mark: i'm mark halperin. john: i'm john heilemann. with all due respect to bill kristol's political judgment, it looks like david french might have a little bit of work to do. >> who exactly is david french? >> who the heck is david french? john: hello again from los angeles. a lot happening out here in the golden state. today a presidential candidate

went on a twitter rant posting a series of white-hot burns and this time it was not donald j. trump, billionaire, it was hillary r. clinton millionaire. clinton slammed trump over documents published in the new york times about a federal lawsuit against trump university. here's a sampling hot off the boiler. she called the business practices that trump engaged in sleazy and fraudulent. the trump university con says a lot about trump. you can't trust him with your personal finances. how can we trust him with our country? these days that counts as a presidential smackdown. she continued to attack in the flesh at a rally in new jersey with jon bon jovi. hillary clinton: this is just more evidence that donald trump

himself is a fraud. he is trying to scam america the way he scammed all those people that trump university. it is important that we recognize what he has done because that's usually a pretty good indicator of what he will do. john: hillary is clearly trying to make trump university a big issue. is this an issue we will be talking about in the fall? can clinton make this an issue that will stalk trump all the way? mark: the for-profit university business is pretty dodgy across the board. these are accusations that would be serious for a normal candidate. he's shown an ability to rise above it. if they can humanize it with victims and advertisements. not just on paper but on video.

john: this could be a problem for trump, what the narrative is that they are trying to build that donald trump is that he is a con man who does not care about the lives of real people and that he is profited at their expense. is will not be the silver bullet that kills trump as part of the larger mosaic it could be crippling to his campaign. in the long run if it is sustained. mark: there are a lot of things that go to trump's volatility about using his name to make money for something that is more flash than substance. i do think donald trump has a history of being able to use lawyers and delaying tactics. if he can make the legal part go away the political part will

hurt less. human victims are so important. think about the swift boat veterans for truth. the things that stuck were real people. you can read depositions. you need to see the people. this is dangerous for trump. they also sent a press release announcing that bill clinton is going to join his wife in california during the five days leading up to the primary here next tuesday. clinton herself had previously canceled some scheduled events in new jersey so she could spend more time in california. that critical contest here on tuesday. this comes as a brand-new nbc poll shows clinton holds a statistically insignificant two-point lead over bernie sanders. well within the margin of error. the clinton campaign is trying to win this state.

it's up for grabs. are the clintons coming in here to try to win this to put it away, are they more playing defense because they recognize that they are behind? john: i think they still think that they can win this state. both campaigns internally and privately would say that the state is a tossup. they both know that bernie sanders where he spends a lot of time it is on the air the pre-election polling tends to underestimate him. the clinton people are clearly nervous. they are deploying two assets. advertising dollars and to bill clinton. mark: her support is in los angeles and the bay area. they can really try to swell the vote in those two places. it is going to be hard for him to keep up to against one with the clintons. john: this is one of the places here in los angeles where bill clinton because of his charisma

and star power he was so is hollywood's candidate. he will get a lot of airtime here. if they're willing to put him from the cameras. i think he will get on local news here. mark: the silver lining is they will split the delegates no matter what. but a win will be a win. an era when will give her and her surrogates the ability to argue forcefully next wednesday that for the good of the party bernie sanders must get out. i think people are underestimating her chances here. this could be a decisive decision to send the big dog to the big state. john: the story the clinton campaign would like to have go away.

her e-mails. it is not going away yet. some testimony from a deposition about the case has been released. cheryl mills, her former chief of staff at the state department and a member of the clintons inner circle. she said her advisor didn't really think that hard about problems the e-mail server could cause. she said it was not about avoiding public records laws. clinton gave interviews in which she repeated her campaigns defense that she regrets doing what she did and she is moving forward and the voters don't seem to care. has it now moved around again, we will get the fbi round later. if she still under siege? mark: i do not like the fact

that they and cooperate with the investigation. they are still being fuzzy about what they are sorry for. they are cavalier about the freedom of information act. as a matter of pure politics, they are in pretty good shape. with trump university, there are a lot of distractions. if the fbi doesn't charge her and i still don't know quite what they would charge her with it would take a lot for republicans to reignite this. lots of damage has been done as a matter of daily trouble for her i think they may have a chance to get through this. john: there's a real lesson here. they were having trouble with this most recent round of this dealing with the inspector general report they've been reluctant to put her in front of cameras. she hasn't been nearly as available as donald trump. the reason it had some success now is the fact that she made herself more available.

she came out and get around interviews. even if you're not changing your position very much your presence out there says a lot when you are the presumptive nominee. mark: to paraphrase elton john sorry is now the easiest word. coming up, forget everything you know about david french. that probably didn't take very long. our french education class after this. ♪

mark: 24 hours after we broke the news here of the independent candidate the conservative writer david french. could he raise money? could he make it into the presidential debate? could he keep anybody from getting 270 electoral votes? the first question is who is david french? >> we can expect to hear the same names over and over again. donald trump hillary clinton bernie sanders and david french. a man you may have never heard of. >> if you have no idea who that is don't worry you're not alone.

>> i have no idea who he is. >> you've been tweeting like crazy about david french. >> david french is not exactly a household name. >> who exactly is david french? >> and what about david french? >> french tweeted last night that he is humble and grateful for the expressions of support. we want to switch gears and talk about the flooding emergency. mark: he tweeted once today. saying this is been a year of long shots. lots of reaction on tv mostly people expressing skepticism. some people have been supportive.

about 24 hours after this trial balloon went up in the air what kind of altitude is the david french launch have? john: it is not soaring skyward with rapid velocity. mark: there is no french mania. john: the fact that he is bill kristol's guy signals the end of the never trump movement. the odds of this guy given his low name identification, the ballots, the odds of him changing the course of the contest are small. two key elements remain. he has not presented himself in any way. this would've been true for anybody who was not a household name. when he stands up and makes an actual speech. makes a interesting candidacy. is he compelling or not? mark: a compelling speech is a

big deal. fundraising is a big deal. he has to be somebody that parts of the country could look at and say this guy seems like he could be a better president of the united states than the two unpopular front runners of the two major parties. given how ridiculously it was launched, broken by us, he has tweeted twice. given that, he is in decent shape. he has a lot of work to do. he has not done much. john: donald trump's birthday is in two weeks. what you get for the man who has everything? how about a super pac. even donald j trump billionaire might need a super pac. the two of them already exist. wealthy donors have raised concerns about both of them. a lot of confusion on the trump

super pac front. donald trump is going to need to raise a lot more money. why is the trump campaign manager having trouble getting its act together on this front? mark: they sent mixed signals about whether they want a super pac. one of his advisors was quoted saying mr. trump has a lot of support him he can't really stop people from supporting him. that seems like a wink and a nod. a lot of it will wealthy people don't want to go to one essential fund 11 managers decide. they want to hire the consultants. are we doing advertising? are we coordinating with the campaign? without the campaign playing a very active role publicly, this

thing continues to flow in a way that is not helpful to donald trump. john: in 2012 we had restore our future for romney. they knew the mind of the romney campaign pretty well. even they found effective coordination very difficult to pull off. largely due to the failure mode a lot of donors to give money the super pacs. if i'm looking at trump's unpredictability and his next signals i be really wary about this just being a giant sink down which i could pour millions of dollars. mark: there is so much on their to do list. the convention the veep. they need to get this fixed. the republicans normal advantage in millionaires and billionaires writing the checks could kick in in a big hurry if they can solve this. the clinton effort is robust it is not overwhelming. coming up, we will speak to

president barack obama's former top wordsmith. speechwriter jon favreau of los angeles california joins us here on with all due respect. ♪

mark: we're joined by the republican national committee's chief communications strategist. sean, thanks for coming on. we want to you about hillary

clinton and her e-mails. the fbi investigation continues. what would you hope they would do specifically what crime do you think secretary clinton might have committed? sean: i'm not an attorney. i think it's a good question. what we've seen from the inspector general report was that unequivocally she did great state department rules and they have done things to block the investigation. they knew what they were doing was wrong. more importantly instead of just the crime is the pattern. what we've seen with hillary is not someone who tells the truth. she has a set of rules for her that is separate from everyone else. the bigger issue here isn't necessarily the underlying crimes that may come of this. but this continued lack of honesty and forthrightness that the clintons have this propensity to continue.

mark: in the report there are a lot of things singled out. one of them is a mid-level official telling a lower-level official that basically they should never again raise their concerns about her private server. you have reason to believe anything you've heard or any suspicion you have that that person was acting on orders from above? or was that just a mid-level person. sean: it is possible it could have been that scenario as well. it's not just one instance. there is a pattern of cheryl mills trying to make sure that the security requirements they were informed of are not met. they knew the risks involved. it was brought to the secretary's attention at the time that the e-mail had problems. they flagged several times her use of the blackberry in the office. on multiple occasions there were

warnings that the behavior they were engaged in was not up to the state department standards. not abiding by the rules. they're also made aware they were potential opportunities to hack those e-mails they were aware of the rules no question about it. her top advisers signed forms saying they knew what they were doing. at some point the buck has to stop at the top. this isn't a small incident. it's a pattern of behavior. we had to file not only several freedom of information act requests to find out if the guy said that the server had any e-mails. the i.t. guy setting up the server, there is no record of any e-mails. i don't know how the e-mail guy has no e-mails. that's the same guy who was credit deal with the fbi for immunity. there clearly is something here. john: there are couple of really

tough stories in the paper today about trump university. detailing the accusations against trump university. some of them coming from former employees. is there anything in the stories the you find troubling? sean: not this point. right now you got an ongoing litigation. i'm not involved in that. i don't know all the facts. nothing so far suggests that mr. trump was personally involved in this. john: but former employees of trump university are describing it as a scam. and defrauding people. when you see those words does that set off alarm bells for you politically? sean: i don't like the stories. no one in politics likes

negative stories about candidate that's on their side. the question becomes if they are involved in litigation. is it a disgruntled former person? i don't think that generally elicits the most positive responses. i've seen the stories where there have been thousands of students who said they had a great experience at trump university. there is always a balance. john: donald trump attacked the media in a pretty thoroughgoing way. saying some pretty nasty things about individual reporters. you are a communications professional and also a very pleasant man. using as wise as a matter of politics for donald trump to

treat the fourth estate that way? sean: that's not necessarily my tactic. i don't think when you look at the level of success he's had in politics. he had 16 candidates against the dash cam. he emerged as the victor from those primaries. largely through earned media and events. for me to give him advice would seem a little foolish at this point. the guy goes out raises more than $6 million for veterans and i think he was a little frustrated that instead of there being a sense of applauding that individual for the effort on behalf of a good cause, mr. trump and rightly so was upset at the level of scrutiny not necessarily apply to other things democrats do something that nature.

i understand his frustration to be honest with you. some of these individuals wanted to pick apart what day it check was cashed. this is something all americans should be applauding. helping the veterans hoover and our respect. mark: thank you for coming on sean. former obama speechwriter jon favreau coming up next here in los angeles. ♪

john: joining us now is former chief speechwriter for president obama and the cohost of the

keeping it 1600 podcast, jon favreau, not the director of "iron man." you do have a story up headlining -- front page today that talks about president obama postural in the general election. tell us what you think that's going to be. i know you think it's going to be a good thing. give us the contours of what your argument is. jon: he is out there today in elkhart. i think the one thing hillary has not had kinder is a united party. she has not had obama and everyone else making the case for her. once the primary is over, she will have the party behind her and obama will be an asset because he's at a 52%, 53 percent approval rating. that usually helps the candidates of the same party.

i think the case against trump obama will make is a case he has made even before trump's candidacy. john: he's a great campaigner and great candidate, but he did not love being a candidate or campaigner. he likes governing more. jon: with the exception that he likes making the case. he likes being out on the stump and making the case. john: you think he's going to be a real asset and enjoy doing this? do you think it is a bit between his teeth to do this? jon: i think he's itching to do it because it as a cap on his eight years in office. he's going to give a farewell address at some point but there will already be a transition. this will be his chance to make the case for hillary and his own presidency and the case he has spoken about since he's in on the stage.

mark: now is the time when i pour twitter hate. what is donald trump's campaign slogan. jon: i think people put way too much in slogans. if the clintons came out with make america great again, -- nobody thinks donald trump is where he is because of the slogan. i think all of this stuff is way overrated and what is much more important is the case he is making. mark: there's a debate going on now about whether she should be spending as much time as she started to going after donald trump, whether she should be spending more time building herself up. should the balance the -- if she goes down like this today, no positive messages going to get through. jon: i think it is a timing issue.

we did the same thing -- we may be case against romney and we talked about bain capital and all the negatives tough and i think she will do that between now and the convention and the convention will be a time when she starts making a positive case. mark: the democratic view is basically it is decided before the race is. is the clinton campaign geared up to put donald trump away before the convention? jon: i don't think they can put him away but a will certainly unload a bit between now and then. mark: by the time he got to the convention with ms. from -- with mitt romney, there was not a single person who thought you would lose. do you think the clinton campaign could he in that position? jon: it all depends on what happens when the primary is over. if she starts getting the

sanders supporters, then yes. john: i know you don't think slogans matter but big speeches matter. president obama gave one and people think the convention speech or hillary clinton will matter a lot. she has a lot of problems to remedy. even know -- this is going to be a big moment speech in her life. if she called you -- help me think through how to approach this speech. what would you tell her? jon: she needs to think about what is your vision for the country and how do you talk about that in a way that is an implicit contrast with donald trump? you can't just make a speech and say here are my policies and this guy sucks.

the case you are making has to be why you are the one to lead the country and why he isn't and you have to do both of those things at the same time for top i think she's going to have to reintroduce herself to the country and she's going to have to talk about those the accomplishments of the last eight years and how to hold on them. john: have you heard her give a speech that suggest she has oratorical greatness in her? jon: i think the speech she gave at the 2008 convention to nominate obama -- i think she stepped up on the national stage and has done some really good things. mark: and she has said some things and had set pieces -- on race and criminal justice that have been quite good. john: when she gets on a policy topic, she does quite well. jon: looking as an observer, what is the trump campaign doing well right now? jon: they have had a rough couple of weeks.

if donald trump was disciplined and focused on i represent change and she doesn't, i think they would be doing ok. mark: there's nothing they are doing on a tactical level you think is good jon:? i think his lack of discipline is overpowering anything that they have. yesterday, the trump university stuff started to come out. i think you is able to get that out of that is by going crazy on a bunch of reporters a press conference. if you call that a win, i don't know. mark: who's the smartest person she could pick as a running mate? jon: i don't know. i think elizabeth warren. i think sherrod brown and tom perez. she can take on donald trump. she makes a positive case for a fair economy in a sharp and smart way. i think someone who can do that will be added value.

john: maybe it's solves a bit of the sanders problem? jon: i think that's what she is looking for. john: really good to see you in the flesh right here. when we come back, we will talk to two journalists, one from the "los angeles times" and another from the "washington post." if you are watching us in washington dc, you can listen to us on 99.1 fm. we will be right back. ♪

john: got questions about who is going to win in california? what hillary clinton will say in horse -- and her speech or with the mascot is for trump university, here to maybe help us answer those questions and more is the assistant managing director for politics from the "l.a. times" and we are joined by the "washington post" political correspondent, phil rocker. we are always happy to be on here in my home state. what's going on in this democratic race? christina: the state of play is all over the place. the big question is which voters decide to show up. in los angeles county alone, we had 235,000 new registrants just this year. 61% of those people are under the age of 20. you hear that and think it's a bunch of young people and they are going to go vote, but you don't know that they are going

to show up. in california, it's more complicated because we allow independents to vote in the primary and they have to ask for a democratic outcome so that is complicated. we have a poll coming out on friday that i cannot give any exclusive details yet but these polls are all over the map. if a lot of independent voters show up for sanders, he could win california. john: you wrote a piece the other day about hillary clinton and her challenge in california. explain what the piece of that story is and we can talk about it a little more. phil: i saw her on the trail and she's trying to talk about how she would bring changes to policy matters and would be the first woman president that she's struggling to convince voters that she would be the kind of change agent they want and washington. that's one of her vulnerabilities with donald

trump who would obviously change things more than many voters would even want. she is trying to figure out how to become that radical change agent in voter's mind. mark: what kinds of things is she doing to get a piece of the change account? fill: they are doing some subtle things. they talk about certain labor laws and paid leave is one popular issue. she's also talking about how she would ring a new thinking to the white house. a lot of people are talking about her is the first woman president. she outperforms donald trump on so many measures from temperament to experience to judgment, but it is that issue of change where trump beats her and that could be an achilles heel if trump were to maximize it to his benefit, which he has not yet enabled today. mark: if you look at what the

presidential candidates are talking about, what issues seem to matter to california democrats? christina: we see the economy still is a major issue. we raised the minimum wage and voters like that and are starting to more optimistic that the economy, but climate is a huge issue. donald trump last week talked about more drilling and not wanting to invest in clean energy really resonated in california with people saying that's not thing they want to hear. our republicans here tend to side with jerry brown on these issues. john: it is tough to tell but it looks like the race is really close. to people i will mention, whether you think they matter to hillary clinton's fortunes here, governor brown, helps or

neutral? christina: i think it helps because he's pretty liberal and is with sanders mentality. he's very popular and even republicans like him and a lot of trump voters like him. john: and the second man, bill clinton, who's going to come out here. christina: it helps in volume. it's a big state and he's going to hit one part -- he doesn't have as much of the low as he did in 2008, but it doesn't hurt and they are getting crowds, just not sanders size crowds. mark: this question that looms in both campaigns regardless of the outcome in california, what bernie sanders and hillary clinton due date today from next wednesday forward, what is your sense of that or does it depend on the primary? fill -- phil: i think it does

depend on the primary. sanders will decide what he has to do stop i think we will have hillary clinton is effectively the presumptive nominee. does he wage a fight all the way to the convention? i think hillary clinton wants to tip it 100% toward donald trump and work to unite all of the independence behind her. but she's not going to be able to do that effectively or easily if senator sanders is standing in her way. a lot of the onus is on sanders to decide how gracefully he will exit stage. christina: compare this to 2008 when barack obama cinched the nomination and he and hillary clinton did not beat for about 24 hours. in they had that secret meeting it dianne feinstein's house. it took a couple of days for them to unify.

all these superdelegates are going to look at what happens in california. if she has a big loss here, that could put a pause on things. if she ends up pulling it out, people could rally behind her. mark: what has senator sanders had in this state wes cherokees had some potent surrogates. christina: his top stars a former l.a.'s city councilmember. there only three democrats who haven't taken a position. nancy pelosi is staying neutral. the others are staying out of it. they are not even out there for him. surrogates aren't everything that they don't hurt. they know where to win and which neighborhoods to go into.

they are out there making sure the coalition shows up, do the coalition's show up or does everyone show up? mark: the fact he is fighting clinton and 1/7 of the people who live in the state-owned utility tough situation is a tough situation. christina: he's going to places that have never seen a presidential candidate. john: thank you both for being with us. when we come back, you'll have to pardon our french. ♪

mark: by the end of today, david french may well be a household name in america. it may depend which household you are talking about. but because mr. french has an talked about all day as a possible independent presidential candidate, we decided to dig into the archives to find out a little more about this writer, lawyer and possible future president of the united states. >> david french -- the pride of tennessee. >> we will ask nancy. >> with a wife whose word of his decision at 37 to join the military. >> i said i think i need to join the army and go to iraq. she said but you are old. >> so he joined up. >> i felt a conviction i could not support a war i was willing to fight myself. >> david french represents

groups targeted by the irs. >> this is a systematic problem. >> i'm far more hateful. i would argue there's no way she could hate jihad more than i do. >> he went where others wouldn't. >> let me say thank you for having the guts to be here. we reached out to some republican state legislators and they would not come here to defend the flag. >> what i want to be able to do is teach history. >> not once in the last 20 less years we have been fighting for conservative values have we said thank god donald trump is with us. >> beard, no beard, game changer of the week. mark: a pretty good presence on television. not overwhelming, but you see

the issues you still with why a lot of conservatives are tracked and not just to his resume but the posture he has toward conservatism. it fits with the heart of the anti-trump movement. john: he is appealing to some conservative intellectual because he's like them. he's a conservative intellectual who has done things like been in the military. you can't say enough about how he seems like a perfectly admirable human being, but you also can't enough to suggest he's much too obscure and may be a little too small. in terms of his ability to till a screen and be the kind of person who can stand toe to toe with donald trump and hillary clinton. mark: by settling on him, it has and in the discussion of

recruiting a bigger name into this. john: i think it feels like if they could have gotten a year name, they would have. mark: if he ends up not running or running but not in the nub being a serious person, it's going to put people in a tough position about whether or not they vote for donald trump or whether they sit out the election. john: we are getting close to the point where the republicans who are going to capitulate to say hillary clinton is too big a threat, all of those people who made that move, the people who are left are choosing between voting for clinton and holding their nose, i imagine a lot of people will end up abstaining. mark: when we come back, a supergroup with a sue bird new political message. -- super group with a super new political message. ♪

john: a big part of the reason we are in l.a. is because there's a group in town -- three of the members of rage against the machine led by -- chat the -- they have come to start a new supergroup and last night, they had their debut at the whiskey. we were out there listening to the show and talking to them about what they plan on doing, especially this summer as far as the national convention in cleveland. they are going to break up that joint, they say. we have an exclusive first look at their message. ♪ >> martin luther king famously said there is no hotter place in hell than were people who remain

neutral in times of moral conflict. this is a time of moral conflict of us so we are in the hot pit of hell bringing some rock 'n roll and hip-hop fury. ♪ >> we will show you that entire piece tomorrow on the show. in the meantime, go to bloomberg politics.com to see what donald trump is saying about the future of mitch mcconnell and paul ryan. coming up, the facebook vp of global marketing solutions. from us, sayonara. ♪

♪ it is thursday, the second of june. i am rishaad salamat. this is "trending business". ♪ we will be taking you to tokyo, sydney, and kuala lumpur. the strengthening yen weighing on exports, climbing the most in a month. a sales tax rise on the back burner. $50, talk ofnder the deal on capping production.