so it's very subtle messaging, if you will, about potential targets. >> not so subtle, actually, if you show the picture of the british prime minister. ayman mohyeldin, thanks so much for that. that'll do it for this hour of "msnbc live." i'm kate snow. "mtp daily" begins right now. if it's monday, it's just one week until the iowa caucuses and uncertainty is piling up on both sides of the race. but is it enough to push mike bloomberg in? this is "mtp daily," and it starts right now. good evening and welcome to mtpdale. i'm steve kornacki, in for chuck todd. tonight's take, what else could it be? the big, murky picture out in iowa. we are one week away from the

caucuses now, just under 171 hours, if you want to be exact, until those caucus meetings start, and polling is all over the map on the democratic side. if you believe the loras college poll, hillary clinton is up by a stunning 29%. but if you believe the cnn poll, then bernie sanders actually leads hillary clinton by eight points. in the des moines rrn"des moine the quinnipiac poll, all show small alternating leads between the two candidates, all within the margin of error. a major factor here is the polling method being used. sanders seems to do well in random dialing polls. clinton does better in voter file polls. does that sound a bit confusing? maybe it does. and in fact, it is. but we're going to dig into what that difference means. it's a very important difference. we'll get to it in just a minute. meanwhile, bernie sanders wants a replay of 2008's caucus. that is when first-time

caucusgoers flooded to caucus sites all across iowa. they didn't go for hillary clinton, they went for barack obama, of course. but the pieces may not be in place for sanders to recreate history. the clinton campaign openly acknowledging that they could, in fact, lose iowa, but they insist that sanders isn't riding the same kind of wave that barack obama did eight years ago, for instance, they say, he can't mobilize african-american voters in south carolina and later states the way that obama did. geography is another factor at work here in iowa. remember, iowa is a caucus, not a primary state. that means that votes are counted sort of like they are in the electoral college system. that means that some votes can carry more value, depending on the location of the particular caucus. this is significant because more than a quarter of sanders' supporters come from just three of the 99 counties in iowa. and that is just 12% of the state's delegates at stake. now, with a race this competitive, a week from caucus

day, a win from either candidate won't be a surprise, but it will be an early indicator of just how long this race will or will not go on. if clinton wins iowa, certainly sets her up to do well, perhaps in new hampshire the next week, maybe shuts sanders out early, maybe pushes him out of the race in the first month. but, if clinton loses iowa, then goes on to lose new hampshire, that's where sanders already holds a real lead in the polls. if that happens, we may be tallying delegates well into the spring. another things to keep in mind here, traditionally the people most likely to show up on a cold, iowa caucus night are not first-time voters. for both sanders and donald trump on the republican side, their ability to win could hinge on getting those newcomers to participate. sanders stressed that point today. >> there are a lot of folks out there, a lot of pundits, who say, you know, yeah, young people will come out to meetings and students will go to rallies

and maybe they'll volunteer, but when it counts on election night, on february 1st, they're not going to show up. let's make those pundits eat those words. >> now, as for trump on the republican side, he released an early how-to-caucus video, trying to get his people out. he says he's playing to win the race in iowa. this is a race that not long ago many people thought was safely in ted cruz's hands. trump is hoping to snatch up the uniter role that republicans once hoped marco rubio could fill. the tea party enthusiasm and establishment support. there are some signs that that's starting to fall in line behind trump. there was, of course, the last-ditch effort we witnessed from the "national review" last week to oppose trump running away with this nomination. time is going to tell if that translates into some actual negative effects for trump in the caucuses. for now, though, trump does lead in the latest poll out of iowa. this one from fox news. look at that. an 11-point lead for donald

trump there over ted cruz. we want to kick things off by hitting the campaign trail. nbc's hallie jackson is in iowa. she's covering ted cruz. john yang is in new hampshire, where donald trump will hold a rally shortly. kasie hunt is in des moines, where there's a democratic forum tonight. and msnbc political analyst chris cillizza is crunching the numbers back in washington. hallie, let's start with you. so ted cruz, we said it there a while ago, maybe a month ago, we all thought cruz has pretty much got iowa. the question is, how much is he going to win it by? now we have the latest poll with him down by double digits. what's the strategy here for this campaign for the last week? >> reporter: get out and basically crush the closing arguments, steve. i think that's every candidate's strategy here. one week out until caucuses. i spoke with one republican strategist who said, hey, even if cruz is coming in second in iowa, let's say that's what happens. if donald trump is able to maintain the lead that he's showing in some of these recent polls over the last 24 to 48 hours that have been released,

as long as cruz doesn't slip behind trump too much, he will still be able to move on with potentially some momentum going into new hampshire. but more importantly, south carolina, and those s.e.c. primary states. but i'll tell you what, steve. donald trump is taking notice of this. tweeting out a couple of seconds ago, really, that cruz is dropping like a rock in recent polls, adding in his tweet, lies never work. this is just the latest attack from trump towards cruz, and it's something that i asked ted cruz about a couple of minutes ago here in manchester, iowa, at his campaign event. he said, you know, you hugged donald trump for six or seven months, you embraced him and refused to say a bad word about him. now you're asking people not to vote for him. why should they believe you? and ted cruz basically said, hey, this is the season we are drawing policy distinctions. by our count, it's been maybe 15 topics over the last two weeks that ted cruz has hammered donald trump on. he said, this is the time to make those distinctions and let the voters decide and the caucusgoers decide, hey, whose record do we want to back.

steve? >> hallie jackson in manchester, iowa, to the to be confused with manchester, new hampshire. thanks for that. and let's go to new hampshire. that's where donald trump is getting ready to hold a rally tonight he is pushing back on that establishment label that cruz is trying to affix to him in a new video he's out with today. >> the establishment, the media, the special interests, the lobbyists, the donors, they are really trying to stop me. everybody knows it, everybody sees it. we're going to win. >> all right. let's go to john yang. he is live in farmington, new hampshire. john, it's interesting. there's been some signs from the so-called party establishment that maybe they'd be comfortable with trump, is that sort of a blessing that this campaign is nervous about? >> i don't know if they're nervous about it. i think that this is certainly one of their great strengths, has been the anti-establishment theme that when, for instance,

when governor nikki haley of south carolina went after him in the response to the state of the union, it helped him. i think when it helps him when the establishment takes him on. it gives his supporters extra cheer and extra reason to back him and support him. andion, steve, you can always tell what's one way of telling what a campaign is thinking and what they're worried about or what the concerns are is the scheduling. what they're doing with their greatest asset, the candidate. here we are, one week away from iowa caucuses, and where is donald trump? he's in new hampshire. he is going back to iowa tomorrow, but on wednesday, he goes to south carolina. and then on friday, going into the final weekend before the iowa caucuses, he comes back here to new hampshire. it seems to be a message that he's playing the whole board. he doesn't have to worry about just focusing on one state or another. and we'll see if that confidence

is justified one week from tonight. steve? >> that he with will, john yang in farmington, new hampshire, thank you for that. and turning now to the democratic candidates, they will not have another debate before the primaries and caucuses start, but they are participating in a forum tonight at drake university in iowa. let's go now to kasie hunt. she is live out there in des moines. so, kasie, wow, you've got quite a snowstorm going on behind you. looks like what i was looking at two days ago. but here we are, we are one week out. i guess in the big picture, if you had said a year ago, the week before the caucuses, bernie sanders and hillary clinton, basically a toss-up in iowa, no one would have believed it. what does sanders need to pull this off in the last week? >> reporter: well, steve, you touched on this a little bit. he obviously needs to engage those new voters, new caucusgoers. and i think that the bernie sanders that you're starting to see on the campaign trail is, you know, somebody who's clearly feeling like this is his moment. and the question, really, is

just whether or not they can turn out the machinery it takes in iowa to get these new voters to the caucus, and especially on the democratic side, it's a little bit more complicated. and i think you're starting to see some things come down to the wire. one thing i've noticed in the last couple of days, guns, for example. hillary clinton sending out mailers, hitting sanders for his record on guns. two voters here in iowa. sanders' team privately reminding people that, actually, the nra once used hillary clinton's words on president obama on guns against her in an ad. basically implying that they used the same attack against obama here in iowa in 2008 and of course, we know how that turned out. at this point, the campaign trying to convince us that this is a repeat of obama. now, whether he's going to be able to pull that off is obviously the question, steve. >> all right. kasie hunt out there in des moines. thanks for that. now, remember, all those polls we were talking about just a

minute ago? we're going to dig into why they are telling such radically different stories on the democratic side. to help us with that, "the washington post's" chris cillizza joins us now. chris, we were putting them up. there was a poll out on friday, the loras college poll that had hillary clinton up by basically 30 points. we had a poll that had bernie sanders up by eight. any way to make sense of this, to reconcile, to make sense of what's actually going on out there? >> let me try. i think most people don't understand a very important thing about polling. which is that it is not just science. it is science plus art. the art piece of it is, who is going to vote? whatever you decide in terms of what that looks like, that's the input. the output is going to be very differe different. so what you're seeing, in a poll that has hillary clinton up 29 points in iowa, that poll is saying, we are going to look at people who are regular iowa caucus voters. they voted in 2000. they voted in 2004. they voted in 2008. these are people who go every four years and vote.

she quite clearly leads among that group. but she also led among that group in 2008, when she came in third in the iowa caucuses. when you see a sanders' lead by 8, 9, 10 points, on the other end of the spectrum what you're seeing is a sample that takes in lots of first-time voters. people who have never caucused before. you mentioned a to the top, random-digit dialing off the voter file. off the voter file is a hillary clinton favorable sample. those are people who have voted before, who are regular voters, in the voter file. random digit dialling is you pick up the phone and the computer dials up a number for the pollster, no clue about their voting history. so it's explainable. the question is, who's right in terms of creating the sample? >> so do we have -- so, the bigger the pool is right now, it seems like the better bernie sanders' chances are. so do we have any clues out there whether this is going to be like '08, and all these first-timers show up, or like every other time when they don't? >> in '08, you had about 160 to

180,000 in terms of turnout, which is absolutely massive. if it gets to that size, it's good for bernie sanders. under that size, it's good for hillary clinton. it's really hard to know, steve. and this is true on the republican side, too, in iowa. the bigger the electorate, better for donald trump, the smaller the electorate, the better for a ted cruz ar rubio. what you don't know is, are first-time people who say they are going to vote, are they actually going to caucus on that night? this is not an easy or quick process. so are they going to spend the time engaged on that night? you know, unless we talk to every single person in iowa, we wouldn't know. >> all right. chris cillizza, thank you for the time. appreciate it. >> thank you. >> and still to come, independent streak. could former new york city mayor michael bloomberg really be ready to pull a ross perot? what that could mean for november. and later, a flood of criticism. new jersey governor chris christie stands firm on his response to the storm in his state. we'll have the latest reactions to his critics and we will bring

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benjamin franklin famously said that in this world, nothing is certain, except death and taxes. and these days, you might add to that, a michael bloomberg flirtation with a presidential run. this weekend, nbc news confirmed that the former new york city mayor is considering a third-party bid for the white house. people close to bloomberg said he would only likely run if it's starting to look like bernie sanders would be the democratic nominee and that either donald trump or ted cruz were in position to be the republican nominee. now, back in october, which probably feels like a million years ago right now, chuck actually asked bloomberg on "mtp daily" if he'd consider getting in the race. >> i'm very flattered that

people would ask, you would ask, but the truth of the matter is, i'm very anticipate doing two things. running my company and working with the united nations and the u.s. government on climate change and that's what we're here to talk about. >> and as chuck would love to point out, bloomberg did refuse to make a shermanesque statement there. he would not definitively rule out a run. of course, we have been down this run before. bloomberg dipped his toe into the presidential pool in each of the last two election cycles. in february 2008, he penned an op-ed in "the new york times" titled, "i'm not running for president, but," and in it, he ran the case for an outsider to run for the presidency. and four years ago in 2012, bloomberg was one of the targets of the independent group of americans elect, which unsuccessfully sought a non-partisan candidate for the white house. bloomberg ended up endorsing president obama, just days before the election. as for a potential run this time around, an online poll from the morning consult shows bloomberg getting just 12% of the vote in a three-way matchup between

bernie sanders and donald trump, and trump and sanders in a statistical tie. so what does the rest of the 2016 field think of a potential bloomberg candidacy? well, it was a popular question on the sunday shows. >> and michael bloomberg, your reaction to his potential candidacy? >> he's a good friend of mine and i'm going to do the best i can to make sure that i get the nomination is and we'll go from there. well, the way i read what he said is if i didn't get the nomination, he might consider it. well, i'm going to relieve him of that and get the nomination, so he doesn't have to. >> well, my reaction is that there will be -- in donald trump wins and mr. bloomberg gets in, you'll have two multi-billionaires running for president of the united states against me. and i think the american people do not want to see our nation move toward an oligarchy, where billionaires control the political process. i think we'll win that election. >> well, michael has been a friend of mine over the years. i don't know if we're friends anymore, frankly. but michael has been a friend of

mine. i would love to have michael bloomberg run. i would love that competition. i think i would do very well against him. i would love to see michael bloomberg run. >> look, he's a good man. he was a great mayor. he is much more liberal than i am, but he's a good person. and i don't think he'll get in the race if, unless it's donald trump and bernie sanders, probably. >> and unijoining me now is sta island republican congressman, dan donovan. he knows bloomberg well. he weighed when "the new york times" broke this news over the weekend. and congressman donovan did receive a maximum campaign donation from mike bloomberg in 2013. he probably maxes up to everybody he donates to, that's my guess. let me ask you this. you just heard it there. if it's donald trump on the republican side, if it's bernie sanders on the democratic side, if those looks like the two nominees, can we maybe throw ted cruz in on the republican side, how serious do you think mike bloomberg is about getting in as

an debate? >> i think mayor mike is looking at the race. and i think what he's looking for is, is there a path to victory? i remember when mayor bloomberg came to speak to me and my former boss about running for mayor of new york city. he actually never asked, could he win. he asked, if he did win, could he be effective and help this city? i think people look at the aftermath of the tragedy in lower manhattan, after what happened to us september of 2001 and see that mayor giuliani brought us through the aftermath, but three months later, mayor mike took over as the leader of our city and rebuilt the city for the next 12 years. i think when people are talking about his candidacy, those are the type of things people are looking for when they ask whether or not he would make a good president. >> but looking at this politically, you know this game as well as anybody, is that what needs to be there for him to actually win? do the democrat s need to nominate somebody who could be seen as too far to the left to be electable? do the republicans need to nominate someone like cruz? someone like trump, to create

that kind of space in the middle for a third party candidate? >> i'm not sure what the formula is that he's looking for, as you reported earlier. two other times he looked at the race and decided not to run. was it because the time wasn't right? was it because of the candidates in the race weren't the ones he wanted to compete against? i don't know. but i do know he's looking now and spending some time and has some people using his resources to figure out, is there a path to victory. and if there is, does he have something to offer america? what's very clear, the people of america are not happy right now. they're not happy with the current administration and they're looking at some of the candidates might be a continuation of the current administration and they're looking for a change of that. >> you know him so well, you've been a political ally of his. is there a circumstance where you could support mike bloomberg as an independent for president? >> i have told people over the last week, i don't want to put added pressure on my friend. my friend right now is going through a personal process as to try to decide whether or not this is good for him, good for his family, and certainly whether this is good for our

country. i haven't said anything about supporting him if he decides to run, because i think that puts added pressure. i'm the one and only republican in the congressional delegation. i'm the only republican. i haven't endorsed any of the candidates yet, because i feel that we haven't heard from a lot of the candidates just yet. we had 17, i believe, candidates at one time. now i think we're down to 12. many people haven't gotten a chance to express what their policies are going to be or what their vision for america is going to be, because there's just been too many of them. >> but we have heard a lot from donald trump. we know that, and we've certainly heard a fair amount from ted cruz. could you see yourself, could you support donald trump or ted cruz as the republican nominee? >> i could see myself supporting anyone but hillary clinton and bernie sanders. >> so you could support trump? >> i will support anybody other than hillary clinton or bernie sanders. >> so -- i know you say you don't want to put too much pressure on mike bloomberg, but if he calls you up right now, and he said, what do you think? is the temperature in the water right for me to jump in, waddha

would you tell him? >> i would have a personal conversation -- he has not called me. i have not spoken to the mayor or his staff about his potential candidacy and i haven't called him. i remember when i was deciding to run. i ran five times. i remember when i decided to run, it's a very personal, deep, deep thought process you have to go through to see if this is a good thing. i guess for you, your family, and the people that you wish to serve. i would give him my opinion, but that would be a personal conversation i would have with him. there's good parts to running and there's bad parts. you can see, there's people who love a lot of mayor mike's policies and the things he did for this city. there's other people who don't like the things he's done. but i remember my good friend, ed koths said, if you agree with me 60% of the time, vote for me. if you agree with me 90% of the time, go see a psychiatrist. >> but bob dole said the other day, ted cruz, if he's the nominee, cataclysmic for the party, in terms of how they would lose the election. do you agree with that? >> i don't. i think the people who affiliate

themselves politically with the party are the people most likely the people you're seeing with the polling. they're the people most likely to vote in these caucuses and the primaries. i think once candidates, you see their tone softening. you see their vision what they want to do. they bring themselves together. most of our country is moderate. and i think you'll find even the people on the extreme ends becoming more moderate once they're the nominee. we've seen that in the past and i think we'll see that in the future. >> congressman dan donovan from here in new york, thank you for joining us. >> thank you, steve. >> coming up, stormy with a chance of criticism. we'll look into governor chris christie's claims that new jersey dodged a bullet in this weekend's storm. plus, the poetry and prose of the race for the white house. president obama talks about bernie sanders, hillary clinton, and the winter of voter discontent. keep it here.

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the nation's capital is starting to crawl back to life after record snowfall. ahead, we'll look at how the

weather is impacting the world of politics from d.c. to iowa. but first, hampton pearson has today's cnbc market wrap. >> thanks, steve. we had stocks beginning the week with a sell-off, as oil prices slid. the dow dropping 208 points, the s&p falling by 29, the nasdaq was off by 72 points. shares of home builder dr horton slipped nearly 5% today. the company's revenue and earrings came in better than expected, but future order growth disappointed. and a difficult session for shares of twitter, which fell more than 4%. ceo jack dorsey says four senior executives are voluntarily leaving the company. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. rstars pitch you investment opportunities. i've got a fantastic deal for you- gold! with the right pool of investors, there's a lot of money to be made. but first, investors must ask the right questions and use the smartcheck challenge to make the right decisions. you're not even registered; i'm done with you!

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as millions on the east coast continue to dig out from

this weekend's storm, some new jersey residents say the storm hit them worse than sandy, back in 2012. and after originally planning to stay in new hampshire ahead of that state's primary, promising to return to new jersey only if, quote, circumstances warrant, governor chris christie changed course last friday, tweeting out, quote, i'm sorry, new hampshire, but i got to go home. we got snow coming. with over 2 feet of snow, 50 to 70-mile-per-hour wind gusts and storm surges that battered the jersey shore, christie called a state of emergency and he toured the state over the weekend. but after saying that new jersey was not hit that badly, he then returned to new hampshire on sunday morning, on a chartered flight, just in time to attend a town hall and a patriots' watch party. and some jersey residents were seething over that. one person telling "the philadelphia inquirer," which is a big paper in south jersey, quote, governor christie should come down here and get in his fishing waders and live my wife. and another resident saying,

christie, quote, couldn't claim a disaster, because that would mean he would have to stay here. and nj.com publishing a story with this headline, "christie rushes back to new hampshire to root on new england patriots at party." well, today on "morning joe," christie tried to beat back some of the criticism. >> sam, i don't even know what critics you're talking about. there is no residual damage. there is no residual flooding damage. all the flooding receded yesterday morning. and there was no other damage. people were driving around the streets yesterday morning of new jersey, so this is just what they wish would have happened. unfortunately for them, we know how to do this. i haven't heard any of that criticism, i haven't seen any of that criticism, and i think you're making it up. >> speaking in new hampshire this afternoon, christie again downplayed it. >> there will always be people, who when they suffer damage from a storm, will have complaints. but the complaints have nothing to do with the conduct of what we've done. any comparisons to hurricane sandy are outrageous,

completely -- we lost 365,000 homes in 24 hours. to say that the flooding was worse now than for hurricane sandy, well, of course it was, because cape may county wasn't hit by hurricane sandy. >> and joining me now from the jersey shore is msnbc's rahema ellis. so, rahema, you're on the ground, you can add some vital context to this. the administration, the christie administration saying, look, as you heard in that quote there, if it was worse than sandy in terms of flooding anywhere, it's only because those were areas that weren't hit by sandy. they're saying the flooding, basically, had receded by yesterday. what's your sense of the damage? what are you seeing? >> reporter: well, let me tell you, i am in west wildwood, and people here acknowledge that they were not hit by sandy as severely as some other sections of the state. but they say that the damage that they sustained over this weekend was pretty devastating to them. i talked to the administrator of this one community and he characterized it for his community as catastrophic, because, i don't know if you can see these pilings down here,

we'll talk about it a little bit. this is what's left of the bulkhead. this was supposed to protect this community from the surging waterings. as you can see, it failed, because it's now crumbled here on the sand. and when the governor's office heard that the categorization of the damage here, they took objection to it, so i went back to the administrator of this community and said, would he dial back on that? listen to what he said. >> this is a catastrophic event for our community. we have a $2.2 million budget. so in order to fix the bulkhead alone, will be about $200,000. that doesn't count -- any of the other cleanup that we have. and the only way we can really raise these funds is through taxation. we have a community here. a lot of our people are seniors, are on fixed income. so in order for us to raise taxes to make these repairs is catastrophic in their life. >> reporter: so he's talking about this particular community. he did not mean to characterize what was going on all along the coast, and certainly not all

throughout this state. there are some sections where you do not see anywhere near the kind of damage that you see here, but the town administrator was concerned about characterizing what's happening for his community in this particular area. steve? >> all right, rahema ellis on the jersey shore. thank you for that report. and farther south, the nation's capital is still trying to clean up and get back to normal today, after as many as three feet of snow fell in some areas across the d.c. region. the federal government is closed today. the house has scrapped votes for the entire week, as the senate is delaying votes until wednesday. and joining me now from washington is nbc's luke russert. luke, we don't know yet about the plans for the federal government to be open or closed yet for tomorrow, much less the rest of the week, but the house is closing up shop for the whole week? >> reporter: yeah, that's accurate, steve. we don't know what opm will decide about the federal government tomorrow, but i presume it should be open, because much of the local

transit here, the metro system, is back up and running, and the streets are being plowed. if you can see behind me, you can see a massive snow pile right here. they literally take the snow, put it in these bump trucks, and move it out. it's a long, arduous process. we're about a block from the white house, five blocks from the capital. takes a lot of time. all that being said, the house representatives realized, you know, d.c. is perhaps not the best with the snow remove, all the flights were a mess. it was a reduced week anyway. they said, we're done. senate is back wednesday. quick, in and out. they're out friday. that's really the affect of it. a lot of hearings that were supposed to happen on capitol hill this week actually got postponed and canceled. yeah, storm shut down your representative democracy a little bit here. >> all right. luke russert, thank you for that. great reports this weekend, too, by the way. kept me up to speed on what was going on there if d.c. meantime, after some relatively balmy weather lately, it looks as though iowa may go through a deep freeze of its own tonight, as the presidential candidates

crisscross that state and that chilly weather may continue by the time the iowa caucuses arrive in just seven days. in fact, snow is on the horizon in des moines. still a lot of time in the flexion week for that forecast to change, but if there's big snow, that could certainly be a factor in how many folks turn out next week, as the primary and caucus season officially gets underway. up next, the five ws of today's headlines, including why presidential contender john kasich made a big super bowl foul on the campaign trail. this is mtpdale. can a business have a mind? a subconscious. a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive?

time now for the ws. starting with a who. it's donald rumsfeld, talking about another donald on the "today" show this morning, rumsfeld said that trump has touched a nerve. >> he's caused people to respond in a way that most politicians have not been able to do. >> the what. today, well, it's jury duty for senator claire mccaskill. the missouri democrat spent the day live tweeting from court. she noted how many people in the holding room were knitting, and when she was selected, she tweeted with excitement, omg. now to the where. it is miami. "meet the press" is out with an original documentary on that city's unique politics, presented by none other than native son, chuck todd.

you can watch it on nbcnews.com/meetthepress. the when, today, it is a week from sunday, super bowl 50 between the carolina panthers and the denver broncos, your 2016 tie-in to the big game? well, broncos' quarterback, peyton manning, he has given the maximum possible donation to jeb bush's presidential campaign. and yesterday, to get to the super bowl, he defeated donald trump's favorite quarterback, tom brady of the new england patriots. and finally, one more. tom brady in the why tonight. ohio governor john kasich was talking about corporate boards limiting ceo pay on the trail in new hampshire today, and then he let this remark slip. >> here's the thing we can't do. in my opinion. we can't develop a bitterness to somebody else that does well. which you ought to be squawking about is, how much money is brady making?

i watched the game, i saw the game, and it, geez, oh, man. >> oh, come on, don't put that all on brady. here's why that matters. candidates don't necessarily have to pander to voters' sports preferences in new hampshire, but you can't bad mouth brady in new england. for the record, he later said he was rooting for the patriots on sunday. with a week to the iowa caucuses now, the competition is fiercer than ever. still ahead, president obama's choice words on clinton, sanders, and the road to the democratic nomination. stay with us. the biggest challenge for business today is not competition, it's protecting customer trust.

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just moments ago, donald trump let loose a tirade of attacks on ted cruz during an interview with cnn's wolf blitzer. >> he's got a problem with his canadian birth. you can't run for prime minister of canada. every other senator thinks he's a whack job. he's a nasty guy. he brought it up at the debate. he started it, i finished it. then he tells lie. ted cruz is totally, totally conditioned down to the oil companies. the oil companies control him. >> those sharp words come after the cruz campaign accuse trump of using eminent domain to bulldoze a woman's home for a parking lot. those words come moments before he is set to rally in new hampshire. and adding fuel to those flames, a new poll, just-released numbers from the "boston herald" in new hampshire show trump with twice the support of cruz, who trails far back in second place. joining me now is our panel, we have with us, ja neil smith, a senior editor for the new

republic, kari sheffield, opportunitylives.com, and seema metta joins frus des moines, iowa. seema, you're out there in iowa. let me start with you. this trump versus cruz. again, the story for so many months was it was just a lovefest between the two of them, they wouldn't say a negative word between the each other, complete opposite now in the home stretch. is your sense, though, is one of the stories of this campaign, that everyone is going toe-to-toe with trump, trump seems to get the better of them. is that happening right now with ted cruz? >> that's the question with ted cruz. three weeks ago, four weeks ago, he was leading trump in the polls. that's when it started to get really nasty between the two of them. trump started going after him about his birthplace, his past views on immigration and security. and cruz is being attacked by marco rubio and others. he's taking fire from all sides and has gone down in the polls since then. if you watch tv in iowa, it's constant attack ads on everybody, but trump and cruz are going after each other

constantly. >> kari, coming from the right on this, what is your sense watching this play out? i mean, ted cruz, there are so many issues he can point to with donald trump and tell conservatives, look, he's betrayed you on this, he's never been with you on that. it seems almost from that standpoint, there's a lot of ammunition here. is any of it landing, though? >> i think the question is, whether the people who are going to actually show up and vote for donald trump are actually conservative and actually republican as opposed to people who are independent or even democrats who aren't grassroots, you know, nuts and bolts soldiers for the conservative movement. >> but the polls show us, there's a lot of conservatives who like donald trump. >> that's true, but, you know, i think that we are seeing some momentum, we talked about the "national review" cover and how they got dozens of strong conservatives, when you have ted cruz, you know, with here, as opposed to donald trump, i think donald trump might start to have his back against the wall. it's been interesting. i think, it was too little, too late at this point. i would love to see this army of people coming out against trump, because i think trump is a very

flawed nominee. i think he would be a bad choice in terms of looking at how he treats and speaks to women, how he treats latinos. so i think that as far as a general candidate, conservatives should have been speaking up against him aago. >> i think we have a -- this is moments ago, donald trump giving this interview, bashing ted cruz. i think we have the clip here. >> the establishment actually is against me, but really coming on line. because they see me as opposed to cruz who is a nasty guy. >> this is a really interesting thing to me. it's basically, no one could have predicted this. >> right. >> what trump is saying there, there is evidence that's starting to happen, that the republican establishment is looking at cruz, looking at trump, they wouldn't necessarily want trump if they could choose any candidate, but against cruz they're saying, well, maybe. >> exactly. entire electorate on the right that is seeing a republican party that hasn't served their needs, that hasn't allowed them to really speak their voice in

the most forth right fashion. and they see a guy in trump that's going to let them do both. i see this playing out exactly how, you know, this is supposed to play out. you have the republican party, republican national committee specifically, that is not standing in the way of trump's growth. you know, nationwide in these polls. so they see basically, you know, weak opposition. you see ted cruz, who's an unaccomplished senator, who doesn't appeal to their values. and, you know, is definitely the target of unfair attacks on his nationality. all those things play into a really fearful elector at. if you're going to show up at the caucuses last week, and likely send donald trump home with a victory. >> i want to get to the democratic side here, too. we've got suspense there, too. i'll start with you on this one. we were saying at the start of the show, a year ago, six months ago, i don't know, pick your time frame, but who would have believed we would be a week from iowa and saying, here's how

bernie sanders can win this state. here's how we can actually beat hillary clinton. the bar for bernie sanders is maybe he'll come within 20 in iowa. now we're talking how he could actually win the state. >> i don't think it's that surprising. iowa is a very heavily white state. and bernie sanders' revolution is maintained by white voters. especially young white male voters. provided they show up at the polls -- >> we never thought that it was -- we knew there would be some backlash to hillary clinton, some yearning for -- nobody thought it would be bernie sanders ahead at this point. >> technically he's not ahead in iowa. in new hampshire, which is understandable being from a neighboring state. but i have to wait until next week. you have to see the younger people coming up in droves supporting bernie sanders, if they'y're going to show up at t caucuses. >> what's your sense? those voters, do you think

they're motivated to show up? really, every other election, they haven't shown up there for caucuses. >> that's a critical question. that's a question for both bernie sanders and donald trump. both are relying on people who don't go to caucuses. they're much more complicated than walking in a voting booth and casting your ballot. you have to show up on a cold night, spend a couple of hours with your neighbors. i think it gives an edge to donald trump and bernie sanders. we were looking at video earlier today of a trump rally in the last couple of days. bone-chilling cold. hundreds and hundreds of people waiting to get inside. and some of them couldn't get in because of the security clearance requirements. for trump supporters, people are standing out in the cold in 20-degree weather. we won't know until monday night. >> i think we're coming up to see a celebrity. i think they're coming up to see barnum and bailey. people wait in lines to see

shakira, why wouldn't they want to stand in line to see donald trump. to the point on bernie sanders in the fact that so many young people are supporting him, i find that -- i'm sad. as a conservative, i think that's a failure of our education system that we're not teaching soviet history to see this is what happens when socialism is brought to fruition. that's really sad for me. >> democrats, listen up. >> that's a whole other discussion. stay with us. we want your take on what a three-candidate presidential race could look like this year.

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i beat him, and i would love him to do it, actually. i love the competition. i love the competition. i would love for michael to do it. we used to be friends. i guess we're not friends anymore. >> that was donald trump just a few minutes ago on cnn. he was talking about the possibility of michael bloomberg running as an independent this year. trump saying come on in, the water's warm. so carrie, this is interesting, this bloomberg story. it sounds like, look, maybe he's sort of serious this time if cruz and trump, cruz and/or trump is the nominee, and bernie sanders is the democratic nominee. very, very specific and highly unlikely scenario, own though this is such a viable year. >> i think he's considering it whether hillary clinton -- hillary clinton is a polarizing

figure as well. i don't think she's as polarizing as trump is. but he's seeing this as a potential to exploit the fact that the republicans and the democrats could both nominate very polarizing figures. there's room for him in the middle, and i would vote for him over trump any day. trump is simply built on his blathering. >> populist appeal, though. donald trump has a way of speaking that gets attention, and draws in sort of middle america, i think. mike bloomberg, the former new york city mayor, billionaire, would that work? >> i think it would bring necessary attention in this race to guns. which bloomberg is very strong on. the thing is, as new york mayor, his record would come up in the campaign. with democratic strong holds, i don't think they need to risk any bleeding support from sanders, given that he'd like to strip everyone down the street. >> sima, we've got ten seconds here.

do you think we should take it more seriously this time? >> i'm skeptical. there's a clip from last year where he's like, i'm not going to run for president. it's a two-party country. i'm skeptical. every piece would have to align in a way for the scenario unfold. >> thank you for joining us. chuck todd will be back tomorrow. with all due respect starts right now. i'm mack hallperin. >> with respect to mother nature and bar i manilow, it looks like we made it! >> happy week before the iowa caucuses, sports fans, in a big hawkeye state. our new home for the next week.