legal advice from donald trump. back in september, my friend donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way. there was nothing to this birther issue. since september, the constitution hasn't changed. but the poll numbers have. i'm not going to use your mother's birth against you. >> because it wouldn't work. >> the establishment, the rest of the pack fights for the eastern conference title. >> governor christie has endorsed many of the ideas that barack obama supports. >> the reason, you had your chance. you blew it. >> wow. second opinion, hillary clinton says bernie sanders' health care plan isn't the cure. >> it's a bit concerning to me because it would basically end all the kinds of health care we know. >> we would have a medicare premium for all people and zero private health insurance. private health insurance premiums.

good day. i'm chris matthews in for andrea mitchell. no more mr. nice guy. donald trump's back on the campaign trail today picking up where he left off, going after his main challenger, ted cruz. >> he came at me last night, it was inappropriate and i hit him very hard but i had no idea that he was going to take it that way. he's got a problem, we have got to straighten out the problem. i think he had a couple suits filed yesterday against him running which is exactly what i have been saying. so i don't know that he's a nice guy. i think he hurt himself last night. i thought that ted did not have a good night last night and i thought his hit on new york was disgraceful. >> wow. disgraceful. msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt joins us from north charleston, south carolina. nbc's hallie jackson is in columbia, south carolina with ted cruz. let me start with kasie.

how do you -- you are covering the whole beachfront here of all the candidates. what do you think's coming out of last night in terms of the projection of this race, the trajectory? >> reporter: chris, i think the trajectory stayed pretty much the same. you had trump and cruz in that first tier. if anything, i think while cruz did get in some good fighting spirit, if you will, on the birther issue, at the end of the day, you know, every time we said somebody got a knock in on trump, trump has come out okay at the end of the day. and i think the reality is that the establishment tier is even further down than they were before, and there are a lot of people in the republican party who are coming around to if there are five stages of grief, this is the acceptance phase of donald trump's campaign and the establishment is continuing to fight back and forth with itself. lindsey graham endorsed jeb bush today but he didn't have terribly kind words for marco

rubio, who of course seems to be holding in a third place maybe in iowa. take a listen to what he had to say to me earlier today. >> i think he'll be president of the united states one day. he's one of the most articulate people i have ever met. i like marco. he's been very good on national security. i can just say at 44, i wasn't ready to be president. at the end of the day in 2016, i think jeb bush has the package we need. >> reporter: so there you have it. him saying that marco rubio is poe tntentially not ready to be president because of his age. that might be a hard thing to walk back if rubio ndz up coming out on top in a place like south carolina. >> thank you. let me go to hallie jackson. the thing with cruz last night, i thought he did pretty well in challenging trump and he seemed like a good debater which he is fwhoe well known to be. in every front page of the papers today, the word canadian-born or issue of the constitution, trump has led the

news in saying what the news is. again he's made the issue what he wants it to be, whether this guy is constitutionally eligible, having been born in canada. >> reporter: and that is not going anywhere, chris. i talked to donald trump in the spin room and said hey, given that some folks thought that ted cruz came out really strong on the eligibility issue in that birther exchange that happened, are you going to keep going after him on this, or are you going to let it go. trump said i'm not letting it go. i'm paraphrasing but he said there's a question about it, we will continue to keep talking about it. for trump that may be a smart strategy because look at what ted cruz and his campaign is still talking about. it's this idea of questions about his eligibility for the white house, questions that the campaign believes is settled. notable that in the debate last night you saw cruz right in the first couple of minutes get questions on the topics that have knocked him off message over the last week. eligibility, goldman sachs, the loan he had taken out from the bank, this issue of this new york values. these are all things that ted cruz has been facing over these

last few days that he's continuing to talk about. >> wow. let's go to chris jansing. chris, you're in the trump rally right now. >> reporter: yeah, i am. this is another example of how donald trump has sort of just developed as a politician. it used to be he would do these quick drop-ins to iowa, one and done, and he's wrapping up right now. he was scheduled for 15 minutes. he's gone closer to an hour. he was coming in to do "morning joe" after the debate last night in des moines so they very hastily put together this, it wasn't supposed to be a rally but they have got a huge crowd of people. it really just is about the adaptability of a guy who months ago was not even a politician and the way his learning curve is. i had a chance to speak with him briefly this morning when he was going in to do "morning joe." he was taking a shot, it just tells you a little bit about him. first thing he did when he walked in to java joe's, he looked at mark halperin who said

he won the debate but gave him an a-minus, said what's with the a-minus. he believes now he has a real chance of winning iowa, a state that a month ago, people would not have thought was possible. as you well know. >> i know we have to watch the poll numbers as they move or don't move to see who really won last night. that's the only way you know who won a debate. don't ask people who won the debate. watch the numbers move after the debate. that's what tells you. ted cruz, stuck to his country criticism of donald trump having new york values in one of the great exchanges of last night. >> everyone understands that the values in new york city are socially liberal, pro-abortion or pro-gay marriage, focus around money and the media. i guess i can frame it another way. not a lot of conservatives come out of manhattan. i'm just saying. >> conservatives actually do come out of manhattan, including

william f. buckley and others, just so you understand. and just so -- if i could, because he insulted a lot of people, i have had more calls on that statement that ted made that new york is a great place, it's got great people, it's got loving people, wonderful people. when the world trade center came down, i saw something that no place on earth could have handled more beautifully, more humanely than new york. >> and the former senator from new york has just weighed in. hillary clinton tweeting just this once, trump's right. new yorkers value hard work, diversity, tolerance, resilience and building better lives for our families. well, new york republican congressman peter king joins us right now. congressman king, thanks so much. you do represent new york in a way that a lot of these other people don't. tell us what are new york values? >> chris, i was born in manhattan, raised in queens, went to high school in college in brooklyn. my father was a city cop for over 30 years. to me, new york values are being tough, being patriotic, being

strong, not panicking when there's a crisis and trying to help each other out. with all the fighting we do and all the skirmishing we do, the reality is that new yorkers can come together when they have to. it was proven on 9/11 and to this day, we lost over 400 cops and firemen on 9/11, we have lost almost 300 service men and women in iraq and afghanistan since 9/11, the unit i used to be in, the fighting 69th, has had four or five deployments to iraq and afghanistan, had heavy casualties and still, they are oversubscribed. they have more members, more people belong to the unit than there is actually room for. so it's a tough group of people and maybe to outsiders they don't always understand us but when the money's on the line, the chips are down, new yorkers are always there. maybe it's because we are all thrown together. we have so many different races, ethnic groups, religions, labor unions, business, we have everything. we have to find a way to make it work. even if we don't always get along, somehow we learn to tolerate one another and that makes us stronger people. >> you know, i just think as a

visitor to new york all the time, i'm from philly, i always think about new york as the two new yorks. there's the new york of the famous people, the ones that get their names in the columns, the bold print names, and then there's the 99.99% of the city that grew up there in the boroughs, i said the other night a couple times that brooklyn, for example, is the borough of churches. you can't turn your head and not see a church. st. patrick's is always packed at lunchtime. the actors studio is always crowded with people. the actors include a lot of church-going people, too. that's one of the hardest professions -- my kid's an actor. one of the hardest professions there is is acting and performing on broadway. i don't know what they're talking about in values. it's certainly not a work ethic problem. i mean, god, how hard it is to work in new york. you can make it there, you can make it anywhere isn't for kidding. nobody's kidding about that. >> no. you do have to work hard. we don't look for handouts or help. for instance, when we had the terrible disaster of sandy, ted

cruz is one of the guys who voted against us yet when the flood is in texas he's the first guy trying to grab money for texas. we can all take cheap shots. the mayor of houston instituted unisex locker rooms in high schools. am i going to blame all the people in texas because the mayor in houston, who is this guy kidding? then he talks about new york being too focused on money. his wife works for one of the major investment banks, great bank, but his wife works there and he got a $1 million loan and he comes into new york to raise money from new yorkers, including from goldman sachs. these are stories he was behind, when he was behind the scenes fund-raisers and there were gay republicans there and they brought up the issue of gay marriage, he gives them a wink and a nod saying don't worry, he's not going to do anything about it. he doesn't say this in the bible belt. he brought up last night about gay marriage. this guy's a hypocrite. >> i remember governor carey once said these people attack us because we talk loud, we're brash. what do you think is the dog whistle here, coming out of this

sort of country mouse shot at new york? he's talking to iowa, obviously. what is he saying to them? what's the undercover statement being made by senator cruz here? >> i would say that we are different, he's talking about immigrant groups, talking about labor unions, talking about the fact that somehow, we are different and that could have a racial, religious, economic component. whatever it is, there's also a jealousy there. he's trying to appeal to people's worst instincts. the instinct of begrudgery. i always say screw the begrudgery. the fact is we work hard in new york. i'm sure the farmers in iowa work hard. let's just do our own thing and anyone who has got to pick out another region to go after, listen, i occasionally say something about southerners in congress. joe scarborough has never forgiven me because i called him a hillbilly once. that's all said with tongue in cheek. actually for him to talk values, i never fudge with somebody's values, especially a whole region, especially a place like new york, which has proven time

and again with medal of honor wir winners, cops, firemen, social workers. you said churches. cardinal o'connor, cardinal dolan, the rabbis and ministers that come out of new york and the ethnic groups that are living there. we get along in our own way. when the money's on the line, nobody's better than new yorkers. >> you know what, i loved that city ever since i went there as a high school newspaper editor to the columbia university newspaper convention. it's always a thrill to stay at places -- we didn't have money so we stayed at places like the taft hotel. it's still magic to me. thank you very much. i like you better than that other guy king from iowa, by the way. you are a better king than steve king. the one that believes in cantaloupe legs or whatever the heck it is. thank you, sir. coming up, the next south carolina showdown is coming up this weekend. hillary clinton and bernie sanders latest hits are just a wrapup or the warmup for sunday night's debate in charleston. this is joanne.

her long day as a hair stylist starts with shoulder pain when... hey joanne, want to trade the all day relief of 2 aleve with 6 tylenol? give up my 2 aleve for 6 tylenol? no thanks. for me... it's aleve. shall we say, unnecessarily complex.h back cards are, limiting where you can earn bonus cash back... then those places change every few months... please. it's time you got the quicksilver card from capital one. quicksilver earns you unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. doesn't get much simpler than that. what's in your wallet?

and i quit smoking with chantix. i decided to take chantix to shut everybody else up about me quitting smoking. i was going to give it a try, but i didn't think it was going to really happen. after one week of chantix, i knew i could quit. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. chantix definitely helped reduce my urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation, depressed mood and suicidal thoughts or actions while taking or after stopping chantix. some had seizures while taking chantix. if you have any of these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away. tell your doctor about any history of mental health problems, which could get worse or of seizures. don't take chantix if you've had a serious allergic or skin reaction to it. if you have these, stop chantix and call your doctor right away as some can be life-threatening. tell your doctor if you have heart or blood vessel problems, or develop new or worse symptoms. get medical help right away if you have symptoms of a heart attack or stroke. decrease alcohol use while taking chantix. use caution when driving or operating machinery. most common side effect is nausea. being a non-smoker feels great. ask your doctor if chantix is right for you.

you cannot give hillary clinton a third term of barack obama's leadership. i will not do that if i'm the nominee. she won't get within ten miles of the white house. >> everybody on this stage is better than hillary clinton. >> she wouldn't just be a disaster. hillary clinton is disqualified from being commander in chief of the united states. >> when they weren't attacking each other last night in the debate, the republican candidates targeted hillary clinton or as christie used to say last night over and over again, hillary rodham clinton. the democratic front-runner is defending herself against charges from bernie sanders right now that she's too cozy with wall street. >> the president and many

democrats who support dodd-frank, we are fighting to keep it from being turned back and eviscerated by the republicans, are saying wait a minute, this is hard work. what the president got done and what the democrats who stood with him got done is a pretty important accomplishment if we're going to rein in the excesses on wall street. >> i believe that we have to ultimately break up the major financial institutions on wall street whose greed and recklessness is harming america. that's my view. there are other people within the democratic party who disagree. >> i love it when people say other people disagree with me. joining me from the daily fix, the "washington post" chris cillizza and "wall street journal" carol lee. the toughest attack on hillary clinton last night, well, i was about to say what it was. why don't you tell me, chris cillizza? >> i mean, honestly, the toughest attack in terms of rhetoric was sort of from christie and you know, she'll

never be president. marco rubio said she's disqualified herself from the presidency. look, it's donald trump is again -- >> carly fiorina saying -- >> that was the toughest attack. >> let's take a look at carly. this is to me beyond the bounds of the normal political debate in this country. carly fiorina. >> i'm not a political insider. i haven't spent my lifetime running for office. the truth is, i have had -- i have been blessed by a lot of opportunities to do a lot of things in my life and unlike another woman in this race, i actually loved spending time with my husband. >> what do you make -- well, carol, i'm not sure if this is a woman or man's question but to go after a wife and say you don't like your husband seems a little bit beyond what we usually talk about in politics. you might say it's indecent. what do you think? >> it's a little beyond what we talk about. it also stood in stark contrast to the debate which was quite

substantive and wasn't targeted on these types of personal attacks toward hillary clinton. they were attacking her on substance and the broader debate, and i thought carly fiorina's comment just stood out as not really substantive. >> do you think there's a battle, let me ask you about the anger factor which we could talk about forever. there is an almost screeching anger toward the democratic party by the hard right and the more you show your visceral personal disgust, even hatred of hillary clinton and barack obama, seems to be a way that the richter scale works on that end of the party. they don't want you to voice their anger. they want you to share their anger. >> this is the jeb bush problem at some level which is he can say things like well, hillary clinton and barack obama have made the wrong decisions for the country, et cetera, but tonally, he's just kind of sitting there,

you know, he doesn't look angry. he's not a vessel through which the anger can notice. who is? trump, obviously. cruz is coming along that way. you saw rubio last night, right out of the box. look, every question, you could have said donald trump says you're a horrible person, what do you think about that? and rubio would have said i want to talk about hillary clinton and barack obama. >> carol, this is something i do know about. politicians generally, even though they yell at each other onstage, when they get in a room together over a cup of coffee or have to debate and discusses something in terms of scheduling of american issues, they are cordial. it seems to me voters, some of the voters in the republican caucuses coming up don't want to know that in the back seat of the car driving up to the capitol for the inauguration next january 20th they would like to see a prune face of a politician showing absolutely no joy in being in the company of the person who is leaving office. in other words, they want

visceral hatred of barack obama. chris christie last night said he was, what did he say, i'm going to boot him out of the white house. >> on his rear end. >> this is a statement about the elected president of the united states. get to this. this is new in politics, that you have to visibly, viscerally have contempt for the physical reality of the political opponent right now. >> there is a large element of that. it's new in recent years. it reminds me, it's here in washington, you know this. speaker boehner when he was former speaker of the house, who had an issue with whenever he would meet with president obama, it really, it caused problems for him in terms of getting things done. you are seeing that on the campaign trail. they're not only dealing with an electorate that's angry but that's angry and scared. so they are angry about certain domestic policies and they are scared and -- about the national security and so both of those things were all over the place last night. when you have an electorate that's angry and scared, that's a really volatile combination. >> have you ever seen a

politician, male, female, female, female, male, male, that had physical contempt for the presence of the other person? i find that rare. usually they are charming enough in person. >> i'm always wary of saying this is worse than ever before, because i feel like we always think the most recent thing is worse, but i will say look, the' fiorina thing, i think got less attention because she's at 1% and it happened at 6:00 as opposed to 9:00. but that's a pretty remarkable thing to say. i mean, essentially, it's not reading between the lines, what she said is hillary clinton and bill clinton don't love spending time with one another. >> they tried to push her last night and got booed after awhile. are you saying it's not a real marriage. she wouldn't go that far. >> i think it's totally fair and well within the bounds of what we have heard in political rhetoric to say hillary clinton is the worst secretary of state or the decisions barack obama made have made us less safe. those kind of things are within the bounds of political

rhetoric. the problem is, you are now seeing reward for saying the most outlandish things beyond the pale. what does that mean? >> handlers are saying do it. senator cruz tried to score some points against trump when the subject of cruz's constitutional eligibility came up last night. but trump doubled down on the lawsuit line that's been effective over the last couple weeks. by the way, he made sure this story stayed in the headlines today. >> back in september, my friend donald said that he had had his lawyers look at this from every which way and there was no issue there. there was nothing to this birther issue. now, since september, the constitution hasn't changed. but the poll numbers have. >> i win. i choose him as my vice presidential candidate and the democrats, too, because we can't take him along for the ride. i don't like that, okay? for some reason now, he beats

the rest of the field. i already know the democrats are going to be bringing suit. you have a big lawsuit over your head while you're running and if you become the nominee, who the hell knows if you can even serve in office? >> carol, i can only imagine in a lot of law schools around the country maybe starting with liberty law school or one of the more conservative ones, university of chicago, somewhere like that, you have law students right now taking constitutional law thinking what was the original intent of the phrase natural-born? and they are going back to trying to figure out, certainly scalia is like this and alito and clarence thomas. they want to know what do those boundaries mean. isn't that an interesting question. it's not what the law has been since. the statutory giving him citizenship to people upon birth because their parents are american. it's what the constitution meant at the time. it seems to me the republican right is going to be dealing with this over the next couple weeks because there are going to be young lawyers out there and old lawyers.

we had larry tribe on last night, a progressive, a liberal, all over the place saying trump's got a case. >> the interesting thing about this is it has sparked a legitimate discussion and debate among legal scholars and that donald trump has managed to do that. it was obviously a political move on his part. but it's taken hold in this more substantive type of way. the thing i found fascinating about that exchange last night was that donald trump managed to say it like it was selfless of him to bring this up. it's just about the democrats, someone's going to sue so i'm doing everyone a favor. that was a very interesting way for him to kind of get around the fact that this was clearly a political attack and it's starting to work a little bit. >> i think people like that cleverness because it's so obviously an attempt to screw the guy. but i do this out of compassion. >> it's a public service. >> public service. >> i'm serving the party. hillary clinton, bernie sanders and martin o'malley will square off in the nbc news youtube debate this sunday night at 9:00

p.m. eastern moderated by lester holt and the person i'm substituting for, andrea mitchell. it will be the last time these candidates meet before iowa. coming up, the moonshot, that's what it's being called. can american ambition fuel the fight against cancer? i am totally blind. and sometimes i struggle to sleep at night, and stay awake during the day. this is called non-24. learn more by calling 844-824-2424. or visit your24info.com. iall across the state belthe economy is growing,day. with creative new business incentives, and the lowest taxes in decades,

attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow. like in the hudson valley, with world class biotech. and on long island, where great universities are creating next generation technologies. let us help grow your company's tomorrow, today at business.ny.gov they represent blood cells. and if you have afib-an irregular heartbeat that may put you at five times greater risk of stroke they can pool together in the heart, forming a clot that can break free and travel upstream to the brain, where it can block blood flow and cause a stroke. but if you have afib that's not caused by a heart valve problem, pradaxa can help stop clots from forming. pradaxa was even proven superior to warfarin at reducing the risk of stroke, in a clinical trial without the need for regular blood tests. and, in the rare event of an emergency, pradaxa is the only oral blood thinner other than warfarin with a specific reversal treatment to help your body clot normally again.

pradaxa is not for people who have had a heart valve replacement. don't stop taking pradaxa without talking to your doctor. stopping increases your risk of stroke or blood clots ask your doctor if you need to stop pradaxa before any planned medical or dental procedure. pradaxa can cause serious, and sometimes, fatal bleeding. don't take pradaxa if you have abnormal bleeding. and seek immediate medical care for unexpected signs of bleeding, like unusual bruising. pradaxa may increase your bleeding risk if you're 75 or older, have kidney problems, stomach ulcers, a bleeding condition, or take certain medicines. side effects with pradaxa can include indigestion, stomach pain, upset or burning. don't just go with the flow. go with pradaxa, the only blood thinner that lowers your risk of stroke better than warfarin and has a specific reversal treatment. talk to your doctor about pradaxa today. theand the kids always eat sky their vegetables.e. because the salad there is always served

with the original hidden valley ranch. because he's gone to the mat for all of us on so many issues over the past 40 years, i'm putting joe in charge of mission control. for the loved ones we have all lost, for the families that we can still save, let's make america the country that cures cancer once and for all. what do you say, joe? >> president obama called it the moonshot, appointing joe biden mission control in the fight against cancer. biden inspired to find a cure after the loss of his own son to the disease just last year.

sp he spoke about that just hours before the state of the union with savannah guthrie. >> there is such an outpouring after the loss of beau. people are wondering how are you doing? how's the family doing? >> we are doing well. we got through the holidays and every family has gone through it. we went through it knowing that's the hardest thing. we are focusing on the inspiration that beau was rather than the loss. >> this afternoon, vice president biden will be launching that effort himself, visiting the university of pennsylvania's pearlman school of medicine and the abramson cancer center at penn. i'm joined by dr. emanuel, the vice-provost of global initiatives at penn's medical ethics department, also an msnbc contributor and one of the authors of the affordable care act. what did you think when you heard the president was going to do this, and we have had the war on cancer from richard nixon back in '71. is it the kind of thing that a fast-moving moonshot manhattan project kind of effort will work? would succeed with?

>> well, one of the problems with the notion of curing cancer is the idea that it's one disease. that might have been true when there was a war on cancer, but one of the things we certainly learned in the last 40 years and especially in the last ten years is that we are dealing with hundreds of different cancers and even saying breast cancer, it's not one disease. every different cancer has a different molecular marker and molecular defect. so we have got to recalibrate. we will cure -- the goal is to cure individual diseases so the idea that we are going to cure cancer i think needs to be expunged. it will be individual kinds of cancers where we need to make significant advances or cures. that's the first thing. the second thing is, you notice that this announcement didn't come with a clear agenda like we are going to walk on the moon. that's a sort of -- you can get your arms around. >> or a budget. >> right. there are rumors in washington they are talking about a 7% increase in the national cancer

institute budget which is not an insubstantial amount, more than $350 million, but that's unlikely to lead to a cure. i assume that they are expecting the private sector to pony up. the good news i think is there are more than 600 drugs related to cancer in trials or entering research trials now. one of the challenges there, and i think that's one thing that the vice president should focus on, is making sure we have a better way to recruit people to clinical trials. now, only between 5% and 10% of patients participate in clinical research. if we are going to test those drugs and really make progress, we have to dramatically increase that number. i hope he focuses on that. he himself has said he's going to focus on the sort of politics in cancer where no one seems to collaborate and again, i think that would be a good thing for him to do and to try to sort of knock heads and get people to play ball with each other rather than to fight and always try to claim credit.

>> we have learned ways to avoid getting cancer. people don't smoke cigarettes like they used to with abandon, like people would smoke four or five packs a day in the '50s. kids would start in the schoolyard at 15, start smoking. i think that's not as bad. people used to think, especially caucasians, stay the hell out of the sun, especially from northern europe, stay out of the sun, it's just going to kill you. are there other ways, does diabetes lead to cancer? are there any things we learned, an array of issues where we have to avoid cancer because it's hard to deal with once you get it? >> chris, do you have a doctorate now? because you are absolutely right. one of the things i do hope the vice president focuses on is prevention. it's great to treat cancer but it's much better to prevent it. you mentioned two, but four lifestyle issues, staying out of the sun, stopping to smoke, eating haia healthy diet and exercising accounts for 40% or

50% of the drivers of cancer. we get often obsessed by the genetics, brca-1 for breast cancer and ovarian cancer, but the lifestyle factors are important and they have much more, wider impact than cancer. heart disease, stroke. so hopefully he will focus on prevention just as much as the cure, because not getting it would be a huge boon to the country. >> you are great on tv. i wish you should be on a lot. you are like the bishop sheen of medicine which i consider a high tribute. >> i hope that's a compliment. >> it is a high compliment from where i grew up. thank you so much. if you won the big billion dollar powerball jackpot this week, how would you announce it to the world? john and lisa robinson from the little town of munford, tennessee decided to surprise everyone by revealing their good fortune live on the "today" show this morning. here they are describing the big moment. >> actually, i was on my way home from work. she had called me and she said are you going to stop and get a

couple lottery tickets. i said i really didn't feel like stopping that night. i was like yeah, i'll stop and get them. >> so i wrote the numbers down and i got to looking and i saw it and i was like, looked again, they're the same. looked again, third time i went running down the hallway, you got to check these numbers! i startled him because he was asleep on the couch. >> here's the big development. as we all would think about, lisa says she still plans to work. that's always a big question. she loves her job. she must love it a lot after this money comes in. we'll be right back. this is sheldon,

whose long day setting up the news starts with arthritis pain and a choice. take tylenol or take aleve,.. the #1 recommended pain reliever by orthopedic doctors. just two aleve can keep pain away all day. back to the news.

what's that, broheim? i switched to geico and got more. more savings on car insurance? yeah bro-fessor, and more. like renters insurance. more ways to save. nice, bro-tato chip. that's not all, bro-tein shake. geico has motorcycle and rv insurance, too. oh, that's a lot more. oh yeah, i'm all about more, teddy brosevelt. geico. expect great savings and a whole lot more. two marine helicopters collided midair over the hawaii island of oahu. active search and rescue operation is under way for the 12 marines on board but there has been no sign yet of any survivors out there. nbc's chief pentagon correspondent jim miklaszewski

joins us with the latest. do we know what caused the crash? >> not quite yet, chris. u.s. military officials say whatever happened, it appeared that the two helicopters which were on a nighttime training mission over open waters, over the ocean, north of oahu, when it appears that they collided in midair. search and rescue helicopters from the coast guard were sent out to the region. they saw burning debris fields. one empty lifeboat. but there were no signs of any survivors. u.s. military officials believe this would have had to be a sort of instantaneous catastrophic event because there were no distress calls from either one of the helicopters. the search efforts, however, are being impaired significantly because of the very high winter seas there off oahu. we are told the waves there are 12 to 15 feet high, making the search effort even more difficult.

>> that's terrible. jim miklaszewski. breaking news from wall street. the dow jones is down today. olivia sterns is here with an update. what's causing this? it was almost at 18,000 not long ago. i came in this morning, it was below 16,000. now it's down, crashing again. >> yeah. the stock market certainly appearing to crash a bit today, down about 528 points right now. you can see the selling really picking up momentum as we are headed into the afternoon. we started off down a couple hundred points on the dow, now we are down more than 500 points. nothing really happened over the course of the day although here at 11:30 the market in europe closed and the market in europe is now officially in bear territory, meaning it's off 20% or more from its recent highs. perhaps that's spooking ve inin investors. >> is this china? >> yeah, it's two things. it's china, people worried about the stock market, worried the government won't be able to goose the economy to intervene

enough to get it to actually grow at its growth target which is 7%, and the other reason is item. people are really worried about the plunge in the price of crude. it's fallen 20% so far this year and it's only january 15th. so huge plunge in the price of oil sparking a lot of concerns. that means a big energy companies might go bankrupt and are certainly going to have to lay off thousands of people. that's all going to be a big drag on the economy. >> do we know what the bottom is? people love to use the word correction, 10%, to get you back in the market because everybody wants you in the market. is there any natural bottom? is there a rachet effect here where it just says okay, these prices are going to look pretty good now for the stock values no matter how chicken you are? >> a lot of traders like big round numbers. you would have thought 16,000 would have been a floor. clearly, we have broken through that. i have also spoken to investors who say they think this is a great buying opportunity and these value stocks are a good buy. you know, perhaps if you look at the fundamental strength of the u.s. economy, we are still growing at 2.5%.

the latest jobs report was 300,000. nothing is fundamentally changed in the u.s. economy. so this sell-off does look pretty severe given the fact that nothing has really changed on main street. >> you are an optimist. thank you so much for coming on. coming up, sean penn speaks out. what he's saying about his notorious meeting with drug kingpin joaquin el chapo guzman before his capture. guzman's capture in mexico.

the possibility of a flare swas almost always on my mind. thinking about what to avoid, where to go... and how to deal with my uc. to me, that was normal.

until i talked to my doctor. she told me that humira helps people like me get uc under control and keep it under control when certain medications haven't worked well enough. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened; as have blood, liver, and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment, get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. raise your expectations. ask your gastroenterologist about humira. with humira, control is possible.

my man, lemme guess who you're wearing... everyone's lookin' red carpet ready. toenail fungus!? whaaat?!? fight it! with jublia. jublia is a prescription medicine... ...used to treat toenail fungus. use jublia as instructed by your doctor. jublia is workin' it! most common side effects include... ...ingrown toenail, application site redness,... ...itching, swelling, burning... ...or stinging, blisters, and pain. oh!! fight it! with jublia! now that's a red carpet moment! ask your doctor if jublia is right for you. visit our website for savings on larger size. actor sean penn is now speaking out for the first time about his meeting with mexican drug lord joaquin el chapo guzman. in an interview with cbs news, he said he met with the cartel leader in order, he says, to begin a conversation, he says, about the policy of the war on drugs. well, mexico's attorney general has said penn's visit was quote,

essential to guzman's capture. penn disagrees. >> we know that the mexican government, they were clearly very humiliated by the notion that someone found him before they did. well, nobody found him before they did. we didn't -- we're not smarter than the dea or the mexican intelligence. we had a contact upon which we were able to facilitate an invitation. >> do you believe that the mexican government released this in part because they wanted to see you blamed and to put you at risk? >> yes. >> wow. nbc's gabe gutierrez is sitting here, just back from mexico. is it possible to dig through all the hollywood and the show biz aspect of it to what might be truth? did sean go down there, he's known as an activist, did he go down there for a good story for a magazine or to do something else, which he says he did? >> i think that's the speculation right now.

what you see in that cbs interview is the first time we have heard from sean penn since this article came out. he makes a point in that interview and when he's asked is he a journalist, that's a question a lot of people have been asking, is he really a journalist, and he points out well, show me your journalist license. he has been known before to interview world leaders, raul castro and hugo chavez. he has been -- played that role before. so he would argue that yes, he went down there to talk about this broader issue of the war on drugs and -- >> why would he talk about the world's biggest cartel leader in an effort to reduce the sale of drugs? the business, to tell him not to do what he does? >> well, he's a hollywood actor. no he knows how to get attention. >> is that a credible motive, believable motive, he went down there to try to discourage him from what made him a kingpin? >> i think sean penn will say that look, i wanted to start a broader conversation. there's no better way to do this

than to talk with the man that has given very few interviews ever. his first interview in decades. he wanted to make this broader point. what's been focused on is of course the mexican soap opera car kate del castillo and sean penn. it's a sexy story. you get conflicting accounts from what happened between the u.s. and mexican authorities. what mexican authorities have said is that he was essential to the capture. >> he doesn't want to be known as the guy that fingered him. who would want to be -- just for your own security, you don't want to be known as that guy. >> charlie rose asked him do you fear for your life and he said no. >> in his favor, one thing we all watched movies like "traffic" about this whole thing. the reason there is a drug dealer is because there's a market. the markets want coke, crack, the powder, all the stuff. they want the dope. what we used to call mary jane. there's a market. is that what he went to ask him about?

>> i don't know. you have to ask sean penn. but i think what he wanted to do is start this broader conversation. he's upset that we, the media, have focused on the hollywood aspect of this and also asking questions, a lot of -- he's gotten a lot of criticism on social media whether he should have told the authorities about this. he made the point in the interview look, i didn't know anything more than the dea or -- >> who would criticize him for fingering the guy? are these people on the side of guzman? >> no. sean penn, there has been criticism of sean penn. he should have alerted or told the authorities. >> we don't know what he did. coming up, storming the south. thank you, gabe. storming the south, the democrats swoop into south carolina this weekend for their final debate before the iowa caucuses. we will get a preview next from one of the moderators. andrea mitchell. ♪ i built my business with passion. but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on

everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet? her long day as anne. hair stylist starts with shoulder pain when... hey joanne, want to trade the all day relief of 2 aleve with 6 tylenol? give up my 2 aleve for 6 tylenol? no thanks. for me... it's aleve.

so which political story will make headlines in the next

24 hours? andrea mitchell just landed in south carolina, she's in charleston where she will join lester holt for sunday's democratic debate. she joins us by phone. you have a great job coming in two nights. >> i'm really excited about it. excited about lester moderating this debate and me being with him, and look, the democratic race is heating up. it's tightening up and as it has, you have seen sharp exchanges as you have been reporting between hillary clinton and bernie sanders over health care, over guns, of course. so we want to see how they face off against each other. and martin o'malley will be on the stage as well. >> there seems to be, you know these as well as i do, the numbers seem to be sliding the last couple weeks in the direction of bernie sanders. that puts secretary clinton in a position of having to stop the slide. so there's more pressure on her, right? coming sunday night? >> absolutely. he has been not just drawing the big crowds, but showing that he is getting really the share of the undecided voters.

she is losing among people who were sort of soft in their decision. so he -- it's not that the des moines register poll was really picking up but she is losing undecideds. he is so strong among young voters, he is beginning to get a gender gap advantage. >> back in '72 i was watching politics, you may well have been doing the same. edmond muskey was the strongest possible establishment front-runner you could imagine. everyone in washington had their resume in the guy's office. it was done. along came george mcgovern. hard left, hard anti-vietnam war policy, and he beat him. it made no sense, by the way, because mcgovern was going to get killed in the general and everybody must have known that. they didn't care. that's what i'm wondering about the bernie people. are they cognizant of the

vulnerabilities of a self-described socialist in an american general election when republicans, including moderate republicans, get to vote? >> no. they don't think they are vulnerable. they think she's vulnerable. the fact is, chris, just last night i was talking to a long-time democrat who worked in that race who said you know, this really reminds me of 1972 and ed muskey and mcgovern and the income disparity, wall street, all those issues are this cycle's vietnam war. the anger of the younger voter. boy, that was exactly the comment. i can tell you that a lot of old-time democrats and hillary supporters are beginning to say she's got to pick it up and they are beginning to get worried because if you look at the calendar, he can win iowa, the numbers show it. they decide late but he could win iowa.

he can obviously win new hampshire and neighboring vermont, then nevada, the caucus state, lot of union people. he could win the first three contests and the irony is that her firewall is in the south. to think that hillary clinton's firewall would be south carolina is pretty -- >> isn't ironic. thank you so much. i think this knock on failure to launch, people in their 20s not getting careers started may ricochet right back into american politics this year. it could be translated into oh, yeah, it's your problem now, buddy. that does it for this edition of "andrea mitchell reports." andrea mitchell was with us from south carolina where she will co-moderate on sunday night the big democratic debate down there. when hillary clinton and bernie sanders and martin o'malley square off on the nbc news youtube debate, moderated by lester holt, joined by andrea mitchell. tune in to "hardball" tonight at 7:00 eastern. we will have a big show tonight.

"msnbc live" with thomas roberts is next. you think you're doing all you can for your heart health, ...but 9 out of 10 americans... ...aren't getting enough important omega-3s. bayer pro ultra omega-3 can help, with two times the concentration of omega-3s than the leading brand. love your heart ... with bayer pro ultra omega-3.

only glucerna has carbsteady, diabetes, steady is exciting. clinically proven to help minimize blood sugar spikes. so you stay steady ahead.

good to with you with me. i'm thomas roberts. we want to begin with breaking news. the dow currently down more than 400 points right now. it was down over 500 points earlier today. it has been a really rough friday on wall street since the opening bell. just three hours now until the closing bell. we have team coverage of what's happening from wall street, all the angles covered for you as we watch now that psychological benchmark of going south of 16,000. i want to bring in msnbc business and tech correspondent olivia sterns. i know we were just talking about this and the benchmark but explain why we are seeing such a fluctuation. >> it is ugly out there. there are sort of two things traders appear to be keyed into. one thing, they are very worried about what's happening in the chinese stock market. the other thing they are really worried about is this incredible plunge we have seen in the price of oil. so overnight, we actually saw th