john: i am john heilemann. mark: i am mark halperin. with all due respect, if you let donald trump picks the chair, he has options. originally come from ohio, right? paul o'neill of the yankees. mark: on the show tonight, a

super pac and the love that donald trump lacks. he will meet with his not yet bff, paul ryan. paul ryan, again, said that he was not ready to back donald trump. he said that he wish he had more time to get to know him before this happened. trump asked him to step down as the chair in cleveland. he said, he is the nominee. over the weekend, the presumptive nominee continued to add more names to the trump train manifest without doing much to get people on board. trump: it is a mistake not to do this. we have to bring the party together. i think that i am different than anybody else who has ever run

from office and i do not think so. i think it would be better to be unified and there would be something good about that. i do not think it has to be unified, in a traditional sense. need toes the party not be unified in a traditional sense or does he need the wavering republicans? ofn: i will remind you the republican party starts way behind and donald trump needs all the unity he can get to overcome the electoral college and other advantages that hillary clinton has. you need unity. mark: he is not going to have full unity. john: he will not have full unity. make virtue of the he is supporting stuff

they do not like and they are not going to support him. i think that he can get by with less than full unity. in the end, paul ryan will be for him. john: there is an advantage to ,eing anti-establishment rhetorically speaking. people, it isther not like the endorsement matters, in terms of the votes. this person signals whether this guy is a legitimate contender or not. when people are backing away from trump, it does not help. stop he needs everything. mark: the campaign will reveal how far behind they were in the mechanical things. we know that they are far behind and they are even further behind than people realize. andhave to build networks fundraising.

donald trump needs help and the campaign cannot build this on their own. come in with aot general election campaign. mark: symbolically, it is not that bad. john: practically, on the ground, i agree with that. donald trump has been cashing in his two cents on the economy. after saying the low minimum bad, he says that he wants to see it raised or leave it to the states. he says that rich people will still see lower taxes and will end up paying more than he originally proposed. donald has drawn harsh criticism for his comments on borrowing habits. he said that he was opening to the idea of renegotiating the debt and that they will never have to default because you

print money. a former national economic adviser to the clinton campaign added warnings to the trump economic pile-on. risky and the most reckless tax proposal ever put forward by a major presidential candidate. hands trillions in tax breaks to millionaires and corporations and blows a massive hole in the federal budget and puts social security and medicare at risk. as trump shifts around and engages in rhetoric that is loose, is he on with economic and business issues? mark: i said that he could take positions that are not in strict orthodoxy. he cannot on the economy.

more americans need to think that he would be a good steward with the economy. he is alienating left and right and the business community. they will look at clinton and say, i may think she is too liberal to stop she is, at least, more stable. -- too liberal. she is, at least, more stable. izationhis is the romney of donald trump and it gives the democrats the ability to paint him as another mitt romney, who doesn't care about people. that could be, on its own, enough to cost him the election. mark: he tried to move to the left on the tax plan and that is fine. he has to explain these. or voice-only

interviews. people are worried about the economy and they want change. they want somebody who will not make it up on the fly. john: i agree with you that business is a problem and that you have to have some stability. this is why i think that donald trump is wrong about unpredictability being a virtue. mark: the country could take it with foreign affairs, sometimes. not with the economy. days, there isew news that clinton is ready to battle. ped thetrump up to th ante. take a look at the collection that our friends at morning joe put together. trump: hillary clinton ordered hit ads on donald trump.

in the history of politics, hillary clinton's husband of views women more than any man that we know of in the history of politics. read whatve you ever hillary clinton did twoo women that bill clinton had affairs with? remember, "i did not have sex with that woman?" months later, "i'm guilty." n turns theam: clinto other cheek, what will it take for donald trump to break through with these attacks. -- these attacks? john: i believe it is virtually impossible. clinton could get rattled by them in ways that create more openings. to most americans, bill

clinton's behavior, as deplorable as it was, is priced into the stock. mark: the campaign doing a stunt , something unorthodox and new, having women at a press conference or something, that it is so out there that they asked the clintons about it, i do not think they will ask, unless they are forced to. eventually, i think one or both of the clintons could be asked and that would be a game changer. >i think the clintons would have to be asked about it directly. john: it would be a potent and destabilizing combination. they would have to relitigate. mark: i think trump knows some

of that. back, donald come trump's strengths and weaknesses and who is saying what about those. ♪

if you are watching the trump train barreling down, there are two tracks of thoughts about how he will fare as a general election candidate. on the one side, the washington post's editorial editor says

that democrats should fear donald trump, saying they do not want to hear about certainty in his november to feed or how happy the clinton camp is. they need to be running smart and scared for the next six months. when two thirds of the country is unhappy, irrational outcome cannot be taken for granted. role reversal, the wall street journal editorial board took the other side of the argument, saying that the trump campaign will implode, unless he changes his act quickly. a president,o be he has to build a broader coalition and time is more fleeting than he thinks will stop if he does not, he may find that his candidacy has imploded before the nomination.

this is interesting, right? you have diverse opinions with smart people. people on the left are scared of trump and people on the right are castigating. talk about the assessments across ideological lines. look at the snapshot of where we are with the electoral college and demographics, you would think that trump cannot win. that people,e like fred hiatt, are making to judgments. trump has magic and he will build a coalition nobody currently sees and that hillary clinton is such a fundamentally flawed candidate that he will win. john: it seems like this argument is a different way of saying what you just said, that

it is art versus science. a scientist believes in demographics, the electoral college, democrats having a built-in advantage and donald trump facing an uphill fight and folks, who are informed by having been wildly wrong about trump for a year. many of the people who are now saying that trump, you should look out because he could be a strong general election , are a little burned about being wrong. gap: you cannot imagine the between the number of employees in brooklyn for clinton and trump. they are so far ahead, the opposition research, they are so

far ahead. differenta whole layer of disadvantage. john: and, the money. up, paul ryan, donald trump, and the battle for the hearts and minds. we will be right back with that. ♪

mark: we have been talking about the donald trump gop unification challenge and his pickup.

here is an episode that aired in early march. >> everybody is buying into that he is inevitable and that he cannot be stopped. i think that he can. >> what are you doing? >> we are working on it? mark: that was a couple of months ago. here is what he said this weekend. anti-trump?till to support the nominee. >> are you going to support trump? >> i am going to support the nominee. >> are you saying there is a possibility trump will not be the nominee? >> not at all. , al hunt, isleague in our washington bureau and karen to multi-is in her

lty is in-- karen tumu her newsroom. here?s symbolism al hunt: it is a train that left the station. mark: karen, did you look at that as significant? from: we are hearing it him and other republicans, "i will support the nominee." it is like he who are not be named. who will not be named. they will have some weeks to get used to the idea and try it on with donald trump as the standardbearer. eventse had this turn of

between tuesday and thursday and, for a lot of them, it has hit quickly and they have not gotten their heads around it. last week, donald trump start to put together his self funding and he was going to raise money and there would be super pac money. the question was, "who is going to do this?" you have a billionaire who says he will raise money for trump. will he be able to make the nut? or, will this be the biggest obstacle? al hunt: it will be a hurdle. he will make most of it. i hate to correct john heilemann. donald trump did not change a little. it was a massive overhaul and he said that the rich would pay

more. 35% of his tax cuts go to the top 1%. now, in a $4 trillion change, he says they will not. has is because donald trump no idea and does not care what is in his tax plan. paul ryan, who does have principles, agree or disagree, care. i think what he did this weekend was rather stunning. mark: is there anything that donald trump has done that worries the clinton campaign? karen: the attacks on bill clinton and hillary clinton coming relentlessly from every conceivable direction, when you talk to democrats, they say that is what worries them the most about donald trump. most of them do not think that he can win.

they think that they are looking forward to a bunch of months of constantly being off-balance and never knowing what direction the attacks are going to come from. john: let me stay with you and ask you the question about the paul ryan meeting. there seems to be two schools of thought. one is that it is sound and fury signifying nothing and they will end up on the same page. a deepthink that it is rift that will never be healed. on the basis of your reporting, which is closer to the truth? been: my predictions have worth nothing. i think they will feel a lot of motivations to move to the same spot. not over atruggle political calculation. it is a battle over what it is to be a republican and who speaks for the republican party. instituting

prerogatives with congress, where the republicans have the strongest majority since 1928. al hunt: i think that the answer is that they will come out and they will be together. the differences are profound and will not go away. they are profoundly different on trade, immigration, and tax policy. those are not things that you can paper off. -- over. mark: if it is clear that it is not enthusiastic, what kind of price would he pay and with whom? neednt: house republicans paul ryan and that is why they turned to him. the opposition to donald trump is not just coming from

establishment republicans. it comes from movement conservatives and people who say they may go along, but he is unqualified for the office. particularly now that sarah palin has endorsed -- karen: a thing you are hearing ofa sober and sensible talk republicans losing the house as a real possibility. if it turns into that kind of cataclysm in the fall, paul ryan has a lot to lose. al, yout me ask you, have a new bloomberg view column that says it will be an ugly general election, talking about roger stone and david brock. what is your thesis about how this is shaping up and what it portends?

al hunt: i think it is a race to the bottom and what the democrats fear is that most democrats are confident that hillary is going to win. if we have an of the race, and i do not think they should be kennedy school form, but if it is all invective, it will make governing impossible. they will say that she won because the other guy was a bomb. -- bum. who sayere are people they are not for trump and are not going to the convention. who do you have your eyes the most on? the place to look is the united states senate and the people who are in difficult spots in the fall and there are five seats of for reelection,

where barack obama won reelection in 2012. those are states where people will be under the most pressure. mark: thank you for coming in. up next, a super pac that backs hillary clinton will talk about the general election game plan after this. ♪

[ soft music ] e.t. phone home. when you find something you love, you can never get enough of it. change the way you experience tv with xfinity x1. john: when it comes to the general election, who has two

time --nd reserves add ad time? this guy. show. welcome back to the we are going to try to speak the truth. looking at the way that the trump,cans ran at donald what have you learned about what works and what does not work? >> ignoring him did not work. waiting to the last minute did not work. having an electorate that is only republican primary voters did not work. will be successful, because the audience we are talking to is different. i think the advertisements that talk about his comments on

women, the comments on prisoners of war, those are powerful advertisements, among others. one of the other things they did for us was given opportunity to test a lot of advertisements in our ad testing. help inhankful for the the general. mark: is it true that you will run advertisements for american workers who were hurt by the economic business? >> we will show a host of people who have either been hurt by donald trump or will be hurt by his policies. this is a guy who attacks hillary on trade and brags about hiring workers in bangladesh and china. us tok you can expect focus on temperament and character and how he approaches

national security and foreign policy. mark: do you believe that, if the advertisement is effective, you can eliminate any chance he has to win? >> we need to show trump knows no boundaries and that he is not a conventional candidate. it will require us to be on our toes through election day and not just on television. we will have to be online to make sure that we are communicating to african-americans, latinos, based democratic voters, millennial voters. unlike previous efforts, that will be a big part of our efforts. he is now out and reprising his attacks on clinton's personal life in a loud way.

what does your research show you about the residence of those attacks? >> we have not tested. history is a good guide of what happens when you attack president clinton's personal life. this willat ultimately backfire and it will not work. to the point about this being built into the stock, that is appropriate. hillary ist the way handling it is the right way and the other thing that we've learned from the republican tomary is that the way defeat donald trump is to not try to liftnd to the contents and the tone. data thatou have advertising will be effective in the campaign? >> there have been a number of studies of the democratic party

that show the right combination of television and digital can work together to communicate with voters and i do not think that a one size fits all approach will work. mark: your ratio is going to be what? 60-40.nd at theampaigns look performance of the super pac at the end of the campaign and say that they do not do what they wanted and were not in the right places. are you going to avoid that and how? >> i think that the work that priorities did early on -- mark: people complained about it, nonstop. >> the ad was a top-testing ad. our job is to tell the truth about donald trump and compare him to hillary.

we feel confident about the path. john: a second ago, you talked about lifting the tone of the campaign. of the what percentage $91 million will be spent on positive advertisements question mark -- advertisements? >> about a quarter. a lot of the work that the clinton campaign will do will be positive. debating thatnot three quarters of the tone will be negative. i think that it is ok for us to contrast records and tell the truth about the opponent. mark: not his divorce, for instance? his bankruptcies? is nothis personal life something we are going to do and i do not think it will work. john: of the potential trump

attacks on hillary clinton, where do you think she is the most foldable? -- vulnerable? >> i think that there is a misconception with her record on trade and i think you will see us take this on pretty directly. i think that a thing that we have learned from the primary and the last five days is that you never know what he will say. we are prepared to take him on in any particular instance and we will be on the air earlier than june 8. >> thank you for being here. >> always a pleasure. up next, we examine donald trump's media playbook. if you are watching us in washington, d c, you can listen to us on the radio.

.c., you cann, d listen to us on the radio. we will be right back. ♪

mark: our next guest lives in a columnlass house and his takes the media to task for getting a lot about donald trump wrong. >> i liked the glass house analogy. mark: has there been soul-searching at the paper and at the stories that said, "trump in trouble?" >> there is always soul-searching at the new york

times. mark: with colleagues in the cafeteria? the am not allowed in cafeteria. there is always an examining of withwe do and you see it does goodvid sanger and driving policy pieces. in good company. talked about the notion of some people, having been really wrong in the first part of the campaign, they may now overcompensate and, not butessarily "suck up," overrate his chances and say that he must be brilliant. >> definitely. upreact to what we screwed

on the last time around. with that said, this campaign is hard to surf. how could you not? aspectsat are the tough of covering donald trump going forward and the particular challenges? >> checking assumptions. we talk about the map and what to expect. gray position where i get to judge the coverage. it is not comfortable for me to do. i know it is hard. what has beenieve is what will be. filld trump knows how to airtime with his agenda. he is compelling. he knows how to make all of us sit at the end of the seat.

how do you balance that in the race? hillary clinton being the same kind of candidate and i assume that she will have to push herself out there. that will be really hard. trump'sat about donald lack of specificity? is it a challenge for the press question mark >> -- for the press? once you get past this race and that race, it is time to say, "the plan to deport immigrants, what does that look like?" clinton, isis, foreign policy, you are hawkish." john: who has covered donald trump well? >> reporters at every

organization have covered him well. i am not saying that as a copout. i think that the washington post has done a nice job and there was a story -- and the by-line i bylinering -- the remembering is costas -- i think they have been vindicated nicely. mark: i would say that we have had bright spots. there were people who did not want to cover him when it looked like it was getting in the race. wrote, donald trump, give me a break. i was skeptical. how could you not be? we were talking to people in the tea party and they said that

they were not going along with what the establishment was telling them. there was a predicate set that some of us were missing. i gather the relationship is among the most copper get it. -- among the most complex. it has improved from when he had a sick up session. -- a sick obsession. i know that he will be on with megyn kelly a week from today. that would tell you that the --t as been taking care of the rift has been taken care of. events, good,ve bad? >> there has to be more discretion. mark: thank you.

jeff daniels, the actor, joins us, when we come back. ♪

is a our next yes to resident of michigan, giving him street credibility of around these parts and he just got nominated for a tony on the street known as broadway. jeff daniels, thank you for joining the show. agodid the show some years and it is dark, complicated, and controversial. it nearly killed you.

why are you doing it again? it is broadway and, when you are asked to star on something -- in something on broadway, you have to take it seriously. it is a controversial subject, child abuse, and it is a tough sell on broadway. personally, i did not think that i did it right and did not go far enough before. i held back. again withking at it said, "let's he reimagine it and go darker and deeper." it is a new attack on it. john: you play the abuser. it starts in a conference room with any business and i am dragging

michelle williams down the hallway and i throw her in the want and whyo you are you here?" she sits down and she says, let's talk about when you abuse me. she is not leaving. >> it is a feel-good play. jeff daniels: there are a couple of songs and i dance. wouldrt where some plays climax. we are there already and we stay there for 90 minutes. mark: you can get egg good sense the good sense of what audience thinks. jeff daniels: they come in bracing themselves and you can feel that. thedway, especially drama,

audience is so smart and these are some of the smartest theater-goers in the world. it is dead silent. i have had friends say that they the andaid to brea that it is suffocating. do thes your goal to performance the same way every time? it starts here and you cannot ease in. we come in dramatic and at a high level. you do not want to get on top of the horse and ride the same horse. gallop. to get on and as dark, the presidential election.

i visited you in michigan and we talked about the presidential campaign. i want to hear what you had to say about where you thought we would end up. it is thels: i think best that the system has allowed branding a clinton and bush are. if it is not jeb bush and hillary clinton, i will be jeb bush. i do not think anybody will challenge. john: you kind of missed the mark. swunganiels: i might have and missed. >> talk about how he has impressed you? i think he is a manipulator who does a masterful job of marketing a president, which is, you know how long that has been going on, but it seems

to be, was social media and cable news, a kardashian world. mark: you do not feel great about trump. have you feel about the supporters? -- how do you feel about the supporters? jeff daniels: they were betrayed by the republican party with george bush and karl rove promising them things that did not happen and they are disaffected. donald trump plays into hatred and the worst possible things we can create, fanning the flames of racism and bigotry. the hat should say, "make america white again." that is what it should say. that is what it should say. he is playing to that. where has he tripped up?

hope tot the stats and hell that everybody who does not want him to be president shows up and votes. john: bernie sanders won michigan. what do you think about bernie? i love the ideals and it is like somebody who went to woodstock is running for president. great ideas. but, that thing called "congress" is a problem. and, is not just the president of the united states. it is "the president of the world." not, and i do, she has street credibility in a dangerous world.

i liked that she has been around it several times as secretary of state and, like him or not, --l clinton is available and, like him or not, bill clinton is available and, internationally, i feel safer. john: we have four movie titles of yours. which applies better. -- better? good night and good luck. dumb and dumber. the squid and the whale. very evocative. if donald trump wins, it is "good night and good luck." mark: we will be right back. ♪

>> we leave you with the news that marco rubio does not want to be donald trump's running he hasd that reservations about the campaign and concerns about his policies that remain unchanged. >> no marco on the ticket. he did not pick this up. a lot more. chang goes toly boston and dives into the startup scene. until tomorrow. ♪

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mark: i'm mark crumpton. you are watching "bloomberg west." let's check your first word news. doj arerolina and the

suing each other. attorney general loretta lynch explained the action. lynch: this isl about the dignity we accord our citizens and the laws that we as a people and the country have enacted to reject them. indeed to protect all of us. mark: governor patrick rory says the federal government is overreaching. says theor pat mccrory federal government is overreaching. there will be an extension of the cease-fire in the northern province of aleppo in syria for 48 hours, beginning tomorrow. the brazilian parliament has in the older the impeachment vote against doma roosa. -- doma roosa. -- dilma