good evening, it is an exciting night, get ready, iowa, the first contest of the 2016 election a few hours away. we're focusing republicans in the last hour. now the democrats and the race could not be closer. bernie sanders, hillary clinton, a statistical dead heat.

out there campaigning as we speak. dueling events in des moines. secretary clinton leading narrowly, bringing out her husband, facing big questions about her state department emails from the media and others, senator sanders hoping to maintain his momentum for another 24 hours. joining us, brianna keilar in des moines. has senator clinton spoken yet? >> she's not spoken yet. she's scheduled to speak right now. in this point in the evening, candidates are running a little late. we're should be seeing her very soon along with her husband and daughter chelsea. a they enthusiastic crowd. talking to folks who were part of the clinton campaign back in 2008. they said that this was a very different feeling in 2007. going into 2008. that they are much more optimistic about how things are shaping up. hillary clinton has been emphasizing today, that she'll be a more effective president than bernie sanders.

that sheeting able to get things done. but bernie sanders has a lot of enthusiasm and he's been talking about making history. and really telling people that it's time for a political revolution. something that certainly anderson, many of his reporters connect with. >> we talked with someone from the clinton campaign who said they're not hearing any emails from the clinton campaign. has hillary talked about the email issue? >> she did. she was asked about it on abc. one of the things she said was diane feinstein, who is the top democrat on the intelligence committee has had a chance to look at these 22 emails that the state department is not releasing because they're top secret. she said diane feinstein confirmed they do not have classified markings and they didn't originate from hillary clinton. we saw hillary clinton say these were things that did not have markings, if you're sending something that's classified, it should have a marking on it.

and so it seems that she was sort of indicating that if there was some mess-up where someone sent classified information she didn't know about it and that it wasn't she who sent it. it was someone else. >> brianna keilar, thanks very much. clinton event, sanders side, a change in tone from the candidate. an issue or nonissue. senator sanders once said he was sick and tired of hearing about her damn emails, now he's saying something else. jeff zeleny has more of that in his closing drive. bernie sanders on the morning shows addressed the clinton email saga. what was he saying? >> well anderson he did say this is not an issue that voters care about right now. he said that iowa voters should not be burdened with this. he said it's a serious issue. those were carefully chosen words, anderson. he said it's a very serious issue. he said that's legal process under way that will have to play itself out. the translation of that is that you know look she's under investigation by the justice department. and this is not over.

we've asked him and his advisers if there's any change in you know his tone from when he told you at that debate. enough of the damn emails. they say he's not going to bring it up on the campaign trail because democratic voters don't care about it. democratic voters are not concerned about it. that's not saying it's not an electability issue overall. as this campaign moves forward from a, if there's an independent voters and it moves across the country, if this becomes an electability concern we may hear senator sanders talk more about it so him saying it was a serious issue is an interesting development in his language, anderson. >> his campaign also announced they've raised $20 million in january online. i think i saw him, correct me if i'm wrong that the huge majority of those donations were very small amounts of money. $20 and the like. not from huge big donors, what does that say about his national roots? >> i'm going to rally, you can see him speaking behind me.

he announced it to the rally not long ago. said the average contribution was $27. the crowd cheered. he made a direct contrast to the fact that there's superpacs supporting hillary clinton. everyone is maxing out to her. this shows he has incredible reach. he's had more than $3.2 million individual contributions, if he wins the iowa caucuses tomorrow night. some of his advisers believe he can raise $25 million in one or two days. that changes the game here in terms of how he'll finance this campaign. this is way more than barack obama ever did. so it's a new moment of campaign financing. this is for a country a few months ago no one thought would be this competitive. this will insure this will go on for a long time. jeff zeleny, thank you very much. we've been hearing from campaign strategists all evening.

joining us now is sanders campaign manager jeff weaver. this fundraising, more than $20 million average donation, $27 each, pretty extraordinary, given the kind of donations we've seen to other candidates. >> yeah, no, anderson he's revolutionizing how one funds a presidential campaign this time. he's demonstrating in fact when you speak to the needs of working people, middle income people. you don't have do beg money from millionaires and billionaires and wall street in order to fund your campaign. if people support you, you can fund a presidential campaign that's competitive with small dollar contributions from people all across the country. >> so jeff at the first democratic debate, senator sanders said the american people were sick and tired of hearing about the damn emails. is that still senator sanders' opinion today? because today on cnn he said it was a serious issue. >> let's be clear. that's whey said then.

in his interview with chris cuomo after the debate he said that's process going on. let's let the process work itself out. the media, whether it's cnn or abc, they keep asking about it over and over again. it's not an issue he raises. when they do, he says look it's a serious issue, there's a process going on, we're going to let it work itself out. >> i'm going to talk about the issue facing middle income and working people in this country. the media ask the question. he gives them an answer that's basically no, i don't want to talk about it. then look he's talking about it. that seems to be what's going on here. >> good to put it in context. jeff i have other folks who want to ask you questions. >> obviously you're planning your campaign, you know about these headlines. senator sanders has been very blunt in saying he questions hillary clinton's judgment when it comes to her vote for the iraq war comparing her to dick cheney at one point. in her meetings, the senator with the senior staff, have you raised the question, should we make the email issue, having a private email server, should we make that a judgment issue?

>> no, we never have. we never have had that conversation. it's always been the position in the campaign that the email issue, look there's an investigation going on being carried out by the obama administration, it's going to go where it goes. and we'll just going to let it go let's not politicize it. let's let them have the investigation, let us talk about the issues, let's talk about a wealth and income inequality. a rigged economy, held up by a corrupt system of campaign finance. that's why we've gone from single digits to almost winning at this point. so we think that the message we have is right. we're talking to the anxieties and needs and desires of the american people. talking about the need to make college affordable. about making health care for all. these are the issues that people are concerned about. that's what he's talking about and it's resonating. >> hey jeff, it's david axelrod. congratulations on a great campaign. let me ask you a question, is it possible that you've overshot the runway a little bit here? that is to say, if you don't win tomorrow night, is there a

potential for a letdown among your troops who have been charging toward this date? >> look, david, i would say tonight without having had a single caucus person come in. we have already had a success here in iowa. nobody, nobody, nobody, who is sitting with you or is in this television station, if i had told you back in june we were going to be tied with secretary clinton the night before the iowa caucuses, you would have said i was insane, right? look how far we've come? from single digits to almost tied. are we going to get over the top? if people come out and caucus tomorrow, we'll get over the top. is it possible we'll be a couple of points short? it's possible. we've come a long way, this is a tremendous victory. we're going to go into new hampshire. where recent polls show us ahead and continue on this campaign. we have the resources to go all the way to the convention. >> jeff, always good to talk to you, thank you very much. >> thanks, anderson. jeff weaver. next we look at the clinton event which appears to be rolling along.

we'll look at what happens when voters get together to caucus. coming up, donald trump and expectations, jeffrey lord says if he wins tomorrow he could run the table. hear how he's changing his own tune on winning. the possible strategy. make a dep-- rescan item. rescan, rescan. res-res-res... rescan item. vo: in the nation, we bring something surprising to business insurance. (woman on phone) main menu... representative. please say or... representative. main menu. representative. we'll have you back in business in no time. actual service. oh! join the nation. ♪ nationwide is on your side representative?

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that just tastes better. with more vitamins. and 25% less saturated fat. only eggland's best. better taste. better nutrition. better eggs. welcome back. as we watch the candidates make their last pitch to voters before the iowa caucuses, we're looking at another kind of sales job. the act of setting expectations, mostly that means not raising them too high in order to

survive falling short. >> right now you and i are sitting in new hampshire, i have a very substantial lead in new hampshire. i think it would be really good to win iowa. i'd like to win iowa, i'm doing really well with the evangelicals in iowa. but i'm also doing tremendously well all over the country with the evangelicals, i'm leading by a lot. doing great with the tea party. doing well with all groups. i now have a fairly substantial lead in iowa. think we have a good chance of winning iowa. i'd like to. >> that would donald trump yesterday. we chose that sound byte for a simple reason, downplaying expectations is something that candidates did all the time. something that trump hardly does at all. in fact just the opposite. >> i will win. i'll bring in states that nobody ever thought of. honestly we're going to win so much. we're going to win on trade. we're going to win with our military. >> i want to win, okay? you know we like it win, we know how to close deals, i close, i'm a closer. >> we will beat isis very quickly, folks. i beat china all the time.

we're going to win and then we're going to beat hillary or whoever the hell they put in front of us. we're going to win so much. we're going to win so much. we're going to have win after win after win. you people are going to get sick and tired of winning. you're going to say please, please, president trump, we can't take this much victory. please, stop. we don't want any more wins. and i'm going to say to you, we're going to win, i don't care what you say, we're going to make our country great again. we're going to win, we're going to win, and we're going to win. >> wow. that's a lot of winning. donald trump as we've come to know him leading some opponents and election watchers to speculate that he's got a glass jaw that all it will take to defeat him is one or two defeats in the face of all that boasting. but people have been wrong about donald trump the entire time. joining us is timothy o'brien. author of "trump nation." trump sued, trump lost. full disclosure on all of that. tim, the fact that trump who has

maybe set the world record for use of the word "win" over the past eight months, tempering his language on iowa what do you make of that? >> maybe he's just hedging his bets. he'll stay in the game even if he doesn't win iowa. i think he's probably going to be the republican nominee based on what the polls look like. he's got a good chance to run the table throughout the month of february. i don't think he's going away any time soon. but i think he's got a closer race right now in iowa with ted cruz than probably either of the them expected. >> just for accuracy sake, was the lawsuit a dismissed or did you win? >> it was tossed out of court. >> okay. when it comes to the trump approach, the almost binary universe, consisting of winners and losers, has he always sort of operated like that laid life out in those terms? >> i think donald begins exaggerating the second he steps out of bed in the morning. he's a profound narcissist.

and he gets a lot of traction out of repeating themes time and time again. like he's a winner, he said in the clip you just showed, that he's beaten china all the time. i actually can't think of a single major deal that he's ever been involved with that involved beating china. but i think we're in an era on social media and in political campaigns where candidates clearly are getting away with saying a lot of things about their own track record and their own effectiveness as a candidate or in his case as a businessman that actually aren't true when you look at the record. >> but there is a certain sort of, hypnotic power to repeating a phrase over and over and over again. even if it is not factually correct. i mean if you commit to it as he does, time and time again, it does bring, it certainly has a power of its own. >> it sure does. >> whether that's fair or not, true or not. >> no question that it's effective, i mean what he is very good at is he's an

effective self-promoter and he stays on message. he's been able to simply pound the same kinds of themes across two voters and it's clearly gotten traction. and he can't be dismissed because of that he's touched a nerve. but the reality is, he's, he's had a very poor track record as a businessman. and he hasn't been an effective administrator or an executive, that's essentially the run, the office that he's running for. >> is that true? to all outsiders it seems he's incredibly, he's hugely successful. he's obviously appears to be a billionaire, multiple times over. >> let's look at the fact of the matter. he ran a publicly traded casino company during the decade or so that he ran it it was never profitable. he ran into the ground. he put it through four bankruptcies. he lost all sorts of real estate holdings, because he wasn't financially disciplined. he didn't manage the debt he

took out from a large number of gullible banks and the person who emerged after the failures is a reality tv star, a golf course developer and a human shingle who licenses his name out for everything from mattresses to underwear. >> it's interesting because as president, you don't always get what you want. you have to compromise, is compromise, according to trump the same thing as losing. he has said time and time again, i make deals, i can make deals with everybody. i get along with a lot of different people. >> we're certainly in a political era now with gridlock in washington, where the art of political compromise i think unfortunately has been lost. i do think the president has to be someone, he or she has to be someone who is an effective negotiator with a good temperment. he or she will have their finger on the nuclear button. and whether or not trump is something not only iowa caucusgoers have to pay

attention to. but voters in the general election. >> tim o'brien appreciate you being with us. i want to get the panel's take on this. donald trump has repeatedly said as president, i'll, i'll modify myself. i'll change a little bit. won't be quite so aggressive, my personality. do you think voters believe that? and do you think voters want that? >> sure. i think they believe it. you know he has built with all due respect to this gentleman, he has built this enormous business organization. which beyond doubt is successful. can you go through and cherry pick a failure here or there? sure, of course you can. everybody who has been a governor or a senator, has had failures. hillary clinton is running a second time for president, she failed the first time. >> that was axelrod's fault. >> he's got a good record with this i think people really do believe him and they trust him. >> there are those who are

concerned. there are evangelical vote who are are concerned. he is saying one thing now. >> ordinarily, this would be a weakness, this guy is so much of a flip-floppers. >> he needs a trampoline to practice in the back yard. >> ordinarily this level of flexibility, what it does, it lets people who like trump's attitude, but don't likes had mistreatment of this, excuse him. he's playing to the crowd. but inside he's really this way, he's that way. projection on to trump that makes him dangerous and scary. i don't like cruz, but i know where trump is coming from cruz is bad, but trump is scary. >> what evangelical vote remembers worried about with trump is he's not a true evangelical. trump's appeal to the establishment is that they think maybe he's a little more

malleable. because he has taken these assorted positions and he does want to cut deals. and so from their point of view, that kind of flexibility if you want to it that -- >> evangelical front. he's tried to play it both ways. he's tried to suggest i'm not scary like ben carson with that seventh-day adventist religion. i don't know about, it's christian. i'm more, i'm more down the road, i'm press bbyterianpresby. it's simple. he's trying to impress evangelicals on their home turf at liberty university with staunch evangelicals trying to recite from 2 cryptiancorinthia talking about taking the little cracker when he goes to church. >> he has probably the broadest support. he's leading among moderates. he's tied among tea party voters in iowa and second among

evangelicals. one mistake we make is to assume that evangelicals vote all of them on a narrow set of issues. many of them are among those that cadre of voters who he has appealed to on economic grounds. they're cross-pressured. >> a big part of the epeel with evangelicals is strength. a lot of evangelicals believe that they're under assault. i don't agree. a lot of fundamentalist christians believe that i hear a lot from people and friends of mine who are evangelicals who will say, obviously, 2 corinthians he doesn't go to church with me, i get that. but he will stand up and fight for me and my oppressed christian religion. >> that resonates with voters. >> to your point, paul. i'm looking at the des moines register poll and they ask several qualities and they test it against the republican candidates and the ones that donald trump led on is he would be the strongest leader by overwhelming. he would be most feared by u.s.

enemies. and so yes he is selling strength. i wrote a piece last week. i think that he is selling himself to republicans, as sort of the anti-thesis of barack obama. i think he is in every way the opposite of barack obama in this sort of muscular i'm going to kick their butt kind of thing. >> this is what the fox debate situation was all about. forget the internals of the fight. it was message i'm stronger. >> let's not overstereotype these evangelicals. yes, they care deeply about the life issue and the marriage issue, they care deeply about religious liberty. a lot of them have decided that their number one issue in the campaign are not those issues, they're voting on whether it's strength or even more so when you talk to them, dysfunction. they don't trust president obama, they don't like president obama but guess what, they don't like their own leadership. they think their own leadership has given them a shaft and turned them down. this is the china shop, washington, d.c., they want to

send the bull in and break everything. >> if you talk to voters, i talk to a woman when i was in iowa, and she said, she felt that donald trump was crazy. might get us into another world war. but she liked him anyway. as john said, he was a disrupter. it's amazing. a lot of these trump advocators, can make sort of a separation, with all of these things that they don't necessarily -- >> i think donald trump is to religion what ben carson is to foreign policy to a certain degree. he kind of tried to study up to say i love evangelicals, i'm like you. i get you, just the way ben carson -- >> let me wiki them. let me do a little google search. somehow it doesn't on that particular front, it doesn't come across as authentic. we saw it in randy kay's piece. before this voter.

>> leading the polls. among evangelicals. a lot more to talk about. we're going to look at a number of things. democratic bat until iowa, by the numbers guide coming up next. can a business have a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive? [ scanner beeping ] sir, could you step aside? "sir"? come on. you know who i am. progressive insurance? uh, i save people an average of over $500 when they switch? did you pack your own bags? oh! right -- the name your price tool. it shows people policy options to help fit their budget. [ scanner warbling ]

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we showed you about bernie sanders on the campaign trail earlier. we're going to wait for hillary clinton take the stage tonight in des moines. former iowa senator tom harken

and his wife ruth warming up the crowd. by this time tomorrow we'll be bringing you live coverage of the caucuses as they unfold. reporting the results late into the tonight. tonight a guide of sorts what to look for as the first numbers in the democratic race begin to roll in. back with us, john king, chief national correspondent. anchor of cnn's "inside politics." >> by this time tomorrow we'll know if the new software works, we'll see the results come in and look at the three-way race, sanders, clinton and martin o'mally. let's go back to david axelrod's favorite map in the history of american politics, iowa 2008. the results that put barack obama on the map and launched him. look at this out here in eastern iowa. hillary clinton went almost exclusively to barack obama. the major population center of polk county all for barack obama this is what hillary clinton has to change. we forget this sometimes. john edwards, you had a three-candidate race, this time

unless martin o'rally shocks us, it's a two-candidate race. >> southern rural areas, why are these important? let me take this out for a second. look at the margins, senator obama. a win in dubuque. in davenport. major populations, we went to illinois, how do you like that? come down here, this is part of the state here, the population centers, we'll come up if we want. look at the margin here, in the eastern part of the state. i visited some hillary clinton organization offices they're working much harder this time with the help of some people, who work for senator obama ate years ago in polk county, hillary clinton ran third last time. behind senator obama and senator edwards. with two candidates in the race, the college towns, ames and over

here in iowa city. this is where bernie sanders is expecting the young people to turn out for him. look at the major population centers, the romney map, it's the same for the democrats, des moines, seeder rapids, dubuque, davenport. ky tell you anderson when you visit the offices on the ground, they get it. they understand how they were outhustled in 2008. they say they have the better organization this time. we'll see what happens with the passion of the bernie sanders campaign. the big difference remember this time in a two-candidate race, they think they have the organization to do better. we'll know how it is starting to look. van you think people are still underestimating bernie sanders? >> i do. i think early on. if this were just an anybody but hillary moment. martin o'malley would be up to the numbers and it would be -- he has tapped into some discontent that is huge. if you look at the social media numbers, he's been dominating everybody except for donald trump the whole time.

nobody notices, if you look at his individual donors, small donors, more individual donors nan anybody in american history. if you look at his ability to get the sizeable crowds. it was almost like a black jound on him for a long time. i think it was a blessing in the blackout. what happened was he was able, he didn't get the help of the media the media didn't turn on him and the establishment tried to ignore him. now you've got somebody who is a real contender, i think still the view out there, that the rebellion on the republican side is crazy. but on our side it's a continue youl thing. he's tapped into some real frustration. disappointment in our party. people love obama, they don't always love the obama years, there's some pain and disappointment the past couple of years, a sense that the establishment still has not gotten a lesson. whether he wins or loses tomorrow, the establishment in this party needs to listen to bernie sanders and his supporters. >> you need an indication of how

seriously he is being taken now because coincidentally in the week leading up to iowa, you had a "washington post" editorial really scathing attacking bernie sanders. you had a box, his fiction-filled campaign. you had a vox.com piece on the exorbitant cost of his single-payer health plan. these are outlets that would not have run very rigorously against sanders. a couple of months ago and now i think people are wondering, wow, could hillary lose it to bernie sanders? let's get all in and make sure -- >> earlier, the hillary clinton campaign seems very confident. saying we're going to win. >> i like that they didn't try to spin and diminish expectation as lot. it's their job to win and there was one little synapse that fired when van said -- win or lose, no, you're in this to win. trump said this, he was right. if i don't win, this is all

wasted effort. hillary learned from losing last time. it was an expensive education. i disagree with van about the depth of the rebellion on the democratic side. it's not equal and opposite with the republicans. look at the data. iowa democrats, 91% approval rating of the president. democrats love the president. bill clinton has an 86% favorable. bernie has 82% favorable. hillary clinton has 80% favorable. nobody in the republican side has a number that high. it is different. >> the poll was taken primarily before the email controversy on friday. at this point do we know much about how that might fact interior iowa voters' minds? >> as jeff weaver on the sanders campaign said, most democrats don't care about this and hillary clinton benefits, i'm not saying it's not a serious issue. but hillary clinton benefits when republicans say she should be indicted and thrown in jail. because it allows her to say look at the republicans coming

after me to paul's point, you don't find a lot of democrats, even bernie sanders saying dislike hillary clinton. that's not the point. fair amount of them, democrats want change. hillary clinton is campaigning for the third term. thee says i'll be the continuity of barack obama. a lot of democrats, we live in these times where everything is churning in our politics. you run into people who want change. people saying hillary clinton is a change agent. you find people who love bernie sanders, you find them on the college campuses they don't remember the clintons, but you this know their yesterday and bernie sanders is talking about change. it's that's the dynamic. as much as some democrats saying let's try something new. >> if bernie sanders were say to lose, but just by a tiny amount, would that still be a win for bernie sanders because he overperformed. or does he have to win now. >> i think he's overshot the runway now i think anything short of a win will be the win

will be given to hillary clinton. so -- >> i get shocked when you guys did it in 2008. my son was a little burrito baby and we were in our little condo watching. we thought, we were for obama. we thought if he came in second that would be great. we assumed that hillary clinton was going to somehow pull off the clinton magic. when he came in first and she came in third, everybody in my world, our lives changed. bernie has squandered that opportunity by saying he could get there. >> obama's win there was so impressive. it wasn't a home game for him. >> he's from chicago, a community organizers. african-american. des moines is only big city in iowa and the rest of it is all rural. >> the point about the election, he was not the populist candidate in that election. jerds was tjohn edwards was the populist candidate.

the register asked a really interesting question. which is do you think the system is rigged against everyday people. well democrats by a large margin said rigged against people. but bernie was only leading by 11 points. she was crushing him among those who said they thought the system was working reasonably well. >> we've got to take a quick break. just ahead, what exactly is a caucus? we'll take you to a mock caucus to find out what goes on inside. think of it as a seven seat theater... for an action packed thriller. ♪ (cell phone rings) where are you? well the squirrels are back in the attic. mom? your dad won't call an exterminator... can i call you back, mom?

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on the eve of the iowa caucuses with all the polls and final campaigning and all the analysis. we have one important question, what is a caucus. randy kay went to a mock caucus to explain. >> we would like to get started. >> i would tlik call this republican caucus to order. >> we're going to caucusing as a republican. if you wouldn't mind filing in and taking your seat. >> caucus night in des moines, iowa. >> democratic caucus to order. >> not the real thing yet. just a mock caucus to teach first-time caucusgoers how it works. this training session is called wtfs a caucus? how many times have you asked yourself that? wtf is a caucus? >> a lot. i googled it. >> everything more confusing. >> can somebody here help the

situation. >> it's easy to get confused. republicans and democrats caucus on the same night. but they do it differently. on the republican side, voters hear a pitch from the candidate's surrogates, jeb bush junior surprised everything at this mock caucus. practicing his own selling skills before the big night. >> good evening, my name is jeb bush junior it's an honor to be tonight, drake bulldogs, hope you come out and caucus on monday night. >> republicans simply fill out a piece of paper, with the candidate they want. >> return it to your secretary. >> the votes are counted and a winner named for that caucus site. >> looks like jeb bush. >> democratic caucus, as you can see, you have no chairs, it's a little different from the republican caucus. >> now it's the democrats turn. >>. our process on the democrat side

is active, dynamic, there's a lot of engagement and enthusiasm. >> the democrats divide themselves into groups, each one supporting a different candidate. >> so if you like martin o'malley, you caucus with his supporters. drake student lara cox told us she's voting democratic but was still undecided. >> person in the nation to that everyone was watching and it goes away and no one cares about iowa any more. >> she was not -- >> lara first caucused with hillary clinton supporters. >> i think that hillary is so deep in the establishment that i don't know if she really wants to change things or if she just wants to be president. >> the whole goal of this thing is to get 15% -- >> then she caucused with bernie sanders' group. >> the race ends up with donald trump and bernie sanders. do you think bernie sanders could get any moderate republican votes? she feels pressure from both sides and time is running out.

>> how much time do we have? >> this is exactly what makes the democratic caucus so interesting. so much pressure from friends, neighbors, even roommates. to get others to vote their way. >> one of my roommates is over here, trying to convince me. and one of my roommates over here. i have to go home to one and they're going to be mad. >> lara decides to caucus for hillary clinton. mainly because she likes her experience. >> randy kay. cnn, des moines, iowa. >> just ahead, the candidates flooded the air waves with ads in iowa. 77 million dollars worth of take a look at what iowans have been seeing.

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welcome back. candidates are doing their final campaigning the night before the iowa caucuses. meanwhile, the attempt to win voters has been going on for quite awhile. candidates spent more than $77

million on advertising in iowa up to this week according to a leading ad tracking firm. take a look at what some have been seeing and hearing nonstop. ♪ >> i want you to know how much it has meant to me as i have travelled to the state to hear about people's hopes and struggles and i know that because of that i will be a better president if i'm elected. >> this election is about defeating hillary clinton and about saving what makes america unique. >> i'm pro choice in every respect. >> what does trump think about iowa. >> how stupid are the people of iowa? >> donald trump, new york values. not ours. >> i'm donald trump and i approve this message. >> sounded like he wanted the bill to pass. >> of course i wanted the bill to pass. >> my qualifications for

president of the united states are is he or she godly? does he or she love us? can he or she do the job? and finally would they kill a duck and put him in a pot and make him a good duck gumbo. i looked at the candidates, ted cruz is my man. he fits the bill. >> we can make real progress right now. >> i'm caucusing for hillary clinton. >> we listen to our hearts and that journey begins here in iowa. >> time we get someone in the white house who represents me. >> someone like marco rubio. >> go marco. >> i'm bernie sanders and i approve this message. >> back now with our panel. these things have been on the air waves. tonight marco rubio has a 30 minute time. >> he's running footage of his town halls. you can't escape them. you watch the news.

you want to watch during the news programs and i would go to the gym and put on college basketball and think i can escape. they get you there too. >> rubio is running this big town hall conclusion thing because he spent less there than anybody else and she is creating a virtual reality. >> do you think that's effective? so buy a 30 minute spot? >> we did it. it can be effective because it stands out from the 30 second ads that fly by so you might catch people's attention. i wonder given the intensity of the coverage however which trump has keyed i wonder how much ads have generally had an impact here as opposed to the media. i think the negative ads that trump and cruz have run against each other had some effect though because you look at the numbers in the iowa poll and they've seen a sharp decline just in the last two weeks. >> although the birther stuff according to the des moines register poll hasn't had that much of an impact.

>> but he's been advertising. >> that's right. i think the 30 minute ad allows you to cut through all the clutter to a great degree. put your biography out there in your words the way you want it out there and it's probably worth the expense. i don't know. do you think it was worth the expense? >> i'll let you know tomorrow. for us. by the time we did it, we did it in the general election and we were in such a strong position that it just augmented. >> but the negative ads had the impact, particularly with jeb bush and marco rubio of republicans saying why are we eating our own. and they're upset at jeb bush because they believe that marco rubio has a future with the party and could well become the nominee and they are, why are you attacking him? >> if you're jeb bush, your only chance is to do well in new hampshire and if marco rubio does well tomorrow night he's going to do well in new hampshire and that's the end of the bush campaign.

from the standpoint of jeb bush i understand why they're running those ads. >> he said, marco is running negative ads about me. >> i think the bernie sanders had probably the best ad of the season. i was in iowa. i was ironing my shirt and the song came on and you're drawn to the television to see that ad in a way that i think for the other ads you tune them out. >> did you burn your shirt? >> the burn. >> check the expense accounts. >> felt the burn? >> one of the things we're missing in terms of ads, donald trump like ronald reagan and arnold schwarzenegger and in iowa, a tv star, when a major cultural figure does this they're coming into a race with decades of free advertising for them. i mean, whatever it is. their brand, whatever. and i somehow think that this is helping fuel -- >> also donald trump to his credit, he has given more interviews than anybody else.

he has been more accessible. you can't say that donald trump has not put himself out there. >> he is everywhere. >> right. >> everywhere. he goes on the networks hostile to him and the ones friendly to him. >> what does it say about our culture that arnold schwarzenegger, fred dandy and donald trump are major cultural figures. >> we'll be right back. ♪ there it is... this is where i met your grandpa. right under this tree. ♪ (man) some things are worth holding onto. they're hugging the tree. (man) that's why we got a subaru. or was it that tree?

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that does it for us. thanks for watching. we'll see you again at 11:00 p.m. eastern. our countdown to iowa continues. erin burnett out front starts now. >> next a special edition of "outfront" we're live in iowa right now. one day before the caucuses deadlocked between trump and cruz and clinton and sanders. trump making one of his final pitches live in this hour. plus donald trump's sons on new york values, their family's religion and why their dad never sleeps and with the clinton sanders race too close to call right now. could it all come down to martin o'malley. good evening, and welcome to our viewers in the united states and around the world tonight. you're watching in this countdown to the