john: i'm john heilemann. mark: and i'm mark halperin. and just like everyone else in the next is, we are mourning the loss of a true prince. ♪ mark: even with prince's passing, the presidential contest speeds on, so we have a family tell all, but first, a trump townhall. on the same day that sarah palin came out about a facebook post about transgendered death room laws in north carolina, donald trump himself was asked on nbc's "today" about the laws, and he said that people should be able

to use whatever bathroom they choose. donald trump: people go and they use the bathroom that they feel is appropriate. there has been so little trouble and the problem with what happened in north carolina is the strife and economic, i mean, the economic punishment that they are thinking. matt lauer: are there any transgendered people in your organization? donald trump: i don't know, i don't know. matt lauer: so if caitlyn jenner were to walk into trump towers and need use the bathroom, she could use whatever bathroom she wanted? donald trump: that is correct. mark: there was an almost immediate reaction on right-wing talk radio.

ted cruz: donald trump agreed with hillary clinton and barack obama in attacking the state of north carolina for passing their bathroom ordnance. now let me ask you, have we gone stark raving nuts? are there any parents of daughters here? i am the father of two little girls. here is basic sense. grown, adult men, strangers, should not be alone in a bathroom with little girls. rush limbaugh: no problem with the lgbt people using a bathroom, no problem, we will see if there is any blowback with that. mark: so with these comments, people are thinking that this could hurt him instead of help him in the general election. john, do you think he is saying this out of principle or because of the politics of it? john: i think that he is saying

it out of the principal but i think that donald trump is a social liberal, and i think it goes back to his position on abortion, and he was for abortion, and he is like most manhattanites or most new yorkers, he is a social liberal, and i think he knows it helps them politically in the election. these two gentlemen, mr. limbaugh and mr. cruz, they have no respect for people of the other gender, but i think donald trump is speaking from his heart. mark: if he can't take the sting out of these issues, if he is the nominee about economics and about competence, his chances of winning are a lot greater, so i think it is leading with his

heart and it helps them politically and he knows it. john: i think he knows it. mark: he dodged the question. john: he dodged the question and one of the bigger questions going forward is if donald trump will pivot in the general election. if it is on the mexican border wall or other issues, he has said things about very base-pleasing ways. we will see how he is going to try to walk back and if he will walk them back to where he actually will be, if you look at his history on the issues, whether he will be called on that for hypocrisy or he will benefit in this in a way that is a straightforward in that you suggested. mark: during the town hall, donald trump's family joined him on the stage to talk about a major shift in his campaign and we are already starting to see the signs and the fruits of that shift. recently, donald trump has traded in his tv hits and he is planning to deliver his first in a series of foreign-policy speeches using a machine that he

has often raged against, the teleprompter. his family discussed a lesser-seen side of the donald. >> they have tried to hold him back, they have really tried to hold him back. >> if you can see the sense of humor, the love, playing golf with a 20-month-old, trying to teach him how to swing a golf club, it is a special moment, and it is really special to see and watch. it is a sight that nobody gets to see. >> this is put in a situation where people don't have the power to effect change and they

were unfairly put there and he will actively proactively reach out to that person and that is not reported, that is not seen, and i have witnessed that my whole life. he is incredibly empathic in that regard to people. john: so, mark, he is conducting his campaign a lot differently that we have seen in the last few months, and this is a charm offensive in the pr world. mark: it is about convincing the people who are skeptical of him, including the elite, that he could win a general election, that he could be a good president, they he could wear coattails, and yes, winning primaries is big, obviously, yes, the inside to game of converting delegates is a big deal, but this tr game is -- this pr game is being played effectively right now because of seeing trump's family, listening to them talk about him, it is all very effective.

john: it is easy to put this all down as a pr matter, and we've seen it with barack obama, george w. bush, bill clinton, we have seen this. we have seen donald trump out with his family and acting like a seemingly normal person any seemingly charming person and these are largely things that he has eschewed so far. it is about getting to cleveland and having the elites say, we will might having a guy represent in our party. mark: the last time he was doing this, all of the kids were very young, and all of his kids do very well for him. they need to envision him as the leader of the party and the president and that helps him. but again, so does it, effectively, the big policies before it more on the trump front, on twitter, the frontrunner called for both of his rivals to quit and he said "senator ted cruz has been mathematically eliminated from the race," using all caps and then he said "i think both should get out!" now, john, do you think that

others will join the call for them to quit? john: no one of consequence, i think. occasionally i think you'll hear mitt romney go out and talk about it in her try to stop trump. i don't think anyone who is a big runner in the republican party would say that they should get out or both should get out. mark: what do you think will happen if trump goes over? do you think that will happen then or do you think there will be some sort of change or delegate challenge in cleveland?

john: well, that is a good question. it is hard -- it is hard to know if we will wake up on june 8 and see if trump has that many delegates and whether that will happen. i don't ever see this party rallying around trump and taking his cause in that way. mark: i wonder if reince preibus, for instance, will get behind them. even if he does, i am not sure people will be calling for him to get out. they will say, look, i know he will not clear the bar easily. something will happen. some legal challenge or something. some guys will not be asked to get out all the way to cleveland. john: regardless of how trump does in an interview or how well he does in his foreign-policy speeches or how good he does at a town hall, most of them are deathly afraid of trump being at the top of the ticket and many believe that he would be disastrous and they are hoping for somehow and some way for a way to stop him still. mark: even if it was somewhat nonsensical, but because before today -- john: nothing has changed,

nothing has changed. coming up, the 5-5-5. no, we are not talking about the domino's pizza deal. mark: mmmm, pizza. john: no, we are talking about the primaries. we will be right back. ♪

mark: even the best political minds disagree wit the race right now, can donald trump collect the 1200 37 delegates he needs for the political majority? listen to the wise guys, republican governor haley barbour and republican strategist steve schmidt. steve: if you look ahead to california, 170 plus delegates,

winner take all by district, 20 point lead, very difficult for me to see any scenario where he doesn't clear 1237. i think the worst of that he would do is clear it by 50 or 60 delegates and will be up around 1300 when we wake up on june 8. mark: governor barbour, you are a pretty good vote counter, is donald trump on track? governor barbour: he has been getting in the 40's, his percentage of the vote in new york is the first time he has gotten over 50%. if that repeats itself, it makes it easier, but it is not a given that he is going to be able to get 1237 by the time of the june 7 primaries. mark: do you think it is possible and likely, but not definite, is that accurate?

governor barbour: i think it is more likely or the next to likely outcome. mark: he thinks it is less than 50% and steve schmidt says it is more. one easy way to see what is happening between now and the election is to break the context down this way, there are 15 primaries left on the republican side. break them up into groups of five, three of them. there are the states voting this coming tuesday, we talked a lot about those, and that there is the five, including california, and the wind down to the june 7 date. but let's now talk about a different set of contest in may. on that day, you have five additional contests only 199 delegates spread across the months in indiana, nebraska, west virginia, and the two on the west coast, oregon and washington.

after those states of vote with 199 delegates, that is more than the northeast states than the coming tuesday. we are going to have a much clearer picture where trump can gain a majority before heading to cleveland. so, john, part of handicapping these states is that given how the three candidates stack up in the may contests, indiana, nebraska, west virginia, oregon, and washington, haley barbour says that it is not going to happen, and steve smith says, sure, take it to the bank. john: i think that haley barbour is more right than steve smith. the numbers are daunting. if you look at these primaries in the middle of the month here, in the middle of the month of may, you know, indiana is an open primary, west virginia is

an open primary, and he could probably do well in them, but nebraska, very similar to a lot of states in the plains where ted cruz has done well in. oregon in washington, those estates will probably go to john kasich, because those states are really independent. the percentages that he needs to get for delegates would be difficult, the only clear winner in that group is west virginia to me. mark: it could be, but i will say this, if steve could be right, if he would have this with the additional spending brought to bear, you know, they are spread out. you've got to have them on may 10, but others are on their own day, it gives them a chance to go to their own state and leverage these advantages.

there are take amounts of spending and big rallies. i think it is an open question how these five rallies will be for donald trump. but i think if steve schmidt is right, i think trump could win all five of them. you know, nebraska is probably the toughest. but other than that, i think it is possible of the four out of the five. john: with the money, i think it is likely, and indiana could come so soon after the contest on tuesday and he could be on a little bit of a roll and get some favorable media coverage if he wins all five adverse is next week, that is certainly possible, and he could roll into indiana with a bunch of steam. the overall, it is just, i mean, the polling makes it really hard to figure out. the question for me is, how hard is june? how well will trump due in june? it depends on how much he can take his foot off the gas. that is part of the reason i agreed with haley barbour. you have in june montana and south carolina and those are good for ted cruz. mark: in particular, indiana, oregon, and washington could be

good for john kasich. where have we seen that before? wisconsin, and donald trump didn't do well before. now i have to say that given time, given his ability to campaign, given his ability to spend money, given his ability to work the thing, i think that trump is at an event it in a three-way race, and i think schmidt is overstating the case but i think haley barbour is understating it. i don't think it is a mortal lock, but if i think trump performs, i think everyone will perform well next tuesday, so if

trump performs as well as i think he could, if he lives up to 80% of his potential in these five states, i think he will be on the doorstep of winning and won't need to absolutely kill on those five contests in june. john: yeah, and one of those questions is, i think it goes back to the money thing. john kasich has no money and donald trump has a lot of money, so what happens in those states up in the pacific northwest? what do you think about that? mark: they are both proportional representation and those states have conservative parts and more moderate parts and i still believe that there is no reason not to think that they are decent trumps state and that they are states that are going to be open to, you know, different aspects of his message. there are people in those states who care more about free trade because they are so connected to the pacific and maybe it is less good for trump because the trade issue may play out as well. ♪

mark: another fec filing deadline has come and gone and another extraordinary result for bernie sanders and his campaign. the delegate map has made it very, very difficult for bernie sanders to catch up to hillary clinton. the filings in march show the he raised $46 million last month, hillary clinton raised less. he even outspent clinton in march. he spent $45.7 million in march compared to clinton's $28.7 million. john, what do think about that? john: well, i guess the first thing is to think about where we would see someone outspending hillary clinton --

mark: i mean in our careers. john: yes, and in this year, bernie sanders does not talk to rich people, he doesn't do fundraisers, and yet he has outraised her and he has outraised her in a moment when his chances of getting the nomination has foreclosed, more or less. mark: one myth is that you can only raise money in a serious way and have tens of millions of dollars if you have butlers and fatcats, and bernie sanders has proved that you can raise

millions and millions of dollars without butlers and fatcats. sanders out spent clinton in new york, he outspent her and a lot of other states that he lost, and it shows what sanders's side has said, to have big money to buy the elections, it just isn't true. john: i think when it is key, and you and i talk about this all the time, the internet is incredible, and very few politicians have mastered it. if you can find a very good internet brand and you know how to work it, the internet can be the thing that frees you from some of the most oppressive aspects of what it takes to be a candidate. mark: sanders had been in a loss but seems to have caught up in a way. in new york, he spent more, and he didn't close the gap at all. in fact, the gap publicly got rigor. money does not buy you wins. john: right. before the break, we have something to talk about. one of the most groundbreaking artists in terms of commercially and business of our time, and that would be prince rogers nelson, and he died in minnesota

this afternoon. we wanted to share our memories and our prince catalogs and this goes all the way back in time to 1987 with an album where he confronted aids and violence and other issues in that time the only way that prince could. ♪ john: today president obama spoke on prince's passing and he added that he said that no one could compare to him. what impressions are there in your mind about the great prince? mark: there are so many celebrities now, we are going to see a lot of deaths of famous

people who have touched tens of millions of lives. prince is special, though. even when he wasn't reading explicitly political, the power of his voice and the way he used race and sexuality and talent to touch people and to move people and to make people think was quite uncommon for a rock star. john: if you think about this year, we lost david bowie, we lost prince, and one of my friends said that there wasn't anybody else like that in the pipeline, there aren't any other david bowie is, there aren't any other princes. this is very much in the context of people seeing many african-american artists over the years being exploited by record companies, and he saw the technology coming and he fought the fight.

he was a radical in the technological wars in the standard political discussions but there is politics there as well and he is an exemplar. people like jay-z now follow the prince path in order to get free from their record labels. one of the most amazing musicians i have ever seen and a hassa -- and as anyone has ever had the great benefit of seeing. mark: we will be right back after a quick break. ♪

♪ john: what b.b. king is to the blues, this bb is to

trump-related news. the senior advisor of donald trump's campaign joins us here on the set. explain to me how it is that you are -- the assertion that your campaign is now making 1400 pledged delegates. explain to me how that is actually possible. >> once you get to you are 1238, probably going to be a 1600. this phenomenon that we are beginning to see now, you know, with an explosion in the polling in the last few days. i mean, ted cruz is now finishing last in all of the northeast states. just to be clear, when is that going to happen according to your projections? barry: soon, soon. tweetdoes mr. trump's represent the position of the campaign, that that ted cruz and

john kasich should quit the race? barry: ted cruz and john kasich have been disbelieving the math for a while, so if you can't win,, so there is no way for him to go to a second ballot to become the nominee. i mean, all of the people who are helping him now will pretend that they have never met him. mark: so again, i want to go back to the point you just made, should they quit the race or not? berry: ted cruz finish last in every county in new york. mark: can i have you look at the camera and say that. barry: well, i think it is time. mark: he should quit? barry: yeah. mark: you just suggested that ted cruz would not win on the second or third ballot?

barry: no, he is the trojan horse for the establishment. mark: so who is the nominee? barry: it is the speaker, it is marco rubio, it is whoever they choose. ted cruz, as you know, is one of the most unpopular presences in washington ever. the establishment or trying to get to a second ballot. got the second most ballots. he's got a winning amount of delegates. barry: but what you get to the third ballot, everybody is up for grabs. john: it is impossible, there is no possibility, zero possibility, it is guaranteed that you will get to 1237? barry: 100% certain. john: 100% certain? mark: explain the confusion because you all have a vested

interest, you have this interest in getting to this and you say that they will never get there, that haley barbour, he seems impartial on this, right? he seems friendly towards mr. trump in many ways and he says it is done deal, i mean, not a done deal, less than 50%. where is the disconnect between those who are disinterested who , say that you are definitely able to and those who say you have less than 50%? barry: if you look at what is happening in the states for the last 10 days, ted cruz is really following hard. i don't know why. but look at the fox national poll, he fell 10 points nationally. and now he is behind ted kasich and it is in maryland and connecticut, you know, he is just not connected with the voters. mark: who is running your campaign now? barry: donald trump, first of all. mark: who is second in command?

barry: cory lewandowski. mark: who do you talk to? barry: i -- i -- mark: who do you report to? barry: i report paul. mark: you used to report to cory. barry: yes. mark: who told you were now working for paul? berry: cory did. everyone in washington reports to paul. john: the lel of contention right now in the campaign, 10 being the most, one being the least, where do you think it is at? barry: there is so many jobs to do, so many jobs to be done, that -- john: everybody is

happy? barry: yeah. mark: so if you said that somebody could give donald trump a policy speech by next wednesday, could it happen? barry: i don't know if we could give it to him -- mark: -- by next wednesday. mark: is there a teleprompter set up in his office? barry: i don't know. mark: is there a teleprompter set up in trump towers as far as you know? berry: not that i am aware of. mark: the other thing we have heard is that you are going to spend a lot more on television ads. are you guys going to advertise in all remaining states? 15mary: yes. going from 45% to 50% could get you extra two delegates so i , wouldn't, but i would in indiana. mark: is nebraska a winning

state for donald trump? barry: probably, yeah. amongis there any states the 15 remaining that you think you can't win. berry: no. mark: they are all winnable? arry: yeah. mark: i know endorsements are not a huge deal at all, that when you got chris christie, was that a big deal, but there is no other big name that has endorsed since those three big endorsements. no big congressman? no offense to the house. no senators, no governors. why not? are you not soliciting them? arry: no. mark: why hasn't anyone come forward? from your point of view, the inevitable republican nominee, why wouldn't somebody else they, hey, good idea to get on board now? barry: we hear from somebody every day. we don't have enough time. we are actually campaigning for delegates, not campaigning in

washington for congressional endorsements. mark: just to be clear, there wouldg-name people who get a lot of attention who who could endorse and you have , held them off? barry: well, they are members of congress. mark: senators? barry: i don't know about senators. mark: house guys? john: i want to come back to this, you are guaranteed you're going to have the number, and you are staking your reputation on it? barry: yes. john: so if you don't get 1237, we could put you in a dunk tank down here? barry: absolutely. i will come up willingly. should the rnc let your campaign play a bigger role in your convention right now? barry: you know, i think they have a role to play and they have to be neutral. we will get there. the program is the most important part of the convention for us.

we are already working very hard on the rules committee. paul has got a lot of experience at that. we will be fine. mark: are you allowed to give him any input? do you have any input on the convention? barry: yes, anything else would be present to us. we are not like the democrats. we could do the oak ridge boys. mark: clint eastwood? a good chance that clint eastwood will speak at the convention? barry: the chair, the chair. john: thank you. i am looking forward to that dunk tank. big for us. a bi i have never made such an offer. when we come back, we will have the big scoop coming up on florida. ♪

♪ mark: there are a lot of big hollywood types in hollywood, florida. republican officials, including last night john kasich and ted cruz, all gathering there for a republican national committee meeting, the last time they will gather before this summer's convention in cleveland. a lot on the agenda there. the big deals are in the hallways and rooms where republicans are talking about what will happen if donald trump is inevitable or not. they had a big meeting down in florida today with rnc officials. joining us to talk about this is our colleague john mccormick. john joins us now by skype from hollywood.

john, tell us about your conversation today and what the agenda is down there? john m.: they are basically trying to make friends. there has been all a lot of tension between the rnc and the campaign. they have been making the rounds and doing a lot of one-on-one meetings with the rnc officials, and of course, all of the rnc members are also delegates who will go to the national convention. in fact, today is the biggest gathering of delegates and is perhaps probably the biggest gathering of delegates until cleveland. so it is important to talk to these delegates now to see if they can get to that number of 1237. the rnc members are open, that was the quote that he gave me. they are open to trump to soothe some of these wounds.

he also said that the trump campaign has the ability to get involved with fundraising to help candidates down ballot, and there was a joke that donald trump has a pretty good rolodex himself, so donald trump would be able to make phone calls. john: john, how is that pitch being received on the other side? what are you hearing about the folks that he is appealing to? john m.: it is very much a mixed bag. some people are saying we are just trying to keep an open mind here and will let the process continue for the next couple of months. obviously, trump is not their candidate. it is an ongoing process. as we speak, as the show airs briefing rncey are members, supposedly about a 90 minute presentation.

he said he would come out and's b to after that was over in another 45 minutes or so. so we will get some feedback from the rnc members who are in that room. once they get out, we will have a little better sense for how the tone of the conversation is going. mark: john, where do they sit on the steve schmidt, haley barbour scale? did they think that trump is almost certainly, inevitably the nominee or do they think it is a jump? john m.: you hear people talking about how this is going to the second round in cleveland. i would say if i had to merge all of the conversations with the members here the last couple of days, the majority still seems to be on that side of the fence where this will go to a , second round of balloting in cleveland. obviously donald trump had some great momentum so maybe that will start changing some mindsets. you know, these rnc members are eager, just like us reporters,

we have never seen this in our lifetime, they are interested in for the possibility of a contested convention. they are already starting to realize that with this new exciting thing, comes a lot of risk as well. nobody knows how this will play out. they are balancing a potential for something new that maybe they want to be a part of. with the risk that nobody knows what would happen on a second or third ballot. john: we're talking about the new trump and to hear people down there talking about that? are they receiving that and saying, you know, donald trump is staying more presidential, or do they think that this is all just a momentary ploy and he can go back to being the old donald trump soon? john m.: i think people say, you know, he has been the good donald and the bad donald quite a few times here in this election cycle, and i think people are saying, this is our last chance to give him to act

more presidential, to act in a more dignified and more presidential way. you know, i think they are giving him one more shot and that possibility, but there is skepticism as to how long that could last. , ire is also a little bit of wouldn't say anger, but that he did not personally come here. ted cruz came here and met with a lot of individuals individually, and john kasich did that as well last night. for some of them, this is their big last meeting before the cleveland convention, and this is where the nominee or the people running for nominee would , and kiss the ring and donald , trump didn't do that. he sent surrogates. mark: there is the discussion is to why he hasn't caught on more with the republican establishment. second, is there any talk there about a white knight or is

everybody there talking about a trump, cruz, or kasich possibility? john m.: you do not hear a lot of talk about white knights here. that said, you don't hear about john kasich among these members. like you say mark, this is , theoretically a group that would be pretty friendly to john kasich, but they are seeing that he has only won his home state so far. mark: john mccormick down in hollywood, florida. we look forward to see what you find in the rest of the meeting. john, thank you very much. all right, coming up. comedy on the campaign trail and hillary clinton's ladies of laughter. you will want to see that. if you are watching us in

washington, d.c., you can listen to us anytime you want on the radio radio bloomberg at 99.1 , fm. we will be right back. ♪

♪ who comes closer to the real hillary? hillary: there are already little bits and pieces that are real, and i laugh a little bit. there is always a little truth in it, i hate to confess. john: that was this morning during a good morning america town hall, talking about her impersonators on saturday night live.

luckily, she has some backup and we called in some backups ourselves to talk about it so , here is our own will leach, to talk about hillary clinton and some of her friends. will: it is the axiom that the presidential candidates need to be our performer in chief. almost all of them have fit the bill. george w. bush was excellent showing off his folksy charm back when he would go on david letterman. david: number two, give oval office a heck of a scrubbing. will: and president obama did very well playing against zach galifianakis in "between two ferns." zach: may i talk with michelle? obama: no, you may not.

will: now, hillary can rely on her female comedy friends. eight years ago, there was no "inside amy schumer" and aubrey plaza and no female "ghostbusters." hillary had to face off a backupatic obama with no whatsoever. in 2016, women in comedy are more powerful the never. there is a cult hit on comedy central which calls itself sneak attack feminism. >> that is power. >> it is so decisive. will: it is hilarious and the "broad city" women and know that hillary shouldn't do all of the heavy lifting.

hillary: i can read your name tag. will: hillary simply has to be herself. hillary: look at that. i thought that would be really good for office morale. will: also on hillary's side is ellen degeneres, amy poehler, and amy schumer. >> you want to go skating? what about you? will: they may in fact be the most powerful comics working right now and they may have , something big plan if this indeed comes out to a clinton-trump matchup. amy: i just met hillary clinton, and yeah, i am a little psyched about that. john: our thanks again to the great will leach. we will be right back. ♪

mark: so as best as we can tell, none of the presidential candidates have reacted instead of the president of united states, to the passing of prints. prince. i wonder what they will say. john: i find it kind of stunning considering the wall-to-wall coverage of his death and the fact he is a seminal artist and one of the most powerful artists in our lifetime, i find it kind of audit that no one has come forward, democrat or republican. mark: i bet john kasich will react. i think he is the kind of guy who would like prince. politics.comoomberg politics.c m

for all of your coverage of 2016, anything you want and need you will find it or website. it also find more coverage of today's rnc meeting. coming up here on bloomberg tv, emily chang speaks to the woman at the helm of uber's biggest rival in china. until then, sayonara. ♪

♪ it is friday the 22nd of april. i am rishaad salamat. you are watching "trending business". ♪ let's take a look at what we are watching for you. mitsubishi motors under the hammer again, losing 40% of its value in two days. many-car lose nissans business, too. yen hitting of the japanese equities along with disappointing corporate results. the music world