mark: on the show tonight, boom goes the supreme court. who is your winner and loser in the scotus ruling? john: my winner is barack obama. he has had two successful supreme court challenges to his signature law both of which could have destroyed it. he has a clear sailing to the

end of his term. it will still be contested. every day it passes it will be in green in the fabric of american life and less likely to go anywhere. mark: i agree he is the big winner. republicans are underestimating the extent to challenge their nominee is going to have to describe a world in which something is better than the affordable care act. it is still unpopular but the old system was unpopular. anything they proposed immigrants are going to pick apart. this is going to be more and more ingrained. it is going to be harder for a republican to run against it. john: there is no such thing as a perfect law. we are still arguing about medicare and social security. the people who saw barack obama making a confident assertion about the law and predicted that he knew that it was going to go down today they have been reading the tea leaves, they knew it was heading for defeat

what it really reflected was confidence. mark: the biggest losers are the republican up as dust president of candidates. it is a complicated thing to do in the context of a campaign with the nomination fight and the general election. some people can explain a world with a better health care plan but pity the republicans who can't. republicans want a nominee who has a better plan. it is hard to do. john: they want more -- they are giving want less is more chaos or confusion, more change. that is why this will survive. mark: and it would take with parts of the plan that are super popular. john: in polls conducted simultaneously in new hampshire, we dug into the race and came up with findings in each state about the battle between hillary clinton and bernie sanders.

sanders is gaining ground on clinton but she leads by a to-one margin. clinton does better on foreign policy. on others, like authenticity and fighting wall street, sanders does better. on these twin poles what are you saying as sanders' potential and clinton vulnerabilities? mark: sanders can still grow. she is still doing incredibly well with women. the fact that he is doing well with independents, and i still believe that attacking him is going to be difficult. if the clintons i comes after him this is in expectations game. if the caucus is the primary and he got half the vote of hers she would be in a five. john: we are going to talk about this with senator sanders. when senator my classical attacked him the issue she attacked him was on being a socialist where he is much

closer to the mainstream and democratic party then claire mccaskill is. this is where the party is on issues like medicare for all, minimum wage. mark: you think hillary clinton would take single-payer if she could have it? she said as much on a few occasions. with claire says bernie sanders is a socialist, that is where hillary clinton's heart is. the worst thing for a politician to do is sit with a actually believe. john: the strength she has with women is going to be hard to dent that. the strength she has with african-americans is going to be hard for him to dent that. there is a feeling on his support. he still has room to grow. she has such strength it is going to be hard for him mark:. mark:people should take it -- for him. mark: we've called iowa and new hampshire at the same time. the numbers on almost every

question are identical. these are the places where people are paying close attention. coming up, we talked to bernie sanders who response to claire mccaskill. next up the supreme court after this word from our sponsors. ♪

john: we're joined by greg store. some are casting this as a bad day for john roberts. you say this is a good day for the chief justice. why? guest: this was always going to be a tough case. either he makes conservatives madore he runs a risk the court undercuts obamacare in a decision heavily criticized for being partisan. he cares about the institutional legitimacy of the court.

he went with the decision that backed obama care. the reason it is a good day for him, unlike three years ago he is not alone. he has kennedy in the majority. this is a ruling he chose to write himself. he could have edited -- handed it off to ginsburg. it is a ruling he is proud of. he is feeling good about himself today. john: thank you. our second guess, bob woodward of the washington post. thank you for joining us. at the last line of the book, the brethren, the center was in control. for a lot of people on the left when john roberts became chief justice they thought the center was not going to be in control guest: he is smart about the politics of the court. people like to say there are no

politics in the supreme court but theyre always is. what happened 36 years ago is lauren berger lost control because he let the justices really dictate the rulings. what roberts has done is he has outflanked the left and right and in a way is a swing vote. if you read this opinion it is a subtle one. can i tell a story of a couple years ago, running into justice scalia who dissented in this case, and said to me in his pleasant way, how come you always write about presidents, and i said because presidents have the most power. he said braun, wrong wrong.

he gave me a little quiz. what is the first article of the constitution. i said, the legislature. he said, see? he argues for the preeminence of the legislature. what roberts has done in this opinion is argued for the preeminence of the legislature saying his interpretation of obamacare is its context, what its intent was, and they clearly meant -- he says we are not going to destroy obamacare. you use the leverage of your opponent against himself. mark: we have had plenty of cases in the last century of presidents picking justices who end up not being the kind of justices they like.

is it too soon to say that george bush may have made a mistake from his own point of view in elevating john roberts? guest: no. i don't think so. roberts is playing a subtle game here about being in control and not letting the center -- there are many center justices. maybe kennedy -- take control. they do to a certain extent. roberts is a conservative. if you have former president george w. bush on truth serum and said do you think this decision makes sense, he would say yes. no one wanted to blow up the health care system and in a sense that is what roberts is saying here. john: he is taking grief from his old friends on the right. my question to you there are

many where justices have ended up being different than people expected them to be. do these justices change? does the court change them or is that the times that change around them? guest: both, obviously. look what has happened here. roberts may be getting some grief from the right wing on this but his argument is we are leading the people, the legislature decide. he dug into the law in sophisticated way and said this is what they meant. he quotes an old 1939 decision saying it is risky to get into this area of interpreting the law because it then becomes the law. you have to do it. he cites mayberry versus madison

and say we decide what the law is. he is not going to being seriously criticized by any conservative constitutionalist. mark: that the decision in context for the obama administration, supreme court administrations, how big of stories will this be for history? guest: it would be a bigger story if they overturned the law. it lets things go along as they are. if you look at enough of court activities and the state of mind of the justices and so forth, they are not going to do anything radical unless it is unanimous. that is when they do something really different. there was no way anyway anybody could find in a new miggy -- unanimity in this.

in roberts moved to the center, that is where he fits in the spectrum. john: given the analysis and everything you know about the court, i know you don't like predictions, do you have any doubt tomorrow or monday the court is going to come down in favor of gay marriage? guest: you can't tell. there aren't leaks out of the supreme court. it would be nice if there are. let's leave our phone numbers and e-mails here. maybe somebody will keep us -- give us a clue. everyone thinks they know. people thought they knew in this case that it was going to be 5-4. guest: thank you for being with us. when we come back, the man that everyone is talking about --

bernie sanders after the break. ♪

what's i am running for president. >> i will just make it brief comment. i don't have an endless amount of time. mark: we'll have endless amount of time but we hope ernie sanders take a few questions from us. thank you for joining us on capitol hill. bernie sanders: my pleasure. mark: i want to ask about the decision in favor of a holding the affordable care act. what would you say in response to the decision to chief justice roberts? guest:bernie sanders: i think it was

the right decision, consistent with the way we voted in what we intended to vote for in the affordable care act. i would also say that we are the only nation on earth that doesn't guarantee health care. the idea of throwing 6.4 million people off of health insurance would be totally absurd and disruptive. i'm happy with the decision. john: you did a press conference in which you unveil a plan with the estate tax. there's a variety of things involved there including tax breaks for dynasty trust and billionaire surplus tax. i'm curious whether the objective is deficit reduction or income inequality. what is the driving ambition? bernie sanders: we have massive and grotesque levels of income inequality. the top 10th of 1% owns as much wealth as the bottom 90%. we have got to address that issue.

one of the fairest ways of doing it is through a progressive estate tax. it can raise significant sums of money. it will be significant sums and some of the money has got to go to be invested in rebuilding our infrastructure, expanding and supporting child care system, making college affordable for all kids. the rest can go to deficit reduction. mark: this is not the first and you have proposed an estate tax bill. neither time did that go anywhere. what is different this time in terms of the political environment you are in or the strategy of how to actually get it passed? bernie sanders: i don't big it is going to get past with the republican control house and senate. i think it is becoming more and more apparent to the american people that something is fundamentally wrong in this country when so few have so much and so many have so little. mark: we did a poll to get a

sense of how voters are thinking about you. you have a quarter of the vote in iowa and new hampshire, up from a previous polls. independents are being supportive of you. this morning i asked senator mccaskill about your chances. >> the media is giving bernie a pass. i very rarely read that he is a socialist. i think he would like to see medicare for all in this country. he would like to see expansion of entitlements. he would like to see -- he is not worried about debt at all. he is somebody who i think is frankly against trade. he's against a lot of things. mark: i know you like to stay away from personality. on the issues, part of your socialist beliefs, guilty as

charged? bernie sanders: i find it surprising that she says the media does refer to me as a socialist. there is no article that i have seen that hasn't referred to me as a democratic socialist. do i believe in single-payer system? absolutely. i believe we need trade policies that are fair to the american worker and not just benefit ceos of large corporations, i plead guilty. mark: we couldn't think of another instance of your colleagues speaking out against against you that way. have you heard people speak out against you that way? bernie sanders: to the best my knowledge this is the first time a colleague has attacked me. you will have to ask senator mccaskill wide. it's unfortunate. i bore you guys to death but i'm trying to run an issue oriented campaign and not one of personal attacks. john: you never bore us.

you are 100% delightful. i want to ask you more about this poll. we will stick with the issues. you have gained ground in iowa and new hampshire in our poll and others. we got deeper and looked at some of the underlying data. there are places where you are clearly behind her. one of them is with women. she dominates 59% to 19%. i'm going to ask you to make the case to female voters as to why they should support you in particular over hillary clinton given that she would be a historic figure for that gender. bernie sanders: i do understand that. you are right. millions of women are excited about the possibility of a woman for the first time becoming president. i fully understand that and appreciate that. on the other hand come if you look at my economic agenda that says women workers you can keep

working for 10-12 dollars an hour, we have to to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour. we're going to unveil universal pre-k which will make families excited. what we have now is a disaster. mark: you are doing well compared to secretary clinton on who is more authentic, who would take on wall street and other wealthy interest. i want to talk about another one. you feel passionately about your state tax proposal but republicans control congress. we asked people in both states who can get things done better in dcs president -- ndc as president. republicans will control the house in january of 2017. they will control the senate if you are elected president. make the case you can get more done given the reality of

republicans controlling the house bernie sanders:. bernie sanders:that is an important question. what i say is that given the power of the billionaire class corporate america more wall street, and heavy-duty campaign conservators -- contributors when nothing is going to help working families unless millions of people around the country begin to stand up and say enough is enough. what i have said is that if elected president, i will be part of a mass movement which will be strongly organized and very dynamic access to congress we know what is going on, we are following what is going on, vote to raise the minimum wage make college affordable, deal with climate change, deal with in wealth and inequality. nobody is going to deal with the

needs of the disappearing middle class unless we have a new political movement in this country that stands up and fights against the billionaire class. john: another issue, you are being shellacked in our poll. foreign-policy experience. 84-3 hillary clinton leaving. in new hampshire 84-8. you are to her left in terms of national security and foreign policy. explain why you think you're being shellacked and what your case is that you would be a better foreign policy president. bernie sanders: fair question. the answer is it goes without saying, when you are the secretary of state for four years, by definition you have an enormous amount of experience of foreign-policy. no one can debate that. i was not secretary of state.

i'm not on the foreign relations to midi. this is what i will tell you. hillary clinton in 2003 and i both had the same information with regard to the wisdom of going into iraq. not only did i vote against the war but i helped lead the opposition. i looked hard at the most important foreign-policy issue of the last several decades the war in iraq, i was right on that issue. hillary clinton was wrong. mark: democratic socialist and proud of it. thank you. bernie sanders: thank you. mark: we'll be right back. ♪

john: tomorrow we have a live stream of president obama's remarks in charleston. mark: we're on twice a day at 5:00 and 8:00. thanks for watching. sayonara. ♪

alix: we are moments away from the closing bell. this is bloomberg market day. i am alix steel. [bell clangs] alix: you are looking at stocks closing lower for a second day in a row. the dow off by 70 points. s&p down by 5. a slow grind lower. you had energy leading the decline. the cyclical sectors like industrials, including the transportation damage, -- average all down as well.