phil: i'm phil mattingly. , and i'm john heilemann "with all due respect" to donald trump, this is a blue wall. good evening, sports fans from an way park. there's only one thing this part of the country was more than politics, and that is a spell. tonight, we are talking to the red sox resident, larry lucchino . it is a historic day in america, both the president of china and the pope from vatican city are

visiting. the chinese president will spend the next seven days in the united states, including a state dinner. pope francis is in washington, d c, where he will give a speech to congress, followed by stops in new york and philadelphia. ofquestion to you is which these two momentous occasions will have the bigger long-term effect on american politics? phil: the white house feels like they can pin it off a lot of his issues. china is the second largest global economy and it is a very tense relationship right now. if the obama administration can figure out a broader deal on cyber security and how to deal with the east china sea, that sets us up longer-term than anything pope francis can see. john: that is why i brought you on the show, because you are a long in the extreme. you are right. hugeope's visit causes

problems for republicans. you used to have conservative popes and now we have a liberal pope giving fits to republicans. they are out of step with the pope on climate change, immigration, the cuba, the iran deal, all of it. long run, china is more important, politically, geo strategically, and that is why i am afraid you are right. phil: take that and frame that. one thing i will say is that talking to white house is somes, there nervousness about what they could say. you cannot control what the pope is going to say when he visits the white house or congress. there are issues the pope could go after that could make them look bad. john: it will be interesting to see the house chamber where no one is allowed to applaud or boo the pope. running is a crazy time

for the white house for republicans. scott walker is no longer in the race, donald trump is picking a fight with bill o'reilly. is tripling down on his opinion that a muslim should not be president. meanwhile, jeb pushes in iowa doing the most boring thing imaginable, he is talking regulatory reform. what is he thinking right now? john: jeb bush is trying to be the road up in this race. the loss of scott walker and rick perry, two governors out of the race, jeb bush made a comment yesterday where he said these two guys are serious snarkyves and then made comments about backbenchers who don't get anything done but file amendments. jeb bush wants to be the guy who knows how to run something. by putting forward ideas about how he would run the federal government, he wants to be the establishment consensus of candidates that scott walker

said republicans must rally around. "new york times" todline says jeb push plans alter federal regulations to invigorate the economy. times" a "new york headline. toward us. joyful he wants to be substantive. john: that should be on a bumper sticker. phil: he wants to take it back to what he did as florida governor and show he has policy that can last. for a while, chris christie was in the pole position, putting out substance. jeb bush has done this almost every 10 days since late summer, coming out on every issue and laying down markers on policy. he wants to be a grown-up in the room when republicans turn away from the children. has finallyton

taken a position on the keystone pipeline. she is against it. she made news at an event in des moines, iowa today where she was there to talk about her prescription drug plan, but she got sidetracked by a drake university student to ask her about keystone. she replies that it interferes with our ability to combat climate change, therefore i oppose it. this was a long time coming. it's a good policy and is a good politics? answerhis question and -- it seemed random, came at the same exact time the pope was walking into the white house to meet with the president of the united states of america. when it comes to the burial of an issue, not that. on the policy side of things, she had to say something. when you talk to her team, they feel like the obama administration -- this is an issue that's gotten bigger than it should have been.

the greens are going to love it. it is a lot of money over there. said today that she wanted the white house to be out in front of this, but she kept getting asked about it and finally felt like she had to say something. the fundamental political reality of heller a clinton's life is it she must not allow someone who is a plausible commander-in-chief to get to a space on her left on 30 much anything. she thinks that, her husband things about that, bernie sanders, don't worry about him, joe biden, they worry about, elizabeth word and -- elizabeth warren, they still worry about. --l: i did not understand i'm putting the white house on notice. you know who didn't care about that mark the white house. last night, three presidential aspirant sat down on late-night shows. you had ted cruz on colbert and na on fallon.

funcruz: i'm having so much . i'm like a kid in the candy store. i believe in democracy and i don't inc. -- i don't think. how youert: no matter feel about him, he is my guest. please don't knew him. -- don't boo him. says -- wilmore >> my mother and i used to sing all the time. i'm lazy. that and my nice to lie down in warm bed ♪

who have you got in that bevy of appearances? deserves credit for going into the lion's den, a is they fiorin hands-down winner. came on aste, she not funny enough and not human enough, but she goes on a show and shows her softer side. a big win for her last night. phil: jimmy fallon, last night, the best ratings. he smoked jimmy kimmel and smoked stephen colbert. she was good and the ratings were just as good. what the deal with the late-night thing? we will see a presidential candidate on a late-night show almost every day for the rest of the year. maybe it will wear out its

welcome. we will have the red sox president, larry lucchino, on politics and baseball, live from this glorious place, fenway park after this message. ♪

john: joining as presently is the president and ceo of the red sox, larry lucchino, stepping down after infinite number of decades at the commanding height of the sport. he's won three world championships since he took the hell more than a decade ago. thank you for having us here. larry: welcome to fenway park. john: the cathedral of a small.

your sports business career alone is incredible, but if we life, likether, your gump" -- you played basketball with bill bradley. what was that like? larry: i was a lonely and insignificant sophomore when bradley was carrying us on his back to the final four. i was one of the early fundraisers for him in the late 70's when he ran for office. apart from the rest of us, he was a different player and still a very good guy. -- thehe other persons other person whose path you crossed was hillary clinton. i gather you liked her a little better once you started working with her. larry: she was indefatigable. it was watergate, the

impeachment, big and important stuff to us. it was our first year out of law school and she had a work ethic that was extraordinary. john: did you know president clinton? larry: he was more of a peripheral guy. he was not around so much. bill was out in texas doing some political stuff. john: i assume you will be supporting her? larry: i have supported her in the past. phil: when you worked with edward and it williams, he was the original super lawyer. one of the interesting things about his career is that everyone went to him. townhen you look at the now, do you see that ever happening again? the book about his life was called "the man to see" and

he was the man to see not just for legal problems or criminal problems, but for general advice on life and the ways of washington. it has been a while since i've baltimore, but for me i have a bias. my whole career in sports is directly attributable to him and the opportunities he gave me and the doors he opened for me. ever bethink there will anyone quite like him, but that is a bias point of view. you are a baseball life are -- what's your take on the state of the game right now? where are we in baseball? larry: the game is in pretty good shape right now. i think there's a high level of competitive allen's. the steroid error -- steroid era

has passed. i think they were determined to eradicate that from the game and they've done a great job doing that. i think there's a popularity about the game that applies to most of america and we've made a major effort to do two things -- one is to call all kids, the campaign we have to call all kids to make the game younger and reach out more to kids. and the commissioner is determined to expand the international activities of baseball, so i think ace ball is ready for another up to. i do believe it is enduring in its capacity to fill our summers. when i think about your career on the baseball side with the orioles and the red sox, you saw a lot change in the course of the sport.

we were talking about building camden yards and changing the way baseball stadiums look across america. i want to ask about the red sox specifically, but how has the business of baseball changed? larry: it is much larger than it used to be, more professional than it used to be, it used to be that the front office was filled with a few high school buddies or fishing buddies and the owner and then something happened and i would say it began in the 70's perhaps with the labor movement bringing in some good people and new ideas. but it is much more sophisticated. guys arrivedu here, this ownership group, you encountered a situation that people forget the red sox were not this indomitable franchise.

you are a hugely successful business and a global brand in a lot of ways. what were the biggest challenges you faced when you arrived in boston and how did you build this into this thing that it is now? larry: one of the biggest challenges, fenway park, the consensus of our fan base and the media was that fenway park cap tenets better days and it was time for a new ballpark somewhere else in boston. --n henry, time warner and i tom warner, and i believe there was something special about fenway park. we were determined to preserve, protect, and enhance fenway park. that was a big challenge. when we came here, the red sox were regularly bridesmaids, runners-up. number is phil: phil:

2222, tone number is remind me that we were always coming in second place to the yankees. when we came here, we said we want to really team worthy of the fanned support and we want to preserve and protect fenway park and be aggressive marketers thomas is not just boston's theme. austan's team. we wanted to be active in the philanthropic activities and we said we were going to eradicate the curse of the bambino. we said that at our very first press conference and three years according to our astute is this plan, we did that. get -- which you

of your world championships was the favorite. larry: the first question, it was just a question of balance. he had written so many bullet points that there was a feeble effort to write some nice things on the other side. his tongue in his cheek the whole time. 04 will always be special, 07 will be special because we made and it was that year nice to win. ofhad a slogan -- any group schlemiel's can win once. 13 was really special as well because of the boston marathon. larry lucchino, you are

the best. thank you for doing this review. we will be right back with tom rath avenue are these words from our sponsors. -- after these words from our sponsors. ♪

phil: joining us now is tom rath , the veteran new hampshire republican and a big fan of john kasich and possibly a bigger fan of the boston red sox. thank you for doing the hardship duty. serve as the biggest news of the week -- scott walker . what are your impressions about what happened and what lessons can john kasich take? tom: you hate to see a campaign go down and you feel bad for all the people involved. i thought he had a remarkable chance to carve out a spot in his field and for whatever

reason, it doesn't work. i admired the fact that they faced up to the reality and got out. political geography and real geography in politics -- political geography, he was trying to get into this center governing conservative lane and he never had a chance to articulate that. phil: lessons that you take? tom: you have to keep control of the check look. john: they were spending a lot of money. that he iss happy out. do you think john kasich and benefit in a particular way? you never benefit from someone else's misfortune, but the political geography is where john kasich fits -- the governing conservative that gets things done. secr we get through the primary, we had to the industrial midwest. that ought to be a good place for us.

they have been doing a lot of advertising in your state and put one up today that is a tongue-in-cheek, mocking donald trump, john kasich has done well staying out of trouble's cross hairs. do you have any concerns now about provoking donald's ire? tom: i don't think you poke the cage if you don't have to. we are going to talk about things we care about. the debate was set up to say you said this and he said this. we are not into that. we haven't had that kind of exchange with anybody. has then onfiorina the rise. what is your sense of her in new hampshire? tom: i think she's got a lot of interest and some very good people working for her. she is like everyone else -- this field is scrambled right now. runner is at 24,

that means everyone is in the game. everyone tends to get a moment, drill question is can you sustain that moment? sense donaldople trump is losing a little altitude post debate. what is your sense of that? tom: i look at the numbers carson got. 'srson's numbers and trump numbers -- i'm wondering if carson isn't a way station for people who got out with the anger and are moving back and looking at other people and whether that puts that in play. donald trump is going to be donald trump. are here at fenway park and you are a season-ticket holder. what is your single favorite fenway memory? tom: one is pedro at the all-star game. the other is we were here for i'veixth game in 2013 -- been coming to this park for 58 years and i never thought i would be here when they won.

the whole part stayed and it was just a wonderful night. john: i think i may have seen you that night. pleasure,always a always an honor. we will be right back. ♪

do anotherl, don't guest at the end of the show, but today we are bringing in david ortiz. what is your best memory as he prepares to step down? david: when i have to sit down to talk about my contract with him. [laughter] we've got so many memories about larry. besides being ceo of the organization, he's a good

mentor. always on the tube every day and on the web and now we have to say goodbye. from the, from phil and from david ortiz, sayonara. ♪

alix: i am alix steel. joel: i am joel weisberg. alix: u.s. stocks joined the global selloff. joe: the question is "what'd you miss." china's growth is slowing. alix: the market must beg for the fed to raise rates. if so, when?