? mark: with all due respect to john bolton's decision not to run for president -- >> ? how am i supposed to live without you now that i've been loving you so long ? mark: i like michael bolton. it's a lot of the stuff that was on the show last night, plus the simpsons. once again, jeb bush. for the fourth day in a row, he gave an answer about the invasion of iraq. as they say in kennebunkport the fourth time is a charm.

jeb bush: knowing now what we know, what would you have done i would not have gone into iraq. that is not to say that the world is safer because saddam hussein is gone. it is significantly safer. that is not to say there was a courageous effort to create stability in iraq. all of that is true. that is not to say that the men and women who have served and went to iraq, they did so honorably. but we have answered the question. going forward, what is the role of america going forward? john: does that answer put to rest the flap? no. he made a concerted effort, but let's just pause on the horrific nature of the performance there. the chippiness at the beginning

and the obvious irritation. not handling it in a cool, calm, collected way. and the second thing he alludes to, was the war worth it, he says yes, the war was worth it. he would have gone in. but he is still arguing that it was worth it. that is not a winning place to be when it comes to the iraq war. mark: on the one hand, he put this behind him a little bit. i think people will stop asking about it. he has unsettled donors, senior party officials and republican strategists who looked at this week and said he is rusty, not prepared, cannot handle the family dynamic, and his staff is not serving him well. on the other hand, he is learning this early. he is a smart guy.

i think they will probably figure out they need to prepare him better. john: i do think that he was a "b" candidate this week. this was not someone who could beat hillary clinton. if i watch that answer, i might say, you are right. you will not get asked about it again. but i would not say that as a guy that is ready for the big stage. mark: i have been impressed with him since december when he was flirting with running at how he has been zen-like and kept his cool. that is not a president right there. the tone of that thing, he is clearly frustrated. the syntax was garbled. john: agreed. he was being asked about a basic fundamental thing. mark: and if his position is that the war was worth fighting, he will be on the wrong side of.

public opinion. it is the position of some people in his party. john: not what you need if you are hoping to win a sound portion of the electorate. mark: this may be our lead tomorrow. john: john bolton is not running for president. no passing go, no collecting $200. so mark, this is my question. this means what? mark: i thought he was going to run. i spent time with him last weekend, and it seemed like he was getting ready to run. this opens an opportunity for people like lindsey graham or marco rubio, who have been emphasizing social security, it opens the lane for them to be a dominant voice on national security. john: i was hoping there would be a bolton in this race. no boltons in the race.

depressing. he would have been the furthest right foreign policy candidate. he would have been arguing we need another neocon in the white house. it certainly leaves open the far right on that argument. as you say, someone like lindsey graham could occupy the space. he will be a more singular voice then he would have been otherwise. mark: he has critics on the left, and he is a neocon, but he does bring rigor. if people started to say irresponsible things on foreign policy, he would have helped them to it. it may mean other people and up not running. the field might be smaller. john: if i am one of the governors who does not have foreign-policy expertise, i am glad john bolton is out of the race. he knows he is about national

security and hotspots. you knows more than marco rubio, rand paul. you could have embarrassed any number of them on a debate stage. mark: the bolton primary begins today. there will be people to get his support. he has built up something of a following and is a good foreign-policy advisor. john: fair enough. it was the best of times and worst of times for everyone with a stake in the clinton crash chronicles. mark: harpercollins corrected a handful of passages that turned out to be wrong in the best selling book. the author, peter sweitzer went on the offensive when nbc news found out he failed to disclose he made to the clinton foundation. who got a bigger scale today? fans of clinton cash or critics? john: we both know george stephanopoulos for a long time. we may be on his show in the future.

there is no doubt in my mind that the clinton cash fans had a better day. if that thing had not happened around george stephanopoulos you would have heard about the book and how it had to be amended. instead, it has been overshadowed by this other thing. a lot of republicans are out braying for a collective head of the media and they have some grist. they are on offense when they should have been on defense. mark: when books make errors, the errors in the book -- you should not just brush them away, but they are not fundamentally undermining the book or the information in the book. they are a problem. the problem with george stephanopoulos is a problem for george, abc. it does not really play into the clintons in terms of whether it works for hillary clinton. john: the people attacking the left, they had a better day

because they were able to get traction on this issue. she is here in new york doing fundraising. the first big donor fundraising day. three big events. that has been overshadowed. we will talk to al hunt about her fundraising operation. mark: one thing that is amazing, george's name was on a publicly disclosed website by the foundation. what is bad is that everyone may realize they need to go back and look at the list carefully. that will produce more journalists. john: the simpsons. except today it is not that. harry shearer, the voice of mr. burns, ned flanders, is said to be walking away from the show.

cofounder james l brooks tweeted that the show is still trying to work things out with shearer. like a million other fans we did some googling and are astounded by the number of voices he has done on the show. here is an example. >> we must be vigilant. every home, every church. >> i grew up in a town in arkansas whose name, ironically, was terrorism. john: shearer has done nixon dole, adaline stephenson. it is an incredible array. how big a blow would it be if harry shearer says sayonara? mark: the loss of adelai

stephenson alone would be devastating. in hollywood and show business people cannot work out contracts for the good of the nation. john: they say, if he does not come back, they will recast. i think it would mean the end of the characters. you don't want to hear someone else doing it. mark: did you hear the voice of the second guy who did kermit? nails on a chalkboard. john: i am begging you, please harry, james l brooks, find a way. please. mark: on the other hand, i was not in love with the original steamboat willie. coming up, what is jed bush thinking? ♪

john: getting hot in the republican party. the rnc is in arizona for the spring meeting. our man in the field was on the trail with jeb bush when he made his comments trying to figure out how to answer the questions about the iraq war. tell us what the atmospherics were like. set the scene for us. >> this was supposed to be a standard campaign-style event, a local brewery in tempe, arizona, a platform for jeff to talk about innovation. but the iraq question was literally hanging over him today. he came out of the tour, spoke to about 100 chamber of commerce type folks. there was a tv with the view on.

we could not tear the sound, but they were talking about jeb's answer in iraq. he goes through a 10 minute speech and says, before i go, i want to add one more thing. he gives his explanation. it was a little abrupt, a little awkward. the crowd was kind of giving each other glances while he walked through his explanation. mark: we have been talking to the jeb bush folks trying to figure out why he has been giving these answers this week. what do you know about today's answer? after the three previous false starts. >> he got worn down on this. as you have been talking about as i wrote on bloomberg politics

.com, this is a hard issue for him, on the family. it is twofold. he does not want to appear disloyal and does not want to open up the rabbit hole of being compared to his brother on every issue. those are fair to a degree, but i also wonder if he is more sensitive to appearing disloyal to his brother then even his brother is. john: it seemed to me, listening to that answer, that he was not answering a question. he basically just introduced the topic and gave that little speech. it seemed like he was trying to put a ribbon around it and put it to rest. does the bush team think this is over? >> they think it is over for now. it is not going away.

democrats are having a conference call to talk to reporters and to criticize bush's position on this. this will come back up with rivals in the republican presidential field, in debates. we have an area where this is jeb bush's claim to the crown that he is the most experienced and will not be flip-flopping on issues. we see this is an issue where he can be pushed off message. john: thank you for talking with us. stay cool out there. let's go to our washington bureau with albert. al, mike was just talking about why he thinks jeb bush is struggling. you, wise men, insightful man, freudian analyst that you are. why do you think jeb bush is struggling with this question? >> i agree with what you said. he is rusty and fumbling. the problem is much deeper. he basically believes in his brother's national security

record. if you look at the advisors he signed on, they are w's advisors. if you look at the chicago speech he gave on foreign policy, he started off, i am my own hand, but not a policy difference. i think his dad's foreign-policy record looks better all the time. but most americans think george w. bush is foreign-policy was a disaster. very few people this side of the dick cheney want a reprieve. mark: it is easy within a campaign to react to the events of the day or the week. in the long arc of the quest to be president, what is the significance of what happened this week? >> i think he has the same foreign-policy views as his brother and cannot differentiate. i think that is a far greater problem than whether he fumbled on monday or tuesday.

mark: was it a problem getting the nomination or just in general? it is a problem for both. republicans jumped on him for this. democrats were salivating. it was not just a donor class, but the other candidates. they said this is an opportunity to go after him. who among us other than dick cheney says we do it again? and to say this justified? it is hard to make that case when you see what a debacle iraq has become. mark: one of the things that hurt him this week is every other republican feels like their nomination is stronger if they can get jeb out of the race. there is very little sniping among anybody else. everybody wants jeb out. john: he is the piñata. people have seen the weakness on certain issues like immigration and common core, weak poll numbers in iowa.

the ok, but not fantastic poll numbers in new hampshire. the instinct to pile on is irresistible and crowding out conversation. it is a bad place to be. it is one of the perils of being a pseudo-front runner. mark: inside the bush campaign do you think they hope it does not come up again? or do you think they will look for another opportunity to give a better answer? >> i do not know. i strongly suspect it would like to stay away from the issue as long as they possibly can. they probably will not be able to stay way. john: albert, stay with us please. after the break, we will talk about the only thing that matters -- money. we will be right back. ♪

mark: gotham city currently gripped by a superstorm named

hillary. al hunt here with us to talk about hillary clinton. i was reading various tweets about hillary clinton. she met with donors and talked about super pac's. she said they are sprouting on the republican side like mushrooms. she is very aware, very focused on fundraising. how is she positioned to fund raise under these conditions? not incumbent. very worried about republican money. >> i think she is positioned well to get the money. she is almost certainly the nominee. the democrats do not want republicans to take over. she will not have to compete with other democrats for the money. i think she will raise an awful lot of money, but she has two real problems.

she came out of the gate as a campaign finance reformer. the second problem is that her opponents, bernie sanders, martin o'malley, will say she is the candidate of wall street. they have to say that. they cannot be the candidate of the fat cats. i think that will resonate with some of the primary voters. john: one of the problems in the democratic party in the past was that the democratic super pac found out a lot of rich donors democrats did not want to get into that. launching ads against republicans. do you think that is going to be a problem this time around or do you think democratic donors will say, screw it. we are all in. >> i think it will be closer to the latter. there is a sense that the other side will be tough, we have to fight back. whether they will be able to raise the same kind of super pac money may be questionable.

but i do not think hillary, her campaign, or affiliated groups will have money problems. mark: the donors are getting a lot of scrutiny at the foundation. do you think that may deter people from giving? they do not want to be a part of clinton inc.? >> i am sure there are some in that category. anyone involved in the controversy with the foundation, that would be the case. between hollywood and trial lawyers, staunch democratic rich people, there is enough money to go around for a primary season. she will dwarf everybody else. by the time you get to a one-on-one against a republican, i doubt that matters. mark: it is now being sent that

president clinton will not raise money for her. i understand not campaigning publicly, but do you see the logic of him not being a fundraiser this year? >> i think that becomes immersed in what you asked about, the foundation and those controversies. i would not be surprised if they alter that a little bit as the season proceeds. look, bubba can do anything. whether it is give a speech enlist political support, or raise money. john: we talked yesterday about your column about hillary clinton in trade. he said she could not continue to waffle. i think part of the reason is that they want to make sure no one on her left gets any oxygen. do you see any political logic in that?

do you think that logic trumps what we suspect, that she is a free trader in her heart? should she be playing at the politics? >> you could see the conference calls in the debate. almost every single policy advisor she had said tpp is a good deal, better than nafta. you have to be involved in this. i would guess almost every advisor she has says stay away from this. if anything, oppose it because it will help bernie sanders run against you. she came out with a position today. she is for putting harriet tubman on the $20 bill. somehow, i do not think that will get rid of her non-position on trade. mark: thanks as always. we will be right back with one of the bolton's. ♪

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