>> welcome to "with all due christmas eve show. figure is almost over and it has been one of the host exciting years in residential politics. tonight we will start by forpping the big moments the leading republican presidential candidates and ponder what they might need to do next to win the white house. we will start with, who else? donald trump. what was his big moment? john: donald trump is a man of

big moments. it was his announcement speech. he came out and made his presidential announcement speech. thing that was very provocative about mexican immigrants, comparing some of them to rapists. it did not stop him. he capital bolted -- catapulted him into the lead, which he held for the year. it was the perfect paradigm. mark: it was so unorthodox. he talked about his personal wealth. in it was defining. many people said, that is it, he is not going anywhere very again and again, trump has defined people's expectations as how you behave as a presidential candidate. john: the first thing that he keyed in on was immigration. first thing that kept

them interested in donald trump. nobody knew what trump's views on immigration work until then. mark: he had that issue for a while. he has the ability to find defining issues and write them hard. what does he need to do? iowa he needs to win the caucuses. there is a chance that if he does that, he would be unstoppable. mark: he needs to turn this roman unorthodox campaign to see if he can do the orthodox saying it of turning out voters. moment was when he decided to focus on delegate accumulation as well as winning early states. put a lot of money into spending in iowa, new hampshire, but also down south. they have built a strong

operation with lots of supporters and volunteers. that has position him to be as likely as anybody, with the possible exception of donald trump, to be the party nominee. john: there was the focus of doing all of these things and focusing on a laserlike way on iowa. where all of the time that he spent and all of the retail politicking that he did has yielded him important endorsements from evangel to leaders in iowa. he has not been able to consolidate the of angelica b -- block.ical be able toeds to withstand pressure because he has been under a lot. holds that, you are right. a 50-state he has

strategy, they could all fall apart if he does not win in i want. i think that rubio has his defining moments off of the main stage. mark: i said defining moment? john: you pick the moment where he was pressey and about what was happening in syria. he gave a great speech about foreign policy at the reagan library. everybody was impressed when they saw it. the first moment he seemed to be that young marco rubio became somebody in the eyes of some republican voters looked like somebody that was president. mark: if you cannot win a state his theoryt four, will be sorely tested at best. chris christie in 2015 and what he needs to do? i think the defining moment is a negative one.

when he failed to convince the establishment that he was not damaged goods. his absence at the moment. he never had a moment where he was thought of the way he was thought of back before bridgegate. john: if chris christie is the republican nominee, the moment i is when he gave that speech about drug addiction and drug use and drug recovery. it caused a fire on facebook. made people remember what an incredibly powerful political performer he can be. idgegate is when it all fell apart to him. mark: he needs to win new hampshire. ben carson's defining moment and what he needs to do? carson, the negative, i

will pick one among many negative moments. he is talking about the chinese and syria. there were many moments on foreign policy and he seemed to be somebody that did not understand the world. the moment when terrorism arrived and became a dominant issue late this year, this guy, i do not think he can be your he needs to shock the world in iowa. he needs to finish a strong second and surge past donald trump or ted cruz. john: it will be very hard. jeb bush, the front runner coming in. no longer the front runner. defining moment was when he could not handle questions about his brother and iraq war. he did not understand politics and the modern new cycle. -- news cycle. board the legacy

which lushe -- bushes, has bedeviled him with voters. john: everyone's pressure was on him. everybody was focused in the same way. you should have been prepared to give a good answer with your brother and iraq. we saw jeb do better in las vegas. he came out so flat and got creamed by marco rubio. for a lot of establishment s, they said that we need to look somewhere else. his super pac to spend money in a way that helps him instead of makes them go down. carly fiorini a, the thing that she needs to do is to fight her way back into the elections. i would say the same about john casey. john: no defining moment has

been the problem for john kasich. mark: he needs to find a rationale in new hampshire. he needs to make the case that he is a different kind of republican. do not shy away from it. john: been a year of outsider candidates, a guy who talks a great length on the armed services committee in the house. for thes time democrats. the obvious place to start is with hillary clinton. the defining moments and what she needs to do. where she did very well at the benghazi hearin gs and joe biden decided not to run. win iowa and new hampshire. the republicans have a long domination fight.

-- nomination fight. maybe a mega fight. iowa,as long as she wins she is fine. called homeill be field advantage if he wins new hampshire. mark: i am not so sure that people will discount a new hampshire win as much as we do. what is his best moment of the year? john: every single time he stood in front of a crowd. mark: that is not a moment. john: there is not one in particular. let's say the first one. it might have been in wisconsin. there isple said, wow, an obama-like quality in him.

mark: the first debate he did not prepare. if he had had a strong first debate and put her on the defensive and rattle her. she is part of the same run with the benghazi hearing and biden. debate,d had a strong that would have been good for him. john: for him, what he needs to do, i do not mean to suggest that he needs to go negative on hillary clinton. he must drive home the existing real policy differences between the two of them. he's got to drive those home in a ferocious way. mark: doing it without repetition or self-consciousness. waiting for him to show just as much humanity to the voters as he does when he is on the set. o'malley, doesrtin

he have a defining moment? mark: his announcement speech. his introducers were incredibly well-chosen. it was the first time that he had a little bit of contrast with hillary clinton. in part because it was so good. it also illustrates the complete conundrum of martin o'malley. by virtue of his resume and because he is from a different generation, he should be doing better than 5%. john: i do not find that at all her flexing. -- perplexing. democrats love those two. mark: i am surprised that he is not at 10-11 percent. john: the defining moment was when we set in that first focus group in new hampshire and none who hedemocrats knew

was. mark: we will take a spin through mr. trump's headquarters.

mark: it is the most wonderful time of the year. we will talk about what all the candidates can do to increase their chances. we will talk about the unique s of the iowa caucuses. cycles, the major candidates have had many more days on the ground. a lot more visits to different parts of the state. the rules are roughly the same. they have democratized them a little bit. this is an institution like no

other. other states have caucuses. no other states have caucuses that are influential in the process. john: no one understands what a difficult challenge it is in terms of organization. -- tove to get people can come to an event, that there for three hours on a cold night in february. it is so different. that is true of all caucuses. it might be 10 degrees on february 1. it is a totally unique experience in american democracy . i agree with you. interesting to see how much effort there will be on the republican side. mark: because participation is really narrow, you cannot get a babysitter that day, the weather is bad, because participation is small number of

people have such a huge influence. you did not expect anywhere close to 200,000 people voting. at thee seven people event and they get excited. well, that is seven people. john: they are a very homogenous group of people. i love i want. it is a lily white state. it does not look like the rest of america. on the republican side, much older voters. on the democratic side, much more educated voters than average. somebody like bernie sanders might not do well in the iowa caucus. mark: who on the republican side is in the best is issued to win? ted cruz is in the best position to win the eye will

caucuses. the only other person that looks like a significant threat is trump. they had that organization there. whether they can meet the challenges that we described in terms of what to do on caucus night, not clear at all. guys that worked very hard in iowa, rick santorum and mike huckabee, they have won in the past, they are nowhere. caucuses,ly in the you retain a fair amount of people. i remember going with joe biden 20 years after he ran the first time. positioned inest the caucuses on the democratic side? mark: hillary clinton is. i do not know if it means that much. i interacted with the sanders operation in iowa. it is very engaged.

the clinton people have done a very smart job of marrying up movedow a folks that there and are living off the land. they are spending a lot of .oney, not too much money i think the clinton operation is justifiably praised. obamathey have taken the smarts and a lot of the obama people. bernie sanders, if he gets hot, he could be the candidate that would draw a lot of new people to the process and could shock the world. could surprise the conventional wisdom of the day and when those caucuses. mark: we will look back at some of the highlights of the year including going into the trump headquarters.

mark: with 2015 drawing to a close, john and i thought it was a good time to look act this year here he we got an exclusive look at donald trump's office here in gotham city. hi, how are you? have you worked on a presidential campaign before? >> no. i graduated from nyu. i have worked on some smaller campaigns. i coordinate things. scheduling requests. i help with press secretary stuff. make sure everything is running on track. mark: where did you first meet trump? >> when i first started working. mark: what was that like? >> nerve-racking, but he was

incredibly nice. mark: this is where trump's campaign manager works. he is from new hampshire. do your job. corey, this is where you work. you have worked on how many campaigns roughly? >> the balcony, it does not get any better than this. we get a balcony to enjoy the nice weather. fifth avenue, near central park. is this where you will stay? >> this is it, 100%. we have room to grow. paid fair market value, just as if we were renting to anyone else. not cheap, but you have a

good back or for the campaign. campaign like everybody. we run the campaign like a business. we make sure when we spend money, we get a return on our investment. we do not waste money. it is a little bit more like the filet mignon. mark: pizza is here. we have got to see this. every campaign has pizzas. >> they get all the mail. they answer 80% of the cause right here. these are some of the things people have sent in in the last 30-45 days. that is today's mail that has come in so far. ?ark: how many do you get a day

>> we have 3-4 a day. doesevery -- mark: everybody get a response? pizza is a big part of every campaign. what have you got on there? looks pretty good. >> i am doing a lot of scheduling and making phone calls. mark: have you ever worked on a campaign before? >> i have. i have worked on city council. i think that trump has a different view of politics that i really like. as a political science major, i know a lot about politics. politics in america actually goes and i want to make a difference. mark: your office is on fifth avenue. this looks like a campaign. we could be anywhere on a campaign.

>> that is what i like about it. about makingmore america a great again. mark: i am not saying you should lose your job, but that woman is awesome. >> amazing. mark: great. every sentence ended with, make america great again. pizza, make america great again. custom belts, make america great again. i did not even notice. stuff.just send this send you a flag and ask if you'll put it up in your office. i say, of course. mark: those seem big. you quit your job and volunteered to come here? >> yep. are: presidential campaigns

normally something that people spend a lifetime working up to. >> i just showed up. mark: you are wearing a tie today. is that office policy? in most inpaigns, it is up burlington, vermont. i think they would be wearing tie-dye shirts and ripped jeans. did you come here because you like donald trump? >> i love donald trump. i came here for my work. i just e-mailed the homepage and showed up. mark: i do not know if you can see and hear. this used to be the office space for "the apprentice." i guess this is where the props were. floor we are going to is where they filmed it? it is still there? there we go. you are working one floor below where the magic happens.

right here. let's take a quick peek at the taping of the show. this is it. this is the famous board table. covered up for posterity. but see what we have over here. iphone covers. buttons, make america great again. you are hired. hats.mous is campaign headquarters, the one piece of food we have seen. morewe return, more, more, donald trump.

john: if a little bit colder outside -- it is a little colder outside, so you probably have forgotten when it was hot, hot,

hot. we will always remember the summer of trump. mr. trump, thank you for your time. donald trump: tremendous show, tremendous success. runningu are finally for president. donald trump: i am officially running for president of the united states. mark: with all due respect to donald trump -- respect toall the donald trump, you are not the only one who knows how to escalate a situation. mark: trump. john: returning to our regular lease scheduled -- regularly scheduled programming, donald trump. this is not michele bachmann.

this is not herman cain. mark: every other candidate in the field would kill for his poll numbers. john: support for donald the trump is 11%. mark: once people took him seriously, he would rise. john: the donald tops every leaderboard insight. mark: handling the economy, terrorism, and yes, immigration. >> a force field of otherworldly energy. --euters poll has some 32% has him 32% -- john: and our ongoing attempt to understand the trump phenomenon, we did a focus group last night with 12 donald backers in new hampshire. it did not bother me.

ofhe would bring a lot companies back. >> i look forward to it. >> interesting thing every day. is parlaying anger and exam to the -- and anxiety. >> donald trump is out at nbc. over the weekend, mark asked trump about his suggestion that john mccain is no war hero. donald trump: i have to be me. john: willie take a dive from this -- will he take a dive from this? with all due respect to macy's, you can take the donald off of your shelf, but you cannot take the donald off of us. click's who is giving donald trump -- >> who is giving donald trump money at this point?

trump much is donald worth? 2.9 billion. a lot of money. john: immigration is the horse donald trump rode in on. is it time for him to shift and i diversify his portfolio when it comes to issues? >> $600 million. >> hold on. you have to call lindsey graham's office if you want to talk to them. al: if the mainstream republican party wants to control trump, can they? mark: no, they cannot. john: he is the only one bigger than fox right now.

donald trump versus everyone. the primary of trump. >> how much is the party establishment freaking out? >> the trump attack on jeb, it is fundamentally accurate. >> there are polls for that. -- pills for that. >> what did you think about the way that jeb tried to take him on? a he is not really republican. he is a unicorn, something we have never seen. trump: kanye west, he loves trump. john: the candidates on late-night tv, when we come back. ♪

john: throughout the year, we have had a fair number of guests that stand at the crossroads of politics and popular culture. here is a best of compilation of those who came to play in 2015. mark: let me run through some of the candidates you have interviewed. john kasich -- seth: john kasich seems like a very nice man. i do not know if the electoral college is looking for reasonable man. mark: ted cruz. him aned cruz, i found aggressive debater. he was very willing to go back and forth. he likes conflict.

mark: carly fiorina. seth: sharp, but less charismatic than i was expecting. when people run for president, they have to have a little bit more sparkle. mark: mr. sparkle, lindsey graham. are pulling a 1%, he was dealing. loaded up jokes. you can always tell when they preplan their off-the-cuff jokes. bernie sanders, good sense of humor. very laid-back. mark: you are an historic figure. you've helped president obama with some jokes for the correspondence dinner. one of those jokes is about mr. trump. president obama: the real problem was a lack of leadership

and you did not blame littlejohn or meatloaf. you fired gary busey. these are the kinds of decisions that would keep me up at night. mark: was that an easy target? great john leavitt, -- ovitt, we see if we can come up with anything. trump is a worthy target. he only runs for president to promote "celebrity apprentice." i like the show. he does not need to run for president. >> the lobbyists, the special interest. they are getting elected to serve them. that is on both sides of the aisle. i would give anything to have

lobbyists and special interest out of washington. have a political system that is six weeks long. put them onto tree stumps in union square and let's film it. let them do it, just like lincoln and douglass. way too much money, the almighty dollar, way too much money in a two-year presidential campaign. the fact that these people will raise a billion dollars to run for president, people do not give you money and not want something in return. if you are out here sitting in michigan going, i wonder if i am truly represented, i did not give so and so $100,000. i do not get to sleep in the lincoln bedroom. john: your politics are not as

hawkish as your character's politics. >> as you look at cause-and-effect, looking at what somebody's life experience is, seeing what the potential outcome can be. if you look at it from that type of ash point of view, what if i were in these shoes? in that way, i can kind of get it. ie one thing i always love, do not have to always agree with somebody's point of view to have the utmost respect for them. i do not know everything. everybody.ening to obama was president elected, you took your president to the inauguration.

>> you have to understand, my father fought in taipan. the love of this country when loving him. was not his right to vote was not even protected. my mother grew up in louisiana where -- they did not have schools for black kids. my mother graduated valedictorian in 1947. it was violent to just live their lives. to see that in this country, the greatest triumph of president obama's election was not what it did for african-americans, but what it said about the evolution of this country. to have my parents be alive to see that, my father talked about how he cried when he sailed

under the golden gate bridge thinking he would never see the country again. as we drove into d.c. that night, the night before the election -- the inauguration, we .rove around the mall we were in tears because it was such a beautiful moment for the country. daddy, what is going on, what are you laughing about? this.k man is over all of he was having a ball. john: you like to make a movie opposite hillary clinton. and you want to go on a mandate with barack obama -- a man date with barack obama. >> while i was doing how i met your mother, the constant question was, who is the mother? i started to get tired of the question. i also did not know the answer.

i said, i am hoping for hillary clinton. i got the most graceful, amazing letter from hillary clinton or her people saying she was very flattered, but she is going to be too busy to be the mother on how i met your mother. i was lucky enough to meet barack obama. they did a screening of muppets at the white house for children of veterans and i was brought there and you are so nervous and you hear the man approaching aunt he walks -- the man approaching and he walks in and he says, i love you, man. i did a movie called "i love you, man." i responded nervously with, i love you, too, mr. president. john: even more ahead when we come back. ♪

mark: a conversation we had with a guy who is a big fan of housing and development. talking about julian castro, the secretary of housing and urban development. he is a big fan of one particular sport. john: we were intrigued to learn that he is a big boxing fan. there you go. that got us thinking about the similarities between politics and pugilism. we thought we would take a visual tour with the secretary. two sets of fisticuffs. foreman, one of-

the classic fights from 1974. unexpected that ali would come back. foreman was a monster. he had demolished fraser. he was seen as invincible. john: the rumble in the jungle. famously from "when we were kings? ." is this when you became a boxing fan? >> i was born that year. now we have two politicians in the arena. that would be you right there sitting next to ted cruz. he is extending his hand in friendship. what was it like? debater, a princeton very nice guy. very cordial. i am sure i shook his hand.

he was running for senate, this was about six weeks before his senate election in texas in 2012. we went at it over a couple of things. john: who won the debate? >> folks can go to the tape on you to and see. john: is he a formidable presidential candidate? >> his stance on the issues take him out of the mainstream. ultimately, over the last couple of cycles, the republicans have chosen the adult in the room. i believe that might be somebody else. john: that is putting it gently. do you think he is more formidable than rick perry? >> rick perry is in no man's land and turns of -- in terms of politics and fundraising. we have another image.

who are those two guys? >> this is my favorite fighter, the longtime mexican star. 94-0 before he was defeated. i cannot tell who he is fighting. both of these guys were brawlers. this guy would take about three punches to get one punch in. john: what was it that made you a huge boxing fan? what is it that you love about this so much? >> i love the close combat and there is a lot of skill involved even though it is brutal. sport and oneld that takes a lot of training and stamina and thinking in addition to being able to take a good

punch. john: someday when you run for president, we will run this video and it will be a perfect metaphor for your campaign. >> this was a great match. i imagine this was from the third debate. john: this was the first debate in denver. that was the debate where a lot of people mitt romney -- think mitt romney knocked the president out. everybody hoped he would come back and i remember the president saying that he does not lose twice. and he did not. he came back very well in the debate and the third debate. those helped cushion his lead. he was right. john: awesome. that is true. we will stay right here.

last one. >> we have the big may 2 fight coming up between floyd mayweather -- floyd mayweather, undefeated, and manny pacquiao, also one of the best boxers of his time. this is a fight folks have been waiting for for quite a while. guess,to say if i had to i think it will be floyd. john: that is a safe call. >> this is projected to have the most pay-per-view buys of any fight in history. and the biggest gate in las vegas. mayweather will end up making about $100 million. john: is that higher than your salary? we asked your staff, what do you love? you love boxing.

julian castro, thank you so much. we will get you to sign these boxing gloves. he knows where to sign them, too. look at that. mark: we will be right back. ♪

john: so much has been made of the huge deal of the republican candidates. back in august, we were curious about what americans were searching for. we typed in names and the beginnings of some simple questions to see how google would complete our sentence based on what americans are searching for. take a look. ♪

♪ >> i do not like green eggs and ham. i-am.not like them, sam-

♪ mark: thank you for watching. you can follow us all the time on our website bloombergpolitics.com. we are now on the radio. you can listen to us on bloomberg 99.1. thank you for watching. sayonara. ♪

emily: i am emily chang. this is "bloomberg west."

roads leading to and from the area are at a near standstill. police want -- protesters on police to release the video of a black man shot and killed by minneapolis officers last month. the next republican debate could include sus six candidates. pollsiness is using a new criteria. president obama will host a summit early next year with southeast asian leaders. the president extended his -- the imitation while he was visiting -- extended the invitation while he was visiting malaysia. russian cargo ship made it to the international space station just in time for christmas. oae six astronauts living