>> with all due respect to lincoln chafee, governor, we hardly knew you. ♪ >> greetings and salutations. the birthplace of glenn miller, we spent the day today with two of the top republican presidential candidates, including our iowa poll leader, ben carson. also on the show, iowa poll standings with rooms in ted cruz but first, just bad news.

on bloomberg policy this morning we saw that jeb bush is correcting the course, and downsizing staff, and putting a lot more focused on time in the early voting states. what are the chances that this major change is going to work in reviving his candidacy? john: there is zero chance that this is going to revive his candidacy. this might allow him to continue to stay afloat. we have both seen candidates like john mccain who withdrew -- who went to through these kinds of things and then went on to be the nominee. but they went on to be the nominee because this is a necessity and not a good thing. it is the path to stay alive. mark: and also gets jeb bush in

front of voters. not rushing coast-to-coast. he can raise all the money in the world, all the kings horses and all the kings king's men. this gives the campaign a chance to test your theory, which is if voters can talk to jeb bush and hear his message they will win. i think iowa and new hampshire is their path back. right now, because no establishment candidate has caught on, he has a chance. john: the bottom line is, and we always use this dog metaphor. you can overspend on dog food, given can understand on dog food, but ultimately is either. good or bad dog. so maybe you could argue that the problem is that jeff's dog food has not been distributed well enough or marketed well enough. but right now, the dogs are not eating it. mark: what he needs right now is a morale booster. cutting spending will help, but he needs his staff to feel like this is a winning move. you want to show successes early. watch the debate. john: earlier today we released

the latest installment of our des moines register iowa poll. the republican horse race. the result was a total shocker. for the first time in more than a hundred days, donald trump was no longer a top the field in the hawkeye state for that position is now occupied by ben carson. he holds a nine point lead over the donald. we will show you his reaction to the news not long after he first heard it in a few minutes for one of the implications of ben carson now being the iowa front runner? what would it mean if he continued and won the caucus? >> there are tons of applications and trunk now has a choice. does he want to be behind in iowa? does he plan to go on tv, or is

he content to say iowa is an evangelical state, carson can have that. and now what is carson do? and if person wins iowa, i think most of the other candidates would say they would be fine with it they continue to underestimate dr. carson. they do not believe you can take in iowa victory in spring order to future triumphs they worry that trunk can't. i think they might be wrong. john: the implications are clear. they are strategic and tactical challenges for trump and cruise that they will have to deal with it if ben carson, i am with the people who think that does not springboard him to the nomination, but -- mark: you continue to underestimate him. how many other candidates who go on a book tour draw 2000 visitors? the democrats are flocking he says des moines this weekend for tomorrow night jefferson jackson dinner. their annual fundraiser is a

huge political event, known for its big pregame rallies, sign wars and the celebrations, all leading up to a dinner where the democratic hopefuls sign off. and sometimes offers some jabs at their rivals. with all of the tea party activists in one placement big things have been known to happen. this is the dinner where all gore and barack obama both turned their fortunes around on the road to winning the democratic nomination. she will be bringing bill clinton and katie perry as part of her posse. martin o'malley and bernie sanders will be the only ones on stage with her. after her debate and benghazi hearing trifecta, how big a deal is this? john: there is no doubt that

this is a sense that hillary clinton has turned a corner. she is the momentum candidate. she will perform well at this. she performed well in 2008, the only problem was obama, performed better. but he needs to win a couple of cycles here. more important in this, organizing on the ground in iowa. the still matters a lot. mark: the gore and bradley face-off were huge. i think that sanders does not take events like this seriously. he thinks it is the show business of politics. he would rather deliver his message. frankly, even if he does that come in with a brand-new speech,

even if he comes with his stump speech and does it well: the platform of the audience, that could be enough but i think you would be better off understanding he has to win this. john: his messages burned in. they not only gave new speeches, but they came out with closing arguments. it is a big deal. coming up with ted cruz telling us about what it was like to be dissed by his old boss, and he is pleading for a shock to host snl. but first we met up with ben carson and talked to him about his new status as the iowa front runner that and what it means for your weekend. ♪

mark: earlier today john and i caught up with dr. ben carson. he was on his book tour. we began by asking dr. carson

what it feels like to be the brand-new front runner in the latest bloomberg politics des moines register i will pull. >> it is much better, and a different position. but i do realize that this is a marathon, not a sprint. there will be ups and downs. mark: we talked about some of the other candidates were not doing as well. you said something about what your attitude would be if you were down 2%. >> relief. to me, this is really about the people. the will of the people, not a position i ascribe to. mark: your attitude would be why go forward? >> if other people are polling at much higher, and that was the enthusiasm for them, i would say ok, it has been nice, i will go do something worthwhile. mark: would you give them advice to people who were at 2%? >> no, it is my own connection.

john: donald trump has not attacked you particularly aggressively, like many other candidates. you expect now that your ahead of him you will go after you? >> and depends on if he is a gentleman or not. i guess we will find out. if he continues to attack me, i will continue to talk about the issues. i do not buy into the whole attack your fellow republican thing. i'm just not going to do that. john: do you think donald trump is a gentleman? >> my personal interactions with him have shown him to be. i think there's another element sometimes when he is on camera. [laughter] mark: name two issues where you differ on a matter of substance with donald trump, and explain your argument for your side of that position. >> one would be on the taxation plan. he feels that a substantial number of people should be excluded from federal taxes, and

i do not. i feel like everybody has to have skin in the game. another thing is on the illegal immigrants. i would give people an opportunity, and it would be a defined timeframe to register, and to pay back tax penalties and to pay taxes go forward if they have a pristine record. they could be guestworkers. if they were willing to work in the segment that we designated for them. that would probably really be the segment that americans do not want. mark: a path for those who are illegally in the country now? >> a path to status, not citizenship and voting rights.

john: not important data deportation like donald trump says? >> that would collapse parts of our country. mark: how do you contrast yourself on temperament? >> i'm a relatively calm person. a lot of people think i'm half asleep, but i am awake. if you were in a city that was different everyday, you might have trouble remembering. mark: your life is changing, including having secret service reduction. the agents do a great job, and they are great around for what are you worried about how your life changed now, going to a movie, going to the supermarket, going to? >> yes. mark: how will that affect you and your family? >> everything you do, you have to think in terms of entourage. it changes the way that you are able to interact with people. i like people. my wife is a people person. the fact that you cannot

interact with people the same way, that is a downside, that is -- there is no question. but by the same token, it is not that way to get assassinated either. [laughter] mark: guest host on saturday night live? >> no. the president of united states is a very serious thing, and i do not want to put it in the likes of comedy. even though i know the medias are making fun of me, but that is what they do, they can do that on their own. john: if you become a front ready you are going to get a lot more security for everything. earlier this week, in the new york times, a former bush adviser to do to task for a lot of your analogies related to

nazi germany and accuesed you of making imbecilic analogies and said he did not understand the history and how do you respond? >> i would like to have him have a conversation with me in person. i will show you exactly where he is wrong. john: i will give you one example where you said try to understand in obama's america, they should read mein kampf. what do you mean? >> you understand the philosophy behind the people who want to change america. the other book i said they should read his rules for radicals. as you read these kinds of things, you actually can recognize some of the things that are going on in our society right now. john: when you say that there are things you observe in america today that are like nazi germany, what things are you pointing to? >> what i actually said was that in nazi germany, most of those people did not believe in what hitler was doing.

but did they speak up? did they say anything? they did not. my point is, that no we are not like nazi germany, and i did not say that we are like nazi germany. i do not want to get there. what smart people do this they look at tragedies, they look at disasters that have occurred they look at the inception of those things. they recognize, before they get there, that you need to perhaps take corrective action to make sure that you do not get there. mark: did you watch any of the benghazi hearing yesterday? >> i did. mark: what do you think americans learned? >> i hope they learned that immediately after the incident, the e-mails that she said to her family, had a conversation she had with the egyptian foreign minister and ambassador were very different than the narrative that was portrayed. john: what's the significance of that? >> the significance of that is

prevarication, lying. mark: do you think she's qualified? >> no. i believe she plays fast and loose with the truth. having a private server, and the possibility of compromising the security of our country after being first lady, and senator, secretary of state, if you do not know better after that i do not want you with the keys for everything. mark: do people come to get your book because they love the constitution and what to know more about it, or they love you? >> i hope it is both. [laughter] mark: what do you think are the chances of becoming the president of the united states? >> when patients would ask a question like that, i would say

why guess you will soon know? mark: our thanks to dr. ben carson. our interview with senator ted cruz after this word from our sponsors.

john: earlier today we huddled here in the coffeehouse with ted cruz. i asked him about the biggest policy differences he has with ben carson. >> the biggest difference between me and the candidates on the republican side is that i have a consistent record of standing and fighting for conservative principles and being a fiscal conservative, a social conservative on national security, and actually walking the walk. for example, i said a lot of times i think donald trump's is

running and has been very beneficial for our campaign because it does help frame the central issue in the primary as who will stand up to washington. that is the central issue, and the natural next question is who has stood up to washington to i cannot think of a better question to decide this race because my record is remarkably different understanding of not just the democrats a leader in our party. you go back to 2013, when millions of americans rose up against the disaster that is obamacare. i was proud to lead the fight against obamacare, and of the other nine candidates on the debate stage, where were they? none of the other nine stood up and lead. in 2014, when many rose up against illegal amnesty, i was heartily that five. the other nine were nowhere to be found. even going back to the couple of weeks ago, to the fight over planned parenthood, at the last debate in california, just about every candidate the tv camera

and said we should defund planned parenthood. but we had a knockdown drag out fight in washington dc. millions of conservatives rose up against planned parenthood. once again i led the fight. and once again, not a single one of the other candidates was anywhere to be found. it was like they were in witness protection. that explains the continued momentum our campaign is getting from the grassroots they are looking for someone who can be counted on over and over again. mark: jeb bush is another texan in a way. he is well behind you in this iowa all. poll.s iowa he is retooling his campaign, making major staff cuts and budget cuts. does that surprise you, and do you feel you're on track now to make no changes? >> we are actually going in the opposite direction, which we are ramping up. in our campaign we have seen extraordinary fundraising success. we have had over 360 thousand contributions from people over

the country going to ted cruz.org, supporting the campaign. we're going the opposite direction. >> is the surprising to you? >> one of the things we did before we launched campaign is we studied failed presidential campaigns. and one of the reasons they get killed his people have urged -- people will have urged cap. $13.8 million in the bank, $3.5 million more than jeb bush, which is not. nobody would have predicted that. we focused very much on being the lead early on, not spending money early on. saving our resources. we are now deploying them and ramping up. we opening offices on the ground we are hiring real staff as we move into the primaries. we have the grassroots and resources to compete hard in first four states.

also, nationally throughout super tuesday. john: former president bush made a comment, saying that you were the one that bugged him. it seems like a lot of your colleagues coming to rub them the wrong way. you do not have a big cheering section. is that a problem for someone who seeks to be the president? >> as it concerns president george w. bush, i like and respect him. i was proud to work on his campaign, to work in the administration. nobody is surprised that president bush is supporting his brother.

it should not surprise anybody that he has attacking candidates they perceive as a threat. >> you're the only one that he is attacked. >> that may say something. but i will not respond in kind. i will sing his praises. i met my wife working on his campaign. eight marriages came out of that campaign. a lousy joke i tell all over the country, is whatever he says -- anybody else says about him is that he is uniter, not a divider. ? mark: where is ted cruz on that important debate >> i grew up as a saturday night live junkie. i watched it. i would be thrilled to do it. do you the power to extend this invitation? that i would like. mark: which famous recurring character. you ace? >> that is an interesting question. i am a big fan of the old eddie murphy.

when eddie murphy was 19, 20 years old and he was -- he is still incredibly talented, but this young phenom on snl. he was hysterical. i can do those risk, but none of them are appropriate in the world of politics. send me an. i'm sure donald would do a terrific job. he has an extraordinary gift and he is a marvelous entertainer. i think it will be fabulous. mark: ben carson says the president's serious and should not go on a show like this. >> should have fun. it should not stop you from leaving a series of issues but too many republicans take themselves too seriously. mark: our thanks to ted cruz. ♪

mark: thanks to garrison coffeehouse. we will see you monday. john: sayonara.

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