john: with all due respect to donald trump, two can play at that game. ♪ john: i like this bird. a good-looking bird. happy national lemonade day, sports fans. first, trump. last night the kingpin of disruption upstaged jeb bush in new hampshire, hosting a town hall meeting 20 miles away. trump treated the dual like a

politics slam, repetitively dissing jeb. today, jeb responded with what some are calling a tirade. mr. bush: there is a big difference between donald trump and me. i am a proven conservative, he isn't. i cut taxes every year, he has propose it -- proposed the largest tax increase in mankind's history. i have been consistently pro-life. he until recently was for partial-birth abortion. i've never met a person who actually thought that was a good idea. he's for a single payer system. he actually advocates these things. he's been a democrat longer than being a republican. i have fought for conservative causes all of my adult life. i think when people get this narrative, this compare and contrast narrative, they will find i will be the guy they will vote for. it's a long haul, man. the immigration policies he has brought up are not conservative, either. it is going to cost hundreds of billions of dollars. it will disrupt families.

the idea you have another country pay for the infrastructure of your own country will not happen. the idea that you are going to stop having people remit back to other countries will not happen. all of this is to appeal to people's anger and angst rather than have solutions. let's go talk about this two or three months from now. i hope you all are still around. what you will find is you have forgotten what existed august 20. i am beating hillary clinton by 12 in florida and he is losing in florida. when people start realizing we need to win, they will look a lot closer. john: wow. al, last night trump was asked if he is getting under jeb bush's skin. has he done exactly that? al: sure, john. the bush people say this is a

gift for us, because we have a candidate that is accused of being lackluster. this will energize him and it will prove that he is a conservative, in contrast to trump. the problem is everything jeb bush said after his appearance is correct about trump. it will have just as much effect as the john mccain and megyn kelly comments did. he transcends it. this war, which trump relishes, and bush hesitantly goes into, trump is fighting with an uzi and bush with a bow and arrow. an uneven match. john: that is an uneven match. there are a bunch of things to say. first, we've got to admit that last night donald trump was on fire at that town hall. the split screen images of tropic and bush -- i will use a different metaphor -- the difference between technicolor and black-and-white or kind of -- trump is

compelling right now, bush is not. i think the one thing that is true is that not only does bush get to put on what they call the conservative uniform in respect to trump, but he needs to put it on more generally in the party where more people suspect he's a moderate. he's got to do it with a lot more heart and less grim a visage then we showed in that town hall meeting today. al: i agree, but let me disagree with you strongly on trump. that was a show. that was entertainment. it was substance free, nothing but a bunch of demagogic lines. at some point, that catches up to you. there was no content to trump last night. john: that man was pure gold. moving on to the next topic, say it is so, joe. in a new quinnipiac poll joe biden performs slightly better or as well as hillary clinton in general election matchups

with republican candidates, including donald trump. in florida, biden leading trump by three points, while clinton is behind the donald by two. in ohio, biden leading trump by double digits, also better than clinton. in pennsylvania, the vice president trumps trump, 48%-40 48%-48%, better than hillary. there's a similar pattern in matchups between jeb bush and marco rubio. how good is this news for joe biden as he considers whether he will get in this race? how bad is it for hillary clinton? al: good and bad. you framed it exactly right. the strongest case against joe biden getting in is hey, you are not going to win. you will embarrass yourself. you have been through it twice. you will be a three-time loser rather than going out on a high. these polls ought to be very encouraging. if they feel that this e-mail stuff will be drip-drip, they have to be even more emboldened.

john: we will agree more than disagree on this. from joe biden's point of view, if he gets in this race, he will be running with electability. democrats are worried about hillary clinton and her ability to perform well in the fall, given some of the baggage she has. biden will never be better with hillary clinton than the democratic base -- women, african-americans, latinos, but what he can sell he will be a -- is the notion that he will be a stronger candidate against whoever the republicans put up. joe biden knows that's his play. to the extent he's thinking seriously about getting in. these numbers encourage him. i've got to say, if i were hillary clinton, these numbers would worry me greatly. al: john, i could not agree more. i think we have to put in one caveat. we both have a great deal of affection for joe biden. it's hard not to. but let's remember, he's run before and it's been less than sterling success.

john: there is no doubt about that. i still think when push comes to serve, biden is less likely rather than more likely to get in. but as the clamor of the establishment democrats for an alternative grows louder and as these numbers come in, he wants to run. in his heart, he wants to run. the things holding him back are the practicalities. the hearts may overrule the head . let's move on. today, in the daily "womp womp"" the bad week for hillary clinton surrounding her e-mails just gets worse. first with the press conference with the cloth, jennifer palmieri, and today bloomberg politics reports law enforcement officials are investigating how classified material found its way into members sent to her private e-mail address. that should be some nice beach reading for hillary clinton while she sets off for her

vacationing in the hamptons. we have been on top of this from the very beginning. on the scale of incremental to monumental, how big a deal is this particular newsbreak today? al: incremental plus plus. i know one of the reporters, and i know how well sourced he is. let me back up for a second and say that the petraeus parallels, we have to point out something -- david petraeus gave classified information to his mistress. he gave it to someone. that is a far more serious charge than even the worst case so far against hillary clinton. this is a drip-drip and they don't seem to want to big knowledge it based on jennifer yesterday, so i say this is at least incremental plus-plus. john: i think it's halfway between incremental and monumental. the clinton span on this is the fbi is only investigating the server to find out if it was secure.

that is their current posture. this story directly contradicts that. it says that the fbi wants to know how the messages got to her. the focus seems to be more on her aides who send messages than on her at this point, but the questions for people around hillary clinton -- is it possible they were looking at classified material and then summarizing it and sending it to her to try to skirt the classification laws? all of these things are troubling. they are troubling for hillary clinton and the aides. again, it's not monumental, but it's not good. jimmy carter was making jokes and he looked upbeat this morning, but the former president announced today that the cancer he recently made public has shown up in small spots on his brain. carter will begin radiation treatment and he says he's ready for anything. he also said he's had a wonderful life -- 90 years. it's hard, if not impossible, to disagree.

al, you've been covering politics for a very, very, very long time. you remember jimmy carter and his time in office well. what did you make of the news conference he gave in atlanta this morning? al: my wife covered him as governor, so i really rely on her. we were at an event with him a year ago. a play in washington, sat right behind him. i could not get over how incredibly alert, sharp he is. this is a very tough diagnosis, but this is one tough bird. his presidency is still not honored a great deal, but he's one of the greatest ex-president's of all time. if anybody can beat this, it's jimmy carter. john: he cited his christian faith. a lot of people forget he was an evangelical. at a time when democrats attracted a lot of christian voters. it has meant a lot to carter and has fueled his work as a humanitarian. that is what made his post-presidency so great.

that has been fueled, i think by his faith. another thing i feel strongly about is the degree of transparency. it used to be that presidents kept things under the covers when they got sick. ronald reagan and nancy reagan went a long way towards ending that when he announced his alzheimer's, but this is super admirable and helps to break -- bring post-presidency into a new age of openness about these things. al: a moment of great valor and we are all rooting for him. john: absolutely. our thoughts, blessings, and hopes. we are all on team carter now. coming up, live from new orleans, mary matalin after this. ♪ ♪

john: our guest tonight has two things in common with me. she loves new orleans and james carville.

mary matalin, thanks for coming back to the show. we are going to play a sound for you right now. you will recognize these voices. take a listen to them and we will have a chat. mr. trump: bush is totally in favor of common core. i don't see how he can possibly get the nomination. mr. bush: i don't think he represents the republican party, and his views are way out of the mainstream of what republicans think. mr. trump: i think he's a stiff. i watch him. he's somebody who does not want to do what he's doing. mr. bush: whether it is donald trump or barack obama, their rhetoric of divisiveness is wrong. mr. trump: i'm not a fan of jeb bush. mr. bush: all he does is push people who don't agree with him down to make his side look better. mr. trump: jeb bush is totally controlled by the people who gave him that money. mr. bush: you only empower bullies by ignoring them. you have to stand up to them. mr. trump: you know what's happening to jeb down the street? his crowd is sleeping. mr. bush: when people look at

his record, it is not conservative. john: mary, you recognize both of those voices -- jeb bush and donald trump. their battle is pretty hot and hot running. it is the center of action on the republican side. who's winning the fight right now? mary: i've been publicly supportive of the trump candidacy, and there are three ways to deal with him. one was to dismiss or attack, which is what the establishment did. that was wrong because it in turn dismisses the anger and anxiety that's real in america. the second is to pander to him, which some of the candidates are doing, which is also wrong, because americans don't want trump -- they want the spunk. the spunk is necessary, but suspicious. the third way, which is what bush did yesterday, is to contrast his first principles, his policies, and his real

record of reform in florida. when the rubber hits the road, that spunk has to turn into substance. we've been around for a while. people don't know jeb bush's record. he was one of the reform governors in the 1990's. i remember when jeb bush was the extremist. he put in place conservative policies, cut taxes every year, cut the government, ended up with an $8 billion surplus. he led the nation in job growth, he led the nation in small business growth. people don't remember that. but they do remember the last seven or eight years. jeb's unemployment was one third of obama's and his growth was three times what obama's is. that is the compare and contrast. trump does not know him either. he called him low energy and a stiff. you all know that jeb is neither theatrical or theoretical. he's intense. the only one of the bush

es got scared me. -- that scared me. he's a taskmaster. he's not low energy. i think it was a strategic mistake for trump to poke him the way he did. this match goes to jeb and it fits in his long-haul strategy. john: final ruling, you think jeb is winning the fight right now. you mentioned something along the way about candidates pandering to trump. who you think is pandering to trump not to their benefit? mary: what trump took off the table is the presumption of the premise that the media and the chattering classes and us political junkies should set the agenda, or that we have to be politically correct. those who are saying, yeah, i'm with trump support his immigration -- i'm not going to name names. they know who they are. those candidates tapped into and understand that there is real anxiety, fear, frustration, and anger in the country -- not

just at the obama record, but at republicans who have won to sweeping midterms and nothing has changed. that's real. but jeb was not part of that. he was not ever part of the d.c. problem. he was a reform governor. people know that they need to get that out of these other governors and candidates who also were not part of the problem. then, everybody has to put their policies on the table. the benefit to jeb is that he is a real record. john: al hunt, go right ahead. mary: hello, mr. hunt. al: how are you, mary? good to talk to you from new orleans. mary: are you coming down for katrina 10? al: i would love to come down anytime to be entertained. you have said that trump could actually be good for the republican party. he calls jeb bush "dumb."

he says the bush-cheney iraq war was a catastrophe. he dismisses rick perry and lindsey graham as lightweights. can that possibly be good for the republican party? mary: he's not speaking for all americans. i think that wears out pretty fast. like all americans, i like his spunk. i like that he gets more mad at -- gets that we are mad at the republican party. this is a very stellar field. people want the fight and the substance. we have not even gotten our jerseys dirty yet. we're basically in spring training. the real game is on the field after labor day, and then we get into the long-haul. i think whatever he calls the other candidates is belied by their presentations and their performance. al: hopefully you will have a better record than the new orleans saints. mary: hey. hey, you.

[laughter] al: if one of the super pac's came to you and said we would take out negative ads on the donald -- good or bad idea? mary: that's a ridiculous idea. as i said, the first reaction to him that the establishment took, which was wrong, was to dismiss him or to attack him. he does represent some real anger in the party and in the country. they like the swing and swagger. what needs to be attacked are his policy prescriptions and his record. because what conservatives want and the country wants -- all parties -- is some conservative governance, which has proved itself to be successful in the states where governors have control and we have unified control of the chambers. it proved successful in jeb's tenure and counterproductive in obama's tenure.

the trump record and policy prescriptions so far, he has swung. he hasn't missed -- he's on the field, but he does not have any policy prescriptions that are detailed. i get it. people don't want the details. they don't want to get into the weeds. but he doesn't have anything that he has proved to work anywhere except on his own show stage. john: mary, i'm taking it back. i want to play another piece of sound. again, a voice you will find familiar. let's play that sound. >> this goes on and on. it's never going to stop. these people -- we don't like hillary. why is the pope gay? why can't we just attack her like we want to? i understand that. i've been dealing with this for 23 years. it will not amount to a hill of beans. just like all the other stuff i have been through. it doesn't amount to a hill of beans. it's just a bunch of people talking to each other, spinning themselves up.

john: your fabulous husband there defending hillary clinton. what do you think about that? mary: i feel his pain. he's been doing it for 23 years and america's been putting up with it. i don't see how that's a positive message. it kind of reminds us that mendacity is her middle name. i don't think the e-mail thing is important to anyone but junkies. but her mendacity is and her policies are and she is even running more left than obama, if that's possible. she just said the other day that her answer to what ails us is not to change hearts and minds, but to change systems and redistribute wealth. well, of course we are going to swing at that because that's not what made the country grow and that's what has made it stuck where it is. james has been dealing with this for 23 years. it is far worse for us who have been having to deal with him.

-- deal with it for 23 years. john: you will have to go home and tell your husband that he's completely full of crap. thank you for being on the show. we're back with a very special commercial for hillary clinton after this. ♪ ♪

john: everyone's been talking about hillary clinton's press availability in north las vegas this week when she attempted to make a joke about wiping her personal server with a cloth. and now, unsurprisingly, some people are trying to capitalize on it. take a look at this commercial we saw today in our local imaginary tv market. >> what, like with a cloth or something? >> of course. that's how we do it in lenny's personal computer closet. we have all the server wipes you need, and so much more! things like debugging, tablets, ram -- oh no, javascript!

>> i have no idea. >> this week only, half off kindle hotspots and beats by dre. need a mouse? we've got apple products. we will keep you safe with our firewalls. >> i don't know how it works digitally at all. >> and we've got all the latest apps. come on down to lenny's personal computer closet, where we put convenience first excavation first! john: good luck with that, lenny. we will be right back with more news about deez nuts. ♪ ♪

john: now an important date on a -- an important update on a critical news story we brought you yesterday. north carolina presidential candidate deez nuts gave an interview to "rolling stone." turns out his real name is bradley olson and he's a sophomore in high school. maybe in 20 years he will get our vote.

joe biden's newest supporter, and a big player in the 2012 campaign down in florida, steve scheele, joins us tomorrow. we are live 24/7 and we are on the the only way to get better is to challenge yourself, and that's what we're doing at xfinity. we are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. and this includes our commitment to being on time. every time. that's why if we're ever late for an appointment, we'll credit your account $20. it's our promise to you. we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. ♪ ♪ ♪ get excited for the 1989 world tour

with exclusive behind the scenes footage, all of taylor swift's music videos, interviews, and more. xfinity is the destination for all things taylor swift. matt: hewlett-packard takes a kid from slumping pc sales. what to expect when the business splits later this year. ♪ matt: i'm matt miller in for emily chang, and this is "bloomberg west." live from new york today. coming up, salesforce boosts its profit forecast, and elon musk's hyperloop taking two steps closer to becoming a reality. and we will take you to the world's first solar powered airport. all of that and more on "bloomberg west." first, to the lead. hp shares arid