the guy in the blue is not that bad, but the other team. >> and they all know it because look, they're just standing back and letting him go. this is what you needed to see on a sunday morning. going to get you going. thank you for starting your morning with us. >> "inside politics" starts right now. donald trump at ground zero in america's immigration debate. >> we're going to build a wall, and we're going to stop it. it's going to end. >> arizona and utah are big tests of trump's momentum. and at whether ted cruz, as they say in the west, is all hat and no cattle. >> we're seeing republicans unite all across this country. >> plus bernie sanders tests a new dig at hillary clinton. >> and let me say a word or two about my good friend donald trump. just kidding. he's not my good friend. in fact, i never even went to

one of his weddings. >> the west should bring sanders some wins, but will they be big enough to change clinton's giant delegate edge? "inside politics," the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters now. welcome to "inside politics." i'm john king. thanks for sharing your sunday morning. there are two republican and six democratic contests in the week ahead. and three questions for this next phase of a fascinating presidential race. one, the map just ahead is favorable to bernie sanders, but can he win by big enough margins to make a real dent in hillary clinton's big lead in the delegate chase? >> we have a path toward victory that goes right through idaho! >> question two, can donald trump keep winning and with margins that keep the magic number of 1237 delegates within his reach? >> we've won now, i think, 21 states, okay? 21. and we've won in massive,

massive landslides. >> and question three, and this is a big one, can the stop trump movement prove itself to be more than just talk? meaning could ted cruz or john kasich start consistently beating trump on election days? >> i don't know if john kasich is perhaps campaigning to be donald trump's vice president, but he has been eliminated mathematically from having any possibility of becoming the nominee. >> with us to share their reporting and their insights this sunday, maggie habeman of "the new york times," ed o'keefe of "the washington post," and julie pace of the associated press. arizona and utah hold republican contests tuesday. 98 delegates total. and all of arizona's 58 go to the winner. >> ted cruz, can you believe it, he wasn't born in our country, folks. he was born in canada. he's weak on immigration. he's in favor of amnesty. lyin' ted. lyin' ted.

so ted comes up with the bible high and he's going with the bible. he puts it down and he starts lyin'. you know what? the evangelicals don't like liars. >> subtle, as always. arizona isn't exactly a big evangelical state. but trump does it his way and it's hard to argue with the results so far. mormons, however, are a big utah constituency. the state is the home to the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. mitt romney is one of its elders. trump, of course, could not leave unanswered. >> i have a lot of friends -- by the way, mitt romney is not one of them. did he cheek? did this guy choke? he's a choke artist. i can't believe. are you sure he's a mormon? are we sure? he choked. he choked. it was so sad. he should have beaten obama. >> again, two states, 98 delegates. call it wild west tuesday or what you will, and a key test for a stop trump movement that

so far is all talk and little consequential action. let's start there. a lot of meetings, a lot of phone calls, a lot of people putting up money, but you can't stop donald trump in a conference room or conference call. you'll have to stop him on election day. ted cruz thinks utah maybe this week opportunity one? >> look, if ted cruz clears 50% in utah, ted cruz gets all of those 40 delegates. so i think that the problem for the stop trump course is that they got going quite late. the problem is that they haven't figured out certain ways in which to stop trump. it's just that they're sort of working backwards from where they would have liked to have been. if trump keeps losing certain states, especially caucuses where organization matters, it does raise questions about how he's going to fare going forward in a general election. the idea is no longer about trying to eclipse trump because realistically, the people who want to stop him don't think they can. what they want to do is deny him the 1237 delegates needed and that they do think they can do. >> but one of the horses in the race has to perform to do that. and i think you'd have to say so

far, yes, governor kasich won ohio last week, his home state. ted cruz won his home state of texas and he has another half dozen wins. but if you look at that swath from south carolina over to the texas border, cruz frankly has way underfehr formed. how do you stop donald trump unless somebody beats him on election day? >> yeah, i think you can't overstate how important tuesday is because of arizona and utah. the case that the cruz campaign is making monday and tuesday is that they perform better in caucus contests and do better in close primaries. and they point out that more of the upcoming contests are close primaries that things are sort of lining up in this their favor. however, as maggie pointed out, if he does not win the 50% or more to get all the delegates, if he does not do well in arizona, then i think that really changes the narrative for him and the argument that they're trying to make even though the map looks very hard for him, the math looks very hard for him, that he can really get there and beat him outright,

beat trump outright. >> and the cruz campaign also says they would be best positioned in a head-to-head matchup with donald trump. the problem is he's not. and if you're john kasich you are hearing from a lot of people privately telling him that they think he's the only one among the three contenders who could win in a general election. the problem there is kasich is not getting votes from republican primary voters at this point. >> so everybody has their alleged rationale or ration gnat to stay in the race. mitt romney among those who waited a very long time to take on trump in a public way. has thrown his body onto the field but in an odd way. for john kasich on monday saying vote for john kasich if you're in ohio. now he's going to vote tomorrow for ted cruz. and neither one of those was an endorsement apparently. it's just his stating his opinion. but he did put this on facebook to -- let's just say put an emphasis on why he wants to stop donald trump. today there's a contest between trumpism and republicanism. through the calculated statements of its leader, trumpism has become associated with racism, misogyny,

xenophobia, vulgarity and threats and violence. i am repulsed by each and every one of these. why did it take so long? >> sorry. mitt romney is not exactly known for being bold. which was part of his problem in his own campaign. he's clearly finding it easier to do this for someone else. but you are correct, he is sort of bet hedging. it looks like he's having that person not succeed because then essentially he has burned out his one opportunity. i do think that mitt romney wants to be an influential voice in the party and he thinks this is the best way that he can do it. he came pretty close to saying that john kasich should get out of the race. he just didn't actually say it. >> and what a moment that is. when ted cruz got into the race, the central premise was i'm not mitt romney or john mccain. i'm not going to appeal to conservatives in the primaries and then go mushy soft mellow moderate in the general. >> i just think that cruz is now going to be the beneficiary of

the same problem that marco rubio had in the wake of bush's defeat, jeb bush's exit in that he's going to become the establishment pick and republicans that are left are going to start to see that and think well, he's now the guy that we don't want to play with and we want to go support donald trump instead. i think there's great risk for cruz in the next few weeks if this keeps up. and look, i think you're right, romney is risk averse. if cruz loses in utah or can't get as many delegates as he'd like, i think the question for the stop trump people is you're going to have to go back to the drawing board and really figure out a new way because -- and look at this calendar coming up. april 26th, connecticut, delaware, maryland, pennsylvania, rhode island. those are not states where ted cruz is going to do well. everything that he embodies repulses a lot of republicans in these mid-atlantic and northeastern states. so if you're john kasich, you know, you should be spending a lot of time on april 26th to sort of refute the idea that you shouldn't still be in this race. >> you mentioned -- you just

spoke a sentence where you said ted cruz is becoming the establishment candidate. >> yeah, whoever thought. >> tells us everything we need to know about this year. a lot of money, maybe not enough, or maybe too late, but money is now going into the stop trump movement including this ad that is running. it's by a pac as its director a former romney campaign operative who i believe -- i believe -- correct me if i'm wrong -- was in the jeb bush camp. but donald trump -- these are donald trump's words but not being spoken by donald trump. >> dog, fat pig, real quotes from donald trump about women. a person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a ten. >> i'd look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers. >> look at that face. would anyone vote for that? >> will it work with republican primary voters? >> there's reason to believe it would have worked in florida, had that ad started running a month and a half ago and not three weeks before the florida primary. if there was evidence that suggested the polling would have started to shift a little bit

away from trump. >> so i do agree with everyone here that the anti-trump movement started too late. it probably is too late. however, i do think it's worth pointing out and you can roll your eyes if you want that this effort has gotten a little bit more sophisticated, and it has gotten more textured. not only are they just talking about stopping trump, not only are they talking about how to stop trump at a contested convention, they're also interestingly talking about how to talk about a contested convention and stopping him if he gets there without the 1237 delegates, without making it seem like the gop is suddenly denying him a nomination that he is owed that it is on him. it is his responsibility to get him there because the chaos that could result if it does seem like the party is simply taking from trump that he is owed, i think you can't overstate that. >> at the same time, there has been a tremendous amount of indecision not only about starting a stop trump movement but then within the stop trump movement. well, we can't say we should all rally behind ted cruz because we don't want to hurt kasich's

feelings and we should have a third-party candidate but we're not going to rally around anyone in a serious way. there are a lot of meetings and phone calls, but decisions are not being made quickly enough. >> i think we're still pretty far out from in terms of the third-party candidate thing. i don't think you're going to see that until you see donald trump as the nominee for one. so that's going to take a while and it's not going to be, as my colleagues reported today, that is less about we can win all 50 states. then we can go into key states and particularly states where there are senate races where republicans are worried about and try to run a candidate who would afeel where there could be enough ticket splitting where it's not going to be a problem. i agree with m.j. i do think there is still plenty of runway for folks. it is, however, a problem of a lack of a consistent message. so i was looking at that ad with the women talking. that was one of several ads that were aired. one of the problems in florida was you had something like five different ads going against him all of which said the same thing. the most effective, a lot of republican strategists have said which was very much like the ads against mitt romney that

featured a student from trump university basically as a testimonial saying my money was robbed. >> before we go, the person who would be helping donald trump at this open convention, at least as of today, would be his campaign manager, corey lewandowski. he says that corey grabbed her and threw her aside. here's video from an event last night. you can see it right here. corey is the gentleman in the gray suit. and you watch his arm come out. now there's two arms. there's a man behind. but then you watch the gray suit. arm comes on the collar of the gentleman right here. it's in slow motion. i want you to see it. there you go. you see the collar? you see the gray suit? now i think we can -- now there you see it. now, the campaign is saying that if there was a pull or if there was any force, it did not come from corey. we're not there and we can't see that. but that is donald trump's

campaign manager in the crowd with protesters and his hand is clearly on the protester there. can anybody tell me why? >> no. this just really underscores what a bizarre and unusual and strange campaign this is. i mean, the fact that the campaign manager, as you point out, was mingling in the crowds for whatever reason, that is not his job. i think the video shows that his hand was definitely on the person's collar. whether there was pulling or not, i can't say definitively, but the fact that he was there, the fact that this is a role that he's playing i think is definitely troubling. >> it would seem that there are other people in a campaign who were competent to accomplish the task of removing pro testers. so when you have a candidate who says i don't condone violence in one breath, but on the other hand, i'd like to punch that guy in the face, as he said at a rally in las vegas at the end of february. when you have a campaign manager that's the second time now in two weeks as you noted that he has been accused of having some kind of physical contact with someone, i don't understand what's happening. and i don't understand why this would be part of a routine task

that a top official would be performing. >> but if anyone expects that trump is going to say something that corey did something wrong, remember that after his victories on tuesday night, who was standing right over his shoulder on stage on stage? >> the difference between that and this, the video i saw last night was not so clear because it was a frontal angle. that's a side angle. the argument from the trump folks during the issue involving michelle fields was you can't really tell from the video. i don't think you can say that on this video. although the campaign, i should note, is still saying it did nothing. >> he's gotten a lot of credit for being a hands-on manager, but this seems a step too far. >> there we go. the drum roll on that one. impls when we come back, donald trump warns of riots if republican leaders try to deny him the presidential nomination. up next, the math that could very well lead to a contested convention. first, though, politicians say or sing the darnedest things. michelle bom channeling boys ii men as she looks past eight

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the states one by one, so here's one scenario. look how this plays out. what if mr. trump keeps winning in the midwest and here in the east when new york and pennsylvania et cetera gave one to kasich here and ted cruz keeps winning out west? we could get to the point where trump somewhere around here and the california primary's coming up on june 7th. if trump won big there after winning a bunch here, that would put him across the line. but that's just one scenario. let's take that away and come back to a different scenario. what if governor kasich starts to do better and he gets pennsylvania, rhode island and delaware here? ted cruz keeps winning out in the west. then you've got something like this, and then under the scenario, again, this is just a scenario, trump wins in california and wins big. then look at this. he's a little shy. so you could have donald trump get to the convention. he could be at nine something or ten something. he could be, if he runs the board here and wins california, right around 1213. mr. trump says in any event if he's close to the magic line and then you don't give him the nomination and these guys are way back here, trump says make

me the nominee, or watch out. >> i think we'll win before getting to the convention, but i can tell you, if we didn't and if we're 20 votes short or if we're -- if we're, you know, 100 short and we're at 1100 and somebody else is at 500 or 400 because we're way ahead of everybody, i don't think you can say that we don't get it automatically. i think it would be -- i think you'd have riots. i think you'd have riots. >> that may well be true. but is the leader of a movement, a guy who wants to be president, supposed to say that? or is he supposed to say, my supporters would be incredibly disappointed, and i would have to keep them -- i would have to manage them because they would be furious. it would be undemocratic. there's a way to make that point without saying there would be riots, is there not? >> there is, but we've been asking that question about a lot of things donald trump has said. i think in some ways he is sending a signal to his supporters about what could happen and what perhaps he would like to see happen if he gets to the convention and is a little

bit short of 1237. and i frankly don't think he's wrong. i think if he goes into the convention, he is very close. and he's won the majority of states and the majority of voters. and republicans through a process that will be incredibly confusing and very hard to understand even for those of us who follow this closely try to take this away from him essentially. i think you are going to have a lot of upheaval. it doesn't necessarily look democratic even though it will be within their right to try to do. >> these rules have existed for years and we're going to see whether or not they have to use them. and i think as you pointed out earlier, the sophistication of the stop trump argument is we we will use those rules if we need to. and people will just have to deal with it. but looking at your numbers there, again, if you're john kasich, go run a campaign for governor of pennsylvania and rhode island. and then run for congress and, like, 12 of those congressional districts in california because that will stop trump. if you're ted cruz, keep running in nebraska, oregon, washington, montana, new mexico, south dakota. a two-front war that trump has

to fight stops trump conceivably because he can't focus on one person. he'll be distracted on both ends of the country. >> it does. however, he needs about 54% -- our delegate count is a little on low because we haven't fully declared missouri. we'll see what happens. he gets another 12. he needs about 54% from here on out. if he wins arizona and if cruz is under 50% in utah, let's say trump gets 25%, ten delegates. then that would be winning about 70% of this tuesday. that means if he goes into wisconsin, his number goes down to 52%. so he can still do this. >> but you're asking two different questions. and one is the question of will his supporters be upset and will there be a reason that his supporters will be upset if he goes to the convention and there is an effort to change the rules? and to be clear, the way these convention rules work -- and you know this -- they get reupped every four years. so they were going to go into these rules regardless. the problem is this rule was inserted in 2012 saying that there was a threshold of having to win the majority of delegations in at least eight

states. so far trump is the only one who qualifies for that. so the question is, does that get changed so others can qualify? corey lewandowski of the last block has made himself a delegate in new hampshire for trump which initially i wasn't sure what the rationale there was. now i am under the impression that it's because he's trying to get on the rules committee or possibly other committees. but that's one question. the other question you're asking is is it appropriate for a major lead of a party which trump is at this point. it doesn't mean that he is the de facto nominee or the presumptive nominee, up he is certainly a maurge figure to be du major figure to be talking about riots. i think we are past the point of sort of donald trump says wacky things. this is some serious stuff. and as we saw, you know, it was not just that lewandowski incident at the tucson rally. there was a really, really violent interaction between a supporter of trump's and a protester who was being taken out. and this is not dissimilar from what we saw in north carolina of somebody getting sucker punched. there is a danger there. >> you mentioned in the last block, we're all focused on this

tuesday, this primary. two weeks and the week after that. we're all focused on the drama at the moment as are all the campaigns as is the stop trump movement. where do we spend the money? one of the scenarios is if you cannot deny him the nomination is to find somebody credible to run as a conservative third-party candidate so that other republicans have a place to go. most people concede that probably elects a democrat but can't be for trump to say i'm with ed. but the problem with that is if you wait to see -- >> it took me a minute. >> it's happening. >> but if you wait to see if trump is the nominee, if you wait too long, you bump up against filing deadlines. the filing deadlines start right around the convention. so if you're going to do this, you'd better get ready to do it now. just ask ross perot. it takes a lot of money. just ask michael bloomberg. it takes a lot of money. can they really do this? >> yeah, and i think establishment republicans have to be very clear and they have to be clear starting now/yesterday on what exactly their goal is. and with a third-party

candidate, i do not think it is about running for a third-party candidate and thinking that that person can win. i think it is actually more about preserving the party's legacy, saying look, we have presented someone who is an alternative to donald trump. we do not believe that trump presents, you know, the principles of our party. and here is a person that everyone else who believes in those principles can vote for. and then we move on four years from now. >> but if you're preserving your petition's legacy by destroying your party, by tearing apart your party, this is the box they find themselves in. >> there's a difference that we're seeing right now between someone like a mitch mcconnell who through all signals that he's sending would probably line up behind trump as the nominee. and then some of these younger people like ben sasse, people who consider themselves true conservatives instead of necessarily republicans who are looking for an alternative option. so you would actually have a split in terms of these sort of establishment true conservative republicans. so you just have a mess. but some of these republcans say no matter what they do, it's going to be a mess, so why not just go with this long-shot option? >> we'll keep an eye on this that. remember, though, two contests.

as we keep the republican math in mind. up next, bernie sanders sees some big wins in the days ahead, but will they be big enough to make a dent in hillary clinton's lead?