mark: mark halperin here at the grand plaza hotel which is the center of the political universe in nashua. live free or move to vermont.

the first republican leadership summit is shaping up to be the biggest presidential event of the year here in the granite state. seven would-be presidents addressing hundreds of republican activists today. nine more tomorrow. since this morning, voters have spilled in like syrup over pancakes. if you missed our live stream today, which has been awesome, here's the greatest hits of this #fitnsummit. >> we're not going to fix washington. by electing a president who is from washington, of washington or for that matter for washington. >> the world itself is moving beyond our control. because we have an administration that won't defend our interest, won't protect our allies, won't stand up to our adversaries. >> her record of achievement is zero. and you can understand why she destroyed all those emails. i'd be embarrassed too.

>> you need somebody who is going to stand up on a national basis and explain the truth to people. >> i didn't run for governor of new jersey to be elected prom king. [laughter] ok? i'm not looking to be the most popular guy in the world. i'm looking to be the most respected one. mark: the most recent of the would-be presidential candidates to take the stage was jeb bush. you see him there speaking live now. plenty to pick over. which we'll do throughout this episode. but for you, so far today, with him still speaking, who's done the best? heidi: i'm going to say jeb bush. he did something that none of the other candidates did. he introduced himself. he said, i'm jeb bush. this is a little bit about my family. this is what i did in real estate. new hampshire voters like this. what they don't like are presumptuous candidates who come in and assume, especially if you're a bush or a clinton, that people already know who they are, they know their story. they want to be courted. mark: i agree with you that that

biographical piece has been missing and it's important for him because he is a bush and people do know him. but there's a lot of resistance to another bush. i thought chris christie was pretty good as well. he's coming in here now as a guy who is not who where he thought he'd be. he's not a favorite. he's trying to fight his way back into relevance and maybe closer to the top tier. i thought did he pretty well. heidi: he has a very no-nonsense style. northeasterners like that kind of approach. the big question for christie is whether this gamble on social security and the entitlement messages that he's carried, it wasn't his style, it's more his substance. you have to wonder how successful that's going to be. mark: he made it pretty clear today he's going to continue that at least for a while. a lot of speakers today as we said. report cards on all of them.

governor gilmore of virginia c-minus. our guests coming up later in the program, ambassador bolton a b-minus. congressman king of long island, a b-minus. my full report card's available on bloombergpolitics.com. right now for those who have spoken and we'll continue to grade folks throughout the evening. marco rubio speaks tonight and tomorrow. of the other folks, let's exclude ambassador bolton since he's sitting here listening to us, of the other folks who have spoken, pataki, gilmore, king, did anyone stand out to you as maybe breaking through at all today? heidi: i don't know about breaking through but i'm going to give kudos to pete king for taking on the issue -- he had arguably the hardest questioning session. he had folks stand up and challenge him on the shutdown and why he's been critical of ted cruz and he was honest. he took it head on. and he said, those are not my politics. if you disagree with a policy, you don't shut down the government.

you work the legislative process and legislation through the house and senate and he got applause for it. not from everyone. the composition of the state is 1/3 tea party so not everyone was going to be clapping but kudos for taking that on. mark: all of these people come in, the format is a little bit of a mixed bag. a combination of some speech and q&a. moving on. republicans are all about family values and jeb bush faces a lot of questions about his family and its values and also its record. this morning at the protein-heavy politics and eggs breakfast, jeb bush went on the offense, not waiting to be asked, and trotted out what is now an increasingly familiar line about differences. >> i'm going to have to show my heart, show who i am, tell my story. it's a little different than the story of my brother and my dad. this may come as a shock to you

but you have brothers and sisters, so you may appreciate this. we're not all alike. we make our own mistakes in life. we are on our own life's journey. mark: after that event, heidi asked jeb bush about foreign policy differences he has with his big bro, 43. you spoke in the beginning about how your story is different from your brother and your father. what do you want new hampshire voters to know about how your policies would be different? >> they will. today was a good example. i got to share what i did as governor of the state of florida. i'll get, if i go beyond the consideration of this, to be an active candidate, candidates sometimes actually propose ideas for the future and that's what i intend to do. heidi: can you point to anything specific? >> not yet. the circumstances for today are different than they were in 2000, certainly different than they were in 1988. there's a whole new set of challenges, whole new set of opportunities. the world that we're in is radically different than it was when my brother was up here in

1999. and certainly light years away from the 1980's. ideas need to be about the future. i'll get a chance to do that. mark: so if you assume he's got two audiences in dealing with this question, reporters who ask him about it a lot, both in terms of style but also in terms of the record, but also voters. how is jeb bush doing in handling so far this question of, he's another bush and he's got the legacy but he's also got the burden? heidi: you know how some guys have daddy issues? jeb has brother issues. i would argue that the number one obstacle he faces is overcoming the shadow of his brother. george w. bush was not beloved in this state. he lost the state. just in terms of his profile his politics, social conservatism wasn't the best fit and you saw that today. jeb bush acknowledged it. he said, i am going to come out with different policies. i think he planted the seeds. mark: he definitely did.

although he's pretty clear in saying this election isn't about history and he doesn't want to talk about history. a lot of times in politics campaigns will say, reporters ask me about this issue all the time, i never hear it from voters. walk the halls here, go anywhere in the state, there are a lot of republicans who are not open to voting for jeb bush because he's a bush. they're not even focused on whether he would have supported the invasion of iraq or whether he supported this or that bush. they're not interested in another bush. this attempt to defuse it is going to be ongoing. it is going to be one of the stories, not just of this primary, but of the jeb bush candidacy. heidi: i think he's going to have to work to overcome that. that's why in this state, especially, because of the disposition of new hampshire voters, he's going to have to get in front of them and show them that he's different not just in terms of substance but style. i covered george bush and he is very different in terms of being

just very focused on policy. in his own words, he's a policy nerd. he embraces that. that was very different from his brother. i think that the more he gets in front of new hampshire voters, the more that they're going to see that for themselves. mark: no doubt. speaking of getting in front of new hampshire voters, so far on this new hampshire swing, we started last night, jeb bush has done three speeches, three voter q&a's and two very available press events. his stump speech is better than it was even a few weeks ago. and he's more accessible to the media than pretty much any other major candidate in this race. especially compared with hillary clinton. i asked jeb bush about that earlier today. why is it important to talk to reporters? >> i don't think it's that unusual to talk to you guys, you come out here to talk. i'm missing the point of why would you not talk to them. mark: that's the way we used to do it. some of the other candidates go days at a time without ever talking to the press.

>> we may reach that point at some point but right now i kind of enjoy it. mark: before we talk about jeb bush and his openness and speech, let's go back to the video replay. i want to point out that in all the excitement of being at the breakfast, i held the microphone upside down as i talked to jeb. luckily my colleague had a mike over him and pointed out to me that the thing was upside down. the speech he gave this morning i thought was excellent. today maybe not quite as good at this event. but stronger than before. it's the openness. taking questions ever day. not john mccain 2000 level, but will he be rewarded if he continues to take more questions than rand paul, certainly scott walker of late, and most of the other major candidates? heidi: because he's jeb bush, my answer to that is yes. he should continue to do that. because he has the substance. the real risk for candidates and being too open to the media are that they stumbled. that they make mistakes and look awkward and stupid.

that's not a problem for jeb bush. so i think the more accessible he makes himself, the better it's going to be. mark: totally agree. i asked him this morning, should the u.s. be for regime change in iran, he left the room and then stopped and looked back in and said, that's a good question, i don't know, let me think about it. most candidates wouldn't have the confidence to say that and get away with it. he does. we'll have marco rubio's speech here this evening on our live streaming from nashua. he'll be on the 7:00 hour. coming up here, though, mr. ambassador, the john bolton, live here in nashua, new hampshire when we come back. ♪

mark: our guest tonight has a lot to say about barack obama and hillary clinton and the current administration's foreign policy. sometimes some of the things he says aren't all that nice but he also says he spreads sweetness and light wherever he goes. ambassador john bolton.

thanks for coming by. you're often a critic of the president and the policy. he's fighting for trade. passed through congress yesterday a pretty big movement on free trade. how would you rate the job the president's doing on the issue of trade and is america right now, do you think public opinion supports the kind of free trade deals the administration's pushing? guest: i think he's six years late on this although i was asked this morning on a radio program, name one good thing the president had done, and i picked this effort to get the fast track approval restored. which he had allowed to lapse earlier in his administration. i think he is swimming against the current in his party on this. mark: what about public opinion overall? is the public a free trading country? guest: i think if the president demonstrates leadership. i think he'll win this and get great credit for it if he stands out in front of it. heidi: you published a recent op ed in "the new york times” advocating for bombing iran before iran gets a bomb. why do you think that the outcome of that would be any different than it was in iraq? guest: let me say, i wrote the same editorial five years ago.

and this one got a lot of attention because it was in the holy pages of the "new york times.” the fact is right now there are only two good options. only two options. neither one of them are good. one is that iran gets nuclear weapons and they will get them whether they sign this deal that's on the table now or not. they're on a path to do it, it's entirely within their control. and i don't believe they're ever going to give up their 30-year-long quest for nuclear weapons. the only other option is that somebody uses military force to break iran's control over the nuclear fuel cycle at key points. the president says all options are on the table. nobody believes him. the iranians don't believe him. the israelis don't believe him. he doesn't believe it. so the spotlight's on israel, as twice before in their history, they've struck nuclear weapons programs in the hands of hostile states. their decision now is enormously speeded up by vladimir putin's decree on monday to allow the sale of the s-300 anti-aircraft missile defense system.

so i think we're coming close to a resolution on that. mark: lots we can talk about on that but i want to move to other topics. as you deliberate here you've said to me and others, you're largely part of this to influence the foreign policy debate and today you chose to talk exclusively about that. i want to ask you about a domestic policy. president bolton, what kind of supreme court justices would you nominate? guest: i worked for the ronald reagan justice department. i've arced cases as assistant attorney general on some of these constitutional issues. i'm an originalist. one of my law professors was robert bjork who should have been on the supreme court. i would pick justices who adhere to the words and original intent of the framers of the constitution and i think that would be an absolute requirement. mark: who is your favorite justice on the court today? guest: clarence thomas, my law school classmate. heidi: what about on the economy? guest: i'm pretty libertarian on economic and fiscal issues. i think what we're seeing today and the weak economic recovery we've had since the recession

the effect of the dead weight hand of the federal government excessive taxation, excessive regulatory burdens, e.p.a. nlrb, the effect of obamacare. i think the failure to get the overall employment up with the lowest participation of the work force in over 30 years, since women have gone into the work force in substantial numbers, is a demonstration of the failure of the economic policies of the current administration. so my general principle, my operating principle, would be to get the government off the back of the economy. mark: we talked at the beginning of the program about biography and how governor bush talked about his, contrary to popular opinion, you were not born in a dark suit and red tie. so -- guest: you can't prove that. mark: talk to us about yourself, your family, your upbringing who you are as a person. guest: i don't think that ought to be part of the subject of discussion in presidential elections. but i realized i lost that

debate 30 years ago. my father was a firefighter for the city of baltimore. my mother was a housewife. i'm very privileged to be the first person in my family to go to college. i attribute where i am today to two things. my parents' genes and the admonition that they drilled in to me to work hard. mark: did you work during college? what kind of jobs? guest: i was a temporary summer letter carrier and i worked in a machine shop. mark: what did you do in the machine shop? guest: i formed metal for various pieces for scientific instruments. this was a job that my father also worked on. he was a law violator in baltimore. as a firefighter he was forbidden from working other jobs but since the pay was so low, he worked another job. mark: let us hear your baltimore accent. guest: my father used to refer to the thing you have in your kitchen than runs water in it as the zink. his job was a farfighter.

mark: what do you like to do besides talk about foreign policy? you have hobbies, sports garden, cooking? guest: i used to be an avid baltimore colts fan. then they went somewhere else and i don't acknowledge it. i still support the baltimore colts. mark: are you a fan of the movie "diner"? guest: no i've never seen it. mark: if you're a baltimore colt fan, you need to see it. guest: i don't think. so i don't know tyler swift songs either. mark: thanks for being with us. welcome back. coming up, rick perry just flew into the granite state and, boy, are his arms tired. ♪

mark: so now we want to show you some highlights from today's session. again, we had some republican presidential candidates and potential candidates speak. more coming tonight with marco rubio. a lot of the major candidates speaking here tomorrow. let's look at some sound. first from governor rick perry redoing some hand and arm movements that will be familiar to people who watched him in 2012. >> you fast forward 10 years to 1989 and we saw the berlin wall fall, the end of soviet communism, because we had rebuilt our military and the president had the vision to rebuild this country. and we can do that again. this is an incredibly, incredibly resilient country. we've lived through a civil war. we've lived through two world wars, we lived through a great depression and through jimmy carter. we'll live through barack obama. i promise you. we will do this.

mark: here's another bit of rick perry from this morning. again, reminiscent of the way he performed on the stump the last time around. >> two things are abundantly clear to me. one, america is at a time of testing and our leaders are failing test. number two, in response to the many crises that we are seeing around the world, that we're experiencing in the world today. both at home and abroad, i might add. the conservative movement must be the agent of reform. mark: so i'm a big fan of rick perry personally. i like the guy. i think his chances are pretty good. but this performance, the gothic-serious-southern thing, that is only reminding people in new hampshire what he was like last time. i don't think he can win if he performs like that. he was like that for most of his performance today. heidi: i'm going to disagree with you a little bit here. i think that rick perry, if he can -- yes, i agree with you on

the whole traffic cop thing he's got going on. but if he can get rid of that, if he can get rid of the arm waving and you just listen to the oration, he's a pretty good speaker. at the same time the bar is so high for him, given what happened the last cycle. the oops moments and the impression of him. mark: that guy, i interviewed him on the program a few weeks ago. that's not what he was like. he has to be able to give a speech to have people think new about him. when he talks like that, they think the opposite of new, they think old. they think old rick perry from 2012 who was a loser as a presidential candidate. i just amazed, i know his supporters don't like me to say this, i didn't give him a good grade, but that performance style will not get him the second look he needs. governor christie spoke today and was very strong on these themes of being a leader, being a truth teller. and being somebody who can get stuff done. let's listen. >> everybody who is considering running for president of the united states should have to answer for you what they're

going to do regarding the cost of entitlement programs in our country and how they're going to make it fair for everybody. you notice the president hasn't talked about this for eight years. from the day he announced in 2007, to this very day he doesn't talk about it. the reason he doesn't talk about it is because there's not some short answer you can read to tell what you to do. i am opposed to government waste. that is a bold, wild statement. isn't it? what amazing leadership i just showed by saying i'm against government waste and i want to cut it. anybody who comes up here and says that, boo them off the stage. boo them off the stage. because of course everybody's opposed to government waste. of course you're going to do the best you can to try to cut it. then after that, then it's time to get to work. mark: as christie tries to struggle back here, i think today and in his appearances in this state earlier in the week i think he's got a pretty perfect pitch on being confident because that's going to be part

of any winning christie style and message. but not arrogant. not suggesting to people that he knows it all or he thinks he's in some ways still a top tier candidate, because he's not. a lot of skepticism in that room about him still. heidi: the style is there. it's the substance. again, he launched in on this pitch on social security and medicare and i didn't get the sense that this was resonating. he himself said, this is politically risky. we'll see, i guess time will tell whether this works. of course one of the questions was about cutting the debt and can't you just cut more from the government? don't go after my social security. so this i think is showing just what a risk this is for him. mark: he didn't do the details today which i thought he might of his plan to deal with social security and medicare and medicaid. he just said, i got a plan. we'll see if he keeps that up. so far it's what he's going with. coming up, all the information you need to know about your weekend spent here with us. it's all just getting started after this. ♪

mark: around 7:00 p.m. eastern time tonight, marco rubio's speech will be live here on bloombergpolitics.com. tomorrow we'll pick back up with rand paul bright and early. for now, bye.

pimm: hello. i'm pimm fox. a global stock selloff today. u.s., german and japanese stocks all fell. the s&p 500 is now up only 1% for the entire year. comcast acquisition of time warner cable has potentially hit a stumbling block. staff attorneys at the u.s. justice department's anti-trust division are said to be nearing a recommendation to block comcast's bid to buy time warner cable. the attorneys are said to be concerned that consumers would be harmed and could submit their review as soon as next week. stocks for both companies dropped on the report. and a potential drug deal in new generic drug giant may be in the