>> we are down to the final round of this group's presidential spelling bee. donald trump and your announcers mark halperin and john heilemann. mark: congratulations on making it this far. is there anything you would like to say before we begin the final round? >> we started off 17 people on the stage, and what the hell did i know about this stuff? mark: your word is lying. >> how would you spell that? l-y-e-n. mark: you are new at this.

would you like to have another try? we will accept that. john: your next word is little. >> l-i-d-d-l-e. mark: ok -- >> i love you folks, but i can think of places i would rather be. ♪ john: tonight, politics from all directions, north, south, east, and west, as in wes anderson. not that wes anderson, but nonetheless. first, the word is meh. donald trump held a big press conference as he reached the

delegates he needed to be the nominee, and yet some mainstream republicans are not behind him, like susanna martinez. the chair of the republican governors association. and, it was governor martinez' non-endorsement that led donald to say "that she is not doing her job in her state." all figures siding with the governor and taking swipes at trump in the process. is donald trump in the party? -- as trump is in the process of turning to unify the party, this martinez thing is a specific outburst. how big of a problem is the specific thing and how does it symbolize trump's approach to unification? mark: he also hit jeb bush. mitt romney. their donors don't like that.

they've got donors that he wants to win over. i think, having reflected this overnight i think that the trump , brand is antiestablishment, anti-career politician, and about strength. he wants people to get on board. if they don't come on board, he does not think they need them. -- he is going to flick at them. he does not think they need them. i understand the unity project is important. he will get paul ryan, almost everyone else. john: it is hard for me to say. there is not a world -- susanna martinez is not never trump. all she said is that she wants to wait and see what kind of nominee he will be for the people of new mexico. she's not one of these people who said i would never support. unlike romney, who trashed them. i don't see a world in which attacking a latino governor of new mexico, a swing state, makes sense. it does not add up. mark: i'm not saying it makes sense.

it is rude to go into her stay and do that. what i'm saying is the trump brand -- >> is all about antagonizing latino women? mark: i don't think that any -- he has any idea who susanna martinez is. what i will say -- john: it is a state the republicans would like to win. mark: i will just say that if donald trump when he has stood up to people that attacked him, they have eventually come to heel. that's how trump rolls. i'm not forgiving him. i'm not saying a smart. i see the downside. but the notion that this is somehow a disaster -- john: i will agree with that, that it is not a disaster. it trump does not care about unity. this does not help -- if unity is what he is after, this does not help.

mark: our next word is please. an interview on jimmy kimmel live, kimmel passed along a question to debate bernie sanders. donald trump agreed. in response, bernie sanders tweeted this. at that very long press conference in north dakota, the nominee presumptive said he would debate bernie sanders for a price. >> i would love to debate bernie. he is a dream. i said and i said last night on jimmy show, the question was posed and i said i would love to debate him, but i would like a lot of money to be put up for charity. maybe for women's health issues, if we can raise $10 million or $15 million for charity, which would be an appropriate amount. i understand the television business very well. i think it will get high ratings. it should be in a big arena somewhere and we can have a lot of fun with it. i would love to debate bernie. the problem with debating bernie, he is going to lose. his system is rigged.

mark: so trump said the debate will happen if someone is able to raise $10 million or more, which would mean 373,000 donations at $27 a pop. trump also said that he would hope the money would go to a charitable donation. he will have jeff weaver on -- sanders campaign manager -- to talk about where negotiations stand. what do you think the chances are this will happen? if they do, who does that help? who does it hurt? john: god, please let it be so. i think it would be an incredible spectacle. some of the problems that sanders has against a debater, against a strong normal debater like hillary clinton would go away in this situation. he is trying to prove to people that he would be a better general election nominee, so he would go in armed for bear. trump always goes in armed for

bear. i think it would be the first time he would see a genuine lincoln douglas style debate and it would be a free-for-all. mark: i don't think it will be lincoln-douglas style. i'm deeply skeptical that donald trump will do this. there is a little bit of risk and things are going well for him now. i think it would be great for bernie sanders. it would be bad for hillary clinton. it would potentially be good for donald trump because he could define himself and move more to the center, so maybe it will happen. the whole price tag thing, trump has said this before. he seems to be suggesting that the money should come from a television network. maybe because it would be a huge spectacle and a great pregame -- john: if i were in charge of television and i had to take $15 million out of my advertising haul, i would make that deal in a heartbeat. i would make a deal. with trump, again, this is the

last day, i'll do it, and people say it is a joke, who knows. the key here is it would be terrible for hillary clinton if this happened. mark: i will tell you one thing. bernie sanders off of that debate would raise a lot of money. john: another reason it is bad for every clinton. our next word is shakeup. last night donald trump's campaign sent out a press release that it was cutting ties with national political director rick wiley. some said he would always be a temporary hire. others say this is part of a huge internal are for happening in donald trump's world. -- internal turf war happening in donald trump's world. it will not make or break this campaign, but to the extent that it reflects disarray and internal chaos, how big of a problem is that for his

candidacy? mark: i think there is some basic stuff that needs to get done in terms of fundraising, organizing states, and having professionals around is helpful. but donald trump manages the way he manages, i think if you said to me what are the five biggest names dangerous to trump winning, this is one of them. just having a team that is close and has each other's backs and can build what needs to be billed, take the money in and spend it efficiently. this does not speak well of what kind of president he would be. the back fighting, the leaks, the personal attacks, it's quite something and reminiscent of a clinton campaign. john: a hillary clinton campaign. there was a lot of chaos in the 1992 campaign, a lot, especially early on, but eventually they became cohesive.

the bush campaign, quite cohesive. the obama campaign, quite cohesive. i don't think it applies at all to the presidency. you can see in some of these cases, like barack obama, who ran a tight ship and then had management trouble in the white house, but it does help you win an election when you have a small cadre of people who are united and have the confidence of the principal. mark: i will tell you what does carry over in my mind. you have people inside the campaign, senior people inside and outside the campaign leaking, attacking, criticizing, not showing each other a lot of respect. if you have that in the white house, that is deadly. i see no indication from my reporting that donald trump has any desire or interest to tamp it down. the clinton campaign has been remarkably free. democratic presidential race in detail, clinton, sanders, that fight is still going on. we will talk about it right after this.

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mark: state department report on hillary clinton's use of an e-mail server is still the talk of many towns, brooklyn, usa, washington, d.c., maybe some others. today, bloomberg politics and purple strategies have a new number. a report shows clinton is slightly leading trump among rust belt voters who are the question of who is more trustworthy. today, clinton has been addressing with the press the report. there is one thing she said to a reporter earlier today. >> this report makes clear that

e-mail use was the practice for other secretaries of state, and i know that because it is well-known. it is pointed out in the report, but it was still a mistake. as i've said many times, if i could go back, i would do it differently. i know people have concerns about this. mark: so, john, she has been doing a round of interviews and we are looking at what she has said. how effective have she and her campaign been in neutralizing the effects of this report? john: she is out there answering these questions herself. if they could handle this with surrogates, they would not have hillary clinton interviews trying to answer these questions, so they feel they are not doing a strong enough job.

in the end, they are doing what they always do, obfuscating, practicing misdirection -- but politically, it may work. mark: i think she needs to tell the truth about what happened. she said she was cooperating with the investigation, then they did not cooperate with the ig. i respect them as professionals trying to do their job, but they're saying so many things now that is not responsive to the report. the fact that she and her aides did not cooperate with the investigation and say, well, we want to focus on the fbi investigation, i mean, this is cable, but i can't say what i think about it. it is not the right thing to do. she made a mistake. she should own up to it. the latest thing is that some of the e-mails that are the most interesting we've never seen before. her claim that all the e-mails were archived, it's just wrong.

john: the ig report says the first three months were missing. what happened to the first three months? mark: but the reports of her not wanting a government e-mail and two e-mails about the server being potentially hacked, these are problems, and i think are doing their best today, but are not going with the truth and trying to get the truth out there. john: on the other side of the pacific today, president obama was at the g7 summit in japan doing presidential things, but speaking to reporters, the race came up and he took the bait. president obama: they are paying close attention to this election. i think it is fair to say that they are surprised by the republican nominee. they are not sure how seriously to take some of his pronouncements, but they are rattled by a lot of the proposals he has made,

-- but they are rattled by him. a lot of the proposals he has made, displaying ignorance of world affairs or a cavalier attitude. john: so donald trump as is his want responded to president obama and said rattling is not a bad thing. in fact, sometimes rattling the cages can be a "good thing." this is not the first time obama has weighed in on the presidential race. and it will not be the last. on this notion that donald trump is creating tremors around the world, is that an argument -- necessarily hurt trump or is there a way that trump can jujitsu that and make it a political -- mark: trump's coalition will side with him over world leaders saying we don't like him, because people are not happy with the status quo of america's relations around the world. president obama's approval rating a little over 50 allows him to go out there and hit donald trump. there is no doubt that world

leaders and diplomats are freaked out by the prospect of donald trump. not all of them, but many of them. this is one where i think donald's instincts will help him. hillary clinton will not want to fight this election out on the street. i don't think foreign leaders testifying to that is going to hurt him. john: i agree with you in main, but part of the argument is that he's not ready to be commander-in-chief, unqualified, temperamentally unsuited the office. pointing to david cameron or justin trudeau will not win you anything. persuadable voters in the middle of the electorate, there is a sense that the whole world is freaking out about donald trump. if they had that since in a visceral way, is that something that might cause them to have doubts about making him commander-in-chief?

it might if it builds. in the long run. mark: it will be interesting to watch. should be able to win on paper. who has the hardest job in america? find out after these words from our sponsors. ♪

john: joining us now is josh green, whose latest story is called how to get trump elected when he is wrecking everything you have built. a day in the life of party runs in this --re

priebus. you spent time with reince priebus and donald trump. what is going on in the heads of these two guys? >> they say they talk every day by phone. trump was very complimentary and reince was very deferential to donald trump. reince priebus had the autopsy after mitt romney's loss in 2012, which was meant to moderate the party's image. they had a different candidate in mind than donald trump. donald trump came in and won with a distinct set of policies and attitudes and now he is the nominee, and it looks like the direction the party will go in. mark: so when there is a presumptive nominee in either party, there is the uniform relationship between the campaign and the party regarding the convention, fundraising, strategy, is this a conventional relationship? >> every trump relationship is an unconventional relationship

in politics, but the one-on-one relationship between donald and reince priebus seems to be pretty strong. trump's national political director is out of the campaign. is very close to chairman reince priebus, so maybe that is a sign of discord. at least in the way they speak about each other, very polite, very professional, and trump understands that he will need to rely on the rnc's technology, staff, etc. mark: donald trump talks a good game. he may not respect someone, but says he does. because it is in his interest. do you think he respects reince priebus? that is a hard question to answer. can i use a lifeline? i think he does. mark: you just can't tell or -- >> i think he does, but he also does not want there to be any doubt about who is in charge, and donald trump is in charge. john: i was struck by your

interactions with both of them in the piece. -- thelarly struck by chairman got upset with you on multiple occasions in the course of these interviews. he seemed sensitive to some of the things you were saying and flew off the handle in a way he does not normally do. what were the things that you are challenging him on that caused him to fly off the handle? >> basically, his great vision was, in order to keep up with the demographic changes, we need to broaden our appeal, women, minorities, young people, and i said you have a nominee who said barack obama is not born in america, called mexicans rapist and drug dealers, doesn't that fly in the face of what you are trying to accomplish? i think he is under a lot of pressure and does understand it is a problem for the future of the party, maybe for the president of the party, too, and didn't really appreciate the line of questioning. john: trump seemed to be more cordial.

he extended the interview and had you stay longer. you asked him what he envisioned for the future of the party. what did he tell you? >> there are two different directions, reince priebus's direction and donald trump's direction. donald trump said he wants to put his stamp on the republican party. the same way i've put my stamp on a trump building. it's going to be a worker's party, but he wants to get people wage increases and he has a more populist, confrontational vision of where the republican party is going than maybe the one you saw outlined in the touchy-feely autopsy. mark: as i read the piece, based on other conversations i have had with trump, tell me if i am right. he's kind of more thoughtful, the party, the mood of the country, what he can accomplish. you are having a thoughtful -- >> he is a very shrewd analyst. he basically saw what was

missing in the republican sales pitch and supplied it. and took over the party. there was a scene in the piece that takes you inside the donald trump-paul ryan meeting, where trump essentially reads ryan the riot act and says you will not cut entitlements, try to sell that in an election when democrats are talking about expanding entitlements. and ice -- and i think you see there his political instincts kicking in and saying this is not the way to go. whether or not he can win, i don't know, but he has a shrewder diagnosis of what ails the republican party than a lot of professional republicans. mark: and what ails america and how the republican party to be the thing that people can turn to, right? >> there's so much attention paid to the insults in the feuds, but he has articulated a clear set of ideas that republican voters have rallied around.

john: is he making peace with this? real short. >> no, no. he talks about drinking at breakfast. john: bailey's on the cornflakes. i do that all the time so i , don't know what that means. up next, bernie sanders' campaign manager jeff weaver joining us, his take on the possible trump-sanders debate, right after this. ♪

mark: hillary clinton hit the airways, the rules about email were not clarified until after she left the state department

, the rules that she was operating under, and she has said everything that she said already everything she has to say on the matter. joining us now in the wake of the democratic story is the campaign manager for bernie sanders, jeff weaver is coming in high jeffinition from burlington, vermont. the obvious question and the inescapable question at hand, please give us everything you know, all of the details, secret, otherwise about the current state of the trump-sanders debate negotiations. jeff: you want me to name names as well? john: certainly, everything you know. jeff: what i would say about this, this would be a phenomenal opportunity for the american people to see two different visions on stage together, one-on-one and let the american people decide which vision they support, donald trump's tax cuts for the rich, low wages, climate change is a hopefully made up by

the chinese or bernie sanders dealing with wealth and income inequality, health care for all and public tuition for public colleges and universities and see which prevails. mark: are there negotiations underway, if so, what are the state of them? jeff: there are behind-the-scenes talk about this happening. i think there is a division on the other side about whether it should go forward. clearly donald trump last night said that he would like to debate bernie sanders, repeated it today. we hope that does not chicken out, that he has the courage to get up on stage and stand by his positions. mark: jeff, behind the scenes talks, direct contacts between people on the sanders campaign and the trump campaign? jeff: i would say that's a yes. mark: ok. it seems like you agree with us, it's in your interest to get this thing to happen. you're a busy man. how much time were you going to

invest in trying to pull this off and when will you know if it's real? jeff: i would hope we know very soon. the california primary is coming up. it would be best for the people of california to have the debate beforehand. like i said, i think it should be a clash of ideas and substance and a real opportunity for people in california and the rest of the country. mark: your candidate famously said early on in the contest that he didn't care much about hillary clinton's darn emails. jeff: i think it was damn emails. mark: yeah, it was. i was trying to quote paul ryan, he likes the word darn. in the wake of the i.g. report, is there anything that voters should look at that report and compare bernie sanders and hillary clinton, here is what they should know about hillary clinton based on the report? jeff: the report speaks for itself. bernie sanders is very clear he wants a campaign on the substantive issues. this process is still going on. there is an f.b.i. investigation obviously. and i think what he has said and what he is standing by is we should let that process play itself out and --

mark: the report doesn't totally speak for itself. is there something you would point democratic voters saying this is what you should take away from it or let voters read it themselves and make their own conclusions? jeff: read it for themselves. there are differences between the two to make a decision. there is a difference on minimum wage, on health care, on foreign policy, so i think there is plenty out there on which people can make a decision. if people want to read this report, they're certainly welcome to, but the process is not yet complete with respect to emails. john: you're a voter and a citizen, right, there are two different ways of looking at this report broadly speaking. some people think it's damning and scathing and it comes down very hard on secretary clinton and raises question about her judgment as a minimum. other people, especially people in the clinton campaign, hey, look, there is nothing to see here. there is no consequences whatsoever.

there is no news here and it basically exonerates her. as a voter and a citizen of united states of america, you have read the report. what is your judgment about which of those is more broadly true? jeff: my opinion of it really doesn't matter. what matters is the people who read it themselves think. john: it matters to me. jeff: i appreciate that, too. if people want to read it, they can go ahead and make their own conclusions. this whole investigation into emails is not over with yet. i think as the senator said, we want to let the process play itself out and then people can make a decision. john: it's clear to your posture is no longer the posture of senator sanders which is no one cares about your damn emails. voters should read this report and come to their own conclusions and important enough that you're pushing them in that direction as opposed to saying this is irrelevant and move on to other issues? jeff: you're overreading what i just said. what bernie sanders is concerned about is the substantive differences between himself and secretary clinton.

if there is an issue of judgment, it's voting for the iraq war and carrying on with a hawkish foreign policy sense not learning the lessons from that war. mark: going back to the debate, are you the main point of contact with the trump campaign? jeff: i don't really want to name names. i know you would like me to name names. i haven't up to this point. the discussions are at a point where it would be helpful if names weren't discussed. jeff: they do have a relationship. mark: is this helping make this more likely to happen? jeff: another way of you asking me to name names. mark: if there is a relationship that exists at the high levels of the two campaigns, it makes it more likely that negotiations could be concluded successfully? jeff: it makes it more likely that negotiations will happen. obviously at this point i really

can't speak to whether they'll be successful or not. ultimately, the question is, does donald trump have the sort of courage to get on stage with bernie sanders. mark: do you think one or the other will make it more likely to happen? jeff: it's about fortitude. chickening out is not a good option. john: let me ask you about the upcoming democratic national convention. there is a possible platform fight with respect to israel and the palestinians. you guys have put cornell west and james zogby on the platform committee as representatives. people consider that as a provocative thing to do, in the clinton camp and some democrats thinking those two guys would stir up debate and contentiousness and trouble. would you have any concerns of that ascending a signal that you are not coming to make peace, but are coming to make a fight? jeff: i don't think so. there are a number of

discussions about the platform. there may be disagreements. there will be votes on the platform committee. if there are platform points that the senator loses on the platform committee that he thinks might be better brought to the floor, that's always a possibility. john: you don't see those two appointments, again, if someone said to you, those two individuals seem like provocative appointments, you would say what? jeff: i would say absolutely not. there is a broad range of views in the democratic party. both of those gentlemen are highly qualified to be on that platform drafting committee. there are a number of hearings around the country. the more views that are expressed and put into the platform and the platform discussion i think is better for the party. mark: 18 months ago did bernie sanders know who jimmy kimmel was? jeff: yes, he did. mark: just checking. jeff: i would say yes, it is a big night, absolutely. john: jeff weaver thank you for coming on today, especially up there in what apparently is a

very sunny burlington vermont. next, who is a little rusty in their fight to win over the rust belt states. we'll ask that question and more after this.

mark: hot off the presses, the purple strategy's poll, general election polling, slice polling we call it, this focusing on middle income voters in the rust belt. all being targeted by the trump campaign, middle class voters in these states are, duh, very key demographic for both the trump campaign and hillary clinton as they try to win 270 electoral votes.

to talk about the findings in the survey, disturb, the managing partner and he joins us from the washington bureau. let's talk about the top line number of support for trump and clinton for this middle income rust belt demo. doug: the best news for clinton is she has a lead. she is leading by seven points. what is important for the demographic, it's a true swing demographic. if you look at elections from 1992-2008, he have single election that the winner carried this group nationally and in these states where we looked where we can look at that data, the winner carried that demographic as well. right now in this key swing demographic, clinton is up, a bit of good news for her up by seven points. john: break it down a little further and look at a couple of key segments. we want to talk about white voters, female voters and independents. give us the breakdown on those. those are pretty important groups.

doug: absolutely. what we see is some real polarization here. among women, clinton is leading by double digits and among men, trump is leading. he has a slight lead among independents as well and then if you take a look at race, it's a substantial issue. we have white voters supporting him, minority voters, she has a strong double digit lead. so when you take a look at the election in a lot of ways, this group, this key swing group is mirroring a lot of the demographic differences we're seeing nationally. currently the result on the top line works in clinton's favor, but we'll see if there is some swings, particularly after recent news of the coming weeks. mark: on the dat that you ran through, white, women and independents, if you were trump, what would make you the happiest about it? doug: the thing that would make me happy is that i'm leading, particularly among independents. it's obviously something that is going to be critical and within this group of swing voters of middle income voters, he wants to be winning that group.

having said that, i think he should be a little bit concerned that he is not dominating among white voters in these key rust belt states. that's wisconsin, michigan, ohio, and pennsylvania. in the end, a lot of the theory of this race is that trump can cut into either traditionally democratic constituencies or in swing constituencies in a way that can take away states that have traditionally gone democratic by cutting into those groups. this sort of brings up the point that maybe this won't be so easy and more important, he may have to build a more traditional republican coalition of evangelicals and that type of group rather than cutting into traditional democratic strong holds. john: let's talk about how the voters see trump and clinton as potential commanders in chief. there is an interesting contradiction in the data, right, that we have seen in other places about how they see who is better on foreign policy and terrorism. talk about that contradiction and how it works to different

candidates' advantage. doug: that's right. when you take a look at having the right temperament to successfully execute foreign policy, clinton has an unbelievable advantage with over half supporting her, a 20-point lead, plus point lead over trump. then when you take a look at the who would be the strongest against terrorism, fighting terrorism here and abroad, trump has a lead. if you look throughout the poll, the thing that is really harming trump more than anything is his temperament, is how he behaves. that cuts through not just with foreign policy, but also on some very specific negatives. the strongest negative we tested against him was how he behaves towards women, the types of language he uses. when you put that all together, the things that make donald trump and have got him a lot of support are also the things that right now are sort of the difficulty for him and things he needs to overcome even with this key demographic that people say are going to swing towards trump.

mark: doug, he is behind with this group. that's a snapshot of today. if that's the case if the strategy involves winning some number of the four important states, does the data suggest that it's within reach that's a sensible route or should he go back to more of a florida, colorado strategy that the romney folks had? doug: from a strategic perspective, even with the numbers where they are today, they can of course move, that's first. second is, i can't imagine that they would give up on states like this because if you tell people that you're not going to fight in states like this, that gives the opponent the advantage. i certainly don't think it's hopeless for trump. i think there is a lot of opportunity. one thing that was really striking in this poll, 75% of voters, it's true across party, majority across party think to improve the direction of the country, we need to have major changes in the way government does business, not just changes, but major changes, even democrats agree with that.

and trump, of course, when it comes to the change in the way washington works has a huge advantage over clinton. when you put those two things together, leaving the stylistic differences aside for a minute, trump has a major advantage that he can use moving forward. so i do think there is a lot of room for him to grow here despite trailing at that point. mark: doug, thanks very much, great poll, more slicing and dicing coming up throughout the year, when we come back, we're talking to wes anderson, republican strategist. don't forget if you're watching us in washington, d.c. and listen to us on the radio anytime on bloomberg 99.1 f.m. every day. we'll be right back. ♪

john: it's time now regarding a conversation regarding the presidential race in the republican party. and joining us is wes anderson. we are doing through the whole show. that was one of them. wes, thanks for coming in. you worked for governor jindal in this race, that didn't go well. wes: no. john: 30,000 feet, how surprised are you that donald trump is the nominee for the republican party? wes: if you asked me that a year ago and put money down, i would have lost that bet. i think almost every republican pollster would have. the entire thing is surprising. in the last three months, four months, not at all surprising. john: you are currently just for the record, you are with mr.

trump or are you still in the holdback category? wes: i'm going to vote for him with all of the caveats that a bunch of republicans like myself would give. enthusiastically happily , or with a sense of ambivalence. wes: i'm voting against hillary clinton, a chance that a majority of the voters in the united states will do that. that's probably as enthusiastic as i can get. i still have reservations. i think there is an awful lot of voters like myself that we see in the polling that are trending truth's way. -- trump's way. hillary's real opponent is not donald trump, it's 50%. with the exception of a handful of outliers in march, she hasn't broken 50 in any credible national surveys in almost a year. and i can't imagine that there is anything she can say or do between now and november that is going to change any significant block of voters' opinion of her. mark: it's more dire for her

because she is the incumbent party? wes: it absolutely is. john: trump hasn't broken 50 either. wes: we could come up with a laundry list a mile long of why there is no chance in the world that trump is going to win the race, except all of the national polling right now is converging in the margin of error in the mid 40's and he absolutely can win this race. one of the things we found, we recently did a large battleground survey for presidential swing states. we found that, yes, both of them are wildly upside down on image. the unfaves versus the favorables but trump more so. when you look at his unfaves, you think there is no chance. the this can't possibly be. the test in the battleground and he is down two points. john: people will vote for him even though they don't like him.

people talk about how upside -- wes: here's the deal. people talk about how upside down they are both on image. we like to get graduation on that. we ask are you very unfavorable towards him or somewhat unfavorable, the hate line, and most telling demographic or cross tabb in every survey from now until november will be those folks who say they are very unfaveable towards both candidates. that's about 20% in the battleground. it's who those focus are that is really interesting. these are rough numbers, it changes state to state. if you aggregate them, only about 10% of them are democrats. most of them are under 35 and most of them are sanders supporters. no, do they come home, do they hold their nose and go home, probably, but they're young. a chunk of them may just bail out. i don't know what percentage. john: you wrote a piece not long ago that argued that the much vaunted and much relied upon among democrats, demographic advantages that president obama in his last two elections and democrats more broadly at the presidential level has enjoyed is not insurmountable, structural disadvantaged

republicans, that counters conventional wisdom. not just the democratic party, but the republican party, too. why do you think that? wes: a number of reasons, number one, president obama was the first president since modern record-keeping has existed in national elections to win re-election with fewer raw votes than he did the first time around. you have to go back to f.d.r.'s third race where that was the case and there were several million americans overseas engaged in a little thing called world war ii. so we will put a big, giant asterix on that. it has never really happened before since modern record-keeping has been kept. mark: the coalition is ascending, but not defining. wes: what he loses -- john: or suggests that barack obama, there was a huge turnout for him to be the american president? wes: he loses significantly while he is getting fewer votes than he did the first time around. i mean, he loses by four points , which in these days in the last 20 years would be a

landslide. i'm sorry, romney loses significantly. romney loses significantly, so how is it possible that you have barack obama winning significantly while he is getting fewer votes than he did the first go-around. the answer, i think that the, on my side and the democrats side, the look, the attempt to look for all of those answers in demography is an attempt to make an excuse for what was obvious. that was that our candidate did not inspire the coalition he needed to inspire. one quick note on that, doing some corporate work in september of 2012 doing focus groups of swing voters in the suburbs of columbus, ohio, i heard two things in those focus groups that were just amazing to me of all swing voters. mark: time for one. wes: a lady said to me, so you

don't like him? she said the thing is he doesn't like me. john: wes anderson, thank you, we'll have you back, it's really interesting. coming up, what donald trump just did to celebrate reaching the magic 1,237 after this. ♪

mark: he is loving it, mr. trump just tweeted himself, celebrating 1237 showing him eating some mcdonald's. go to bloombergpolitics.com for more. coming up here on bloomberg tv, emily chang speaks to co-founder of grab. until tomorrow, sayonara. ♪

♪ friday, the 27th of may. i am rishaad salamat. this is "trending business". ♪ rishaad: well, sydney, tokyo, and singapore this hour. asia-pacific markets shrugging off a lackluster session on wall street. japan sales tax on the back on burner. bloomberg has seen a draft communiqué, where the prime