appreciate you being here so late in the day. >> you bet. that does it for this hour, i'm kate snow. "mtp daily" starts right now. if it's wednesday, it's the democratic establishment's turn to panic. they've been hitting sanders hard with a hammer. now here comes the sickle. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. ♪ good evening and welcome to "mtp daily." let's get right to tonight's take. the democratic establishment is now doing what the republican establishment's been doing for months. starting to panic. 12 days before the iowa caucuses, bernie sanders is now viewed as enough of a legitimate threat that democrats and liberals are now piling on. while sanders is probably not ahead in new hampshire by that whopping 27 points, one poll shows, he certainly is getting the bittersweet taste of front-runner status today. the progressive pile-on started

monday after the debate, when liberal writers blasted sanders' health care plan, saying it, quote, isn't a plan at all, and that it involved magical realism. then yesterday he was criticized for his rebuff when drafting his utopi utopian prescriptions for the economy. now democrats are starting to use the s word, saying sanders would damage the party at the top of the ticket because he's a democratic socialist. senator claire mccaskill said the republicans won't tauch him because they can't wait to run an ad with a hammer and a sickle. >> the republicans want bernie sanders. one of my colleagues said the republican attack machine has chainsaws for hands. and the point i was trying to make, bernie has not felt those chainsaws, and they would come out with a vengeance if he was our nominee. >> do you think a self-declared

socialist could win the presidency of the united states? >> i can only speak for my state. i think it would be absolutely impossible. >> for now the clinton campaign is leaving socialist off the trail and leaving it to surrogates. today bill clinton told a new hampshire crowd to keep their eye on november. >> we're on a home-field disadvantage here. but the real issue is, who can win the election, who is prepared to do the job, who can make real change? >> and also with an eye to the general, a new clinton ad airing in iowa and new hampshire, touts her experience and features just two republicans -- donald trump and ted cruz. >> she'll take on the gun lobby, finally get equal pay for women, and stop the republicans from ripping all our progress away. so on february 1st, stand up for hillary.

>> the senator tried to strike back by playing the outsider card, dismissing hillary clinton's endorsements from planned parenthood and the human rights campaign. >> we're taking on wall street and the political establishment. i have friends and supporters in the human rights fund, in planned parenthood, but you know what, hillary clinton has been around there for a very, very long time and some of these groups are, in fact, part of the establishment. >> clinton took offense to that comment and she responded to sanders directly on twitter. quote, really, senator sanders? how can you say that groups like planned parenthood and the human rights campaign are part of the establishment that you're taking on? well, here now is tadd define, senior adviser for the clinton campaign. let's go to the last thing he said there. do you believe that planned

parenthood and human rights campaign, that these are part of the democratic establishment that's trying to defeat you? >> i do, chuck. i think the leadership of washington-based groups and it's not just those two, you know, are part of a political establishment here in washington. bernie sanders has a record second to none when it comes to supporting gay rights. that's why he voted against the defense of marriage act in 1996 that president clinton signed into law. he's got a record second to non when it comes to a women's right to choose. i think groups like that will support his candidacy based on his record. but are the leadership of those groups part of the washington establishment? i think they are. >> what do you say to senator claire mccaskill that somebody who is a democratic socialist can't win in the state of missouri? they have a democratic governor

and i think they'd like another democratic governor come 2016. >> i'd say to senator mccaskill, to all the democrats, we should find out who is the strongest candidate for the democratic nomination, and the best issumee of that is not conjecture. it begins with voters. it begins in iowa and new hampshire. i knew the establishment would begin to rise up against him, looks like it's coming a little early. what they should do, they should stop, they should wait, they should listen. in 2008, a lot of people were making these arguments against barack obama, senator mccaskill was for obama then, making arguments against senator clinton in that race. but i think the best measure, the best test is to see who can succeed with voters, who can bring new people into the process, who can get young people excited, who can win support from independents, that's what we need to know in terms of who can be our strongest candidate. until we know that, we won't

know who should be the person to be the nominee of our party. >> let's talk about the chainsaw comment she made. bernie sanders' past has not been litigated one bit. the hillary clinton argument is, it's all out there, everything, she's had every piece of baggage checked, rechecked by tsa, all of those things. bernie sanders, his days before in vermont, when he was even more progressive, shall we say, than he is today, that hasn't been litigated by the republicans in a way, not by hillary clinton in a way to find out if he can withstand the heat. >> well, first, i think a lot of information, soon as bernie announced he was a candidate for president, a lot of information about his record and past was part of the public dialogue. i don't think it's a state secret that bernie has described himself as a democratic socialist for decades now. he gave a speech a georgetown a couple months ago. i just don't think the attacks

against him are going to be effective. the two people in presidential politics who were attacked the most were franklin roosevelt and barack obama. he's connecting with voters across the country. he has a message that's extremely powers, it centers on a rich economy with most of the wealth on top held in place by a corrupt campaign system. >> let me ask you a strategic question about iowa. it's possible you get more people to show up on caucus night to support you, support senator sanders over hillary clinton, but that those folks are concentrated in too few areas. how much of a concern is this for you, when it comes to the iowa caucuses? >> well, it's not as big a concern, because we have a great organization on the ground in iowa. we have tremendous people there who are very familiar with the caucus process. we have been targeting our efforts to make sure that we not only get people out to the caucus, but that we win delegates at the precinct level, on to the county conventions.

we think the caucus process is one that we can bring new people into and really affect the outcome. so i'm not concerned as the clinton people are saying they're all going to come out -- but the truth s bernie sanders has broad support across iowa and across this nation. >> i will leave it there, thank you, sir. now we turn to the clinton campaign. joining me now, national press secretary for the clinton campaign. let me start with this socialist attack. the campaign is not doing it, but you have surrogates doing it. you're getting pushback, saying don't be so aggressive attacking senator sanders about his ideology because you won't be able to unite the party if you happen to be the nominee, what do you say to those folks? >> i think what you're hearing is organic genuine concern from democrats across the country that are fearing a prospect of running on the same ticket as bernie sanders.

the times story that just run surveyed senate candidates across the country and those are folks expressing their concerns about this prospect. and the other thing that you're seeing that we can't have any control over, is republicans openly rooting for the prospect of bernie sanders being the democratic nominee. i think those two things tell you everything you need to know about how it would shape up if bernie sanders emerged as the choi choice. >> eight years ago, they were cheering barack obama, and they picked the wrong horse. maybe they're cheering for all the same reasons they're cheering for now. what do you say to that? >> i'm often perplexed by the degree to which the sanders campaign attempts to liken their candidate to president obama. >> why is that? >> it's just an about-face.

after four years of obama's term in office, senator sanders was considering a challenge to president obama. now here is, into his second term and senator sanders is calling for a revolution. >> how did the clinton campaign get to this point, where somebody who many dismissed as unelectable, somebody who was not a member of the democratic party, still not a registered democrat, has somehow caught you? >> i think there's a couple points there, chuck. number one is, i think there was always gonna be a tighttighteni. this is not a trend that we're just observing now. >> but sometimes campaigns say it. now obviously -- some campaigns say it because they want to not get -- >> it was said publicly and privately. didn't just say it in terms of expecting a tightening of the contest in general.

he said it specifically that he thought senator sanders would turn out to be a viable challenger and that's indeed what has happened. but the second thing that has contributed to this, until now, i don't think that other people shared our view that he would turn into a very serious candidate. and so the vetting has not quite taken place. and as the scrutiny has come in the last couple of weeks, we're starting to see a bit of flailing. we raised concerns about their hillary clinton proposal and it sent them into a tailspin for a couple weeks. i think the concerns about what republicans would do if he's the nominee are quite true. >> when defending secretary clinton on this latest leak from the inspector general's office, you went hard after the inspector general's office, but you didn't seem to -- you went hard at their tactics of leaking, but you didn't really talk about whether what they were saying is true or not. because you used to be at the justice department. >> yeah. >> even if something wasn't

classified at the time, and it gets classified later, that's still a violation, is it not? >> a couple things have come out in the reporting in the last 24 hours on this issue. one, your own network has reported that intelligence officials themselves think that this inspector general has crossed the line and is unfairly targeting hillary clinton. that's coming from the intelligence community. >> about the leaking? >> in the manner in which he's conducted this inquiry. back in august, he made a referral to the justice department, asked them to look into this. they said, sure, we will. so it's unclear why the inspector general is trying to stoke concern up. >> do you think it's a partisan witch-hunt on his part? >> i think it's an unfair and completely inappropriate and mettling by this inspector general and i think that the nbc report today validates that. the second point, on the merits of this, there was a politico story last night that got to the heart of what this may entail. this is an important point. one of the reasons why it's so

egregious what the inspector general is doing, letting republicans leak these out, it airs the charge without giving anyone an opportunity to judge it on its merits because we can't see what e-mails they're talking about. but we had reporting from politico last night that suggested what's at the heart of this is a published news article -- >> the drone program. >> that the cia has to because of the strictures in place, even though it's being openedly reported on, they have to treat it as classified. but if a government employee forwards that news report, all the e-mails in the threat get treated as classified. >> that is the law. that's how classified information works. >> of the two e-mails from the inspector general said last august were top secret, the state department challenged that in realtime and have ever since. >> why did you take offense to idea that planned parenthood who has given millions of dollars to the democratic party is not a part of the democratic establishment, why did you take

offense to that? they are a part of the establishment. >> i'll be honest, i was startled by tadd's decision to double down on that comment by bernie sanders. i think they would like to have that back. >> but why is that an insult? >> because it is coming to suggest that these organizations that are committed to fending off challenges to access to women's health on the one hand, in the case of hrc, promoting marriage equality, to suggest these are protectors of some status quo. these are champions for progressive ideas where there's still a lot of work to be done. they're not representative of establishment. >> you believe the word establishment is an attack word? you take offense to it? >> i think it's an offensive affront to these groups to suggest they're some kind of entrenched defenders of the status quo. i think they should take it back. and i bet you before too long they will have to. >> thank you, sir. >> thanks for having me. coming up, we go to the other side. where there's always establishment panic.

donald trump and ted cruz battle for the top spot in the polls. will the biggest loser end up being the republican party's overall image? and later we'll look at a crucial part of cruz's political past. find out how he's using his time as solicitor general in texas to bolster his conservative credentials. stay tuned. ♪ ♪

it's been one of the most consistent narratives of this election cycle. money is not buying establishment love. at least not on the republican side. campaigns and outside groups supporting jeb bush and marco rubio have now spent a combined $91 million on tv ads so far. donald trump and ted cruz's teams combined have spent just over $8 million on tv ads. that means bush and rubio's team are spending over 11 times what trump and cruz are spending. and then, add in kasich,

christie, and those ad dollars, the establishment candidates are spending a combined $114 million on television ads. 14 times more than the two candidates who are one-two in iowa and new hampshire. trump and cruz. outsiders leading the polls. the insiders spending the money. here's how the overall tv spending looks among the republicans. the only team spending less than cruz and trump, carly fiorina. up next on "mtp daily," how the 2016 race is damaging the brand of the gop right now. we'll show you. ♪ why blend in with the crowd? why shy away from the extraordinary? why fit in, when you were born to stand out? the 2016 nissan altima has arrived.

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even trump's body language suggested it wasn't exactly on the mark for him either. despite confusion about where she would be appearing in day two, appears to be much better choreographed. a stop in oklahoma and trump making sure they know who's the headliner. today it was trump with a quick intro for palin, who spoke as a warm-up act before throwing it back to the big guy. as trump and cruz continue to take up the most oxygen in the republican fight, there's growing concern among those establishment party leaders, meaning their prominence, trump and cruz, could have lasting damage for the gop's image. just today, the 1996 presidential nominee, bob dole is slamming cruz, calling him an extremist and telling "the new york times," if he's the nominee, we'll have wholesale losses in congress and state offices. columnist michael gerson writes

this, for republicans, the only good outcome of trump versus cruz is for both to lose. the future of the party as the carrier of a humane, inclusive conservativism now depends on some viable choice beyond them. just how much has this hurt the party, has this campaign so far hurt the republican party? let's look at some numbers in our latest nbc news/"wall street journal" poll. the answer is a lot. fr only 19% say this campaign has made them more favorable toward the grand old party. that unfavorable view of the party, it's across the board. come pair those compare those numbers to the democrats upon if 28% now have a less favorable view of the

democratic party. 54% say the race has had no impact at all. win or lose this race for the white house, could the republicans lose in a worse kind of way? joining me now is a man i just quoted, former george w. bush speech writer, mr. gerson, welcome, sir. >> thank you. >> you're making this argument against trump and cruz and feel as if it's going to damage the party. but let me ask you this, if they are where the energy is, and frankly a majority of the party wants one of those two, well, maybe is your republican party the one that's disappearing? >> well, i hope not. but i think the fundamental dynamics of this race are in the past the establishment bet has been the best bet in the republican party, you know, since 1964, and barry goldwater.

and that's often because the establishment unites around one candidate and then the right, the far right is divided, like we saw in 2012 against romney. we're seeing the exact opposite happen right now. you know, trump is really solidified, his blue collar populism. cruz has solidified the tea party and evangelical vote. and there are four establishment candidates in a single lane, all of whom are good candidates, not weak candidates, and that's part of the problem. they're running strong campaigns. they have strong messages. but they're not gonna yield to one another. that's the divided lane and that's causing real problems. >> you said somebody before that the establishment bet for the most part has worked out. but this is the argument that grassroots conservatives push back. starting with gerald ford. going to bob dole, john mccain, to mitt romney. and they throw the bushes in there. because the first bush couldn't

win re-election, and the second bush almost didn't win the first time. so the conservative argument goes, you know what, we've always settled, only one time has the conservative wing of the party been able to trump the establishment wing and that was reagan in '80. what do you say to that argument? >> i don't think it's a fair description of where we are. in the loss of 2012, afterwards, the republican party, the rnc did what was called the autopsy, the republican autopsy. they talked about the weaknesses of the party, with working class voters, with new americans, l e latinos and asians, with young people, with women. the attempt, everyone thought we're going to work on these issues in the run-up to this campaign, and it's not worked that way at all. in fact, all of those issues have gotten worse. as you've talked about. how could that possibly be an

improvement? when you're losing ground with every group you need for the future? it's not a rational argument. it's in mid-air. >> isn't this really a one-issue problem for the republican party? it's immigration. take, let's say immigration wasn't an issue, do you think the republican party would be as divided as it is today? isn't that the one issue that is just absolutely ripped the party apart? >> yes, but there are a variety of responsible ways to be for immigration restrictions and the enforcement of our laws. donald trump has set out something that looks much more like a european, right-wing, populist, anti-immigrant party. like ukip or the national front in france. this is -- with his language about muslims, his language about latinos as a group. this is nativism pure and

simple. not a policy disagreement. he's trying to refound the republican party on something that's il liberal, which is in the lincolnian expression is a party of equal opportunity, equal dignity. republicans are going to have to return to that message, i think that's going to require the defeat of trump and probably of cruz as well. >> michael gerson, thank you for coming on, sir. >> enjoyed it. well, as ted cruz makes a run for the white house, we're going to dig deep interest a major part of his resume and see what it tells us about what kind of president he'd be. we're not talking about his brief senate career, but his time as texas solicitor general. breaking news, just within the last hour, michigan governor rick snyder's e-mails about the water crisis in flint have been made public. we'll have the details about what we know so far. our team is scrambling to get them. stay tuned. can be yours for...

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still ahead on "mtp daily," our making of a candidate series with a deep look at ted cruz and how he's trying to use his time as texas solicitor general to secure up his stocks. plus, new details from michigan as the governor's office releases e-mails showing what the governor knew about flint's water crisis and when. but first, oil prices continue to hit new lows. jane wells has the details for us. >> thanks, chuck. wow, a crazy, crazy day. stocks ended sharply lower, but it could have been so much worse. the dow sinks 249 points after falling more than 560 points earlier. the s&p dropped 22 and the nasdaq slipped only five. why the big drop? oil. it keeps falling. today down more than 6%. closed at $26.55 a barrel, the lowest since may of 2003.

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in today's making of a candidate segment, we're looking at ted cruz's time as solicitor general of texas, and what it tells us about who he is as a potential president. cruz is using his five years as texas solicitor general as a conservative calling card on the campaign trail. >> leading 31 states, defending the second amendment right to keep and bear arms. we went to the supreme court, we won, 5-4. >> in front of the united states supreme court, we defended the ten commandments on the state capital grounds. when an atheist filed a lawsuit seeking to strike down the pledge, we went to the u.s.

supreme court and we won anonymono unanimously. >> from 2003 to 2008, cruz argued eight cases before the supreme court and submitted friend of the court briefs in over 70 more cases. he turned what could have been a relatively low profile job into a platform to push conservative causes from gun rights to texas redistricting to the death penalty. cruz highlighted one of those in his first tv ad in his 2012 senate bid. >> when the u.n. and world court overruled a texas jury's verdict to execute an illegal alien for raping and murdering two teenage girls, ted cruz fought all the way to the supreme court and he delivered. >> boy, it conflates a lot of things, doesn't it? in that one ad, and in that one case. just last week on the trail, cruz made it clear he had no problem opposing a republican president on that case, even one he had formerly worked for, george w. bush. >> well, on the other side, i'm sorry to say, was the president

of the united states. and that president wasn't barack obama. it was george w. bush. it was an unusual thing for the state of texas to oppose the president of the united states before the supreme court, who was a texan, who was a republican, who was the former governor of our state, and who was a friend. >> in oral arguments for that case, cruz took a shot at bush, even borrowing a phrase democrats were using at the time to describe bush's handling of the iraq war. >> in over 200 years of our nation's history, i'm not aware of any other directive from the president directly to the state courts and the state judge. here his interests are far less than prosecuting war, and yet he's asserting the authority to go it alone, despite a consistent stream of congressional disapproval. >> cruz's conservative vikties at the court paved the way for his long-shot run for the senate, but it did earn him some critics along the way. for instance, last week, you

heard from "new york times" columnist david brooks who wrote this. saying cruz's behavior in his second case, violated the spirit of the law and noting that quote in his career and public presentation, cruz is a stranger to what would be considered the christian virtues, humility, compassion, mercy and grace. overall, the ted cruz record as solicitor general is in many ways what has propelled him to the place he is today with many conservatives. michael cruz is a senior writer at politico and he dug deep into cruz's time as solicitor general. he joins me now. mr. cruz, no relation, you spell it much differently. but let's judge his tenure overall. eight cases and essentially looks like he went about .500, for a state solicitor general, pretty good to me. >> for sure.

it depends on the case. you work with what you have. but by all accounts he did very well as a maker of oral argument says in front of the supreme court. nobody doubts that. in 2003, cruz was floundering for a double ivy league graduate, a supreme court law clerk, he had been a policy staffer on george w. bush campaign and wanted in return a good job in the administration, and he didn't really get what he wanted. he was sort of in out of the way posts in first the department of justice and then the federal trade commission. so in 2003 when he got a call from greg abbott, the attorney general of texas at the time, and now of course the governor, asking if he wanted to be considered for this post, he said absolutely. this was a second chance for ted cruz to do what he wanted to do, which was to turn his extraordinary legal potential

and legal acumen into political potential, and that's what the solicitor general job allowed him to do. he did that from 2003 to 2008, which was much longer than almost everybody else who has been in that job, predecessors and successors. when you look at his record, you can't say he's flip flopped on ideology, can you? >> no. what he did in that job was use -- the solicitor general of any state is essentially the state's top appellate lawyer. there are two ways to do this job. one is to essentially play defense. the state gets sued, the solicitor general comes in and represents the state and its interests. the other way is to write these friend of the court briefs, amicus briefs to push conservative causes on a national front. this was what abbott wanted cruz to do, and what cruz did very, very successfully. he did that in his oral arguments and he did that in the

amicus briefs. and over the course of time, developed this record. and it really is the record on which he ran for senate in 2012, successfully, of course. and to some extent, it's the record he's still running on for president now. >> you know, it's interesting, i remember an interview about and i think it was about six weeks ago, he was asked about -- if being president, i think it was something about his dream job, and they threw out the idea of a supreme court seat. and i did get the seat, i remember, he paused, he hesitated. if he were to choose chief justice of the supreme court or president of the united states, do you get the sense he would pick chief justice of the supreme court has truly his dream job in american government? >> probably not anymore. he had a version of this choice to make in those five years when he was sg. he had a chance to get onto a very high ranking appellate court in texas. >> and he's a young man. probably could have sky rocketed. >> he's still a young man, but

as an even younger man. he said "no" before that conversation went very far at all, because he wanted to make his mark in the political arena and not in the legal arena. certainly not as a judge. i mean a judge calls balls and strikes, as he has said and others have said. you can quibble with that analogy. but that was not what ted cruz ultimately wanted to do. it's not what he did as sg. and it's not what he wants to do as president either. >> it seems as if he rubbed people the wrong way, it was on style not substance. that's at the heart of the david brooks critique. >> i talked to dozens of people for this story, and even people who are vehemently opposed to him ideologically, who fear the potential of a ted cruz presidency, and especially in some ways what he would do with some supreme court nominees, even people like that acknowledge that he was a brilliant advocate at the highest level of law, in front of the supreme court. he was in his 30s, he was

getting better. each of those arguments got a little bit better to the point where toward the end of his time as sg, he was what is considered a repeat player in the supreme court. the justices knew him, they knew that they were going to be challenged by his arguments. they knew he wasn't gonna lay an egg, so to speak. and you know, there is no ifs, ands, or buts from anybody you talk to about his ability as that high level appellate attorney, and a constitutional law nerd. >> thank you very much. that's why many people saying a ted cruz/hillary clinton debate would be something to watch. two highly intellectual and talented lawyers. appreciate it. up next, the who, what, when, where, and why in today's headlines, including what hints scott walker is dropping about his next political move. stay tuned. plaque psoriasis most of my life. but that hasn't stopped me from modeling.

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♪ ♪ why fit in when you were born to stand out. the 2016 nissan altima has arrived. ♪ time for the ws, it's the who. senator chuck grassley, the cal ripken of congress. the iowa senator has not missed a recorded vote in 22 years, six months, and six days. take that, marco rubio! and that makes for the longest perfect attendance record in senate history. now the what. a walker rebound. in a fund raising e-mail this week, he hinted strongly at a 2018 re-election bid. he'll first have to pay off a $1

million tab from his failed presidential campaign. now to the where, south carolina. all eyes on governor nikki haley's fifth state of the state address. coming one week after she gave the republican response to the state of the union. now to the when. 2015. it was a hot one. last year was by far the warmest year on record. attention climate change folks. now to the why. just a couple hours ago, the senate voted not to advance what is called the american safe act. this bill would have stopped refugees temporarily from arriving from iraq and syria until the government could assess their security risk. and here's why it matters. the bill passed the house, but president obama was poised to veto it if it reached his desk. this means now the debate over syrian refugees still is available for campaign season. senate democrats blocked the bill. up next, the how. how michigan governor rick snyder is responding to flint's water crisis and whether it's

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become. and this e-mail on september 25th from dennis who is the former chief of staff to the governor -- >> but he was chief of staff at that time. >> and he writes to the governor on the 25th of september that both the health department and the environmental quality department in the state of michigan believe, and this is a quote, that some in flint are taking the very sensitive issue of children's exposure to lead and trying to turn it into a political football. less than a week later, governor snyder would get up in a press conference and say, don't drink the water, we're switching back to the detroit source, there are elevated lead levels. >> so these e-mails are revealing his top aide is characterizing complaints as a political complaint. obviously flint is a very democratic area, so they were looking at it through the lens of the red-blue prism. >> here's the question for anybody, when it comes to a

health issue, and with children specifically, this is a clear problem, lead and kids, you would hope people would take politics, put them aside, and say, we need to get to the bottom of this, we need to resolve it, we it and fix it ant safe water. >> this chief of staff has been fired essentially. who else has been fired so far? >> the head of department of environmental quality told the governor in his defense we don't see evidence. he is gone. there is a spokesperson at the time who came out, this pit bull who attacked anybody who would say independent evidence of lead levels. it is not enough for a lot of people in flint. they are still asking questions about what the governor did and how he has handled it since then. >> sense of urgency was missing. you have more work to do. thank you for quickly coming in.

up next round table on the state of the race one year out from inauguration day which two campaigns decided to use web video ads. it was always just a hobby. something you did for fun. until the day it became something much more. and that is why you invest. the best returns aren't just measured in dollars. ♪ so wi got a job!ews? i'll be programming at ge. oh i got a job too, at zazzies. (friends gasp) the app where you put fruit hats on animals? i love that! guys, i'll be writing code

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inauguration day. let's get to the lid. hillary clinton put out a similar ad showing ted cruz and donald trump and who is going to be the one to stand? they will roll back and the web video includes marco rubio. is this the time to do it? >> we are a year out so why not throw it up there because it is a significant day. they have much more significant problems than projecting ahead. we have hillary clinton in a cage match with bernie sanders and jeb is irrelevant. throwing out the schemes aren't addressing what they need to be doing. >> i don't feel primary voters want to hear about electability on the right or the left right now. >> they don't. they are very interested in

these candidates position. we have exciting fields on both sides of the aisle. i think primary voters are starting to focus on where the differences are. you have seen the tightening. we have really interesting primary on the republican side. this is where the fun starts. >> do you share the concern that many republican friends are about cruz and trump? >> it is definitely more complicated primary than i think anyone would love to see but at the end of the day that is what a primary is for. i trust the voters to make a good choice for us and we will see where it goes. i like that we are having good discourse and we have a lot of people paying attention. >> let's go into the democrats here. it seems as if every day they want to put sanders on the defensive. today it was using what he said about planned parenthood as part of the establishment. definitionally he is right.

planned parenthood as a political arm is a huge part of the democratic party. it is amazing how the word establishment is offensive. this feels like -- >> i have never covered an unimportant election. >> i can't imagine one since '68 where there is basically a reformulation of it. i feel like it is hail mary pass. the voters are saying are we socialist or populist party or what? >> beth, i think nick is right. it seems both parties -- i go back to this saying political party is defined by leaders and the people who choose to associate with them.

you have more people who are socialists than capitalists and you have this populist however you want to describe it on the republican party. it's not what the leadership wants but there are more people on this. the people are redefining the images. >> in a way that is really exciting but it can be terrifying for the people who have the vested interest in keeping things as they were. that is what the hillary clinton campaign. poor jeb bush, that was always supposed to be the way to lock it up. >> none of that haz-mat has ma >> 8 million collectively by cruz and trump. >> what you said is what is happening. the people have stood up and said this is the kind of campaign that we want and not what the people who thought they knew what they were doing had in

mind. >> i feel like if sanders wins iowa and i get the argument you know the way the caucuses work, let's say trump wins iowa and new hampshire, isn't this when michael bloomberg says let's split the difference. >> i feel like something else will happen. >> it is such an unsettled territory on both sides. it feels like such an outsiders race on both sides that there does feel like there is room for another outsider. i found a remarkable listening to the explanation from hillary clinton's campaign this indignation that they could be in a tie at this moment in the primary. i think voters are reacting not just to bernie sanders being an outsider and being exciting but to the kind of campaign that hillary clinton has been

running. >> democrats may think hillary clinton is too big to fail. >> what you hear from hrc and pro choice groups is that fear exactly. >> i have to leave it there. we will be back tomorrow. "with all due respect" starts right now. >> sometimes it is too cold to do a cold open. today we cover four candidates and one candidate spouse. we will have hot and fresh poll numbers for you. but before we unpack that showcase show down it is time for bubba, the big dog, bill clinton was back in new hampshire today telling stories, blasting republicans for negative politics and talking about eating at