nation wanted which is florida but nationally and like how that is redundant to his -- >> i think there are several layers to what has been performing in expectations at the presidential level. but we've heard of large donors, like ken griffin who gave $10 million to governor sanders gubernatorial campaigns who said the culture war and this heavy intense focus and insistence on not moving from that has sort of turned him off and other donors as well. he has sort of lost the non-trump money, the donors who wanted to support a non-trump candidate because of that. and i think he is running out of money and the message isn't necessarily where it needs to be. >> we're going to hear more about that in a few short minutes. matt dixon, thank you so much. that is our show for tonight. special coverage of the caucus count down with my friend and colleague rachel maddow and the rest of your favorite msnbc

host begins right now. e msnb host begins right now. >> >> good evening. welcome to tonight special coverage. i'm rachel maddow here at the msnbc mothership with my colleagues joy reid and lawrence o'donnell and jen psaki and ari melber. i friends chris hayes and alex wagner and stephanie ruhle or are gonna be joining us later. it's going to be fun. we're less than a week out from the republican presidential caucuses in iowa. theast eye or a public can debate is underway tonight with oddly a sort of random selection of two of the remaining five republican presidential candidates. taking part in that debate. if you can, right now, name all five remaining republican presidential candidates at the top of your head without looking anything up,

congratulations. and i'll say you need to get out more. two are debating tonight. nikki haley and ron desantis. also tonight, two miles away from that iowa debate, fox news conducted a live town hall with the front running republican candidate, who, of course, her refute has refused to participate in any debates at all this year but who has been very busy appearing in court rooms in the many many many cases in which he is currently a criminal or civil defendant. the biggest news of our tonight, both in iowa and in the u.s. and large, is that the republican field trying tonight from six candidates to five, with the surprising but not shocking news that chris christie has dropped out of the race. governor christie is the only republican candidate who has been running his presidential campaign directly and explicitly against the front-runner, against donald trump. governor christie is now out. his farewell speech tonight or

new hampshire was really something. it was worth hearing, but the way he talked about the candidates still in the race and also for the way he described his own decision to get out. >> i made a political decision eight years ago, when i dropped out of the race in 2016. i looked at the polls, and i decided that donald trump was gonna be the nominee. and since i had known and for 15 years, but i could make him a better candidate, if he won maybe a better president. i knew his flaws. but he also knew he was going to win the nomination. so i decided that i would get behind him and support him. i let the ambition get ahead of the control of the decision-making. and after i figure that out, i promised myself and i promised my wife that i would never ever

do that again. it's clear to me tonight that there isn't a path for me to win the nomination. this is why i am suspending my campaign tonight for president to the native states. i want to promise you this. i'm going to make sure that in no way to i enable donald trump to ever be president of the late states again. that is more important than my own personal ambition. >> chris christie getting out of the race for president tonight. he was bluntly critical of republican front runner donald trump in his final campaign speech. but he also seemed to tap a deep well of disdain for the other republican candidates who he says are not standing up to trump at all. >> if donald trump becomes the nominee of this party, the moment that it happens whereas

where nikki haley and ron desantis and tim scott and mike pence and doug burgum are, and vivek ramaswamy stood on that stage in milwaukee in august and when we were asked, would you support someone with a convicted of a convicted felon to be president if united states. they raised their hands. given credit, he had to look at everybody else first. but then he raised his hand. they raised their hands. and i did not. and i will not. and i cannot countenance that behavior. i want you to imagine for a second jefferson and hamilton and adams and washington and franklin were sitting here tonight, do you think they

could imagine that the country they risked their lives to create would actually be having a conversation about whether a convicted criminal should be president of united states. i can't tell you how many people in new hampshire have asked me, why isn't there a law against that? the answer is because nobody ever thought that someone would have the audacity to run for president as a criminal. and they never found that any american electorate would actually support it. it's not their fault that they didn't push in the constitution, along with 35 years old the natural born american citizen. they didn't think, let's throw in here, and not a criminal. they thought maybe we get that park. we're gonna show them now whether we do or we don't. >> they thought maybe we would

get that part for reduce chris christie ending his camp new hampshire tonight. we're going to talk with our numbers viewers steve kornacki tonight about what may shift in the polling on the prospects for the other candidates know they're christie is giving out. we'll also speak with an important figure in president or biden's orbit, jim clyburn, mr. south carolina, about what this means for the presidents reelection effort in the state of his campaign. but even as we bid a cheer to governor chris christie, two republican candidates who are still in the race are debating in des moines, nikki haley and ron desantis, are the only republicans left in the race who left the polling threshold. the polling threshold said they need to have at least 10% in three national or iowa polls. that brings it down to just haley and desantis at this

point. if chris christie was hoping that the remaining two candidates might train their fire on donald trump tonight instead of on each other, let's just say that the way things have gone tonight, he presumably will be disappointed. >> rather than have ongoing tell you all these lies, you can go to desantis lies.com and look at all those. there's at least two dozen lies that he has told about me and you can see where fact-checker's say exactly what's going to happen and exactly why it's wrong. so it will cover the fact that he has only mad about the donors because the donors used to be with him but they're no longer with him now. and that's because he's upset about the fact [applause] that his campaign is exploding. you're going to see the fact that he has switched his policies multiple times and we will call that out tonight. but every time he lies, drake university, don't turn this into a drink game because you will be over served by the end of the night. >> i think it's interesting because you can go door understands dot com because

nikki haley has this tactic. if you hold her accountable to her record, first you'll say i never said that. well, what a good rule of thumb is, she said she has never said something, that definitely means you said it. and then she'll say you're lying you're lying, that means not only did you say it, but she's on videotape saying it. >> doesn't it just will your heart with patriotism. that's how that is going. but although nikki haley and ron desantis are polling well enough to make tonight's last a why iowa debate, they are both pulling more than 30 points behind front runner donald trump in iowa. trump of course is refusing to debate it all this year. tonight is no exception. and vanity has just wrapped up his own competing event, also in des moines, a town hall on the fox news channel. this town hall here in des moines was a bit of an aberration for the republican front runner. just a quick trip to iowa for him even though the caucuses are only five days away. he has basically not been campaigning in iowa. instead he has opted to spend

his time, including this week, attending hearings in various legal cases that he is embroiled in. he's been attending those proceedings even though legally he does not have to. while mostly ignoring iowa. in the week before the iowa caucuses. it's a weird year. it's a weird time. but that's where we are is a 2024 contest gets underway. the first american presidential election in which the front runner for me -- is feasting multiple criminal indictments, when the actual little roll meaning of the word, that's unprecedented, and of course the stakes could not be higher. course the sta >> but here we g. can i just say, in terms of the haley and desantis, we have a lot to talk about, but i was surprised, joy, to see them come out immediately, horns locked immediately, kill, kill, kill, unrelenting lee. there's obviously a lot of

personal antipathy between the two of them. there's no mutual respect, you're the loyal opposition kind of thing. but they clearly hate each other, and from the very first syllable, we're just out to destroy each other and not blaming it on trump it. all >> i have to see the note that i took on the debate and on watching them battle each other as you said and not donald trump is that it felt like this debate was taking place on a different planet from the planet we live on. because the planet we livon is the one in which the attorney for the former president of united states said that he had the legal authority to kill a man, to order a hit. a political opponent. killer political rival. to me that is such a show stopping stop the university we need to talk this moment. i was shocked that wasn't the first question to be honest.

that the first question was why should iowa voters choose you? but that is such an existential threat to our democracy that is shocking to me that it didn't come up. and neither of them brought it up. chris christie brought it up on his own. because remember, mark esper said donald trump did tell him to shoot people. so it's not as if this is theoretical for trump. for the guy of irresponsibly running against, he did tell his defense secretary, why can't you shoot those protesters? so that's not for something for him that's theoretical. but it didn't exist in this debate. so everything they talked about felt so irrelevant, so small. it felt like they were just nip picking. >> the criticism, the substantive criticism that they leavitt trump was that he added to the deficit and didn't build a wall. over and over. and that's the craziest. >> the walls not finished. >> and the gas tax. >> i think today's biggest news as we started the show saying is about governor christie dropping out of the race, and

his presence at this debate, or his lack of presence, i should say, his absence, was very noticeable. he is the person who would have, in the first hour that debate, we are just washed, so not raised his hand and lately, maybe, maybe not and said what are we drawing here? i mean we just heard the former defense secretary say the former president told me he would shoot people in the street. and that was absent and instead, i've done a lot of campaigns. this reminded me of a senate or a gubernatorial debate a little bit where the each have the opposition research book that you have on the campaign we have every vote in every detail of your opponent and they're just spitting it out. nikki haley a little bit more gracefully than juan desantis. android and i talked about this a bit, if you're at home you're still trying to get votes from these debates. and your home and watching in your thinking what are they talking about? >> why should i vote for these

two losers? >> it's gonna be minus ten. let's see, well, i guess i'll go to desantis lies. whatever. and that will be how decide whether or not i'm gonna -- >> one of the pieces of advice, you never had to say allied candidates, until i guess, now, is when you're out there, do try to be likable. i mean, that isn't even a factor now in republican campaigns for the presidency. maybe they're taking that from trump, who, by all normal human observations is the most unlikable person who has ever asked for a vote. and he got the votes of republicans. and so maybe they think this audience wants to see nasty. i'm here to do nasty. >> on the politics they have to convince people through this debate and in the little time they have left that there is an alternative to trump that they can unify behind. and you just showed, rachel, chris christie behind that, but

instead of offering opposition to trump, they're offering websites. that kind of small fall. in watching the trump town hall tonight, because we kind of split up, if i can speak about the reporting assignments. we split up what we were watching. >> i'm sorry. we >> know, now america knows. >> it was all short straws. >> watching that i have bad news and good news but also more bad news. the bad news is as joy said, we are seeing the unvarnished, under oath, in court reality of how you build towards an autocratic regime. whatever you thought the first tune-wise it is measurably on evidence looking worse if there's a second trump term, and we saw that the courtroom yesterday. the slice of good news on the perspective of pr or lies would be, even donald trump didn't

want to stand by what his lawyer said, today, toward the fox audience. so i just wrote it down. pretty early on and came up and donald trump claims, tonight, on fox, then his position is political violence is unacceptable. and that's not true to him. not to the insurrection, not true at the lies in defending, and that lies after, that serve to protect and care for and possibly he moves he muses about pardoning's insurrectionists. so the sliver of good news is he still feels the right to lie about that in on fox. which i think is politically interesting. the further bad news is neither in the forum or in the debate and we see any meaningful oppositional rebuke to. this and there is no legal or dare i say and i use this word often, patriotic difference between whether a foreign terrorist or domestic terrorists triaged over thrower governed assassinate the vice president or anyone else. and yet what when you would expect to hear from him about

foreign terrorists, you did hear from the enemy within. >> lawrence, in terms of christie getting out tonight, i feel like he gave a good spinal speeches he was leaving. we know the terms in which he campaign, the terms he debated, he was all in all the debates before tonight. but he wasn't making a difference in the numbers. it wasn't making a difference on the polling. he didn't pose a threat to anybody in any state. what do you think the impact will be of him leaving given the fact that he was really taking trump on indifferent way than the other candidates were? >> any impact is marginal in the republican campaign against the inevitable trump nomination. but it's going to be a marginal difference in november. and so what i was watching tonight, and i've watched chris christie's entire political career, i've never seen a chris christie speech that i liked. i've never seen a christy chris christie speech that i respected or had anything i admired until tonight. it was virtually the entirety

of it that was good. and not just good but exactly what republican-leaning voters need to hear. forget about trump voters. they are gone. they are lost to a cult. they won't be back until there is no trump on the ballot. he is speaking to voters who are not sure about biden, they are independent, they normally vote republican but they really don't want to vote for trump. he can hold on to them. he is not voting for donald trump in november. he may never say that he is voting for joe biden and he might not vote for joe biden in new jersey. he might just write in somebody else. that's fine. that will be very helpful. because every republican who doesn't vote for donald trump holds donald trump down from victory. and he has a way of speaking to republicans that no democrat

can do that joe biden will never be able to do, that barack obama won't be able to do. there won't be any surrogate on the democratic side who could speak to the republicans the way chris christie did tonight. and he used the most forceful language that i have ever heard in this space. it's even more forceful and effective than what joe biden has been saying in his first two speeches. >> will it be enough to get republicans to vote for him in big enough numbers but -- >> he depresses anyone who's holding that trump ballot in their hand. he really depresses them. he brings up people like george washington. how dare you? how do you bring up george watching ten? the figures are supposed to wear admire what i'm trying to vote for this horrible person who believes that he is allowed to assassinate as many people, not just a man, but as many senators as it takes to make

sure he is not convicted in the senate on impeachment. he's allowed to kill that many senators. that's what his lawyer said in court. and that's what christie brought up in a way that only he can. >> and by the way, i agree with you. chris christie, there was a little self-reflection in the way he spoke to. you could see a little guilt because he said i've known this guy longer than anybody else. i know we know him. i supported him, and i thought i could make a move at a president. but he said, and i thought this was an important line, if you think for one second that donald trump is gonna do anything for you rather than for himself, that he cares about you, and he speaks in such a plainspoken regular guy way that really joe biden kind of does but not like that. and he sounds like a regular republican. and he is standing in for people like liz cheney who they see is an elite, people like adam kinzinger who they've thrown away. it's hard to throw him away. he's the regular guy but close the bridge. >> he said something in there

that were so important to me personally because he knows donald trump. he knew donald trump. he knew what dom trump was going to be as president and he still supported him to be president. so i retain a certain strong feeling about that they don't let go of easily. but he did something. he said at least one line about why he did that and it was confessional and he said it was because of ambition. and if he didn't have that line in there, my respect for this, i would cut it significantly but, it would still be extremely effective communication to republicans. but he actually communicated to me what that first decision was about when he knew he was supporting someone who was then unfit to be president. >> much more of our special coverage ahead tonight. and i should mention, i'm gonna be speaking with steve kornacki about this dynamic that we're talking about right here but putting numbers on. with chris christie leaving the

race, what does that mean in terms of the prospect of the other candidates and indeed the overall track of his case? that's ahead, plus co-chair of the biden campaign is gonna be joining us live. a lot to get to tonight. stay with us. get to tonight. >> please understand this. i have known him well for 22 years, more than anybody else in this race has known him. and i can promise you this. if you put him back behind the desk of the oval office, and the choice comes and the decision is needed to be made, as to whether he puts himself first or he puts you first, how much more evidence do you need that he will pick himself? f? f? >> i love your dress.

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they figured out a way to keep the internet on. yeah! -nature finds a way. [ grunt ] stay connected when the power goes out, with storm ready wifi from xfinity. and see migration in theaters now. here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. >> donald trump hides behind

the walls of his golf clubs and won't show up here to answer questions like all the rest of us who are appear to answer. he should be in this room to answer those questions for the people you talk about who are suffering. this guy has not only divided our party, he has divided families all over this country. i've spoken to people and, i know everyone else has, who were sad at thanksgiving dinner or at a birthday party and a kid have a conversation anymore if they disagree with donald trump.

anybody who's gonna be spending the next year and a half of their life focusing on keeping themselves out of jail in courtrooms cannot lead this party or this country and needs to be said plainly. >> whether or not you believe that the criminal charges are right or wrong, the conduct is beneath the office of president of the united states. i'm in this race because the truth needs to be spoken. he is unfit. this is a guy who just said this past week that he wants to use the department of justice to go after his enemies when he gets in there. the fact of the matter is, he's unfit to be president and there is no bigger issue in this great race than donald trump. >> that was how he campaigned as of tonight he is out of the race. there really was no one else like chris christie in the republican field this year. when he ended his campaign tonight, it also means the end of the one real anti trump dynamic that has been playing out live in competitive

republican politics. that has now come to an end. does that mean the already pretty clear road to the finish line for donald trump is just that much clearer? does it mean that the candidate like nikki haley now has a chance to consolidate a non-trump if not an anti trump option that could conceivably legitimately compete, for the top spot? what has this been for the biden campaign in for the general election now that the last republican trump antagonist is off the board? joining us now is someone who is deeply important to joe biden as president and to the joe biden campaign, veteran south carolina congressman jim clyburn, a co-chair of the biden harris campaign. congressman clyburn, a real honor to have you be with us this evening. >> thank you very much for having me. >> what is your reaction to the decision by governor christie to leave the race and the way that he did it, the way that he

left the stage? >> well, you know, i listen to lawrence earlier. i had the same feelings watching that press conference or whatever they may have called it. i found myself a bit remorseful because i have wanted to see him stay in this race. i wanted to see republican voters expressing a choice between the truth and the consequences of a big lie. and his gutted out he takes that away. because tonight i watch the first 40 minutes of the debate. here we had two people running against each other, both of whom refused to talk about the character of joe biden, and that, to me, is what is needed in the republican primary, someone willing to stand up to him and draw the contrast

between his conduct and the character of americans that make us what we are as a nation. i don't know what the future holds, but i'm a bit remorseful about chris christie getting out of the race. i hope that those of us on the democratic side will pick up the matter, carried this campaign of joe biden's directly to the american people and do it in such a way that we will offer a clear choice to the american people of what it's like to continue our pursuit of a more perfect union, or whether we're going to allow ourselves to lapse into a trick toward autocracy. because that's where the other side, where they are taking us if we aren't careful. >> congressman clyburn, it's

lawrence o'donnell. i'm thinking about four years ago tonight and things were not looking good for joe biden in iowa or new hampshire. after new hampshire looked quite grim. then he came to your state, and the democratic party was divided several different possible candidates on the way to that nomination. you pulled off the south carolina victory for joe biden as much as anyone then i think to the surprise of many observers the party unified quite quickly and unified fully. . bernie sanders became a full supporter of the biden harris ticket. do you feel, i mean, what is happened to that unity? what is your measure of that unity as of this point tonight and where do expect that unity to be in november? >> that unity is still here i

talk occasionally to the other candidates who coalesced behind joe biden. bernie sanders, lined up with joe biden before he ever announced his reelection. and i think we're still unified at that level. the problem is, in the grassroots we have not done the work that is necessary from the grassroots voters to coalesce around this campaign. all the facts and figures are there for us to be successful. but we have got to do a better job of communicating to the grassroots voter exactly what joe biden has done. he has been a great president. he has delivered for the american people in such a way that nobody, it seems, it can grasp it.

if you look at the wealth gap that has existed between blacks and whites in this country, for the first time we are closing that gap. if you look at student loan debt, what he has done, 132 billion dollars in debt forgiveness that nobody talks about. they only talk about a little portion that he was sued on and could not get done. if you look at health care, obamacare, they announced the health and human services this morning that we are now 20 million people, more people with health insurance than ever in the history of the country. so these are the things that are, fundamental to get in people's lives back on track. covid-19 was a big, big problem for all of us and we finally got someone in the office who recognize that problem. some sense of governance and

know how to get us out of it rather than talking about putting bleach in your veins and pretending that it doesn't exist. so joe biden has been a good president. he can be a greater president when we get people to understand all of what he has done rather than to listen to all of the garbage, the disinformation that's going out out on out there and look at the facts and stop listening to all of this tweeting and stuff it's going on out there. that's not good for the american people. >> congressman jim clyburn, democrat of south carolina, co-chair of the biden harris campaign, an invaluable asset and strategist for that campaign. sir, we really appreciate you being with us here tonight as part of the special coverage. we've got steve kornacki joining us to talk about the impact of chris christie leaving the race. the surprise moment where chris

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here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. >> it has been one of those nights. everything happening all at once while we were still digesting what was going on

with chris christie, somewhat unexpectedly dropping out of the presidential race tonight and then watching the last iowa republican debate unfold in des moines. while that was happening, republican front runner donald trump was holding a televised town hall, which was his first live not pre-taped, not edited appearance on a news network in more than half a year. now our colleagues, lawrence o'donnell and ari melber, have been very bad boys. they get caught, they got convicted, and so they were sentenced to watch that for us. >> lawrence, how did all go, my friend? >> it was not easy to watch. but it was the tamest donald trump town hall ever done in front of cameras. donald trump began the fox town hall tonight in iowa by once again dealing with the question of just how much of a dictator would he be as president? >> this is just a political ploy. trump is a dictator. he wants to be a dictator.

it's interesting. i did a show, sean hannity, did you ever hear of him? he's a very nice man. he said essentially you're not gonna be a dictator, are you? tell me. i think he was trying to give me a nicer question than you guys. he meant it very well. i said i'm going to be a dictator for one day. we're going to do two things. the border, we're gonna make it so tight it can't get in unless you come in legally. and the other is energy. we're gonna drill, baby, drill. after that i'm not gonna be a dictator. after that i'm not gonna be a dictator [applause] . and the press picks it up. so i said i'm going to be a dictator for one day. they cut it then go i'm gonna be a dictator. but the cut the rest of the sentence. no, no. i am not going to be a dictator. >> okay. i'm glad we get that cleared up. [laughter] it doesn't get any better. donald trump claimed he's already decided who is vice presidential running mate will

be. that was the big news. >> who would be in your cabinet, in your administration if you are the nominee, which i know expect to be, who would be in the running for vice president? >> i can't tell you that really. i know who it's going to be. >> well, sorry. that's what you get when you invite donald trump. oh, and every trump supporter out there who thought their retribution bumper stickers we're gonna go all the way to november, you really should listen to this. it's ten seconds that you need to know about retribution. >> i'm not gonna have time for retribution. regular make this country so successful again i'm not gonna have time for retribution. [applause] and remember this, our ultimate retribution's success. >> rachel, one other thing you'd want to know, the only policy thing that actually came up, the only one, we don't know what the top tax rate to be because tax rates no longer matter in republican campaigns, but there was one abortion question the didn't come from

the fox players. there was a voter who said she wanted to make sure that donald trump was supporting her antiabortion stance without compromise. those the two words she had at the end of the question. and he says that he has the ronald reagan position of the exceptions of life for the mother, rape, and incest, and he ends very contra most physician, in her eyes, where he is playing around with, i've gotta find some formula, is it six weeks, they don't even know they're pregnant. he's doing all that stuff and then he says you've got to win elections. that was his bottom line. the interesting thing is, he got a lot of applause for you've got to win elections. in other words, he got a lot of applause for abortion compromise in the eyes of the absolutists in iowa. >> fascinating. >> rachel, you mentioned the specter, the idea of bad boys here. the sea music for the cops show. and i think what we saw, and lawrence is right, donald

trump's good cop and bad cop for these issues. he is vulnerable on these issues. he doesn't know that being convicted would be bad for his own life, potential liberty, but also the campaign. if you lose two points, well, you lost by 7 million to biden last time. you can't lose more in a rematch. so to me this was good cop tonight because he often lied about his autocratic agenda, which means part of that's not popular even on fox. but out on the campaign trail and in these courtrooms re-spent part of the, weekend his lawyers are bad cop, and they're trying about murder in assassination and it's not a joke and it's not rhetoric and it's not, by the way, on january 6th protected by the first amendment if its direct incitement and so i think it's interesting to see that his political lantana has belied in a self interested. way that still on deck. he knows how to do that. >> foxes protection of him in this event is extraordinary. what they are in talking

earlier on fox said he's going to ask about all the defendant trump stuff. did not do that. did not do that. and not a word about the lawyer says you can assassinate people. that didn't happen. >> and just briefly, right there, no disrespect -- >> no, he earned a disrespect tonight. he earned disrespect as he did when he was trying to lie about election results when fox was coming out with our election results in arizona. >> i'm guessing my observation is not meant disrespectfully but he sounded like not like a journalist. more like a friendly lawyer, or a defense lawyer, because he said, you didn't really mean that, and to just help clear up what you are saying, it was wary like when he tiptoed towards the things that are bad for trump, he said but you didn't mean it in a bad way. and again, it goes to the fact that the fox primary does not want to openly in mid they are

supporting an autocrat. >> i was going to say, i think interesting tactics from my point of view it's like foxes not as much the powerful communications megaphone for trump as it once was for the republican party. he can be calm and normie trump, this was a counter programming tactic for him. his real messaging is done through truth social, it is done through all sorts of deep, dark, crazy social media platforms, it's done in the courtroom. and that is what he's betting on. he can be nor me in the fox thing. and he knows that if he's going to do his first live event on fox and a very long time, his first live tv network thing he's done since the disaster on cnn last may, he knows he can only do that if he doesn't tell lies about the election that will have to be answered for by the entity that is hosting him there, which foxes very acutely aware of in a financial sense. so he can be normie trump, he knows that he has to be that.

and if they don't push him to answer for the things he's done -- and he could be crazy on truth social tomorrow morning, or tonight, either one. up next, what it might mean for the republican presidential race for christie to be dropping out, particularly given his support in new hampshire. which other candidates might benefit, how much they might benefit, we've been really looking forward to hearing from steve kornacki about this and he will be here next right after the break, stay with us. after the break, stay with us. after the break, stay wichildren are the greatest

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say that he is unfit to be president of the united states is unfit themselves to be president of the united states. >> chris christie, the chief trump critic in the primary field dropping out of the race tonight before he dropped out tonight, there have been a lot of armchair speculation that if he dropped out, that might most benefit nikki haley. haley does appear to be the most viable candidate against trump right now. steve kornacki knows these things. he's been looking at these numbers. we will be talking with him in just a moment. one last thing before we do that, and know that just before christie's prepared remarks where he dropped out, he was also caught on a hot mic, apparently commenting on hollies chances of beating trump and winning the nomination. he, himself, did not seem to think highly of those chances. here's what he said. >> i mean, look, she spent 68

million so far just on tv. 16 million so far. 59 million by desantis. you know, she's going to get smoked. and you and i both know it. >> and she still 20 points behind trump. >> yeah, oh yeah. steve kornacki, you've been looking at the scientifically speaking. is nikki haley in fact going to get smoked? >> it depends what state you are talking about, key question when you look ahead to the bigger picture of the republican nomination battle here. in any given state, what is the demographic mix and these demographics. our most recent poll, this is a couple weeks ago, we will have a final one this weekend with the des moines registry. but this is our most recent iowa poll. donald trump's way in front. the battle for second between desantis and haley, it is explained by dissecting the iowa electorate. this is the group that is powering donald trump more than any other. evangelical christians in the

2016 caucus in iowa, they were almost two thirds of the electorate. nearly two out of every three votes cast in those caucuses lost by double digits in 2016. he's running up massive margins with them. you could see haley's barely in double digits. where is haley doing well in iowa comparatively speaking? among independent voters. they make up about a fifth of the republican electorate in iowa. you still see trump in our poll ahead, but haley's closest to him over 20%. we will see in our poll this weekend that there's indications elsewhere that she's gaining with independent voters. maybe it will be higher in our final poll, we will take a look at that. but that is why trump is so far ahead and halle is so far behind in iowa. take a look at new hampshire, we had a bunch of new polls come out averaging together. this is a very different picture. he leads only 11 points on average. he leads it in at 12%, a ton of christy support has come from independent voters. that's also true with nikki haley. in all three recent polls, in

new hampshire, she has lead among independent voters. and independent voters and new hampshire make up a very bigger portion of the electorate than in iowa and any other state. just take a look at this. this is comparing the demographics of the republican caucus electorate in iowa. this is with the new hampshire republican primary electorate. but in iowa we say it is nearly two thirds evangelical. and in new hampshire it is a quarter evangelical. a fifth of the iowa electorate, more than 41% in new hampshire. remember in 2016 there were democratic and republican primaries in new hampshire at the same time. not much of a democratic race this year when it has been one party having a primary. the independents tend to be even bigger so that we could have something close to 50% independent vote in new hampshire. moderates, again, 14% in the iowa republican caucuses. double that in new hampshire. this is a demographic mix. it is tailor made for a candidate like nikki haley who's doing very well with

independents, doing very well with college educated republicans, suburbanites, the problem for nikki haley is not when you get beyond iowa and new hampshire, and all the other republican primaries and caucuses out there, the debate graphic makes tends to look a lot more like iowa and a lot less like new hampshire and that includes what could be the next big contest coming out of new hampshire. south carolina, the evangelical share in nikki haley's home state of carolina, 72% in 2016. >> steve karnack, you thank you very much. now we will be seeing you a little later on tonight. much more of our special coverage of this debate night ahead, stay with us. ahead, stay with us. your body can absorb. so you can do you. learn more at newchapter.com. we all know that words have power.

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to have you on here. five days out from the caucus in iowa and nikki haley and ron desantis have wrapped up a two hour debate in des moines which started with them sprinting out of their corners and immediately punching each other in the proverbial face. meanwhile the front-runner in the republican race once again skipped the debate as he has all of them. donald trump was a couple of miles away from the debate stage doing a town hall on the fox news channel. his first known edible appearance on fox news, and his first live known edited appearance on any news network in more than a half a year. all of this unfolded tonight just hours after former governor chris christie is dropping out of the race exiting the field with a blistering speech in new hampshire tonight. a speech in which he lamented the fact in which none of the republican candidates and the race are standing up to donald trump at all. all in just one night. chris hayes, i know you watch the end of the desantis haley debate.

>> i drew that straw. i got the email like okay, all right. we will traded for pizza for your staff. so i watch the second part and it was the fifth maybe even the final official republican debate. they're supposed to be won in new hampshire a week or so. it lasted two hours and it was very weird because it mostly featured wrong desantis and nikki haley going after each other in this very snipe-y, at times petty way. south carolina respectively, their trustworthiness, nikki haley had this repeated implication of a new website called us and slides. i don't know if you guys got to that. >> i was blocked when i tried to get on to this. >> suspicious traffic from your computer? >> they made an official request. >> that's not on the approved site list? so there's a lot of desantis lies and stuff.

there are a couple of policy exchanges. they went out each other on social security raising the retirement age where they have different views. and they had what she could allegedly call eight debate. here's why i'm for, it against, it it ukraine, a debate. but like all of these, it's like this was 50 points behind. it's just, what are we doing here? again, they are all like this, they're so uncomfortable talking about him, they would sort of tried to call them out for not being at the podium. but you could see the kind of rigor mortis said in, that's just incredible, physical discomfort. and then there was this point where the moderators force them to talk about trump, and there was news made when they finally did. you have nikki haley acknowledging i don't know if she has done this and she did it and the most backhanded way

possible talking about the voting, but she acknowledge that donald trump lost the election and joe biden won. that is what counts. take a listen. >> i think the ballots need to be counted on election day and you should get election results on election day. that election trump lost it. biden won that election. and the idea that he's gone and carry this out forever to the point where he's going to continue to say these things to scare the american people are wrong. we've seen a lot of states come together and a lot of election integrity bills. we need three or four states that don't have that but at the end of the day i will always defend and fight for the constitution. that's what we should do as americans i think what happened on january 6th was a terrible day and i think president trump will have to answer for it. >> there is that, and after that one of the moderators talked about what i thought was an interesting question about yesterday's d.c. circuit court of appeals arguments. immunity arguments.

basically, they basically said that you can assassinate the potential rival and be immune unless you are impeached and convicted. what do you think? do you agree, do you see the constitution differently? >> donald trump is going to lose that appeal. he is going to end up going to trial in front of a left-wing d.c. jury of all democrats. what are the odds that he can get through that, talking about the validity of the charges. i don't think he gets through that. so what are we going to do as republicans in terms of who we nominate for president? if trump is the nominee, it's going to be about january 6th, legal issues, criminal trials, the democrats in the media would love to run with that. i'm not running from my issues, i'm running for your issues. >> landing, sticking the landing with the characteristic, and just natural authentic flair. the candidate is known for. i will say that exchange was

interesting. it is a ludicrous argument. >> a bad legal argument and he won't win his case. >> there's an argument that nobody has made, literally the first time i made it. it is just on purely descriptive grounds. not normally like who's right and wrong, and whether you like donald trump, but i'm just putting it out there, folks. should our nominee get convicted in federal court on a bunch of felonies in front of the entire nation? maybe wait for the election year, it might not be the best. he threatened the racist thing about the d.c. court, d.c. jury pool, that is gross. but it's at least legible to other republicans on purely practical grounds, it might not be the best idea to nominate this guy who's about to get maybe convicted. >> and this is credit to my friend joined here from the very top of this discussion, when we are talking about the president making an argument,

former president making an argument in court that he should be allowed to use the u.s. military to assassinate his political rivals, unless the series overcame procedures are used thereafter to rein him in, if those don't happen, he should be able to get away with it. how can you avoid if they say that we don't want somebody -- >> they said that, yes, they said it, but they said it in this way we were trying to think of what is the right metaphor for this. when you are a kid, and you are watching a movie with family, and a sex scene comes on. that physical awkwardness, that is literally, the physical awkwardness is how they get with trump coming up. it's all of a sudden it gets so tight, everything gets tight, everything is like, yes, did they sort of check the box of that is a ludicrous argument? they both said that. but you could just see them looking for how they get out of the situation. >> all desantis said was i

would be, the president should be a servant of the people, not a ruler of the people. that was it. that was his trump wants to be a ruler. and you're like come on, are you in this fight or not? the only one who clearly has shown that they were in a fight tonight was chris christie. and he was there to bow out, chris christie who spent $12 million, and likely improved his legacy, joy and i were just talking about that, when he said, right, trump is unfit to be president, and if you are not willing to say that, you are to. he had more impact than the tens of millions of dollars that ron desantis and nikki haley will have spent, they are going to end up just being unforgettable. >> unforgettable? >> i meant forgettable. >> it struck me with what you are saying is true, i think the problem chris christie has is that he never got to actually say those things with trump on the stage. i sometimes think that there is another sort of metaverse where chris christie runs the exact

same campaign, and speaks really blend truths. i'm with lawrence, i gained a bit of respect for him in a way that he spoke truth to republicans in their own terms about donald trump carrying only about himself, not about them, and about the fact that he is unfit and saying that this is somebody who knows him and supported him, and supported him for my own ambition. and i'm telling you he's unfit. had he been able to challenge trump, mano a mano on a stage, i wonder what that would have done differently for him, as it is now i do think that he improved his legacy. and i agree with you, the only person who spoke today who mattered, who did anything that was important, i think, was chris christie. >> then where does he go from there? do we hear from him again? >> he will be doing what liz cheney is doing. he is now an ex republican who is a never trumper, and there is a country of them. >> but they could impact republican voters where joe biden is never going to impact

them. >> and they made this point on my program tonight, which i thought was taken about this role, it is one of the things that trump does very effectively, that he forces the issue. you're either pro trump or anti trump. you can't be in this liminal space of i'm a republican, and you are now a never trumper. kristie is freshly off of this, and has a space to try to make an argument to a certain set of voters for whom, for instance, liz cheney has already been fully converted into never trumper. you know what i mean? i think it is a tight window. being less republican than chris christie. >> but who is paying him to do that? when you think about chris christie for the next nine months. >> the only thing that matters if he goes to new hampshire and says anyone who thought about supporting, we think about supporting joe biden. really, honestly, it's not even about the republican party

anymore. it's about making sure that the voters who can choose to vote, vote both as a gesture in this early primary process, but also in the general. joe biden could win new hampshire. it is incumbent upon these republicans, not to try to out-trump but to try to throw their weight behind biden. that is where they can do it. >> in terms of what the stakes were tonight with haley and desantis debating, i thought stylistically that ron desantis has become a better debater. he has gone from first gear to grinding towards second gear. nikki haley i think has stayed exactly the way she has. so i think it was slightly better matched in terms of them as candidates. but what they are fighting for is the question of whether or not there is going to continue to be both of them in the race. if ron desantis gets beaten by nikki haley in iowa, he is not competitive in new hampshire, he's not competitive in a single other state in the

country, it is only iowa for. him and it looks like nikki haley is going to beat him in iowa, and then it will be over. so did he do enough to salvage his choices coming in second and staying in the race to lose another day? >> we just heard steve kornacki saying that south carolina is even more evangelical than iowa. if nikki haley cannot defeat trump in south carolina, i feel like what we are all describing tonight's defeat. it is sort of the complete capitulation of the republican party to trump. and chris christie sort of lonely voice of saying we don't have to do this. it is sort of sounding kind of sad and desperate when you think about it. the republican party is completely capitulated. the mitt romney's have left the building. they just have given up and gone home. the mitch mcconnell's do not care enough about the country to stop him, or to even try. and chris christie is sort of now the in that rowboat with liz cheney, and adam kinzinger, saying we don't have to be

this. but the vast majority of the republican base is saying we do want to be this. this is what we want to be. >> christy is a very effective communicator. he'll be able to look at people and say give me a break. joe biden is not pushing some far left wing policies. he's just not. when both candidates were asked tonight about the economy, about high prices, because that is what republicans love to talk about, life is so expensive, yet neither one offered any policy solutions. nikki haley brought up, you know what? the gas tax. we'll get rid of the gas tax. when dana bash said to her great, the 40 billion dollars that that brings into our federal government to fix our roads, what do we do there? neither of them acknowledged it. there's two things voters always talk about when it comes to the economy, grocery prices and gas prices. gas prices in this country are sub $3 a gallon and i, what they are $2.77. why? because joe biden, while he's president, we are pumping more

oil than any president ever. and in the next two years, it will be even more. so watching those two republicans out there with nothing to say about the economy, yet when they have no opponents and they are just throwing out an ad or saying to people, men, is life so expensive in america? they go yeah it is. they have no policy solutions. >> in terms of what is going to happen with the political dynamics at work here, what do you think? alex, you are talking about the idea of christy telling republicans to vote for joe biden. >> first of all he got on the mic saying that nikki haley would get smoked. he can't endorse her. there is no one, there is no one. >> he said if you can't acknowledge he's unfit, you are unfit. if you raise your hand and said i will pardon trump it's a wrap for you so the question is do we end up as you posit, with a field where it is nikki haley effectively resist on a trump? what does that mean for nikki haley's candidacy? she said effectively about the

seal team six thing, that's just not common sense. i mean, actually -- >> it is not my top 100. >> it's actually common sense to assassinate arrival and take him out. it's matt. but you know, when does it hold out a whole lot of hope that she's going to be a big check on donald trump, if it is the two of them effectively. >> go ahead. >> you know, i think what has to happen is some version of if you believe that we are in, you know, a four alarm fire for democracy, the republicans have said if chris christie is true to the words of the banner underneath which he marked today and he doesn't need to do something dramatic. because we are at the stage of the game now where the two leading anti trump, or whatever they are, trump alternatives

could not muster up the courage to say that donald trump has shredded his oath to the constitution. and that it would be somehow a distraction if the country was focused on the essential questions of democracy. and this left-wing jury is not going to be a fair trial for donald trump. and all that democrats want is to talk about the constitution. that is the essential work of the presidency. is carrying out duties as outlined in the constitution. and yet that is a distraction to this republican crop of candidates. >> i think something you said earlier it's here. all of this happens as fox news is considered, continuing to simply be the leveling to make trump seem acceptable and normal. >> because they need him back on their air. >> right, so while these two losers are fighting each other, you know, for third, or second place, on fox, donald trump is

savvy enough to pretend to be normal. and as long as murdaugh says that trump is normal, then regular, ordinary republicans out there are going to say he doesn't seem scary to me. you are hysterical. he is just joking. he's just funny when he says he is a dictator. it's not a big deal. they actually either actively want to have the autocracy that he's selling or they don't believe -- they certainly don't believe us when they say it's autocracy he's trying to. salt so as long as the murdochs continue to put him into this normal, absolutely a typical republican and there's nothing wrong with it, and there's no one out here screaming the opposite, if chris christie is not willing to do that, i don't know where he would do it. he's effective at doing it. maybe there's republicans for biden. but i don't know if he'll do that. maybe he'll just say this truth and go home. >> and if he is one of the crowd here, maybe someone we are talking about of anti trump republicans who have to decide

what they are going to do, one of the things paul ryan is going to have to do is decide what he's going to do with his board position at fox. >> that is right. >> much more for our special coverage ahead, just a minute we will go to iowa, and we will be joined by steve kornacki, we have a lot to get to. stay with us. >> the best way to tell about a candidate is to see how they would run their campaign. he has blown through 100 and $50 million. i don't even know how you do that. through his campaign, he has nothing to show for it, he spend more money on private planes than he has on commercials trying to get iowans to vote for him. if you can't manage a campaign how are you going to manage a country? country?

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here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. >> donald trump should be on

this stage. every candidate needs to earn their vote. and he comes here now and then and now he leaves. i've shown up to 99 counties -- that is the type of president i will be. >> what happens on stage is the first phase of a political debate. the second phase begins when the campaign start trying to convince the world that their candidate, so obviously one the best place to see that gymnastic exercise this in the spin room. joining us now from today's republican debate in iowa is nbc news correspondent, ali vitali. ali, tell us about the and miss fear and how the campaign

thinks things went. >> a lot of somersault and handsprings, rachel, to carry the gymnastics metaphor in here. because yes, the desantis campaign says that he won, the haley campaign says that she won, so it goes. we knew the stakes reach of these campaigns, and they came in with distinct strategies for desantis, it was to make clear that he was trying to blunt haley's rise, and ahead of new hampshire, especially after chris christie dropped out today, it is widely assumed that haley is the beneficiary of that one more candidate in this race. but desantis also did a better job of punching up at the front runner. now, to be clear, both of these candidates spend more time as if each one was their path, as if beating each other was the path to the presidency for them. it completely ignores the fact that trump is the actual front-runner and it's not on that stage. but for desantis he was more willing to be the former

president if you consider his strategy in the state. this is a must-win for him. so he went all in on resources, all in on ground game, all of that is true but frank nikki haley. her goal is to continue punching at wrong desantis in hopes that she continues to help his pretty sagging campaign continue to fail in the hawkeye state. her goal is to get a strong second tier that they can use into a springboard and you hampshire. i do think the striking thing for me is especially starting debate night with the news of chris christie dropping out. you effectively watch the former new jersey governor implore his fellow candidates in this republican race to please show that they are willing to take on the front runner. and that they're almost willing to acknowledge the reality that they have to go through trump if they think that they are going anywhere near the oval office. despite the fact that christy left the door wide open for desantis and haley. he really didn't see any of them changed the posture of their willingness to go after the former president and the foreman fashion with which they

did it. sure, haley is hitting him on tone and chaos and desantis is hitting him on electability and some of his failures that desantis sees them during covid. but none of them really changed but much. and i think as we head into this final stretch in iowa, so much of this debate despite the fact that there were less people on the stage, was mired in buzzwords and truncated attack ads. there were moments where i, myself, found my eyes glazing over. i wondered what it would be like to be the average viewer and the average voter who did not watch every attack ad and twist and turn in this campaign. and just sort of wondered if anyone got anything out of this more than just the camps they came in thinking they have in alignment with. but that might be what debate stages are these days. you think the candidates get less candidates on the stage. might need a more substantive conversation. i don't know that we saw that tonight. >> one of the things that governor desantis referenced several times was his game and the fact that he's been to all 99 counties in iowa.

clearly, he is all in on iowa. he's effectively moved his campaign headquarters there. he pretty much moved himself there. he's not in the polling competitive in any other state which is something that nikki haley actually is. she's competitive in new hampshire and then she will be going to her home state of south carolina. i don't mean to be rude about this but does it seem clear in iowa that if nikki haley beats ron desantis in iowa, that if she comes in second there, instead of him, that ron desantis's campaign will end and won't even make it to new hampshire? >> i can give you a yes or no answer that the candidates never will give us. that is yes, your analysis is exactly right. and when i talk to most of my sources, it's why iowa is so do or die. the way desantis attacked the state of iowa is away that conventionally candidate should find some success here. which is making their way to all 99 counties, completing the so-called full league and getting people on the ground, having them knock doors,

getting them to commit to caucus. all of that is important. but what they continue to show is that by bucking the traditional, he can still find success. i think it is a reminder that the national trends seemed to set the tone here more in this primary state than the traditional way of campaigning here. i do think that it forces a lot of us on the strategy side to rethink the way that you have to be successful in iowa. especially given the test, test. fact that trump has clearly been here, desantis has, as you mentioned, completely planted his flag in this state and try to make it his own. he has gotten all of the right, so called endorsements that you should need, a popular governor here in the state of iowa and kim reynolds, one of the leading evangelical voices here in bob vander plaats. all of that should be amounting to a stronger second place, frankly it should be amounting to a challenge to first place. yet, that is not what we are seeing on the ground here. so for nikki haley, just blunting desantis is enough. she was never saying that she would win here in iowa, desantis really made that his calling card, haley can still

use this as an opportunity to go into new hampshire stronger. and certainly her campaign is feeling more optimistic in my conversations with them despite that hot mic moment, where christie sort of eviscerated her. they still feel like his getting out of the race, freed up a couple of key points that they can now turn to their cause and you hampshire, and she is one of the only people who have been able to put in several polls, and plays, where she is at least close to striking distance with trump, desantis does not have that ability to say that even in iowa, where he has put so much into it. >> it's the perceived effort and the likely outcomes, the combination of those two things that could potentially be so deadly for. him there nbc's ali vitali in des moines for us tonight. ali, appreciate that tonight. thanks for being with us. chris, go-ahead. >> i wanted to say something in relation to what hallie did, very to the point about the 99, the full grassley, famously

chuck grassley goes to all the counties. and if you follow chuck grassley on social media, it's interesting. he's a conservative republican, all about hunter biden's business. but he's also a weird throwback politician. he's like here i am meeting with the chamber of commerce. here i'm meeting with the local addiction treatment center. just like the very classic retail politics. you're my constituent, i'm a representative, you've got an issue, let's talk. and what we've seen happen in the politics of the trump air is that all politics is a national conversion of the old tip o'neill cliché, that all politics is local. that increasingly what it's the media je ecosystem denature of polarization. that basic kind of ground up politics that we have some connection to local areas, but in the sweat equity and the time, shake hands, go to the bingo hall, churches, all that, means less and less. and it is very interesting to see that really on the ground in iowa or trump -- are you kidding, he's not pressing the flesh at this stuff.

he flies in and out. >> there will be a test of it next week with the caucuses, because we see trump is not campaigning in iowa. >> that's my point. >> it seems like trump is running away with it, we'll see. but you won't know until people show up in minus ten-degree weather next monday night to see if they'll cast the votes. >> i think also the full grassley is more effectively accomplished if you are not a robot that's been programed to campaign. ron desantis is singularly awful at human interaction. and so perhaps -- >> singularly? i don't know -- >> come on, rachel maddow. i reject that wholeheartedly. >> finding ron desantis relate -able, is level of awkwardness is one of my favorite ongoing it's, just looking my face all the time, try to warm up in all the way it is. >> if you go to all 99 counties in iowa, i think you'll do

better than everything. -- retail politics, going to change peoples hands, is they tell you what their issue is and you respond to them with a policy that you look for to solving. now, donald trump connected with all of those people because he said your grievance in the world, you feel like you're forgotten, i'm going to solve that for you. and for four, years he only think that he solved was a massive tax cut for corporate america. so the issue to do retail politics is offering any policy solutions. what's the solution? we'll get hunter, impeach joe biden. shut down the government, about the stock market tanks in the next six months. >> maybe to wax a little bit poetic about donald trump, something i'm not prone to doing, he does strike an emotional chord but 70 people. he is really -- >> strongman rule, i will get rid of this media that annoys, you i'll get rid of your enemies. i will get rid of anything in politics, and i'll rule as a strongman. it's a comforting idea. >> well, anger is cathartic. he taps into a rage that is

very satisfying to some people. >> in your first term, but then you have to deliver policies, which is potentially why he lost his second. >> the bottom line is i don't think republicans care about policy. because what was the issue that came up more than any other issue in this debate tonight? the border, which is nowhere near iowa. people in iowa are not facing a border crisis. they are so obsessed with the idea of -- >> there is a lot of migrant labor and meatpacking plants in iowa. >> which they need! >> look, i'm not disagreeing. but where you see the immigration rhetoric get most poisonous is in largely homogenous areas that are seeing a big contemporary influx of migrant labor, migrant workers, margaret faces. and that's why steve king had the residence that he did. >> the way they're talking about it last night, to your point, joy, it was what are we going to do to help texas. >> right, there is no border.

but we have somebody standing by to speak with us. joining us from the side of tonight's republican debate is brianna file steel, she pulled her support for the des moines register. very overworked, she is, and given us some of our time tonight. miss faunsdale, thank you for being on the show tonight, we appreciate your time. >> happy to be here. >> so in terms of iowa voters who have watched this campaign unfold who have had the chance to meet some of these candidates who are thinking about caucusing despite the fact that it is gonna be really cold on monday, will people have learned anything new from tonight's debate, or was this essentially a continuation of the kinds of things they have already been seeing, which is a departure or continuation? >> well, i think it's both. if you talk to iowan republicans they are still making up their minds. they are trying to decide right now. and a lot of iowa republicans, like the rest of americans, you,

know they took a break from news consumption. they went home and they enjoy the holidays. they're coming back again in just now starting to really engage and decide how they are gonna caucus on caucus night. so if you're just tuning into the debate, the campaign in a real meaningful way, this debate could've been really helpful because it was substantive. there was a lot last of the crosstalk that has really dominated some of the past ones with much more polar debate stages. we got more issues, got to hear ron desantis and nikki haley talk to each other about some of those issues that do matter to eye what republicans. so in that sense, if you're just tuning in now, you're trying to decide how you're going to be caucusing, this is meaningful. and i was texting with republicans here in iowa throughout the debate to see kind of how they were perceiving it. and i found really two different tracks, people who said it was substantive, meaningful. and then there was the others who said this is more of the same. if you were undecided before, this doesn't necessarily mean --

there was no big moment tonight that really shifted people from desantis towards haley or vice versa. so in a race that has really been marked by these two person fight for a second place, i don't know how much impact this is going to have. >> breonna, one of the other stories we've been following tonight, which was i think a surprise but not a shock was the announcement by chris christie that he was leaving the rays. and i know he was not pulling in significant numbers in iowa. but it's big news that he's dropped out. he dropped out with a, splash giving an impassioned speech calling on his fellow republicans to break more divisive lee with donald trump. do you think for the republican iowa voters you're talking with the night, do you think that christy leaving or any of the things he's saying on his way off the stage will have any sort of impact in your state? >> well, we looked at our past pulling. the des moines register, nbc news iowa poll that came out in december, and we asked our

pollster to realign where the candidates would be, what the results would be with chris christie out of the race. because we asked people who their seven choice for president is. so when you realign those votes to the second choice candidate, it really does not change the overall shape of the race here in iowa. nikki haley gave the point. ron desantis and donald trump stay the same. so it does not do much in the terms of iowa caucuses. again, chris christie set foot in iowa throughout the course of his campaign. what this really does change the state of the race in new hampshire. and i do think i while republicans will be looking to new hampshire to see which candidate has a path forward. they want to pick someone who has a chance at actually winning the nomination. but >> brianne pfannenstiel, chief politics reporter for the des moines register. as i said, overworked right now, overtaxed, and a natural resource we all need. thanks for spending some time with us tonight. and good luck over these next five days. >> thank you.

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here's why you should switch fo to duckduckgo on all your devie duckduckgo comes with a built-n engine like google, but it's pi and doesn't spy on your searchs and duckduckgo lets you browse like chrome, but it blocks cooi and creepy ads that follow youa from google and other companie. and there's no catch. it's fre. we make money from ads, but they don't follow you aroud join the millions of people taking back their privacy by downloading duckduckgo on all your devices today. let's put this in perspective, under her administration, you would have seniors getting less cost of living adjustments, while your tax dollars are going to pay the pensions of ukrainian bureaucrats. >> that's not true, that such a lie. >> when you talk about americans last, that is --

>> you supported all that money going over there. >> that's such a lie, ron. that's such a -- >> yes, the republican race in iowa seems to be a little bit sad, or at least it's hard to imagine how it is going to change for the next five days. you never know. i roy and i want voters how surprised us before. don't believe me, that's why we have nbc's steve kornacki, who knows these things. steve, tell us how we are going to be surprised by iowa, are least how we are surprised by the past. >> we can find, we took a look back at the modern history of republican caucuses in iowa and try to come up with the three biggest caucus night surprises. and you can judge these and compare them to what might constitute a surprise on monday and see whether any of these are relevant. here they are, what we came up with. the first, go back to 1988. there is bob dole, senator bob dole at the time, winner of the 1988 republican caucuses in iowa. his favorite message to iowan, a fellow midwesterner, i'm one of you. the margin that bob dole won by

an 88 was the largest in caucus history. why was this a surprise? because the second place candidate in iowa was supposed to be the sitting vice president of united states, george bush senior. and instead, as the votes in the returns came in on caucus night, it was someone else. it was, the drama is fading -- >> [laughter] it was. >> i can't believe it. >> oh, come on. >> let's try this one more time here. >> oh, man. yay! >> there it was, it was the televangelist named pat robertson. in the 1988 iowa caucuses, pat robson beat the sitting vice president, got second place, it was a shockingly high number for robertson. no one had expected it. no one had predicted it. what this represented was the christian wright had sort of started becoming a political force in the late 70s, going in the 80s. robson believed he could corral it into a presidential campaign. he brought on all sorts of voters who had never participated in the caucus before. this marks the arrival of the

evangelical christians as a force in the iowa caucuses. a force that has only grown. two thirds of the iowa electorate in 2016 of the republican caucuses was evangelical. this was the origin story, pat robertson in 1988. another big surprise was 1980. ronald reagan, of course, it was the big year for reagan, he became the president of the united states. here is one that is a little you -- can see a parallel to now and you can decide if it applies. there was a final debate right before the caucuses in 1989 where ronald reagan was the big front runner nationally, he was the front runner in iowa, they skipped the debate. the subject of him skipping the debate came up during the debate, and all the candidates the moaned that ronald reagan was taking iowa voters for granted. and lo and behold in the caucuses, reagan lost. and this was a major upset. george h. w. bush's, at the time he was the former u.n. ambassador, if you want to see any other parallels to current politics, george h. w. bush edged ronald reagan. bush city had the big mo, he

momentum coming out of iowa, meeting new hampshire, ended up losing to reagan there but it became a fight for a few months. probably the only reason bush became vice president was as upset win over reagan in 1980 that made on the main alternative overall raegan. in 2012, there's rick santorum. rick santorum won the iowa caucuses. but it's an interesting story, it took him a few weeks. it took the republican party of a few weeks to say that santorum had one. the difference between romney and santorum was that small. but this was a major surprise because santorum had been pulling in single digits until about a week before caucus day. and he surge really in the final five or six days of the caucuses and just pulled out a surprise victory. now, the interesting thing here is romney had been favored to win iowa. we've seen all year before the caucuses different candidates, rick perry for a while, newt gingrich, herman cain, who had sort of risen up briefly, taken the lead in pulling only to fall back. so we had seen before this there is an appetite among

republicans for a romney alternative. and it just happened to be, it seems, rick santorum's turn to try on that role, right as the caucuses arrive. so he rose up, won the caucuses, did not do much in new hampshire, that gingrich at the moment, and santorum had another moment late in the primaries. but no one was ever able to put together, obviously knocking off romney. but there is a candidate who was in single digits, two weeks, one week before caucus day, who did end up winning. that's probably the biggest late surprise we've seen in the caucuses. >> briefly, steve, i'm not supposed to be doing this, i'm supposed to go to commercial, but have to ask. 2020, the democrats totally skewed up the iowa caucuses, like structure, didn't work. 2012 of those guys you have up on the screen right now. you had romney on the, wouldn't know rick santorum's the, winner ron paul's one to get all the delegates, it was such a mess. it might be a close race between nikki haley and ron desantis in iowa. do you have faith that iowa republicans know how to run their caucuses this year? >> it's an important point to

make when you're talking about caucuses. obviously, iowa is the biggest one, but there are other states that do this. keep in mind, these are run by state political parties. they set the rules, they conduct them, they tabulate the results. these are not run by secretaries of state, official state agencies. so, yes, they've made changes, the iowa republican party is expressed confidence that they will be able to tabulate these results, get an accurate, fair, and full count out. but you really, as you say, you won't know until monday night. we will see. and maybe as in the case with 2012, it was about ten days later they came out and said actually, santorum is the winner. >> exactly. >> you have to stay on air the whole time? >> oh, yeah. it's all right, they give us like this fancy -- thing this fancy diaper thing. >> [laughter] >> more of our coverage. just like the astronaut. five days from the iowa caucuses. how do you think we stay on the air this time? it's not magic, it science. we will be right back. >> [laughter]

>> [laughter

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desantislies.com, we have never raised a tax. >> you tried. >> governor desantis, she has the floor. >> he was a big smile. bless his heart. and bless nikki haley's sales pitch for her new website tonight. boy, was she thorough about

that. >> you can go to desantislies.com. >> go to desantislies.com and you can find out for yourself. >> first of all, bless his heart. desantislies.com >> go to desantislies.com.com. >> i said you can't just build a wall. >> desantislies.com. >> go to desantislies.com. >> desantislies.com but. >> in the enterprise, florida -- >> it's on their. >> it could be a pitch to be president. it could also be them reading the comment section on a qvc youtube clip. but bless everybody's heart on the tape team tonight finding all the times if he haley said desantislies.com >> oh, we watched. way more than that. >> we think it may be an 11 times, we may have missed one. chris christie has dropped out of the race. nikki haley and ron desantis have probably punch each other in the face for two mystifying straight hours in the final iowa debate. donald trump has been brought back on to fox news live for the first time in months and

months months. you guys, it is on. it is happening. and our emerson b.c. special coverage continues. stay with us tonight. ay with us tonight hi, i'm janice, and i lost 172 pounds on golo. when i was a teenager i had some severe trauma in my life and i turned to food for comfort. a friend told me that i was the only one holding me back from being as beautiful on the outside as i am the inside. once i saw golo was working, i felt this rush, i just had to keep going. a lot of people think no pain no gain, but with golo it is so easy. when i look in the mirror, i don't even recognize myself. golo really works.

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