democrats I think keep telling us they feel better about it is this no party affiliation turnout situation. And everybody`s been noting a bunch of no party affiliate voters showed up particularly in the I-4 corridor and they seem convinced that this is code for bigger turnout among, say, Puerto Ricans than they expected. When will we know that?
CAPUTO: Well, we`ll know that on Tuesday.
TODD: Yes.
CAPUTO: If you look -- if you just look at the Hispanic vote, here`s what really gives the Clinton campaign a lift -- a boost in their sails or wind in their sails is that right now the Hispanic vote is overperforming where it was in 2012 and the African-American vote is almost at the same level it was in 2012. But Hispanics tend -- at least half of them in 2012 voted on Election Day, if that trend holds, they might exceed their registration numbers. And most polls, especially good polls of Florida Hispanic show that Donald Trump is getting his clock cleaned with Hispanics, especially Puerto Rican voters who live in the I-4 corridor, whether they`re registered Republican, Democrat or independents -- most of them are Democrats and independents -- is really not a good scene for Donald Trump.
But in the end, let`s not forget white voters, non-Hispanic white voters are still the overwhelming majority of Florida`s voter rolls, like 64 percent, 65 percent, and right now they`ve cast about 67 percent of the ballots. And that`s good news for Donald Trump.
TODD: The most -- the biggest clump of split ticket voters are probably going to be Hispanics, probably Cubans in South Florida between Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio.
So let me ask you this. How -- Rubio will probably get a bigger number than Trump. But what is his safe zone here? How much can he afford Clinton to win by and still survive?
CAPUTO: I think we`re still probably about the three percentage point range and right now it doesn`t look like Hillary Clinton will hit that if she does win. The thing that Marco Rubio has in his favors, he`s from Miami-Dade. He`s universally known here. He`s bilingual. This is a county where the Democrat needs to win big over the Republican. I don`t think Marco Rubio is going to win Miami-Dade but he`s not going to lose it badly and that bodes badly for the Democratic candidate, his opponent, Congressman Patrick Murphy.
I don`t want to fore-judge any Florida election.
TODD: Right.
CAPUTO: But if you have to be any one of these four candidates, Trump, Clinton, Murphy, Rubio, you probably want to be Marco Rubio.
TODD: How about that? Marco Rubio has a shot at being the only Republican who ran for president who gets to give a victory speech on November 8th. I think everybody will be thinking -- perhaps could be thinking about that.
Marc Caputo, always good to talk to you, sir.
CAPUTO: Thank you.
TODD: Thank you.
Coming up, the battle for Congress. Democrats believe they have a good shot at the Senate. But is the House in play at all? Hey, we`re going to -- it`s a junkie special Sunday edition of MTP DAILY. So we`re going to dig deep.
Live from MSNBC`s election headquarters right here in New York City. We`ll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:32:52] TODD: 4:00 games are headed to halftime so get in here, tune in and stick with us for the next 30 minutes. We`re going nerd central, House, Senate, you name it. We got a lot going on beside the presidential on Tuesday night. So I got some of my favorite political junkies joining me for the next 30 minutes. But first I did ask some familiar folks who couldn`t make it to the show tonight to tell us what they`re going to be watching on election night. Here`s what a few of them said.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC NEWS ANCHOR: On election night, I`m going to be watching what happens right here in Florida, the battleground state that has been visited more by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton than any other state.
CORNELL BELCHER, DEMOCRATIC POLLSTER: Watch for the share of the electorate that actually goes third party.
SARA FAGEN, BUSH 43 POLITICAL DIRECTOR: The polls in Virginia close early and so we`ll get a sense of the direction the House campaign is going based on the results of Barbara Comstock`s race.
MARK MURRAY, NBC NEWS: The most important thing I`m going to be watching Tuesday night is the Latino vote which could decide all-important Florida.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:36:56] TODD: Welcome back to this special edition of MTP DAILY. In case you`re just joining us, the big breaking news of the afternoon, FBI Director James Comey announced today that the bureau`s review of Hillary Clinton`s e-mails has not changed. And they have not changed their assessment from last July. That Hillary Clinton should not be prosecuted for handling -- for her handling of classified information. Clinton campaign obviously was happy about that decision.
James Comey is getting hit from all sides over all this. Trump supporters are suggesting that Comey made this last-second decision under political pressure to end the investigation. Of course Democrats have been criticizing Comey for reviving it.
What impact might any of this have on the race for Congress? Presidential, two weeks ago before Comey`s first announcement, it looked as if Hillary Clinton could lead a wave, sweeping Democrats into control of the Senate and maybe even putting the House in play. Now post-Comey, that`s out of the question.
Want to talk Senate in a minute, but first I`m joined here at the board by David Wasserman. He`s House editor at the Cook Political Report, and we`re going to look at five House races where the stakes are pretty high and maybe they give us a clue at least about whether Democrats can get a double-digit gain even if they can`t win control.
Mr. Wasserman, how are you?
DAVE WASSERMAN, COOK POLITICAL REPORT EDITOR: Good. Thanks so much.
TODD: So we pick five and we start way out west. It`s probably a race we won`t know the result of until Thursday or Friday. Darrell Issa, Orange County, what`s going on here?
WASSERMAN: This is Northern San Diego, Orange County. A Republican hasn`t lost Orange County for president since 1936 but I think Donald Trump is going to be the first. And Issa is proof that even if you`re the wealthiest member of Congress you can still run a really poor campaign. Issa has not adapted with his district. He`s a high profile Trump defender in a district where Trump is unpopular. He even introduced Trump at a rally in May.
A year ago I asked Democrats who`s Doug Applegate? And they said we`ll get back to you in a few days. And now it`s a tossup.
TODD: How much of it -- what`s the Hispanic population in this district?
WASSERMAN: It`s about 20 percent of the population, a lot less of the vote but it`s a well educated district. It`s a wealthy district. It`s the exact kind of place --
TODD: This is a Trump -- Trump is costing Issa this one?
WASSERMAN: Well, Issa could be costing himself this district.
TODD: OK. All right. Very quickly. Your next one, Florida 7, John Mica, suburban Orlando. Stephanie Murphy might become the youngest Democratic member of Congress. Right?
WASSERMAN: Well, this is also the youngest district in Florida. This is Orlando. This is right across the street from where the Pulse Nightclub shooting happened. And right after that, when John Mica accepted a small contribution from the NRA, Stephanie Murphy decided to get in the race. She`s about half Mica`s age. Mica has been in Congress 24 years.
TODD: Right.
WASSERMAN: And so they have anti-Washington thing works against him.
TODD: Interesting there. Next race that you`re looking at, Illinois 10, suburban Chicago, this district is always on your list.
WASSERMAN: Right.
TODD: Classic swing district, right?
WASSERMAN: This is a classic rematch.
TODD: Yes.
WASSERMAN: And Bob Dold is one of the few genuine Republican moderates left in the House. Brad Schneider was beaten by Dold in the 2014 wave. My guess is that Schneider gets that seat back.
TODD: Just simply because it`s a presidential year. You`re watching the closest thing we have to an ex-serving Democratic seat, I guess you would call it. Not quite rural.
[17:40:02] Rick Nolan, he`s been a freshman member of Congress twice, once in the `70s and once a few cycles ago. This was a top target for Republicans for a long time.
WASSERMAN: Yes. And this is the iron range of Minnesota. This is a place where Trump is actually doing really well. And Stewart Mills who once called himself a Brad Pitt of the Republican Party.
TODD: Yes.
WASSERMAN: Is actually having a shot this time around after coming very, very close in 2014.
TODD: Right.
WASSERMAN: You just use the word Brad Pitt and now everybody is like, OK, is he Brad Pitt like in there? We`ll let others decide. And your final race here is one that if you live in Washington, D.C., you know a lot about. Barbara Comstock, Republican, Northern Virginia, McLean-Great Falls. This is your classic highly educated Republican leaning district that might do what?
WASSERMAN: And Barbara Comstock is one of the few Republicans who decided that she wasn`t going to vote for Trump after that "Access Hollywood" tape came out. Democrats are lambasting her for waiting too long to disavow him. Luann Bennett has a good shot because of those Loudoun County suburbs in Northern Virginia.
TODD: Republicans have held on to the seat cycle after cycle and Democrats swore they could win it. Do you think this time it`s different?
WASSERMAN: Well, it`s a tossup. And this is one of those seat where it looks like a couple of weeks ago Luann Bennett, the Democrat, might have the edge, it`s going to go down the wire.
TODD: All right. Mr. Wasserman, if -- very quickly. Why isn`t -- Democrats don`t have enough seats in order to win this. Is it because too many rural seats that they would win in a normal year Trump does well in?
WASSERMAN: Exactly. It`s a tale of two houses, right? You got suburban, well-educated districts where Democrats have chances to beat Republicans.
TODD: Right.
WASSERMAN: And then you`ve got these blue-collar districts, for example, in northern Maine where Democrats thought they were going to have a great shot and they may not have them in the bag because Trump is actually doing some pretty good things for Republicans in places.
TODD: I think there`s no question Trump is helping them in Iowa, House races, and New York Houses.
Dave Wasserman, thanks very much.
Let me bring in two good friends of yours as well as mine into this conversation. Chris Cillizza, MSNBC contributor, founder of the "Washington Post`s" "The Fix" blog, and Amy Walter, national editor at Cook Political Report.
And I think this is the point where we say Chris Cillizza is a Cook Political alum.
CHRIS CILLIZZA, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yes.
TODD: So Wasserman, Water, Cillizza. It`s all Charlie Cook`s empire.
AMY WALTER, NATIONAL REPORTER, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: We`re all Charlie Cook.
TODD: Yes. I was --
CILLIZZA: He was the Gregg Popovich of political handicapping.
TODD: All right. We want to go Senate here and this morning your mentors, your -- you guys, all I have to say same mentor, Mr. Charlie Cook. He basically pushed the Senate races, I made him push at least until the final two. And the final two he couldn`t push were Missouri and North Carolina.
Amy, why wasn`t he ready to call those two?
WALTER: Well, Missouri is going to be tough partly because we don`t know how well Donald Trump is going to do. Look, at the end of the day that is going to I think be the deciding factor in the Missouri race. And this is one where not that long ago it looked like Roy Blunt was in deep, deep, deep, deep trouble. But that the top of the ticket maybe the one thing that puts this thing back. And in North Carolina -- you know what, we are all getting inundated with data and yet we don`t have the capacity to actually dig down into it. We have a lot of early vote data but unless you`re sitting like the campaigns are with actual voter file vote history, then it`s really silly for us to start trying to analyze what this means versus 2012, what this means for the different races.
TODD: Chris Cillizza, can you over -- underestimate the impact Comey had on the down-ballot situation over the last two weeks?
CILLIZZA: No. No -- I mean, that, look, if I was the Clinton campaign, I understand she`s not saying much about it, which, you know, they just don`t want to put FBI and e-mails back into the conversation in any way, shape or form but I would be really, really bothered in that basically Comey said well, remember that letter I sent 10 days ago? Yes, it turned out to be nothing. What`s hard is, Clinton I think still has an edge electorally. And you were laying that out, Chuck, earlier. She`s still -- that hasn`t changed. Just moved a little bit to Donald Trump but she still has an edge.
But what did that Comey announcement do? Republican enthusiasm. It only needs to move up a point or two. As Amy pointed out, in Missouri, if Republican enthusiasm is where it probably is going to be, then Roy Blunt may fall across the line through none of his own doing other than the Comey thing may be depressed Democratic. Democrats will -- remind the Republicans, yes, that`s why I don`t like the national Democratic Party and Hillary Clinton. You may see the same thing with Richard Burr.
Again, enthusiasm is not going to change a race five or 10 point but in a one or two-point race which I expect both of those probably will be, they can make the difference.
TODD: You know, the last race Charlie did pick, Amy, was New Hampshire.
CILLIZZA: Yes.
TODD: And he seems uncomfortable doing it. You know, we love him.
WALTER: Yes.
TODD: You know, he`s like -- it was sort of like if you were going to make me, he was leaning challenger way on that. How do you feel on that race? Because that was the third of the last three that he -- the last one that he felt comfortable picking.
[17:45:08] WALTER: So, Chuck, you`re basically pitting me against my boss.
TODD: I know, Amy.
WALTER: That`s really --
TODD: That`s exactly right.
WALTER: Putting me in a really, really comfortable position.
TODD: I`ll make Wasserman do it here in a second as well.
(LAUGHTER)
WALTER: You know, here`s all I can tell you is that we go through each one of these races, I give this -- when I was in David`s shoes, and doing it for the House, and we go through each of the tiny little details to say here`s why I think this candidate over this candidate. At the end of the day, they usually all break one way. And they don`t break as cleanly and easily. So, you know, if the momentum seems to be, we`re coming in on Election Day, Hillary Clinton looks stronger in New Hampshire than she does right now, looks stronger in Pennsylvania, then you can see that being enough to flip those two states.
If it`s not as strong, if the thing really is much more intense --
TODD: Right.
WALTER: On the Republican side, that enthusiasm is still there, I don`t know. I`m not going to even push it.
TODD: All right.
WALTER: There we go.
TODD: Dave, Chris, Amy -- I got good news for all of you three. Number one, Louisiana and Georgia, they may do us a favor and go into overtime and number two, we may end up with a special Senate election a year from now.
CILLIZZA: Or Virginia.
WALTER: In Virginia.
TODD: That will decide control again.
CILLIZZA: Two Senate elections in two years.
TODD: We`ll do this annually.
CILLIZZA: 2017, 2018.
WALTER: We`re going to have a governor`s race in Virginia and a Senate race.
TODD: Exactly. All right. See, I get --
WALTER: In the Same year.
TODD: We`ll continue to pick House and Senate races in pretty much every month to decide who controls the Senate. Anyway, appreciate it.
Our panel is back after the break with what else we can expect from the last few hours on the trail. Stay tuned.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:50:15] TODD: Welcome back. Time for the lead. I`m joined again by Ben Ginsberg, Beth Fouhy, and Maria Teresa Kumar.
I got to show you something that totally, frankly there`s only one word to describe it, which was horrifying. We asked Clinton voters what they thought of Trump and Trump voters what they thought of Clinton essentially saying, you know, just to see how bad is this divide. Let me first put up the word cloud a bit. This is what Clinton supporters think of Trump. First words out there, the big ones, temperamental, rude, bigot, misogynist, sexist, womanizer. Probably not surprising but pretty rough language. Now let me show you what Trump voters think of Clinton. Crook, crooked, corrupt, liar, dishonest.
Ben Ginsberg, how is this -- you have the country basically saying it`s a choice between a crook and a racist.
GINSBERG: Yes. And the polarization that has sort of marked this over the last decade looks like it`s getting worse. So that`s going to put an interesting pressure on whoever survives this election and actually has to govern. Talked a lot about how difficult that would be, for whichever presidential candidate wins, the considerations in the Senate and the House, and have also been highly polarized get really, really interesting especially in the House when it comes time to choose the speaker.
TODD: All right. How are we going to get Supreme Court justices?
(LAUGHTER)
FOUHY: You know, it`s -- it is so shocking that we`re even having that conversation. That, you know, legitimate senators of note are actually floating this as an option that we got into this point in this country.
TODD: Eight is enough?
FOUHY: Eight is enough. Exactly.
(CROSSTALK)
GINSBERG: Has a good ring to it.
TODD: Yes.
FOUHY: You know, it worked the first time.
TODD: Yes.
FOUHY: Whoever wins, and that`s for now because Hillary is a little bit ahead, assume it`s her, she`s going to have to move very quickly the night of the -- when she accepts the nomination and very quickly after that, just do whatever she can to reach out, to bring people together. It`s going to be so hard, Chuck, because not only, as you know, it does not require an outreach to Republicans. She`s got the left sitting up on her shoulder.
TODD: Thank you. I was just about to --
FOUHY: Pressuring her to, you know, not go that direction. And she`s made a lot of promises to those guys that she cannot easily walk back.
TODD: She has said first 100 days immigration reform, Maria.
KUMAR: Right. Well, I think for the Republicans, I think they would want immigration reform.
TODD: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: All right. We thought that in 2013 and we thought that it in -- you know.
KUMAR: No, we`re at the same place. The Republicans have an opportunity to give her a Supreme Court justice that works. Because if they can get past a lot of these social, cultural issues that basically hurt them with their base, then all of a sudden they have a clean slate. They can actually start trying to govern again. I know that that`s a long shot. But for them I would use it as an opportunity.
TODD: Spoken like --
FOUHY: Ben is like --
TODD: Better if I had to run at a Republican primary, right?
(LAUGHTER)
GINSBERG: I`m going to go with infrastructure reform and tax reform as issues where you may be able to set the ground.
TODD: How badly, Beth, does she need Paul Ryan to survive?
FOUHY: She needs Paul Ryan a lot. Strangely enough.
TODD: That`s what I think.
FOUHY: That is, he`s going to be the most important man in Washington very soon because he`s the only one that kind of bridges the gap between sort of the folks who want to move forward, who want to govern and the folks who absolutely don`t. Whether he`s got credibility left after this, wishy- washy sort of endorsing Trump but not really, going his own way. His ideas campaign, you know?
KUMAR: But I think that`s a hard thing, is that whether or not Paul Ryan is going to survive his own political party, is she going to be the one, anybody besides him is going to be so much more extreme.
TODD: How about -- does Paul Ryan need Trump to do badly?
GINSBERG: Well --
FOUHY: Yes.
TODD: You know what I mean? Like for his own survival.
GINSBERG: Yes. But look --
TODD: A close vote, does he get punished?
GINSBERG: The scenario that you`re talking about Hillary Clinton can set the tone by telling Democrats to vote for Paul Ryan for speaker.
FOUHY: That`s true. That`s true. But I think --
TODD: That`s an interesting thought.
GINSBERG: Just in coalitional politics.
TODD: Well, look, I`ve been -- I`ve been, you know. I`ve been --
FOUHY: And she loses the left forever.
TODD: And I -- and if James Comey --
GINSBERG: You loses the right --
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: What if James offers a resignation, you don`t accept it, right?
FOUHY: No.
TODD: You do something like that as a way to everybody clean up that situation.
FOUHY: That`s right.
TODD: Mitch McConnell. He knows if he loses the majority he gets it back in `18. The numbers that way. What incentive does he have to make the Senate function that well for her politically?
FOUHY: He lost all his credibility with President Obama. Just saying the only role he wanted to play in those eight years was to stop --
TODD: Credibility with who, though?
FOUHY: As a legislator --
TODD: As Republicans continue to elect him, he`s got that credibility.
FOUHY: So if he wants to be a man of the base, to be the majority leader of a party that is shrinking rapidly and is going to go away forever if they don`t start playing ball on some level, he could do that. I think Paul Ryan would be willing to take that gamble. I don`t see that with Mitch McConnell.
GINSBERG: Depends on the agenda that the new president proposes on whether senators and representatives get to be statesmen or they have to be partisan hacks.
[17:55:07] TODD: Yes. There doesn`t seem to be a good scenario.
KUMAR: Not at all. But I think that she has the -- it all depends on how badly the Republicans lose. If the Republicans lose badly then they have to -- their political courage and actually realize we have to revamp otherwise we will never step foot in the White House. And as the flow goes of demographic changes we`ll never have majority in the Senate as well.
FOUHY: But they`re going to blame Trump. They`re just going to say we had a bad candidate, a flawed candidate with a flawed message. Let`s get back to normal. And everything will be better.
KUMAR: No, but he has opened up a base within them that I think you`re going to have a strong fracture within the Republican Party. The fact that when Chaffetz basically said that he wasn`t -- when he decided to unendorse him the first time he did not talk to -- he didn`t talk to Ryan, he didn`t talk to the Trump campaign, he didn`t talk to the RNC, there is no political leadership.
TODD: You have the last word?
GINSBERG: Well, last word is --
TODD: Super glue for the party?
GINSBERG: Well, super glue for the party, there`ll be a little ceremonial bloodletting and then we`ll kind of get back to winning elections.
TODD: All right.
FOUHY: That`s what you think.
(LAUGHTER)
TODD: It`s going to be fascinating December.
GINSBERG: 2018 is a winning election.
TODD: There you go. On to 2018. OK.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: Thank you, guys. We have a little bit more right after the break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TODD: That`s all we`ve got right now, but we know you`ve want more. And you know who`s going to give you more? My man Steve Kornacki with continuing live coverage of what`s been a much newsier Sunday evening in the campaign `16 than we ever thought.
Mr. Kornacki, take it away.
KORNACKI: All right, Chuck. Thank you for that.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END