ladies and gentlemen -- >> could you turn that microphone off, please. i am paying for this microphone! [ cheers and applause ] >> you were there? >> you were not there. >> come on, you were there? >> yeah. >> were you really? >> yeah. >> well, you know, history is repeating itself. >> sort of. >> that's the story, right? in nashville, ronald reagan goes to the debate in nashua and he doesn't like the rules as they are set up because he thinks it's not fair to the rest of the candidates. he doesn't think it's a level playing field. so reagan just -- they tried to cut his mike off and he says "i

paid for this mike, mr. green." >> big moment. >> of course it was mr. breen. >> and when you look at teddy white or anybody else, they say that's the defining moment of the primary campaign for ronald reagan. it showed strength in a time of weakness. and here we are how many years later? 45 years later? >> wow. >> do you believe that? it makes me feel old because i am 35 years old. >> we were just talking about feeling old, me and mike barnicle. >> the same thing happens except it's happening at fox news in the final week. >> it's getting ugly. >> and trump says "i'm not going to a debate where the rules aren't fair. we have somebody openly hostile against me, actually got a cover photo on "vanity fair" simply because of hostility about me, gets michael moore on fox news to side with me."

there are a lot of people at fox news going "are you kidding me?" so donald trump, just like ronald reagan -- >> front page of the "new york times." >> just said "you know what? that's fine." >> every paper. look at this. >> i don't understand the provocation by fox news yesterday. >> the statement. >> it was just -- >> we should just go there. >> they were trolling and they were tweak ago guy that brings 22 million viewers to their network. ronald reagan several years ago said "i paid for this mike." donald trump says "i pay for your bills with my 22 million viewers." >> i think that's roger ailes who's equally strong to donald trump trying to call trump's bluff and saying "you're really not going to show up at this thing?" >> you don't do that? >> fox does that. if you look at the history statement of statements they put out, they're not afraid of anyone.

>> but remember what happened last time, though? the same thing happened after the debate, he said "i'm not going back on fox news" and roger started calling him and said "let's work this out." guess what? all the news reports last night, they were frantically calling trump.calling ivanka, they called melania to beg him to come back to the debate. we know where this ends. who put out that statement and why? >> first of all, the statement issued by fox yesterday and evening were highly unusual for a news organization. >> not for fox, though. >> not for fox. you're right, this is roger versus donald, mana-a-mano. and you're right again. this isn't over. >> this isn't over. >> so you saw mike barnicle is with us. in des moines, iowa, we have the managing editor of bloomberg blix, mark halperin. in washington, we have associate editor of the "washington post," msnbc political analyst eugene robinson.

>> hey, gene, they just stuck an extra jolt of electricity in godzilla. he just grew 400 feet. >> this is right in his wheel house. >> they just -- they seriously -- it -- this is the fattest fastball down the middle for donald trump. oh, wait, you ridicule me and mock me so you give me a chance to look strong and i get to hold a separate event that outrates your debate. >> and raises money for veterans. >> and raises money for veterans and i'm at the center of the political world and stage and i'm the good guy and nobody's watching your debate. why? i don't understand. >> i had a very prominent, very sophisticated elected official call me early yesterday evening talking about trump and what had happened and what had ensued during the day and saying, you know, this is going to hurt him, this is really going to hurt him. >> oh, god, no. >> since john mccain, since he made the statement about john mccain we've been wrong. >> short hand facts here.

donald trump brwith w drew from the seventh republican presidential debate. he argued with fox news about whether or not megyn kelly should be a moderatorment he said she has been unfair to him. he tweeted a poll asking this instagram video about whether or not he should participate. >> megyn kelly is biased against me. she knows that, i know that, everybody knows that. do you think she can be fair at a debate? >> it's a really fair question, by the way. a really fair question considering her performance in the last debate. >> so fox replied with a sarcastic statement. this is what the guys were talking about here. here's the statement. "we learned a secret back channel that the ayatollah and putin both intend to treat donald trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his twitter followers to see if he

should even go to those meetings." like, why? >> the thing is, the question is why, first of all, a news organization that is going to run a debate provoking a candidate like that is just asking for it. >> fascinating. >> and i will tell you, i would literally go to the center of sixth avenue and set myself on fire -- [ laughter ] >> stop its, joe! >> set myself on fire before i stood on a debate stage with any news organization -- >> that did that statement. >> that did that. >> i would tell them to go to hell faster than donald trump. i have a ton of friends at fox, i love fox and i know a lot of people at fox are twisted up at about how this has gone down and megyn kelly has somehow taken over the network. >> well, they provoked him. >> they had to know. >> so trump had a response. take a look. >> with me they're dealing with somebody that's a little bit different. they can't toy with me like they

toy with everybody else. so let them have their debate and let's see how they do with the ratings and i told them, i said give money to the wounded warriors, give money to the veterans. they'll make a fortune with the debate. let's see how many people watch. when they sent out the wise guy press releases a little while ago done by some pr person along with roger ailes i said bye-bye. okay? i've done six debates. i've done six. according to every single poll i've won every single debate. i've done six of them. and now you say when does it stop? how many debates do you have to do? the republicans go on forever and ever and ever with debates. we have people on the stand that have zero, that have one, that have nothing. so it's time that somebody plays grown-up and then when i see a press release written by a child like i just saw, i said what do i have to do? what do i have to make fox rich? let me make the wounded warriors

rich. let me make the veterans rich. >> you do sit there and you watch donald trump -- i tweeted out immediately after this because, of course, everybody on the right, the right establishment was going oh, this is going to be the end of donald trump and, oh, he's a baby. >> again. >> donald's scared, donald's ducking. it's the most controlled he's been in a press conference. he looks like the grown-up and he's exactly right. people are going, wait, i want to see 12 people at stage at 1% or 2% with moderators that weren't fair last time? this is pretty simple. >> and there's been six debates, i think. >> and it's pretty simple. all he's saying is -- you know, i've got somebody that's been hostile against me now for six months. it doesn't make a lot of sense. >> joining us by phone we have donald trump's campaign manager corey line dough ski. corey, good morning.

>> good morning. >> any chance he will do this debate in any way, shape, or form? any way to turn this around? >> i don't think so. what you have with mr. trump is a clear leader, a person who he said it best is not going to be toyed with. a person who understands when a bad deal is in front of him and is ready to walk away from a bad deal, something this country should be able to do. i don't see any way where fox is going to have a successful debate now when you have the clear gop front-runner who decided to walk away from this debate because he can't be treated fairly on the bebait stage and a network that's going to make news not about asking candidates about policy issues but about personal attacks. maybe fox is going tv 2520 or 2 million person debate, without mr. trump they may have a one or two million person debate. >> what was donald's reaction when he got the press release. did he know from the moment he got the goading press release? it was more like trolling of trump, that he was not going to do the event?

>> i think it was very clear. it's very hard to appear with someone, a network, which is going to be as biassed as they have been against him. as soon as they put that press release out it was clearly a statement which, you know, they did it just to get his attention. this is something fox wanted to do to increase their ratings as it related to more people watching this debate and, you know, it just doesn't make sense. what we know is that megaagayn y is obsessed with mr. trump, she's done show after show about why the media shouldn't be having him on television. donald trump is the best debater on the debate stage. he's a clear winner. he has been by every debate that's taken place. he's not afraid to debate and i want to be clear about this. he's done more television, more radio than all of the other candidates combined. he's not afraid to answer questions. he's on your show all the time. the bottom line is you have people who aren't going to be fair and ask questions the american people want to talk about and instead they want to make this about themselves and that's what this is about and it's a shame. >> so now ted cruz wants to bolt

the debate and wants to -- >> mano-a-mano. >> cruz against trump. what does trump say to that? >> he's not the only one. we've had calls from many candidates who say, look, why would we participate in the fox debate as well? once again you have candidates reacting to the only true leader in this race which is donald trump. he leads and suddenly everyone realizes that, may, maybe it as not the best idea to be involved, maybe we should leave as well. so i had a number of calls with other campaigns who said, hey, can we join you in raising money for the veterans because, you know, fox won't be fair to you, what makes them think they'll be fair to us? >> do you think you'll have more candidates possibly bolting and helping raise money for the wounded warriors instead of going to the fox debate? >> it's very possible. obviously they have to do what they think is best for their campaign bus they reached out to us proactively asking if they can be part of our event which we deal thursday night in des moines so we'll see what

happens. >> corey, in the last 12, 4 hou -- 14 hours, have you heard from fox? roger ailes or anyone to you specifically oar member of donald's family to get you back on track. >> i don't want to get into internal discussions but i can tell you there was issues raised earlier about my conversations with some fox executives. i think what they want to be is very dishonest, unfortunately, and it's a shame because when you have a conversation with some of the fox executives, you hope they'd keep that conversation private. instead you have executives over there who have relatives working for other campaigns. these are people putting debate questions together and instead of having those conversations and making sure the debate is going to be fair, they do things like troll mr. trump and put out statement which is aren't very helpful when you're trying to have an open and honest dialogue on the debate stage. >> corey, it's willie, thanks for calling in this morning. i want to ask you, i don't think this hurts you in any way, i think that's preposterous that

we've learned over the month that the things you do that are unconventional haven't hurt you. one of the things people have said overnight is what is it about megyn kelly that rattle's donald trump's cage unlike any else? he goes on any show he's asked to go on, stays on for half an hour but there's something about her he can't get past. why is he afraid to stand on a stage, even if he thinks she'll be unfair and go head to head with her. do you think he'd prevail? >> this is not about megyn kelly. this is about fox news making tens of millions of dollars on the debates and setting records, the highest ever of cable television unlike previous years and unlike the very stupid and highly incompetent people that run our country, mr. trump knows when to walk away from a bad deal. it's roger ailes, it's fox news, they think they can toy with mr. trump. mr. trump doesn't play games, you know that. he's been to six debates. he stood on the stage with megyn

kelly, answered every question from every debate moderator who posed a question to him. he's won every debate. this isn't about megyn kelly. this is about giving the american people the opportunity to ask questions, to hear from the candidates directly from a fair manner and what we saw we have been the cnbc debate is when the moderators want to be the story and not let the candidate answer or have the opportunity to answer questions or that the american people care about, there's ramifications to that. there's repercussions to that. >> wow. >> we saw cnbc did that and guess what happened? the rnc removed nbc from a future debate because of it. this shouldn't be about the moderators, this should be about the candidates. >> i was just going to say, this is unprecedented in the election season. the rnc did not like how cnbc conducted their debate and unfortunately we all paid for it here. corey, i want to ask you a couple more things because when you talk about fox news, people think you're talking about this one gigantic organization. i want to start with megyn

kelly. what was trump's reaction and what was your reaction to megyn kelly having michael moore on to agree with her about how bad donald trump was. >> it wasn't just michael moore. cheri jacobus was on wanted to talk about donald trump. this is the same person who came to the office on multiple occasions trying to get a job from the trump campaign and when she wasn't hired she was clearly upset by that. they go out of their way at fox to put left wing liberals on to make their own points because they can't find conservatives to go it or they find people who want to attack mr. trump personal lift i don't think traditional viewership of fox which leans more conservative is as concerned about what michael moore's positions are but they choose to put him on to be as derogatory and demeaning as possible to mr. trump. it shows what the network's real thoughts are on the campaign. >> while she's putting michael moore on with her, you do admit

that sean hannity has been a friend and ally of trump. that o'reilly has been fair, even though it's been spirited. bill o'reilly has been fair. most anchors over there actually have been fair to donald trump, right? >> well, i think what you have with sean and what you have with with bill are quality individuals who want to ask tough questions in a fair and reasonable manner. i don't think anybody's going to say that bill o'reilly is an easy interview because he's not. but donald trump has stood in front of bill o'reilly and interviewed with him dozens of occasions, answered every question that bill has because they're asked in a respectful manner and that's all people can ask for: you approach in the a respectful manner. mr. trump can answer any question. he's running for president of the united states. he's done it time and time again. but what they're doing with megyn kelly and moreover roger ailes with the statement they put out goading mr. trump, it's clearly fox thought it was appropriate to mock mr. trump but at the end of the day, you

know, mr. trump will have the last laugh. >> all right, thank you so much for being with us, corey, greatly appreciate it. it brings up a great point. bill o'reilly and donald trump have tough exchanges back and forth. it's not a problem with tough exchanges, it's fairness. let me read this quickly with megyn kelly. "gabe sherman in "new york" magazine took on the trump controversy as well. he writes one clear sign of the gravity of tonight's developments is the sense of confusion swirling through fox. the network is split between kelly's allies like brit hume and conservative anchors who are furious at kelly who graces the cover of vanity fir that month has become the face of the network. an anchor fumed that kelly hosted michael moore on the program tonight and the lefty filmmaker defended against trump." and whether it's hannity or a dozen others over there, mika, this is basically megyn kelly against -- megyn kelly and whoever is standing next to her

against what the rest of the network wants to do. >> except the network's taken her side very publicly, as they should. >> the network's executives have. but still, though, do you pass up on the most important debate just to prove a point about one anchor? do you let one anchor hold an entire network -- i don't know what word i would use there -- hold up an entire network from a guy who is not ahead by two points, he's ahead by 20, 30 points. he's probably going to be the front-runner and when you know that fox news's viewers tend to trend older and white and male and donald trump's most ardent supporters are older and white and male, is one anchor worth splitting the network's audience right down the middle? >> well, i've always admired the way roger ailes sticks up for his people: i'll say that, and i think that's what he was doing

in this case. i think the calculation is that donald trump is going to show up and we'll call his bluff. they may have miscalculated this time, though. >> we have other headlines to get to. there's news breaking overnight, one person is dead, eight others facing federal charges after authorities raided a group of armed protesters who took over government land. after more than three weeks of occupying a wildlife refuge in oregon, ammon bundy, the leader of the occupation, and seven others, are behind bars. during the arrest, oregon state police say shots were fired. arizona robert lavoy was killed. his daughter confirmed his death to nbc news last night. for more now, let's bring in joe friar live in los angeles. what do you know? >> reporter: authorities decided it was time to make an arrest. this played out not at the wildlife refuge but on a rural highway about 50 miles away. some members of the anti-government group were driving to a community meeting

when they were stopped by fbi agents and oregon state police. while the arrests were being made, authorities simply say there were shots fired. they would not elaborate on who fired the shots or how the situation played out, but in the end as you mentioned, one of the occupiers was killed. lavoy finicum, he's an arizona rancher who became a spokesman for the group. we actually spoke with him a few days after the occupation began. let's take a listen if they come here and try to arrest you, point a gun at you, fry to put cuffs on you, how far are you willing to take this? >> well, don't a point at me. you don't point a gun at somebody unless you're going to shoot them. that's the first thought, don't point guns at people. so i'm telling them right now, don't point guns at me. >> so you're prepared to die? better dead than in a cell? >> absolutely. would you like to be in a cell? nobody wants to live their -- live their life in a cell.

>> eight others are arrested. they face felony federal charges and the occupation is not over. some still do remain at the wildlife refuge. it's unclear how many or if they'll be arrested any time soon. back to you. >> joe fryer, thank you. also this morning, the nfl has confirmed it's conducting a comprehensive investigation surrounding allegations against peyton manning. those allegations were made in an al jazeera documentary and alleged that manning had human growth hormones delivered to his home. there's no direct evidence linking manning to the banned substance. he's denies using peds and called the report complete garbage. >> you know, willie, just think about it, without the hgh he could only throw the ball six yards instead 1206. >> peyton manning got a bad batch of hdh, flutter ball. god bless him. >> stop it. >> no, seriously, he needs to get a refund because i was out -- i swear to god, i was out

throwing the football with zach yesterday. >> you were? >> i was, seven-year-old, seven-year-old. has a better, tighter spiral, my seven-year-old boy, and can throw it further than peyton manning. >> he's one of the greatest taut but those flutter balls are hard to watch. >> and 12 yards tops. i mean, seriously. h hgh? for what? >> imagine the trouble he would be in fif the footballs were deflated a bit? >> we've got more football news that we'll get to. this ex-giant. >> that's tough. >> tyler sash, 27 years old, advanced stage of cte. isn't this -- >> 27. >> what is going on? the game has to change. this is -- sorry. it's coming from a mom. but i wouldn't want my child to play football. >> this happening to 27-year-olds now because it's getting faster. every year, expotential. and speaking of hgh and performance-enhancing drugs, the nfl has to stop it.

i will watch 300 pound guys that can't run a 440 play football. let the 300 pound guys run a five 240. i will still watch. >> get rid of helmets. >> get rid of the performance-enhancing drugs. test them before every sunday game, after every sunday game and in the middle of the week stop it, you're killing these young men, many of whom have no -- they don't have the choice of my kids. i can go "my kids aren't going play football" and they'll have a job. a lot of kids don't have that choice. they see it as their way out. >> and it's a wonderful sport. the strategy involved and the strength involved. >> i love football. >> they have to address this. >> test them for performance-enhancing drugs. you are killing -- >> among other things. >> -- killing them. finally this morning, actor abe vigoda has passed away. he's perhaps against known for his roles as sal tessio in "the

godfather" and detective fish on the sitcom "barney miller." a role that earned him his own spinoff. he died peacefully in his sleep at the age of 94. >> there was a rumor he died -- i guess the "new york times" put in the in '82? >> early '80s and it continued. >> he went with it. >> it continued for years until yesterday they said "now he is dead." i think it was from the early '80s. >> he was always in on that joke. >> he had a great time with it. so bernie sanders yesterday -- >> we're going to do this next. >> two events. he has 20,000 people at the two events. unbelievable. >> how does that happen? in a tuesday night du electrocu -- duluth. >> he has a meeting with the president -- >> we'll get to this next. still ahead on "morning joe,"

another giant crowd for bernie sanders just days ahead of the iowa caucuses. plus we'll talk to senator ben sass who's so opposed to donald trump that he's traveling with both ted cruz and marco rubio. >> he's not on donald's short list. >> plus, we'll go live to iowa for complete coverage of the rapidly approaching caucuses. hallie jackson is tracking the gop side while kasie hunt has the democrats covered. on monday and tuesday, the tradition continues, "morning joe" takes the show on the road back to java joe's in des moines, iowa. you're watching "morning joe." >> willie extra diggs, unlike any other. >> we'll be right back. >> in the past year or so, soda manufacturers have scored a big hit by adding lime to their products. there's coke with lime, pepsi with lime, many more. our next character is the latest variation on soda with lime. here's vigoda with lime. ♪ vigoda with lime, vigoda with lime

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>> we're going to have six robust debates and as we always do, there will be organizations that sponsor forums. our candidates will have plenty of opportunity to showcase their view points, draw contrasts between one anothers and the stsix dnc debates will give voters to see what our candidates are all about. >> we will have six debates and there's many opportunities for candidates to be seen in candidate forums. our initial focus in the early primary states is on making sure that retail politics can be robust. and every time a candidate has to engage and get ready for a debate they have to come off the trail and that means that they are going to not get as much of an opportunity from the voters to be seen up close and personal. >> i am very confident and comfortable with the way we have scheduled our debate as well as adding candidate forums, giving candidates an opportunity to get up close and personal. after months of unrest, the

new hampshire "union leader" announced they'll partner with msnbc and host an additional debate on february 4, five days before the new hampshire primary. now, the dnc has said it would exclude any candidates that participate in unsanctioned debates from any future sanctioned debate. so now the question is will the candidates show up? in a statement released yesterday, dnc chair debbie wasserman schultz said "we have no plan to sanction any debates before the upcoming first in the nation primary but we will reconvene with our campaigns after those two contests to review the schedules." the candidates appear to be at odds. bernie sanders said "the dean see said this would not be a sanctioned debate and we do not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debate." hillary clinton said she would be happy to participate if the dnc would agree: martin o'malley

says he plans to attend calling the proposal a victory for voters across new hampshire and the united states. mike? they tried to rig it for hillary, it's not looking good for hillary. suddenly you've got these things falling out of the sky, these debates falling out of the sky like -- you know. >> the debate schedule has been a disgrace to the process. scheduling the debates a president start of the super bowl or sunday nights at 11:00. a disgrace to the process. the idea of one more debate, i would imagine, would it be hillary clinton and martin o'malley would jump right in. bernie sanders, i don't know why he would not jump in. he's got nothing to lose in new hampshire, nothing at all. >> so bernie sanders is scheduled to meet with president obama in the oval office this morning. it's their only second private meeting in seven years of the obama white house. last night, he was in st. paul, minnesota, where a crowd -- >> wow. >> -- of more than 14,000 people turned out to watch him speak.

about a third of them watched from a monitor in an overflow area. >> just let's look at that crowd for a second and listen. [ cheers and applause ] >> that event came just hours after some 6,000 people gathered at a rally in nearby duluth. in all, two campaign stops and more than 20,000 people. >> no president -- not bernie sanders or anyone else -- can effectively address the crises facing our country unless there is a political revolution. [ cheers and applause ] if we stand up, if we fight back, yeah, we can take on, we can defeat the billionaire class. that is what this campaign is about. thank you all very much.

[ cheers and applause ] hillary clinton, at one event she drew 450 people in iowa. she's telling attendees she's offering more than tag lines. >> i do put my plans on my web site and i do tell you how much it will cost because i do want you to know that i'm not just shouting slogans, i'm not just engaging in rhetoric, i've thought this through, i have a plan, i want you to understand it because i don't think you can get what we need done in this election or in the presidency unless you level with people, you tell them what you can do and you let them then respond to it. >> so 14,000, mike, to 450. >> not only 14,000. bernie sanders crowds are two, three, and four times larger than barack obama's crowds were in iowa in 2008 and those were huge crowds. >> it's stunning.

>> the fair question, when you look at that crowd -- >> whoa, look at that, hold, hold, hold. look at that. just freeze. that reminds me of the trump shot from pensacola, florida. willie, like you said, other than when you wrote your first book, i have not seen crowds like that on a tuesday night when it's like zero outside in minneso minnesota. that is unbelievable. >> the other thing you notice about his crowds is how young they are. >> well, that could be a problem. >> that's a good point. we still have mark halperin with us. mark, i was watching your show last night, as i always do, with all due respect, and some discussion was, yes, he's neck in neck with hillary clinton, but are his voters, is his core support too concentrated? without getting too deep in the weeds about how the caucus process works, he has college towns locked down.

>> are they going to show up at the polls? >> or is it too many people in one place in one precinct and he wins those precincts and hillary clinton cleans up around the rest of the state? how do you see that shaking out, mark? >> his campaign has been aware of that from the beginning and they're trying to get college students to not caucus in the three main college towns in this state now go home to caucus to spread the support around, to take advantage of the caucus rules. i find his supporters to be at those events for all the right reasons. the reason you want someone to come to your event if you're bernie sanders is you believe in his agenda, you want to see his vision of america enacted. so i believe they've got the mechanics in place in iowa to turn people out and i believe a high percentage of his supporters, even younger voters, first time caucus attendee, will turn out but they have to get the mechanics right to get the support spread around the state. >> so let me ask you. when i look at that young crowd and i'm reminded of howard dean's young crowds in 2004 with the orange caps, we're looking at two different crowds.

>> well, i think you're looking at three different things. one is howard dean's message is not as clear as bernie sanders. he had a message of the democratic wing of the democratic party but he was conservative on fiscal responsibility. the mechanics of this campaign are much more rigorous than the dean campaign was. and the last thing is this is a two person race. howard dean is running in a multicandidate field. there are lots of other places for people to go if they don't like the establishment choice. in this case it's clinton or if you don't like the accompliestat it's sanders. >> we need buzzers like on "jeopardy." we're sitting here non-stop, all this news, then we have gene, and we need to get to you guys after this break because alex is yelling we need to go to break. i want to talk to you about the amazing developments between trump and fox and what corey

said today and get your input on that. okay. up next, the u.s. senate reopens for business today but for a moment yesterday it was under new management and things felt very different. >> i'm confused. >> we'll explain when "morning joe" comes right back. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ when age-related macular have degeneration, amd we came up with a plan to help reduce my risk of progression. and everywhere i look... i'm reminded to stick to my plan. including preservision areds 2. my doctor said preservision areds 2 has the exact nutrient formula that the national eye institute recommends

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that's why i switched from u-verse to xfinity. now i can download my dvr recordings and take them anywhere. ready or not, here i come! (whispers) now hide-and-seek time can also be catch-up-on-my-shows time. here i come! can't find you anywhere! don't settle for u-verse. x1 from xfinity will change the way you experience tv. >> as we convene this morning, you look around the chamber and the presiding officer is female. all of our parliamentarians are

female. our floor managers are female. all of our pages are female. something is genuinely different and i think it's genuinely fabulous. >> that was senator lisa murkowski. >> it's because all the dudes were at home because there was snow on the ground. >> here's the thing, i don't think it's a good thing. i'm serious, it's wonderful, what she was trying to say. but the point is men don't show up when they don't feel like it and nothing happens. all the women, we show up. we're early, we're there when there's snow. it doesn't feel good. >> with exceptions. >> get to work, guys. get to work. >> we're here. >> no. >> so mark halperin, let me ask you. you sat patiently for three and a half hours listening to us talk about donald trump. i know you have to go on your show in about five minutes but what's your take on trump and

fox? >> look, like you guys and willie said i'm a student of the fox provocative statements over the years. i can't imagine a news organization hosting a debate gratuitously insulting one of the people they want to have participate. they should let their work speak for itself. the candidates can decide whether they want to come but i think they made a big mistake journalistically and tactically putting out that statement. i think donald trump is totally entitled to say "i'm not going to be in a debate where people are going to fight with me. "i think he'll dominate the news for three days. i think he's ahead in iowa right now and ted cruz will have to figure out if the negative television ads and taunting of trump is enough to win this caucus. trump is on precipice of winning iowa and new hampshire unless something changes. he's showing strength doing this and that's his brand. >> that's the deal. he's on precipice of potentially, joe, using this to raise just as much money as the network would have made having him for wounded warriors, which would make a huge story. >> raise it for wounded warriors

and really the provocation here, and, you know, i'll just say it, donald was a coward for not wanting to confront megyn kelly. there's no way any news organization that ron foreignier worked for would taunt a candidate and troll a candidate and expect that candidate to show up. gene robinson, the "washington post" would never do that. i would turn to people telling me to go to that debate, say i would rather lose, i would rather set myself on fire i would rather jump off a cliff -- >> or in trump's case, raise money for wounded warriors. >> trump feels the same way. he would rather lose this election than be taunted by a news organization that's claiming they're going to be fair. which is just ridiculous on its

face. >> i don't know of another news organization that would put out a statement like that and i think trump -- there's genuine -- he was genuinely affronted, perhaps, but he also saw an opportunity. he is dominating the news cycle. the story is all about donald trump. he -- by not going the debate denies ted cruz the opportunity for mano-a-mano on the debate stage which is the way people would have looked at it a few days before iowa so i see no down side in this for trump and we'll see what fox's ratings are and how its reputation comes out. i think roger ailes is in kind of an awkward position of feeling he has to defend his anchor but at the same time that was an ill-advised statement. >> mike, ten years from now there will be truthers here that actually believe that roger ailes and donald trump planned this.

maybe they planned this. donald trump could not have planned anything that played to his favor more than what has happened over the past 12 hours. >> probably not 10 years, probably 10 minutes from now because if you go to a donald trump rally and talk to his core constituency, you get three things. why do you like him? he's strong, he's independent, he doesn't need anybody. fox just played right into each one of those issues. >> yeah. again, i don't think there's any way to look at this as a bad thing for trump in terms of this race, as mark halperin said. he becomes the story for a couple more days and whatever he does thursday night will swamp what's happening on that stage in terms of media coverage. i'll leave one opening here. i grew up in the '80s as a student of professional wrestling and i know how you build up to a big fight and there's trash talk and they won't show up. >> and then there's a

rapprochement. >> that would be boring. >> part of trump's demand of fox is that they get megyn kelly off the stage. >> that won't happen. >> and she's on the stage, he loses. >> >> and that they write a big check to wounded warriors. that will be interesting. the wounded warriors will get money whether he does the vent or not. coming up, vladimir putin has a starring role in a hillary clinton campaign ad under the title "hostile leader." the republicans are equally tough on putin with the exception of donald trump. we'll talk to the pentagon former top russia expert about what the the next president must do about putin. "morning joe" is coming right back. does the smell of a freshly bound presentation fill you with optimism?

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49 past the hour. joining us, former assistant secretary of defense for russia, ukraine and the pentagon, dr. evelyn farkus, i feel like your head must be spinning because in the course of how long you're having lunch with each of my brothers, the democrats and the republicans. >> and we're talking how do we deter russia with one brother and the other how do we cooperate with n the arctic with the other. >> i feel sorry for you. how does the next president deal with putin. >> we have to deter. we need to counter putin. we need to work on shoring up our allies and partners. so maintain a tough stance but also like i said do positive things, diplomatically, economically, militarily, and then get the truth out there. we need to do more truth-telling international linchts abo internationally. >> about him? >> about him. russia's foreign policy and why it's a danger to the

international community and the united states. >> what's the truth, dr. farkas, about the way vladimir putin views the united states? should the -- what posture should a president look at vladimir putin with? >> we need to be really, realistic and pragmatic and i think this president, president obama, has been pragmatic and realistic about putin. he suffers no illusions about the guy. putin does not see america as his friend or ally, he sees us as a potential adversary or opponent, he has a competitive relationship with us because in his view in order to show, in order to demonstrate russia is a global power he needs to demonstrate he can stand up to the united states. that means stand up to us and thwart some kind of policy of ours and you see him doing it in syria and elsewhere. >> so short term/long term. short-term policy toward russia, long-term policy toward russia. putin won't be there forever. what do we do about those two different tracks? >> short term is what i talked about. we need to -- russia needs to pay the price for their invasion

into ukraine. also they're still holding 20% of georgia's territory. they still have troops posted in moldova. so they have to pay the price internationally for that. we have to stay tough but we have to be pragmatic so we can work with them in syria. there's room for a compromise there. we can talk about that later but in the long run i think eventually if we hold firm with russia we can bring russia back into the fold. that's what's in everyone's interest, first and foremost the russian people but also the united states and our allies. >> that's long term? >> that's long term. that's out there. there's probably past putin and into the next administration. >> dr. evelyn farkas, thank you so much for being on the show this morning. good luck with those lunches. coming up, ted cruz takes fire on all sides. first from donald trump and now his faith is being questioned in a new super pac ad. that's ahead on "morning joe." et may not always be clear. but at t. rowe price, we can help guide your retirement savings. so wherever your retirement journey takes you, we can help you reach your goals. call us or your advisor

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coming up at the top of the hour, the grenade that donald trump just tossed into the presidential campaign. >> actually, what happened was -- lets me explain what happened. >> yeah, please, yeah. >> they rolled it under his table. he was eating a porter house, he finished his porter house, wiped his mouth, said, hey, ivanka, i'll be there in a minute, and he rolled it under fox's table and it blew up. seriously, why are they doing that? why are they doing that? >> joe, this is a tease. dropping out of fox news's debate days from the iowa

caucuses. >> it's a good tease. >> in a tease you don't tell the whole story. >> well, we're going to get smart. >> we'll bring in historian john meacham who will talk about shea's -- shay's rebellion. >> this reminds me of a prussian -- >> the "washington post" robert costa comes on for a full analysis. plus ted cruz's message to iowa. >> meacham will tell us -- >> ted cruz's message to iowa pastors. "help me stop trump in iowa or he could be unstoppable." that's his message. "morning joe" is back in a moment.

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>> would you turn that microphone off, please. >> you asked for me -- i am paying for this microphone! [ cheers and applause ] >> that was ronald reagan in new hampshire, nashua, to be exact, in front of thousands of people. >> including barnicle. >> the moderator, joe breen, began reading the rules for the debate when ronald reagan tried to protest. breen attempted to have the mike cut off and history is repeating itself. you were there. ronald reagan and i remember reading "america in search of itself" which was sort of a teddy white summary of -- but he started with that scene and he said for a nation that felt like it was rudderless and in need of strong leadership that was a defining moment in the 1980 campaign. i find this fox debate to be

history repeating itself and puts donald trump in the position now where we can literally dominate the entire narrative for the last five days going into iowa. >> well, reagan off that one moment became the dominant figure in those primaries and certainly donald trump is the dominant figure in these primaries and you would have to think that what happened yesterday with the whole debate flap with fox that donald trump played strongly into his hands -- it played strongly into his hands the way he handled it and the way fox handled it. >> we have the "washington post" eugene robinson, elise jordan, political reporter for the "washington post" and nbc political analyst robert costa and pulitzer prize winning historian john meacham. >> wow! >> by the way, sales requires us to say this -- >> shea's rebellion! >> john meacham, any mention of

the franco-prussian war will be sponsored by sominex this half hour. >> oh! >> do they still have sominex? >> we're just kidding. you're insightful, you give us perspective. >> perspective we don't want to have. >> no, we do, we do. donald trump tweeted a poll linking this instagram video asking whether or not he should participate in the fox news debate. >> megyn kelly's really biased against me. she knows that, i know that, everybody knows. that do you really think she can be fair at a debate? >> and fox replied with a sarcastic statement and this is it. "we learned a secret back channel that the ayatollah and putin both intend to treat donald trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings."

>> um, willie, three questions: why, why, why? >> what in the world? >> who was thinking -- >> a news organization. >> if they want 22 million viewers, they knew -- that's why seriously there are going to be conspiracy theorists saying roger and trump cooked this up because they knew trump would not show up. >> i still maintain that this could be the opening salvo in something that's going to get it to the level of professional relation. >> i'm not falling for it. >> he'll show up one way or the other. >> i hope wounded warriors make a lot of money. >> if you know fox news, if you've ever made a page six statement, this is how they go after people. it's a very strong press department. >> but they're dealing with trump. and, mike, they had a fight with trump before which they had to back down. trump said i will never go back on the network again, roger ailes called donald, they struck -- they made peace and they continued. but this is bad for fox. >> well, the more we talk about it, though, the more i am

leaning towards really the wwf theory. >> i think fox and trump are playing chess. it will be interesting to see how it plays out but i don't think ailes' strategy is necessarily wrong and what really manages to get under trump's skin is making fun of him. and republican the white house correspondent's dinner when president obama made fun of trump. he did not like it at all. he's managed to get under trump's skin and we'll see how it plays out. >> going back to 1980 and ronald reagan, that show of strength, this is -- this is nashua multiplied a thousand fold and, again, trump didn't pay for the mike but he is paying for fox's bills for a while.

if there's a roll that nbc and cnn would play, foxes numbers would be two million instead of 22 million. >> it's a media version of nashua, that was the mano-a-mano moment when bush and reagan were supposed to go forward together and as george h.w. bush said, because bush was staring straight ahead refusing to let the other republicans on stage and he said "it was not my finest hour to say the least." but one of the things that sheds light on this is part of the reason bush refused to open up the debate to the other players was gordon humphrey, new hampshire conservative, had come to bush and and humphrey had been attacking bush all around the state as kind of an insurgent republican against the establishment republican. so this purist versus prague ma first argument that's been going on for 35 years continues now

and there were some seeds of in the the reagan/bush moment. >> we have late word on how this will play out. but first in response to that statement, here's trump. >> with me, they're dealing with somebody that's a little different. they can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else. let them have their debate and see how they do with the ratings. i told them, i said give money to the wounded warriors with, give money to the veterans, they'll make a fortune, let's see how many people watch. when they sent out the wise guy press releases done by some pr person along with roger ailes i say bye bye, okay? i've done six debates. i've done six. according to every single poll, i've won ever debate. i've won six. now you say when does it stop. how many do you have to do republicans go on forever and ever and ever with debates.

we have people on the sthand have zero, that have one, that have nothing. so it's time somebody plays grown-up. and when i see a press release written by a child like i just saw, i said what do i have to do? what do i have to make fox rich. let me make the veterans rich. >> you go through that statement, that's trump at its very best. he made a lot of great points there which, you know, i'm sitting at 42%, and i'm going to be on the same stage with people after they put a press release out written by a child which that's stinging because it looks like a very childish press release. gene robinson, fox made trump look like the grown-up. >> well, they did manage to do that and that's not always an easy thing to do 2 t big fox

mistake it was press release. it's not defitting a news organization in my view. if they make a decision that megyn kelly will be a moderator, they can hardly back down from that. now try to pour salt on his wounds in wwf way, unless willie is right and it's all a setup and, you know, vince mcmahon is going to come out and say "let's get ready to rumble," unless that's the case i think fox stepped in it this time. >> i think they did, too. and, willie, again, people that say that donald trump is afraid to go up against megyn kelly missed the entire point. you'd have to be stupid as a candidate, you would have to be stupid to go on a debate stage with a news organization that had been this openly hostile to you. stupid.

and donald trump is anything but stupid. they actually -- if they wanted 22 million viewers, they shot themselves in the foot with that press release. >> don't you think, just like the last one of these cvs, roger and donald will talk, we'll get something else and tomorrow morning? >> per trump, he said he is not talking to roger ailes anymore, he's the chairman of hiss company, he will only talk to rupert murdoch chairman to chairman. so this now -- you know, per our sources last night roger ailes was calling ivanka, trying to get in touch with trump, calling melania, people he has a good relationship with, they love roger, have a great respect for him. but at this point trump's only going to talk to rupert and they'll figure it out. >> and roger won't pulling me i

didn't know k-- pull megyn kell off that debate. this is fun to talk about in this back and forth way but let's talk about how it affects the campaign with five days till voting in iowa. how do you see that shaking out for donald trump but the rest of the field trying to stay with him? particularly ted cruz who's neck in neck in iowa. >> checking in with rival campaigns last night, you get the sense they see an opening, a chance to get attention on the debate stage, a chance to underscore their own attention to iowa, their ability to do retail politics rather than get engaged with drama with fox news. at the same time, there's fear privately among the rival campaigns that trump is sucking all the oxygen out of the room and with just days to go it's very hard to get a headline. >> so they're excited about trump not being at the debate because they'll have time to talk. >> well, if you're in the low single digits it's time to talk but other weiss you're not surging ahead because it's trump. >> i guess the question is this,

if a tree falls in the forest and nobody's there, does it make a sound? [ laughter ] >> hmm? >> question i have for you. >> iowa caucus goer, joe, what do you think? they want to see candidates up close. does iowa interpret this? every other state at this point is a different discussion. does iowa react in a negative way to trump not being on the stage or not? >> i'm in iowa, if most republicans are in iowa and trying to figure out whether they want to watch donald trump and his -- >> raise money for wounded warriors. >> taking everybody on. >> not being at the debate. >> or am i going to watch the debate that doesn't have donald trump but guys sitting at zero and 1% and 2%. for the voters of iowa, that's an easy call. you're watching trump.

and yet brit hume, on the side of megyn kelly, said it won't affect his supporters, i think it makes him look stronger. but let's talk about ted cruz. he's had a rough two weeks. >> he's asking for a mano-a-mano fight with donald trump. earlier this month ted cruz's net favorability was through the roof among republicans but over the course of last month when the two have exchanged blows trump has seen his net favorability steadily rise while cruz's has fallen off precipitously. he's lost 16 points in just the last few weeks and we told you he shed nine points among white evangelical, a key demographic in winning iowa. >> so what is it about donald trump that everybody supposedly loves, even though his favorabilities are shooting up, that taking on trump is like

kryptonite to these republican challengers. everybody that takes on trump dies, right? >> it's not a great trend. around december 21, those numbers for cruz started to go down and i think cruz has the most to lose if trump doesn't participate because then on the stage he's the highest in the polls so he becomes the pinata for everybody else. so he gets more pleasure -- >> great point. that is a nightmare scenario for cruz because then jeb, marco, rand -- >> exactly, they'll pile it on even more. cruz peaked a little too early and he -- if he doesn't win in iowa it will be seen as a loss for cruz whereas trump is seen as an upset. so the stakes are very high. >> the christian broadcasting network posted video of ted cruz making a direct appeal to pastors. >> if donald wins iowa he right now has a substantial lead in

new hampshire. if he went on to win new hampshire as well, there's a good chance he could be unstoppable and be our nominee. >> so it's almost a threat i guess? >> it's interesting. i made the same point and the cruz campaign pushed back and said, well, no, he's not unstoppable and ted said the same thing, i got pushback on 24 hours before for saying on the air. because if trump wins iowa, which he's not supposed to win, he's 20 points ahead in new hampshire 20, points ahead in south carolina, 253, 30 points ahead in the south. this is a freight train, get out of the way and that's what ted cruz, robert costa, is telling those pastors, you either stop this guy here or it's over. is that the growing feeling there especially marco rubio dropping in one poll after another.

>> there is a fear there. speaking of the cruz campaign, they're lowering expectations, cruz is lowering expectations himself and more comments he made to those pastors. there's a sense in the cruz world that trump could win iowa at this point and they want to keep cruz in the race. we can go into south carolina and the march 1 dates. the other problem for cruz, joe, mike huckabee, santorum, they're still taking the evangelical vote just as trump is getting his own evangelical endorsements. that's going right at cruz's core coalition. >> mike is going to go to meacham. but speaking of huckabee still in this race going after cruz, watch this attack ad from mike huckabee. >> have you thought about the caucus? >> a little: >> i heard something about ted cruz, that gay marriage wouldn't be a top priority for him? >> he said it at a fund-raiser in new york city. tells them one thing, tells iowans another. >> i also heard that cruz gives less than 1% to charity and church. >> he doesn't tithe. a millionaire that brags about

his faith all the time? >> just what we need, another phony. >> i guess we've narrowed dun our list. can't caucus for cruz. >> wow. >> that buttresses the point that was just made. >> exactly. >> there's so many pacs putting out anti-cruz ads, they haven't focused on trump. why is right to rise going after rubio and not trump sfnchts ? >> it's amazing. they're all shooting each other. >> it's like the wild west. >> and donald trump is driving around in his rolls-royce. >> a few moments ago joe asked you about something that occurred in 1980. i know i can talk to you about 1780 and you can bring us up to speed. >> please don't. >> and i think rightly. >> but we've been talking nearly non-stop about donald trump. not so much the debate but about donald trump, the impact of fox on trump, trump on fox vis-a-vis the debate that occurs thursday night. have you ever heard of, read about, researched or have any

comprehension of a prior campaign where one person has been such a focus, an obsessive focus, by the news media and nearly everyone? >> no. not in recent memory. you've gotten a american tradition. there was -- let me give you an early 19th century just to play the type. i want to keep everybody happy. >> thank you for playing to type. >> i know it's difficult but i'll try. >> i'm going to sleep too type. >> but right before andrew jackson ran for president a scottish traveller was going through the united states and he wrote that politics -- the same way -- he said politics is our national sport but people have much more an interest in the apostle than the creed. >> i knew that guy. >> he worked at the "globe" for a while. [ laughter ] i think y'all were copy boys

together. so there is a tendency to that. but this is remarkable. duff, it's also -- we can argue about what-to-what extent this is totally a cult of personality as opposed to a coherent set of policy prescriptions. the great examples in recent histories, the ronald reagans, the lyndon johnsons, the john kennedys. these were much particular diggsal political figures. even ronald reagan, two term california governor. he spent the 50s working out a coherent political philosophy, he was a much more, if you will, an establishment figure, a much more recognizable figure than trump is and so the fact we spend so much time on the elements of the new york media world and the debate arrangements show to the extent -- what extent his shadow has just gone over the campaign in a way that totally dominates. >> mark halperin, what's so

fascinating, though, is we hear from a lot of media critics that say, well, trump's successful. we had somebody on the other day that said "you guys were right predicting trump. but you all are responsible because you talk about him all the time:" that's a fallacy. what happens is trump does something that provokes headlines and then it provokes three days of stories in the "new york times" and "washington post" about how his campaign is going to collapse in the next three days. the death watch is on. so everything is holding their breath until the polls come out four or five days later and shows he goes up by ten points. so then they spent the next weekend talking about trump going up ten points and that didn't kill him and then something else happens and trump will say something inflammatory. the press will then write three or four days of story about how the will be the event that kills

donald trump so we wait three or four more days and see his poll numbers go up. this has been happening for six months. it started with mexicans, then it was john mccain, then it was megyn kelly. >> don't forget muslims. >> then it was muslims. now it's fox news and it's the press that makes the -- makes a one-day story a one-week story by predicting the bitter end for donald trump and they are always wrong. they saw it happening last night on twitter. donald's scared of -- no, he's not. he's scared of losing. the only thing he's scared of losing, he doesn't like to lose and fox news has just walked into the biggest donald trump trap of the 2016 campaign. >> when we say that donald trump is constantly rewriting the rule book of presidential politics, it's true and he's doing it with fox but there's another side of it. there's a different part of the

rule book involving dominating media coverage that he's mastered. he's not rewriting it, he's mastered it. he's got another big endorsement today, we're told. he's going to dominate thursday night not no matter what happens. i agree he'll go into the debate but whether he does or not he'll dominate thursday night either way and i believe that it's true that he can win iowa and new hampshire and south carolina. but i will say ted cruz is still the best positioned person to stop trump or be competitive with trump into march. even if he loses hereby. obviously it would be better for him to win here but there's still a possibility that trump -- >> but cruz is telling pastors that if he wins iowa he may be unstoppable. >> he's saying he may be but he's saying that because he really wants to inspire them to stop trump here. cruz's chances to be the nominee, no doubt, are exponentially greater if he wins iowa, even by one vote.

but if you look at the rest of the field, rubio, kasich, bush, none will be in a position to stop trump as cruz is even if cruise loses iowa because of his money, his support, his organization. >> do you agree? >> i think if he loses in iowa his fund raise willing dry up but he has a good war chest. >> i have to say this last tweet that you reported on is now at the chairman level says to me that there's going to be big drama, a big deal and the rule book will be rewritten four more tim time times. >> mark halperin, robert costa andy gene robinson, thank you for being on this morning. senator ben sass joins us. first, who will inherit president obama's legacy?

there are signs that neither the president nor bernie sanders think it will be sanders. that story when "morning joe" comes right back.

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we've got new numbers out of iowa just this morning, bernie sanders in iowa in the lead. but just barely. quinnipiac poll has sanders at 49%. hillary clinton at 45% p inside the margin of error looking at the breakdown by age. this is stunning, sanders way ahead with younger voters, 78% to clinton's 21% with voters from age 18 to 44. clinton has the advantage with older demographics. >> that could lead to a clinton win. >> mark halperin is not here but if he were -- [ laughter ] -- he would agree with me that when you look at voters, old -- older voters are saying they'll vote for me, that's literally money in the bank. i know they're going because older voters vote. when i hear younger voters

saying they'd vote for me -- >> if they show up. >> that's great but you actually has to show up. and on a caucus night? i've been seeing younger people in the bernie sanders crowds, they're massive crowds, i get. that but it looks like about 90% of them are under the age 2506. >> it's less. show the crowds. >> so that's -- that's a big question mark hanging over the caucuses. >> what would you/mark say though about a national poll at this stage? the import of a national poll? >> zero. >> i'm seeing a lot of bald heads and older people. just saying. it's not all young people. >> but that was -- >> why are you looking at me? >> that was out of iowa, though. >> the poll was in iowa. >> okay here's young people: but in a lot of the shots of the crowds i wasn't just seeing young people. >> look at the people in the back of the stage. they're predominantly younger. all i'm saying, his numbers are going to amount to his ground game. is it as good as the clinton ground game? can he get those people out to the caucuses?

>> is it as good and, willie, again, i had a very simple theory, and the theory was if you voted four years ago in a primary and you voted two years ago in a primary you are going to vote this year in the primary and i put them down as -- i call them superrepublicans. and i had a list of superrepublican, they were the only people i talked to because what i figured out was you can tell me you love me, you can tell me you're going to vote 20 times and i learned it time and time again. if you didn't vote in the primary four years ago and you didn't vote in the primary two years ago you are not going to vote in a primary this time. >> it was fascinating last night to listen to david plouffe, one of the architects of the obama campaign in 2008 that revolutionized politics talking about assessing the democratic race in iowa and he supports hillary clinton but he said if i were bernie sanders i would be worried about translating this enthusiasm into votes. you have to get the people out to vote. and the other thing people have talked about is this

concentration in college towns so you win the counties which have college towns but hillary clinton wins the perimeter counties and other counties that aren't as young as that. >> and plouffe knows more than anybody else knows that the obama turnout in 2008 was roughly 200,000 to caucuses. so we have to watch that number next month night to see where that number is in 2016. >> still remarkable, though, to see what's happened. >> you know, early on in the obama campaign, we saw he raised the money, we saw the crowds, not as big as these clouds. but i remember reading a "new york times" article in the summer of '07 that said they were piling all the money they were getting not into ads but into a ground game. i said okay, this guy learned a lesson from howard dean. he's going to do great. the question is how much is bernie putting into his ground game? how much is he putting into the beautiful ads? >> bernie sanders is scheduled to meet with president obama

only their second private meeting in seven years of the obama white house. yesterday sanders responded to the president's recent comments characterizing the senator as too narrowly focused on income inequality. however sanders focused on the positive and said the president was "very generous to me." but a closer look at sanders's relationship with the white house shows a democratic establishment that has sometimes had its reservations. >> i don't think that's true. >> president obama rejects comparisons to bernie sanders and heaps praise on his former rival, hillary clinton, as another upstart senator threatens her white house hopes. >> the truth is, in 2007/2008 sometimes my supporters i think got too huffy about what were legitimate questions she was raising. >> now, amid a drop in the poll, clinton's new attacks on sanders' readiness echo her old

ones against then senator obama back in 2008. >> my opponent doesn't have much experience creating jobs. in theory there's a lot to like about some of his ideas. but in theory isn't enough. >> only 2016 is not the first time the clintons and president obama have seemingly teamed up against sanders. >> the senate will come to order. >> you can call what i'm doing today whatever you want. you can call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech. >> in late 2010, bernie sanders spoke for eight and a half hours on the senate floor, railing against a dealing that president obama struck with congressional republicans -- a deal which included a two-year extension of the bush tax cuts. >> excuse me. don't force my kids over the a lower standard of living in order to give tax breaks to the richest people in this country. >> sanders wasn't alone. dozens of democrats in the house and senate had also stood up against the deal but it was the

sanders' spotlight that had the white house on defense. >> for most of the day today, the tax debate had been dominated by bernie sanders. well, about 4:00 today clearly the white house had had enough. >> president obama marched bill clinton into the press briefing room. >> you're in good hands. >> and left. >> there's never a perfect bipartisan bill in the eyes of a partisan and i think it's enormous relief for america to think that both parties might vote for something. >> ultimately, the bill passed and while rates were later raised on higher incomes, the rest of the bush tax cuts became permanent. in the meantime, bill clinton went on to become obama's secretary of explaining stuff while sanders planted the seed for a future run. >> i i think if a progressive democrat wants to go on i think it would enliven the debate. >> as sanders battles clinton to become the one-time successor, the one-time underdog is sounding a bit like the

blushment he once held at bay. >> this job right here, you don't have the luxury of just focusing on one thing. >> wow. >> wow. >> a little history there, i think. >> let's bring in msnbc political correspondent kasie hunt live from des moines, iowa. kasie, you caught up with bernie sanders yesterday and asked him about president obama. what did he say? >> good morning. yeah, the battle here many in iowa on the democratic side, it's hard not to be struck by how much it is over obama's legacy in so many different ways, whether it's politically, bernie sanders changed his signs a couple weeks ago so they're blue and they say "a future you can believe in." we've seen that somewhere before. from a coalition perspective, hillary clinton is trying to get this coalition together that looks like the obama coalition that includes minorities, women. meanwhile, sanders has yuck people. but what sanders doesn't want are obama-like expectations for

caucus night. here's what he told me when i asked him about it. are you the heir to president obama here in iowa? >> i wouldn't -- look, no. obama in 2008 ran a campaign that which is going to stay in the history books. do i think in this campaign we are going to match that? i would love to see us do that. i hope we can, frankly, i don't think we can. i think we stand a real chance to create a large voter turnout, i doubt it will be as high as 2008, wish it was, but i don't think it will be. but i think it will be high enough for us to win here in iowa. >> bernie sanders doesn't have to hit obama turnout levels to ultimately make this a story we're talking about for a long time to come but as you heard there, he doesn't think he'll get to where the president did. obama, of course, come nothing from where for a pretty decisive victory in 2008. i don't think anyone is expecting that. it's going to be much closer.

>> kasie hunt, thank you very much. still to come, some of donald trump's top competitors aren't shedding any tears that the debate tomorrow might not happen with donald trump. hallie jackson joins us along the campaign trail with their reaction next. has a number. but not every insurance company understands the life behind it. for those who've served and the families who've supported them, we offer our best service in return. ♪ usaa. we know what it means to serve. get an insurance quote and see why 92% of our members plan to stay for life. ♪ being hacked and intellectual property being stolen. that is cyber-crime and it affects each and every one of us. microsoft created the digital crimes unit to fight cyber-crime. we use the microsoft cloud to visualize information

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let's bring in nbc news correspondent hallie jackson live in des moines. hallie, take us through what the other candidates are saying about donald trump's decision to back out of tomorrow night's

debate. >> so there's really two ways to look at this, right, mika? you've got what donald trump and his campaign is hoping to show as sort of trump is the strong man, calling the rules, changing the game himself which could appeal to trump supporters who see that as strength. what these republican candidates are hoping is people see it as a sign of weakness. they're all basically calling out donald trump for being a chicken, essentially. you heard ted cruz talking about this on the radio at his campaign event to raucous cheers challenging ted cruz to a -- donald trump, rather, to a one-on-one debate. basically saying hey, donald trump, get on the mark levin show with me, we can have a moderator, no have the a moderator, let's go at it the two of us. this is a couple things for cruz. one, it puts him in the narrative of today where donald trump is going to dominate the headlines, as you know. this allows cruz to get into the mix when it comes to the media talking points and the media narrative. the other thing it does is helps ted cruz push the idea he wants to push that this has become a

two man race between him and donald trump. no trump on stage tomorrow night, guys, means cruz will be coming under pretty heavy incoming from base clip everybody else in the field. the establishment candidates are talking about this. here's what chris christie had to say about donald trump's debate no show. >> fox business news demoted me from the main stage to the second debate, i didn't whine, i didn't cry, and i didn't not show up. i went behind the podium and the microphone, i put my views out to the american people because that's what you do and that's what you learn when you're a governor. you can't anticipate everything that's going to happen, you're going to get bad press, crises, natural disasters, you've got to show up. >> and this is how we've seen most of the republican field come at trump for this, guys, as weak, somebody who's scared, somebody who's whining, somebody running away from tough questions. cruz has said it's disrespectful to caucus voeeters in iowa.

so i'm curious to see what caucus goers think, people who are supporting these candidates: >> doesn't it seem like ted cruz has the most to lose in this? for two reasons, first of all because as elise said when she was here earlier today, if he's the one in first place then all of the shooting, all of the -- they're all -- it's aimed at him. as you know, the ads aren't going after trump, it's going after cruz and rubio and bush. and hi needs a good performance to catch up to trump, right? >> he does. and the debate before the cause of action is a high stakes event for him. so against donald trump ted cruz has landed punches. so without that foil -- i think you're right, joe, they'll hammer him on the debate stage. the campaign knows that will be

tend result of donald trump not being on the stage tomorrow night. so cruz potentially having trump on stage is more beneficial than having him off. is. >> wow. so jeb bush wrote "do you know who else is scared of tough questions from fox and megyn kelly? barack obama. enough whining." >> jeb talking to trump there: >> yeah. >> i think jeb is one of the few candidates -- in many cases the only one -- who's gone after trump so this is not out of character for him. he's been the one voice consistently who's gone directly at trump while other candidates have shot at each other. >> sort of just like pinged off. >> there's a new poll out of new hampshire that has bush -- >> jeb's up there in second place. >> second place in 14%. >> that's another benefit of tomorrow night. >> what what's that? >> that it allows the establishment candidates like jeb bush to have oxygen.

it opens up space to shine a little bit when you had into iowa and new hampshire. people like jeb bush, john kasich and chris christie who may have the opportunity to hammer trump when trump isn't there and to get their talking points in. get more time for themselves. >> i think he's going to end up on the stage. >> look at themmer son poll without new hampshire. donald trump at 35%, jeb bush jumping to 18%. >> wow. >> john kasich at 14%. rubio down to 9%, cruz down to 8%. cruz was in second place. we'll get the polls methodology today, but we've seen another poll. john kasich at 14% in the latest poll as well. >> kasich has moved considerably over the past two weeks. the thing about new hampshire it's the last five or six days. that's when new hampshire traditionally breaks so the bush numbers, i would imagine, given what they've been through for the past four or five months,

they're encouraged by this and they're still -- wait to those last five or six days. iowa will have will have a big impact on the second tear of candidates. >> and bush and kasich, those would be really solid. >> the guys at the bottom of that list, rubio and cruz, their performances in iowa matter a great deal to new hampshire i think christie's expectations, jeb's expectations, kasich's expectations are low enough, hallie, we'll let you weigh in on this, in iowa, that they don't have to perform so well in iowa. they are new hampshire candidates. but cruz and rubio, they can not fourth or fifth, rubio can't finish fourth or fifth in iowa and hope for a good jump. >> i would say it's probably rubio more than cruz, right, that has to have a solid third place finish in iowa too carry him into new hampshire. a rubio source telling me they

are feeling good about where they are in iowa. i don't think there's an expectation they can beat ted cruz or trump but they're seeing an increasing number of caucus commits. >> how many people were out? >> i think the campaign count was 500 at the event last night if i'm not mistaken. it might have been under that. >> it's big. >> he's packing room, sure, and he seems to do better when he has these bigger crowds, he seems to have more energy and feeds off of that a bit. but talking to people who were there, i heard a lot of "i'm still deciding between cruz and rubio in iowa." and that's what marco rubio has to get past. >> hallie jackson, thank you very much. still ahead this morning -- >> while i'm in favor of more civility, my actual call here is for more substance. this is not a call for less fighting, this is a call for more meaningful fighting. >> senator ben sasse kicked off

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you nighting around the things that bring us together and that's not one guy's ego, that's a system of laws and limited government. so if being pro constitution makes me anti-mr. trump, i think that's his problem. >> what is it specifically about mr. trump that you think is anti-constitution? >> i mean, the guy talks constantly how he'll get everything done alone. he said recently that if he's elected president he'll be able to do whatever he wants. that's pretty much what the american revolution was about. we already have one party in this country that's gone post constitutional. we don't need another one. >> senator, we had him on the show the other day. he complained how ted cruz was, nobody in the senate liked ted cruz. he'd spend a lifetime making deals with other people, said he could work with other people, said he could work with people like nancy pelosi and work across the aisle. that doesn't sound like a guy who's talking about doing it all by himself. >> yeah, well, i mean, when you

talk to people in my town, you don't hear anybody saying if only there were more people who inside washington were focused on themselves and their deal making ability. what you hear about is people who want to believe in a shared sense of human dignity again and limited government because they believe in limitless human potential. i think more washington deal making is not really what anybody in nebraska's talking about and i haven't heard it in iowa either. they want to talk about a constitutional republic. >> i'm all about a constitutional republic. been fighting for it for 20 years. you said donald trump was all about donald trump and he was going to do things by himself like a king. then i said, no, he spent 20 minutes on our show yesterday talking about how unlike barack obama and ted cruz he wanted to work with other people. then you criticized that. which is it? >> joe, did you ask him what he means if he says he's president he'll be able to do whatever he wants? because i don't hear him getting hard questions. >> he actually didn't say that on our show. if he did say that on our show,

i certainly would have said, what do you mean. i would have explained checks and balances but, again, when he's on our show it made it sound like that he understood that unlike barack obama, you have to reach out to the other side and deal with the other side. >> here's what people are asking me. they're saying, which way is it? trump says he's for single payer health care. he says he hates guns when he was thinking about running as a democrat. he says that he's proposed a $6 trillion tax increase in the past. he says when he runs -- if he gets elected president, he'll be able to do whatever he wants. a lot of people really, really appreciate that he's accurately diagnosing a lot that's wrong but that's not the same as telling us what he's for. what's he for? >> senator, you're a really smart guy. mika and i were talking about it, you're one of our favorites. when i ask this, i'm not asking this as a leading question or poking and prodding -- >> sure. >> -- but a hell of a lot of people in your great state of nebraska like donald trump,

believe in donald trump, like my brother who's pro-gun, who is an evangelical, who's gone to church every sunday his entire life who would rather drowned in scambia bay than ever vote for a democrat is 100% behind donald trump. i know a lot of lifelong republicans that are, too. diagnose that for me, not just my family, but your nebraska supporters that support donald trump. why is that given his past? >> that's a great question, and i'm telling ya, i think that donald trump is really entertaining. i think that donald trump would be a great guy to have a beer with. i get that you guys have him on ever day because he makes for great television and your brother may be different, but i live in my state and i commute every week and what i hear at the grocery store is people saying, i am sick of washington. i am sick of the mess that is there. i am sick of the fact that people won't be blunt about the real problems we face. >> right. >> i want to make america great again and i'm glad donald trump will attack all of that

nonsense, but frankly i'm not really sure what he's for. that's what people actually say on the street. and i'll tell ya, the oath i took is to a constitution. i want to make america great again as well, and the way you do that is by a nation of limited government. that's what people actually want when you give them time. if you just give them the choice between establishment insiders and donald trump, man, he's a lot of fun. that's different than telling you how he'd really govern and i think you guys misread how many folks really doubt back on the grassroots whether or not they're sure that trump's for anything particular or if he's just for donald trump's election. >> senator, i haven't seen a poll out of nebraska. i'm guessing donald trump would be ahead. let's not talk about my brother. >> i think that's true. >> let's not talk about this show. let's not talk about having a beer. i'm talking about your people, the people you represent and is it -- again, i ask this with all due respect because i love ya. >> sure. >> i really do. i think you're a rising star. >> i didn't know that, joe.

i appreciate that. >> you actually did know that. but -- but it sounds like you're talking down to people that you represent by saying, yeah, he's entertaining and he's a fun guy to have a beer with, but, you know, there's nothing there. >> voters are wrong. >> and the voters are wrong in your own state. he's probably in first place among your constituents. >> let's -- let's be clear. i also think he's in first place and i think there's a huge element of it that is protest voting. when 3 to 1 americans think the country is on the wrong track, washington doesn't work. nobody says that as effectively as donald trump. >> yeah. >> and a huge part of what people are saying is i want this to change and i want to make america great again. they're right about that. a lot of great americans are in donald trump's camp and he owes it to them to tell them what his actual positions are. >> all right. senator, i'll tell you what, thank you so much for being with us. come back again. >> thanks, guys. >> if you can just make one

quick change and make sure that that ugly red turns to a crimson red and that n gets a big a on it. >> i think he looks good. >> all right. >> joe, i don't think we've ever -- my wife's a tuscaloosa alumn. >> no way! >> i've had enough of you people in my life. >> by the way, bobby baldeneli, the great coach for fsu, he said they were playing nebraska, they were huge. scared the hell out of them. he walked over to one of the players, hey, what's that n on your shirt stand for? and the lineman looked at him -- >> don't give me the knowledge stuff. >> the lineman looked back at him and said, knowledge. bobby said at that moment he knew they were going to lose by 40 points. more attacks from the liberal media on msnbc. >> we will be right back. >> come on the set. >> go huskers. >> i'm a huge huskers fan. >> be right back.

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turn that microphone off, please. >> i am paying for this microphone! [ applause ] >> you were there? >> you were not there. >> come on, you were there, really? >> were you really? >> yeah. >> well, you know, history is repeating itself. >> sort of. >> that's the story. in nashville, ronald regan, he goes to the debate in nashua and he doesn't like the rules as they are set up because he thinks it's not fair to the rest of the candidates. he doesn't think it's a level playing field so reagan just -- they tried to cut his mike off and he says, i paid for this mike, mr. green. >> big moment.

>> here's mr. green. and you look at whether it's teddy white or anybody else, they go back and they say, that's the defining moment of the primary campaign for ronald regan. it showed strength in a time of weakness and here we are how many years later? 45 years later. >> wow. >> do you believe that? it makes me feel old because i am 35 -- maybe it's 35. >> we were just talking about feeling old, me and barnacle. >> and the same thing happens except it's happening at fox news in the final week, and trump says -- >> it's getting ugly. >> trump just says i'm not going to go to a debate where the rules aren't fair, where you have somebody who's openly hostile against me, actually got a cover photo on "vanity fair" simply because of hostility about me. gets michael moore on fox news to side with me. i mean, there are a lot of people at fox news that are going, are you kidding me?

so donald trump, just like ronald regan -- >> front page of "the new york times." >> you know what, that's fine. >> actually, every paper. look at this. >> we'll get to the news in a second, but i don't understand the provocation by fox news yesterday. >> the statement. >> yeah, the -- >> the -- the -- the -- >> just go there. >> they were trolling and they were tweaking a guy that brings 22 million viewers to their network. i mean, so ronald regan several years ago said, i paid for this mike. donald trump says, i pay for your bills with my 22 million viewers. >> you know what i think that is, i think it's roger ales who is equally strong to donald trump trying to call trump's bluff saying you're really not going to show up. >> but you don't do that. >> fox does that. if you look at their history of statements they put out, they're not afraid of anyone. >> this was a strange statement. >> donald trump, we'll see if he -- i don't know if this is over yet, all i'm saying. >> you remember what happened last time though? the same thing happened after the debate, he said, i'm not

going back on fox news. >> yeah. >> and roger started calling me. come on, let's work this out. guess what, the news last night, all of the news reports, they were frantically calling trump. they were calling ivonka. they called malanya. they called everybody. everybody. they were desperately trying to get ahold of trump to get him back to the debate. we know where this ends, right? who put out that statement and why did they do it? >> first of all, the statement was issued by fox yesterday afternoon and evening were highly unusual. >> not for fox if you follow them. >> not for fox. you're absolutely right. this is roger versus donald, mano a mano. you're right, this isn't over. >> this isn't over. >> you saw mike barnacle is with us. in des moines, halperin, msnbc political analyst, eugene -- >> they just stuck an extra jolt

of electricity in godzilla. he just grew 400 feet. >> joe has just decided -- >> this is right in his wheel house. they seriously -- it's -- this is the fattest fastball down the middle for don trump. oh, wait, you ridicule me and mock me and give me a chance to look strong and i get to hold a separate event that outrates yours and i'm at the center of the political world and stage and i'm the good guy and nobody's watching your debate. why? i don't understand. >> i had a very prominent, very sophisticated elected official call me early yesterday evening talking about trump and what had happened, what had ensued during the day and saying, well, you know, this is going to really hurt him. >> oh, no. >> god. >> i said, since john mccain, since he made the statement of john mccain they've been wrong. >> shorthand facts. donald trump withdrew from the

seventh republican debate. it was scheduled for tomorrow night. he spent yesterday locked in a back and forth whether or not megyn kelly ought to be one of the moderators. trump says that she has unfairly tweeted him. he tweeted a poll linking this instagram video asking whether or not he should participate. >> megyn kelly's really biased against me. she knows that. i know that. everybody knows that. do you really think she can be fair at a debate? >> that's a really fair question, by the way. a really fair question considering her performance in the last debate. >> so fox replied with a sarcastic statement. this is what the guys were talking about here. here's the statement. quote, we learned a secret back channel that the ayatollah and putin both intend to treat donald trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. like why? >> you know, the thing is, the

question is, first of all, a news organization that is going to run a debate provoking a candidate like that just is asking for it. >> fascinating. >> donald trump, i will tell you, i would literally go to the center of sixth avenue and set myself on fire. set myself on fire. >> joe, stop. that's terrible. >> before i stood on a debate stage with any news organization -- >> that did that statement. >> i would tell them to go to hell a lot faster than donald trump did. i'm not talking about fox. i get -- a ton of friends at fox. i love fox. i know a lot of people at fox are really twisted up about how this has gone down and how megyn kelly is somehow with michael moore taking over the network. >> they provoked him. >> they provoked him. they had to know. >> so trump had a response. take a look. >> with me, they're dealing with somebody that's a little bit different. they can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else so let them have their debate and let's

see how they do with the ratings. and i told them, i said, give money to the wounded warriors, give money to the veterans. they're going to make a fortune with the debate. now let's see how many people watch. when they sent out the wise guy press releases a little while ago done by some pr person along with roger ales, i said, bye-bye, okay? i've done six debates. i've done six. according to every single poll, i've won every single debate. i've done six of them, and now you say, when does this stop? how many debates do you have to do? the republicans go on forever and ever and ever with debates. we have people on the stand that have zero, that have one, that have nothing. so it's time that somebody plays grown up and then when i see a press release written by a child, like i just saw, i said, what do i have to do? why do i have to make fox rich? let me make the wounded warriors rich. let me make the veterans rich.

>> you do sit there and you watch donald trump. i tweeted out immediately after this because of course everybody on the right, the right establishment was going, oh, this is going to be the end of donald trump and oh, he's a baby. again. >> donald's scared. donald's ducking. most controlled donald trump has been the entire campaign in a press conference. he looks like the grown up. >> and he's exactly right. people are going, wait, i want to see 12 people on stage that are at 1 or 2% with moderators that weren't fair last time? i'm -- this is pretty simple. >> and there's been six debates, i think? >> and it's pretty simple. all he's saying is, you know -- >> all right. >> -- i've got somebody that's been hostile against me now for six months. it doesn't make a lot of sense. let's see what's going on. >> joining us by phone we have donald trump's campaign manager, cory lewendowski. good morning. >> good morning. >> any chance that he will do this debate in any way, shape, or form? any way to turn this around?

>> i just don't think so. i mean, what you have with mr. trump is you have a clear leader, a person who he said it best is not going to be toyed with. a person who understands when a bad deal is in front of him and is ready to walk away from a bad deal. something that this country should be able to do, and i just don't see any way where fox is going to have a successful debate now when you've got the clear gop front-runner who's decided to walk away from this debate because he can't be treated fairly on the debate stage. you've got a network that wants to make news not about what they're going to ask the candidates about the policy issues but about personal attacks. maybe fox was goings to have a 20 or 25 million person debate. without mr. trump's participation i think you might have a 1 or 2 million person debate. >> what was donald's reaction when he got the press release yesterday? did he know from the moment that he got the goading press release it was more like trolling of trump that he was not going to do the event? >> well, i think it was very clear. it's very hard to appear with someone on network which is

going to be as biased as they have been against him. as soon as they put that press release out it was clearly a statement which, you know, they did it just to get his attention. this is something that fox wanted to do to increase their ratings as it related to more people watching this debate and, you know, just doesn't make sense. what we know is that megyn kelly is totally obsessed with mr. trump. she's done show after show about why the media shouldn't be having him on television. donald trump is the best debater on the debate stage. we know this. he's a clear winner. he has been by every debate poll taking place. he has more television and radio than all the other candidates combined. he's on your show all the time. he was on yesterday. the bottom line is you have people who aren't going to be fair and ask questions that the american people want to talk about and instead they want to make this about themselves and that's what this is about and it's a shame. >> so now ted cruz wants to bolt the debate. >> mano a mano.

cruz against trump. what does trump say to that? >> well, he's not the only one. we've had calls from many of the candidates staff who say, why would we participate in the fox debate as well. i think you're finding once again you have the candidates reacting to the only true leader in this race, which is donald trump. he leaves and all of a sudden everyone realizes, hey, maybe it's not the best idea to be involved in these debates. i had some calls who said, hey, can we come and join you in raising money for the wounded warriors, veterans because, you know, fox isn't going to be fair to you, what makes you think they're going to be fair to us. >> corey, do you think you'll have more candidates bolting and raise money for the wounded warriors instead of going to the fox debate? >> well, it's very possible. obviously they have to do what they think is best for their campaigns. they've reached out pro actively asking if they can be part of our event which we're going to do on thursday night in des moines. we'll see what happens. >> corey, in the last 12, 13

hours have you heard from fox? have they made any outreach to you, donald, a member of his family to get this debate back on track? >> i don't want to get into the internal discussions but i can tell you that, you know, there was some issues raised earlier about my conversations with some of the fox executives. you know, i think what they want to be, they want to be very dishonest unfortunately. it's a shame. when you have a conversation with some of the fox executives, you'd hope they'd keep that conversation private. instead you have executives over there with relatives working for other campaigns. they're putting debate questions together. instead of making those questions and making sure the debate is fair, they have the statements being put out which aren't helpful when you try to get out of an open and honest dialogue. corey, it's willie. i don't think this hurts you any way.

>> what they've said is what is it about megyn kelly that rattles donald trump's cage unlike anybody else? he's fearless. he comes on any show he's asked to go on. stays on for half an hour when he's asked to but it seems like there's something about her that he can't get past. why is he afraid in this case to just stand on the stage even if he thinks she's going to be unfair and go head to head with her? don't you think he'd prevail in that? >> this has nothing to do about megyn kelly. fox news is making tens of millions of dollars on the debate. setting records. the highest in history we've ever seen of cable television unlike previous years. he's won every debate.

this isn't about megyn kelly at all. this is about giving the american people to ask questions, to hear from the candidates directly. what we've seen is with the cnbc debate when the moderators want to be the story and not let the candidate answer or have the opportunity to answer questions that the american people care about, there's ramifications to that. still ahead on "morning joe," 20,000 people turned out to see bernie sanders during two events in one day. the video is simply astonishing. plus, images of a bygone era era when the top two lawmakers in the senate fought. most importantly, talked. former senators trent lott and tomorrow dashall joins us for how business used to be done and

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the new hampshire union leader has announced they're going to partner with msnbc. >> oh. >> they're going to host an additional debate on february 4th, five days before the new hampshire primary. the dnc has said it would exclude any candidates that participate in any sanctioned debate so now the question is will the candidates show up. in a statement released yesterday dnc chair debbie wasserman schultz said we have no plans to sanction anymore debates but we will reconvene with our campaigns after those two contests to review the

schedules. bernie sanders says we would not want to jeopardize our ability to participate in future debates. he told "the new york times" if they were sanctioned the stance would be different. hillary clinton said she would be happy to participate in the new hampshire debate if other candidates would agree which would allow the dny to sanction the debate. martin o'malley says he will participate. mike, they tried to rig it for hillary. not looking goodhillary. >> the debate schedule is a disgrace to the process. schedule it on the super bowl, sunday night. the idea of one more debate whether it's hillary clinton, martin o'malley will jump in on it. bernie sanders, i don't know why

he would not jump in on it. he has nothing to lose in new hampshire. >> way ahead. >> bernie sanders is set to meet with president obama in the oval office this morning. it is their only second private meeting in seven years of the obama white house. last night he was in st. paul, minnesota -- >> wow. >> -- where a crowd of more than 14,000 people turned out to watch him speak. about 1/3 of them watched from a monitor in an overflow area. >> let's look at that crowd for a second and listen. >> my gosh. >> that event came hours after 6,000 people gathered at a rally in nearby duluth. in all, two campaign stops and more than 20,000 people. >> you know -- >> no president, not bernie sander or anyone else, can

effectively address the crises facing our country unless there is a political revolution. if we stand up, if we fight back, yeah, we can take on, we can defeat the billionaire class. that is what this campaign is about. thank you all very much. >> hillary clinton, meanwhile, held events in iowa. one event she drew 450 people. she's telling invite tes that she's offering more than tag lines. i put my plans and i do want you to know what it's going to cost. i'm not engaging in rhetoric. i've thought this through. i have a plan. i want you to understand it because i don't think you can get what we need done in the election or the presidency unless you level with people, you tell them what you can do and you let them then respond to

it. >> so 14,000, mike, to 450 and. >> 14,000 -- >> incredible. >> bernie sanders crowds are two, three, four times larger than barack obama's crowds were in iowa in 2008 and those were huge crowds. massive. >> stunning. >> the crowd, when you look at that -- >> ho, ho, ho, look at that! just freeze. that reminds me of the trump shot from pensacola, florida. >> yeah. >> willie, like you said, other than when you wrote your first book -- >> yeah. >> -- i have not seen crowds -- >> well -- >> -- like that on a tuesday night when it's like zero outside in minnesota. >> yeah. >> i mean, that is unbelievable. >> yeah. and the other thing you notice, too, about his crowds is how young they are. >> well, that could be a

problem. >> you're -- that's a good point. i think we still have mark halperin. i watched your show last night as i always do with all due respect. some of the discussion is, yes, he's neck in neck with hillary clinton. is his core support too concentrated. without getting too deep in the weeds, he has the college towns locked down. >> are they going to show up at the polls? >> yeah. is it just too many people in one place in one precinct and hillary clinton cleans up around the rest of the state? how do you see that shaking out, mark? >> well, his campaign's been aware of that from the beginning. they've got a plan to try to get a lot of the college students to not caucus in the three main college towns but to go home to caucus, to spread around and take advantage of the caucus rules. i find his supporters to be at those events for all the right reasons, the reason you would want someone to come to you're vent if you're bernie sanders. you believe in his agenda, you want to see his vision of

america enacted. i believe they have the mechanics and i believe a very high percentage of his supporters, even young voters, first time voters will turn out. they have to get the mechanics to get the support spread around the state. >> mark, let me ask you. so when i look at that young crowd and i'm reminded of howard dean's young crowds in 2004 with orange caps, we're looking at two different crowds? >> yeah. you're looking at three different things. one, howard dean's message was not as clear as bernie sanders. he had a message from being from the democratic wing and democratic parties but he was conservative on issues, fiscal responsibilities. number two, the mechanics of this campaign are much more rigorous than the dean campaign was. the last thing is, this is a two-person race. howard dean was running against many people. in this case it's just clinton or if you don't like the establishment, it's sanders. >> coming up on "morning joe,"

as trump and cruz pummel each other in the press, another fight is playing out as well. >> oh, yeah, jeb bush's super pac is spending $1 million a day attacking me. >> i thought you were friends. >> i guess. you'll have to ask him about that. $1 million a day. >> the rubio campaign acknowledges it's struggling to beat back attacks by jeb bush and his super pac. we'll talk about that next with jeremy peters of "the new york times." woah! father, why can't we have directv like the macgregors do? we're settlers, son. we settle for things. like having cable instead of directv. hey, jebediah, how's it going? working the land. hoping for a fertile spring. all right. so we have to live with lower customer satisfaction? i'm afraid so. now go churn us some butter, boy, and then make your own clothes. yes, sir. (vo) don't be a settler. get rid of cable and upgrade to directv. call 1-800-directv. do something! get on the floor! oh i'm not a security guard, i'm a security monitor.

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you call women you don't like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. your twitter account has several disparaging comments about women's looks. you once told a contest tent on "celebrity apprentice" it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. does that sound like the temperament and how will you answer the charge of hillary clinton who is likely to be the democratic nominee that you are part on the war on women. >> trump will not apologize and i will certainly not apologize for doing good journalism so i'll continue doing my job without fear or favor. >> he's getting a little bit sharper in his language against his competitors. just as ornery of reporters who don't cover him the way he wants to. trump is not used to not controlling things as the chief executive of a large organization, but the truth is he doesn't get to control the

media. >> reaction from our leaders and elected officials was nothing compared to the nonstop, inses tant drum beat of media outlets that first booked donald trump to appear on their shows, then played those interviews ad nauseam all day long. cnn and msnbc had trump half hour interviews by phone on their morning shows and then reran the exchanges in their entirety later in the day. it was all trump all the time across almost aural the media. >> that is just good, unbiased journalism and if i were a candidate, i certainly would want that person asking me questions in a fair and a balanced way. no, actually, as i said before, i would rather set myself on fire in front of the fox news studio than go on a debate stage with that. that was a look at megyn kelly.

author and host of "studio 360", curt anderson in des moines iowa, jeremy peters. i love following your twitter feed. >> thank you. >> even though you hate, you hate chicago, the band chicago. >> i am so pleased with your introduction of great rock and roll on your twitter feed, joe. i was really shocked the day you -- >> you were shocked? >> i was and disappointed, frankly. >> it's like, you know, i was a young kid at the time. >> i was youngish. >> my cool older brothers and sisters by three or four years liked chicago. >> there you go. so i'm your older sibling. >> okay. >> older brother and sister. >> what's going on. >> this is surreal. it's a surreal circus and you have two surreal forces clashing together, fox news and donald trump. >> no, it's pro wrestling. pro wrestling has been applicable to this thing all along. this is now truly that. i mean, and it's -- my friend

hare lan cobin said, no, he's going to show up. it's the pro wrestling playbook. you have the fake fight before but then you show up and you're mean. she's doing that same -- megyn kelly, rather, and fox news behind her are doing that same thing. now do i know that it's all a plot and at 6:44 they're going to make up? no, but my god it looks like -- it looks like hulk hogan of 1989, you know? >> jeremy peters in iowa it looks like right now ted cruz has the most to lose if trump doesn't show up on that stage. what's it look like? what are you hearing on the ground? >> no, i think that's right. i think it's a question of exactly what trump does, if he doesn't show up on the stage. if he's able to pull off some production that gets better ratings than fox, then he's the victor. i think you guys hit it on the head. roger ales is an expert show man. someone who works very closely with him once described him to

me as a broadway producer. he knows the hero, the villain, he has the pretty blonds, the backup singers. that's what fox news is. donald trump is an expert show man as well. it's a face-off. i don't know. i'm not willing to predict if there's going to be a victor in all of this. >> are you calling this a clash of the broadway producers? could be. it just could be. >> you know, curt, this morning about 6:15 willie geist said it's wwf. the amazing thing to me, not just to me, a lot of people, is you can say what you want about donald trump and everybody has said myriad numbers of things about him. marketing genius is what i think of when i think of donald trump. >> well, and marketing genius beyond our ability to imagine. for six months he has made fatal mistake after fatal mistake not.

in this case this could be, i don't know, it seemed to me as i've thought about it the last 48 hours, potentially his big mistake. i think if he doesn't show up and he doesn't do as well -- >> i'm going to check that off as number 72. >> number 72. >> 72? >> and 72nd prediction of the possible like his waterloo. >> if he doesn't win iowa and he had skipped the debate, then not doing the debate will start to see as, oh, that's where it began to crumble. >> yeah. >> and so he's -- it's double or nothing. if he wins iowa and he doesn't do the debate, he's more magic than ever. >> oh, my god. >> on the democratic side we're showing crowds of bernie sanders. i want to ask you, also barack obama 2008 but here you've got a guy that doesn't have the charisma of obama. average donation $27.

he's turned everything we know about big money and politics. i'm a conservative republican. >> you are. >> you can't help but look at what he's doing and be inspired. >> it is extraordinary. look at that crowd tuesday night. >> well, you know, as all kinds of media enterprises like this one, no doubt, think about how do we get the young people? let's put some young people on the air. >> exactly. >> bernie sanders is the absolute reputation of that idea. >> you have just -- you have just repeated what mika and i have been yelling for years to tv executives. just because you put young people on the show doesn't mean young people watch. >> right. >> sometimes they want to see a 74-year-old cranky guy. >> yes, exactly, rather than just a -- an uninteresting pretty young person. yes. they're not really going for, i don't know, who's the young, pretty politician they can go for. martin o'malley is not young, he's not that pretty. >> jeremy peters, in your latest piece on marco rubio you talk about some of the problems

rubio's having in trying to strike out against the establishment when he is in large part the establishment. also suggestion that he may not be reporting as much money coming up on sunday as would be -- as his campaign would want. what's the state of the rubio campaign? who is the great hope for the republican establishmentarians around the globe? >> the rubio campaign has a little bit of an issue in that they keep hearing, wait until after new hampshire, meaning that the donors for jeb and others who, you know, might be sympathetic to rubio don't want to abandon ship and jump on with marco until they see how he does in new hampshire. here in iowa basically the best he can hope to do is a strong third place showing. so he's already -- he's campaigning every day here this week, he'll be here monday.

he's already looking past iowa, not just in new hampshire, south carolina, nevada. they're really putting a lot of stake in these big winner take all states. do they have the money to get there? i don't know that they do yet, and it's -- it's -- that is going to be the key. can he raise enough to sustain himself through a long slog. >> sounds like the giuliani plan. just wait until florida. >> real quick. in your experience, 1968, 2008, 2016, most disruptive to the existing political process. which year? >> oh, this one. i would say -- >> more than '68? >> well, '68 as a year and as a moment in history, totally disruptive but, you know, richard nixon got the nomination. the political process was not so disruptive. >> right. >> the democrats were ruined by chicago in '68. >> right. >> but in terms of, whoa, i didn't see that happening, '68, you saw that happening.

this, you know, day to day, month to month it's all knew. >> not many saw it coming. jeremy peters, thank you very much. curt, stay with us. still to come, this may be hard to believe but apple is forecasting their first decline in sales in 13 years. that's ahead on ""morning joe."" mmm, a perfect 177-degrees.mo" i can bypass the counter and go straight to my car. and i don't have to talk to any humans, unless i want to. and i don't. and national lets me choose any car in the aisle. control. it's so, what's the word?... sexy. go national. go like a pro.

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also, 9 out of 10 medicare part d patients can get toujeo® at the lowest branded copay. ask your doctor about the proven full 24-hour blood sugar control of toujeo®. let's bring in cnbc's sarah eisen and the former chairman and ceo of "playboy." christie hefner. good to have you on board. >> thank you. >> so, sarah, first of all, what are we looking at here? what's the apple story? >> yeah. so the question that investors are asking today, mika, is apple still a growth company? it is the world's largest company, and by growth i mean explosive double digit growth we've come to know from technology names like facebook, netflix, amazon. apple saying that in its current period, january through march, it's actually expecting sales to

decline from the year before. that's the first time that apple's seen that in about 13 years. why? iphone is key. iphone is the key product for this company. apple essentially created the smartphone market with the release of iphone in 2007. that's why it's the most valuable company in the world but people already have smart phones so it's not seeing the growth. the other factor here, guys, is china. we've talked a lot about this. china's the second most important market for apple. china is slowing and apple is going to feel the brunt of it. it will have to diversify or launch something incredible when it comes to the new iphone 7. >> sarah eisen, thank you very much. chrissy, we show these amazing shots of bernie sanders crowds and as well as donald trump's crowds. you were there from the beginning in '08, '07, '08 with barack obama. draw parallels, if you can. >> are there? >> well, i think one of the things that propelled obama that

is similar is that he recognized that people felt that the system wasn't working and they wanted a different kind of politics. and it was more a campaign based around that than any particular set of policies, which is why subsequent to his election people would say, i didn't really know for sure other than his vote against the iraq war exactly what he was going to do but he held up a mirror of a different way the country could move forward. and i felt from early on with trump's success that one of the things people were missing was that he tapped into something very genuine, which is a large number of people in this country feel legitimately that they have been left behind, that the country is not working for them. and a lot of what happens i think in that dynamic is who votes. obama was successful in part because he got cohorts to turn out at much higher rates than traditionally. i think both sanders and trump are trying to do that. the quote, unquote, establishment of both parties i think is misapprehending how deep seeded that anxiety is.

>> right. so, curt, if you're barack obama, who is going to be the change agent, you have people now on the left with bernie sanders and on the right with donald trump saying the system doesn't work. what does that say about your ideas? >> if you're barack obama? >>. >> yeah. >> well, you were -- you weren't pretending to be a revolutionary except by nature of you could be the first african-american president. as an intellectual, as a talker, as a person of positions, he was a centrist. i maintain then, i maintain now. >> not a disrupter? >> not a disrupter. he was a -- he was a reformer, a moderate reformer within the party scheme. >> yeah. of course, go ahead. jump in. >> well, i agree with that in terms of how he governed, the pros part as we say, but i think he intended and somewhat disappointed by his inability to change the nature of politics. >> sure. >> you saw him speak to that in

the state. union address. that's why he raised jerrymandering and said it was his great regret. i think that that desire for transformation that propelled the tea party, that is propelling the black lives matter movement. the question is do these movements find a way to engage in changing our politics or are they protest movements? >> christie hefner, thank you so much. thank you curt, mike. still ahead with "morning joe," with a three day work week and focus on fundraising, it's no shock why the public is fed up with congress. former senate leaders tom dashal and trent lott says they know how to fix it. keep it right here on "morning joe."

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majority leader looked me in the eye and looked 54 republicans in the eye. i cannot believe he would tell a flat out lie. >> it was that attack on mitch mcconnell that turned leaders against ted cruz for good. among them, trent lot who now says he would pick donald trump over ted cruz. lott said if he was in the senate during cruz's critique, he would have, quote, had him removed from the floor for inappropriate conduct. senator lott joined us alongside

tom dashall. they've teemed up on a book, "crisis point, why we must and how we can overcome our broken politics." we started with a question about the current partisan divide. >> people are spending even less time in washington today than they did 10, 15 years ago. money as you've said many times on this show is much more of an issue. people spend 30, 40 hours a week raising money. the media has changed. social media has dramatically changed the political landscape. >> let's talk about senator lott, i remember we did a speech in pennsylvania and ed rendell came there. ed rendell said he didn't seem like anything was going to pass. he said, back in our day we could have agreed on something. >> cut a deal. >> today he said if you walked into my office, it would be on 12 news websites before then and you would be crucified. >> actually, the '90s and turn

of the century was pretty good legislatively. we had republican control of congress. bill clinton was president. that was step one. he talked to us a lot. we did find a way to do a whole lot. >> can i stop you there? >> yeah. >> okay, we impeached him. it was the '90s, seemed like the thing to do. the old clinton though would engage. i've just got to ask the question. how much of this problem do we lay at the feet of the last two presidents, bush and obama who see congress as an enemy? >> it's very important to have strong leaders and it begins at the white house. there's plenty of blame to go around. congress is part of the problem. >> sure they are. >> number one, we need communication. the president doesn't talk a lot to congress. republican leaders don't talk to democratic leaders. tom and i had a good chemistry. i trusted tom, i respected tom. if i mistreated him when i was majority leader, hey, tom, i kind of overplayed my hand

there. we had a great relationship. you have to have that. >> i remember watching you on "meet the press" with tim, you guys were mean to each other and yet you still figured out how to work. >> we respected each other. we developed a friendship and a relationship that really allowed us to get the work done and that's a big difference. but, you know, when you leave on thursday, come back on tuesday and try to run the country on wednesdays, you can't build relationships like we used to. >> that's the why we must. now let's get to how we can. how do we break through this. >> three things. he's already talked about it. first of all, i think they should bring their families to washington, quit sleeping in their offices. you know, they need to work five days a week and then take that other week to go home, work the districts, work their state. we do need to deal with things like civic responsibility. money is a problem. one of the problems, one of the solutions that we advocate is a single primary day, one. also, see if we can't find a way to shorten campaigns. i think that's one of the

reasons why the people don't vote. they're tired of it. you have the negativity. >> that's interesting. >> look at the britts. let's have some sort of shorter election cycle. >> can either of you think of any other position in the united stat states, private or public. you run for office indicating you're going to have your hands in the tools of power, you're going to do this, you're going to do that, and you work three days a week? >> no, you can't. >> is there -- >> there's no way you can do it. the country's too complicated. we're dealing with issues internationally and domestically that really require full time at least five days, if not sometimes seven days a week. you've got to spend more time there if you want quality governance. having hearings, amendments and a lot of it should get done

before it goes to the floor. >> it hardly ever happens anymore. you have a couple of people huddling together putting together an omnibus package. >> we're going to get away from the top down. paul ryan says this. i'm going to work with the committee chair men and the members on both sides. >> they have to be legislators more and politicians less. that will take congressional reform, and a call to service. >> how frustrating is it for you guys to see somebody get elected to the united states senate, at least when we were all growing up that's about as big of a position as guys from our background could ever aspire to. that's extraordinary. held in great esteem. the second people get to the senate they say, i'm going to use this to run for president. >> you have the revered

characters, people like patmon na han or states men like john stenis. when they spoke, we all came to the floor and listened. does that happen now? not very much. >> i had a first grade teacher that taught me that public service was one of the highest kaulgs of our country. we elevated that. the stature of government and public service had a different perception then than it does today. we have to come back to that. that's part of what we've got to do in education, teach history more effectively. >> right. >> bring people to a better understanding of what this is all about. >> the book is "crisis point." trent lott, tom dascle, thank you both very much. you totaled your brand new car. nobody's hurt, but there will still be pain. it comes when your insurance company says they'll only pay three quarters of what it takes to replace it. what are you supposed to do?

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the craftsmen of commerce. these are the hands that dig for opportunity, identify patterns, and uncover risk. these are the hands of pitney bowes, the craftsmen of commerce. right now on msnbc debate discord. donald trump holding firm this morning about not participating in tomorrow's fox news debate. that decision coming after the network refused to replace megyn kelly as a moderator. trump says she is biased and treats him unfairly. >> with me they're dealing with somebody that's a little bit different. they can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else. so let them have their debate and let's see how they do with the ratings. and i told them, i said, give mone