This is a rush transcript from "The Kelly File," October 18, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
MEGYN KELLY, HOST: Breaking tonight, it's been 16 months since Donald Trump declared his candidacy and it is now less than 24 hours until his final presidential debate. He is down in the national polls, struggling in the swing states and the question tonight, what will the most unpredictable man in politics do with his last best chance to change the course of this race?
Welcome to "The Kelly File," everyone. I'm Megyn Kelly live in Las Vegas. We are onset here at the MGM Grand looking over a city where millions show up each year thinking that if things just go their way, everything they know could change. Tomorrow Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump will join them. The pundits are saying Clinton should play it safe, write out her lead, don't take any chances. And Trump, well he has nothing to lose. Here's a little of the rally he just wrapped up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL NOMINEE: Well in 21 days we're going to win the state of Colorado and we're going to win the White House. I have a feeling this is another Brexit. This is going to be interesting. Tomorrow night is going to be interesting.
(CHEERS AND APPLAUSE)
Now she's home sleeping and I'm working. So that's the way it is. The way it's going to be in the White House, too. She'd be sleeping, I'd be working. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America safe again and we will make America great again. Thank you everybody. God bless you.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: In moments, we will go over some brand-new polls with Chris Stirewalt, Dana Perino and Bill Bennett.
But we begin with our chief political correspondent campaign Carl Cameron reporting tonight from Las Vegas with some stunning news about who Donald Trump is bringing with him tomorrow night. Carl?
CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Megyn. So, tomorrow night what happens in Vegas could change the course of the American body of politic according to Donald Trump. This afternoon at the White House, President Obama was pretty tough on Donald Trump at a joint news conference with the Italian Prime Minister in the Rose Garden. And just a few hours after that criticism from the President, the Trump campaign has now announced that they will have a special guest tomorrow.
It's not going to be a Clinton accusers, it will be the President's Kenyan born half-brother, Malik Obama who is a Trump supporter. And he will be in the audience. He has said that he does not intend to have any kind of a pre-event news conference as the Clinton accusers did at the last debate. But this is one of those things that's meant to sort of be a head game and a little bit of psychological operations against the opposition.
For his part today in Colorado, a battleground state where he's trailing in the polls today, Trump was also pointing out that he is now convinced that the media is rigging the election against him by trying to depress his voter turnout, an interesting turn of events since his aides have said for quite some time much of his attacks on Clinton had been designed to suppress her turnout. Here's how Trump put it today
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Even though we're doing pretty good in the polls, I don't believe the polls anymore. I don't believe them. I don't believe them. And if there's ten and if there's one or two bad ones with, that's the only one they show. Believe me folks, we're doing great. The press has created a rigged system and poisoned the mind of so many of our voters. I think the media is trying to discourage our people from going out to vote.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMERON: And Trump is of course not running against the media, he's running against Hillary Clinton. And he's sort road tested the whole series of new attacks on her over the course of the last week-and-a-half since the last debate and some new policies. Today he suggested that it's time for term limits and he's put forth his proposal. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: If I'm elected president, I will push for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on all members of Congress. I'm proposing a term limit of six years for members of the House and 12 years for members of the Senate
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CAMERON: Very difficult to actually accomplish but tremendously popular with voters on both sides fed up with their candidates and the nature and tenor of this race for the last year and a half -- Megyn.
KELLY: Carl, thank you. Well, those details from the Trump campaign trail come just as brand-new Fox News polls show the Republican nominee picking up one point over last week's poll. That still leaves Mrs. Clinton with a seven-point edge.
Joining me now, the co-host of "I'll Tell You What" right here on Fox News Chris Stirewalt and Dana Perino.
(LAUGHTER)
I love trying to imitate you with that, Chris.
DANA PERINO, CO-HOST, "STIREWALT & PERINO: I'LL TELL YOU WHAT": He got some work to do.
KELLY: I'll tell you what!
CHRIS STIREWALT, CO-HOST, "STIREWALT & PERINO: I'LL TELL YOU WHAT": That's very straight.
KELLY: Quite. It's Bill Bennett, sir.
(LAUGHTER)
He served as secretary of education under President Reagan and he is the chairman of Conservative Leaders for Education. Great to see you all.
BILL BENNETT, CHAIRMAN, CONSERVATIVE LEADERS FOR EDUCATION: Thank you.
KELLY: So I mean, he doesn't believe the polls?
STIREWALT: Well --
KELLY: The man who has been talking nothing but polls for an entire year and a half.
STIREWALT: So, politicians, how many times have we heard that the only poll that matters is on Election Day. Right?
KELLY: Yes.
STIREWALT: You know who always says that? The guy who is losing.
KELLY: The guy who lose.
STIREWALT: Right. The guy who says that is -- this is normal, right? So, we want to make this into an abnormal election. We've never seen anything like it. Donald Trump does talk louder. He does say things that other people don't say. He does things that other people don't do. But we know what this looks like. This looks like 1996 and I don't know whether you remember but the Republicans didn't win that one.
KELLY: Uh-hm. And the opposition doesn't seem to be getting any softer, Dana. Sixty one percent of voters now say, Clinton has a temperament to serve effectively as president, 61 percent same number believe Trump does not. She has now led in 17 straight four-way national polls. Seventeen.
PERINO: And in our new, in FOX News poll tonight that just came out, one of the things -- she beats him on every issue except for the economy. He did do a little better on that one. And if he can make the debate tomorrow night not about himself but what he would do to change the economy --
KELLY: How about Malik Obama?
PERINO: Well, that is a little bit of a distraction. Again, who am I advising?
(LAUGHTER)
PERINO: What do I know? Yes. That's an interesting, interesting choice.
KELLY: Right.
PERINO: But this is also a legacy play, right? For him. I was thinking about this earlier. A lot of people were talking about President Obama laying out his legacy in the last three months. But tomorrow night and the next three weeks, Donald Trump, this is a legacy move. Like whatever happens in the next three weeks and on Election Day, that will be the biggest story of his life.
KELLY: Uh-hm.
STIREWALT: Yes.
KELLY: So, Bill, I mean, as we have done for a year and a half, we look at Donald Trump and we marvel and we don't understand why he makes certain choices like bringing the President's half-brother from Kenya to the presidential debate he's having against Hillary Clinton. And yet, this might appeal to his core supporters and you actually believe, unlike others, that that is actually what he needs, that he doesn't need to be pushing the crossover voters now. He needs to be generating enthusiasm in the base.
BENNETT: Yes. He needs to strengthen the base, absolutely. What does he do to crossover, change his views? Change his mind? And he needs to remind people why he is where he is. And he's at 40 percent. Maybe not enough to win but he needs to remind people of what he was talking about, the immigration issue, about the Islamic terrorism, about the sad and depressed state of America. Forty percent or so of the American people like him and want to vote for him, maybe more. We shall see. I assume with all of the piling on Trump we're still going to let democracy work and see what happens.
You know, the plural of dice, it's the plural, dice is a singular, one out of 18 percent chance he has. Roll that dice, you might get one out of 18. It's possible. It happens here all of the time. People don't leave winning but they win occasionally. Look, let's remember that there's a serious dimension to Donald Trump otherwise you think those 40 percent of Americans are what Hillary Clinton says, which are deplorable people.
They're not. He speaks to real issues, important issues. I hope he does tomorrow night. If it's all stunt and all histrionics, say nothing, if it's infantile vulgarity, then he's done. But if he reminds people of the higher road, that is something else. One other thing. There's theoretical belief about how you're going to do and operational belief. You know, Texas A&M is playing Alabama this weekend. Check the line. I did down here. Sixteen points.
KELLY: I know what Bill has been doing the past day or two in Vegas.
BENNETT: Well, you're here.
KELLY: He never shows follow-up for the live onset -- it's interesting.
BENNETT: Vegas fun night. My first trip there. It's a joke.
(LAUGHTER)
Anyway, operationally those guys will go into that game of believing they can win. That's what he's got to do tomorrow night and do it in a serious way.
KELLY: His believes haven't always panned out, Chris. You know, because we saw at the beginning of this race, Donald Trump telling us that he was going to change the electoral map.
BENNETT: Yes.
KELLY: Saying that he was going to go and he said, watch New York, New Jersey, I just took a look, we went back and look at the seven states he continued to mention, New York, she's up 20, New Jersey he said, 12, California he said he would play in, she's up 20, Oregon, she's up 19, Illinois, she's up 15, Washington State he said, she's up 14, Michigan she's up ten. And now you've got states like Georgia, Arizona --
STIREWALT: Texas.
KELLY: Texas.
STIREWALT: Texas.
KELLY: And Utah moving from deep red to pink. They're no longer solid Republican.
STIREWALT: Rosette.
KELLY: Medium rare.
STIREWALT: The reality for Donald Trump, he wants to talk about a rigged election. He wants to say that the election is going to be stolen. You've got to be close to have it stolen and he's not close. And that's the problem. He's got a narrative where he's telling his supporters -- he's prefiguring a defeat. This is one of the things I can't understand about his message of light. It pre-figures a defeat. It says, don't vote really because we're losing and they're going to steal it any way. It's all rigged. It confounds my thinking that a major party presidential candidate wants to take a risk, like trying to delegitimize our election system, which really is the envy of the world. We really do this really well. And I don't think it works.
KELLY: Tonight Dana, she's facing a lot of controversy as well and we're going to get to the WikiLeaks scandal in our next block. But Donald Trump Jr. has come under fire today because similar to his father, he also went on a bunch of radio shows, with so-called shock jocks and made some comments disparaging quote, "Fat people" and making light of the Aurora, Colorado mass shooting that resulted in the deaths of some children. And here's a clip of what he said that's gotten him in trouble tonight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: Everything was going good until we saw gas and sparks, and sounded like really strong fireworks. And then you just hear people yelling and actually just a few rows away from me, a girl gets up holding her jaw and I guess she had got shot.
Overall, I give the movie two thumbs-up.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
PERINO: And that's not it. That's not spliced together.
KELLY: So far, they're not responding to it as illegitimate or spliced together. And we're more than willing to accept any comment from Trump on that.
PERINO: Right.
KELLY: But there are a few of these that have surfaced tonight
PERINO: Right. So, locker room talk or whatever they want to describe it is turning off people all across the country. What's really sad for me, is that he was in my home state of Colorado today and there's a huge crowd there and they're so excited and they believed in him and believed in his message and he's telling them that the poll are rigged, the media is rigged, none of this is true. And it's giving people false hope or false belief in what's happening and they actually have legitimate issues in front of the government. And to me that is the worst thing for Republicans or conservatives is wishful thinking and we're awash in it.
KELLY: Bill, I'll give you the final word.
BENNETT: Well, I mean, most of the talk here has been about Donald Trump. Most of it has been critical. There is someone else running, and I think she's a disgrace. I think what Bill Sapphire said 20 years ago, she's a congenital liar, it's true. And you shouldn't say things about fat people, I get offended. You shouldn't say things about other people. And you shouldn't act like an infant, you know, around, in your conversation.
But we're talking about the future of the country. And I think that Hillary Clinton may bring this country to the brink of disaster. Paul Ryan, if you want to cite Trump, Paul Ryan has pointed out, if we keep spending the way we're spending, we may not be able to pull it back. Trump may not get it all right but I think she'll get it all wrong.
KELLY: Great to see you all. I know where Bill is going. There he goes. Let it ride, baby.
BENNETT: Not anymore. Not anymore.
KELLY: Well for the first time ever in less than 24 hours, a Fox News anchor is going to moderate tomorrow night's general election presidential debate. Chris Wallace, who is an on speier (ph) questioner. He won't suffer polls. He will press the candidates. His questions will be so mean and hard you're going to love him. And he gets to moderate the all- important final debate between these two, Trump and Clinton. Our coverage begins at 6 p.m. with Bret Baier and yours truly from the heart of Vegas. Don't miss the Fox News debate. What better place to watch it on Fox News.
Also breaking tonight, new fallout from an undercover video that catches some Democratic staffers confessing to making trouble at Republican rallies. James Rosen has a full report.
Plus, after Melania Trump fiercely defends her husband, one major media outlet fires back. See what that claim is.
And then the FBI agent in the middle of an explosive new controversy over Mrs. Clinton's emails is now talking. This is very rare.
Up next, we'll show you what he's saying and we'll ask famed Attorney Alan Dershowitz whether any laws were broken here. Don't miss Dershowitz. Next.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: So I'm clear you are not disputing that Patrick Kennedy was trying to renegotiate the classification of the Clinton emails after Congress issued a subpoena and a retention order?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Breaking tonight for the first time, we are hearing from the FBI agent at the center of an explosive new controversy over Hillary Clinton's email. State Department staffer Patrick Kennedy, a top Clinton lieutenant is being accused of offering favors to the FBI if the FBI would cover Hillary's tracks during the investigation into her emails. And tonight the FBI agent in the middle of all of this is telling the Washington Post that Kennedy came to him seeking this favor, not the other way around. Famed Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz joins us in moments on whether any laws were broken here.
But first we go to chief intelligence correspondent Catherine Herridge. Catherine?
CATHERINE HERRIDGE, FOX NEWS CHIEF INTELLIGENCE CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, the retired FBI agent says, they agreed to work together. But once he learned Kennedy wanted a classified email, downgraded to unclassified, he backed out. But one of the agents, FBI colleagues told investigators, the agent in fact pressured him to change the email's classification and relayed the Kennedy conversation as a quid pro quo.
The FBI records also show Kennedy pushed hard and often to reduce the number of classified emails found on Clinton's personal server she used as secretary of state. And Kennedy did so for months after Congress issued a subpoena and preservation order for the email in March of last year
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Trying to change the emails after March 4th, 2015 would in effect change or alter the evidence that had been requested by Congress.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So first of all, these were documents for public release through the FOIA process, and not necessarily what we shared with Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HERRIDGE: These documents also report career State Department personnel were, quote, "Suspicious of a special group of employees brought in to review the email's classification." Some had worked with David Kendall, who is Hillary Clinton's long-time personal attorney. The FBI documents described an atmosphere of a shadow government.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. JASON CHAFFETZ, R-UTAH, HOUSE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE: Hillary Clinton was out there trying to get her former people at -- her own attorneys to be the ones that made the determination on these documents.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HERRIDGE: The State Department would not even acknowledge today the appearance of a conflict. And late tonight the Republican Chairman of the House Judiciary Committee is asking the attorney general to investigation Kennedy for possible violations of public corruption laws -- Megyn.
KELLY: Catherine, thank you.
HERRIDGE: You're welcome.
KELLY: Joining me now with more, Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus and author of the new book "Electile Dysfunction" which is fun and all of the things you're thinking it is. Great to see you, Professor.
So, this guy Kennedy was very actively involved in trying to cover Hillary's tracks is how it looks. And when the FBI agent involved said we can't change the classification on this document, thank you for your offer, but we can't, he went above the guy's head and he went to the head of the FBI'S Counterterrorism Division Michael Steinbach and to Steinbach's credit, he refused. He said, I'm not doing this, you don't control us, sir. And the email classification stays the same. So, you tell me whether Patrick Kennedy can face any legal consequences for his deeds.
ALAN DERSHOWITZ, HARVARD LAW PROFESSOR: Well certainly this races policy issues. And it's a fair point for any voter to think about. But I searched the criminal code today and I could not find any possible criminal statute that was violated despite Donald Trump's statement that this is a quote, "felony crime." Agencies negotiate with themselves all of the time. Presumably if the classification would change, Congress would know about that. They see the original, they see the change.
KELLY: It wasn't. It wasn't a change.
DERSHOWITZ: No, I understand that. But they would have seen the original. So, it's not an obstruction of justice or not a defiance of the subpoena. And interagency quid pro quo is very common. You find agencies saying to each other, all right, I'll do this for you, you do this for me.
KELLY: But when there's a pending subpoena? I mean, the subpoena was in. They had to produce the documents.
DERSHOWITZ: That is right.
KELLY: And there's Kennedy who works for us, he works for you and he works for me --
DERSHOWITZ: And that's it.
KELLY: He works for the viewers. Instead of looking out for our interest, he's looking to protect Hillary's back saying, we've got to get this classification change. Here's a bunch of goodies if you'll change it.
DERSHOWITZ: And that's a fair point. It's a policy point of view. From the criminal point of view however, as long as there was no intention to prevent Congress from knowing that the original classification was to be classified and then it was changed, if that were to happen for a public release, for a FOIA release, that would not be a crime. You know, it's very easy to throw around the term crime.
And I think too much in our politics, we tend to criminalize policy differences and I'm always against that. Whether it was Governor Perry of Texas or Tom Delay when they tried to go after them because the Democrats didn't like them, I was against that. We have to be careful to make sure the criminal law is only applied objectively by neutral career politicians and nobody should be -- go ahead.
KELLY: Okay. So, giving you that point.
DERSHOWITZ: Yes.
KELLY: You tell me as a lawyer whether what this guy Kennedy did smells bad and whether there should be some sort of accountability in your judgment as somebody who studies and knows the law for this kind of behavior after you've received a subpoena.
DERSHOWITZ: I think so. And I think it ought to be an internal departmental investigation. You put your finger on it exactly to see whether he was serving the interest of the American public or the interest of an incumbent in office. And that's a fair point to investigate. The point I'm making is, let's not jump to using terms like felony and criminal when we feel strongly that a person violated policies. That's a very important line not to go over.
That's why I was so upset when Donald Trump said he wants to see Hillary Clinton in jail. I would be equally upset if Hillary Clinton said, if I get elected, I'm going to investigate Trump University and put Trump in jail. We should not mix politics and criminal justice. We have to keep criminal justice objective and a political.
KELLY: Got it. Fair point. Professor Dershowitz, great to see you
DERSHOWITZ: Thank you.
KELLY: Also tonight, less than 24 hours after Melania Trump breaks her silence on the women accusing her husband of sexual misconduct, one of those accusers is now pushing back and how. We'll have the story.
Plus, embarrassing new revelations for the Clinton campaign in the latest WikiLeaks dump. Governor Mike Huckabee and former Clinton Campaign Press Secretary Mo Elleithee are here on how this could play in tomorrow night's big debate. Don't go away.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: (INAUDIBLE) But moreover, we are not -- these are all -- we are not checking -- we're not going to fact check each of the emails that were stolen.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight, WikiLeaks released new emails today from the more than 50,000 message hacked from the account of Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. This will likely be a hot topic during tomorrow night's debate. Thanks to the seemingly endless stream of embarrassing revelations that has left the Clinton campaign doing daily damage control for more than three weeks.
In moments, we'll be joined by Governor Mike Huckabee and former Clinton campaign travelling Press Secretary Mo Elleithee but first Chief National Correspondent Ed Henry has the very latest. Ed?
ED HENRY, FOX NEWS CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, Megyn, good to see you. As Hillary Clinton headed to Las Vegas tonight with polls suggesting she could be on the verge of history by becoming the first female president in America's history. Politico noted, these final days for her have become a joyless, nail gnawing slog. They say, that's in part to round 11 today of WikiLeaks dumping out thousands more of John Podesta's email. Many showing subdivisions within the Democratic Party and even within the campaign itself.
Look at this September 2015 email where Podesta predicted, Vice President Joe Biden would run. He did not. But Podesta also fretted about Clinton losing the campaign chairman writing, quote, "We're still way more likely than not to win the nomination. But we've taken on a lot of water that won't be easy to pump out of the boat. Most of that has to do with terrible decisions made pre-campaign but a lot has to do with her instincts." Meaning Clinton.
This follows previous emails where one advisor questioned what was in Clinton's core. Another said, Clinton's failure to show genuine remorse for the email scandal had become a character problem. And while we had already seen messages where Podesta talked about a Catholic spring to -- you know, one Democratic allied called the dictatorship within the church.
WikiLeaks tripled out another email today where Podesta's colleague went further by declaring they should launch protests that mirror the controversial tactics of occupy Wall Street. That obviously might be an issue with Catholic voters. And then there are those progressive supporters of Bernie Sanders especially Millennials. Clinton turned out she's been courting them by campaigning with Sanders. Well, there's a new email out today showing Podesta privately called Bernie a doofus -- Megyn.
KELLY: Thank you. Joining me now with more a Governor Mike Huckabee who's a Fox News contributor and Mo Elleithee who's the former travelling press secretary for Clinton's 2008 campaign, great to see you both. Governor, I mean, you know, you may not even know that WikiLeaks was doing anything if you watch channels other than Fox. I mean, the drip, drip, drip of damaging emails out of these Podesta emails is shocking. It's shocking. You tell me whether it would move the needle.
MIKE HUCKABEE, FORMER ARKANSAS GOVERNOR: Well, it would have plugged holes in the boat and sunk a ship of anybody other than Hillary Clinton. But the media is so in the tank for Clinton. Let me give you a specific example. Last week on one of the evening's newscasts, 23 minutes from the big three networks were devoted to negative stories about Donald Trump.
The entirety of coverage regarding some really scandalous things in the WikiLeaks for Hillary Clinton, less than one minute. That's 23 to one. Journalists have given over $400,000 to Clinton, $14,000 from journalist who have gone to Donald Trump. But Donald Trump is not just fighting Hillary Clinton. He is having to fight a concerted, and use the word conspiracy if you will, but there is a target on his back and the media has pinned it there.
KELLY: You know, Mo, there's no question that the "Access Hollywood" moment for Donald Trump on that bus and the nine women who have come forward thereafter is a big story. I mean, if Donald Trump -- if it's true and he is a sexual predator as is alleged, what's a major story? But this stuff on her side is also bad.
Pushing for a Catholic spring, going after an entire religious group after that team has lectured us for two year on how we're not supposed to do that, we're not supposed to categorize all Muslims in one way but it's fine to try to revamp Catholicism from the White House? Are you kidding me?
MO ELLEITHEE, FORMER DNC SPOKESMAN: Well, I mean, you got to do the typical disclaimer. None of these emails have been authenticated...
KELLY: Russia is bad. I got it.
ELLEITHEE: And this is all Putin's doing. But look, you know, I don't know how real these emails are. What I do know is look, we were all there. We were all there during the fight for the contraceptive mandate and there were a lot of Catholic groups, progressive Catholics who stood up and provided an alternate point of view. And they organized themselves. So look.
KELLY: A Catholic spring?
ELLEITHEE: Here's what I think.
KELLY: That's not it. It's needy Latinos and Catholic spring and disparaging talk about a lot of figures who they don't happen to like. There's an elitism and a condescension in a lot of these emails that is very off pudding to a lot of people.
ELLEITHEE: I think having been through a lot of campaigns in my life, I would hate to see any of the emails that any campaign I've ever worked on releases.
KELLY: Oh, go on. Could you be specific?
ELLEITHEE: No. But we spend a lot of time talking about things. We spend a lot of time talking about other people, talking about what we're going to do and sometimes you use language that you wouldn't necessarily use in other places, right?
KELLY: Yeah, that's another point.
ELLEITHEE: I mean I can only imagine what the emails from inside the Trump campaign read after the past few weeks and the things that they're saying.
KELLY: But we don't have those.
ELLEITHEE: We don't have those. There are a lot of things from Donald Trump that we don't have. So, you know, is there a smoking gun here? Is there something that's damning? Probably not. Is there a lot of stuff that's embarrassing, sure.
KELLY: And the question is whether -- because we're only I guess 20 percent through, governor, on the WikiLeaks disclosures. They say they have, I think it's 75 percent more. We've only received, you know, one quarter of what they have. And you tell me whether three weeks is enough time for her to die a death by a thousand cuts if you will, you know.
She's not going to have the big moment most likely to where, you know, she falls down in the middle of the debate tomorrow night. But little by little are these WikiLeaks release is hurting her?
HUCKABEE: Well they would be if they were being heard by most of America but they're not because only Fox News and some of the conservative outlets are carrying them. But one thing that they do reveal and this is so important. You know, look, I love Mo. He's a great guy. But when he says they haven't been verified, neither have a lot of the allegations about Donald Trump but the media treats it as if it has all been settled in a court of law and it mostly certainly hasn't.
Here's what I would tell you, nobody has denied the veracity of these claims. They just said, well, it came from some source it shouldn't have come from. Look, what we've learn from it is that this is the truth from Hillary Clinton that we do not get in her speeches. Those truth moments come when she's talking to Goldman Sachs for a million dollars a pop. What we've learned is that she has a contemptuous attitude towards Christians, toward Catholics, toward Evangelicals, toward Jews.
This is a woman who calls half of the country deplorable. That's what America needs to know. This is a clear choice for president this time.
KELLY: It's more like a quarter of the country. Half of the country supports Trump, and is it half of the half. Great to see you both.
ELLEITHEE: Thanks Megyn.
KELLY: Looking forward to tomorrow night. A second undercover video has now surfaced tonight from the folks who just caught some Democratic staffers on hidden camera confessing to trouble making at Republican rallies. James Rosen has the breaking news.
Plus, a bitter back and forth is building now between Melania Trump and one of her husband's alleged accusers. Well, one of her husband's accusers. Howie Kurtz has the story next.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Developing tonight, one day after Melania Trump attacks the credibility of "People Magazine" writer Natasha Stoynoff, the magazine is coming to the writer's defense, publishing an exclusive new article featuring six witnesses saying they can prove Stoynoff's firsthand account or at least contemporaneous accounts of it that she was assaulted by Donald Trump in 2005.
In just a moment, we will get reaction from Howie Kurtz but Trace Gallagher gets us up to speed on the story first. He's in our West Coast newsroom tonight, Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Megyn, at the time Natasha Stoynoff says she was covering the Trump beat for "People Magazine" reporting on all things Donald. She claims in 2005 at the Mar-a-Lago resort where she is seen here second from the left. She was interviewing Donald and a very pregnant Melania Trump for a feature story, and during a break in the interview, Stoynoff says Trump took her to a private room, pushed her against the wall and forcibly kissed her.
She says luckily, Trump's butler walked in and interrupted. The butler who no longer works for Trump has reportedly denied the allegation and so has Donald Trump, calling Stoynoff a liar. And in reference to her looks, urging people to quote "check out her Facebook page, you'll understand," he says. Stoynoff also claimed that a few months after the alleged forced kiss, she ran into Melania Trump in Manhattan and that Melania hugged her. Here's Mrs. Trump denying that to CNN. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MELANIA TRUMP, DONALD TRUMP'S WIFE: That she saw me on 5th Avenue and I said to her, Natasha, how come we don't see you anymore. I was never friendly to her. I would not recognize her.
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANDERSON COOPER 360 SHOW HOST: That never happened?
M. TRUMP: Never happened. That's why I sent in the letter because it discredited the story.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: The letter Melania Trump refers to was written by her lawyer, Charles Harder, who also represented Hulk Hogan during the Gawker lawsuit. It demanded People Magazine print a retraction or face legal action. But "People Magazine" says six named sources now back up Stoynoff's story, including her friend Lisa Herz who says she was there when Stoynoff ran into Melania Trump and they quote "chatted in a friendly way."
Others sources including People Magazine editors and writers say Natasha Stoynoff told them about Trump's alleged attack soon after it happened and her former journalism professor said Stoynoff called him in tears the night of the alleged incident, Megyn.
KELLY: Trace, thank you. Joining me now with more, "Media Buzz" host right here on FNC, Howie Kurtz. Howie, good to see you.
HOWARD KURTZ, HOST, "MEDIABUZZ": Hi, Megyn.
KELLY: I mean this is an extraordinary response from "People Magazine." It's not just we trust or writer. It's -- here are six people who she told the night of the alleged attack, the day after the alleged attack. An independent witness who says she was with her for the Melania Trump exchange. I mean, if this is a conspiracy, wow, it's really well-organized by people.
KURTZ: Well, I don't think the election is going to turn on this. And most of these allegations by their nature involve two people alone in the room. This detailed accounts from these six people a decade ago when there was no intention to go public and Natasha Stoynoff decided not to go public, adds credibility to her account because why would she make this up 11 years ago.
At the same time, one of the reasons it's still in the news is that Donald Trump has repeatedly attacked all of the female accusers as liars and attacked the media for carrying their accounts and for helping to rig the election in his words.
KELLY: And not just that. He doesn't just come out and say it isn't true, I'm not going to dignify this with is back and forth, he attacks their looks. He's been pointing to everybody that he -- he's been pointing everybody to pictures of this reporter suggesting I would never. I don't find her attractive. And today his -- an executive vice president of the Trump organization, his top attorney, Michael Cohen doubled down on that. Listen to him on CNN.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Were you uncomfortable when he suggested these women weren't very attractive?
MICHAEL COHEN, TRUMP ORGANIZATION VICE PRESIDENT: You know, I don't even want to talk about that. You know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. You know, some people may think that they're beautiful, others don't. I think what Mr. Trump is really trying to say is that they're not, they're not somebody that he would be attracted to and therefore the whole thing is nonsense.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Which is just for the record makes absolutely no difference when it comes to harassment. It's not about I'm so attracted to you, I can't keep my hands to myself. It's about power.
KURTZ: Well, look at the last 48 hours. Donald Trump has done a couple of smart things. He's come out with congressional term limits. He has an ethics proposal to restrict lobbying by former government officials. Much of that has been completely overshadowed by the fact that he put out his wife Melania Trump out to defend him on the "Access Hollywood" tape.
KELLY: So that wasn't smart to put Melania? She's very sympathetic.
KURTZ: It would have been smart to do it last week. This time it had the effect of extending the story for another 24 hours. And by the way, Melania Trump is a great asset. And of course people are going to sympathize. She's going to defend her husband. She says Billy Bush (inaudible), OK fine.
But now Melania has been drawn into this back and forth on whether she did or did not meet Natasha Stoynoff some months later of the alleged incident on the street. I don't think that helps him with the voters. He should get back to his core message.
KELLY: Good to see you Howie.
KURTZ: Thanks Megyn.
KELLY: Coming back, James O'Keefe and some new takes.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: Breaking tonight, news fallout after a conservative group releases hidden camera video that catches Democratic staffers talking about organizing disruptions and violence at Trump campaign rallies. Here's some of that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SCOTT FOVAL, POLITICAL CONSULTANT: Well, I call this conflict engagement.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That's your version of re-enfranchisement.
FOVAL: In the line at Trump rallies. We're starting anarchy here.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KELLY: Starting anarchy. Now some folks have lost their jobs. They've been fired. And the group is out with a new tape. James Rosen joins us with the detail tonight from Washington. James?
ROSEN: Megyn, good evening. Two veteran Democratic operatives are out of their jobs tonight thanks to a pair of videos released over the last 48 hours by the controversial conservative group Project Veritas Action led by filmmaker James O'Keefe. Robert Creamer is the head of Democracy Partners, a progressive consulting firm.
He is also a former Obama campaign consultant and a felon who served time for tax violations and bank fraud committed in the '90s. Creamer was caught on camera appearing to collude in a plot to circumvent voter registration laws for Hispanics.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let's say I had a business inside of say, Illinois or Michigan and I hired people and I had addresses for them, I could write them checks for those -- I could use them as day laborers or whatever use them and find my way around the voter I.D. -- the voter registration laws for Hispanics.
ROBERT CREAMER, DEMOCRACY PARTNERS FOUNDER: Let me see if I can chat with the people are most involved in Hispanic voter registration.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Okay.
CREAMER: And see what their thoughts are. I mean there are a couple of different organizations that's their big trick.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEN: A contract between one of Creamer's firms and the Democratic National Committee was severed today with Creamer saying in a statement, "None of the schemes described in the conversations caught on video ever took place." And Americans United for Change, a progressive activist group announced last night the departure of field director Scott Foval, who was seen in the videos bragging about how he paid agitators including mentally ill people to provoke fist fights at Trump rallies.
How he circumvented laws prohibiting campaigns and Super PACS from coordinating and his success in transporting out of state voter to selected states like Indiana and Minnesota.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FOVAL: The least restrictive donation cap and campaign finance laws and investigative arms and any of that. Like they have weakened it so bad in these three states, you could (BLEEP) your mother in front of the governor and not go to jail.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ROSEN: Interim Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile today called James O'Keefe a convicted criminal with a history of doctoring video to advance his ideological agenda. O'Keefe pleaded guilty in 2010 to entering a federal property specifically the offices of Senator Mary Landrieu under false pretenses looking to record material there. Megyn?
KELLY: James, thank you. Joining us now with more, attorney David Wohl, who is a Trump supporter and Austan Goolsbee, who was President Obama's chief economist, good to see you both. David, let me start with you. You know, Trump doesn't have the most finesse messaging but he's not all wrong when he goes after this conspiracy against him in some ways.
DAVID WOHL, TRIAL ATORNEY: Yeah.
KELLY: This goes right to the heart of it. Hiring mentally ill people to show up at the Trump rallies to pick fights, to make Trump and his supporters look bad.
WOHL: And they weren't all mentally ill, Megyn. This is literally rent-a- thug and I've seen it firsthand. My daughter and I went to a rally in Orange County and literally could not get out of the parking lot because of people destroying cop cars, lighting property and fire, assaulting people
KELLY: We covered that one.
WOHL: Yeah, we covered it. It's just extraordinary when you think about the fact that this person is doing it, yet he says, well, we've established this sort of double blind wall between us and the campaign so that Hillary Clinton will know nothing about it. So he's literally telling us that she knows nothing about it and that's her defense to everything, emails, Clinton Foundation, she knows nothing about it.
But the reality is would this man do this unless somebody didn't have his back. In other words, is he going to risk his whole life and his future to establish basically a conspiracy to injure people at the Trump rallies? Somebody has his back and that's Hillary Clinton and that's the DOJ and the FBI. There's no question about it.
KELLY: Austan, you tell me whether, I mean, listen, if she knew about it, that's a whole new ball game, but you don't even need to make that point. This is a democrat working -- first of all, why are they hiring a convicted felon to run this kind of an operation, you know, this supposed voter outreach.
Oh, what a shock! You mean he committed legal violations in doing that, and now this guy out there, blatantly breaking the law to try to make Trump supporters look bad. That's on the democrats for whom this guy works, is it not?
AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, FORMER OBAMA CHIEF ECONOMIST: Well, somewhat, yes. I'm not going to defend the guy you're talking about illegal or unethical activities. I'm heartened that as soon as they saw some low level guy who no one has ever heard of say a thing which is inappropriate, they fired him. And one of the guys just works...
KELLY: Thanks to James O'Keefe who they demonized a lot.
GOOLSBEE: They what?
KELLY: I said thanks to James O'Keefe who they've demonized a lot but he caught their guys on camera doing some very bad things from the look of it.
GOOLSBEE: With this as with previous James O'Keefe tapes. I assume because they fired these people that this was an accurate representation, though as you know James O'Keefe has been guilty many times in the past of editing and changing tapes in a way that was not appropriate.
WOHL: Well, this was just flat out -- I mean the context was clear here, Megyn. I mean they literally hired people to go out -- when you hire someone to commit a crime, it's a conspiracy to commit a crime. If there are ties established between the Clinton campaign and this action, that needs to be investigated criminally by the DOJ, but we know they won't because the DOJ has her back.
Crime after crime after crime has been committed. They're documented. I talked to a judge the other day in court in a chambers conference and I tell you, it's staggering that nothing is being done about this.
KELLY: David, great to see you. Austan, you as well. We'll be right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KELLY: All right. So, coverage of the final debate starts at 6:00 tomorrow, 6:00 p.m. right here with yours truly and Bret Baier. And don't forget to watch Fox's Chris Wallace moderate the debate at 9:00. Thanks so much. We'll see you tomorrow.
Content and Programming Copyright 2016 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2016 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox