♪ john: good evening. it has been two days since american woke up to news of the deadliest mass shooting on u.s. soil. the political world has been transfixed on how the two presumptive presidential nominees some responding to this moment of national crisis. we will talk about what the candidates and party leaders have insane and just a moment, but first, this is what the voters think or at least a window into that. we have a new bloombergpolitics pull hot off the presses showing of the calculating donald trump by double digits in the head to head general matchup. frompoll was conducted

friday to monday, so the shooting in orlando occurred while we were in the field, making it the first major telephone survey conducted since the attack. yesterday, we added a few questions related to the tragedy including one that asked which presidential candidate they think would be better as commander-in-chief in handling an event similar to the one in orlando. 45% said donald trump and 41% said hillary clinton. 15% said they were not sure. mark, we will have more on this poll, but just from the little that we have discussed, what do you think and what do you find most striking about these numbers? mark: the survey shows what a lot of democrats and republicans have been saying privately which is the run up to orlando based on the last days, hillary clinton is showing herself at her best in donald trump is struggling. clinton at 49% and trump at 37%.

i will not say that is her ceiling and his floor and republicans of that is not the case, but that is a spread that is about as wide as you can imagine in a polarized world. our poll is going to confirm what a lot of private data has said in with a lot of republicans are afraid of, which is that donald trump may be pretty far behind in the race. john: let's be clear. i described the timing of this, but this poll takes into full account donald trump's problem and the problems he made for himself by making racist dayents about the judge and after day of negative news coverage and criticism from the right, the left, center, all of the places. it does also include polling since orlando. that is the timeframe. includes thet also coming together of the democratic party with president

obama coming in behind hillary clinton along with joe biden, the first lady and elizabeth warren, so while trump has been struggling in the media, clinton has been having a story working toward unity. john: right. that is true. i would add further to that, one of the things that does not include, the full democratic party because as we will talk about, bernie sanders has yet to endorse hillary clinton so there is still a part that is not part of the clinton bandwagon so she probably could still benefit or will benefit in terms of her pulling strength when that eventuality occurs. you're not sure when that will occur but it will probably will and when it does she will get more good news. i agree with you 100%. the horse race is ugly. i would say it is striking, although it is within the margin of air, striking in terms of the post orlando question that more voters say they think donald trump would be a good commander-in-chief in a situation such as this.

trump has a few percentage points in the league within the margin of error. he leads to her on that and voters see them as handling temper better in general. it is worth noting here. mark: since the shooting of the weekend, donald trump has been talking and tweeting quite a bit. one thing he has been stressing is the fact the president obama and hillary clinton are wrong for not using the words "radical islamic terrorism" to describe the motives and basis for this type of attack. yesterday, during part of the national security speech, he said he suspected clinton might give in and start using the phrase. at a campaign event in pittsburgh, clinton showed no signs of backing down. ms. clinton: i have clearly said that we faced terrorist enemies that use a perverted version of islam to justify slaughtering innocent people. we have to stop them and we

will. donald suggests i will not call this threat what it is, he has not been listening. i will not demonize and declare war on an entire religion. trump's words will be an infected already are a recruiting tool for isis to help them increase its ranks of people willing to do what we saw in orlando. he is turning americans against americans, which is exactly what isis wants. leaders who have actually thought terrorists know this. he says he knows more about isis than the generals do. [laughter] ms. clinton: it is almost hard to even think of what to say about that claim. he said, i will abolish the second amendment and that is wrong. he said, i will let a flood of refugees into our country without any screening.

that is also wrong. these are demonstrably lies. he feels compelled to tell them because he has to distract us from the fact that he has nothing substantive to say for himself. [applause] right around the time clinton was speaking in pittsburgh, president obama was of the white house meeting with his national security team and then the president defended his own were choices with some pretty fiery remarks to reporters. president obama: there has not been a moment in my seven and a half years as president where we have not been able to pursue a useedy because we did not islam."l "radical once as an advisor of mindset, man, if we really used that phrase we will turn whole

thing around, not once. someone seriously thinks that if we do not know who we are fighting, they know full well the enemy is. so did the intelligence and law enforcement officers who spent countless hours disrupting plots and protecting all americans, including politicians who tweet. and appear on cable news shows. they know who the nature of the enemy is. there is no magic to the phrase "radical islam." it is a political talking point, not a strategy and the reason i am careful about how i describe this threat has nothing to do with political correctness and

everything to do with actually defeating extremism. isl and al qaeda want to make this war a war between islam and america. ,ark: that was intense president obama at the white house. ly voters ofe avoiding the term makes america look weak in the fight against terrorism. pretty split and within the margin of error. john, president obama and hillary clinton on the other. who is getting the better of the argument? john: let me just say this depiction we have seen today, is a striking thing to watch and it is something you will see a lot of during the course of the general election. that poll number we cited was interesting. the fact that there is some

is ontoat trump something, at least in a narrow way, that the public is on his side. ofis also the case on a lot matters that trump has put forward in our poll suggests the democrats that he is really in the wrong place, the suggesting yesterday that maybe obama was weak on terrorism because he is on the side of muslims, a wide majority of people disagree with that, and they also are very strongly against the notion of increasing surveillance on muslims living in america. onan see why he is focused the language issue. it is one of the few areas substantively where he has a bit of a strong hand. definitely breaking down along partisan lines but it is

testament to the confidence hillary clinton and the president have that hillary clinton has the upper hand over all on foreign policy in their view, that they are both going after him in a very, and they are not hiding from it. this is an issue donald trump has talked about for months. they have not engaged on it. they believe they are in a moment of time when confronting trump even where he thinks he is on offense of and may very well be on offense is what they think is the right thing to do and they are feeling confident enough to do it. think,hey also think, i they are translating this not into just a policy discussion but a character discussion and trying to make it clear that the way he talks makes him unfit to be president of the united states will be a key part of hillary clinton's argument going forward. democrats are not the only ones that have a problem with donald trump's reaction to the orlando shooting. in his speech, republican leaders seemed to be distancing themselves on both policy and political grounds from the party's presumptive nominee.

senator bob corker who praised trump's last major foreign-policy address and was spoken of as a potential running mate told reporters today that his remarks, trump as he remarks were not what corker expected in that corker was "discourage" by the campaign donald trump is running. this is what house speaker ryan said about the proposed temporary ban on muslims entering the united states. speaker ryan: i do not think a muslim ban is in our best interest. i think the smarter way to go in all respects is to have a security test and not a religious test. john: mark, in the past, trump has clearly benefited politically by projecting strength in moments of national crisis, especially in the context of the republican nomination but we are seeing hearty leaders staying silent or rejecting his position. the concerns are growing among

republicans that trump may be losing new cycles but the entire general election before it even really begins. what do you think are the sources of that more pervasive sense of concern among republicans about trump's standing with the electric? -- electorate? mark: they do not see an organization being built and they are worried that the convention planning is going to slow for some of them. they see private data that suggest trump's performance of the last 10 days have heard him and he controversy and not talking about issues like the economy and change in washington like he did last tuesday that made them feel better about the campaign. again, but around right now the biggest thing going on in the presidential race in a lot of the media and republicans think that this thing is being cooked right now in a way that will be difficult for him to recover from. john: you and i spoke to a lot

of smart strategist and we talked about it on the show, the notion that presidential campaigns are won or lost not in the fall but in the spring and early summer. trump's comments about the judge come a lot of people talking about that, not only were they bad for trump but they also could not have come at a worse time and then to see the reaction in republican leaders to trump's speech yesterday, his tweet on sunday, his attack on president obama on the morning shows yesterday, although that has created a sense of, this is a mode he has normally benefited from but people are running and turning tail. i feel like they would not be running them in the same way they are if they did none of the sense this is a sinking ship for all of the reasons you just described. mark: they find it difficult to accept the fact that he will not stop making unforced errors. how can he turn this around? john: i am increasingly of the view that a guy who is donald

trump, a guy that is 69 years old, has been the character he has been for as long as he has been and is that so many positive reinforcements for the behavior that he has exhibited both as a businessman and a candidate is just unlikely to change. people in the republican party are praying for him to suddenly become more presidential, to pivot, they are barking up the wrong tree. i do not know. i can imagine a million things that donald trump could do to turn this around. my question is, does he have it in him or any inclination to do those things? so far, there is no evidence. mark: he needs to take a really successful running mate, some of it is ready to be president from day one and broadens his brand of little bit. he needs a great convention and a great first of a. all of those things are in his grasp but he better be planning those things now because if he approaches those in the same ad hoc way he approaches everything

else, he will not pull off the trifecta. more these will be even important than usual, but the question is, even if he does those things you suggested, whether it is too late if he has done enough damage to himself already. up next, the great and powerful. pollster shows us what is behind the curtain of the bloomberg national politics poll. ♪

♪ mark: welcome back. with ann sulzer from des moines, iowa. thank you for coming back on. >> always great to be here. mark: i want to talk about

hillary clinton. she has a 12 point lead in the national horserace poll among most likely voters. let's talk about the groups that are powering that big lead. >> this is the first time, mark, that we have measured a third-party candidate in the race, so she does well with the traditional groups you would expect her to do well with. her numbers are not quite as high if you are trying to compare back to 2012 and a lot of people are playing that game, how is she doing with this particular group it issued she going to be about to get the number? the groups she does well with other groups would expect, nonwhite groups, nonmarried, non-male, women. she is doing very well with those groups, as you would expect. she is also winning a majority of the under 35 age group and i think that is going to really breathe the bright spot for her in this poll -- be the bright spot for her in this poll and it is because the bernie sanders people are coming on board with hillary clinton.

she gets 55% of people that say they supported bernie sanders in the nominating contest. that is 55%. she is still losing a total of 40%, 40 points to donald trump into gary johnson. that is something to take a look at. john: looking at the other side of the aisle, donald trump, in terms of his support, he is obviously pretty far behind hillary clinton, but who is with him and who is against him? >> his support, if you look at the groups that are most likely to support him are the mirror image of the clinton group. he does well with whites, white , he does wellen with men and whites anyway you take a look at it. i think the additional thing he has going for them are evangelicals, the one area where using his strongest support. as donald trump was a, the

evangelicals love him. >> they do. poll say abouthe their suspected weaknesses, trump and clinton? >> one of the things we wanted to check in with our things that of an going on, things that of a about, things they have been charging each other with. withothered are voters what is being said about the candidates? four hillary clinton, the thing that bothers people the most about her is the wall street speeches. i mean, that is the reason you heard bernie sanders beat up on her, the reason trump will likely be up on her. -- beat upon her. 50% say they are bothered a lot by that kind of talk. by comparison, for donald trump, you talked earlier about his comments of the mexican judge in his comments, 55% say that bothered them a lot and you bans,d about those muslim a

51% said that bothered them a lot. 60% or bothered by the way he talks about women. when we say he is losing with women in women re: majority of the electorate and he is losing language part of this, the semantics part of this is part of what is driving people to say, look, that does not sound presidential. that does not sound like the candidate i want to support. john: we got a bunch of questions in the week of orlando about the polls, so a smaller sample but we did ask very specific things and one of them ans on an assault weapons b which hillary clinton is really pushing, kicking it back in the debate. what if we learned about the polls and how they feel about that proposal? >> the american public is divided. it is just about half and half saying that they agree that

there should be a abn on assault saleson assault weapons were civilians and about half say they disagree with that. it is one of the issues that there is a cleavage in the american electorate about what to do with that kind of thing. ann. ok, thank you very much for joining us. we appreciate it. when we come back, we check in on the democratic unity project, right after this. ♪

♪ >> what happens to your global initiative if your wife is president?

mr. clinton: we will do the right thing. there were clearly be some changes to the foundation with how we do it and we would just have to cross that bridge when we come to it. john: that was bill clinton talking to bloomberg television at the clinton global initiative conference today in atlanta when he spoke to voters in washington dc. they finally get the chance to cast their ballot in the last nomination contest in 2016. we are more focused on what happens after the polls close in the nation's capital and bernie sanders is expected to meet with hillary clinton to discuss the future of his campaign. sanders huddled with close advisers as he mulls his next move. today during a press availability in washington dc he did not offer his endorsement and said the democratic party .eadership needs to change while sanders is talking about the possibility of keeping his campaign alive, he has been shedding staff, stopping the

critical comments against clinton in public. where does the prospect of democratic unity stand? mark: i think he would get out and a "normal candidate" will be on the trajectory to stop hitting secretary clinton but he wants to go into philadelphia with guns somewhat blazing, still trying to change the democratic party. i think he will be out of the race of effectively but we will have to wait until philadelphia to see the frame of mind he is in to make changes that continue to press on the roll call for as many votes as possible. john: i do get matters a lot what happens putting him in hillary clinton and hillary clinton what is going on behind the scenes. there are two places you can push for change, one on the platform and the other on the process of nominating president and it is obvious from the things he said today and other things he has been saying privately, much more focused on the latter of doing opened a primary registration going

forward. i think it is likely hillary will be fine giving us things to him which will put things on track toward a yo more unified convention. mark: you are seeing so much attention on unity and the symbolism we are seeing even other had to cancel their event because of orlando. president obama double-teaming donald trump. it does not mean bernie sanders is a relevant but they're capturing a lot of the energy of the party without his being on board in that reduces his leverage. john: when we come back, we'll talk to the libertarian nominee for vice president. what he says about his hopes for the election and the news in the last 48 hours, right after this. ♪

♪ john: joining us now is the only 2016 candidate so far campaigning to become the vice president of the united states, former governor of massachusetts

, william weld who is running on the libertarian party ticket with gary johnson. governor, thank you for being here. we are going to spend a little bit of the segment talking about what is going on. we have heard from hillary clinton, heard from donald trump, heard from barack obama about what should be done about preventing more instances like what happened in orlando. -- weld: these alone bowls loan wolves acting by inspiration, they are tough to combat and i think the way to do it is too treated it as one big, enormous organized crime case. we did this successfully in the 1970's and 1980's and took out the top three echelons of organized crime scrambling bits of information from all over and i successfully used a hotline to take out narcotics in boston. you get the world's biggest

hotline, whistleblower and you hire 1000 new fbi agents and transfer season fbi agents with experience in counterterrorism to sift the evidence that comes from all over and that is a you get the predication for a search warrant or a wiretap double help -- that will help you make a real case. the tragedy in this case was that guy was investigated twice and when those investigations were close, his name was removed. that should have never happened, not when the stakes of this high. john: before you were governor in the 1990's, you were in the justice department. mr. weld: i was head of the criminal division of the justice department in washington under reagan. i had all of this shooting massacre, terrorism, cia, fbi. john: in terms of domestic enforcement, do you think that the fbi needs new tools, greater electronic surveillance, on the ground surveillance?

mr. weld: you need resources dedicated to treating isis and its spawn in the united states, particularly as one vast far-flung criminal conspiracy like the organized crime in the 1980's. that is what rudy giuliani did and that is what i did. you have to have a single brain which would be this 1000 person task force, sifting all of the evidence to make sure you can put all the pieces together and that if i you would've gotten a guy like this. mark: what you have laid out is not some different from what i've heard from a lot of republicans and even some democrats. for voters trying to understand what your party is about, how does the libertarian party, how does your ticket differ from donald trump, hillary clinton and barack obama? mr. weld: that is really a justice department proposal, not a libertarian proposal. it is based on my experience

under president reagan in the justice department. we had a lot of long-running grand jury investigations making big cases. that is how we took out the organized crime people. we took out the japanese, the jamaican posses, a task force dedicated to enron because they needed to have a dedicated set of personnel and that is what i am talking about here. applying task force by analogy to the organized crime strikeforce of the 1980's. mark: since 9/11, has the federal government passed any laws that have encroached on individual liberties that you object to? mr. weld: i think there were a couple things in the patriot act, some changes made there. the fact is -- mark: what specific provisions? mr. weld: i think there were a dozen or more in the rewrite back in 2005 and the principle was, you do not want the government compiling information of people with no predication

just because they want to have information like going to the library and saying, who is taking out books on world war ii? that is no good. if you have two instances of a guy that is saying, i know terrorists and i know people and i want to kill people, that is a totally different thing. that is what we call predication and that enables you to keep stitching that evidence together. mark: let me ask you about the signature proposals of a major -- the major party candidates. let's start with donald trump. his signature proposal is, a temporary ban on muslims and says we should have a ban on all muslim immigrants that have countries with proven terrorist ties. how do you feel about that proposal? mr. weld: it is unworkable and unrealistic. mr. trump is not frustrating a deep knowledge of international affairs. fresh mr. trump is not portraying a deep knowledge of

international affairs. you cannot exclude people based on their religions as i think speaker ryan or somebody pointed out today. it would inflame the situation and make it worse and we would probably have a worse lone wolf, copycat ratio without that. i think that is a poor idea. john: secretary and clinton and barack obama think the answer is, part of the answer lies in more stringent gun safety measures, particularly banning the sale on assault weapons, reviving the 1990's assault weapon ban. how do you feel about that? mr. weld: i am not one that thinks the gun commits the offense. the ar-15 was a standard military rifle, standard five shot rifle and if you alter it, which is a legal, removing the pin and make it fully automatic or put in a clip or a magazine of 20 or 50 shells, of course, that is quite different but that is an independent offense. john: you think the democrats have it wrong and the republicans have it wrong dealing with this problem? mr. weld: yes. i think the people in the justice department. the head of the fbi was a deputy

attorney general and a good one. loretta lynch headed the attorney's office in new york and she knows this stuff. if it is just a question of resources, the stakes are so high. i think you do have to acknowledge that there is such a thing as islamic jihad and that is the name of the game here and that is the case that has to be made and that is what isis is all about. mark: what would you say in the realm of national security and foreign policy is barack obama's greatest achievement as president? mr. weld: i am a bad person to ask because i think the iran deal, buying 10 years of slowdown, that is a long time and i do think, i had a lengthy conversations with the former president of iran and became persuaded that the people of iran really do want to tilt western. my hope is in those 10 years, they will tilt western and that

would be a great blow. mark: why does that make you a bad person to ask? mr. weld: because i am the only former republican of the united states that things like that. -- thinks that. john: some think that makes you a good person. mr. weld: i give him an enormous amount of credit for that. the whole world was screaming at him and he stuck to his guns and he got it done. john: governor weld, we are not done with you. you will have a little bit more interrogation after the break. if you are watching us in washington dc, you can also listen to us on the radio. we will be right back. ♪

♪ mark: we are back with bill weld, the libertarian party

candidate for vice president, also the former governor of massachusetts. on the last segment, you referred to yourself as a republican and then corrected yourself. mr. weld: it just popped out. mark: a lot of people in the party at the convention question your shift from the republican party to the libertarian party. headhat a switch from your , gut or heart? some people suspect it was a matter of convenience. mr. weld: it did not seem like a switch to me. i have always self identified as a libertarian. i studied the father of the libertarian movement and i was never comfortable with socially conservative movement part of the republican platform and , so iox in social issues always had to wear that on my back. in a way, i now feel free at

last now that i do not have to support that part of the republican party dogma. mark: one area where you are libertarian on economic policy, i just want you to explain the republicans signed the american disabilities act into law, you are a big 10th amendment guy. why should washington tell the state of massachusetts and private businesses there how they have to spend money to configure their businesses so that people with disabilities can be customers? mr. weld: i suspect you the libertarian party platform would not espouse that. i think that was the older bush. i knew it was very important to him, so i more than sat still for that and the family leave act. i do not know about that. hearts and flowers took over for me. family makes my heart go pitter pat. i think those were both h w bush

and i did support both of them. to roll back the american with disabilities act and say we are going to take out all of these ramps, that would be a bit much. john: if i were going to describe you as cecile richards on social matters and steve forbes on economic matters, you would not reject those? mr. weld: no, that is right. i was always a jack kemp guy. i think steve forbes was probably a jack kemp guy. we tried to get christie whitman elected of governor of new jersey. john: on the social side, abortion on demand, a ok? partial-birth abortion, a-ok? mr. weld: i am not sure i want the government making any of those decisions. john: that is what i mean. you do not believe there should be any restrictions placed on those kinds of activities? mr. weld: a bunch of men in washington making decisions about what some woman is going

to do about the most intimate of her decisions? no. that does not start for me. john: governor johnson is most famous and about to get more famous as you guys begin campaigning about legalizing drugs. how far would you go with legalizing drugs. just marijuana, hard drugs, everything? mr. weld: i have endorsed the marijuana legalization ballot measure in massachusetts for this year. i found that kind of a close one. when i was a prosecutor we used to say that marijuana was a gateway drug. i do not know. i just the alcohol doing so much more damage than marijuana. i can see a logical argument for it. the other stuff is contextual at this point. john: you do not want to go as a hard-core libertarian that says, full free market that says all drugs, all the way, up to cocaine and heroin? mr. weld: i think these are states issues perhaps not

federal issues, but let's see what happens with the few states that of the marijuana and it will be an indicator. the jury seems to be mixed on colorado right now. mark: on domestic policy, what has been president obama's greatest achievement? mr. weld: i endorsed him in 2008 and i thought he had a disappointing first term. i think he started to pick it up a little bit the last 18 months or so. of course, i very much agree with them on cuba and executive orders that he did with immigration, so it is easy to think a president is doing a better job once he starts doing things you very much agree with. mark: to get elected president, you and your front running mate, governor johnson would have to win some big states. what are some big states you are aiming to win? mr. weld: i think at this point we just went to have the contrast made between us and the two major parties. we do not agree with either major party.

we are socially compassionate, inclusive. we are fiscally conservative. we were rated the two most fiscally conservative governors in the united states in the early and mid-1990's, so we really cut the budget, we know how to do that. we think that the democrats, to judge by the primary this year would probably raise taxes and spend a lot, a lot of money that we think hollows of the economy beyond a certain point. mark: as a wider audience gets to know you although you have been a player on the national stage, tell people about your family. mr. weld: i have been married twice, have five kids to my first wife, susan roosevelt and three stepchildren with my second wife leslie marshall. i grew up in a teddy roosevelt household. my second wife is a writer so i am really the father of eight. it keeps you young.

john: that is an impressive achievement on its own. i want to ask you about economics just because you talk about being conservative on economics, not wanting to spend a lot of government money and not a lot of tax either. when you look at hillary clinton's platform and what she advocates and you look at donald trump's, which of those, which concerns you more? there are a lot of republicans that fine trump as problematic as a democratic platform. mr. weld: i do not have a sense of the spending level of mr. trump's proposals. i think they are all over the place. they have evolved as the campaign season has gone on. i think, and i thought wednesday forbes ran for president and got into the flat tax pretty deeply, i think you could run a generous federal government relatively on a 19% flat tax and if you really wanted to cinch your bill you could run on a 17% flat tax.

both of those figures are where below what we have now. gary johnson is more attracted to the idea of a consumption tax, and we will talk it through, but that seems a little regressive. big tax reform, yes. john: one of the places where they are in agreement, neither one of them is a full free trader at this point. mr. weld: that is awful. that is awful. john: how do you feel about that issue? mr. weld: i think it is inexcusable to say they do not support the transatlantic partnership. again, i am with the administration and i am certain about that. since the time of reagan and clinton and nafta, i can remember being in the bill clinton white house with newt gingrich and myself and bill clinton counting votes with two days to go on the north american free trade agreement. i think it is doubtful that mrs. clinton would sign the free-trade agreement or the welfare reform act of 1996 if it came to her desk now. that is the one that put in the work requirement for welfare. i thought clinton did a good job

moving to the center. john: one last question, what was your biggest accomplishment that you are most proud of is -- as governor? mr. weld: we put in the work requirement for welfare and the expense dropped 75% the next year. to me, that indicated that that was a good idea. the other one was we put in standards for high-stakes testing for fourth, eighth and 10th grade and ever since then, massachusetts ranks number one in reading and mathematics. that is obviously good for children. john: i do not think there is more of a governor more energetic about st. patrick's day. mr. weld: that went with the territory. mark: thank you for coming on. we will see you out there. we appreciate it. we will be right back with a little bit more on our new bloomberg politics national poll right after this. ♪

♪ mark: we are back with a little bit more from our brand new bloomberg politics national poll, the first major telephone survey done of the nation since the orlando shooting. there have been a lot of policy ideas, political insinuations flying around, so we thought we would test a couple of them. one thing we ask likely voters was whether like some republicans have an argument, law enforcement agencies should increase surveillance of muslim communities in america, even if it conflicts with civil liberties. the voters we talked to did not like that very much. only 27% said they agreed with the proposal to increase surveillance and 69% said they disagree. john, it is rare that america ns side it with civil liberties. this is good news for the

clinton campaign, politically and surprising that it is so high in the wake of what happened over the weekend. john: i am surprised. who knows, as we have set a -- said a couple of times, we had one night in the field after orlando as we get these questions and. it may be in the coming days that these numbers change as the core of orlando sinks and deeper. i agree with you. it is surprising that these numbers are that wide, especially when you think about other questions that we asked on this poll that were a lot closer, as we discussed earlier, the split on the assault weapons ban is 50% to 50%. , veryroposal here unpopular and will give clinton a lot of confidence in the arguments she is making if she sees that number. another thing we asked voters, something some republicans have also been insinuating, including donald trump most forcefully, president obama has not taken forceful action to stop the

domestic terrorism because he sort of sides with muslims. 30% said they likely agree with that statement. 61% sayin, big number, they disagree. so again, mark, one of the areas where we are less polarized than we may have thought and where donald trump is finding less purchase than what it would've assumed if one looked at how will those things fared during a republican nomination. mark: most of that support for donald trump's positions coming from republicans. given the gap means he is not getting much democratic support and a lot of independence -- independents citing against him on that. that will be interesting to see. donald trump has been under a lot of pressure from democrats and the press and some republicans to start moderating some of his positions on issues of controversy to try to focus more on the economy, to focus on the record of obama with foreign

policy rather than emphasizing the issues related to national security, civil liberties, immigration, muslim-americans and this will create for a lot of republicans a concern that donald trump has from their point of view emphasizes the wrong things. john: interesting and sort of confusing given the fact that there was these opinions on a lot of trump's proposals, still a margin of 45-41 trump is seen by voters as better to handle commander if he were a year from now. he still has some cards to play in this area. mark: of all the numbers in the poll, that will be the number to find the most heartening. the reality is secretary clinton would like to be ahead on the number. she would like to think that americans see her experience better equipping her for that, and again, a small lead, within

shows you of error that strength is still his biggest calling card when it comes to national security. we are going to have more from our national poll including president obama's favorable rating on our website. you can look at it right now at bloomberg politics.com and more data on the poll. we will be right back. ♪

♪ john: coming up on a bloomberg west, until tomorrow for me and mark, sayonara. ♪

♪ it is wednesday, the 15th of june. this is "trending business". .nd i am rishaad salamat ♪ we will be taking you to singapore, sydney, kuala lumpur, and taipei. brexit concerns adding to anticipation about central-bank meetings. polls suggesting britain will leave the european union next week. the bookies don't agree. verge and australia