Show: HARDBALL Date: November 6, 2016 Guest: Kellyanne Conway, Rep. Elijah Cummings, Howard Fineman, Dan Rather, Jeff Greenfield, Susan Page, Jon Ralston, Kurt Anderson, Michelle Bernard, Hugh Hewitt
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: FBI to Hillary Clinton -- You are innocent.
Let`s play HARDBALL.
Good evening. I`m Chris Matthews in New York.
Well, just hours to go until election day comes breaking news from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Director James Comey late today told every member of Congress that the FBI has found no evidence of any wrongdoing by presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. She is clean of any possible charge, innocent, after the FBI has looked at all the e-mails on Anthony Weiner laptop.
That`s the blockbuster. After combing through all the e-mails, the FBI now realizes that those e-mails sent or received by Clinton during the time she was secretary of state are either duplicates of ones discovered earlier or have nothing to do with State Department business.
Nine days ago, FBI director James Comey rocked the election with the announcement to Congress that the bureau was essentially reopening the investigation into Hillary Clinton`s use of personal e-mails. The announcement came after e-mails were discovered on a computer used by Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband, Anthony Weiner. It was the equivalent of nuclear bomb at that point.
Well, today, the FBI director has rocked the race again, giving Clinton a clean bill of health. In his letter to Congress, Comey said, "Based on our review, we have not changed our conclusions that we expressed in July with respect to Secretary Clinton." In other words, he`s cleared her.
According to NBC`s Pete Williams, the FBI concluded that nearly all the e- mails on Weiner`s computer were duplicates of e-mails previously sent (sic) by agents, or otherwise, they were unrelated to government business, as I said.
Neither Clinton nor Donald Trump reacted to the news yet. But Clinton`s communications director, Jennifer Palmieri, had this to say to reporters earlier today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JENNIFER PALMIERI, CLINTON CAMPAIGN COMMUNICATIONS DIR.: We have seen Director Comey`s latest letter to the Hill. We are glad to see that as we were -- that he has found, as we were confident that he would, that he has confirmed the conclusions that he released -- reached in July. And we`re glad that this matter is resolved.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Well, joining me right now, "The Washington Post`s" Robert Costa, NBC`s Hallie Jackson and MEET THE PRESS moderator Chuck Todd and NBC`s Andrea Mitchell also -- she`s doing a report on MSNBC. Thank you very much. She`s up in Manchester, New Hampshire, where Hillary Clinton is holding a rally today.
I want to go to you, Andrea. Is Hillary Clinton playing this low key? Do they not want to be -- have this exoneration, if you will, the last 48 hours, be the main story?
ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC CORRESPONDENT: What they`re doing is trying to stay as far away from the e-mail controversy that has cast a shadow over their campaign for the past nine days. So she did not mention it in Cleveland. We`re told she will not mention it when she comes here.
She`s trying to get back to -- trying to end on a positive note. They are planning to have Khizr Khan, the Gold Star father, introduce here. In Cleveland, it was Lebron James.
They want to get back to their message, but there is -- it`s undeniable that this has damaged their campaign, that they had to pivot from a positive message to go on the attack to try to defend herself for the past nine days. And it has certainly given more momentum to Republicans in states like New Hampshire.
MATTHEWS: Well, wait a minute. She`s been completely exonerated today. Why doesn`t she gets up to date? She`s clean as of now. Why doesn`t she brag, spike the football and say, I`m clean as a whistle, I won this argument? Why doesn`t she do that?
MITCHELL: They think (INAUDIBLE) that any time she`s talking about e-mails is a negative. Let her talk about bringing the country together. She`s got a two-minute paid ad on NBC and CBS tomorrow night.
I think you can understand the strategy. They`ve been playing defense for nine days and going on the attack against Donald Trump. All that negativity has caused her the support, they believe, of many Republican women, suburban women, other independents in swing states like New Hampshire, which decides late.
The less she talks about all of that and the personal server and everything else that some of the Trump people, Mike Pence, are still talking about tonight, even after the exoneration, the worse off she is.
MATTHEWS: OK...
MITCHELL: For them, they want to get back on message with Lebron James and Khizr Khan...
MATTHEWS: I get it.
MITCHELL: ... and a closing paid video.
MATTHEWS: Hold on there, Andrea. I just want to go to Chuck. Chuck, it seems to me that she would want to drive that news out as far as she could, make sure the next 24 hours, everybody hears that she`s been cleared. Why not push it?
CHUCK TODD, MODERATOR, "MEET THE PRESS": Because then you`re talking about the FBI and e-mails. I mean, I think you`re still reminding people that, You know what -- and to me, the thing that always was the bigger negative for her on the Comey announcement was it was the reminder that with the Clintons come drama because that was the reaction I heard from some voters.
And I remember having (INAUDIBLE) which was people that even -- that were going to still vote for Clinton, it`s, like, the -- Oh, it`s always so exhausting with the Clintons. And even folks would say, Yes, it may be the Republicans` fault, but they`re the magnet for this stuff. Why are they always the magnet for it? Somehow, the Obamas are not the same level of magnet for all of these investigations and things like that.
So you know, I think that to talk about it more? I mean, look, it`s done damage. It`s probably cost Democrats one, maybe two Senate seats these nine days. They still may get control, but it`s hurt them.
MATTHEWS: Hallie?
HALLIE JACKSON, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well, I`m not...
(CROSSTALK)
I mean, that`s the real story, right? Why is she not talking about it? Because her supporters never believed that she actually had an issue with it, the people that are at her rallies, and the media`s going to talk about it because it`s in she headlines. So she doesn`t...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... counting on the media to carry the story...
JACKSON: Yes, she doesn`t need to get out there.
MATTHEWS: ... on the front page tomorrow.
JACKSON: But the story that Chuck`s talking I think is the real one, is how does this affect down ballot races? And I think you`re already starting to see some talk about that, about what does this do now? Does it put them sort of more at risk? Probably not. But there was a lot of discussion when this first happened of what it could do and frankly boost some of the Republicans (INAUDIBLE)
TODD: There`s two -- there`s two that are extraordinarily close that, you know, any tiny movement -- and that to me is...
MATTHEWS: Missouri?
TODD: Less Missouri...
MATTHEWS: North Carolina?
TODD: ... more North Carolina and New Hampshire. I think that`s where it would have the most (INAUDIBLE)
ROBERT COSTA, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: How moderate Republicans...
MATTHEWS: Wait a minute. Which way is Missouri now? You think it`s...
TODD: I think Missouri is -- I think this...
MATTHEWS: Kander?
TODD: I think Comey -- no, I think Blunt is being bailed out by a Trump surge in rural America.
COSTA: Well, part of that surge, and I saw when I drove across Pennsylvania the last few days, was it seemed like moderate Republicans, Republicans were on the fence. They were tilted toward Trump because of what the FBI did last week. Now with the FBI coming out and saying it`s a different story, you want to do (ph) those moderate Republicans who a few days ago were saying, I`m going to go for Trump now because I just can`t have Clinton in there. Do they stay home? Do they go for her? Do they -- what do they do? Does Trump`s turnout actually get changed?
TODD: See, I think they already voted.
MATTHEWS: Well...
TODD: A lot of them early voted. You know, the only ones left -- that`s why the only one left really may be New Hampshire.
MATTHEWS: I`m just looking at this -- Andrea, I want you back in here. I`m looking at this race as it was moving towards Hillary, the moments (sic) with her -- the momentum with her until Friday a week ago, two Fridays ago. And all of a sudden, it was like in the -- like in the World Series the last game, somebody hits a three-run home run, Comey. All of a sudden, the whole direction of the thing is back to even money again.
And then, of course, Hillary overran that. By Wednesday, she was getting back her pace, picking up a point or two a day. She had outrun this thing. Do they feel they already outran this thing, so they didn`t have to jump and make a big deal about the decision by Comey to exonerate her tonight?
MITCHELL: Well, they frankly, because of all those leaks, Rudy Giuliani and all the rest -- they frankly did not that this would be so (ph) before the election. So they had come up with an alternative strategy.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MITCHELL: Go on the attack and then try to ride the closing days and get all -- flood the zone with President Obama, Michelle Obama, all of the surrogates out there.
Now I think that they want to just stick on anything that does not remind people, as Chuck said, that she had a private server. That`s what the -- what some would call the original sin that she can`t really properly explain.
MATTHEWS: Yes.
MITCHELL: She`s apologized now for it. So...
(CROSSTALK)
MITCHELL: ... the more she...
TODD: Can`t blame the FBI...
MITCHELL: The more she talks about...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: So the Clinton plan, just to stay on her for a minute now, has changed three or four times. The original goal, we`re told, was a big high road ending. They go low, we go high. Then it was, We got to do the thing they did back with -- back in the old days of Monica, We just have to win. Remember that line from Clinton, Mr. Clinton? We just have to win.
So then they came (ph) the strategy of flood the zone, do all the political stuff you need to overcome it. And then it -- now we`re again tonight back to high road, right?
COSTA: Well, I don`t know about high road. I think it`s ignore the bad and just grind out these last 48 hours. Just let the machine do the work.
MATTHEWS: So it`s a hybrid between high road and grinding it out on the road.
(CROSSTALK)
COSTA: ... run against the Republican Party right now, if you`re the Democrats and Secretary Clinton, because you can look ahead and say, Republicans want to investigate. Is this what you really want? The FBI has cleared me. We`re safe here. We`re looking at a culture in Washington that`s all about investigations. Let`s move beyond that, elect Democrats and elect Clinton.
TODD: You know, by the way, that is something we haven`t talked about, is it takes some air out of Trump`s closing argument. I mean, Comey gave Trump a cohesive closing argument of, essentially, Hey, you don`t want all of this Clinton mess. She`s going to investigated the whole time she`s there, and all this stuff. So it does take a little bit of air out of that balloon for Trump.
MATTHEWS: You`ve just anticipated my closing argument tonight because I`ve already written it. And I basically said this was his closing argument, and it was founded on this FBI report that they`re still looking at the e- mails.
TODD: Right.
MATTHEWS: And he was able to say that`s evidence in itself...
TODD: Look at the...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... an egregious crime, worse than Watergate, the fact that they`re looking at e-mails.
TODD: Look at the TV ad with Weiner, which -- the pervert thing, which...
MATTHEWS: That`s strong.
TODD: It was a strong ad. It was -- it certainly stuck out. Now it`s irrelevant.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: OK, look, here`s -- since Comey`s first announcement nine days ago, Trump has made it a centerpiece of his closing argument. Let`s watch that. That`s what we`re talking about.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: The FBI would never have reopened this case at this time unless it were a most egregious criminal offense.
This is the biggest scandal since Watergate.
She`s likely to be under investigation for many, many years. Also likely to conclude in a criminal trial. This is not what we need in this country, folks. The work of government would grind to halt if she were ever elected. She`ll be in court for her entire tenure. And she`ll be convicted!
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Hallie, what`s this do to this whole line of argument that we`ve been hearing?
JACKSON: Nothing.
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: Look at what happened. He`s still talking about what he calls a potential indictment against Hillary Clinton, even though there`s no evidence to support that.
MATTHEWS: Based on?
JACKSON: (INAUDIBLE) came out on a different network, it was then walked back, that there wasn`t going to be an indictment.
MATTHEWS: FBI leaks.
JACKSON: So he`s going to keep talking about it. He`s going to keep talking about her corruption. What I think this did for him was teach him, I think, more than any other moment in this campaign, that if he really does what all of his advisers have been wanting him to do, which is stay on message, that you would see some of the polls tighten. He gave himself that pep talk about it. His supporters...
(CROSSTALK)
JACKSON: Well, the race is tight. He`s going after her constantly. He`s going after Affordable Care Act constantly.
COSTA: The thing that we`re also hearing in Trump`s closing message is it`s anti-Clinton, but it`s just also this brutal (ph) populism and nationalism that Steve Bannon`s whispering in his ear. And that`s part of this two-minute closing ad you see from Trump. He thinks that`s -- the reason he`s going to Minnesota, he`s going to all these blue states, he think if there`s a record turnout of white working class people, he could somehow have a narrow path to victory. That`s the way they`re thinking about it.
MATTHEWS: Chuck, the people in the Clinton campaign apparently believe they`ve been able to thwart him, to prevent him from talking his message, that he`s been able to -- he`s been so busy talking this stuff, he hasn`t been able to talk about the reason he was up to 40 percent, the reason he beat 16 guys in the primaries -- he hasn`t been able to talk about trade, illegal immigration and wars.
TODD: No, he did make the mistake -- frankly, this is sort of a similar mistake that Mitt Romney made in the last month of the campaign in 2012, which is follow the news cycle. You know, news cycle candidates -- I mean, and there`s some -- you know, there`s some of our colleagues in punditry that sit here and talk about who wins the news cycle, those things matter.
No, it doesn`t. You get caught following the news cycle, it can feel good in the moment. It`s like taking, like, a B-12 shot, but it doesn`t last.
And fundamentals matter more in the long run. There were larger fundamental issues in this country that Trump was tapping into correctly, and he got off the message a little bit long-term.
You know, they almost got around to it a little bit -- but you know, Bannon -- Bannon`s problem is he`s got one part of it right, the populism. The conspiratorial and sort of weird allusions to some anti-semitism...
MATTHEWS: I saw that in the ad, yes.
TODD: ... that is stuff that is just going to cost him the ability to go mainstream...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: That`s not a 51 percent strategy.
Andrea Mitchell, has Trump been able to stick to his message, or has he gotten caught in investigative politics, which is fun but it gets you off your positive message for being president of the United States?
MITCHELL: I think probably so, especially because of the way this has turned out. Just one point. In Cleveland tonight with Lebron James, of all people, Hillary Clinton said, Look, I know there`s anger out there and I know a lot of it is directed at me. But anger is not a plan. We have to get past that.
That`s the closest she`s coming to acknowledging the problem and the change message that she`s not been able to have, of course, because Donald Trump is change. She isn`t change. But she`s trying to talk more positively.
And finally, she`s got all these surrogates, these celebrities, Beyonce, Katy Perry, and now they`ve announced tomorrow night not only Bill Clinton, and of course, Michelle and Barack Obama, but Bruce Springsteen in Philadelphia...
MATTHEWS: Yes, that`s going to be...
MITCHELL: ... at their closing rally.
MATTHEWS: ... a fascinating event tomorrow night. We`ll be covering it live with -- I think you`ll be with us. We`ll be there at...
MITCHELL: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: ... well, at Independence Mall (ph), right there on the reality of the greatest place in American history, Independence Hall. We`re going to be there, and we`re going to have Bon Jovi, of course, and...
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: ... E Street Band and a couple of Philly people here. You`re from the `burbs. Anyway...
(LAUGHTER)
MATTHEWS: Hallie Jackson and -- Robert Costa.
(CROSSTALK)
TODD: I`m a non-Philly (INAUDIBLE)
MATTHEWS: Coming up -- well, you also count, Chuck. You`re moderator of MEET THE PRESS.
Coming up we`ll get reaction to the FBI director`s announcement today, this clean bill of health -- do you believe it? What a story the Sunday before an election! She`s clean as a whistle, clean as a hound`s tooth, as General Eisenhower used to day. Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway`s going to come with us in a moment, plus Democratic congressman Elijah Cummings. They may disagree.
This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.
Well, last week, Donald Trump praised FBI director James Comey and his decision to continue investigating -- continue to investigate Hillary Clinton`s e-mails.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I have to give the FBI credit. That was so bad what happened originally, and it took guts for Director Comey to make the move that he made in light of the kind of opposition he had, where they`re trying to protect her from criminal prosecution.
What he did, he brought back his reputation. He brought it back.
He`s got to hang tough because there`s a lot -- a lot of people want him to do the wrong thing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: But now that Director Comey has announced today that the FBI has concluded the review of Clinton`s e-mails and has not changed its recommendation on -- that she should not face criminal charges, does he still -- Trump -- feel the same way about Comey that he did last week? Let`s ask Trump`s campaign manager, Kellyanne Conway, who joins us now.
Kellyanne, your view of this topsy-turvy situation regarding the FBI director. When he made his announcements in July, the conservatives and the Trump people didn`t like it at all. When he made the announcement two Fridays ago, the Democrats didn`t like it one way or the other. Now the Democrats are elated. They`re -- I don`t know, they`re popping the champagne bottles or whatever on the plane. They`re thrilled with this exoneration of their candidate.
What`s your reaction?
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP CAMPAIGN MANAGER: And why in the world did they go so viciously personally and professionally after Jim Comey and his reputation and his job performance when this was all announced? I mean, they basically spent all last week, Chris, for nine straight days impugning the integrity of Jim Comey only because they didn`t like his latest move.
I think that`s really unfortunate. Even the president of the United States got into the act, saying that, We don`t deal with innuendo, we don`t deal with speculation. We don`t -- this -- you shouldn`t be interfering with an election. So do they think that this announcement two days before the polls close is, quote, "interfering with an election"? And so I think that they just were way out of bounds in the vicious attack on Jim Comey because they didn`t like the result.
And look, we think the FBI investigation was mishandled from the beginning. That`s pretty obvious because we just learned overnight that she asked her maid to print out information that was classified. This woman does not have a security clearance. It`s not her fault. The woman was put in a bad position. But Hillary Clinton should know better.
We know that she left materials out in a hotel in China. We know there were materials on Huma`s front seat of the car. You know, the list goes on and on.
So I don`t think it changes what most people think about Hillary Clinton. Those who were defending her agreed with her that they had long ago made up their mind about the e-mails, but it also doesn`t change the minds of lots of swing voters and independents who just aren`t there, who just won`t put her at 50 percent in any of these blue states, where we now have them on the run. They`re following our lead. We scrambled the whole map the last couple of days to week, and they`re following us.
MATTHEWS: OK, let`s go back to...
CONWAY: It`s not like they`re saying, You know, we won`t go to Michigan tonight because of what Comey said. They`re in Michigan because we`re in Michigan.
MATTHEWS: Here`s Donald Trump. "The FBI would have never reopened the case at this time unless it were an egregious criminal offense. This is the biggest scandal since Watergate.
Does that still hold, what he said, those words, biggest scandal since Watergate...
CONWAY: A lot of people...
MATTHEWS: ... an egregious offense, when it turns out that all they did was decide to look at these e-mails. They didn`t decide it was an egregious offense, they just decided to look at the e-mails.
But your candidate said it was an egregious offense, worse than Watergate based upon the fact that the FBI bean to look at these subsequent e-mails.
Is he still saying that?
COMEY: He hasn`t said that in a while, but more to the point on the egregious criminal offense piece...
MATTHEWS: In a while?
COMEY: Many people said that, Chris. Many people said...
MATTHEWS: Well, he said it.
COMEY: Many people left, right and center said there must be something big there for him to reopen it or continue it, however the verbiage is, this close to an election. Now, I want to commend the FBI`s efficiency...
MATTHEWS: Well, what about now that they`ve said that they`ve exonerated Hillary Clinton, saying there`s nothing in the e-mails to justify any kind of prosecution, where is your candidate without his basis? He had a basis, he said, for charging her with the worst crime since Watergate. What`s his basis now for saying that?
COMEY: He didn`t say that tonight, but let me just remind you that...
MATTHEWS: He said this is the biggest scandal since Watergate. Donald Trump said that.
COMEY: He did at the time. But look...
MATTHEWS: You mean that doesn`t hold?
COMEY: Chris, if you want me to answer, let me know.
MATTHEWS: I`m asking you the question.
CONWAY: This doesn`t change anything.
MATTHEWS: Does he still believe...
CONWAY: OK, and here`s the answer...
MATTHEWS: Does he still believe that she`s committed a crime worse than Watergate?
COMEY: He said that one time, but the fact remains -- the facts remain that what she did, what Jim Comey said she did on July 12th under oath to that committee in front of Chairman Gowdy (sic) -- nothing changes.
I totally agree with Jim Comey today that nothing changes from the original conclusion. And let`s review -- that she lied about having the private server to begin with. She lied about what was on the server. She lied about classified information being on her e-mails. It was. Under oath, he also testified that she lied about using one device. She had used multiple devices.
So we believe everything he said under oath on July 7th, which was a pretty remarkable spectacle in and of itself, is still the truth. And that`s why a majority of Americans, including in your own MSNBC polling, don`t trust her.
MATTHEWS: OK.
CONWAY: They don`t think she`s trustworthy. That`s not going to change. It didn`t change last week, and it`s not going to change tonight.
MATTHEWS: If -- if Mr. Trump wins the election, does he want to have the FBI continue its investigation of these e-mails?
COMEY: I don`t know. We`ll have to see what happens. But the fact is, I mean, for a campaign and for conservatives who generally are critical of inefficiency of government and how slowly it moves, I have to really commend the efficiency of the FBI in this case because they read 650,000 e- mails or so in a very short period of time. That`s pretty remarkable.
MATTHEWS: But he said that the investigations going to continue ad infinitum, it`s going to end up in convictions and that`s going to screw up any Hillary Clinton administration. That is the way he -- I think it`s a very smart political statement to make because it suggests if you`re a Hillary person, why bother electing her because there`ll be just nothing but chaos and investigations the whole term.
Does he still believe that would be the case if she wins?
COMEY: But what would -- but what would -- what should he have said? He`s not the FBI. He`s not Director Comey. Director Comey made that decision, and Mr. Trump gave his opinion of it. I think it was a very -- it`s a very logical -- it`s a very logical opinion to have, conclusion to make.
MATTHEWS: OK.
CONWAY: And it does hurt her because she`s Hillary Clinton. Chris, the idea that people started to question Hillary Clinton`s ethical standards or the cloud of corruption that seems to follow her around -- the idea that that happened for the first time last Friday...
MATTHEWS: OK...
CONWAY: ... is a fiction.
MATTHEWS: OK, we`re going to right now...
CONWAY: People don`t trust her.
MATTHEWS: Thanks, Kellyanne. I`m sorry to interrupt you. I try to hear all your thoughts. We`re going right now to your candidate, Donald Trump. He`s on stage at a rally...
CONWAY: Awesome.
MATTHEWS: ... in Sterling Heights, Michigan. Let`s go to the Trump campaign.
TRUMP: The worst trade deal ever signed by any country ever, China`s Entry into the World Trade Organization, the job-killing deal with South Korea, another beauty that was a disaster. And Hillary now wants the Trans- Pacific Partnership. She calls it the gold standard.
(BOOS)
TRUMP: Hillary Clinton`s policies have devastated your automobile industry all to the benefit of special interests. We will put a stop to all of that on November 8th. Get out and vote, Michigan!
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: You know, I don`t know if you`ve been seeing what`s happening over the last week or so, but they are going well, the very dishonest media, the world`s most dishonest people.
(BOOS)
TRUMP: Today I was watching...
SUPPORTERS: CNN sucks! CNN sucks! CNN sucks!
TRUMP: They`re bad people. They`re bad people and they`re dishonest people. They don`t tell the truth. They don`t write the truth.
But I will say this. So I was watching the polls. We`re leading in Ohio. We`re leading in Iowa.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We`re leading in New Hampshire, just out.
MATTHEWS: That`s Donald Trump out in Michigan. Right now, we`re going to listen to what he says, and if he talks about FBI`s decision, we`re going to bring that to you live.
Joining me right now is U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland, who`s also the ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
Mr. Cummings has called for the Justice Department inspector general to investigate whether the FBI is leaking information that could benefit Donald Trump.
Mr. Cummings, thanks. It`s an honor to have you on, sir.
REP. ELIJAH CUMMINGS (D), MARYLAND: Good to be with you.
MATTHEWS: Where are you now, right now that the FBI has come out and basically -- not basically, clearly exonerated Hillary Clinton, saying there`s nothing in any of these e-mails, 650,000 of them, that even relates to anything more than a duplication of previously studied e-mails or household sort of things, nothing to do with the government?
CUMMINGS: Well, I`m glad that the FBI cleared that up. But I must say, Chris, it is very alarming that the -- Director Comey even put out that letter nine days ago. And I think that it was very vague. And keep in mind, a lot of people have already voted since that letter came out. And so we don`t know exactly how it may have affected them, but it does concern me.
And I still think that the inspector general should take a clear look at the FBI and try to figure out where are all these leaks coming from because in my 20 years of practicing law and my 20 years of being on this committee, I can tell you I have never seen a situation where we had so many leaks coming out of the FBI. And I think that we`ve got to take a look at that.
MATTHEWS: Let`s talk about the law. Suppose there`s a fellowship -- I imagine there is -- between -- among former and current FBI agents. So you retire at 65, or whatever, whatever the official age is. You retire and you keep in touch with your old men and women you worked with, and you call them up and say, at a party or something, you say, What`s happened back there? And they say something -- Well, we`re not happy about this investigation of Hillary Clinton, blah, blah, blah, and just in general terms say they`re steamed up.
Is that a criminal violation or is that just -- it`s shop talk?
CUMMINGS: I don`t think that`s a criminal violation, but it is not the way they are supposed to proceed. I mean, let`s look at what Mayor Giuliani did. What he did was, he took information from agents and then...
MATTHEWS: He says former agents.
CUMMINGS: ... he sort of laundered it...
MATTHEWS: He says former agents.
CUMMINGS: Yes, yes. I said he took information from former agents that he said they had been taken from current agents. Well, and then he puts that information out. Now, I know he`s denied things, he`s walked it back. But the thing is that what he basically did was launder the information from the current agents. And that`s just not the procedure.
I`ve talked to five or six people, Justice Department type and FBI type over the last day or so, and they told me they just -- that just doesn`t work that way and he shouldn`t have done that. So and...
MATTHEWS: How would you -- how would you track that. You know tracking a leak is difficult. There`s leaks on Capitol Hill all the time from staff people or members. How do you track a leak that`s so amorphous, that somebody talked to somebody...
CUMMINGS: Yes, I think...
MATTHEWS: ... who talked to Rudy Giuliani or some friend of Giuliani`s?
CUMMINGS: Yes. I got to tell you, I`m not sure. I mean, somebody`s got to look at it. (INAUDIBLE) I use Giuliani as one.
But Chris, keep in mind, come on now, we`ve had leaks coming out of the FBI almost every day, sometimes two and three times a day coming out. And at some point, that needs to be dealt with because we have a situation here in this country -- it`s not so much what the FBI eventually finds, just a person being under investigation can be extremely damaging.
Now, going to this case, we`ve got all of this information being leaked out about these cases. But again, that`s not fair. It was not fair to Hillary Clinton. She couldn`t defend herself against it.
And I`ve got to tell you that I think -- the one thing that I demanded of our committee and of the agencies that come under us, is I want them to be fair. I want them to be honest. And I want them to treat the American people appropriately.
ELIJAH CUMMINGS, U.S. CONGRESSMAN: The one thing I demanded of our committee and of the agencies that come under us is I want them to be fair. I want them to be honest. And I want them to treat the American people appropriately.
CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC ANCHOR: To make your point, we had a big politician in Philadelphia about 34 years ago, what a huge liable case for a leak coming out. It was given to local broadcasting affiliate. They put out the fact that he was going to be indicted. But he won a big killing on that because you can`t do that. You can`t just throw out the word that somebody is under indictment or something is coming when it`s not true. Anyway U.S. Congressman Elijah Cummings, thank you, sir.
CUMMINGS: Thank you.
MATTHEWS: Up next, we`re going to continue to follow our top story this Sunday surprise, November surprise had been well from the director of the FBI, did the Clinton e-mail probe is over, kaput, good-bye, clean bill of health for Hillary Clinton from the FBI director himself, James Comey. What a show stopper tonight -- there`s two nights before the election.
Plus, reports of a surging, but this is the other big story. We thought would be the biggest story. Latino vote in key battleground states like Nevada, Hispanic people and Latino people are voting big-time. And you can assume which way they`re voting based on who wants to be called rapists and murderers. Anyway that`s ahead. This is Hardball, a place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball. What Hillary Clinton needs to win on Tuesday night she`ll need a strong showing from her coalition of Hispanics, African-Americans and women of course. In this week at (inaudible) are reporting a surge of Hispanic voters out there already voting, according to "Politico" in Florida Hispanics have so far cast about 14 percent of the 5.7 million early and absentee ballots casts that puts Hispanics far ahead of where they were in casting early ballots back in `12.
Anyway when it comes to Nevada, Jon Ralston, we much respect right, Donald Trump may have been here this weekend believing in the polls that show him ahead are competitive here. Well, like Bruce Willis in the sixth sense he does not realize he is dead. Anyway that surge in the Hispanic vote was evident. The delays at a polling location out in Nevada were votes were processed until 10:00, Friday that`s just two nights ago to accommodate the long lines. Look at the lines there.
And last night chairman of Nevada`s Republican Party complained that the move keeping the lines open favored what he called a certain group of people. And Donald Trump further said, there`s evidence that the system is rigged. Here is GOP chair Michael McDonald followed by Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MICHAEL MCDONALD, NEVADA STATE GOP CHAIRMAN: They kept a poll open until 10:00 at night so a certain group could vote. The polls are supposed to close at 7:00. This was kept open until 10:00. Yeah, you feel free right now.
DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It`s been reported that certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County were kept opened for hours and hours beyond closing time to bus and bring Democratic voters in. Folks, it`s a rigged system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: I`m joined now by MSNBC Political Analyst, Maria Teresa Kumar of Voto Latino. And former RNC chairman, Michael Steele.
Well, let`s get to the facts here, the polling place is supposed to close at 8:00. They stayed open at 10:00 because there was a line at 8:00. So what we all know if you`re waiting in line anywhere in the country you get to vote. The charge is made apparently. The buses started arriving after 8:00.
Now, I don`t know how much give there is in a normal point. But if somebody is five or ten minutes late do they get grace periods or not. But he`s talking about busloads of people coming in to turn the results around.
MARIA TERESA KUMAR, VOTO LATINO: Except that no media outlet has reported that there has been busloads of people coming in. And I think, you know, I air on Don Austin, he was very clear and said he has not seen anybody that -- he hasn`t that there`s some shenanigans on the ground floor. And he was saying that basically people were already there in line. And if you`re in line you`re eligible to vote.
MATTHEWS: And why would they want to vote -- if you really want to get extra people in the vote, bring them tomorrow or the next day. I mean, anyway, go ahead.
MICHAEL STEELE, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: It`s very simple Chris, if you have a turnout operation you don`t worry about what the other team is doing.
KUMAR: Right.
STEELE: You get your vote to turn out. And that`s been the problem here.
MATTHEWS: Let`s talk politics.
KUMAR: That`s politics.
MATTHEWS: I argue that I believe, and I think you would accept, although you`re an advocate, there`s a legitimate need for real immigration policy which is rushed up progress in American. But we don`t have one. Instead of saying that, Trump could have said that. He did, he said rapists, murders. He blamed the immigrants himself for a lousy system, for failed system. He blamed them personally and then he criminalized them. That`s one way to get the other vote. And we had a guy in Philadelphia, Mayor Frank Rizzo.
STEELE: Oh, yeah.
MATTHEWS: . he walked around with a night stick in his cummerbund. And guess what he did, the highest increase in black registration history in the city, blacks out registered white people because of him. It sounds like trump.
KUMAR: Right. Well, I`m sure they registered because everybody keep saying, "Oh, Latinos coming out and voting because they`re offended with Trump." No. You -- Los Angeles County, Chris, you have 25 percent -- 24 percent increase in hate crimes. People in the Latino community are feeling under the gun. They`re feeling under pressure.
MATTHEWS: What kind of influence, draw the picture.
KUMAR: Everything from so -- in the high school -- in the town where I went to high school, in -- up in Northern California last week, there was ...
MATTHEWS: Watsonville.
KUMAR: No, no, no Windsor, California. So it was right -- so right by Santa Rosa.
So in that elementary school, they went up and said build the wall higher for a school that`s Spanish dominant. That for parents is scary. All of a sudden people feel under pressure. Like I actually just show up that I`m American, I`m going to vote. For the immigrants that is going after undocumented immigrants live with 1.5 million American voters. This is personal.
STEELE: yeah. I still hold trump responsible.
KUMAR: Absolutely. No. But he said that.
STEELE: I think you approached the way you stated it, is what the smarter way. You come out. And you know what the concern is in the country. There`s no secret there for some time now we`ve been beating each other back and forth on the issue of immigration.
You come out and you lay down a forward-looking message. You don`t demonize. The one thing in politics you learn is, you don`t attack the very people that you ultimately going to need. You know, you had a platform there, the autopsy which spoke very clearly about the direction the party wanted to go. I think the mistake made, and I`ve said this over and over again. Was that critical moment the party didn`t go to the Trump campaign and said, "Here`s a personalized copy of the autopsy. Read page 47 to 57 and understand exactly where we`re going from 2000 .
MATTHEWS: Can you see in Trump?
KUMAR: Well, I mean like -- but if I -- but don`t anger immigrants and don`t anger women.
MATTHEWS: Well, first thing he did was he said the president of the United States who is African-American, the first one ever, he kept forgetting is an illegal immigrant.
STEELE: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: That`s the first thing he did.
STEELE: That was worse than illegal immigrant.
KUMAR: Well, the Republicans are going to have a really big hard time on their hands because in Orlando County alone, they had a 29 percent increase of first time Latino voters. Trump is effectively expanded the electorate base for the Republican and Democrats.
STEELE: A lot of those people could be Republicans.
KUMAR: Not in Orlando.
(CROSSTALK)
KUMAR: Mostly Puerto Rican.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, well Mexican-Americans I have a hunch have tremendous potential to be American conservative Republicans.
KUMAR: No.
STEELE: Just a little.
MATTHEWS: You want them all to be Democrats.
KUMAR: No, I don`t. I actually think that we need a two-party system. But in -- you had, depending on what generation you`re in, if you are third or fourth generation you`re more likely to lean Democratic versus if you`re first time.
STEELE: Well, that`s what goes wrong, that`s you`ve got to get them when they get here.
KUMAR: Right, awesome.
MATTHEWS: Michael Steele and Maria Teresa Kumar.
KUMAR: Like the Irish.
MATTHEWS: I disbelieve, they don`t have a lot of great experience with government in Latin America. They don`t have to be pro big government.
STEELE: Right.
MATTHEWS: I would think they`re pro-entrepreneurial for small business very much, a very much a Republican opportunity. And I do believe in an active two-party system in all communities.
Up next, Steve Kornacki joins with the look at where things stand in the battleground map and which states are so close right now with today`s all clear from the FBI, the exoneration for Hillary Clinton could tip the balance towards Clinton. I got to believe, there`s four or five states like that where she could win just because of what Comey said today, that she`s clean.
Here is the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back harbor, with two days to go. Let`s take a look at the latest battleground map. MSNBC Political Correspondent, Steve Kornacki`s at the wall. I love that with the latest, you`re at the wall. Go ahead.
STEVE KORNACKI, MSNBC POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: All right Chris. Well, let`s take you through, look, we have Clinton right now, you see 268 in pretty good position in states adding up to 268. So the bottom line in terms of where this race is, if you`re Donald Trump how you can pull off an upset win here. Basically look at it this way. If she`s at 268 and you`re Trump, everything that`s gray on here, consider that sort of a toss-up, a battleground right now. You`re going to sweep it. You`ve got to win everything that is gray on this map. If you slip up anywhere Clinton goes over 270. She`s the president elect.
And the problem for the Trump campaign, what they are seeing is they are getting some alarming indications from some of the early vote, from some of the demographics we`re seeing in these states, particularly Nevada, also Florida, and so with the Trump campaign is looking at this and saying "Look, if we don`t sweep all these states we`ve got to pull a rabbit out of the hat somewhere. We`ve got to start flipping some blue states."
And so that`s what you see here. Donald Trump today, where is he campaigning? We`re talking about Minnesota, I think that thing here. Talking about Minnesota, Michigan, Pennsylvania, even looking in Virginia, from the Trump campaign`s perspective, what do they see that would make them look at blue states? Some of which haven`t gone red in a long time.
What you`re seeing, I`m just saying these are long shots, and Minnesota is an ultralong shot. But what the Trump campaign is been seeing is unusual strength in rural areas, unusual strength with sort of white non-college voters. So they look in Minnesota. They look at like the iron range in Minnesota. They look at the Upper Peninsula in Michigan. They look at McComb County outside Detroit. They look at the rural parts of Pennsylvania. They look at Southwest Virginia. And they say, "Hey, maybe, maybe we can run up the score there in ways nobody expected, ways we haven`t seen before and we could pull a surprise in one of these blue states."
Make no mistake about it. It`s a real long shot in Michigan. It is an ultra, ultralong shot in Minnesota. But if you`re in the Trump campaign and these gray states start disappearing, you lose them to Hillary Clinton. The only thing you`re left with is pulling off a miracle in some of these Roosevelt states.
MATTHEWS: Steve Kornacki, that`s so great, thank you.
Just moments ago there`s rally in Michigan, Donald Trump addressed the FBI`s all clear. Let`s catch that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The investigations into her crimes will go on for a long, long time. The rank and file special agents at the FBI won`t let her get away with her terrible crimes, including the deletion of 33,000 e-mails after receiving a congressional subpoena. They forget about all of this.
Right now she`s being protected by a rigged system. It`s a totally rigged system. I`ve been saying it for a long time. You can`t review 650,000 new e-mails in eight days. You can`t do it, folks. Hillary Clinton is guilty. She knows it. The FBI knows it. The people know it. And now it`s up to the American people to deliver justice at the ballot box on November 8th.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: So let`s bring in the roundtable right now. MSNBC`s Kasie Hunt has been all over the country with these guys. Harold what a year for you, what a year. And Harold Ford is a former Democratic ties in the future way ahead of him. He`s from Tennessee. But who knows where next. And he a visiting professor at University of Michigan School of Public Policy and Tony Schwartz is the co-author of Donald Trump`s "The Art of the Deal."
You know what strikes me, when were listening to Steve there. And he`s the best of any of the networks. This town versus gown thing, so is it for Democrats who believe in smaller Democrat like you do, congressman, you want to be the peer person who looks for the little people, the people who had a problem, like didn`t have a break to go to college, any college, right.
And then here we have Democrats saying, wherever we have college graduates we win. Wherever they don`t then go to college, those damn Republicans are going "What happened to the idea of party of the little people. What happened to that -- have we become the anti-Archie Bunker party? Is that what the Democrats are, the anti for the little people?"
KASIE HUNT, COVERING THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN: No.
MATTHEWS: Roosevelt was for the forgotten men. The Democrats now being -- seem to be for the Ivy League man, don`t you think? I could have just said.
HUNT: Look, I think that the Trump is losing those people. Those typically are people who vote Republican. And Trump is losing more of them. He`s losing in greater degrees in those groups.
MATTHEWS: Which groups?
HUNT: In your Ivy League, married white wealthy people.
MATTHEWS: . because look, what we just went through. The parts of Michigan, McComb County, you go to run the iron works whatever it`s called up there, Minnesota. You go down to West Virginia. It`s all those places that didn`t make it.
HUNT: Right, but those are the people who are upset about trade and NAFTA. Those are people able to, you know, get a union job. It`s really, that`s what it is, it`s the decimation of unions. And the ability for those people to have, you know, strong manufacturing jobs. I mean that was as, you know, the core organizing principle.
MATTHEWS: Harold, one issue that they say can break the voter right now is, did you finished college. If you`ve got finished college, you finish college you had the break to go to school. Your parents helped you, whatever. You`re going to vote for Hillary Clinton. If you didn`t you`re probably going to vote for Trump. It`s to me, it`s an amazing change in American politics.
HAROLD FORD, JR. (D-TN) FMR. U.S. CONGRESSMAN: There`s no doubt. The late `80s to early `90s when Clinton the emerged as -- some of the Democratic voice and the Democratic leadership councils all in effort to show that I`m a part of the Democrat that we can manage government. We would not run up big deficits. We understood the limits of government.
And as a part of that, the business community became more integrated to the party. And over a period of time that continued even under George W. Bush it continued. I consider Sanders and Trump as being candidate who represent this rebellious. And it`s rebellious who takes on a negative tone. It`s really the tone of Tony Schwartz, there are number of people who`s going to your point who feel left behind, who been left out. And frankly, who feel looked down upon.
Now, Trump is an interesting vessel.
MATTHEWS: So how he would does that.
FORD: He`s an interesting vessel because Tony has written about this and can speak to this better than I can. He knows him far better. But this is a vessel, and Donald Trump who you would not have constructed from the -- in the abstract as being the person or force that could pull this together.
And Secretary Clinton took the irony in all of these. She understands this, I mean because, if she`s elected which I believe she will be, she will help to re-empower and I think raise wages for .
MATTHEWS: She calls them deplorables.
HUNT: These were her people in 2008. They were her people.
MATTHEWS: She didn`t call them deplorables. She called some of the .
FORD: She called David Duke and that group deplorable. She was not calling all of his supporter, I think that`s unfair.
And she should not have said it and she apologized for it. But I don`t think that`s what .
MATTHEWS: The last word was unfair. Not me reminding her of it. But go ahead.
HUNT: I think there are plenty of .
MATTHEWS: I`m sorry.
HUNT: I think there are plenty of people who support Trump who, you know, would not want to lump themselves into that part or the Republican Party as well.
MATTHEWS: You know the elite people for Trump.
HUNT: Elite people for Trump.
MATTHEWS: Yeah.
FORD: I mean like schools, that sort of thing.
MATTHEWS: I do there a lot.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: OK. You nailed the one. OK. And let me talk to Tony, this thing about the map here because it looks like Trump`s going to lose in like his last bash of support are people that didn`t get the breaks. It`s ironic because he`s a billionaire.
TONY SCHWARTZ, TRUMP GHOSTWRITER: Well, you know, it`s funny because you`re actually leaving out. You`re referring to the white people who didn`t get breaks. The -- there`s overwhelming support and attention to everybody who Trump had disced. And who Hillary had those. We see in a fitting potential irony or end game that the Latino vote probably is going to be the thing that provides the firewall or pushes Hillary over the top and we`re not talking in that community about an enormous percentage of very wealthy people.
MATTHEWS: Well, why are the Democrats capable of winning minority support on economic issues and they can`t win white supporters on economic issues from the same class basically?
FORD: But I think that`s a little unfair there. They are winning. This is the first time we`ve seen an election where these kind of demographics are being discussed as loudly as Kornacki just said.
MATTHEWS: You`re sitting with John Lindsey back in the `60s. You had working vast people Italians whatever, Irish, all ticked off at a liberal mayor. You know, that was part of that class thing back then.
FORD: And Reagan was a part of it too, with a lot of the Reagan Democrats. So when you have excesses either way, these things certainly happen but .
HUNT: And these voters rejected the Republican Party too. Don`t forget. I mean embracing Donald Trump is not an embrace of it`s -- of the -- if anything, when you look at this landscape stretched out, yes, Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are in many ways ideological opposites. But they`re driven in many ways by the same things. There are a lot more reasons why Hillary Clinton and Paul Ryan are more alike than Paul Ryan is like Donald Trump or that Hillary Clinton is like Bernie Sanders.
MATTHEWS: So where are we getting here with our politics?
HUNT: I think that`s really the question that I think. I mean look, Paul Ryan and his freedom caucus. He`s going to step into if Trump loses this thing, a giant mess that`s tearing the Republican Party apart. He`s going to have to decide, am I going to cut a deal with Hillary Clinton and push this farther away. And Hillary Clinton similarly, you already have progressives with Warren and Bernie Sanders threatening her on all kinds of issues.
MATTHEWS: If trump loses, guys, he`s still going to get about 40 percent, right? So where does that going to go after this election, the Republicans going to grab it back or the Democrats going to make a bid for it?
SCHWARTZ: Unfortunately, you`ve got two people here who are pundits and you don`t need one more. What I do think is that at a broader level, it`s a -- it is a true clash of civilization and we are at where that 47 percent represents a group of people who for whom either capitalism as we know it, market free market capitalism and even to some extent, the traditional notions of democracy have failed. And that includes millennials who are coming, who are yet to have jobs. And so I think that you`re going to see a realignment win or lose, that is very dramatic.
MATTHEWS: How do we get bake the Roosevelt coalition on the democratic side which included all of those forgotten man and white .
FORD: You lead and deliver to your point about Paul Ryan. I think she needs a partner in the House and the Senate to get something done if she`s elected. I believe she`ll be elected that night. I hope she talks about winning the trust of Americans who have not trusted her for reasons. I hope she`s that one who represents all.
MATTHEWS: She did that tonight.
FORD: She start -- I thought that was the most important part of her speech and I think the most important pivot that`s happened in this campaign a long time. If she stays there, not unless you have Paul Ryan perhaps as ally, she might even have progressives. And for that matter other conservatives. But this happens in cycles. I appreciate some of the dramatic talk around where we are. But politics in America is about leadership. If you can lead during moments of crisis, people respond.
I also think the next president is going to have a foreign policy, a set of foreign policy challenges that have eluded the conversation here in the last couple of weeks for obvious reasons. We`re going to have to make choices about Syria, make choices about the South China Sea, make choices in other part of the world that frankly have not been talked about in a serious way in the latter part of this campaign. And Secretary Clinton is uniquely poised in position.
MATTHEWS: And by the way I think Monday morning after the election, I`ve said this before personally.
SCHWARTZ: Tuesday morning. Wednesday morning.
MATTHEWS: Wednesday morning. You`re being so helpful here, being unfair. I get the days wrong. It is late. All I can say is .
SCHWARTZ: You sound like Trump.
HUNT: We forgive you. I can`t remember where I was yesterday.
MATTHEWS: No, I really do think it`s all. But you`re suggesting it`s all about negotiation and rebuilding and people like Hillary Clinton as the leader, she`s the president or Trump even.
HUNT: And that`s going to be the challenge on both sides. Because Hillary Clinton when she was in the Senate, she proved that she could make Republican allies and she could learn to work with them. She`s going to have to decide .
FORD: Even people who impeached her husband.
HUNT: Right, she`s going to have to decide, "OK, am I going to be willing to anger my progressive base." And Paul Ryan is going to have to decide, "Hey, am I going to work with this woman that is frankly has become a totally toxic brand with basically everyone."
MATTHEWS: He has to decided whether he wants to be a great speaker running for president. I`m not sure he can do both. That`s going to be .
SCHWARTZ: I think the second question on Wednesday morning assuming that Hillary does win is really what is Trump going to do because you cannot underestimate amount of range building in this man. And that rage personally and it`s not .
MATTHEWS: You bet he`ll concede?
SCHWARTZ: No. I bet he will not concede. The one exception I`d say to that is if they -- if it goes more than 6 percent and 300 something electoral votes and there`s really actually not any room to do it. But the odds if it`s in any way close are that he will not and I think what happens to his rage, which he`s been able to, you know, use in the sort of stoking the fire, the rage of other people is the second big question.
What is it going to be like, starting with if he doesn`t concede and after that, is he going to try to get those people to whip those people into a frenzy.
MATTHEWS: OK, I think you`re right. But one thing, I don`t think he wants to walk away from his audience.
SCHWARTZ: I don`t think he wants to walk away from an audience. He must have an audience.
HUNT: I don`t think that he has by conceding. But I do think that this is potentially the biggest impact of that FBI news of what James Comey decided to do. And it`s because before he did that, they were talking about exactly what you mentioned. They were saying we`re going win this election. Our challenge now is to win this so big that he has to concede. The conversation is totally different now.
FORD: We move beyond George Bush. We will move beyond Donald Trump.
(CROSSTALK)
MATTHEWS: . clear result, one way or the other Tuesday night an he does behave. Anyway, Kasie Hunt, thank you, and Harold Ford and Tony Schwartz.
We`re not done. Another hour, the specialist of Harvard is coming up at the top of the hour. We`ll be right back. Our guest will actually improve the next hour, just kidding. You`re watching Hardball, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAL)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to a second hour, this special Sunday night edition of Hard Ball and what a night to have a night. Anyway, Clinton campaign aides were described as elated over the breaking news from FBI today. It was an all clear from James Comey. In a letter to every member of Congress, the FBI Director said the Bureau, the FBI has finished examining all the new e-mails discovered on a computer belonging to Clinton aide Huma Abedin and her estranged husband -- her estranged husband as well, Anthony Weiner. And nothing has changed his original conclusion. The Director`s in conclusion, this summer that Clinton remains cleared.
For the second time in two week, Director Comey and his FBI were at the center of a major political bombshell. Well today, Newt Gingrich accused Comey of caving under quote "enormous political pressure". And Donald Trump said, the FBI knows and what he means by this, knows Clinton is guilty. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: The investigation into her crimes will go on for a long, long, long time. The rank and file Special Agents at the FBI won`t let her get away with her terrible crimes including the deletion of 33,000 e-mails after receiving a congressional subpoena. They forget about all of this. Right now, she`s being protected by a rigged system. It`s a totally rigged system. I`ve been saying that for a long time.
You can`t review 650,000 new e-mails in eight days. You can`t do it folks. Hillary Clinton is guilty. She knows it. The FBI knows it. The people know it. And now, it`s up to the American people to deliver justice at the ballot box on November 8th.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: OK, meanwhile, Hillary Clinton`s running mate said the entire episode raised quote a lot of questions. Let`s watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA), VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think there`s still a lot of questions about it. But that kind of how it happened and why it happened and, you know, obviously altered dynamic for a few day. But we did have the confidence when we were surprised with it two Fridays ago that we would be back in place because they spent so much time looking at it and reached a conclusion so unequivocal. So, we`re glad to get that news, but not surprised.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: It`s clear the Clinton campaign want to keep Comey a base on the ground on this one. Joining me right now with latest is MSNBC News, Justice Correspondent Pete Williams, Huffington Post Global Editorial Director, Howard Fineman, MSNBC`s Joy Reid, the host of AM Joy.
Pete, it seems to me that it`s a pretty clear, they`ve cleared her.
PETE WILLIAMS, NBC CORRESPONDENT: Well they`ve said they`ve gone through the e-mails. But that part of it looking at these e-mails that were on Anthony Weiner`s computer is over. In other words this is not interim report. This is not halftime. They are -- they have finished their analysis of the e-mails that the Director said -- told Congress two Fridays ago they were going to be doing.
MATTHEWS: 650,000 e-mails, how did they reduce it down to a number they could examine?
WILLIAMS: Well remember, 650 is the total number of e-mails on the laptop. So first, you window it down to those that belong to Huma Abedin, then you window it down to those to and from Hillary Clinton while she`s Secretary of State. And then you begin to go the automated process to see how many of they -- they call it deduping to see how many of the e-mails on the laptop they had looked at and matched those in their database.
Once they had done that, then they looked at what they had left and some turned out to be social messages, you know, what time do you want me to pick you kind of thing. And then they did have to look at some and some e- mails were told do forward e-mails that had previously been described as containing classified information. But fundamentally, they say they don`t find new classified documents that they were not aware of before.
MATTHEWS: All right, it looks like to me, case closed. The one we were talking about two Fridays ago was reopened or continued and then they said well, whatever reason we had for doing that two Fridays ago, is kaput now. There`s no reason to believe she`s guilty and I say that because Trump has been so clear saying she`s guilty because they continued this investigation. He said she was obviously guilty of o an egregious crime worse than Watergate. Now he has no evidence to say that.
HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTON POST: Well I would say that in addition to legally its case closed politically at this point, even though conservatives would disagree. Even though they say their still -- the FBI is still looking at the Clinton Foundation, et cetera, et cetera. But politically, a whole lot of Donald Trump`s closing argument, a whole lot of his last couple of weeks is built around the idea that there was that criminal conspiracy, criminal global conspiracy called the Clintons.
And that this investigation was evidence of the seriousness and the gravity and the earth shaking nature of it. Not the mention the fact that if it were to be ongoing, the Clinton Administration should it be elected would be crippled. Therefore, Donald Trump was saying, you can`t elect her because she will be a crippled President. You need me. Now that argument is knocked out from under him. I would think the Clintons though would just as soon we stop analyzing the whole story.
MATTHEWS: Yes, I know. That`s what I don`t understand. Why don`t they do it? Why don`t they do it like in a football game when you hit touch down at the last minute, you know, you spike the ball. You put on advance. Why don`t they want to do that?
FINEMAN: No -- well there are two reasons. First of all, they would just as soon not keep the story going any longer if they could. They want to go to Philly tomorrow. They want to end on a high not, a lot of her recent advertising has been positive as a matter of fact.
MATTHEWS: Well how recent, an hour ago?
FINEMAN: Well like last day or two, you know, little confidence there.
MATTHEWS: Would you take the high road or the low road? I`d take high road doesn`t exactly been happening.
FINEMAN: Yes, I know. Yes, there`s that and also, I think there`s a lot of resentment. They want to keep their options open about how they deal with Comey and the FBI afterwards.
MATTHEWS: Let`s get to cover points. One is I thought I think you agreed, that one of the reasons why Trump was playing it this way was to dishearten the Clinton voter.
JOY REID, MSNBC HOST, "AM JOY": Yes.
MATTHEWS: Saying to the person who wanted to vote for Clinton. Hey you put in there all there will be is investigations and probes and probably impeachment so don`t bother, suppression of the vote.
REID: Yes.
MATTHEWS: And now I don`t know, maybe that`s still in the air. I don`t know.
REID: And I think that was mostly aimed at Republican suburban women who were tempted to vote for Hillary Clinton because the reality is, you know, I`m sure that Kelly Ann Conway, anybody whose still in there that does campaigns and does this for a living is telling Trump, Democrats weren`t being swayed to suddenly vote for Donald Trump because if the Democrat didn`t believe this in the beginning and as a matter of fact, it energized Democrats because they felt Comey and once the Wayne Barrett and other reporting came out that you had some Pro-Trump people in the FBI pushing this stuff that actually energized Democrats. I think what the Trump campaigns --
MATTHEWS: What`s Wayne Barrett story?
REID: Well the story being essentially there`s a group of Pro Trump FBI agents in the field office in New York whose been pushing these investigations based on that book Clinton Cash. These are discredited book that`s tied to Steven Bannon because it`s written by God (ph).
MATTHEWS: But there is evidence there are some disgruntled agents, right?
REID: That there`s some disgruntled agents who are talking to Rudy Giuliani, that there`s this whole sort of conspiracy against Hillary Clinton inside the FBI. That energized Democrats as a matter of fact. I think what the Clinton campaign was concerned about is that you had nine days when Comey put out the letter then you have nine days of people voting -- actively voting based on that.
MATTHEWS: That`s right. That`s done.
REID: And that voting is already in the can. And so, even if he takes it back now -- I think a lot of people wondering, why didn`t he just -- why didn`t they just look at the e-mail, come to a conclusion and then it felt update Comey.
MATTHEWS: I`m sorry. Do you think there`s a power here and, you start. It`s hard to figure to this out. But if you had these nine days in which she`s been put under suspicion basically by the statement by the FBI director, is that a reversible?
WILLIAMS: You`re all better.
MATTHEWS: OK. You go Howard on this.
FINEMAN: All right. Well, I think Joy is absolutely right. The fact is in a state like Florida and then a lot of other states that had early voting. You can`t those nine days -- but you can`t take those days back --
MATTHEWS: Yes.
FINEMAN: And to the extent that the turnout maybe among young people. You mentioned suburban women. I would say also some young people, who love Bernie Sanders and who are looking for a reason not to vote for Hillary Clinton and be in love with Bernie forever. You know they might not have shown up. You`re not going to get those votes back necessarily.
Now that`s one reason why Hillary is focusing in the last days on places like Pennsylvania and Michigan and Virginia I believe, none of the three of which have early voting. So, this will be helpful -- this will be helpful to her in the last few days.
MATTHEWS: I want to go with you about the culture of the FBI because I think I`ve been trying to get the Democrats who criticize Comey to answer this question. Are they arguing there`s some outside Republican partisan influence on the FBI that caused him to make the report Friday a week ago? Or are they arguing there`s just conservative feel. I`ve said the FBI is not the Peace Corps. There`s conservative thinking within the organization. They are pro-prosecution. They are pro law and order.
What is your sense of the culture of the institution? Is it more likely that the push to go after Hillary Clinton if there was one was internal rather than being influenced by partisan from the outside?
WILLIAMS: Yes. Yes. And you have to remember, some of this is the typical field headquarters conflicts that happen in any business. It probably happens in the plumbing business, the insurance business. I can tell you, it happens in the network news business. When the field agents get started --
MATTHEWS: You mean like a reporter wants to get on the air.
WILLIAMS: Well whatever or they feel they know what the story is and the people of New York think they know better. I mean this is typical. So, you get the field agents who get started on the case. They think their almost there. They take it to main justice. The main justice says you`re not there.
I`ve seen it happen in the Boston Marathon Bombing Case when tree are agents who felt that others should have been charged other than -- that there were others involved Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his brother. And that main justice didn`t approve that. And agents get very upset about that.
So, you see some of that happening here. But I think it`s more the headquarters field dispute than it is any kind of political dispute.
MATTHEWS: Yes, I get it. The partisanship addressed toward the agency by people like Harry Reid saying, you know, there out to be a hat shack violation call here. I mean really? Hat shack is where you sit and you go after an agent because he`s involved in local politics and shouldn`t be doing it.
FINEMAN: Well I do think politics was part of looking at it from outside. I don`t really understand the internal workings of it.
MATTHEWS: You mean there were influences on the agency from --
FINEMAN: No, I think their influence is on -- no, I think James Comey in this effort to be seen as the ultimate non-political good cop used his considerable political skills to try to be that person. And I think he got in a little over ahead of the skis here because I think what he was worried about and tell me if I`m wrong that there would be a leak -- in other words, if he did not OK this investigation --
WILLIAMS: That`s exactly it. That`s exactly it.
FINEMAN: There would be -- there would be a leak. And the Republicans on the Hill who are already mad at him for not indicting Hillary to begin with would be on his case. And you can`t tell me I don`t think he wasn`t aware of that. And the other thing I`ve heard is that and I don`t know if Pete has heard the same thing. But the New York -- the relationship between the FBI field office in New York and the New York City cops, that the New York City Police are the ones telling Rudy a lot of what was going on.
MATTHEWS: You know what jumps at people on the Democrat side? I hear it. You hear it probably. Jason Chaffetz from Utah.
REID: Yes.
MATTHEWS: He seem to be so far ahead of this story. He comes out Wednesday before the FBI, a week ago .
REID: That`s right.
MATTHEWS: . and says, I`m now voting for Trump.
REID: Right.
MATTHEWS: The next day, apparently, the agents tell Comey what`s up and he puts it on Friday.
REID: Yes.
MATTHEWS: So he`s too, he`s a day ahead of Comey.
REID: He`s a day ahead of Comey.
MATTHEWS: And finally had seems because you she go, wait a minute, why is he all of sudden. That`s what I hear from supposition from people.
REID: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Also the other day -- today he was the first one out with the news.
REID: That`s right.
MATTHEWS: He always seems to have it right there.
REID: He always seems to have and so does Rudy Julgiuliani.
WILLIAMS: But I`m told that Jason Chaffetz has got no kind of heads up here. He did not know this letter was coming. And he said so --
MATTHEWS: So it`s coincidental that he announced for Trump the day before?
WILLIAMS: That part I don`t know about. But I know there are a lot f people who thought he tweeted it out before the letter went to the Hill and that`s not true.
MATTHEWS: I heard from a former Congressman from New Jersey told me. He calls you out and says, `How did (INAUDIBLE) is still two days ahead. I`ll tell you guy`s name later.
REID: Yes. But I think what Democrat and you do have now Elijah Cummings and John Conners calling for the Inspector General of the Department of Justice to look into this and into what Comey did because when you talk to the former ethics lawyer for the Bush Whitehouse, the George W. Bush Whitehouse you know what he says, it`s not just Democrats are saying that Comey`s job is to resist that kind of pressure that you`re afraid of leaks. OK, that`s fine. But Comey`s job is not to intervene in an election and Comey ...
MATTHEWS: But what would you have said if he had done it -- well what would you have said if it had a leak?
REID: Well as we now know there`s nothing in the e-mail. So he would have of -- they would have done through actually done the work, done the investigation as the President said and then they could have sent a letter to Congress saying, "Look we have laptop. We found e-mails on it but there was nothing in them." So that is what he ended up saying anyway.
MATTHEWS: Supposed there had been noise coming of the FBI that was picked up by the major press that not only --
REID: But Republicans would have beat him up. That`s what he`s getting paid the big puck bucks for.
MATTHEWS: OK.
REID: That`s what he`s getting paid the big bucks for. He`s the head of the FBI. He`s not supposed to be a part of the election. He made himself apart of the election.
WILLIAMS: Two points. One is the question of whether he should have sent the letter itself which I think is basically what you talking about.
REID: Yes.
WILLIAMS: But the second point is what the letter said. and even if he had -- and even if you defend the decision to send it to Congress, if the letter had been perhaps a little less Delphic, a little more clear to say look we`ve got these e-mails. We don`t know if there`s anything`s in them. But look we`ll let you know. But by saying that they were -- they may be pertinent to the investigation .
FINEMAN: Right.
REID: Right.
WILLIAMS: . a loft people jumped on that and said there must be something there or they wouldn`t have done this.
MATTHEWS: Yes he did tell you that -- that the fact that people responded that way sort of threw the FBI for a loop. They thought they sent a letter that was terribly clear. And it may not have been.
FINEMAN: Well just saying he did is same thing on a grander scale in the original press conference where he said we`re not going to indict Hillary Clinton, but she was exceedingly careless.
REID: That here is all the ballot.
MATTHEWS: You know, the promise he didn`t put a constraint on the speculation.
REID: Right.
MATTHEWS: I know it sounds easy now, but he could have said something in addition that would have said but there`s no reason to believe that she`s guilty. There`s no reason to believe there`s reason to believe that she`s guilty but he didn`t want to do that.
REID: But all he had to do was behave the way he himself and the FBI have behaved with regard to the Trump side. I think part of the problem is the big difference with how the FBI is treating what a lot of believed are investigations into the Russian influences and the way --
WILLIAMS: I think there`s an explanation for that. The FBI had no choice on the e-mail investigation. It was a referral from the intelligence.
MATTHEWS: OK. You know I made a judgment about Comey a long time ago positively and in spite of that. So I`ve sort of thought my sense is he`s a good public official.
FINEMAN: I think he`s -- I think he is. I just think he`s been in a way he`s been too careful and too political to try to be non-political.
MATTHEWS: That could be it. We do that here sometimes.
FINEMAN: Yes.
MATTHEWS: Anyway we try to be perfect and we fail. Anyway, Pete Williams the best. Howard Fineman, the best and a much wider range of activity Joy. I know where you`re coming from, Joy. Where is that passion and she usually right?
Coming up, Donald Trump continues to rail against what he calls a rigged system. So what can we expect to see from him on election night? Will he concede if he loses and he says if he wins, he says if I won`t get. What did he say? If I win I`ll accept the results. That`s clever.
Any way this is -- and I think Annie Amin (ph) said that, too one. This is Hardball. The place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Well, it`s a four way race then too. It`s Thurmond, Truman and Wallace too. Anyway, welcome back to Hardball. That was NBC news calling the 1948 race President. Harry Truman in a very first election ever broadcasts on this medium. While the coverage of our (INAUDIBLE) takes its change over the years.
The country and the candidates have always accepted the will of the America people even in close elections. That was especially apparent in 1960 when John Kennedy narrowly defeated Richard Nixon. And here`s NBC`S coverage from the evening of election day followed by both candidates on the results.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Kennedy needs five more to go over the top. It could not be the State of Washington. It could be California. It could be New Mexico. It could be Illinois. The odds are that Kennedy will win.
RICHARD NIXON, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 1969-1974: There are some results still to come in. If the present trend continues Senator Kennedy will be the next President of the United States.
JOHN F. KENNEDY, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES 1961-1963: The election may be a close one. But I want to express my appreciation to all of them and to Mr. Nixon personally.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Anyway, by any measure, this Tuesday night coming up in two days will also be an historic election. It comes after the FBI first delivered in October surprise and then cleared -- cleared Hillary Clinton of any wrong doing just today. You might call that the November surprise. It comes as a foreign adversary. By the way Russia in this case not the Soviet Union, Russia attempts to weaken our confidence in the Democratic process here.
And it comes after one candidate, Donald Trump, has repeatedly called the election itself election rigged. That`s his word, rigged. Not least of all 2016 is historic because it could be the year that this county elects its first woman president.
I`m joined my people that know history. Former CBS New Anchor, Dan Rather, my friend now at AXIS TV. Political author and analyst, Jeff Greenfield at Politico and Susan Page, Washington Bureau Chief for USA Today. Bow to history here for these two guys. And Susan is the best we go got. But we got her all the time.
Dan, this election, I guess the extent question is, will Trump cause more trouble if he loses?
DAN RATHER, FORMER CBS NEW ANCHOR: Well he`s certainly capable of doing that and I think it`s very important to note we shouldn`t underestimate the danger of this talk of a rigged system. It goes to the very core of who we think we are as people which is basically what this election is about. If you listen to the voices of reason, after the election is over, the question is, what kind of country are we going to have? What kind of society are we going to be?
Listen, America at its core it`s always been steady, calm, tender country, peace loving people. Warriors when we have to be. That hasn`t gone by the board. All this talk about, you know, eventually, you`ll go this way and basically you go this way is all mildly interesting. But in the end, you need to pull back what we call in television a wide shot. What`s the election going to be about? And what it is what kind of country were going to have once it`s over.
MATTHEWS: Jeff, even Al Gore when he won the popular vote by about 600,000. He got a very questionable Supreme Court intervention gave the best speech of his life in 2000.
JEFF GREENFIELD, POLITICO: I think we`ve crossed the divide. And I have - - I`d love to be optimistic on the night before or two nights before the election. But I`m not. There are too many things that have happened already.
The fact that three senators, are some them says, have already said if Hillary is the next President, we can go four years without a Supreme Court nominee. Go back to 1991 and the most bitter confirmation fights ever with Clearance Thomas.
You know what? No Democrat suggested? Filibuster. It was not thought of.
MATTHEWS: 52 votes was enough.
GREENFIELD: But never even heard to anybody. Now you`ve got situations where, you know, the idea that the only way I can lose seems to be Donald Trump`s message if it`s rigged. I`m less concerned with what he says Tuesday night. Though I think it`s going to be grim, than what happens in January if that`s the climate.
If the climate is that the base of the Republican Party believes that next President is a criminal, not just wrong headed on policy. And that everything we can do should be done to stop this. That there are no norms that we will not cross, you know, we`ve had a situation where the full faith and credit of the United States have been placed into jeopardy by not raising the debt ceiling. If all those norms have been b broken, I don`t have a lot of faith that whatever the speeches are going to say yes, let`s all work together. Really? I don`t --
MATTHEWS: Jeff, you know, Jeff`s so right because it takes some mineral level of cooperation even to get a debt ceiling through. But it sounds so boring, but they have to do it come January, February.
SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "USA TODAY": It takes an assumption that even if you were voting for the other guy that you support -- you accept that person who was elected President. And then he get the question when they raised -- when Donald Trump raises questions about a rigged election because that means you don`t necessarily have to accept the vote as being the fair and accurate vote in a legitimately elected President.
I was talking to Nicole Hemmer who`s a Presidential Historian University of Virginia about the last time we had this kind of Presidential Election where these accusations and allegations were made before the vote and she came up with 1860 which was the first election of Abraham Lincoln before he could inaugurated Southern states stated.
MATTHEWS: You know I love concession speeches because I`ve been following politics since I was five. I just -- that`s the one moment of truth. The guy or woman who lose, tends to say something poetic, you know, like Adlai Stevenson, too old to laugh. What was that again?
GREENFIELD: Too old to cry -- it hurts too much to laugh and I`m too old to cry.
MATTHEWS: Too old to cry or Ed Brook from Massachusetts once said, "I didn`t cry in the mountain. I will not cry in the valley." I mean these are great moments, you know?
RATHER: Well for one of the few times I can remember in a long career, disagree with my friend. I`m an optimist and by nature an by experience, that`s true. But I`m very optimistic about how the people of the United States will react to the election. Yes, it makes a difference, what kind of concession speech the loser gives if they give a concession speech.
But what really counts is what is in the heart of the people and they`re going to want a government led by a new President that can get things done. America was built on optimism. We are an optimistic people. I know it`s hard in the president`s environment and easy to be cynical. As a reporter I`m skeptical but try never to be cynical. And I think that`s the spirit of the American people.
MATTHEWS: I remember Kennedy after he didn`t get a decent concession from Nixon because Nixon got an airplane at 5:00 o`clock and flew back across the East Coast. He never really gave it. So he had cut out a deal with the old man, Joe Kennedy, got a meeting with Herbert Hoover that got Nixon to agree to go meet with him in Key Biscayne and basically concede. I argue it really is important that the loser say I lost.
GREENFIELD: I don`t disagree with that. But I -- what I`m suggesting is that look, you know this church better than I do. And I don`t often say that to you. A man can go to the Al Smith Dinner and accuse his rival of hating Catholics is not playing by the rules you and I assumed.
MATTHEWS: He did. He did. In front of all he did it.
GREENFIELD: You know I was watching that thing and I`m thinking, you know, she`s sitting next to the cardinal. You don`t do that. And part of the thing that I think I`ll speak for myself that I didn`t recognize until way too late was many of the things that Trump does that have broken all these rules. The rules of civility let us say. The name of the great novel we both like. That was her features.
For millions of people the fact he was willing to behave that way showed that he wasn`t locked into the system an air view was at the root corrupt, mendacious and betrayed them. And that`s why I have some real problems.
MATTHEWS: I`ll state this. Well then that suggests to play the suit, to play he is. He has to deny he lost because that`s the game he`s won on so far.
PAGE: And you know Hillary Clinton Campaign is now trying to make plans to deal with the situation where he doesn`t concede or whether he`s not gracious, where she`s put in the position where that natural honeymoon, the kind of lift that a newly elected President doesn`t happen for her. How do you -- how do you address that? And you saw her start to do it in her comments today at rallies where she says, I want to be President of the people who voted for me and the people who didn`t vote for me. And their plan involves trying to do something quickly after she takes office.
MATTHEWS: How does she deal with that? How would you think she could do that?
PAGE: I think it`s -- you mean how do you deal with --
MATTHEWS: Distrust, distrust, disliking --
PAGE: I think the only way you can effectively deal with it is by getting something done.
MATTHEWS: You know, Bobby Kennedy use to work -- well Bobby use to say, you know, he may written the phrase. He said hang a lantern on your problem.
RATHER: No, I didn`t --
GREENFIELD: Well one way.
MATTHEWS: But that was the line because, you know, he had admit -- oh, yes, he would kid about being ruthless. He would kid about himself OK, that takes some of the edge off.
GREENFIELD: My only quick point is that obviously, what she will want to do is to reach across the aisle, reach the people who didn`t vote for her but the mechanisms by which you can demonstrate that, by cooperation. I mean just play it out very briefly. She`s got her own problems on the left. She goes to Paul Ryan if he`s still speaker and says let`s cut a deal, you know, some entitlement reform, maybe infrastructure with a two tiered wave system. And then what do supporters on the left say about that?
RATHER: Her best bet though is to be magnanimous, to be grateful and to be humble which we haven`t seen much of that on the campaign trail from her. That`s her best bet if she wins.
MATTHEWS: Yes and I think you know the human way of doing this. Let see - - maybe the human way will work. Anyway thank you Dan Rather. Thank you Jeff Greenfield, guys are great. Thank you Susan because you`re always great.
Up next, and you`re always around. Anyway Donald Trump made an enemy with Latino voters that may have knocked him out of the key state of Nevada. Veteran Political journalist John Ross is going to join us. He says Trump`s dead as a door nail in Nevada, the silver state. He`s coming here next. This is HARDBALL, the place for politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Reno and Northern Nevada could carry this state, but don`t let crazy broken Harry Reid and his corrupt political machine decide this election for you. It`s being reported that certain key Democratic polling locations in Clark County were kept open for hours and hours beyond closing time to pause and bring Democratic voters in. Folks, it`s a rigged system. It`s a rigged system and we`re going to bit it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back. That was Donald Trump campaigning in Nevada Ground City. Nevada over the weekend. Nevada was once thought to be leaning Trump`s direction, but after a wig early voting period, is it still as close as it was? Well one person who should know the answer to that is Nevada political expert, Jon Ralston, The Ralston Report. He joins me now.
Jon, you were all over the place. You have stuck your neck way out. Well beyond the guillotine and the question is, why do you risk your reputation on such a sure statement as Trump is finished in Nevada?
JON RALSTON, HOST, RALSTON LIVE: Well, Chris, I guess I just wanted to get clicks on that post. I`m kidding. I`m kidding.
Listen, I`ve been watching these early voting trends for a long time. The numbers here in Nevada look almost identical to what they were in 2012 when Obama won the state by seven points. The Democrats have built up this huge ballot lead in Clark County. About 73,000 ballots. That`s 70 percent of the vote already in and Clark County is 70 percent of the state.
Chris, you just know the math does not work for him unless there`s something really strange going on there or there`s some gigantic turnout on Election Day. If you do the math Chris, he essentially has to win Election Day by more than ten points unless he is just absolutely crushing Hillary among independents and then she`d bleeding Democrats. Neither of which is showing up in the private data I`ve seen.
MATTHEWS: Let`s talk about what`s not on television or in the numbers. Can you in conversations in reporting history, do you sense an animus towards Trump on Latino community?
RALSTON: There`s no - there`s no question about that. And you look at the main Latino turnout driver in the state, Chris which you know is the culinary union which is now more than half Hispanic. It`s in a dispute with Trump at his Place here Trump Las Vegas. You can just sense it just by a lot of newspapers have interviewed people. Both nationally and here and they are not -- they`re not going out to vote for Hillary Clinton so much as they`re going out to vote against Donald Trump.
There`s a clear lack of enthusiasm in the Democratic base for Hillary Clinton. Visa vie or what it was here for Obama in 2008 and 2012. But Trump has taken care of that for them specially in the Latino based.
MATTHEWS: Let`s talk about early voting. Does that tell you about energy and attitude? In fact, you get out and vote a couple of weeks early?
RALSTON: Yes, listen. The read machine, the corrupt political machine that Trump referred to -- by the way, those polling places were not all kept open late. What he said is false, but forget about that for a second.
The read machine does two things incredibly well. And they did it in 2008 and 2012 is they find those voters and turn them out early to bank those votes because they assume the Republicans will have a turnout advantage. They got the registration numbers up in the last few months here, Chris, well 90,000 voter lead statewide.
So even if the Republicans have a slight turnout advantage, it won`t make up for the registration numbers. So, these are enthusiastic voters, some of them yes, but they`re ones that the read machine is driving out to turn out early so they can bank those votes. These are Partisan Democrats. These are not crossover voters they`re turning out for the most part.
MATTHEWS: Well let`s talk about Trump`s assault on the legitimacy of your voting out there. He says that voting place where there`s a large number of Hispanic voters, obviously, that`s what he`s referring to were kept open hours later and then bus load of people were arriving after the closing time. What`s the fact?
RALSTON: Well that there`s no evidence that bus loads of people arrived after the closing time. There was one polling place Chris, a supermarket called the Cardenas Supermarket where hundreds of voters, most of them Latino, were if line when the polling place was supposed to close. They always keep them open and let folks vote Who are in line. That happened at a few other poling place, but there were no buses bringing people.
Now, it is true the casinos in the culinary union bus people to the polls during early voting, but that wasn`t occurring on Friday evening. And let`s face it, Chris, there weren`t that many votes that were banked during those times anyhow. The Democrats won Friday by 11,000 ballots. They had banked most of those before the polling places were kept open. Trump as usual is living in a fantasy world when he talks that kind of thing.
MATTHEWS: You`re not. You`re not. Jon Ralston, those reality - where we only had to wait until Tuesday night. We`ll know exactly how right you were. Thank you so much Jon Ralston from Nevada.
Anyway, Hillary Clinton`s in the stage right now on a rally up at Manchester, New Hampshire. She`s with Kaiser Ken. Of course, Kaiser Ken, the Gold Star Father who spoke of course so memorably the Democratic convention in Philadelphia. And later was the target of Donald Trump`s personal attacks.
Up next, our top story tonight. The FBI gives Hillary Clinton, let`s call this, a Clean Bill of Health. Their e-mail investigation is over and Jon, and she`s clear. You`re watching "Hardball, The Place for Politics.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
MATTHEWS: Welcome back to Hardball. Just a couple of days left, or hardly two days left in the elect - until the election. The finish line is in sight. As Time Magazine has it, The End Is Near. That seems creepy.
Though this Presidential Election has been one of the most polarizing in modern American history. Here are some highlights or low lights.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: She`s the devil. He made a deal with the devil.
CLINTON: It proves yet again he is temper mentally unfit to be President and Commander-in-Chief.
TRUMP: ISIS is honoring President Obama. He is founder of ISIS. He`s the founder of ISIS. I would say the cofounder would be crooked Hillary Clinton. Cofounder, crooked Hillary Clinton.
CLINTON: Imagine if you dare imagine, imagine him in the oval office facing a real crisis. A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.
TRUMP: Hillary Clinton is a bigot, who sees people of color only as votes.
CLINTON: So, he has a long record of engaging in racist behavior.
(END VIDEO CLIP) MATTHEWS: For more on what this year has been about and that the country can come back to it, from it together, getting together. I`m joined by around tonight, Michelle Bernard, President of Bernard Center for Woman, Kurt Anderson, journalist and Host of Studio 360 and Hugh Hewitt, MSNBC Political Analyst and hosted the Hewitt Show.
I love the way you guys are all named after your organizations on the some of radio station. Kurt, you`re going to have to get into the IPO (ph) and started missing -
KURT ANDERSON, POLITICAL ANALYST: Right. I`m missing out.
MATTHEWS: Kurt Anderson, but that was already POW camp in the Civil War. What do we know? And the people around me, my producer, one of them says, you know, this is a mutual destruction. Mutual destruction. Even the FBI`s now have been brought down to a lower level than it had been. Everything seems to be the media course. Everybody`s been impugned. Mostly Trump. Doing this.
MICHELLED BERNARD, BERNARD CENTER FOR WOMEN: The coarseness of our politics, it`s been increasing, it`s been getting worse year after year. Politicians don`t listen and now, we`ve seen it culminate in, I think one of the most embarrassing campaigns we`ve seen in U.S. history. I mean I feel like the country is the laughing stock of the world.
Not just because of who the Republican nominee is, but the fact that the people will stand up during the Republican debate talking about who has small hands, who has wet their pants. Why crooked Hillary. You know, it`s terrible.
MATTHEWS: You know, I was thinking, of scores (INAUDIBLE) and what it is when your army is retreating, you burn the field. You burn the - they kill the animals so the advancing army can`t eat and they starve to death somehow.
It`s almost like that. We`re burning everything around you.
ANDERSON: Well, I would argue that hasn`t been much burning on the Democratic side toward the right. But it is, we are not get -- however it happens tomorrow, however it comes out on Tuesday, rather. It`s not going to be all OK. And the thing that beyond the coarseness, beyond the -- all those things, it seems to me we have tipped over into a time when facts don`t matter. With this post factual age, the post truth age. That`s when we`re -
MATTHEWS: Does it matter, attitude?
ANDERSON: Attitude and my facts, you know, Patrick Moynihan, famously said you can, you know, "You can have different opinion, but you`re entitled to your own facts." We are at a place where people actually behave as though they are entitled to that --
MATTHEWS: No. I would argue they can even get the same fact and have a totally different attitude. Firstly, you can say Hillary Clinton`s an ambitious woman. She`s been ambitious since she married Bill. She may have decided she had a shot at the presidency in the late `90s. But she always was ambitious to a Republican, a critic of Hillary, that`s evidence of evil.
ANDERSON: Sure. But that -
MATTHEWS: So with Democratic, that`s a courageous woman as a path finder, someone who`s had the guts to run for president of the United States and really go all the way unlike some of the other women candidates and mean it.
ANDERSON: But that`s the way it`s always been. That`s what politics are is, oh, here are the facts. My spin is this. Your spin is this.
This is different where Donald Trump can lie and lie and lie and lie and the people who support him accept perhaps for Hugh Hewitt, don`t care.
HUGH HEWITT, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Some good news. Some good news, on Friday night, I was at a - the all service of YMCA.
MATTHEWS: I think it`s the other voice for broadcasting.
HEWITT: Thank you. And I heard chairman of the joint Chief Of Staff Joe Dunford give a speech about the American Military, how it`s not broken. How it`s the greatest in the world and then he honored five corps man, medics, pararescue professionals who had run in to the teeth of fire to rescue their fellow warriors who were down. And it did remind you that there`s a lot that`s not broken in America. The not for-profit sector is not broken.
The Supreme Court has weathered a very unusual time with a great deal of dignity and some compromised among themselves. I think the House Of Representatives is going to work well under Paul Ryan. I do think the FBI has gotten a bad wrap and then come and did exactly what he had to do when the new information surface and he did what he had to do today. And I`m kind of happy that the - that it hasn`t been more damage done.
MATTHEWS: Well yes, the best basketball players. But more important tonight. More important tonight. We have the best education, the higher educational system in the world.
HEWITT: Sure.
MATTHEWS: All the kids with wealthy parents, wherever they come from in the world, where the Saudi Arabia, they may not like our culture. They want to educate their kids right in United States. If some third world (INAUDIBLE) and dictator got cancer, or something, he doesn`t go to Russia. They come right here. So we still on education. We have health care for those who can afford it the best in the world. So we are excellent in so many ways.
HEWITT: And Silicon Valley is another - endlessly entrepreneurial. There has to be some kind of coming together after this is all over to say we have to fix Obamacare, which is spectacularly failed and the premiums are driving the middle class into despair. We have to fix a number of things, but it`s doable.
ANDERSON: But another way in which things are good is crime. Crime by depending on what you`re talking about and where you`re talking about is down 50 to 80 percent in the last 20 years in America. Are cities safer?
HEWITT: Yes, they are.
MATTHEWS: Unless they`re in a gang.
ANDERSON: Unless you`re in certain areas of Chicago. And that`s what I`m talking about when Donald Trump can say, "Oh, the murders are higher than they`ve been in 45 years." Now, they aren`t.
BERNARD: He`s making up facts. But the -
MATTHEWS: That`s not true with the big cities.
BERNARD: And I don`t want to rain on our happiness parade because you know -
MATTHEWS: Well wait a minute. You may stack (INAUDIBLE), why are you doing this?
BERNARD: I`m not because - well, you don`t know what I`m doing because you haven`t heard what I said.
MATTHEWS: OK. But slowly. So they were right about what they said?
BERNARD: Yes. And what I was about to say is like I disagree with Donald Trump when he says, we need to make America great again. America is great. I firmly believed that we are the greatest nation on earth that when we talk about the things that are great about America, we`re making the same mistake that has led - led politicians to be where they are today. Because for people who can`t afford health care, for people stuck in an education system based on zip code, we saw it with occupy Wall Street, then we saw it with the Tea Party and now with the rise of the KKK and all these nationalist groups.
People who are suffering want to be heard by the government and they feel their government institutions aren`t hearing them.
MATTHEWS: I agree with you and everything except the importance of the KKK. What`s the importance of the KKK?
BERNARD: Well the importance of the KKK - well look KKK -
MATTHEWS: How many members does it have?
BERNARD: I don`t know, but the fact that the KKKs newspaper came out and endorsed Donald Trump last week, the fact that we are seeing a rise of nationalist groups. The fact we are in a society now where it`s okay not just to not be PC, but to say overtly racist things is a problem and we have - and the only way you cure it is to get jobs for everyone.
MATTHEWS: I think the KKK is a joke. It`s irrelevant. It doesn`t even hardly exists. It may be able to pour the -
BERNARD: But as a white man, you can feel that way.
MATTHEWS: It doesn`t exist.
BERNARD: You can feel that way.
MATTHEWS: No. But there -
BERNARD: As a white male, you think about when -
MATTHEWS: Where have you - where have you encountered in KKK -
BERNARD: I have not encountered in KKK.
ANDERSON: And they`re going to -
MATTHEWS: OK.
BERNARD: And the fear is that I might and I don`t want to and I didn`t ask to.
ANDERSON: There`s no Jon Burge Society meaningful anymore either, but there are millions of people who could be, who would have been Jon Berchar that`s what he would have called him 50 years ago.
MATTHEWS: And I think it`s a joke. Anyway, but I understand your concern because it`s a potential predator.
BERNARD: Well and the nationalists are rising. It`s not good.
MATTHEWS: OK. Thank you. Hugh Hewitt, Kurt Anderson, that`s why we have lot of opinions on this show. Michelle Bernard. Thank you.
Up next, My Election Diary with just two days to go before the 2016 Presidential Election. This is "Hardball," The Place for Politics.
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MATTHEWS: Election Diary Sunday, November 6, 2016, Innocent. That`s the news tonight all over America. Hillary Clinton has been exonerated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Director James Comey declared today the agency stands by its determination of July, that there`s no reason to charge the former secretary of state, period.
The FBI director said that today that having combed through the e-mails found on Anthony Weiner`s laptop, the FBI has no reason to order the lie determination that Secretary Clinton should not and could not be prosecuted. That there is no evidence she committed a crime. Well this is huge news.
When the FBI Director announced two Fridays ago that the agency was looking at the Weiner e-mails, it shifted the presidential election dramatically. Hillary Clinton strongly was eliminated. Trump became a strong contender in the poll numbers. The election suddently became a nail biter. Well it took the news that Hillary Clinton was once again the subject of an investigation a while to fade.
The past week, there`s been a continual rise in her polling compared to Trump`s. By Friday, we could report that she had reestablished the significant lead. Well today`s news that the FBI has cleared her will add to Clinton`s advantage that it should. Once people absorb the fact that the FBI is no longer probing her e-mail, we should see an uptick in support for her.
I have tried to reserve judgment of Director Comey. We have watch it being attacked from both sides. He was hit from the right for clearing her in July. Hit from the left from bringing her back in the suspicion nine days ago. Mr. Comey will no doubt facing others surge of criticism. This time again from the right for his announcement today.
The right doesn`t want to see Hillary Clinton cleared. Let`s face it. Cleared of anything. But Comey isn`t running for President. Neither is the FBI, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are. And today, Clinton got a break. It deserve at one.
Trump found himself still attacking her, but now, which is our people election day without his FBI probe of e-mail which she had built. He`s closing argument. And That`s "Hardball" for now.
Tomorrow night, Monday night, President Barack Obama, First Lady, Michelle Obama, President Bill and Hillary and Chelsea Clinton all will appear in a giant election eve rally in Philadelphia. Bruce Springsteen will perform and Hardball will be there for the whole time to cover from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. And that`s tomorrow. Big night in Philly.
Up next, I`ll join Brian Williams and Rachel Maddow followed by "THE LAST WORD" with Lawrence O`Donnell at 10:00 p.m. Eastern.
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THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END