mark: i'm mark halperin. john: and, i'm john heilemann. "with all due respect" to bobby durst, if you admit to being a serial killer -- mic off. ♪ john: my mic is back on. happy day before oceans of green beer day. on our lineup, hillary versus democrats and jeb versus walker and walker versus himself. first, jeb versus hillary. these big-time candidates that

had enough practices that worked perfectly, but open letters to jeb signed america. are his e-mail practices as comparable to hillary's as democrats would have us believe? mark: they are more comparable than the current media coverage, but there are some important differences. we will take a look at some of the similarities and differences. hillary clinton was not widely known that she did not use government e-mail. everyone jeb used jeb.org. public access -- they both have public access but the biggest difference is hillary clinton's failure to turn in e-mails led to denial of complete responses of public record requests. jeb bush did not meet the florida archive deadline. it is unclear if hillary clinton did. they both deleted e-mails and they both, in terms of whether the e-mails were public, hillary requested that jeb be public. the biggest issue is the national security front. she was the head of the state department, dealing with national security matters. she did not have a system that would secure her government

e-mails whether it was classified information or not. john: i agree with that 100%. i will say three other things. one, secrecy -- this notion of widely known matters. the fact she did not tell anybody she was doing this including a lot of people in government. mark: people should have protested jeb's practices. john: correct. two is consistency. she was the only one in the government who did the same thing. the third thing is jeb did not work for a guy who pledged to have the most transparent and administration in history and had a policy that he was doing. mark: it is not much of a defense by the clinton folks to say jeb did it, too. before the story broke, they were saying the practices were inappropriate. it's not a great defense. john: this is one of those stories, if you want to be smart about it, you can't be super partisan.

democrats are deflecting from hillary by pointing at jeb. jeb's e-mail practices weren't exactly hunky-dory. those were both true things. mark: jeb failed to turn over about 20,000 e-mails which they said he lost. people are not going crazy about that as hillary clinton if said she lost the e-mails. if you are in hillary clinton camp, you are still dealing with the fallout. there are three words you want to get out to all democrats whose phone numbers are on the books. the three points -- stay on the message. the talking point memo appears to be missed by james carville and claire mccaskill. james carville: you wonder why the public is not following this, they know where it is. it is something she did which was legal. i suspect she did not want people rifling through her e-mails. it seems like a reasonable

position for someone to take. just like everything else before it, it amounts to nothing but a bunch of people flapping their jaws about nothing. claire mccaskill: i think she assumed what was supposed to be public would be public and what was her own personal stuff was not going to be public. i think she might have been too focused on the latter part of that. there should be some thoughts about whoever was making the decision to have some kind of credible shine of independent. mark: claire mccaskill says an independent person should have done it and james carville thinks she withheld the e-mails. there is also not great news about hillary clinton in a new cnn orc poll. 51% say her e-mail use was a very serious or somewhat serious problem. 48% said meh, not that serious at all. on the current facts in politics, can they keep the democrats in line? john: james carville will defend hillary to the death. claire mccaskill has more of a

complicated relationship with the clintons. they were trying to defend her. even if you are trying to defend her, you almost end up blurting out things that don't. those are people that are trying not to screw her. this is so tricky because almost anything you say, once you start talking long enough, something comes out of your mouth that is incriminating. mark: she had her thing at the u.n. and the feel of it was she was telling us everything she knew. her danger with democrats if something comes out different, or something that contradicts what she said, i think that will spook a lot of the democratic elites who say oh, no. on the current facts, those two gaps, she is on very solid ground with democrats. john: you hear it all the time -- there is still unease. they all feel what they always feel with the clintons which is

somehow they don't know the full story and there could be another shoe that drops. it is not like we are already to go and everything is fine. that is not a feeling -- there are tremors. mark: she is ok for now with democrats. john: for now. john kerry's ears are ringing. not because benjamin netanyahu is calling him three times every hour, it is because the super double "f-word" is getting major airtime and that double "f" word is flip-flop. scott walker is the accused and the charge is a tried and true technique. attacking his top opponent is what walker is doing and that happens to be jeb bush. scott walker: i think we need a new fresh face which provides a great contrast to hillary clinton who represents washington and the 1990's as opposed to the future. john: burn!

i want to talk about that but also if walker could beat the flip-flop. mark: if this is the best his republican opponents have, i think they will be in trouble. a lot of the flip-flops are somewhat exaggerated. i think they will go after walker for running wisconsin badly. they will say the economy is not that good. this flip-flop thing, when all the things are moving to the right, i don't think it'll work. the other thing is he handled under questioning from the press really well. he was not romney or kerry. he was calm. john: the flip-flop thing is really damaging. you need a pattern of practice. you need a couple of egregious examples. it can discombabulate you. often, in individual instances

really good response is that i have thought about this matter over time and change my mind. that is why the immigration answer was ok. mark: i asked him what was the difference between changing your mind and flip-flopping. he was fine on it. that frame saying that bush is the past, not the future. john: that's how you beat bush. mark: bush thinks it, too. what do we know after the meeting? the word from two men who met with them privately on new hampshire soil, coming up after this. ♪

john: our guests tonight, two very big shot republicans who met with scott walker and jeb bush in new hampshire this past weekend. former governor john sununu and machester mayor ted gatsas. they both join us from new hampshire.

thank you for coming on. we will start with you, mr. mayor. you met with governor walker governor bush this past week. tell us your impression on them as people to spend time with. first, governor walker. mayor gatsas: he is somebody you can sit and chat with and not feel uncomfortable. he makes you very comfortable when you're in the conversation and he directs questions to you so he can engage you. john: and governor bush as somebody to hang out with? mayor gatsas: he is a lot like his mother and certainly he is an engaging person also. certainly, talks about things that remind them a lot about being here in the past. mark: just in brief, what were the qualities about the two of them that were most charming to you? the most impressive, best things you can say, the way each of them lit up the room.

mayor gatsas: i can tell you that i think they both sincerely care about this country and want to make sure they can bring it forward with ideas that are going to be much different than what we've heard in the past. mark: governor sununu, a lot of people were struck by their first visit, both governor bush and governor walker spend more time with private meetings with activists and other influential people than they did meeting with voters. is that a sensible thing for them to be doing at this stage? governor sununu: i think that conclusion is wrong. they both had a number of events they attended. i bet they both ended up seeing about 300 or 400 voters and activists. i think they had a good balance in the schedules they came up with. mark: what is the point of the private meetings? governor sununu: it is to introduce themselves to people they may not know or reintroduce

themselves the people that they may not have seen in a long while. i think it is part of the process. it happens in every single state. some people at least want to get some advice from as how to deal with a primary campaign in that state. every state is different. new hampshire is an election state. iowa is a caucus state. they want to know how to schedule things, they want recommendations on which activists they might go and talk to as being part of their campaign. all of these things are things good friends could convey to each other. i remember way back in the clinton campaign, i got a phone call from democratic governor clinton asking me for the kind of advice when he was running in the primary here. there is a network of political figures who have relationships and they either establish new ones or reestablish old ones.

mark: governor, you have a good barometer of the new hampshire electorate. do you think in 2016, what that electorate is looking for from the republican possible candidate? is it different from what republican electorates in the past were looking for in past election cycles? governor sununu: all of this is being driven by the horrible performance of the obama administration. voters' expectations are set by whatever's being perceived in washington. my personal feeling is the country needs a governor or former governor to be president. i think the two candidates we have been talking about -- governor walker and former governor bush certainly qualify. there are others that will fit that billing that will come into the republican primary. i think people feel the country needs somebody that has dealt with legislators, worked on a bipartisan basis and got legislative results to do

things. they also need somebody that has a recognition that american exceptionalism is the important and american leadership in foreign policy and national security is a key component. i think those are the two primary aspects that folks in new hampshire, but folks across the country, are going to be looking for. john: mr. mayor, i was in your city this weekend. i noticed there was a new club which is a good addition to the city. let me ask you this as somebody who has not endorsed, just as an analyst, do some oddsetting. who are the three most likely people to win the new hampshire primary on the republican side today? mayor gatsas: i can tell you it is too early to give you that prediction. i think the more people we have come in and talk about issues,

the better off we will be as a state and a country. i think starting this early is a great thing. i think we have a lot of people that want to tell different stories about how they think they can resolve problems. mark: if you don't want to say odds, give me a yes or no answer. have you been to the club manchvegas? mayor gatsas: i have never been there. john: i'm sure governor sununu spent a lot of late nights there. governor sununu: i never even heard about this. i have to ask teddy about this afterwards/ john: here's a question, we talked about it a little bit on our show on friday. we have it up on our wall here. the history of the bushes in new hampshire. a kind of checkered history. george h.w. bush having won and lost. george w. bush having lost. why is it that historically the bush name has not been the most popular name in new hampshire presidential primaries?

governor sununu: it was in 1988 when he won the primary. in 1992, i think the president really suffered from a campaign operation that was a disgrace in my opinion. it created problems for him up here. i think the bush name is still a strong man in the state. i think the relationship that the state has by virtue of proximity to their being up in kennebunk quite often is an important asset. most important, philosophically there is a very good fit. they want somebody that can get things done and the bushes certainly have reputation for doing that. they want someone who has the capacity in foreign policy. i think it is too early to start talking about specific candidates. i think the important thing to understand is the republican party is going to have a great process going on up here and people are going to be selecting from a very broad menu of great candidates.

mark: the name bush for jeb bush, an asset or liability? governor sununu: it is both. john: thank you for visiting. up next, it is a bombshell from bobby durst and our own detective untangles the web of lies after this. ♪

john: a bombshell in a major murder case last night. a hot lead. bobby durst, whose wealth can be counted in skyscrapers, admitted that he "killed them all." who better to deconstruct this constellation of secrets and multiple murders than bloomberg's own top cop. we have a makeshift array of all the big players.

we will go around the horn to view the whole timeline. at the center is bobby durst. tell us 10 seconds about him. lisa: he went from being this amazingly successful man about town to this weirdo with all kinds of problems. john: what year he decided to kill his wife? lisa: kathleen durst goes missing one night in a terrible snowstorm. bobby says she just ran into the city. i never talked to her again. mark: that was in 19 -- lisa: 1982. the attorney picks up this case many years later. she gets interested why? lisa: the cop came in with a file. when she took a look at it, she

said there is no investigation done. john: she was immediately convinced that bobby probably killed his wife. mark: why was there no investigation originally? lisa: it is interesting because the film really did nothing and bobby was determined to get the case into the city where he thought he would be treated better. but in fact, nobody did anything either way. john: jeanine pirro picks up the case and says she is not going to pursue it. what happens next? lisa: as soon as he reopens the case, it becomes public. there is a "new york times" article that said she reopened the case. within days of that, bobby flips out. one of the people that she wanted to talk first to was susan berman, his spokesperson. john: her father was a gangster. lisa: susan ends up with a bullet in her head gangster style on december 23 of 2000.

somebody thought, she is a gangster's daughter. john: where was the mob hit? lisa: in her home. she was broke and bobby was sending her money. mark: the strangest of all the characters enters the picture. you start writing about the story. lisa: as soon as the news broke, i went to l.a. after susan ends up dead, bobby goes down to this hovel in galveston. his next-door neighbor is a guy who was kind of cranky. they're $300 a month apartment. one day, he shows up in three trash bags in the galveston bay. in the trash bag is a newspaper

with bobby durst's address on it. the cops are like -- we will check it out. mark: it is the case that bobby durst was pretending to be a mute woman. lisa: when the cops get to the address, the landlord said there is no bobby durst. the tenant is a deaf mute. mark: all these cases go unsolved for a large amount of time. lisa: they don't. there is a murder charge for mr. morris black. bobby is on trial for murder. he testified in his own behalf -- his defense was self-defense. he said i did not mean to kill my neighbor but i did. once i did, i had to chop him up and get rid of him because

jeanine pirro has been chasing me for the disappearance of my wife that i had nothing to do with. john: bobby killed kathleen durst. what is he doing all day besides occasionally killing people apparently? lisa: he travels a lot. he had a beautiful home in northern california, downtown. he did a lot of traveling. he did not have much to do. mark: why pose as a female deaf mute? lisa: because he did not want people to know he is bobby durst anymore. he was hiding from jeanine pirro. mark: the jury buys the explanation and later he decides he want to make a movie with these two people. what got into this man's head knowing that he is a mass murderer? lisa: hubris. through all of these cases, he

always dangled things in a catch me if you can way. the newspaper wrapped around the torso. come on. john: the last person on the board, sarah. why is she so crucial? lisa: sarah was susan's stepmother. he did not want to believe bobby killed her. as he is working with the filmmakers, he finds an envelope that bobby sent to her mother. it matched perfectly the cadaver note that was sent to the beverly hills police back when his mother was killed. mark: including the misspelling of the word beverly. john: we could talk about this with you all day long. detective depalo, it is amazing you have stayed on this case for so many years. thank you for doing that. we will be right back. ♪

mark: barack obama says the federal government will finally get with the program and decriminalize marijuana. until that happens, we are live 24/7 on bloomberg politics. john: up next, "taking stock." sayonara. ♪

pimm: hello, i'm pimm fox and this is what i am taking stock of this monday, march 16, 2015. when is bad news good news? the federal reserve may postpone any rise in interest rates. the s&p 500 rose the most in five weeks. it gained 1%. the dow jones industrial average and more than 200 points. and oil at a six year low. russian president vladimir putin is back. he made his firs