mark: i mark halperin john:. john: and i am john heilemann. and with all due respect to senator mark kirk-- that's a clown car, bro. ♪ mark: happy national corn on the -- john: happy national corn on the cob day. in our lineup tonight, a stock a straw. but first, a pick six. mark, you are out there in deer valley. when it comes to the romney primary, who are the front-runners? mark: you have six presidential

hopefuls, and romney's core financial supporters. they are a big part of the party. there are going to be a lot of people here that look at the faction. jeb bush is not here. i think right now people at this event are like a lot of people in the party, marco, rubio are -- volcker, rubio, and john kasich are the ones they are looking at the most. john: i think that makes sense. i know there is no doubt romney has been interested in marco rubio. when he decided not to run himself, he made allusions to how the party needs to look to a new generation. marco rubio is someone we know he likes. i know that he likes john kasich an awful lot, the kind of governor he would like to get behind, especially if the party rallies behind kasich. mark: there is no clear front-runner.

people are kicking the tires. there will be jeb bush people here, but a lot of people are still sorting out -- is it rubio, is it case it. -- kasich. but they need someone who can win back the white house. who can beat hillary clinton? that remains the big thing. the washington post is your source today for jeb bush turbulence news. there is already factions drama. and also "donor fetching," as we say in utah. is this a curve awful or a crisis? john: there is no doubt that the reporting makes it seem closer to a crisis than i thought it was, but i still think this is more turbulence span crisis.

jeb bush seems to be taking control of it enough. the biggest problems he faces are not staffed problems, but jeb bush problems. things that the candidate needs to resolve for himself, that staff has almost nothing to do with. mark: i will take three straws in the window and say why it is more than minor turbulence for jeb. one is his own performance. he's out on this trip. we saw his performance earlier in the week. if you go into an international trip, and you don't fill the vacuum of news, you will get scrutiny. that is what he got on his gubernatorial record today. two -- the washington post story about jeb going negative does not send a good signal for his brand. the last thing is, i cannot get any work done, because bush supporters, people on capitol hill are besieging me with questions about what is going on in the bush operation. the washington post story incited a whole other round today saying that it is not

working. john: the other thing that puts the finger on the scales for crisis is the centrality of the mike murphy to these stories. probably the single most important person in jeb bush's world. he seems to be at the center of conflict, not cooperation. that is a bad omen for jeb bush. tomorrow, the iowa republican party will decide if its famous and infamous straw poll will live or die. if the straw poll pushes up daisies and meets its maker what are the consequences for the iowa caucus? mark: everyone i talked to says it is going to die. establishment, as much as they want the straw poll, they say it would be worse for the nation to have a bad straw poll than no straw poll at all. they may try to turn the reagan dinner into a big candidate event. i think what this does is it

makes an even more unpredictable situation even more unpredictable. the straw poll gives you a rough sense of a razan organization going. -- sense of who has an organization going. the good news for these campaigns is that no one has an organization. this gets them off the hook for having to build one in a hurry before august. john: this means nothing for the iowa caucuses. after the 2012 straw poll, it's great triumphant victor, michelle bachmann, went on to place 5th, 6th? i think the straw poll had become a waste of money and time for canada gets -- for candidates and has not been predictive of much. the fact that it is going away can only be good for the party. mark: it is good news for fox news and their debate in august. and it is good news for stuff that you and i both love -- the iowa state fair. they will be able to focus their attention on corndogs and tenderloins and the des moines register soapbox rather than

trying to win at the straw pollx. coming up, a pair of president prospects picked a pepper. i've got stock -- scott walker here in utah. we will talk about the walker-rubio ticket. and then john sits down with rick santorum in the studio. it all happens after this word from our sponsors. ♪

mark: here at the romney romp in deer valley, i spoke with scott walker earlier today. i asked if he thought about joining forces with marco rubio. we started out on president obama's decision to send more troops to iraq to defeat isis. rick santorum: -- governor walker: i think the policy has been a failure, so it is good for the president took knowledge there needs to be more help. until they start lifting some of

the restrictions, we only have 3000 troops, so that is certainly a good thing, but we need to drop restrictions. you have air controllers who could be doing a job to help the allies -- the sunnis, kurds, and others. we need to lift restrictions. mark: would it be smarter, rather than doing it incrementally, to put in a significant amount of troops? governor walker: it is about making sure any conflicts you are engaged in -- military advisers should be looking at exactly that context. not just an incremental amount. we should assess, what do we need to get the mission completed? then get the resources not just to our own personnel, but to other allies in the region. i think the decision makes sense. it recognizes that we need to do

more there. it is critical that this is not enough. just sending troops is not enough if we don't lift restrictions on those who are already there. mark: you support free trade and giving the president fast-track authority. you don't normally agree with do more there. it is critical that this is not enough. him, why are you to an agreement on this? governor walker: i think it is important to have a level playing field. our workers can compete with anyone in the world. if we don't go down this path we will be at a competitive disadvantage. it just makes sense. mark: so undecided republicans in the house should vote yes. governor walker: i think yes. in the end, one of the things important to whomever is that the republicans controlled house and senate. if this president were to give them a bad deal, they should hold him accountable. mark: tax reform is a big issue for your party. no one thinks this will happen under this president or congress. you have talked about broadening the base and lowering rates. when you talk about changing the tax code, and if you have plans for that, what would you want to

do in terms of the division of contribution to the overall pie of people paying taxes? would you like the wealthiest to pay more, would you like everyone to pay the same, who would be the winners and losers in a walker tax plan? governor walker: if you look at what we have done in wisconsin it has been everywhere. we cut taxes all across the board. people in the middle tax bracket had rates go down the most. certainly, we look at ways to provide a cross the board relief, but have the biggest relief in the middle of the bracket, where people are hurting the most. i look at what president reagan did. the two rates that were established in the middle of his term. that was a good model. if i were a candidate, we would have more complex plans along the way. mark: who would pay more though? governor walker: what we look at is getting rid of loopholes. the more you can level up and reform the system, ideally lowering rates is what we want to do now.

again, the model reagan had would be a good start. mark: lowering rates, getting rid of loopholes. it still begs the question -- would you want middle-class people to pay less? governor walker: yes. mark: would you want the wealthy to pay less? governor walker: i don't think it is a question of who pays more. when you think about what it will take to have our compare -- to put americans to work, we are competitive overseas. i think we can bring those jobs back and get americans back to work. mark: so, loopholes -- what do you think about mortgage reduction? do you think that should be scaled back? governor walker: a lot of people talk about take your flat tax, but if you want to have anything short of that, i think having people being able to live the american dream is important, and having a home is an important part of that. i am not ruling anything out.

in terms of general parameters i look at what we have done in wisconsin, which is we reduced the tax by $2 billion. overall, it puts more money back in the hands of the consumer and job creator. it creates a stronger economy. mark: because the home mortgage reduction is so important to folks, and anytime you talk about tax reform, you are saying it is not front and center to scale back, but you are hoping for it as an overall talk. governor walker: we are going to look at the overall tax code. i think home ownership is in it for part of living the american -- an important part of living the american dream. i worked on my first jobs coming out of college, leaving might -- leaviny my senior year to work the american red cross. for those organizations to do good work is as just as

-- much more important than having the government -- mark: we will look forward to your tax plan. some short things while we finish up, the clinton presidency, what was the best and worst things about it? governor walker: they worked with the house and senate on getting a balanced budget. that was certainly good. i think there are a lot of reasons that go far beyond the leaders at that time, and certainly the piece left over from president reagan. certainly the scandals were the worst part. we have seen with the e-mails and clinton cash, and all that i think a lot of americans worry we will get a repeat of some of those scandals again. mark: who is your closest friend that you are not related to? governor walker: my wife and i -- mark: not someone you are related to. governor walker: i have a lot of folks that i know from college certainly my best man, who worked with me for years. there is a wide array. we probably have 5 couples that

we have known since our kids were in kindergarten. mark: what place would you like to go in the world that you have never been? governor walker: i would like to go to australia. places there look epic that i have never seen before. mark: one political question -- i want to ask you, it is a big jumbled field, and everybody is trying to figure out how it is going to go. hard to figure out, right? some people are saying that one way to stand out is to form a ticket. the one keep -- the one people keep talking about is you and senator rubio. does that interest you? governor walker: i do like marco rubio. we have proven executive experience. i think we have similar thoughts on foreign policy. i like the fact that when it was his birthday i sent a nice

tweet, "marco, happy birthday from one 40-something to another." mark: if scott walker and marco rubio announced in december, we are going to run as a ticket, do you think that would be a gimmick, or something that voters would say, that is a strong team and makes sense? governor walker: i have had quite a few people make that suggestion. i think for now marco is a great candidate. he will be formidable as things progress. if we get in, we will see where things take us. marco and i joke about who would be at the top of the ticket. mark: governor, thank you so much, and enjoy canada. john:that was scott walker. when we come back, rick santorum. ♪

john: joining us now is presidential runner up, rick santorum. he will probably not be skeet shooting, but we can always play bags here. rick santorum: i have a question, someone just called you on your phone. who calls you not knowing that you are on television? john: the telemarketers of america. my first question for you -- yesterday, president obama announced he would send 450 advisors/troops to try to deal with the question of isis. he described it as a piecemeal measure. the basis of obama foreign policy is arm the iraqis and to the fighting. why is that not working? -- why is that not sufficient? rick santorum: because it is not working. isis is gaining ground and most importantly is not losing

territory. this is an organization that has established a caliphate. they are using that islamic declaration to recruit people in this country and around the world to join them. unless we prove that that caliphate is illegitimate, we need to take that -- take back that ground. the president has no plan in place to take isis out. john: you may say it is very political what they are doing. they are to attend to american public opinion. -- too attuned to american public opinion. it seems to me a hard sell that we need to put more boots on the ground in iraq. rick santorum: we have seen two attacks in this country already related to isis operatives calling to attack citizens of this country. the longer that isis is

controlling that area and looks to be on the offensive, the more people will follow them. that means more people in america will follow them. that means more incidents here not just around the world. john: let me shift from isis to iowa. tomorrow, the iowa republican party is going to decide the fate of the straw poll. you have said that you will participate. rick santorum: i did not say i will not go. i attend a straw polls, but i don't spend money on them. john: would you be happy if they kill it? rick santorum: it is up to the folks in iowa to make that decision. the straw poll is part of the caucus and if it is additive -- john: but if they kill it off, you want be disappointed. you won't say, i was looking forward to going. rick santorum: the last time around when i ran we had no

expectations or research. we finished in the middle of the pack, and i ended up winning the caucus. why? because i focused my attention on what mattered, which was winning the caucus. john: you mentioned your very important victory was not clear at the night. but it was clear later. we were out in iowa a few weeks ago and did a focus group with iowa republicans. we spent a long time talking to them about a variety of things. one thing we talked about was you. i want to play this video and get your reaction to what the iowa republicans said. john: crystal, you are not interested in rick santorum? >> he didn't win. so why would i put all of our energy behind him again? >> he had the momentum coming out of iowa and did not do it. what is different this time than last time? with santorum and huckabee, they are too conservative for the country. as soon as they leave iowa

they're done. john: those are iowa republicans. what is different this time? rick santorum: two things -- number one, i did win iowa. and i won 10 other states, even though the party leadership was against us and we were being outspent three to one. we had a strong message that was resonating with the voters that we needed to get. that is disaffected democrats folks in the middle who are in a middle america who are seeing their wages flatline, income falling, and neither political party addressing that. they are not talking about growing parts of the economy that employ people, the 74% of americans who don't have a college degree. i talk about manufacturing and energy. i am the only one talking about

having pro-worker immigration policies. there was a pro-worker immigration group that rated all the candidates. there was only one that got an "a" and that was me. what's different is the country has been in stagnation for -- 4 more years. we have an economic platform that will not only unite america, but win this election. john: another different thing this time around, is that as things currently stand, you would not be invited to the debates. you saw yesterday that fox said we will have a kiddie table, a forum for under top 10 candidates. is that enough? rick santorum: at this point in time, using an arbitrary number which is exactly what national polls are, to divide candidates is not in the best interest of giving -- getting the right candidate to run. it is not about me or anybody else. it is about the people of america and those in the early primary states paying the most attention to seeing everybody.

-- and have the opportunity to see everybody. john: being in a forum with these "second tier" candidates. is that sufficient for you? or are you still saying, no, we have to have everybody on the stage in a real debates? rick santorum: there are a lot of wonderful, quality candidates. they have terrific records inside and outside of government. in many cases, they are just starting their campaigns, like i did a couple weeks ago. those campaigns should be given on equal footing if they are legitimate candidates for president. there is anywhere from 14, 15, maybe even 16 candidates. i have suggested that if you want to use national polls as your metric, take the average and do 1, 3, 7, etc. then do the even numbers and do it back to back to get 2 events rather than one. john: chris wallace talked to you about immigration.

he pressed you on the question -- what would you do with the 11 million? rick santorum: i would not use any different standard that the past --then the past administrations have used with respect to deportation. what we need to do is in force and verify across all districts. two, we needed to track people who come into this country through visas. the greatest number of people who are in this country illegally are those who i'm told came in through the visa system illegally -- legally but stayed too long. john: i'm sorry we don't have enough time for the question. i would like to hear more from you another time. thank you. we will be right back with baseball and promos. ♪

john: in washington, it is the congressional baseball game. for stats and injury updates head over to bloombergpolitics.com. mark: tomorrow we have john

kasich and double interviews. we are on every day at 5:00 and 8:00 and if you are here at the romney retreat, it is about 2-3 hour

emily: jack dorsey takes his place as interim chief executive. welcome to a special breaking news edition of "bloomberg west" from san francisco. ♪ emily: breaking news, a big shakeup at twitter, just in the last hour, dick costolo is stepping down as ceo. cofounder jack dorsey stepping in. the stock surging on this news. investors have been calling for costolo's head for quite some time.