mark: i am mark. john: i am john. jeb bush: i thought i would talk more about my journey of faith. faith. guided my my faith. faith has impacted my life. people of faith. where people of faith can act on their faith, and i humbly ask for your vote. thank you very much. ♪ ♪ john: happy national martini

day. guns and graham, but first the big guy. the on stage shindig face-off between jeb bush and john basic. one the establishment favorite. the other the establishment challenger. let's watch them go at it. >> i did not come here for politics. >> today is not going to be a political speech. >> as a young man in the church and in my life, i felt the lord. >> i converted to being catholic in honor of my wife and because i believe in the blessed sacraments, and they give me great comfort. case it: i know the role i have to play on earth to lift people, to realize that all those made in the image of the lord need to be upheld. bush: we put the most honorable at the front of the line, guided by my faith. the drug addicted could be in your family, get them on their feet.

and we also put the rights of the unborn in the run of the line as well. bush: if you are a minority, we are going to include you, and we are going to lift you. kasich: we should not push aside those who believe in traditional marriage. everyone is made in the image of the lord. everyone has to be given an opportunity. everyone. bush: that is what has to happen in america. john: who did better jeb or john, and what are the applications? mark: i think john kasich did a little bit better. he gave a version of his speech to the romney donors at utah last week and it will flat with them. when he connects, his own faith, which has grown stronger as he got older -- when he connects that to his public policy, it not only diffuses attacks from the right, but makes him passionate, which he sometimes is not. john: i cannot even make a choice between the two.

i thought they both did well. neither is going to be the candidate of the christian right under any circumstance, but both are men of deep faith. you do not need to be the candidate of the christian right. you just need to be acceptable. i think either of these guys could be acceptable. mark: by dint of fund raising and pulling, bush is going to be in the game, almost certainly. kasich testified his way in. today, one of his best so far. john: the polls are helping him. mark: hillary clinton talked about the shooting in carolina during an interview with john ralston. this was part of the democratic runt runner's response when asked what could be done to prevent another shooting like what happened in charleston. clinton: let's cut to the chase. it is guns. we have to have a better balance. i know you are going to have a universal background check kind of provision on the ballot here in nevada. but the congress stops in the

face of tremendous lobbying pressure from the gun lobby. so maybe on a local and state level, we have to keep building toward some kind of more sensible balanced gun policy. mark: why has hillary clinton, in that interview -- up until now, cater to the left on almost every issue. why on this issue is she saying, you cannot fight to nra in washington, d.c.? john: she has a long memory. she has been through a lot. she has been to her husband's administration. she saw al gore and barack obama also find out you cannot fight with the gun lobby. she has an opening to take on the gun lobby if she wants to, but i cannot help think the scars she has tell her that it is a losing battle. mark: if this is a mobilization election, and all elections are

states like ohio, virginia, colorado, even new hampshire could be in danger for hillary clinton if the nra is more riled up than they are now. they are pretty riled up against her. if she wants them more riled up, she has a history. john: you could not rile up the latino vote without running up a counterforce. by now, virtually no one in their right mind doubts the charleston slaughter was inspired by racial hatred. now the focus is shifting to a conspicuous symbol of historical racial animus, the confederate flag. the confederate flag flies over the capitol grounds in colombia, south carolina. -- columbia, south carolina. is this the event that finally tears down the flag? mark: i would normally say no, but now maybe. african-americans think the flag should come down. whites in south carolina, the majority say it should stay up. you have to have respect for the people of the state to decide on their own, the president obama

has said, i think correctly, it belongs in a museum, not flying on the capitol grounds. this is one of the biggest tragedies the state has ever seen. because of the connection to the flag, there is a chance legislature will bring it down. john: i hope you are right. i find lindsey graham and others, mark sanford, who waffle on this issue. some people inc. it is a symbol of the history -- think it is a symbol of the history of states rights. i think that is basically crap. the confederacy was about trying to sit the rum the union to build a separate country on the backs of 4 million slaves. it would be great if some republicans had the guts to say this is not any of those other things. it is a symbol of racial oppression. it has got to go. mark: there has been a lot of change in the south and elsewhere on this issue. if they do change it -- john: it will be the one good

thing that comes out of this if it happened. mark: vladimir putin gave an interview to charlie rose at the st. petersburg economic harm in russia. hooton said he was concerned about the u.s. engaging in syria. he said the u.s. is to blame for the crisis in ukraine and that the u.s. is not seriously taking into account russian interest. putin was also defiant with a capital "d" when charlie rose characterized russia's actions as aggressive. putin: i do not like using the term aggressive. we are not being aggressive. we are persistent. we are consistent in pursuing our interests. mark: it is kind of hard, through a translator, to get the nuance of vladimir putin. was he more threatening than he has seemed of late, or basically what we have gotten used to? john: i think less threatening on the basis of this performance. if you did not know anything else and were meeting this guy from the -- for the first time

he seems quite reasonable. an interview with charlie rose, charlie was like, he seems not like a teddy bear, but that would have been like a guy who would not be an outcast in the theater of nations. obviously, this was a very restrained performance. mark: to me, it is more threatening. he could have taken the opportunity to send a more explicit message. he is still a stonefaced killer. that's what he is. he is. and the reality is that you talk to americans in the u.s. government, you talk to european diplomats, they all say hooton -- putin continues to have the upper hand. his polling numbers are good, and he is undaunted, playing the long game with little ability of any western country to influence his behavior. john: he signaled in that interview that he wanted outrage. he wanted communication with the u.s. and yet on no issue was he willing to give any ground that

might open the door to that kind of diplomatic engagement. mark: i agree. i thought he might take the opportunity with charlie to send a signal. he did not. john: after the break, a revealing personal conversation with the presidential candidate on the right, lindsey graham.

john: last weekend, on the eve of the release of lindsey graham's memoir, we sat down with the south carolina senator in you top. -- in utah. we talked about the experience that shaped him. on top of that list -- why he is so funny. john: you have a joke about everyone, which is one reason i am pop -- you are popular. -- mark:

you are a happy-go-lucky guy, and i wonder where that comes from. senator graham: my dad owned a bar. the goal is to get people to stay in the bar as long as they can and drink. the more they like you, the longer they will drink. my dad was a really outgoing person. we owned a bar restaurant, and a liquor store. we were in the service industry. service history people have to have the attitude the customer is pretty much always right. you have to be tough. if you don't watch it, somebody will take your business over. i think my sense of humor comes from my dad. mark: was he a quicks -- quis pster? senator graham: it is situational humor. my dad was very clever. a bar owner -- these are the people who interact with the public. if you don't make it a fun experience, people don't come back. mark: this was your personality when you were a teenager? senator graham: pretty much. i was the guy that was talking when i should not be talking. at the end of the day, i think your personality does come from

the people around you, your parents. i grew up in a very gregarious environment. we owned one of two bars in the town. it was a small mill town where you had the cotton mill and everybody worked in the cotton mill. the university was down the road. it was an interesting place. when they would change shifts at 3:00, they would come in and drink. mark: people are getting to know you, so i want to talk about the bigger moments in your life. talk about how they work for you emotionally, and as someone going through that phase of your life. obviously the biggest thing to start with is your parents dying when you were 21 just a few months apart, a little over a year apart. just first talk about your mother, who died of hodgkin's disease. what was that like? how long was she sick for? senator graham: diagnosed in the fall of 1975, died in the june of 1976. mark: when she was diagnosed, how did she tell you?

senator graham: neither of my parents punished high school. i am at the university of south carolina. 1975 i convinced myself i was not going to get kicked out of school. i went as a freshman to college. when my parents dropped me off my sister was holding my leg. we are a close family. i was unconditionally loved. my parents were older. my dad was in his late 40's when i was born. he was mid when my sister was born. they focused on me. i was an only child for a while. -- he was mid-fifties when my sister was born. i was watching the liquor store. my mom had been sick and we finally changed doctors. he pulled up. he was really disheveled. he came in and was crying and said, your mom is not going to make it. i think they told him she was in stage four of hodgkin's. mark: how did the family spend the rest of her time? senator graham: she was a fighter. i get from my mom determination. she was quiet.

she was social enough, but she was very quiet, dedicated to the family. every year she would set money aside each month for christmas. she would open a savings account. every month, she would put money in there. she doted on us. she was a very attentive mother. she fought. i tell you, she wanted to live so bad. she got sick, like i say sometime in the fall of 1975. going to chemotherapy. when you have a family member who is in a bad way, you want to will them well. you do not want to give up. god knows she did not want to give up. that easter 1976, she had her best easter. she was feeling good, and she cooked dinner for the first time in a long time. there was some family at first but in the evening, it was just us adding on the couch. i remember her saying, i give you a good dinner, didn't i? i said, yes, you did.

i thought, maybe we will be the 1%. by june she was gone. mark: what were her final days like? did you spend time with her? senator graham: my dad was in one hospital. he had had prostate problems. she was in another. what do people do without family? i had an aunt and uncle. my sister was 12 years old. i went back and forth from one hospital to another and 10 and and uncles in both. i was so lucky. what do people do without family? mark: did you take off school? senator graham: this was in june, in between. they wanted me to graduate so badly, she would have no part of me dropping out of school. i wanted to come home in hell. absolutely no -- come home and help. i remember the pain she was in, saying, mom, it is ok. mark: after she had passed and your father was alive, what was that like for the three of you? senator graham: he was 67 and she was 52.

he always thought mom would outlive him. life is not that way. i have learned life is fragile. i went back to school. i tried to get into law school. i do not make it. i have an air force rotc commitment. i am thinking about getting out of the air force. they said, we will work with you. i went to graduate school for a year. i would come home every week. my dad came down when i got commissioned, with my sister, to put my lieutenant bars on when i graduated. i started graduate school in the fall, trying to get my grades up. my s.a.t. numbers up so i could get to law school. early september, he died. mark: how did he do without her? senator graham: it was terrible, but he had two kids. they say, do not be an old man with young kids. he understood what was going to happen, and it was tough. mark: we will come back with the second half of our conversation with senator graham after this

word from our sponsors.

mark: we showed you part one of our conversation with lindsey graham, which we held before the shooting interest in. here is part two, starting with the subject of graham's beltway besties. the three amigos -- you, john mccain, joe lieberman. talk about the start. how were the three amigos born? senator graham: of pain. they were born o john mccain is a republicanf pain maverick. . lieberman had been the vice presidential nominee and lost the election. along comes barack. the thing about joe lieberman i think any politician can learn from it is, he did not want the job too much. he was progressive by any reasonable definition, but when

it came to radical islam and the war, he understood we had to get iraq right. he was willing to stand by bush, who had made tons of mistakes. he was going to go all in with the surge. joe would not give an inch. he stood by the president. he was, i think, the only democratic vote to keep us from pulling the plug. that bond -- john had been a contrarian in his own party. joe became the outcast on national security. from that bond, when people wanted not to lose a war we did not think we could afford to lose -- it came from there. mark: what are the activities of the three amigos? senator graham: we have been everywhere together. we busted our butts to go to iraq to find out what is working and what is not. any senator -- travel. if you care about national security, there is no substitute

for being on the ground. i have been to afghanistan 23 times. you can see iraq it worse and better. the three amigos were a traveling roadshow going all over the region, trying to find out what was working and what was not. mark: has senator mccain given your advice on how to run for president, which he has done? senator graham: he is glad i am running. he will help me when he can. i have to become lindsey graham. i have to establish myself. mark: he watches a lot of political television. senator graham: totally. he watches you. got to show up. you got to show up. don't let all the garbage bother you. they will throw everything at you and everybody else. stay on your game. focus on your message. commander-in-chief. ready to go on day one. do weddings, bar mitzvahs anything you can. mark: there are a lot of bar mitzvahs in iowa, by the way.

senator graham: whatever they are. that is the key to iowa, by the way. the jewish vote. mark: you are doing something now you have never done -- running for president. is it making you more of a happy warrior, or does it ground you down -- grind you down? senator graham: i am enjoying it, even though it is different when it is your name. sitting with john -- it is so much different than when it is your name. i have a piece of how i am running and what i have to offer, and i think i would eat a good president. we would fight radical islam. we would be involved in the world. billing a small schoolhouse in a remote region in afghanistan to educate a young girl will do more to hurt the taliban than any military engagement. i see the whole government approach to this. back here at home, i would love to have the ability to be a ronald reagan and find a tip o'neill to come in and say, that's due entitlement reform.

let's do simpson bowles. mark: what is the worst thing of being a senator? senator graham: juggling so many demands on your time. mark: what makes you think you could be a good president? senator graham: i have the background experience and judgment to be commander in chief, which is the homework of any presidency. can you protect the region? over 30 years in the air force, i'm good to go on that. the next president has to do what i have been willing to try to do -- fix immigration and deal with a long-term debt problems generated by the retirement of the baby boomers. no matter who it is, they had better be willing to do what i have tried to do. i think if i were president, i could get these issues over the line. mark: since president reagan, of the president since then who is the best, and why? senator graham: since reagan who is the best president and why? we will take obama off the list. mark: thought you might. senator graham: best overall president.

since i am a national security guy, i would say this. probably surprise people. i think w had the right view toward the enemy. execution, not so good. that i think he understood what we were in for after 9/11. mark: if you were elected president, would you be the funniest president ever? senator graham: given the field, yes. [laughter] mark: that is a group of people in which you consider you could be the top? senator graham: taft. mccain said grover cleveland was funny. i don't know. i never met the guy. mark: he used to kill on john stewart. senator graham: bottom line is, i think a sense of humor served ronald reagan well. i have a sense of humor. but the purpose of humor is not only to enjoy your own life, to have other people enjoy being around you but making a point on the occasion. i think you have to laugh at yourself as a prerequisite to be senator or president or anything

else. not to take yourself too seriously, i have checked that locks. -- that box. mark: our thanks to senator graham. he is obviously enjoying himself. he is not bolting to the top of the field, but his performance is one of the surprises of the cycle so far. john: the happy warrior has been joyful and merciful so far. his problem is that there is this other lindsey graham who is the apocalyptic lindsey graham who earns the mockery of people like john stewart. but when you see that side of him, very appealing. the hair on fireside, not as appealing. mark: he is going to win the south carolina primary as a everett son -- a favorite son. some people predict he may get out at the end and endorsed him buddy. -- endorse somebody. john: hard to see him as nominee, but easy to see him as a doctor. -- factor. ♪

mark: cv -- john: see the new

pixar movie. mark: we are on twice a day. thanks for watching. ♪

>> where moments away from the closing bell. this is the bloomberg market day and i am alix steel. ♪ alix: picking up a little bit of steam as we head into the closing bell. the dow jones finishing off by about 103 points. overall, you can blame part of this on quadruple -- everything expires. that is picking up steam to the downside as we'