fund-raiser. of course, donald did not like that. and on fox news sunday he said ted cruz acts like a little bit of a maniac. that isn't the pot calling the kettle black and then demandsing to see his birth certificate. he sat down with chris wallace and defended his plan to ban muslims from the country. >> you say this will be temporary until we figure out in your words, quote, what the hell is going on. you call our leader in washington losers. >> i didn't say losers. they are stupid. >> okay. >> okay. >> glad he cleared that up. >> oh, my gosh. >> there's a big difference. >> it's unbelievable. welcome, everybody. good morning. it's tuesday, december 15th. with us on set we have former communications director for george w. bush.

the star of "donny." >> he only comes here in season premiers and season finales. >> when do i get my cameo. >> you're on tonight. mika and joe are on the show tonight. i won't say what happens. >> when do i become a recurring character. >> you're getting greedy. >> season two coming up. >> i have ideas, donny, we can make some tweaks. i'm hearing some good things about it. >> people love the show. >> i haven't missed an episode. we laughed so hard. very good. >> joe is not saying anything. >> it's fantastic. seriously. >> in washington we have pulitzer prize winning columnist, eugene robinson with us as well. >> gene you're on tonight also, buddy. >> i'll be watching. >> racy hugs. what could we do with you on

that. >> in tonight's episode i say something racially insensitive. and i try to hug gene. it doesn't go well. >> a day which will live in infai infamny. >> politico a big political switch. everybody was distracted by an iowa poll or two as we said yesterday they didn't look at the fact, for whatever reason, the muslim ban, paris, trump skyrocketed in georgia, skyrocketed in national polls. one national poll his ceiling is now -- he's not going to get -- he's in the 40s now. this is getting serious and it's getting out of the hands of the republican establishment very fast. if there is a republican

establishment left. it's getting ugly out there. >> we're hours away from the fifth and final republican debate of 2015 and the republicans are gathering just as polls show the race getting even more lopsided. "the washington post"/abc news poll finds trump with a 23 point lead. >> just stop right there. nicole, it is december 15th. weird people in july and august saying this wasn't going to happen, it was a joke. people storming off the set when mika suggested that donald trump was even going to be relevant. 23 point lead. now i'm not saying he's going to win. >> but you're not saying he's not. >> but he has a 23-point lead on december the 15th. >> yeah. the analysis that there were two lanes and only one person would prevail in each category turned out to be flat wrong. the outsider lane, three of those four people still dominate

the top four posts in every poll. trump and you put cruz in that lane and carson is still fourth in most of those polls. it wasn't an equal -- it wasn't a match between two equal teams. >> the establishment candidates are at 12, 5 and 4. the outsiders are at 38, 15 and 12. >> how you recover from that. >> it's not even a close call. >> the poll finds trump far and away. 54% saying he brings strong leadership. 51% for change. 47% to win. even 23% saying he is the best person. >> donny deutsch look at those numbers. who does the best. trump is up by 20, 30, 40 points. absent there being a shake up in this race and somebody else getting into the race, how do you beat that? >> absent of something happening

at the convention, enough delegates, whatever, you don't. trump is i'm as mad as hell and i'm not going to take it. every time something else goes wrong, unfortunately another terrorist attack, any time we go more off the rails people go i don't care. >> plus terrorists have only made donald trump stronger. >> larger could say, you know what? wow. now it's not fun and games. we need somebody with some foreign policy -- no. that's what we need. >> they reached our conclusion with carson. the same events that knocked carson out fortified trump. >> the thing about trump it's very interesting, it's very easy post his let's lock the doors and not let muslims in and say oh, he shouldn't be running. the good news is, hear me out, is what he brings to the surface, unfortunately, in his defense two-thirds of the people feel this way.

as much as i'm repulsed by what he says, at least it's on the table now. >> i will tell you it makes a lot of sense. i've been thinking about this over the past two weeks especially since the muslim ban comment. our party, our republican party has been dealing with forces in it that have been exclusionary. that have been backward looking. that have been in denial for a very long time. there's been a factory, this political factory, assembly line for years churning out resentment and victimhood and we're under siege and that is not a governing philosophy. that's the republican party's governing philosophy for the better part of 20 years. now, listen, i mean on the state level, in congress, in the senate it's working. but you don't win, willie, the

big national election -- >> no. >> -- being insular and looking back. i think there are a lot of things that have been exposed by the rise of donald trump that the republican party is going to have to confront face and overcome if they ever want to win the white house again. i will say that again. if they ever want to win the white house again, it's all in the demographics, it's all in the numbers. this is a math formula. two plus two equals four. you get 20% of hispanics, you lose. you try to exclude muslims, 1% of the population that economists report say are 10% of doctors in america, you lose. >> so now they have to deal with it, it's out there. >> that's the point. >> with that argument if donald trump is your front-runner you're in trouble again.

look how he polls with women and latinos that's a problem. mitt romney lost 71% of the latino vote. you just cannot win an election that way. donny is right. donald trump is an emotional response to what's happening right now. if you look at the foreign policies of ben carson and donald trump they are not that different from each other. one isn't more well developed than the other but donald trump gives off strength. he gives off on an emotional level not talking policy on an emotional level i'm going to get these guys. >> it's a gut reaction. now when you get to the specifics, mika, what you have here could be a situation of what happened in france where the national front did very well in the first-round of elections but then when they got their second election, they got crushed. donald trump right now, his view is a majority of a minority. you look at the "the washington post" polls, 36% of americans

support trump's keep muslims out temporarily, 60% oppose. there's a fox poll last week that showed inside the republican party among likely republican voters which by the way you have americans and then likely republican voters in primaries, it gets smaller. it's a 62 favor, 20 opposed. what we're seeing right now is a majority of the minority shaping the national debate, and at the end of the day it's a big loss for the republicans if they don't expand their electorate. >> trump has racked up 27-point lead his biggest yet in monmouth university poll, 41 to 14% against cruz, 13-point increase from october for trump and at 61% he now has the highest favorability ratings with voters in the republican field. that's a complete reversal from when he entered the race 26 weeks ago in june when his favorability among republicans was just 20%.

>> gene robinson look at those numbers and that chart. it's nothing short of extraordinary of what donald trump has done in the republican field. extraordinary. he's in the 40s now. in this monmouth poll. >> he's been leading this race for six months now. which is just astounding. so, you know, the idea that all of a sudden this is just going vanish one day, and everything is going to be back to normal is ridiculous at this point. back to something that nicole said, in both of those polls, if you add up the outsider lane, if you add up trump and carson and cruz you get to 64% or 65% of the republican electorate. so what has the republican establishment done so terribly wrong that two third of the party is rejecting it? i think you gave the answer. i think the answer is that it has been a constant drum roll of

negativism, of victimhood, of resentment. >> you know what else it's been? it's been one lie after another lie. hey we're going to do this. we're going to balance the budget. when we cut your taxes, while we increase spending for defense. and this ban muslims nonsense is the latest lie to be hoisted on suckers and certain wing of the republican party who actually believe this might happen. hey, suckers, it's never going to happen. if the supreme court didn't knock it down there's no way it would get through the house, no way it would get through the senate. 65% of americans oppose it. it's never going to happen. but, gene, this is another lie. it happens every four years. they get more and more extreme with their lies to the base. the base believes them. they go, we're going to abolish obamacare. give us the house. okay. you don't do it. we're going to abolish

obamacare, give us the senate. you don't do it. it's one lie after lie after lie. i'll just say at some point the republican electorate has to stop wanting to be lied to by republican candidates. these lies have been hoisted on an electorate that would be disappointed if this ever came to fruition and anybody got elected that said they would keep all muslims out of america. it will never happen. >> it won't happen no. you're absolutely right. look, somebody has got to speak realistically to the republican electorate. frankly, i don't think the establishment candidates and maybe they are the wrong candidates, but their message to the extent that they are trying to deliver realistic message has not gotten through to the base that sort of eating up this fantasy. it's going disaster. >> gene, just said it. democratic party was dead

forever until a guy from arkansas showed up. the republican party was dead forever until 1980 when ronald reagan. it comes down to a person, a formidable candidate. >> it does. >> and the timing. >> everybody think this is so institutional and baked in the cake. there's a reason -- i say it all the time. there's a reason why one bush, jeb cannot knock trump down. but another bush, a guy in george w. has the same policies, swear to god would stare at him for five second. are you kidding me? w. had this very strong persona. trump was never going to be tougher than george w. bush on the campaign trail and he would have cut him to little pieces. jeb can't do it. do it with a look like he did with al gore. it comes down to a person, mika, and that person just is not there right now. >> although i think trump has a way of really, almost paralyzing

the other candidates. >> paralyzing people -- >> hillary clinton will not be paralyzed. >> let me say, i think chris christie is not paralyzed by trump he's not far enough up in the polls and he's monsieur andre le notre telling the truth. you guys have seen him on the trail. i don't think he falls in the category of being the wrong person because of the way he's carried out his campaign. he may be the wrong person because he came into this with a lot of baggage. it's not a fair assessment of the entire field. it's so lopsided that they are not even facing him head on. >> quick example in george w. bush, people don't remember, he supported an assault weapons ban, he supported background checks, he supported actually gun locks, so i think he even supported the fingerprint technology. all of the smart guns -- if somebody did that today they would be called a left wing hack. george w. bush sort of had the tough texas persona.

nobody was going to call him a wimp. and that's why the guy got elected twice. >> the stage is set for tonight's fifth republican presidential debate and for the fifth time donald trump is front and center. the question now is how will the other candidates deal with the republican front-runner this time around? at his pre-debate rally in las vegas last night trump gave his predictions. >> i'll be honest, i think tomorrow night, i think it's going to be big. ooh. they are all coming after me. i heard today i'm watching man, this is like crazy. who is going to attack trump first? will it be this one? you know he's taken down seven so far. watching television we hear these announcers who will take on trump tonight. who will hit him hard. i'm saying bring them on. who cares.

but i would say -- this will not be like an evening in paradise for me. do we agree? >> donny, we're talking about donald. we got know donald. we talk about him as if he's a specimen under a jar. then you see him speak and that answers so much. hillary clinton actually had the best answer of the campaign on trumpism. why did you go to donald trump's wedding. he's fun. have you been around him? he's fun. he goes out there and there's some proposals that are staggeringly bad, in my opinion. yet he stands in front of a crowd and he's the opposite of the dower down -- >> two points. he came on and obviously people are at home watching and we're looking at each other smiling. i also wonder and nicole i love your thoughts on this. when we see that 40% of the party wants him which translate

to 20% of the country do they want him or do they want to see the show. do they want to see the hillary-donald show. doesn't necessarily mean we want him in office. i think half the reason he's going to win the election is the republican party has kind of given up. let's throw that in there, i want to watch that show. >> there are a lot of republicans not looking at the specifics of what he's saying they are so sick and tired of the republican establishment they want to throw him overboard. >> the way this was set up with jeb bush as the front-runner before anything started and there was a feeling among a lot of republicans out in the country, sort of outside the corridor that there wasn't much difference between another clinton presidency and another bush presidency and that opened the door to this outsider tsunami and trump is riding it. i think that trump gets leeway and latitude from his supporters in a way i've never teen before.

the story i'm most interested in is the emotional -- there's nothing he can say to shake them. they grow more fer vernt in their devotion to him and they groin numbers. i don't know if they want the show or love what he's saying. >> let's go vegas where we find msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt live from the scene of the hunt. you heard donald trump say everybody is coming for me. who cares. what other dynamics are you looking at tonight? >> reporter: you guys have been talking quite a bit. the republican establishment really longing for somebody to step up and take on trump. but it's fallen to these candidates and they've failed basically one after the other to really stand up and take him on and part of that is because trump's attacks on them might ring just a little bit too true. want to try to take down donald trump? that's been a political death wish. >> so far attacking me has not

been a good idea. >> reporter: rick perry gave a whole speech denouncing him. >> donald trump's candidacy is a cancer on conservatism. >> reporter: went the same way for bobby jindal who held an entire anti-donald trump press conference. >> he's an egoma any ac. he only believes in himself. >> reporter: then scott walker. >> i believe that i'm being called to lead by helping to clear the field in this race so that a positive conservative message can rise to the top of the field. >> reporter: those left are still trying to find their own way. marco rubio has tried insults. >> we already have a president now that has no class. >> reporter: jeb bush lectures. >> i won't participate in a reality tv show. >> reporter: chris christie uses his own plenty big personality. >> if donald starts yelling and screaming at me you can be sure i'll say sit down and shut up. >> reporter: then lindsey grah m

graham. >> he's becoming a jack ass. >> i said to myself, you know, it's amazing he doesn't seem like a very bright guy, okay. rubio i've never seen a young guy sweat that much. he's drinking water, water, water. you had christie, so friendly with president obama during the flood. i actually called, i said let me ask you, is he going to vote for obama. poor jeb bush poor guy with low energy. >> reporter: ted cruz is the rare one who has tried to steer clear of trump entirely but then got caught on tape questioning trump's judgment. >> i don't think he's qualified to be president. >> reporter: the question is whether trump's take downs continue. >> first of all rand paul shouldn't even be on this stage. >> reporter: that was september. three months later rand paul barely made the cut to stay on the main stage. >> he's got 1% in the polls. how he got up there. there's far too many people

anyway. >> reporter: best of luck to the next person to gets out there and tries to take him on. it's a parade of difficult situations for all of these candidates as they tried to take trump on. >> kasie hunt, thank you very much. donald trump released a statement from his personal physician yesterday. >> said his health was what, moderate? >> apparently dr. harold bornstein wrote quote if elected mr. trump i can state unowe questi -- donald trump will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency. the letter also says trump has lost 15 pounds over the last year, takes aspirin daily. trump's only surgery was an

appendectomy. >> no blue pills for donald trump. >> his own hospital tweeted out dr. bornstein's opinions are his own. >> all right. we have so much to get to including the president's words from the pentagon yesterday. >> yeah. i actually was impressed with what he did yesterday. it was a good -- >> did a double take. his handling of the islamic state and terrorism numbers. his latest speech will it do anything to reassure americans. plus you probably wouldn't eat at a restaurant before checking it out on social media. so why doesn't the government look at social media before issuing visas? >> boy that's a good question. >> that's kind of an easy thing to scan. >> let's go back and see if anybody is actual ly celebratin

terrorism. maybe we don't let them in. >> that's a good story. >> you don't have a babysitter without googling them or a dog walker. maybe you shouldn't be an american without being goggled. >> my gosh. >> there's some issues. it's a good conversation. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. woman: it's been a journey to get where i am. and i didn't get here alone. there were people who listened along the way. people who gave me options. kept me on track. and through it all, my retirement never got left behind. so today, i'm prepared for anything we may want tomorrow to be. every someday needs a plan. let's talk about your old 401(k) today.

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it's 26 past the hour. veteran columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnacle joins the table. >> it's great to have him here. willie, i got to say, after mike made the front page of the "new york post." >> he did? >> yeah. from central park to the subways. summer is over. >> it means nothing. >> do you wear reflectors on the subway too? >> always. so you can never see where

you're looking. >> that way you can sit there -- >> authors trade secrets. you can keep them to yourself. >> i was looking at the cover story all last week at the "post" with the priest and the body builder and i thought somewhere barnacle would thereabout. >> what a hideous story. >> okay. >> good luck. >> can everyone please shut up? that would being a great. thank you. are we good? all right. moving on the news following the san bernardino attacks u.s. lawmakers are taking a close look at how social media plays into these applications. right now screeners do not regularly look at social media for people traveling to this country on fiancee visas. that soon could change. nbc news justice correspondence pete williams has the details. >> reporter: well before she applied to the dome the united states, malik was supporting

jihad. now the obama administration is reviewing whether social media for visa applicants should be checked, something many employers already do. >> the social media has place ad whole new burden and a whole new set of questions, but not impossible ones to resolve. >> reporter: here's how the process works. a u.s. citizen applies for a k1 visa to bring in a fiancee from overseas. the name of the foreign applicant is checked against u.s. terrorism databases. then state department officers overseas get the applicant's fingerprints and check criminal records. surprisingly even in pakistan where malik is from, the process seldom includes a face to face interview. >> we only interview people in the k1 visa program in cases where there was some issue that needs kploerd. >> reporter: two u.s. officials said malik's messages were missed not only because they weren't checked but because they

were sent private try to the facebook page of her sister not posted publicly. >> pete williams with that report. the chairman of the house homeland security committee says it will now consider a bill to require in person interviews and social media screening for visa applicants. >> mika, you talked about how isis is so good dealing with social media and recruiting by social media and here we have the federal government that has nearly $5 trillion budget per year and we can't do something basic like this to save lives? >> i think we can, and i think the frustration with washington, with the government, that a lot of people have is that it's not forward thinking. >> yeah. >> i know it's easy for to us say hey why haven't you don't do but it's basic at this point. >> it's basic if somebody is coming from pakistan or saudi arabia. you know we warn our children now don't ever apply or don't put anything on social media that you don't want, you know, a

job, somebody that gets your job application ten years from now to see. and our government is not even looking at facebook postings where people are supporting jihad? >> actually for many reasons when you say that. when you realize that. when you find out. it's beyond mis mystifying. we talked about what cambridge is doing with ted cruz before you knock on a door if you're a cruz worker you knock on the door you know pretty much the whole person you'll encounter how to speak to them. the fact that we don't do that with people seeking to come in to this country -- i tuned cost in terms of personnel, extended time to get the visa. i'm sorry you have to wait a little longer. >> has anybody around this table or gene, or anybody been on the phone with a federal government bureaucracy lately?

>> no. >> the incompetence is staggering. no, no. it is. the incompetence is staggering. you know it is. it's straight -- it's like 15 years old. and you wonder how could our government be so bad and if you don't believe me, ask a vet that's had to go on the phone -- >> look at our airports. >> and get answer from the va. again, almost a $5 trillion budget and we're incompetent up and down the line. our government is stuck in the 1960s. >> basically it is. i put it about 1985. it's just stopped full circle, especially on the va. >> a word on the bureaucracy, is it the government or is it us as a nation that if you went into any bureaucracy and any private company when you get on a phone about your phone service --

>> no. you go to apple, boom. >> you get caught up in any -- you call today. >> i can answer that question because i have been on the phone line on some issues for hours and hours and hours. the incompetence and the poor service is unparalleled. unparalleled. >> yes. >> if i call my cable company it's better -- >> that would be. >> pick the worst cable company in america, i promise you it doesn't come close. and the government wonders why people are anti-government right now on some of these things? again, they pay their taxes and they get just horrible, horrible service. >> i was in paris a week ago, i bought something, used my visa card in paris. within half an hour i get a text from my bank saying, you know, please call. your card has been used in paris check it out.

>> that's the thing. taking care of the vets, having a system where you can take care of the vets. it's fine. like we were talking to ash carter. ash carter said in the pentagon they are still using a computer, some software from the 1980s. >> or in some cases these offices have stacks of manila paper in old aluminum cabinets. this is life and death especially in the case of the va. people are dying and waiting and there are things that can't to be done because executives are not empowered to clear out the underbrush as it were and make the system more efficient and now we're learning in this case this is life and death for those people in san bernardino. somebody had just scrubbed and looked through facebook and checked and seen that this woman was talking about jihad, was sympathizing with jihadists they would have known and she wouldn't be here. >> i don't know if it's still the case but within the past few years it was the situation that the fbi computers were not capable of speaking to the cia

computers. they weren't linked up in a manner that you could get instant transference of elective data. >> new polling reveals how dramatically fears over terrorism are reshaping the national landscape. i have the 2016 election. according to our new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll terrorism and national security are now the top concern of 40% of americans up 19 points from when the question was asked back in april. just 37% approve of the president's handling of foreign policy and even fewer approve of his handling of isis. those numbers helped drive the president's approval rating down 43%. as for the tactics americans believe should be used in finding the islamic state the nbc news/"wall street journal" poll find 42% are in favor of u.s. combat troops.

the ap/jfk survey found 28% of americans think the president clearly explained the united states goals in fighting isis while nearly seven in ten think he has not. >> so, donny, we've been talking around the set for a week or so how out of touch this president is with america. earlier on the issue of isis. earlier i talked about how out of touch the trump wing of the republican party was with america. the numbers were 36% supported banning muslims, even temporarily from the country. 60% opposed it. ask if americans support the president's handling of isis, this is just something for the white house to consider. the numbers are even lower. 34% support the president's handling of isis, 60% oppose the president's handling of isis. and then only 28% think he's clearly stated how we're going

to beat isis, 68% oppose. >> i want to stay with those numbers and just throw a hypothesis out there. we talked about the danger of trump as far as he's playing right into isis' hands, correct, as far as decisiivisiveness in country. every time there's an attack your numbers go up. what does this tell you. they want trump in there. i want somebody to do some math. >> what does that have to do with barack obama >> i'm drifting off because it's scary that the more terrorist attacks the better trump does. they want him in there. >> obviously we're talking about president of the united states not donald trump right now. we don't have to talk about donald trump all the time. let's talk about the president. we talked about donald trump before, saying that the muslims, this ban muslim deal was unpopular. what does it say about a white house that the president's

handling of isis is more out of touch than donald trump wanting to ban muslims. >> as somebody who was a supporter of the white house they couldn't be more off base. >> boy that was hard. >> both in terms of substance and style. once again, that's where we need -- >> don't you feel better. don't up feel cleansed. >> it's scary -- if i'm a terrorist. >> it took you 25 minutes. >> if i'm a terrorist and watching that. >> takes you 25 minutes to make a point. >> the president was at the pentagon for an in depth strategy discussion on how to beat isis and tried to explain the progress of the united states. this is what he said. >> we're hitting isis harder than ever. coalition aircraft, our fighters, bombers and drones have been increasing the pace of their strikes. nearly 9,000 as of today. last month in november we

dropped more bombs on isil targets than any month since this campaign started. we're also taking out isil leaders, commanders and killers one by one. isil leaders cannot hide and our next message to them is simple, you are next. but we recognize that progress needs to keep coming faster. no one knows that more than the countless syrians and iraqis living every day under isis terror as well as the families in san bernardino and paris who are grieving the loss of their loved ones. >> so you watched the president. >> i did. >> and? >> i was pleased with what i saw. it took the president a month to line up emotionally with our allies in france. he said you are next. his rhetoric was right. his tone was right. and that's really important. really important for a message it sends to our allies. more importantly wasn't what the

president said, the military has some good stories to tell here. it's what he didn't say. he didn't lecture us on refugees when talking about how we militarily beat isis. he didn't lecture us on guns when we needed to hear him talk from the pentagon on how to beat isis. he didn't lecture -- he didn't sound like a college sprofr. actually yesterday he was a commander-in-chief -- he actually talked about military operations. and didn't lecture. i thought his tone was right for the first time and i think it's very important. >> i think the address he made to the nation in the evening about a week ago, two weeks ago was a reaffirmation of what we're doing on a broad level and this was at the pentagon and it was a war time president. talking about the strategy. we'll talk more about it coming up. also coming up, probably safe to say "the weekly standard" bill

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bring your challenges all right. time now for the most read opinion pages. bill krystol and margaret carlson join the table. am i starting with gene or bill. would cruz be any better than trump? if rubio turns out not to have staying power it's hard to imagine which of the early states he's likely to win and if jeb bush's sparkless candidacy fails to ignite then maybe cruz becomes the designate id trump slayer by default. the problem having cruz at the tochtd ticket could be as disastrous for the republican party as rolling the dice with trump. many of cruz's views are more extreme and more distant from the u.s. mainstream. trump at least clooks his unthinkable policies beneath a certain populace appeal. cruz's self assured extremism

tells whole classes of voters to look elsewhere. he would be like barry goldwater without the charm. >> what do you think, bill? >> nbc/"wall street journal" poll had cruz and hillary clinton by three points. rubio is a stronger cane. >> you under what gene is saying. i use kelly ayotte in new hampshire. you rather have trump at the top of the ticket than ted cruz. >> that's possible but also the factdisciplined guy, ted cruz. more nixon than goldwater. i don't say it in a negative way. i don't believe -- he may lose, may not be saleable to the american people but he is not running a goldwater campaign. >> this is a good point. i was struck, margaret, when i

interviewed him last week. he went from this isolationist in 2010 to sounding like my type of republican. he sounded like colin powell. >> at times he's done a carpet bomb and at other times we won't take a side. so it's hard to follow ted cruz at times. if you were in his office, do you see that he made a hat out of the whacko bird he was called because he's very proud of that. rush limbaugh is very proud of that. if he's the trump slayer because he's like trump in that way, you know, he's not politically correct, he's proud of people not liking him, especially his fellow senators. he'll wear that like a badge. he may slay him but then not win. do his duty, for the party he hates, but then not be able to win. >> but, gene, he could be

nixonian and go the middle, i suppose. >> company after i wonder after what he's sold to the base, right or what he's selling. i wonder how far towards the middle he can go. ted cruz has been pedal to the metal. we must resist the creeping socialism that's destroying our country. that sort of appeal. so how do you actually shift to the middle from there and say we must all come together? his position has been we must not all come together, we must fight the power and i don't see how he gets off that horse. >> if the race holds the way it is today with cruz and trump at the top of the of the polls. say cruz wins iowa, trump wins new hampshire the establishment of the party has to pick their spine. >> they will never accept either. they will be with rubio or christie. cruz is more disliked.

they don't want trump, obviously. they think it would be a disaster. it would be a one off thing. weird year, tsunami. he'll lose. cruz represent as threat to them in the sense he's a senator from texas. he becomes a very powerful force within the republican party even if he loses. >> so here's what you write, bill, in the week lie standard. if we had not suffered through seven tedious years with barack obama of liberalism and dangerous political correctness fewer of our political citizens would be susceptible to the charms of donald trump. no obama, no trump we suspect. indeed no jeb bush and the prospect of a bush-clinton race, no trump. but we are where we are. the trump opera buffa is going

strong. but it's getting less funny by the day. and we too have entertained them that trump will suffer an embarrassment or two and abashedly withdraw from the race can be put aside. all hopes of coneasily it aing trump can be abandoned. trump will have to be defeated. >> i'm in denial and staying in denial. denial is underrated as a life strategy. i came in here this morning and so that abc/"the washington post" poll i continue to believe -- marco rubio or ted cruz or chris christie, one of them will defeat donald trump. >> and you believe in santa claus. it's not going to happen. >> the problem is with donald trump is if you're a republican -- i mean he doesn't play by any rules and he's got

no problem crashing the car into the brick wall, destroying it, watching the party burn, blow up and burn and he just walks away it from and can you imagine how big his contract with nbc will be for "the apprentice" next year? he has really actually no dog in this fight. >> he's in favor of the crash. he's the guy that, you know, we think he makes mistakes. he actually makes progress every time he says something and he must as a lot of people think, you have to go further each time because your crowd is hungrier and hungrier. we think he'll get to a point where he goes too far. he was promoting the debate tonight as if it was a heavyweight championship fight. >> did you see his crowd in vegas yesterday >> he's losing in the same nbc poll where cruz is minus three to hillary clinton, trump losing by ten. at some point republicans --

maybe that will change. at some point republicans do want to win the presidency in 2016 maybe some of those trump voters fall off to rubio or cruz or christie. >> somebody has to get out of the race. trump has got his 30%, 35%, maybe it's 40%. who knows. trump will have his hard core group. nobody will beat him unless they start dropping out of the race. >> we have to go to break. >> it will end up acthree person race. >> i don't think so. i don't think cruz will ever get out or rubio. >> thank you very much. still to come chris christie has shined on the campaign trail by showing his compassion. we'll show you the latest video that's helping him connect with new hampshire voters.

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coming up donald trump takes his biggest lead yet in one key national poll and another has him with his highest favorability rating among gop voters. president obama tries to show the country he's doing more against isis in the air but the latest polls shows an increasing number much americans would consider sending in boots on the ground. richard haas of the council on foreign relations joins us straight ahead. glad i could help you plan for your retirement. alright, kelly

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beautiful shot of new york city. welcome back to "morning joe." donny deutsch and mike barnacle and eugene robinson. and richard haas. >> richard, let's start with you. really quickly. we'll get to follows and debates and trump, trump, trump. he's dangerous, he's ahead. let's talk about actually somebody that's sitting in the oval office right now, president

obama i was surprised and pleased by his performance yesterday at the pentagon. i thought it was focused and he actually was talking about military operations instead of side issues. >> well he clearly was sensitive to the criticism often value office address. he specifically used the word intensification of the bombing program and talked about the progress in iraq which has been considerable, a little bit of progress in syria. >> he also said to the leaders of isis you are next. >> right. designee sounded like francois hollande and sounded like bush. >> more focused on the targeting, as you say waives good thing. sending secretary of defense ash carter over to meeting and put pressure on our partners because our partners are not partnering. none has provided any ground forces. they've taken the air force out. facilities more obsessed on what's going on in yemen sway side show. >> didn't the saudis make an announcement yesterday?

i thought the saudis talked about putting together a coalition. >> talking about putting together a coalition and having anything remotely that looks like a multinational force or what about arab special forces to help the syrians. how about cutting through some of the mill claims the president made yesterday. if you sit there and listen. it sound like they had some military successes. the military has ramped up in the past month or two and making military progress. >> in ground we had some ground partners. actual ground partners in the kurd, a little bit with the iraqi government, the iranian backed militia. the big problem is still syria. we still do not have a ground partner in syria. if there's a big hole in the cheese it's syrian ground partner. >> do you sense with the president an increased urgency that he understands -- i'm just asking. certainly i am not doing the president's bidding here. i'll just say i sensed an increased urgency that he understood the status quo was

not acceptable, that cisco not continue to hold this land, that we had to defeat them. >> he was in an untenable position. he was saying things are okay stay the course and his own secretary of defense and joint chiefs of staff testifying before congress saying things are not acceptable. what you saw yesterday was not a slightly more positive narrative but talking again the operative word wa intensification. >> he lined up with what ash carter said at the pentagon. >> hillary clinton will lay out her plan today to attack isis at a speech in minneapolis. i want to ask you and then willie will take to us the polls. i want to ask you about the social media aspect of this and if we're missing something in kind of a horror that had woman in one of the san bernardino attackers was on facebook talking about jihad and clearly it had been seen it would be a

deal breaker in terms of her coming to this country. >> there's two sides, there's defense and offense. we have to do better on digit offense. it has to stick in your caaw that these guys are using our technology. we need a serious conversation in this country about individual privacy and collective security. the pendulum needs to move more in the collection of security. that's one of the defining issues in the election. >> i had concerns with the drone strikes at the beginning being a bit too -- i just thought a bit too excessive. you look at one poll after another pop, americans don't give a damn if it's excessive. they don't give a damn who gets killed. they want to be protected. that pendulum will swing in a

very big way and swing towards collective security. quickly did the president do anything yesterday to change, we have some polls that showed the president doing very poorly on the issue of isis, 34% to 60%. and whether he laid out his plans? yesterday, do you think -- you look at that only 34% agree with him on handling isis. >> i don't think those poll numbers will change. we're watching him very closely and we see -- >> what's changed? >> i still think to the average american they not watching that closely and the overall take you can't change that brand overnight that he's not as aggressive, not as hawkish as people want him to be. one speech will not change that. it's baked in to america's perception. >> there's nothing he can say or do in a speech or in policy right now that could prevent something like that from happening with all the ripple effects. >> i thought the president's

tone yesterday lined up with the country. nbc/"wall street journal" poll 70% thinks we're headed in the wrong direction. 71% of americans believes these shootings, random acts of terrorism is the new normal. that it will be here whether it's isis or isis-inspired. it will take more than that. >> but if that is where he's going, if that's the first step of moving to where francois hollande was a month ago, then i personally believe you're going to see those numbers change. americans want to hear the president say -- yesterday was the first time the president sounded, willie, like he understood what americans have been saying for a long time. we are at war. francois hollande has been saying we're at war. >> he was focused on things that americans are concerned about right now. let's talk politics. new poll out this morning shows donald trump building his national lead through one of the roughest periods of his campaign.

"the washington post"/abc news poll shows trump with a 23-point lead new high of 38% among republicans to ted cruz's 15%. ben carson ties with marco rubio at 12% although carson has lid ten points. jeb bush, chris christie at 5% and 4% respectively. 54% saying he brings strong leadership. 51% for change. 47% say he's best the win. 23% say he has the best personality. trump has racked up 27-point lead his biggest lead yet in monmouth university poll, 41% to 14%. ted cruz is the next man down the line and 13-point increase for trump. >> willie, a lot of things that might be surprising, not surprised that trump is that far ahead at this point because of what happened in the past couple of weeks but i'm looking at the

bottom of the poll. obviously jeb bush at 3%, pretty devastating considering they spent 50 million. i'm looking for a name i don't see there and it's chris christie who has been performing very well. he's not registering nationally yet. he's not registers well in south carolina. he's doing very well in new hampshire. but i would kind of think that chris christie's numbers would start moving up. >> as we know we saw him in new hampshire. he has a strategy and he's very good in that state. in the last new hampshire poll had him up something like nine points. he's growing and doing well there. the question is can he concede iowa, win new hampshire, come close in new hampshire. >> part of the reason is because trump has taken on the air that christie so naturally takes. >> the tough guy. >> trump does it better and doing it louder and longer. that was christish's face. >> you think if you don't like

donald trump chris christie would be the guy that can stand up to donald trump on a debate stage or fit comes down to two twice. it hasn't shown that yet in national polling. >> john kasich, chris chris, jeb bush competing for more traditional establishment vote. i think one of them gets a ticket out of new hampshire and that might change the dynamic. >> you add them up that's 9%. >> if you just look at pure political skills over the past month, outside -- donald trump is in his own category but the rest of the feefield -- chris christie by far has over the past month shown the best political chops of anybody on the campaign trail. there's not a close second. >> and during the debates as well. he's consistent across the board. some candidate that do great in the debates and then disappear. chris christie is performing well in the field. in new hampshire. and at the debates. he owns the stage when he has

it. there's just 20,000 other people with him. new enjoyed of governor chris christie on the stump in new hampshire talking about his relationship with new jersey's muslim community. take a look. >> how would you as president address the misconception that a lot of americans have that all muslims are terrorists? >> as was mentioned in the introduction i was u.s. attorney in new jersey in the even aftermath of september 11th at a time when the hostility towards the muslim community, in my state, had never been higher. remember, new jersey lost over 900 people that day. the second most of any state in america other than new york. and so the feeling of loss and anger was not in here, it was right on the skin. you could feel it, every day. so my view was we have to go out and start talking to each other.

and so i went to mosques all around new jersey. and i met with the people in those mosques. so they could see me. and i could see them. and what you realize over the course of time is that they are americans too. and they love this country. and they care deeply about its future and their childrens' future and this is common sense, you can't paint everybody with the same brush pup just can't. we're all individuals. and even though some of us may look the same or sound the same, some of us may practice the same faith, we're hardly the same. we all come from different parents. different neighborhoods. different background. and so the first way you do it is by reaching out and getting to know people, let them know you want to get to know them. >> first of all a tip of the hat

to "huffington post." well done by "huffington post." but were this a normal political year and i looked at everything that happened over the past several months, i would say that guy is going to win new hampshire. >> right. >> he's got the momentum. they are not trump's crowds. but they show up better than most others. and on the campaign trail, like we said before we even saw that clip, i didn't know that clip existed this, guy is really, really good. >> how many of those chips have we seen where he's talking about drugs, talking about terrorism, talking about reaching out to muslims in new hampshire. the question is why doesn't that performance level why doesn't that connect in iowa, why doesn't it connect in another place or maybe he's putting all his resources in new hampshire and winning that and connecting on down south. whether you like his policies or not he's an outstanding, excellent politician.

>> what he does, he talks like a real human being. for the future. what candidate have to start to learn. the message whether it's trump or chris christie we want politicians to speak like human beings and talk like we talk. he did that so elow queenly. it was genuine and honest and not spoken in a political cadence it was spoken as a human being. >> let's bring in senior elections analyst for real clear politics sean trendy. good to have you on board. so, what are your guys looking at at this point especially as it pertains to donald trump? >> obviously we're watching the national polls and watching the continued trump surge with a little bit of miystification. we see a different race in iowa and new hampshire especially iowa. >> why mystification.

>> if you asked any political analyst how long trump's surge would be, it would be over in august. he has these little dips but bounces back. it's something to behold. it's not something we've ever seen in politics. >> what are you looking at? what do you see in iowa, new hampshire other than the obvious ta ta takeaways. cruz doing very well. two person race in iowa. trump doing well in new hampshire. what else your seeing? >> we're seeing the movement towards chris christie and marco rubio. if you're rubio and looking for what a plan would be it to be with bill clinton plan from 1992 where he didn't win either iowa or new hampshire but he polled well and performed well in both and able to pick up momentum.

>> we've asked people who come on this set the donald trump trump thing will blow up. candidates say pit john kasich said he's not going nominee. we say show us the evidence. do you see anything as you look inside the polls, as you look inside the cross tabs that suggest donald trump's support is going to deflate at any point before the votes start going? >> there's two questions. the first is how many of trump's voters actually show up to vote. this some evidence that indicates that they are not likely republican primary voters although this year might be different. the second thing is a question of, you know, do these people stick around, are they detached from the process when they focus in? will they decide to vote for other candidate. does donald trump have a ceiling to prevent him from getting to 50% once this narrows down a two or three person race. these are all unmonies to. we've been wrong about donald

trump when we make predictions. but there are things to consider. >> sean trende thank you very much. >> we heard trump's ceiling is 15, it's 20, it's 30, now he's at 41. there's no predicting what donald trump's ceiling is. >> again him not to surprised. this is what republican primary voters were talking about. i know. i'm not surprised. so while trump is riding high in the primary polls there are signs that he could face a tough general election. in a head-to-head match-up with hillary clinton, trump loses by 13 points. 54 to 40% among all adults and six points among registered voters 50 to 44. 69% of americans say they would be anxious with trump as president. 29% would be comfortable. the split is almost even for clinton. >> gene robinson, i need to get you over here. because we talked earlier about donald trump's staggering turn

around and his approval ratings and if we can get that, we showed the lines going up and down and if you look at that poll and you look at how poorly he was doing among republicans six months ago -- everybody said it would be impossible for him to get to 41%. look at those numbers, all right. now, when we show you the six-point gap of voters between hillary clinton and donald trump, despite the fact that donald trump has been setting himself on fire for six months, it's hard to look at that 6% spread among voters and say oh, gees this is insurmountable for donald trump. are we in july saying, going to say look six points among voters, in july are we is going to say well yeah he won among republicans. wait. 50 to 44? i'm looking at voters.

yeah. all americans. that's just irrelevant. alex is talking right here. all voters is irrelevant. you might as well poll martians. voters and that's not even likely voters. so among likely voters that gap may even narrow one or two. my point is, gene, we had everybody spend the last six months other than you and people around this table saying trump can't win the republican primary. if he wins the primary do we say he can't win the general election. do we jump from one fallacy to another? >> donald trump turns out to be the candidate with staying power with stamina, grinding everybody else down as his numbers continue to rise, it's not a steady line but they ratchet it up and ratchet up until now

we're talking 40 instead of 30 or 25 to ior 20. should we entertain the possibility that this same dynamic or similar dynamic could take place in a general election campaign? i think we discount it at our risk. >> we would be foolish not to. >> there's something called the electoral college and we know around this table it comes down to five or six states, five or six districts. i don't see donald taking the suburbs of philadelphia or the suburbs of cincinnati. i see -- by the way, those points they speak for themselves. i still see him losing -- >> donny -- >> once again. >> that means nothing because six months ago everybody would say they don't see donald trump getting above 20%. >> the same way there's this nonmovable force of trumpites they are not going anywhere on the flip side those kinds of

people i'm talking about nothing that he'll say. >> i don't know how you can say that mike barnacle he's only six percentage points behind hillary clinton despite saying some extraordinarily radical things over the past several months. and we know trump. i mean, we know he's is going to shift to the middle radically. trump has been a democrat his entire life. who thinks he'll win the republican nomination and dart widely to the middle. they don't know donald trump at all. >> there's no surprises left at all for donald trump as far as coverage. there are no surprises left. he is who he is. everything we have said or thought, many of us thought or said about him in the past has proven to be untrue, waiting for the collapse, the collapse will never come. there's two things towards the general election that are vastly different from donald trump's electoral world right now. he'll be confronted with real voters, full field of real

voters in the fall. people who actually vote not republican primary voters and the demographics of the fall election will be vastly different than he's facing in the primary states especially like iowa. those are two huge differences. >> i believe so many iowa vectors, i go back to. look, fool's gold to discount donald at this point and there's a lot about donald i do like as a human being. i just do not believe in the electoral college -- >> santorum won a lot of states. he won big in iowa. trump is ahead in 49 states right now. >> joe, the interesting thing we were talking about it a few minutes ago, the real secret in this primary as you watch it evolve is it could well be chris christie. he does have -- he's a

spectacular political athlete in those settings that we've seen him in. what he needs is, he needs an event. he needs a strong second or a strong third in iowa and got to do v-very well in new hampshire and then we'll see what happens. >> this could be 25 to 30 people watching tonight, this might be a good opportunity for him to have a strong night. >> tonight could be for somebody -- >> i want to say though also talking about demo fwrgraphics mike did, i wouldn't think donald trump would be within margin of error where mitt romney ended up with hispanics. >> he's got problems there, got problems with all minorities and women. >> i expect him to be at 5%. he's close to where romney was at the end of the campaign. >> and context. there's 10 months before the election. see where the economy is. see where the physical security environment is. those things could have an enormous kmkt. >> eugene robinson thank you

very much. richard haas thank you as pell. still ahead we'll go live to las vegas where they are either just going bed or waking up. the last republican debate of the year. but first he's played king maker in iowa with his freedom summit and now his candidate ted cruz is surging in the horse race. we'll talk to congressman steve king about who is poised to win the caucuses now less than 50 days away. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. constipated? trust number one doctor recommended dulcolax use dulcolax tablets for gentle overnight relief suppositories for relief in minutes and stool softeners for comfortable relief of hard stools. dulcolax, designed for dependable relief

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with us now a member of subcommittee on immigration republican steve king who officially endorsed ted cruz in the 2015 primary. we have hallie jackson with us as well. congressman, let's start with you. iowa right now is kind of cruz country isn't it? at least at this moment in time it seems to be all ted cruz. >> it has. that momentum was starting to move in late october early november. launched itself a lot faster in november. now we're six leader in the iowa

caucus. last time six leader won the caucus. >> right now it looks like it's a battle between trump and cruz. >> ah-ha. >> why did you not endorse donald trump? >> well, i know each one of these candidates and i watched them operate, and i fought in the trenches with ted cruz in a know he checks all the boxes as a full spectrum constitutional conservative the. i know what he believes and why. i can't track donald trump in that same fashion although he rings a lot of bells for a lot of people. >> is he a conservative? would you call him constitutional conservative donald trump? >> not in the same fashion because i don't hear from him those kind of underpinnings tell me it's rooted in our constitutional values. trump supports the key vote decision. i say that's unconstitutional. those are two differences between those two people that i

think identify. if you go back to constitution, you build that belief system from there. >> let's go hallie. i guess you're getting from the cruz campaign a sense of strategy against donald trump. what would that be, hallie? >> i think we've seen it already, guys. we've seen it in some of the responses that ted cruz has had to donald trump's early attacks against him at least the pre-debates. we've been talking about that flash dance tweet. another one last night. that shows you where ted cruz head is. right now he's feeling loose, in the moment, he wants to come out and be likeable and funny. it depends on what kind of tone you see from donald trump. if donald trump comes out maybe in a way trump has where he's not turning both barrels on ted cruz but a wink, wink, nudge, nudge, you would see cruz respond in kind. other part there's also a sense that this is the first time ted cruz will be on this national

debate stage in a high-profile position in the polls. the cain is prepared for attacks from all sides. >> congressman as you look inside your state and the polls show ted cruz and donald trump either neck and neck or ted cruz with a small lead what will it come down to for iowans if the race is that close? >> a couple of things will happen. one is turn out. can you get people to come to the caucus that night. ate different thing than going to the polls. you commit two hours. you have to list skren to the speeches for the other cane. second component, turn out is first, second one is about what happens in people's conscience. they have to evaluate can i see this candidate or this candidate in the oval office as the president of the united states and commander-in-chief. there's a reconsideration that will take place in the month of january. some will take place on caucus night. then the turn out and who has the best turn out job? i don't know.

>> you think that benefits ted cruz the iowa format? >> the part about the reconsideration and envisioning a president leading this country and being commander-in-chief with a world that's in a mess, i think that helps ted cruz more than donald trump. turn out, i would say cruz has a bit of an advantage but not that much given that trump has put a lot of effort into this. >> hallie we talked about trump and cruz, it seems like a two person race. marco rubio is in third place. what are marco's plans for tonight? >> so i think there's a sense that marco rubio has done well. his team has said before this debate, he comes out of these debates, tends to shine, has big moment, he's a good communicator, he can sell his message to the audience. that said, there's also a question of whether marco rubio can turn that momentum into sort of on the ground movement in the poll numbers. so look for marco rubio to come out strong trying to have those

moments as he's done in the previous debates. i wouldn't be surprised to see potentially if, for example, ted cruz was after marco rubio, marco rubio to go back over cruz on topics like national security and cruz respond in kind on immigration. >> how is rubio's campaign in iowa? >> what i hear and is that's people that support rubio are not satisfied that he has the ground campaign that he needs to have. that's the one thing you hear against rubio is he's got to have a better ground game than he's got. >> you hear that in new hampshire as well. he's just not investing the time out there. >> that seems to be the case. he's not out in iowa as some of the other candidates has been. he's a very likeable individual and he carries a lot just out of his own -- just as an tax to rubio because of his self-deprecating demeanor. i like him too but i don't think

he has the game to get it done in iowa. he's a competitor. >> congressman steve king thank you very much. hallie johnson thank you as well. from five years in taliban captivity to life sentence in prison we'll go the pentagon for the latest kills a on the court martial staring down sergeant bowe bergdahl. we'll be right back.

(phone ringing) (phone ringing) you can't deal with something by ignoring .t but that's how some presidential candidates seem to be dealing with social security. americans work hard and pay into it, so our next president needs a real plan to keep it strong. (elephant noise) (donkey noise) hey candidates! answer the call already. tcount on someone's kid mistaking me for santa. i'm so sorry. come on sweetie. it's okay. and knowing right when my packages arrive. introducing real-time delivery notifications. one more reason this is our season.

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tand that's what we're doings to chat xfinity.rself, we are challenging ourselves to improve every aspect of your experience. and this includes our commitment to being on time. every time. that's why if we're ever late for an appointment, we'll credit your account $20. it's our promise to you. we're doing everything we can to give you the best experience possible. because we should fit into your life. not the other way around. army sergeant bowe bergdahl could spend life in prison for

walking away from his afghan military post in 2009. the army announced yesterday that bergdahl will face a court martial on charges of desertion and endangering other troops. this comes less than a week after the popular podcast serial aired taped interviews with bergdahl. in those interviews he explained publicly for the first time why he left his post six years ago before being captured by the taliban. nbc news chief pentagon correspond jim miklaszewski has more. >> my name is bowe bergdahl. >> reporter: held hostage by the taliban for five years sergeant bowe bergdahl can now face life in a military prison. the army ordered bergdahl to face court martial for desertion and endangering the safety of his fellow soldiers. >> suddenly it really starts to sink in i really did something bad. >> reporter: in his first person account for the podcast serial, bergdahl describes how he walked

away from his outpost in eastern afghanistan to warn army commanders of leadership problems but was soon captured by a group of heavily armed taliban fighters. >> i'm not sue paid enough to try to knife off a bunch of guys with ak-47s. >> reporter: he was released in a controversial swap for five prisoners held at guantanamo bay. that same day president obama welcomed bergdahl's parents to the rose garden. bergdahl's attorney called the charges against his client excessive. >> the government had shown probable cause for one thing only which was a one day awol. >> reporter: the army is split over this case. many believe bergdahl should be punished for putting the lives of his fellow soldiers at risk but the investigator in the case suggests that any jail time for bergdahl would be inappropriate. bergdahl remains on active duty. no date has been set for his court martial.

>> all right. up next winning in iraq and syria really should be pretty easy, right? all the u.s. has to do is get the saudis, iran, russias and the turks on the same page. that's next on "morning joe." today people are coming out to the nation's capital to support an important cause that can change the way you live for years to come. how can you help? by giving a little more, to yourself. i am running for my future. people sometimes forget to help themselves. the cause is retirement, and today thousands of people came to race for retirement and pledge to save an addition onpercent of their income. if we all do that we can all win. prudential bring your challenges®

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strategy session about how to defeat isis. joining us now director of the earth institute at columbia university economist dr. jeffrey saks and now dean of johns hopkins of advanced international studies. >> let's talk about isis in a minute. first dr. sacks let's talk about the paris agreement. what is it and what is it not? >> it's a big deal in that 196 signatu signatures, 19 a countries and european union agreed we need to fight climate change. two weeks of thousands and thousands of leading business people, hundreds of mayors, 150 heads of state, no climate denial, it was just we got to do something. we got to get practical. we have to move to a low carbon economy. that's the conclusion. so they set a target, said we have to stay way below a certain

level of warming, two dana reeves celsius of warming and countries made voluntary commitments that don't add up to that. right out of the starting gate there's a strong target and inconsistency which is that countries that said here's what we'll do, here's where we aim to go and they don't match. the pessimists or cynics say already another talk fest and i take a different view which is okay at least we're pointed in the right direction right now. now we have to get to work. >> giving yourself a chance for technology, especially in the oil sector, for technology to catch up and do the same thing for clean energy that it did for toil and natur-- the oil and na sector. >> we can do this. we have the vehicles, power plants. so i'm hoping that next year rather than having the diplomats around the table we have the

engineers around the table, the business people. we get really practical, and that's i think the next step. >> let's talk about isis the fight against isis, the president obviously went out and talked about the military gains that we've made over the past month or so. talk about, though, the diplomatic challenges. we can win there. i do believe there's a military solution to this. you could put the troops together to win the war. but after you won the war, the piece would be so ugly without this diplomatic puzzle put together. >> the president's strategy still a containment strategy, still not road map about how you're going to drain the swamp, get rid of syria and iraq. it would need a lot more diplomatic push and i think actually the climate stalks a good motel here. in other words, we have to roll up our sleeves. persuade those who don't want to get engaged.

diplomatically to table and arrive at a deal. >> the americans, somebody said twe that we were the glue that could put these people together around the table. >> our closist allies for turkey and saudi arabia isis for them is not a priority. for turks the priorities are the kurds that they want to give autonomy and assad would be removed. >> let me ask you, it stems, how do we get everybody around the table when there's an open fierce debate in america whether assad should go or stay. how do we lecture turkey to take a stand or egypt or saudi arabia when we are split in this country whether we can live with assad or not. >> much like the climate talks. you have to take the leadership to lay out common denominator and then try to bring everybody together. in the end the u.s. was able to get the chinese and indians and

other developing countries around an agreement that may not be perfect but is actually a very good start. >> jeff, harshly critical how this war began trying undermine assad. do we have to make the tough realistic position of just living with assad? >> i think basically the game is that fighting isis is everybody's second priority not the first. but everybody agrees that you have to fight isis. so russia, china, united states, the uk, everybody agrees let's do that. what we've been doing is focus on things we don't agree on and making it impossible to get that coalition. go for the thing that's absolutely in everybody's interest, which is fighting isis and then get that job done. >> mike? >> the cop 21 conference you had these nations gathered, tremendous gathering and they

were all agreed to point in one direction for progress. with regard to isis, those you have two of our critical allies, turkey and saudi arabia as you just mentioned that are true pivot points in fighting on the ground in syria against isis but where are the saudis on this? because it won't work without saudi special ops troops on the ground alongside americans and do you think they will ever get to that point where they will commit? >> it's difficult for them to commit. saudi arabia, the most number of pro isis tweets comes out of saudi arabia. ate difficult political thing for them. they could put troops on the ground and have people defect to sistine meantime. but they can help in closing down funding for isis from the gulf, that's still coming there. hillary clinton mentioned this in her recent comments. but, you know, the president viewed the climate deal as part of his legacy. with two, three years we worked hard to get people to a certain

common denominator. that has not happened with syria. the white house i think is still playing catch up trying outline why what they have done in the past actually has >> well, he has to lay out a strategy, a diplomatic strategy. he has to actually get engaged much more directly with the turks and the saudis and the russians and you have to see the kind of diplomacy that we saw with the climate deal and then he has to put forward a military operation that might look a lot more convincing as to how it's actually going to deny isis territory. that's something that he didn't outline. >> jeffrey, you agree with that? >> this is exactly right. without the diplomacy, you cannot solve the problem. the diplomacy is there but it's

hard. it's our ally that's supporting isis you have to say back off, this is the priority of the world to get rid of he's monsters. >> and we don't cure the refugee crisis without doing this either. >> it's impossible. >> it's defeating isis, not on to free the people that live under that reign but to allow the refugees to get back home and rebuild syria. >> 10 million people displaced. >> 10 million people! >> think of it this way, do you want to stay in your home when there are killers in your house with you? that's why there are refugees. you have to get the killers out of the house. >> dr. jeffrey sachs and vali nasr, thank you both.

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mika, we have been accused of doing brezhnev here. >> oh, no. what happened? >> apparently, it may be a diabolical plot. we had up a graphic that had everybody sitting up on the stage. now it is fixed -- >> what did we do? >> we did one without ted cruz in there. >> that's a problem.

>> he had been wiped clean. you know how they used to erase from the viewing stand -- >> yeah. >> can you guys get a screen grab? there's your commi right there. so you can tell. >> he's related to brezhnev. >> here is doris kearns goodw goodwin's entrance on to the "the late show." >> the most reese expected presidential historian, please welcome doris kearns goodwin! [ cheers and applause ]

>> thank you, doris. >> thank you. >> thank you for joining us. >> lovely to see you. gentlemen, you may go. >> yeah. all right. >> whoa. >> congratulations on your recent emancipation. >> you know, mike barnicle, for those who don't know better, that's always how doris gets carried to her seats at fenway. >> at fenway. we never show it here but doris insists on doing that out in the hallway on to the edge of the stage with us. >> she's a diva. louis fills in -- >> louis and mike weisman carry her. >> a shirtless mike weisman. anyway, coming up, donald trump solidifies his lead among republican voters. he opens up a yuge lead. >> yuge!

>> he only seems to get more popular with the republican electorate. what are you thinking about? >> that visual of louis and michael ieisman. >> and coming up, we'll talk about that and show graphics that contain all candidates when we return. been denied to many south africans for generations. this is an opportunity to right that wrong. the idea was to bring capital into the affordable housing space in south africa, with a fund that offers families of modest income safe and good accommodation. citi got involved very early on and showed an enormous commitment. and that gave other investors confidence. citi's really unique,

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ted cruz has so far been very careful not to say anything bad about donald trump but audio was released last week of cruz

questioning trump's just. donald did not like that and he said ted cruz acts like a little bit of a maniac. if that isn't the pot calling the kettle black and asking to see his birth certificate, i don't know what is. >> you say this is going to be temporary until we figure out "what the hell is going on." >> it's temporary. they have to help us. >> i understand. but you call our leaders in washington losers. >> i didn't say losers. i said they're stupid, okay? >> glad he cleared that up. >> oh, my gosh. >> there's a big difference. >> it is unbelievable. welcome, everybody. good morning. it's tuesday, december 15th. with us unset, nicole wallace.

the hall of usa network show "donny." >> he only comes here on season premieres and -- >> when do i get my cameo? >> you're on tonight. season finale. i won't say what happens. >> but when do i become a recurring -- >> season two. >> i have some ideas, donny. i can make some tweaks. i'm hearing really good things about it. >> it's so good. i haven't missed an episode. we laughed so hard. >> joe's not saying anything. >> it's fantastic. seriously. seriously. >> i'll have to binge watch. >> and it's curved for our age. >> we have associate editor of "the washington post" and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. >> gene, you're on tonight also, buddy.

>> okay, i'll be watching. >> racy hugs. >> what do we do with that? >> in tonight's episode i say something racially insensitive and i come on and i try and hug gene and it doesn't go well. >> my god, i remember that. >> a day that will live in infamy i believe they call it. >> okay, let's get busy. >> so sort of a big political shift over the past week. everybody was so distracted by an iowa poll or two that as we said yesterday they didn't look to the fact that actually for whatever reason, maybe it's the muslim ban, maybe it's post paris, trump skyrocketed in georgia, he describe rocketed in national polls and in one national poll his ceiling is now -- it's gone from, oh, well , he's not going to get more than 25. he's in the 40s now. this is getting serious and it's

getting kind of ugly out there. >> we're just hours away from the fifth and final republican debate 2015 and republicans are gathering just as polls show the race getting even more lopsided. "the washington post"/abc news poll finds trump with a 23-point lead. >> stop right there. nicole, it is december the 15th, we heard people in july and august saying this was not going to happen, it was a joke, people storming off the set when mika suggested that donald trump was even going to be relevant. 23-point lead. i'm not saying he's going to win. >> but you're not saying he's not. >> but he has a 23-point lead on december the 15th. >> yeah, i mean, the analysis that there were two lanes and only one person would prevail in each category turned out to be flat wrong.

the outsider lane, three of the four still dominate the top for posts in every poll. trump, if you put cruz in that lane and carson is still fourth in most of the polls. so it wasn't an equal -- it wasn't a match between two equal teams. >> the establishment candidates are at 12, 5, 4. the outsiders are at 38, 15, 12. it n it's not even a close call. >> 54% saying trump would bring strong leadership, 51% for change, 47% to win and even 23% saying he has the best personality. >> donny deutsche, look at those numbers. absent there being a shake-up in this race and somebody else getting into the race, how do you beat that?

>> absent something happening at the convention, not enough delegates, you don't. and trump is mad as hell, i'm not going to take it. and any time something else would go wrong, any way we start to go more off the rails, people just go i don't care. >> post paris only has made donald trump stronger. >> yes, yes. where now you can say this is not fun and games, we need -- >> we reached that conclusion with carson. the same event that knocked carson out fortified trump. >> it's very interesting. it's very easy post his let's lock the doors and not let muslims in to say oh, he shouldn't be running, shouldn't be running. the good news is what he brings to the surface unfortunately and his defense is, well, two-thirds

of the people feel this way. so as much as i'm repulsed by what he says, at least it's on the table now. i don't know if that makes any sense or not. >> it makes a lot of sense. i've been thinking about this over the past two weeks, especially since the muslim ban comment. our republican party has been dealing with forces in it that have been exclusionary, that have been backward looking, that have been in denial for a very long time. there's been a factory, sort of this political factory and it's just -- this assembly line for years just churning out resentment and victimhood and we're under siege. that is not a governing philosophy. and that has been the republican party's governing philosophy for the better part of 20 years. now listen, i mean, on the state level, in congress, in the senate even it's working.

but you don't win, willie, the big national election being insular and looking back. i think there a lot of things that have been exposed by the rise of donald trump that the republican party is going to have to confront, face and overcome if they ever want to win the white house again. i will say that again. if they ever want to win the white house again, it's all in the demographics, it's all in the numbers. this is a math formula. two plus two equals four. you get 20% of hispanics, you lose. you try to exclude muslims, 1% of the population that has 10% of the doctors in america, you lose. >> now they have to deal with it. at least it's out there. >> that's the point. >> by that argument, if donald trump is your front-runner, then

you're in trouble again. when you look at the way he polls with women and latinos, that's a problem. when mitt romney lost 71% of the latino vote, you just cannot win an election that way. but donny's right. donald trump is an emotional response to what's happening right now. if you look at the foreign policies of ben carson and donald trump, they're not that different from each other, but donald trump at least gives off strength. he gives off on an emotional level -- i'm not talking about policy right now -- on an emotional level, i'm going to get these guys. >> it's a gut reaction. what happened could be like a situation in france when the national front -- you look at

the "washington post" polls, 36% americans support trump's keep muslims out temporarily, 60% opposed. inside the republican party among likely republican voters, which by the way you have americans and then likely republican voters in primaries, it gets smaller. it's a 62 favor, 20 oppose. what we're seeing right now is a majority of the minority shaping the national debate. and at the end of the day, it's a big loss for the republicans if they don't expand their electorate. >> so trump has racked up a 27-point lead, his biggest yet. and at 61% he has the highest favorability numbers in the

field. >> gene robinson, look at those numbers and look at that chart. it's nothing short of extraordinary what donald, whoever he's done it, what donald trump has done in the republican field. extraordinary. and he's in the 40s now in this monmouth poll. >> he's been leading this race for six months now, which is just astounding. the idea that all of a sudden this is just going to vanish one day and everything's going to be back to normal is ridiculous at this point. it, if you add up the outsider lane and add up trump and carson and cruz, you get to 64% or 65% of the republican establishment. what has the republican establishment done so wrong?

i think it's been a constant drum roll of negativism, of victimhood, of resentment. >> hey, gene, you know what else it's been? it been one lie after another lie. hey, we're going to do this. we're going to balance the budget while we cut your taxes and increase spending for defense 100 billion and this ban muslims nonsense is the latest lie to be hoisted on suckers in a certain wing of the republican party who actually believe this might happen. hey, suckers, this is never going to happen. if the supreme court didn't knock it down, there's no way it would go through the house, never get through the senate. 65% of republicans oppose it. it's never going to happen. they get more and more extreme with their lies to the base and the base believes them. we're going to abolish

obamacare, give us the house. you doesn't do. it's one lie after another lie after another lie. and i will just say at some point the republican electorate has to stop wanting to be lied to by republican candidates. this is just the latest and the most grandiose set of lies that's been hosted on an electorate that would surely be disappointed if this ever came to fruition if anybody got elected that say they're going to keep all muslims out of mesh. >> no, it not going to happen, you're absolutely right. and somebody has to speak realistically to the republican electorate. frankly i don't think the establishment candidates -- and maybe the wrong candidates, but their message to the. >> gene just said it.

the democratic party was dead forever until a guy from arkansas showed up in '92. the republican party was dead forever until 1980 and ronald reagan. it comes down to a person, a transformative person. >> it does. everyone thinks this is institutional and it babd in the cake. i say it all the time. there's a reason why one bush, jeb, can't knock trum many down but another bush, a guy named george w., has the same policies, swear to god would stair at him for 5 seconds. trump was never going to be tougher than george w. bush on the campaign route and he would have cut him to pieces. you do it with a look like you did with al gore. it comes down to a person, mika, and that person is just not there right now. >> yeah, although i think trump has a way of really almost

paralyzing his -- the other candidates. >> paralyze away. >> hillary clinton is not going to be paralyzed. >> chris christie is not paralyzed by trump. he's just not far enough along in the polls. but he's not not telling the truth. and you guys have seen him on the trail. i don't think he falls into the category of being the wroj person becau -- wrong person because of the way he carries out his campaign, he may be the wrong person because he came into the campaign with a loot of baggage. they're not even facing him head on. >> george w. bush, people don't remember he supported an assault weapons ban, supported background checks, he supported actually gun locks. i think he even supported sort of the fingerprint technology. all of these smart guns. if somebody did that today, they would be called a left-wing hack. george w. bush sort of had the

tough, texas persona. nobody was going to call him a wimp. that's why the guy got elected twice. >> well, the stage is set for tonight's fifth republican presidential debate and for the fifth time donald trump is front and center. the question now is how will the other candidates deal with the republican front-runner this time around? at his predebate rally in las vegas last night, trump gave his predictions. >> i'll be honest, i think tomorrow night, i think it's going to be big. ooh. ooh. and they're all coming after me. i heard today, i'm watching, i'm saying, man, this is like crazy. who's going to attack trump first? will it be this one? you know, he's taken down seven so far. so we're watching television before we're hearing all these announcers saying who's going to take on trump tonight, who's going to hit him hardest --

>> yarkeah, i will say bring 'e on. who cares. this will not be an evening in paradise for me, do you agree? >> you and i both know donald. we're talking about him like he's a specimen under a jar. and then you see him speak and that answers so much. hillary clinton actually had the best answer of the campaign on trumpism. why did you invite donald trump -- why did you go to donald trump's wedding? >> because he's fun. hillary goes have you been around him? he's fun. he goes out there and, yes, there are some proposals that are staggeringly bad in my opinion and yet he stands in front of a crowd and he's the opposite of the dower, down, depressed. >> two points. he came on and people at home are watching, we're all just looking at each other smiling. i also wonder and nicole, i'd love your thoughts on this, when we see that 40% of the party

wants him, which translates to 20% of the country, do they want him or do they want to see the show? do they want to see the hillary-donald show? it doesn't necessarily mean we want him in office. i think half the reason he's going to win the election is the republican party has almost given up and say let's throw that grenade in there, i want to watch that show. >> there a lot of republicans that aren't even looking at the specifics what he's saying, they're just so sick and tired of the republican establishment, they want to throw them overboard. >> jeb bush was the front-runner before anything started. i think there was a feeling among a lot of republicans out in the country that there want much difference really between another clinton presidency and another bush presidency and that opened the door to this outsider tsunami. and trump's riding it. i think that trump gets leeway and latitude from his supporters in a way that i've never seen

before. >> bullet proof. >> the story you'll most interested in is the emotional connection. there's nothing he can say to shake them. they only grow more fervent in their devotion to him and they grow in numbers. i don't know if they want to see the show or they love that he's saying it. >> coming up, why what people say on facebook and other sites may come under scrutiny. bus camp cruz where they get out the vote strategy goes very high tech. but first bill karins with a check on the forecast. bill? >> the warmth in the east has been amazing. this morning in boston at 4 a.m., it was warmer this morning than it was on july 4th at the same exact time. there's a head scratcher for

you. so in the northeast, there's still a little nasty weather for our friend up in maine, northern maine has ice and snow. southern main, a lot of rain at the ski resorts last night was not what they wanted. we cool off in the middle east, not quite as crazy a warmth. and this produced significant snows over the last couple of days, montana picked up snow. this is areas of northern utah. winter is full blast -- you'll be shoveling later tonight areas of south dakota, north dakota and minnesota. right now in denver three inches on the ground and the wind is howling and the high will only be 25. it is winter in a few spots, just not many areas east of the mississippi. new york city, you're looking at warm conditions returning next week. a limb cooldown this upcoming

weekend. there's no signs of any snow in the east right through christmas. sorry, kids. you're watching "morning joe." what? wow... yeah! okay... guys, i'll be writing a new language for machines so planes, trains, even hospitals can work better. oh! sorry, i was trying to put it away... got it on the cake. so you're going to work on a train? not on a train...on "trains"! you're not gonna develop stuff anymore? no i am... do you know what ge is? came out today thousands of people to run the race for retirement. so we asked them... are you completely prepared for retirement?

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veteran columnist mike barnicle joins the table. >> veteran means his old. >> after mike made the front page of the "new york post." >> oh, he did? >> from central park to the -- well, you know what? summer's over. do you wear the reflectors on the subway, too? >> always. >> sunglasses? >> so you can never see where you're looking. >> that way can you sit there -- >> no, no, those are trade

secrets. you can just keep them to yourself. >> exactly. >> i was looking at the cover story all last week on the "post" with the priest and the bodybuilder and i thought somewhere barnicle would be -- >> what a hideous story. >> you cannot believe that exists. >> okay. can everybody please shut up? that would be good. moving on. following the san bernardino attacks, u.s. lawmakers are taking a closer look into the scrutiny of visas. pete williams has the details. >> well before she came to the united states, tashfeen malik was expressing support for --

>> the social media has placed a whole new burden and a whole new set of questions but not impossible ones to resolve. >> here's how the process works. a u.s. citizens applies for a k-1 visa to bring in a fiancee from overseas. the state department gets the applicants' fingerprints and check criminal records. but the process seldom includes a face-to-face interview. >> we only interview people in the k-1 visa program in cases where there is some issue that needs to be explored. >> two officials say tashfeen malik's messages were missed not on because they weren't checked but also because they were sent privately to the facebook page

of her sister, not posted publicly. >> the clahairman of the homela security committee said they will have interviews for applicants. >> here we have a federal government that has nearly a $5 trillion budget per year and we can't do something basic like this to save lives? >> well, i think we can. and i think the frustration with washington, with the government that a lot of people have, is that it's not forward thinking. i know it's easy for us to say, hey, what happened? but it is pretty basic at this point. >> someone coming in from pakistan or saudi arabia, we warn our children don't ever put anything on social media you're not going to want a job -- somebody that gets your job

application ten years from now to see and our government's not even looking at facebook postings when people are supporting jihad? >> actually, for many reasons, with you say that, when you realize that, it's beyond mystifying that they don't. given the intrusive nature of social media as we know it right now. for instance, yesterday we were talking about what cambridge analytics is doing with ted cruz's campaign in iowa. before you go to knock on a door and you're a cruz worker, you know pretty much a whole lot about the person you're going to encounter at the door, how to speak to them. the fact that we don't do that with people seeking to come into the country. i understand the cost in terms of personnel, i'm sorry, you're going to have to wait a little longer. >> has anybody around this taebl, gene, anybody, been on the phone with a federal government bureaucracy lately? >> no. >> the incompetence is

staggering. >> okay. >> no, no, it is. the incompetence is staggering. you know it is. it's like 50 years old. and you wonder how could our government be so bad? and if you don't believe me, ask a vet that's had to go on the phone and get answers from the v.a. >> or go to the airport. >> again, almost a $5 trillion budget and we're incompetent up and down the line. our government is stuck in the 1960s. >> basically it is. i'd put it at about 1985, it has stopped full circle, especially on the v.a. >> is it the government or is it us as a nation that if you went into any bureaucracy and any private company when you get on the phone about your phone service or -- >> no. >> you go to apple, boom. >> no, i'm talking about you get

caught up in any -- >> listen, i can answer that question because i have been on the phone line on some issues for hours and hours and hours. the incompetence and the poor service is unparalleled. unparalleled. >> if i call my cable company -- >> leave cable companies out of it. >> pick the worst cable company in america, i promise you, it doesn't come close. >> no. >> and the government wonders why people are ant anti-governm right now on some of these things? again, they pay their taxes and get horrible, horrible service. >> i was in paris and i bought something in paris. within a half an hour i got a text from my bank saying please call, your card has been used in paris. >> that's the thing, having a

system where you can take care of the vets is fine. we were talking to ashe carter, ashe carter said in the pentagon they're still using some software from the 80s. >> or in some cases, they have stacks of paper in old aluminum cabinets. this is life and death. especially in the case of the v.a. people are dying and waiting and things can't be done because executives are not empowered to clear out the underbrush as it were and now we're learning this is life and death for those people in san bernardino. if somebody had just scrubbed and looked at facebook and saw this woman was talking about jihad, had sympathized with jihadists, she wouldn't have been here. >> it was the situation that the fbi computers were not capable of speaking to the cia computers. they weren't linked up in a

manner where you could get instant transferns of collected data. >> how ted cruz is trying to outhustle and outmuscle candidate on the campaign. and some are more concerned about ted cruz's immigration strategy than they are about trump. (phone ringing) (phone ringing) you can't deal with something by ignoring .t but that's how some presidential candidates seem to be dealing with social security. americans work hard and pay into it, so our next president needs a real plan to keep it strong. (elephant noise) (donkey noise) hey candidates! answer the call already.

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♪ ♪ joining us now, republican political strategist and the co-founder of the bipartisan public affairs firm purple strategy alex castellanos and along with kasie hunt. >> alex, it's wonderful to you have here. >> but we're starting with kasie. >> i want to start with alex. >> come on, joe. >> we're coming to you, kasie. >> alex, we had a breakthrough this morning. bill crystal has been in a state of denial about trumpism. this morning he admitted he's in a state of denial, but he said that the last two polls that came out he's like, basically he said the hell with it, i'm basically going to stay in the

state of denial, even though i see this train coming. you've seen this coming several months ago. how nervous is the republican establishment now that donald trump's new ceiling is in the 0 40s? >> a lot of valium right now. if we key denying it, he's going to be president in about 20 minutes the way thing are going. but i do think it's interesting that the national polls give him a much larger lead than where people are actually thinking about voting, iowa and new hampshire. and that may mean that as you get closer to the altar, as you walk up the aisle a little bit you begin to maybe make a little different judgment and look at donald trump more seriously, in a more serious way and he's less attractive. >> kasie, we know donald trump is still the front-runner heading into tonight's debate, but we also know a clear second place candidate is starting to emerge. how much is at stake for ted

cruz tonight in vegas? >> well, mika, this plays into the point alex was just making whether these voters are going to get serious. cruz is extraordinarily comfortable on the debate stage. his advisers would say he has to avoid moments like he had in the cnbc debate where he talked about he wasn't the kind of candidate that you might want to have a beer with. we're also getting to the point where the real action is on the ground in iowa and the question is just how strong is cruz's ground game there? we went inside camp cruz to find out. 8:00 a.m. in des moines, iowa and the cruz campaign is rallying its secret weapon, a team of volunteers bunked in a campaign dorm. >> let's go cruz crew. three minutes. >> it's just like summer camp, except that instead of canoeing in the sunshine, you're at camp iowa. >> they're coming from all over the country, on their own dime

but all of us are coming here for one reason, for our country and we believe this man is going to help us. >> reporter: maggie wright and her husband drove up from texas, arriving late at night in their cruz mobile. >> long drive. >> 13 and a half hours. >> reporter: you are actually in dorm beds. a new poll shows cruz leading trump. >> you look where he's dealt with the senate where he goes in frankly like a little bit of a mani maniac. >> cruz laughed it off on twitter. in iowa he needs to match every trump backer with one of his own. this is the strike force.

>> can ted cruz count on your support in the caucus? >> great. >> reporter: but there are signs trump's attack might be spot on. his campaign knows that's a problem. >> if you want someone to grab a beer with, i may not be that guy. >> i'm going to be honest with you, there's just a little bit something just about his persona that comes across to me i just haven't bought yet. >> you just don't know him then. >> i know, i don't. >> reporter: you're hoping people like him better? >> exactly. that's why we've traveled up from texas. >> reporter: that likability factor is what donald trump is talking about and what we've been talking about. the aides know that donald trump is going to expand the electorate in iowa, new voters in the caucus because of him. the question is how many. it really has no idea what that number looks like. as they're digging through their voter files and they have this very sophisticated data to nail

this down, they're trying to figure out how many conservatives do we have to activate, maybe they fell out of the process along the way to match the enthusiasm on the trump side. >> kasie, great piece. >> thanks, guys. >> mike as been involved in a campaign or two himself. i know you were thinking the same thing i was thinking. it how you win. you get buy-in from people that are willing to leave their homes, go in, live in dorm rooms, knock on doors, face to face say i know ted, i like ted, vote ted. >> they are really into it. >> that's how you win elections. that's really impressive. >> well, but ted cruz's problem is that, yes, he builds a lot of intensity but he does it by shrinking the republican party. you know, paris, san bernardino changed the structure of things, no more mr. nice guy. ben carson declined.

that opened things up for cruz to consolidate the social conservative base and he sure is doing that. but if ted cruz is our nominee, it going to make barry goldwater's campaign in 1964 look look it won the super bowl. that means no young people. that actually has an impact. i think he's going to be very strong, he can win iowa. he's going to win in places where, you know, it small. >> i totally get it. but, mike barnicle, he's nottorying about winning the super bowl, he's thinking of winning the first preseason game. and this is how you win states like iowa, right? >> i think if ted cruz ever got many nomination, his demographic, he's right, barry goldwater would look like the new england patriots. by the way, alex, thanks very much for stopping by on your way home after a long night out. >> what are they talking about?

>> he's got kind of a disco thing going on. >> you guys know something i don't know? >> t-shirt under the shirt. >> i'm inspired by danny deutsche. >> looking good, donny. >> not somebody you want to emulate. >> kasie thank you so much. another great package, another great job. >> one of the holiday gifts is apparently too hot for amazon. overstock.com did it first. sara eisen joins us next on "morning joe."

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december, which is traditionally the best month of the year for stocks. there's anxiety over the fed meeting tomorrow and anxiety over the price of oil, which continues to get hammered. it's continuing to recover but not far from the 11-year low. it's causing a lot of pain for energy companies. interestingly natural gas is also trading at 14-year lows because of the warm weather. yes, it's saving us on those heating bills but it's causing even more pain for these energy companies already getting slammed. >> is there an expectation on oil we'll be down in the 30s for a long time or do we expect a rebound? >> lower for longer is the mantra when it comes to oil. we are awash with oil. saudis are not cutting

production and there is not enough demand. wall street has been a terrible predictor of the price of oil. a year and a half ago we were looking at $100 a barrel oil and above that. going into the break i want to give you an update on the hover board. amazon now pulling most of its hover boards off the site because of safety concerns with overheating. we know legislators are looking into this and most of the u.s. airlines have banned it. you can't even travel dealtia uni -- delta, jetblue, you can't travel with them. >> it's over for the hover board. >> people want to be thought of for their value and you're

devaluing that. >> what do i do? >> best piece of advice, don't say stupid stuff. >> that's very hard for you to do. >> the season finale of "donny" is tonight and "morning joe" has a role. in 170 countries. the microsoft cloud allows us to immediately be able to access information, wherever we are. information for an athlete's medical care, or information to track their personal best. with microsoft cloud, we save millions of man hours, and that's time that we can invest in our athletes and changing the world. they come into this iworld ugly and messy. ideas are frightening because they threaten what is known.

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out of every crisis sometimes comes an opportunity. i'm initiating something called racy hugs. i want everybody out there right now, if you think we can do better with race in this

country, go out, find somebody of a different ethnicity, different race, stranger on the street, go up, give them a hug, give them a racy hug, $5, upload it to racy hug.com for the mo say ig project. we're going to raise $5 million to get race relations on the right track in this country. >> i am totally speechless, racy hugs. >> i'm going to hit the streets, i'm going to give the first racy hug out there. gene, can i give you the first racy hug out there? >> no rk, no. >> stay away. stay away. >> oh, my god. >> you're an idiot. >> that's the whole show. you're an idiot. and it's working well. >> it's working well. tonight's the finale, 10:30, usa. when you get bored of the debate, the last half hour switch over. tonight i say something

racialalracial racially insensitive on my show and i have this racy hug idea that i announce on this show that does not go particularly well. it's a lot of fun, though. later on it comes back and you're critiquing my racing hug concept and you go "if it looks like a toured and it smells like a turd, it's a turd. great line by joe scarborough. >> up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? amerivest selects the funds and manages your portfolio.

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prudential bring your challenges® this is just awful. you always have to worry about that, don't you, day in and day out. wow. welcome back to "morning joe." we're not going to tell you what donny said. >> i don't want to know. >> what did we learn today? >> relief tonight at 10:30, usa network. >> i learned about the unique demographics of nantucket. did not know that. >> you're so elitist. >> what did you learn? >> i learned that judy barnicle is here and i'm going to be on her ingram right here. can we do a selfie? >> i learned the president receiving high marks for his speech yesterday. still experts saying -- still

trapped in the containment model. and also we found out trump burst through another ceiling. he's gone from the 30s into the 40s. >> like the internet, here to stay. >> hey, if it's way too early, it's "morning joe." what's next? >> msnbc live is straight ahead. have a great day. and good super tuesday morning to you. i'm jose diaz-balart. we are just hours away from the final republican debate of 2015. and what a debate it's expected to be. it's been a little more than a month since the last debate. so much has happened, there's been a terrorist attack, climate change, protests about the fractured relationship between police and minority communities. as can you imagine, the