john: oh, i'm john heilemann. phil: i'm phil mattingly. donald trump's appearance with stephen colbert last night -- mr. trump: really smart, really great, and hillary, who has become very shrill, and i have better hair. do we agree i have better hair than he does? ♪ john: he has better hair than i do. on the show tonight, a pontiff, poet, and a potpourri, but first, a poll. -- latest poll shows that phil: quarter of democratic voters support vice president

joe biden, who has surpassed vermont senator bernie sanders in the primary field. hillary clinton is slightly above at 33%. this is the smallest lead against biden in any poll this cycle. it ain't over till it's over. now john, if you are each of these people, you wake up at 6:00 what are you thinking? a.m., john: first of all, i noticed the yogi berra reference in the script. i love having you on yogi on the show. we will talk about him later. i'm thinking if i'm hillary clinton, i have been worried for weeks, i am more worried now. i don't like the fact that my margin over biden, not even in the race, has gotten this small. if i am bernie sanders, i'm particularly bummed out because i'm not even in second place and the guy who is not running is in second place ahead of me. within the margin of error. if i'm joe biden, i'm thinking people have been telling me the last few weeks that i have to deal with my personal issues, but the politics look good for me to get in this race, this

poll confirms that and makes that point even more strongly. phil: if i'm hillary clinton, i'm not looking at the topline numbers. i'm looking at biden's favorability, which since april has picked up 3 points. unlike any other candidate her , favorability is down 10 points since iowa. she has been running, she has been under the microscope. joe biden has not. this is a great number for him, as he considers this right now but how realistic is this in the , grand scheme of things? i think that is a question worth raising. john: the other thing if you are hillary clinton, and looking for a reason to feel good, looking to salvage something out of all this rubble, you look at this and you say maybe joe biden doesn't run, and as his number has gotten larger, biden decides not to run, she will claim most of those votes. those are not bernie sanders votes, if you look at all the polling we have analyzed so far. if you look at biden rising and sanders maybe hitting the ceiling, that gives you something to cling to amid all the gloom. after putting out her prescription drug plan and finally coming out against the keystone pipeline yesterday in iowa, hillary clinton found herself grappling with the issue

that just won't go away. exhibit a, our colleague del wilber's scoop that the fbi has recovered work and personal e-mails from her private server. exhibit b, contrary to her claim that she turned over the e-mails to the state department after a normal routine records request, , "the washington post" reports that state department officials are now saying the thing that made them asked for her e-mail was the discovery that she used a private server. a meeting with "the des moines register" editorial board yesterday, our man caught -- man, john mccormick captured clinton unable to explain away that story, or explain it at all, for that matter. you can observe a lot by watching. ms. clinton: you know what, you are telling me something i don't know. all i know is what i have said, and what i said is it was allowed. the state department has confirmed that. the same letter went to, as far as i know, my predecessors, and i said, hey, i will be glad to help.

but we will give you additional information as we get it. john: phil, these are 2 big stories, but on a scale of political consequence, are these incremental advances in the e-mail story or monumental? phil: i'm going incremental. i've shifted a little bit over the last 24 hours as i have been trying to parse wording and see what the statements are. the last two days policy-wise, for hillary clinton, were huge days. we talked about the pharmaceutical drug plan she had yesterday. not only was there a significant plan with democratic support, but she villainized a hedge fund guy and got him to back off a specific price on a specific drug. that is a big win for them. then you have a healthcare plan, then you have an 840-word media post explaining her keystone headline position and a pivot into her energy plan.

and we're talking about e-mails. i don't know if it is a reflection of the political press as a whole, but that is a problem that has been consistent the past few months. john: i would not go so far as to say monumental or colossal, but this del wilber story - was the server wiped clean or were the e-mails merely deleted and they were able to get deeper into the system? we don't know if they will get the 30,000 she said she deleted, but the fact that they can get some of them is a dangerous development for her because it raises the specter that beyond the fbi's investigation, congressional republicans will try one way or the other to drag her personal e-mail into public. there is a reason why she deleted those e-mails. we don't know what it is. but if those e-mails get into the public, that is a new phase of this potential scandal and it could be very dangerous. phil: almost a certainty if hill republicans get a hold of it. today the pope met with president obama at the white house and spoke to thousands of people on the south lawn. president obama: the excitement

around your visit, holy father, must be attributed not only to your role as pope, but unique qualities as a person. pope francis: as a son of an immigrant family, i'm happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families. climate change is a problem we can no longer be left to a future generation. phil: in that poll we released today, we asked about the pope's positions and found that not only do people really love the pope, but the future ain't what it used to be. they agree with him on major issues, and the direction the church is going. they support the the position that hope has taken on women in church, and refusal to judge gay people. but the one issue he loses on, and he loses big on this issue -

people cause global warming. john, why is that? john: the easy answer would be to say that these other issues are issues where there has been what is traditionally considered church doctrine involved and people think that is the pope's realm and he is allowed to have a view on that. climate change they think is not in the church's realm. he disagrees on that, but people say the pope should not be sticking his nose in on that issue. it is more fundamental, these are all highly charged, polarizing, ideologically freighted issues. but now in our society, as controversial as gay marriage once was, abortion once was and still is controversial to some extent, global warming is the most polarizing and controversial political issue, and that is why we end up seeing this rejection of the pope having an opinion on that matter. phil: the surprise to me is that the pope did not hold his fire at all. he went straight at climate change and was effusive in his praise of the president for using his executive action to

try and address climate change as an issue. that in and of itself is enough to infuriate republicans and conservatives. i think people misperceived the idea that he is totally shifting the church on a doctrinal level, but on this issue specifically, people are wary of the direction he is taking. john: it is also a totally new thing and it takes people a while to get used to that. deja vu all over again. a government shutdown on the horizon. tomorrow the senate will grapple with a bill to keep the federal lights on. ultimately the upper chamber is all but sure to pass such a bill. the problem is the house, where speaker john boehner will put up a vote before the money runs out next week, we know that for sure. phil, what we don't know is whether the bill will pass or not, and whether the government will shut down. you live in washington, d.c., you cover these things really closely. what say you? phil: there will not be a government shutdown. john: oh! phil: i know, it is a risky, risky proposition. a full 7.5 days before the

deadline i'm willing to go out on a limb and say there will not be a shutdown. john: you believe our elected representatives are competent enough to prevent a shutdown and the republican party has its stuff together enough that it is able to get over the various fissures within the party? phil: i'm putting a lot of faith in the pope's address to congress tomorrow. john: the pope will put together a c.r. and pass it. clean c.r. tomorrow, by the pope. phil: the republican conference has real problems in the house , and john boehner has a problem but leadership has coalesced around the fact that they simply cannot shut down the government and the clean cr is the only pathway forward. they will convince enough republicans, as is always the case in these situations, convince enough republicans and nancy pelosi will get democrats , and they will pass a funding bill for a certain period of time and have the fight at a later date. it always happens, it will happen this time. john: i don't like ever agreeing with you under any circumstances whatsoever.

i think you are probably right but only probably right. there is a higher probability of a shutdown than a lot of people think right now because the house republican caucus is such a mess. phil: i will take probably. that makes me feel good about myself. you have 2 options, stay with us or change the channel. if you're not sure what to do, here is some advice -- when you come to a fork in the road, take it. ♪

john: our guest tonight is our polling expert ann selzer. last time we had her on the show, it was impossible to get the conversation going because everyone was talking too much. thanks for coming back. this bloomberg politics national poll -- phil mentioned the thing he would worry about if he were hillary clinton, the favorability numbers.

tell us what caught your eye. ann: what caught my eye is the change with the overall american public with hillary clinton. there is speculation over what is going on with her campaign, will joe biden get in. her favorability numbers dropped 10 points. when we look just at democrats -- she will say my people are with me, and they are. she has a 70% favorability rating, but joe biden's is 80. bernie sanders is lower but 35% don't know enough to say how they feel about him yet. john: 80% favorability for the vice president among democrats is extremely high, and i would venture to say as high or higher than it has ever been for joe biden. we don't have the records on this but my guess is that that is true. how fast do you think that number would drop when biden gets in the race? ann: predictions are hard, especially about the future. john: ms. berra.

ann: it remains to be seen how he plays this game. it is all on him. he has done it twice before. it gives him a big advantage that he has run against hillary clinton before. he knows the game he is getting into. he will have thought that through. john: he will forget that sterling 1% of iowa voters he got in 2008. phil: when you dig in on secretary clinton's numbers, where is she losing support? ann: she has lost support among women and this is the group that is supposed to buoy her scores. just a 4-point advantage over bernie sanders with women. where have they gone? really, as far as i can tell, into the not sure category. they are just backing off. it means they are still there in order to be cultivated, they have not sworn allegiance to another candidate, but they are just holding their powder, i think, right now. john: this gender thing seems

surprising to me because we have heard for months now bernie doing well with men but not so well with women. now they're basically running even with women. that seems incredible. really kind of remarkable. do you have any idea what might be driving that? ann: i think it is what the story has been all along, and as an observer, the preseason is over, and we are starting to see candidates dig in and campaign for real. on the republican side, a couple have left the race. on the clinton side, she is now talking policy and holding events in a way she was not doing before. game on. john: we asked people whether they thought joe biden should get in the race. ann: this is one of the most fascinating findings in our poll. 47% overall said he should get in. you might think that is being driven by democrats, wishing him getting in as an alternative. it is 52% of democrats.

republicans are right on the average, with 47% saying they wish joe biden could get in. my question for you, is there a different rationale between republicans and democrats, each having a different advantage for him to get in? john: i think there is. democrats want him to get in because they want to vote for him or they think he is good for the race and good for competition. a lot of republicans dismiss joe biden out of hand. the republican view of joe biden is he is a clown. maybe they are registering strategic voting in this case. what do you think about that, phil? phil: i think there is something to the fact that these republicans want him to get in the race. i want to ask about the pope, the most popular guy in the world, maybe. what stood out to you when you look at those numbers? ann: when we looked at issues and where people think is a good direction for the catholic church to go, some of the issues that are more controversial people really backed off of.

i looked at catholics in terms of their view of this, and they line up pretty well. on climate change, it was a minority of democrats who thought this was a good direction for the catholic church. he has not, i think, made the case on climate change as well as the church doctrine issue, and democrats aren't buying it, either. john: super interesting. we could talk you all day but we don't have all day. when we come back, we'll have anita dunn. if we ask anything she doesn't know, she is not going to answer. ♪

john: with the democratic nomination fight getting more and more interesting, mark and i spoke the other day with former white house communications director anita dunn. we asked about her views of hillary clinton's vulnerabilities as a candidate. when we had you on in october, you said she would have two vulnerabilities. one would be economic populist, the other would be on foreign policy.

to the extent that she has shown vulnerability in the years since we last had you here, are those the things that made her vulnerable or is her vulnerability elsewhere? anita: part of it is that she has been seen as a preemptive front runner for so long, which was not the reality, but because she was seen as a preemptive front-runner, the entire process has been a referendum on her. she has gotten general election coverage early in the primary season. i think economic populism has turned out to be an area of vulnerability. that is the rocket fuel that is propelling bernie sanders' campaign, that and a sense of authenticity. john: when we talked in october, you said you thought it would be harder in this election for a progressive to mount a challenge against hillary clinton than it was for bill bradley, your former client, to challenge al gore in 2000. do you think that has proven to

be true? are you surprised by the amount of traction bernie sanders has been able to get against a formidable front-runner as secretary clinton? anita: well, i think i was wrong when i said that, and i think i was wrong because i underestimated how strong those currents are really running in this party right now. i don't think i'm totally wrong because i was one of a small number of people in "the new yorker" who said that there would be a challenge to her no matter what. the reality, especially with young people, they feel such a disconnect from the political process, and i think that people like senator sanders, who so clearly are operating from a strong set of principles they have held for a very long time, and who don't sound like typical politicians, have a huge advantage. mark: it strikes me from looking at the way senator sanders has conducted himself, the way hillary is not in the best place, it is difficult to go after him. do you share that view?

anita: i think it is difficult for people to take this personal directly against each other whoever it is. mark: you talk about joe biden possibly running. let's say he got in the next couple weeks and everything went great. let's talk november, december, january. what is his most linear path to the nomination? anita: he could get in late with little organization and that is a huge thing for the biden campaign, the potential campaign, to consider. what we are entering is a period of engagement and the path for any candidate -- hillary clinton, bernie sanders, martin o'malley, jim webb, lincoln chafee, or even, should he choose to run, vice president biden -- is how are you going to use the debate, how are you going to use the dinners, how are you going to use the joint appearances, how are you going to use personal appearances, how are you going to use shows like this one to go out and engage people and make your case for

your path? john: up in new hampshire this weekend, the chairwoman of your party, debbie wasserman schultz, was heckled by a crowd of democrats. there should be more debates, according to many democrats. the chairwoman has been adamant that there will not be more than the six currently sanctioned. do you think she should relent and sanction more debates or remove the penalties from unsanctioned debates? anita: full disclosure, i work with the dnc. but i will also say that anybody who worked for barack obama in 2008 is not going to sit here and say, oh, you really need 25 debates. you actually don't need that many debates, and there are plenty of opportunities for candidates to go out there and to talk to voters, and one of the reasons we have small states at the beginning of the process is so the candidates can do personal campaigns, not through television. john: you agree that obama got better the deeper in the debate schedule, number one, and number two, as many of your colleagues

told us many times, though that long stretch of debates was grueling, it prepared him well for the general election debates he had with john mccain. anita: i actually would think there is little revisionist history going on with my colleagues. i don't think the primary debates really did prepare him all that well for the general election debates. it wasn't until quite late that they became one-on-one debates, for example. john: just to be clear, you think six is enough? no one is advocating 25, by the way. anita: but where do you draw the line, john? john: i don't know, but it seems that just to place this cap on it, the choice is either six or 25, that seems like a straw man argument. 25 sounds ridiculous. why not 10? anita: maybe the party at the end of the day decides if the process is moving along and keeps going on that they should add debates for later states. i guess i would say to you, why

should 2 states get two or three debates apiece and 48 states get none? once you start going down to it, there may be more debates because the process could stretch up to june, as it did in 2008. there could end up being fewer debates if the process ends early and somebody just sleeps. i think 6 is a good number right now. there are plenty of other opportunities. at the end of the day, candidates need to take advantage of every opportunity. john: our thanks to anita dunn. when we come back, rip yogi berra. take it with a grain of salt. ♪

john: 90% of our show was about politics. the other half is about yogi berra. the most famous catcher in baseball and an oft-cited political philosopher who liked to say that if you don't go to people's funerals, they won't go to yours. we hope yogi's funeral is crowded, not too crowded, or nobody will be able to go.

if those quotations made you smile, enjoy a few more courtesy of our friends in the media and politics rackets. >> there was a quotable baseball player named yogi berra and he once famously said it's deja vu all over again. president obama: in the words of the great yogi berra, deja vu all over again. >> deja vu all over again. >> deja vu all over again. >> deja vu all over again. >> as yogi berra would say, it is deja vu all over again. one hot air balloon landing in west little rock and not for the first time. >> as yogi berra would say, it is getting late early, so we are getting shorter days, it is still dark. >> it was yogi berra who said it ain't over till it's over. >> yogi berra once famously said it is tough to make predictions, especially about the future. >> an apropos saying by yogi berra baseball is 90% mental, 50% physical.

oil is behaving like that.>> for hillary clinton in columbus, tomorrow it will be deja vu all over again. john: for me and phil and everyone here, sayonara.

>> the chinese president met with business leaders today to say the relationship had in or miss potential print the same day we learned of records that million more federal records were stolen, experts are blaming the chinese government. how is president obama to approach friday summit? ♪ emily: i am emily chang, this is "bloomberg west." commute