we spent a lot of time on a ranch where we've become tree farmers. gives me a chance to practice my stump speech. i've been one to defy expectations. i have been mis-underestimated most of my life. and as a real shock to people, i have become an oil painter.

[ cheers and applause ] >> but let me assure you i know that the signature is worth more than the painting. well, good morning. it is tuesday, february 16th. welcome to "morning joe" everybody. what year is it? with us on set, we have legendary columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle. pullitser prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson. and in columbia, south carolina, kasie hunt, msnbc political correspondent. >> mika, what a day yesterday. >> across the board! >> the donald trump press conference in the middle of the day was pretty shocking. he doubled down on so many of the things. he threatened lawsuits. >> he really did. >> he kept going after george w. bush on 9/11, which i just don't understand. >> well, i do, but i don't for

south carolina. i don't for, you know, republican politics. >> when you say you do, what do you mean? >> i was watching his press conference and i was sort of agreeing with what he was saying in some ways. >> like what? >> i get very, very thrown off when people just unequivocally say george w. bush kept us safe, because i don't think he did. i think he brought us into a war that's destabilized the entire world. it's just -- it's interesting to see donald trump saying that in south carolina. >> what is interesting is that this has been one of these issues. we have few issues where i say something -- >> yeah. >> -- and it drives her crazy. >> it drives me crazy. >> and the fight comes. what i'll say about bush is, you know, he did a lot of things i disagreed with. i was very critical of him, but he kept us safe. i say that, and she goes crazy. >> yeah. keeping us safe after making us unsafe. thank you. >> what that means is i am thinking like a republican

thinks. donald trump is speaking to democrats. and you wouldn't think he would double down because he's speaking -- >> seems like a mess. >> the liberal democrats have been saying that. moderate democrats don't say what donald trump was saying the other night. >> if you listen to him, it's tone rather than content that throws people off. his tone throws people off. the content of what he says is actually accurate in the sense that he talks about all of the warnings that the bush administration had prior to september 11th, leading up to september 11th, but it's tone. >> he also talked about, it was interesting, you give up 19 runs in the first inning and then say i had a pretty good game after that. he is going back to the actual 9/11 attacks. >> what republican is saying that? >> no republican said it. >> they don't have guts. >> it's not that they don't have guts. i don't believe it. >> you don't believe there were

warnings? >> i believe there were warnings. i don't want to re-debate this. let's not re-debate this. we disagree on it. that's not the important point. what the important point is, willie, for the republicans like me who vote in republican primaries, that's not stuff that you say. >> right. >> he did the equivalent. we'll show new polls that have come out. he did the debate equivalent of shooting somebody on fifth avenue and getting away with it. >> yeah. i mean, you're watching that debate on saturday night, and i heard democrats and lefties saying my synapses are not connecting right now because i am agreeing with everything donald trump is saying and this is happening in the context of a republican primary. i think it's all about the content of what he said. for the republicans, they're going, wait a minute. this is what the other side thinks. i believe it was a spontaneous moment. he was angry. you saw it on his face. at jeb bush all night. jeb says my brother kept us safe and i think trump fired it off

and doesn't want to back away from it. >> it goes to strength. >> yes. >> a lot of people are watching on tv -- even though i and a lot of republicans disagree. a lot of south carolina voters. gene robinson are looking at that going, you're right, he didn't keep us safe. >> exactly. >> it's amazing. this is what happens when you have a clinton running against a bush. hillary clinton, as we described yesterday in mariureen's column paying for the sins of the past 20 years of of the women who enabled bill clinton. jeb bush is paying for the political sins of george w. bush. and it just -- it seems -- it seems like republicans, even in the deep south, are saying, if you look at these polls, we want to put that behind us. >> yeah. i mean, it's amazing. once again, it appears that donald trump had his finger on the pulse of actual voters more

than the professional republican politicians, or professional democratic politicians for that matter because all the recent polls after the debate show him, at worst, unscathed and at best actually getting a little boost from it. it's incredible. the moment of the debate that just really struck me was after trump said what he said, marco rubio came back and raid, said, no, no. it wasn't george w. bush's fault that 9/11 happened. it was bill clinton's. i've read articles saying we shouldn't blame the attacks on the politicians. they did their best to keep us safe. trump points out that it's hypocritical to say you can blame bush who was in office but you can't blame bill clinton. >> there was a lot of intel that went in front of george w. bush

specifically. bill clinton had some chances to kill osama bin laden and refused to do it. at the end of the day my gut reaction, whether it's donald trump saying it or whether it's rand paul saying it is, no, it's not george bush's fault. it's osama bin laden's fault. but i do want to say this, though. this south carolina debate will be looked back upon, if these numbers hold up, as -- just a historical moment in the republican party where the establishment fell off a cliff. >> let's take a look. >> they booed -- as matt said, anybody who thinks that booing donald trump, as a member of the republican establishment, does anything but strengthen donald trump is a fool. >> by the way, he knows it in realtime. a new post-debate poll out of south carolina shows donald trump unscathed by saturday night's debate. the survey taken on sunday and

monday by public policy polling gives trump a 17 point lead. 35% over senators ted cruz and marco rubio who are tied at 18%. >> willie, it looks like if anybody lost the debate, ted cruz who lost his firm grip on second place. >> look at jeb bush. >> who i thought would get the biggest bump out of the debate. >> the jeb bush number is stunning. they thought, if he could survive new hampshire, get to south carolina with his money and the bush family's respect down there, that he could do well. but he's 30 points back of donald trump. >> he put in his best debate performance. what does anybody know. mike barnicle, he was strong. he was aggressive. >> joe, you just summed up the entire political year. what the hell does anybody know. >> but this really does, though, take it to a whole new level. saturday night, the craziness of 2016 and the republican party was melted down to a core.

a red, lava-like, steamy core. and yet donald trump has gone up and the so-called grown-ups in the room have collapsed. >> he is playing in another league. he is playing a different game than the rest of them are. >> watching that debate, though, i am thinking -- fighting my instinct that nothing hurts donald trump. we've learned that. >> i thought it was a terrible debate. >> at that point i said, wow, he's almost going into michael moore territory in a republican primary debate. i said, this has to hurt him a little bit. it hasn't at least according to these new polls. >> gene, i have written three books. everyone basically with the same theme, the republican establishment in washington, d.c. as betrayed the conservative party. they've made promises, lied, promised a restrained foreign policy, they lied. they promised to balance the budgets. they lied. they promised to pay down the debts and they lied. wrote my first one in 2004 when bush was running for

re-election. wrote my next one after obama. i shouldn't be shocked by this. a lot of people out there see george w. bush and say george and jeb and the entire washington establishment have been lying to us for 20 years now. >> yeah. i hope you're getting lots of royalties because maybe a lot of people are reading your book. >> no. unfortunately not. >> yeah, yeah. that's the whatay it happens. >> it's the reality out there. the republican party is a different party now. and it's a much bigger tent. and not everybody believes in establishment republican orthodoxy because they see themselves as having been betrayed by establishment republican orthodoxy which promises everything and delivers nothing. and you know, you can only do that for so long. you can only do that for so long until people wake up and say, hold it, you know, you guys keep telling us this and doing that and we're not going to vote for

you anymore. that seems to be what's going on this year. >> an automated poll taken for the south carolina house republican caucus sunday afternoon shows trump at 33% ahead of rubio and cruz at 14%. bush at 13%, kasich at 10%. both polls showing no change in trump's lead from pre-debate poll. gravis marketing. trump led cruz 27 to 33. this comes after right to rise super pac told a fox news commentator that their polling showed trump and cruz essentially tied at 26 and 24. >> that's -- that's just not true. >> another poll just crossed -- >> i have been hearing that for the past couple days, that the polls are tightening, and they're not. >> right to rise. >> cruz's numbers actually seem to be going down in every public poll that's been taken. >> this is one from virginia. i don't know if you want to take a look. the judy ford wason center for

public policy has trump leading 28% to rubio's 22%. cruz at 19%. everyone else in single digits. >> we also have new national numbers this hour tracking the republican race. donald trump's lead as expanded by 5 points this week. >> the nbc news survey monkey online tracking poll has the businessman at 38%, 20 points ahead of ted cruz, who is at 18%. marco rubio is at 14%, ben carson 8%, kasich posting his highest number, up four points to 7 nationally. more than half of republican voters expect trump to eventually win the nomination. that is up from about 40% after his defeat in iowa. >> so, willie, come on, man. again, the -- the debate equivalent of shooting somebody on fifth avenue, and they're all not only with him but stronger. ted cruz seems -- i mean, if these numbers hold up, i mean, it's --

>> what's going on? >> seems like he's marching straight through the south towards the nomination. >> the national number, the nbc number, doesn't matter much right now going into south carolina. but the one mika showed afterward showing 56% of republicans now believe trump will win the nomination. up 14 points, cruz down 9 points, that shows you that the country, republicans, anyway, are starting to come to terms with the fact that this is happening. that donald trump could very well and is likely to be the nominee, if he rolls through south carolina, sweeps through the south. it's game over. >> look at the reality. south carolina, saturday night, trump says what he says. trump picks up in the polls. does better in the polls after the debate. he is going to roll through this thing to the nomination. >> it seems that way. >> if these numbers hold up, he rolls through the deep south. ted cruz, again -- strange to me but ted cruz is the one who seems to have lost a little momentum from that debate. by the way, nevada is next in every internal poll that i know

of in nevada, and all the campaigns even admit this, have donald trump way up in nevada. >> do you think one of the keys to donald trump's strength is he says what he says on saturday night, in the context of the way politics has worked for a millennium, 20, 30, 40 years. politicians say something like that on saturday night and then they backtrack on sunday. he doesn't. >> doubles down. >> marco rubio apologized. here is what's interesting. i would put donald trump's performance on saturday night on par with marco rubio's performance the previous saturday night. but marco rubio's failure was a failure that made him look too weak. >> which he had to even say, i messed up. >> too robotic. >> he was sweating. he looked scared. donald trump, his weakness was too much strength. and it goes back -- you asked -- do you think donald trump's -- >> was it a weakness? look at the polls. >> stop there.

donald trump's strength is strength, the appearance of strength. it goes back to the bill clinton. for the republican party, goes back to what bill clinton said, it's better to be strong and wrong. >> and you would -- you would never guess this to be the case. >> i thought he would drop 20 points after that debate. >> but his anger works for him. his anger on tv works for him. everything works for him. >> it does. >> look at this. let's -- there is donald trump last night in greenville, south carolina. in what's being called his biggest crowd since the campaign began, jeb bush hosted his brother, in south carolina, all framed by donald trump's statements. lines started to form hours before the campaign stop, before ballooning into the biggest event since his launch in miami in front of 3,000 people in north charleston, george w. bush made the case for the man he calls his big little brother. he called for tolerance and vision and in direct contrast to donald trump, praised his brother for being thoughtful,

trustworthy and measured. he also relived the single day that defined his presidency. >> laura and i loved our eight years in washington, but we really don't miss it too much. here is really what i do miss. >> we miss you! [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you, but let me tell you what i miss. i made it pretty clear we're going to defend ourselves after 9/11, and millions volunteered. to be able to salute the brave men and women who wear our uniform was an honor of a lifetime. the highest honor of being president is to be the commander in chief of the greatest force for freedom ever. so i would look for a candidate who has genuine respect for the united states military, who will support them on the battlefield.

[ cheers and applause ] >> who will support them on the battlefield and when they return home. >> seems like americans are yearning for a strong leader. i would like to remind you and the voters what true strength means. strength means facing challenges and prevailing. it means sacrificing and enduring and emerging a better and bigger person. it means having a set of core principles, beliefs that are true on the campaign trail and will be still true in office. strength is not empty rhetoric. it is not bluster. it is not thee tricks. strength and core purpose comes from integrity and character.

in my experience the strongest person usually isn't the loudest one in the room. >> interesting dynamics. reporters were kept in a pen. they weren't allowed to go in and talk to the audience. large crowd. don't know exactly what many were doing there. they might have been there to see a former president. very supportive crowd. do you see any commonalities between george w. and donald trump? >> i actually -- >> personality-wise. >> i see a big commonality. it's not something the bush family will appreciate, but it's very real. i remember in 2004 driving around, and i commented. every time i would see somebody with a "w" bumper sticker i would laugh. a "w" bumper sticker in 2004 was the equivalent of sticking your middle finger up to the political class, to the editorial pages, to all of the smart guys out there, all the smart women out there.

gary wills at the time was saying that bush supporters are more in common with al qaeda than with the american tradition. maureen dowd said bush would take us back to the dark ages. i remember one time flying on an airplane and having a polite conversation with somebody until about an hour into the flight she said, and can you believe that some people have voted for george bush twice? i said, i did. she literally gasped. i said, what did you want me to do? vote for al gore? vote for john kerry? i remember you talking about -- this is politics on the gut level. this is what a lot of smart people don't understand. bush steps up to the microphone and there is a certain, i won't say it but we'll just say it's a middle finger to the establishment. back when he was running against kerry. >> and the swagger. >> and people in 2004 -- i remember -- actually driving around nantucket. we were looking around and

somebody pointed and said, oh, there's a "w" bumper sticker outside the house. >> egads. >> somebody in the back seat goes, yeah, that's the help because nobody else in nantucket would put those on the back of their car. it was -- there is that resentment that bush tapped into in 2004 and 2000 that trump is tapping into now. and maybe the bushes can't see that but it's true. >> we've talked about the morning after the 2004 election in manhattan, people walking around in stunned disbelief as if to say, i thought we all agreed this guy was terrible and was going to lose by 20 points. they couldn't believe joshing bush won. trump is even a bigger middle finger. he is farther outside the system. that's why he's popular. not because he has sound policy prescriptions. i don't think we've heard those. but because on a gut level people respond to what he's bringing which is, you guys have been screwed by the media, by

political correctness, by everybody in your life and i'm here to change it. >> i think it's a confused message bringing george w. bush. maybe it will work. bringing him to south carolina, i think it's risky given the framing that donald trump has put around this. i think people now know that we should not have gone into iraq across the board, including veterans, their families, the people taking care of the wounded warriors. they all know it was a big mistake. it was on george w. bush's watch. >> yesterday you had the former president of the united states a appearing on stage to support and endorse his brother and the off-lead of every news story of yesterday's events have the bushing taking a swipe at donald trump. trump is in the lead of every story about yesterday's bush appearances. coming up, kasie hunt, she is live in south carolina. she'll get us up to date on everything. still ahead on "morning joe," jeb bush may have gotten

the biggest crowd since launching his campaign. the question is who had the bigger crowd? bernie sanders in michigan or the pope in mexico? plus, bill clinton seemed to compare bernie sanders' supporters to the tea party. >> come on now! eat a cheese burger and chill, mr. president. >> except that he's real. we'll play you that moment bernie sanders is real. we need to have a real race. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. >> eat something, please. ♪ i built my business with passion.

but i keep it growing by making every dollar count. that's why i have the spark cash card from capital one. i earn unlimited 2% cash back on everything i buy for my studio. ♪ and that unlimited 2% cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business... that's huge for my bottom line. what's in your wallet? my wife and i are now participating in your mutual fund. we invested in your fund to help us pay for a college education for our son. we've enclosed a picture of our son so that you can get a sense there are real people out here trusting you with their hard-earned money. ♪ at fidelity, we don't just manage money, we manage people's money. ♪

watching tvs get sharper, you've had it tough. bigger, smugger. and you? rubbery buttons. enter the x1 voice remote. now when someone says... show me funny movies. watch discovery. record this. voila. remotes, come out from the cushions, you are back. the x1 voice remote is here.

it's 25 past the hour. new polling on the democratic side shows hillary clinton with a ten-point lead nationwide over bernie sanders. our nbc news survey monkey weekly online tracking poll has clinton at 50%, sanders at 40%. as a new public policy survey shows clinton up 21 points on sanders. clinton leads among african-americans 63 to 23. still, sanders has narrowed the gap since november when clinton led among black voters by over

70 points. the judy ford wason center has her ahead of sanders 52 to 40. bernie sanders travelled to michigan yesterday where he drew a crowd of over 9,000 people to eastern michigan university. the visit was sanders' first to the state since launching his campaign. it comes three weeks before the march 8th primary there. sanders told the audience he was going to begin his remarks differently than he normally does and launched into a story about meeting the families affect by the flint water crisis. >> i just talked to a mother who said that she has a kid who was very bright, did school work really, really well and in the last two years she has seen her child's ability to do school work markedly deteriorate. can you imagine being a mother,

seeing your own babies, your own child's intellectual development deteriorate in front of your very eyes? and that is happening -- that is happening all over that city. if the local government cannot protect those children, if the state government cannot protect those children, then the federal government better get in and do the right thing. [ cheers and applause ] >> we're talking about safe infrastructure. that's all. senator sanders' remarks came on the same day that the clinton camp announced it would be opening a campaign office in flint and drew endorsements from a number of ministers. hillary clinton canceled events in florida to stay in nevada yesterday, and with just four days to go -- >> that's getting tight. this race may have gotten a lot closer than they ever thought. up by 20. >> or the few polls to draw from, the "wall street journal"

calling the race there almost a total mystery. yesterday on the trail clinton continued to paint her rival, bernie sanders, as a single-issue candidate. but her most animated riff of the day came during an attack on republicans and their explanation for what caused the great recession. she said it brought to mind a radio ad she heard in arkansas while her husband was running for office. >> one of my favorite, favorite political ads of all time was a radio ad, rural arkansas, where the announcer said, wouldn't it be great if somebody running for office said something we could have an immediate reaction as to whether it was true or not? well, we've trained this dog, and the dog, if it's not true, he's going to bark. and then the dog was barking on the radio. and so, you know, people were like barking at each other for days after that. i am trying to figure out how we can do that with the

republicans, you know. we need to get that dog and follow them around and every time they say these things like, oh, you know, the great recession was caused by too much regulation. arf, arf, i think we could cut through loot of their claims. >> she is funny. i thought it was funny. >> that was awesome! let's go right now to our politicians as barking like dogs desk. >> that was funny! >> the man who has been holding down the that desk for 47 years. >> that would be willie. >> been waiting for the story for 47 years. >> give me your best chihuahua. >> you don't want me to bark? what do you think? a pretty human moment. >> she was funny. not sure about the point she was making, but it was really a funny moment. >> the radio show. >> i loved that. >> them's were the days.

>> let's go to kasie hunt in south carolina. let's go back a couple minutes to the polls there that showed hillary clinton up by about 20 points with a 40-point lead over bernie sanders. he's closed the gap among african-americans. 40 point lead for hillary clinton among african-american voters. he obviously can't win with that margin. what's the strategy to close that gap in the next few days? >> well, they can't, willie. but if you look across the map and if you dig into some of the numbers where sanders has done well, yes, you have hillary clinton obviously as we're showing way ahead with african-americans. that is clearly her strategy. she is giving a big speech on race today. the sanders campaign believes that they can build a coalition that relies less on minority voters than you might think. it's a coalition that relies very heavily on white working-class voters. you remember those were the people who stuck with her the whole time she was running against president obama in 2008. she dragged the nominating

contest out until june partly because a lot of those voters were with her. if you look at the numbers on primary night in new hampshire and iowa, those voters, a lot of them are with bernie sanders this time around. they feel like, if they can get those people plus add in some liberal activists who are also part of the obama coalition and maybe peel off a few more latino voters than african-american voters you potentially have a path in a lot of these places. nevada is a good example. if you talk to people on both sides, the clinton and sanders campaign, they privately say this one is up for grabs. if in fact bernie sanders comes out of this with a win think about how long hillary clinton will have gone without notching a very clear, aggressive victory in this nominating fight. >> then on to nevada. secretary clinton campaigns in nevada. her husband filling in for her in the state of florida. president clinton appeared to take a number of veiled swipes at his wife's opponents and

those who support him. >> it's not altogether mysterious that there are a lot of people that say, well, the republican party rewarded the tea party. just tell people what they want to hear, move them to the right, and we'll be rewarded, except they didn't get anything done. then that's going on now in our party. if you don't deal with the fact that we are too politically polarized and we keep rewarding people who tell us things we know they can't do because it pushes our hot button, we can't go forward together. >> the point he is trying to make is the tea party was a radical element of the republican party and bernie sanders' supporters are sort of a radical element of the democratic party and they ought to vote for somebody who is closer to the middle.

>> except the feeling or sentiment amongst a lot of people that we might be seeing in the turnout or the results is people feel like the middle hasn't worked. again, the establishment or people who are more moderate -- it just hasn't worked for them. nothing gets done. >> gene robinson, it's interesting. we had the 42nd president of the united states coming out in support of the democratic challenger, who is under pressure right now from an insurgent candidate. we had the 43rd president of the united states coming out in defense of a republican candidate who is under siege now by an insurgent candidacy. i just wonder if six months from now we're not going to look back and be writing about, what were these people thinking? in 2016, in a year where they want to throw everybody out, why are you going back to the people that have run america for the past 30 years? >> exactly. this is a year in which dynasties are under pressure, to say the least.

and being questioned precisely because they are dynasties and because the clintons were in office and the bushes were in office and people are not satisfied with the results. you know, i personally don't think it's a great idea to compare bernie sanders' supporters to the tea party because, if hillary clinton gets the nomination, guess who she's going to need to win? she's going to need the bernie sanders' supporters. i don't think they'll take terribly kindly to that. i understand he's trying to win primaries, help her win primaries and you've got to win those first, but, boy, that's a stretch. >> that is a stretch. mike. >> you know, mika, to your point that you made earlier and what gene just referenced, there is a group of voters in this country both of whom are aimed their anger at dynasties. republicans aiming at bush. democrats aiming at the clintons. and they are white middle-class

voters. >> there you go. >> from coast to coast. they are among the most angry voters out there. and they're carrying the most grievances of many voters. >> kasie hunt, thank you very much. coming up, things get nasty in south carolina. tv stations across the state yank an attack ad from a group backing ted cruz after legal concerns. plus, paper tigers, the campaigns battle it out over flyers on cars. yes, flyers on cars. hallie jackson helps us sort it out next on "morning joe." flrn

don't let a cracked windshield ruin your plans. trust safelite. with safelite's exclusive "on my way text" you'll know exactly when we'll be there. giving you more time for what matters most. (team sing) ♪safelite repair, safelite replace.♪ advisor and team who understand where you come from. we didn't really have anything, you know. but, we made do. vo: know you can craft an investment plan as strong as your values.

al, how you doing. hey, mr. hamilton. vo: know that together you can establish a meaningful legacy. with the guidance and support of your dedicated pnc wealth management team. (vo) what'scorn? dog food's first ingredient? wheat? in purina one true instinct grain free, real chicken is always #1. no corn, wheat or soy. support your active dog's whole body health with purina one. i'i like to think of myself as more of a control... enthusiast. mmm, a perfect 177-degrees. and that's why this road warrior rents from national. 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. four score and seven years ago, our [train horn blares]th-- to the continent -- ... a new nation. announcer: presidents day may be over, but the savings go on at sleep train. through sunday at sleep train's presidents day sale save up to $300 on beautyrest and posturepedic, get three years interest-free financing on tempur-pedic, plus same-day delivery, and sleep train's love your mattress guarantee. hurry! sleep train's presidents day sale ends sunday. ♪ your ticket to a better night's sleep ♪

. the world trade center came down -- >> he has had the gall to go after my mother. >> i like donald. he is an amazing entertainer for for most of his life his policies have been very liberal. >> i don't know how he knows what i said on univision because he doesn't speak spanish. [ speaking foreign language ] >> look, this is a disturbing pattern now. for a number of weeks now ted cruz has just been telling lies. >> it's weak to denigrate the disabled. and to call john mccain -- >> i didn't do that. he said about language,

language, two days ago he said he would take his pants off and moon everybody. that's fine. nobody reports that. he gets up and says that. then he tells me, oh, my language was a little bit rough. >> i don't like it when people come up to me and say, i really dug your message, man. i really dug your play, man. i cried, you know. i like it when people come up to me the next day or a week later and they say, i saw your play. what happened? [ laughter ] >> one of my favorite bill murray lines through the years. what happened? >> what's with the mooning? >> you look at those clips, willie. what happened, man? >> that was the craziest debate. what happened? >> was that out of nowhere. >> trump again, unscathed. in fact, he has gone up and cruz goes down a little bit. i mean, it's crazy, right? >> it was a blood bath. the red wedding.

all those things. we focused on trump and his performance, but cruz and rubio. >> calling each other liars. >> called him a liar flat out. >> trump, i thought trump was way off obviously. i don't know anything. i thought he made a lot of mistakes that night. but we both agree his best line, when he goes -- bush goes, my mother is a saint! >> your mother should be the one running. >> his press conference yesterday was stunning. up next, eugene robinson says donald trump's campaign has done us a great service. >> a great service. this is the man who called trump godzilla. >> we'll get to gene next. >> holy cow. >> i don't know. maybe he's not well. >> i don't know. i think it landed last tuesday.

one second it's there. then, woosh, it's gone. i swear i saw it swallow seven people. seven. i just wish one of those people could have been mrs. johnson. [dog bark] trust me, we're dealing with a higher intelligence here. ♪ the all-new audi q7 is here. ♪

make you feel like an svp desk instead of a vp? then you might be gearcentric. ♪ this president's day, all chairs are on sale! save $150 on this chair! office depot officemax. gear up for great ®. this just got interesting. why pause to take a pill? or stop to find a bathroom? cialis for daily use is approved to treat both erectile dysfunction and the urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequently, day or night. tell your doctor about all your medical conditions

and medicines, and ask if your heart is healthy enough for sex do not take cialis if you take nitrates for chest pain, or adempas for pulmonary hypertension, as it may cause an unsafe drop in blood pressure. do not drink alcohol in excess. side effects may include headache, upset stomach, delayed backache or muscle ache. to avoid long-term injury, get medical help right away for an erection lasting more than four hours. if you have any sudden decrease or loss in hearing or vision, or any symptoms of an allergic reaction, stop taking cialis and get medical help right away. ask your doctor about cialis and a $200 savings card he has printed lies. he said i'm pro choice and i'm pro life. he has printed lies. he talks about me being against

the second amendment. i am the strongest person running in favor of the second amendment. he said i will appoint liberal judges. you saw it. donald trump will appoint liberal judges. i named two judges that are -- i named them during the debate. i was the only one that named two judges that i would appoint. could be somebody else. but those two judges are highly respected conservative judges. the only way you can fight is is all the press here. most people can't fight it, but he is a liar. >> donald trump held a press conference. where he apparently lost it. i mean, he was just going on and on about how i am the most horrible person in the world because i keep repeating the things he said. and you noticed how rattled donald gets when his numbers start going down? >> donald trump is threatening to see ted cruz. >> they need to work on the lighting there. right? >> that was beyond -- >> i'm not sure that was donald

trump going crazy. >> that was beyond meet the beetles. it was dark shadows. >> he is threatening to sue truz ov ted cruz. joining us chris jansing. in washington. nbc news correspondent hallie jackson. hallie, take us inside the trump-cruz feud. >> there is no pretense anymore, guys, that these two like each other, this they're pretending to liking each other. i talked to donald trump saturday night and said, how can you say all this stuff about ted cruz? you say he's your buddy. he says, yeah, that was before i got to know him. trump, the gloves are off. same thing for cruz. you hear cruz constantly talking about how he is pivoting from personality attacks. he won't do those. instead he'll hit trump on policy. for example, here is what he had to say just yesterday. >> two of the candidates in this race, donald trump and marco rubio, both have the very same

pattern. whenever anyone points out their record, they simply start screaming liar, liar, liar. so i will continue to focus on substance and truth and let other candidates focus on the insults and attacks. >> so we've known this fight was coming for a while. it's been bubbling up and boiling over for the past couple weeks. we know more ads will be coming out. the ads using donald trump's own words coming from the cruz camp. that was something we talked about last week as we headed into the south carolina primary week. so we'll continue to see those. trump for his part will likely continue to attack cruz in those kinds of settings. he doesn't like coming unfire fr under fire from these ads. he got hot under the collar when talking about the ads that bush's super pac has been running against him. he may say he doesn't care but you can tell it bugs him on a visceral level, guys. >> hallie jackson, thank you

very much for that report. chris jansing and gene robinson, i'm going to set you guys up by reading part of gene's piece in the "wall street journal." how donald trump's campaign has done us a great service. what trump did at saturday night's debate was ruder than any of his prior insults, profanities or remarks about women. he corrected the historical record about the 9/11 attacks, demolishing the fairy tale version that has become a central tenet of the republican dogma. george w. bush was president when the towers fell. historical fact is historical fact except in polite gop circles. i disagree with trump an almost everything, but his primal scream of a campaign has done a tremendous service by forcing the gop establishment to deal with truths it would prefer to ignore. trump runs around letting cats out of bags, and they are not easily put back in.

brilliant line. >> this is your best visual since shocking godzilla. >> hundreds of them. >> you're exactly right. there are some things that republicans have not wanted to talk about, and maybe they wonder why they've lost five out of the last six presidential elections in the popular vote. >> look, as i said earlier on the show and will say again, you don't blame presidents of the united states for terrorist acts, right? blame the terrorists. you don't distort and make up the historical record and simply deny that things happened when they happened, how they happened. they happened. and we deal with it. and so trump, by saying that in a republican debate, you know, he doesn't touch third rails. he just grabs them and he bites them. you know what i mean? it's amazing. and it seems to have a sort of cathartic effect in the party. you know, one thing -- you

remember who won south carolina four years ago. it was newt gingrich. nobody expected that. but he was the outsider candidate of that election in a sense. and so south carolina voters can respond to this. they're not your grandfather's south carolina voters. >> they're really not. and chris jansing, if this were, let's say, four years ago i would say this is jeb bush's state, jeb seems to be in really good shape. four years ago everything changed in south carolina, you know, the whole thing that, you know, iowa picks, what, corn and south carolina picks presidents. well, president newt gingrich might disagree with that. and in newt gingrich you had a guy who was temperamentally closer to donald trump than anybody else out there. it was -- a lot of people forget this but it was newt gingrich who came to power by ruthlessly throwing aside the most beloved republican in washington, bob michael. tossed him aside.

he really, first, came to national attention when he stomped on george h.w. bush, the sitting president of the united states in '90, '91 when bush tried to pass the tax increase. he went on rush limbaugh and caused a revolt in the republican party. donald trump lines up nicely with newt gingrich, the guy who won this thing four years ago. >> yeah. can i go back even a little farther and mention a name that you may know? lee atwater. i ran into his widow the other day. we were talking about this sort of dichotomy in south carolina politics. part of it is that everywhere you go people call you ma'am and sir, right? they're very polite and they speak to you with great reverence. one of the things that salariat water said to me that one of the things she loves about jeb bush and why she is supporting him is that he looks presidential and

sounds presidential and he's not getting down into the mud. on the other hand you have this visceral response to what we saw going back to the ads that lee atwater did all those years ago, coming up until now, donald trump, and look, in many ways donald trump is, for me, doing what karl rove did for george w. bush in the beginning, that you repeat something enough times and it becomes so. it started, right, in the beginning of the campaign when he kept saying that jeb bush is a low-energy person, to the point where for months when i was at jeb bush events that people repeated it to me. it took months for him to dig out of that hole. now he's doing the trued cruz thing. there was a point when he called ted cruz a liar six times by my count. he kept pounding on it. in south carolina, everyone talks and sounds polite but they

respond viscerally to the kinds of things that you said they saw four years ago and they're seeing now with donald trump. >> donald trump is unearthing things about the bush presidency that i think people would rather not talk about. and i guess my question to you, i probably know the answer to, but why does jeb bush have to automatically support everything his brother has done? his brother is a figure in history, as was bill clinton, as was the sitting president who will be, there has got to be -- there has got to be disagreements. >> sure. i'm sure there are disagreements. >> he says he is his own man. >> i think jeb bush agrees with his brother and thinks his brother got most things right. >> i think he is walking on tinder hooves when he says he kept us safe. >> the bush family has no problem debating each other. george h.w. bush, the father, was openly critical of decisions the son made in john meacham's

incredible book. it's not like they all sign a blood oath. jeb says it because jeb believes it. >> he really believes that just, across the board -- >> i think most republicans -- again, it's hard for you to understand this. most republicans say and mean he kept us safe when talking about george w. bush. democrats don't. that's what's so shocking about this, that trump is, you know, shooting up in the polls. >> he re is one of jeb bush's problems with regard to that aspect. we've been at war for 15 years. he is in south carolina. few states have carried the burden of this war more so than south carolina and the people who populate the large military bases with multiple redeployments. >> all as a result of the destabilization of the middle east which george w. bush started. tom brokaw joins the conversation coming up. >> "morning joe," that's who we are. bye. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ i drive to the hoop. i drive a racecar. i have a driver. his name is carl. but that's not what we all have in common. we talked to our doctors about treatment with xarelto®. xarelto® is proven to treat and help reduce the risk of dvt and pe blood clots. xarelto® is also proven to reduce the risk of stroke in people with afib, not caused by a heart valve problem. for people with afib currently well managed on warfarin, there is limited information on how xarelto® and warfarin compare in reducing the risk of stroke. you know, taking warfarin, i had to deal with that blood testing routine. i couldn't have a healthy salad whenever i wanted. i found another way.

yeah, treatment with xarelto®. hey, safety first. like all blood thinners, don't stop taking xarelto® without talking to your doctor, as this may increase your risk of a blood clot or stroke. while taking, you may bruise more easily and it may take longer for bleeding to stop. xarelto® may increase your risk of bleeding if you take certain medicines. xarelto® can cause serious and in rare cases, fatal bleeding. get help right away for unexpected bleeding, unusual bruising, or tingling. if you have had spinal anesthesia while on xarelto®, watch for back pain or any nerve or muscle related signs or symptoms. do not take xarelto® if you have an artificial heart valve or abnormal bleeding. tell your doctor before all planned medical or dental procedures. before starting xarelto®, tell your doctor about any kidney, liver, or bleeding problems. xarelto® is the number one prescribed blood thinner in its class. well that calls for a round of kevin nealons. make mine an arnold palmer. same here. with xarelto® there is no regular blood monitoring and no known dietary restrictions. treatment with xarelto® was the right move for us. ask your doctor about xarelto®.

there seems to be a lot of name-calling going on. i want to remind you what our good dad told me one time. labels are for soup cans. >> george w. bush helps turn out the biggest crowd yet for his brother in months. he takes donald trump on head-on. >> tom brokaw joining the

conversation next. we'll ask what's happening. my school reunion's coming fast. ♪ could be bad. could be a blast. can't find a single thing to wear. will they be looking at my hair? won't be the same without you bro. ♪ when it's go, go to choicehotels.com. the site with the right room, rewards and savings up to 20% when you book direct. book now at choicehotels.com

♪ ♪ for your retirement, you want to celebrate the little things, because they're big to you. and that is why you invest. the best returns aren't just measured in dollars. td ameritrade®. can a a subconscious. mind? a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive?

my wife and i are now participating in your mutual fund. we invested in your fund to help us pay for a college education for our son. we've enclosed a picture of our son so that you can get a sense there are real people out here trusting you with their hard-earned money. ♪ at fidelity, we don't just manage money, we manage people's money. ♪

. i think i deal with pressure well. i have won many club championships. you have to deal with pressure. i don't think rubio handles pressure well. you saw that with his run-in with christie. i was standing next to rubio. i thought he just got out of a swimming pool. he was soaking wet. >> just got out of the swimming pool. >> okay. >> then he calls cruz a liar six times in ten seconds. >> welcome back to "morning joe." another day in politics. >> mike, i think it answers your question. you said most people would do something on a saturday night

and spend sunday and monday backtracking. no. he pushes all the chips. >> rolls them down at the bottom of the pool. >> a guy who has won a couple of club championships. >> we have the "washington post" eugene robinson. nbc news special correspondent tom brokaw. in washington, msnbc political contributor and editor of the fix chris cillizza. >> we have a new segment called "what's happening?" >> stop! >> tom brokaw, most of us saw the debate saturday night and thought donald trump would pay in the polls. there has been no hard, scientific poll that's gone over three days that you can rely on but a number of polls show trump still with a 20 point lead. what's happening? >> what's been happening from the beginning. he's giving voice to what a lot of people want to say from

themselves and they don't expect to hear a presidential candidate talking that way. the business about handling pressure by winning two club championships. i'm sure putin is in sheer terror. no one else in american politics could get away with something like that, the contradiction of it. people have bought into what he has to say mostly i think about politics as usual. >> what's so interesting about donald trump, yes, he's won two club championships. what would come to mind with most people is i was $9 billion in debt and i held a press conference and ridiculed and mocked the banks and said, declid declare me bankrupt and we'll both lose or work with me. being $9 billion in debt and climbing out of it and becoming a billionaire again, that takes second place to winning a couple club championships. >> if he gets booed, it works

out well for him because his back goes up and he punches back. he survived the debate but i think people are buying into it, if you look at the poll numbers we have been showing you. yesterday he had a town hall. >> you want to show the poll numbers. >> we've been doing it while we've been talking. >> more people are listening on the radio. put up the ppp poll, this was taken after the debate on sunday and monday. donald trump in 35. cruz at 18. marco rubio at 18. kasich at 10. jeb at 7. carson at 7. ppp has had a pretty good track record through the years, so i am guessing that is not too far off. there was also the gop house delegation caucus in south carolina also put out a poll that had trump up significantly, 33%, marco 14. ted, 14. jeb, 13. kasich, 10. carson, 6. in all of these polls, willie

geist, trump in the 30s. next closest rival is in the mid-teens. >> we've said it before. by any previous standards and rules of american politics, donald trump's performance on saturday would have been disasterous for him in a republican primary. the content of what he said going against george w. bush who has something like an 80% approval rating in south carolina about 9/11, the iraq war, things you would expect to hear ten years ago in a democratic primary, donald trump raised all those things. if you are watching that objectively, by the old rules he is in trouble and then his poll numbers go up. >> you don't say what he said in republican party circles. yesterday donald trump insisted there was no bad blood between him and the bush family, saying he was merely responding to millions of dollars in negative ads from their backers. he didn't back away from his critiques of the 43rd president's handling of the days before and after isn't 11th. >> i didn't say it. i didn't want to say it, but he talked about the tremendous safety.

excuse me. the world trade center came down during the, you know, reign of george bush, right? it came down. i have heard that for years. i have heard that for years, jeremy. i have heard for years he kept the country safe after 9/11. what's that mean, after? what about during 9/11? i was there. i lost a lot of friends that were killed in that building. the worst attack ever in this country? it was during his presidency. i mean, we had the worst attack ever. by the way, after that we did okay. that's meaning the team scored 19 runs in the first inning, but after that we played well. i don't think so. you obviously had the war, which was a big mistake. i think few people would say the war in iraq was a positive. you had him on the aircraft carrier saying all sorts of wonderful things, how the war was essentially over. guess what, not over. you know, the war with iraq is a disaster. you know, saddam hussein was a bad guy. one thing about him, he killed

terrorists. now iraq is harvard for terrorism. you want to become a terrorist, go to iraq. saddam hussein understood, and he killed terrorists. if the president went to the beach we would have been better off, believe me. >> tom brokaw, obviously donald trump doesn't bring it up, but there was a big debate about the intel that was actually on george w. bush's desk before 9/11 that terrorists were planning to use airplanes to attack america. and it's something that the republican establishment, people like myself, have basically given george bush a pass on, saying, you get flooded with so much intel, it's hard to go back and look at one piece of evidence. but apparently, though, republican voters outside the washington establishment are buying what donald trump is saying here. >> well, two things. one was that summer george w. bush had gone to the ranch and spent a lot of time down there. went down, dealt with

condoleezza rice about his sentiments about what might happen. he had said my hair was on fire because of all the signals we were getting. it didn't get to the presidential level until that weekend. the other thing working in trump's favor. no one else running for president on the republican side got the air time that he got yesterday afternoon after his performance on saturday night. that's the conventional reasoning for it. but everything that he said there people could buy into. >> yeah. >> you know -- >> could you? >> well, i -- i think he's absolutely right when he says that the invasion was a disaster. did he say that at the time? there has been no evidence of that. but it has been very consequential. it was the beginning of what we're dealing with right now. anybody who goes back and looks at it knows that. that's on the republican side as well. that's not a partisan issue. >> chris cillizza, what is so interesting about what donald trump said, especially about 9/11 and iraq afterwards is, this is something that a

democrat could say in a democratic debate and get big cheers. it's not something any republican would dare say in any republican debate from maine to san diego. yet, donald trump did it on the biggest political stage on saturday night, and apparently, if you look at -- >> you know why. >> you look at the series of polls, why? >> because jeb bush's brother was coming to town and he just struck at the heart of that. >> wanted to step on the story. look, mika said it best, i think. it is a relates to trump -- i watch these debates and "the post" asked me to pick winners and losers. you watch that debate. it's impossible on any conventional scale to say that donald trump won. it just is, right? it's up is down, left is right. i put in the piece, look, he was really quite bad, but it almost certainly won't affect him. he says and does things -- you say, joe, you get an applause line. i wonder -- i genuinely wonder

if hillary clinton, if you take exactly the wording that donald trump used, would hillary clinton even be that sort of forceful as it relates to what. >> no. >> my guess is the answer is no. >> democrats would not say that. rand paul got the closest to saying that. democrats wouldn't. even bernie sanders wouldn't say that. >> i think it's really remarkable. go to lindsey graham's primary in 2014 when he wins easily. but there is a chunk of vote in the state, 30, 35% within the republican primary, that does not like the republican establishment bushes. they think they're too liberal, lindsey graham, too liberal. and he has those voters. he literally could do almost anything and those people will stay with him. and in a six-way primary, 35 is enough. >> willie, just for our viewers, for people to understand, i went to several new hampshire events in the fall.

and governor sanunu got up to speak. he had just had a heart attack. when he got off the stage i talked to people with the republican party. i said, there wasn't the warmth i expected. he said, it's them. just like it's the bushes. and another sanunu is running for governor. you know what? they like him, they respect him, but they want him to move along. they feel like they're constantly being forced down their throats. you look at south carolina, which, by the way, that shocked me. you look at south carolina, lindsey graham, a dear friend of mine, he won the primary, but by the end of the primary he was actually upside down. his approval rating was upside down in his own party. and so you have these establishment figures who are

all getting behind establishment figures, and chris is exactly right. there are a lot of people out there that want to move on, do not like what the republican establishment has given for 30 years. >> it might be happening on both sides. i feel this. we might even be underestimating this outsider surge. >> on the bernie side? >> things that have mattered in the past don't matter anymore, to have the big, ostensibly staer senator in your state endorse you. to have the big newspapers in your state come out and endorse you. it hasn't mattered as we saw in the state of new hampshire. something totally different than what we've seen in past years happening now, tom. >> quick summary of what's going on in this election year is throw the bums out. anybody in office is suspect. anybody who is part of the establishment, however reasonable or wise they are, get them out of there. and donald trump obviously is a perfect carrier of that anti-establishment message.

i don't know why we're even talking about it at this point because he has demonstrated in primary after primary that he owns that crowd. >> we thought, though, tom, did we not, on saturday night, that the core had melted down? >> yeah. >> radiation had leaked into, like the water supply. it was going to actually impact him. >> we were wrong. >> right now, as of today, looking at several polls, we're wrong. >> that's because we are who we are. >> yeah. >> and out there where people actually live real lives, they know what the establishment has given them, 15 years of war. >> the 9/11 comments -- >> mika, i'll let you finish, but i'll just say, we, on this side of the table, have been saying for six to nine months, willie has been agreeing, that donald trump could win this thing. like -- when nobody else was saying it. i mean, nobody else was saying it. >> true. >> and we got mocked and ridiculed for saying it.

now people are saying, you're in the tank for donald trump, only because everybody else was writing a story every three days saying this week he dies. politically. even us! like on saturday night, said okay, all right -- >> he's gone too far now. >> it's over. the shark is going to eat him. that's it. even we're dead wrong on that front. >> go back one primary. go back to new hampshire, the vulgarism on stage. that socially conservative state. everybody dismissed it. they're willing to ride over the things that we conventionally measure candidates by because they think that he has got a shot. >> mike, the most important question to that is why. >> what has the establishment, the political establishment, given the average american in the last 15 years? >> on both sides. >> 15 years of war that only 1% of the population fights. in 2008, the establishment provided -- >> stagnating middle class. >> the establishment.

>> economic collapse. >> took away their 401(k)s. many of them took away their homes, their jobs. >> still struggling. thank you, everybody. >> tom, want to ask you about something that happened over the weekend that we haven't gotten your take on, that's the passing of justice scalia. a man you covered and knew. >> i didn't know him that well. four years ago he came to montana. he is a friend of a friend. my friend the banker asked me to take him and i did. i said, justice scalia, we'll put everything off the record. we had dinner that night. interesting thing about the dinner was i feel very strongly that the court should be open to television at this point. i think there has to be a transparency in that institution as well. he is a good friend of brian lamb who runs c-span. i said, he could put one camera on the justices and one on the

advocates and there would be no commentary but we would have access to it. you guys would pick out the most outrageous parts -- i said you let the "new york times" and pick out whatever they want to. television is a modern form of communication that everybody should have access to. i got nowhere with him. as he was leaving i said, i have bad news for you mr. justice. i said the people in law school now who share your judicial philosophy are growing up in a different way. they're going to put the court online when they get there. he said, that can't be possible. i said, we'll see. the other interesting exchange that we had is that i know ted olson and david boys. when they got together to take on same-sex marriage as a case. i said, i have bad news for you, it was ted olson's idea. that can't be possible. he is a founder of the federalist society. i said, i was at the able when they started talking about it. oh, my god! but you know -- he was combative. then i saw him last year on the

plane. he goes out to montana every year. he is there with his son, who is a priest. he was cordial. interested in what was going on with fishing. the effect this is having on the campaign, obviously is another ufo that we're seeing. it's a very big deal. it's a very -- it's a very sensitive way that both sides have to play this so it doesn't look like they're just playing it purely for political reasons. >> tom brokaw thank you for coming on the show. chris cillizza and eugene robinson. still ahead. like the line in the movie "dum and dumber" cory booker denies avoiding an appointment to the u.s. supreme court. we'll ask him. we'll be right back. covering

is caring. because covering heals faster. to seal out water, dirt and germs, cover with a water block clear bandage from band-aid brand.

theand to help you accelerate,. we've created a new company... one totally focused on what's next for your business. the true partnership where people,technology and ideas push everyone forward. accelerating innovation. accelerating transformation. accelerating next. hewlett packard enterprise.

♪ no, you're not ♪ yogonna watch it! ♪tch it! ♪ ♪ we can't let you download on the goooooo! ♪ ♪ you'll just have to miss it! ♪ yeah, you'll just have to miss it! ♪ ♪ we can't let you download... uh, no thanks. i have x1 from xfinity so... don't fall for directv. xfinity lets you download your shows from anywhere. i used to like that song.

. >> we have a system in which a very small number of people are making huge campaign contributions -- huge is right! i don't know how i'm going to use that word again. every time i say it, 10,000 people will echo it. all right. >> how funny. >> joining us now from washington, nbc news political director, moderator of "meet the press" and host of mtp daily chuck todd. good to have you. >> chuck, boy, i tell you what, this is the race that just keeps getting more crazy by the day. we've been talking this morning about how we were sure that saturday night was going to be a disaster for donald trump politically. it certainly does not look like that three days later. and then over on the democratic side, nevada. looks like nevada will be much, much closer than anyone expected on the democratic side. >> you know what trump does.

the reason why it seems like other candidates, when they get into trouble, they almost stew in their own trouble. trump basically just tries to plow forward. i think he's proven to be -- that's why he's proven to be short-term resilient. i still think some of this stuff does potential long-term damage with swing voters. he plows forward and throws cruz back on his heels, even after he was going after bush. you would think over time the bush attacks could backfire. for them to backfire, joe, they have to attack trump on the air with it and they're not. you don't see cruz doing it. you don't see bush doing it. you don't see them going after trump on this stuff. if they're not doing it, it's hard to have an attack stick like that. >> right. >> think about, with rubio, there was a bunch of reinforcements that came in in a hurry, particularly, by the way, from the democratic side of the aisle, one of the clinton super

pacs was jumping on robotic rubio. you're not seeing that. even if there was a moment of trouble for trump, i don't know if his opponents took advantage of it in time. >> talking about the general election. if trump wins south carolina a lot of people believe he'll storm through the south and possibly run the table. look at what he's doing while that's happening. you talk about problems in the general election. certainly on temperament. but in south carolina he defended planned parenthood. in south carolina he blamed george w. bush for 9/11. in south carolina and new hampshire, still was talking about national health care, refused to get some good, easy endorsements in new hampshire by being against medicaid expansion. this guy is idealogically about as moderate idealogically in some of these areas as anybody

who has run in the republican party since the 1960s. >> well, right, because he's not trying to -- this is what i think has been the mistake. jeb tried it early. cruz is trying it now. attacking donald for not being a conservative. his supporters know that already. that is baked in. it's built in. frankly, it's also why i think some of these hits on rubio and immigration and gang of eight are not as effective anymore. it's baked in. you have to go after him on something else. i think temperament is probably a bigger vulnerability than ideology. the people who support trump, they were democrats 20 years ago, many of them supported bill clinton. some supported barack obama. they are folks that are looking for change, not necessarily looking for conservative change. they're looking for change. and maybe they haven't figured it out idealogically yet or they don't know but they know what they don't like. i think that's why these idealogical attacks on trump have not been effective. >> we showed the national poll.

you guys going to have the south carolina poll this week? >> we will have south carolina numbers. we're not polling nevada. it's too risky. a difficult state to poll but we'll have south carolina by the end of the week. >> we'll be waiting. with us on set democratic senator cory booker of new jersey. his first book released today titled "united, thoughts on finding common ground and advancing the common good." senator, thank you for being with us. we were just talking about donald trump on the republican side. on the democratic side, obviously bernie sanders also, starting a political fire storm. what's going on there? >> look, this is going to be a contest. i talked to senator clinton, who i am supporting, early in the process. she knew it would be hard. she said she'll have to earn every inch of ground she gains. i have respected the way she has approached this. she is tough as nails. i don't know anybody in my lifetime politically who has faced more incredible attacks from the time she was first lady of arkansas, the things they said and did to her in the white

house. facing failure. having the audacity to believe we should have universal health care. senator, loses the presidential election and keeps coming back to higher levels of service. somebody with grit, fortitude and resilience who continues to fight. i think she'll make it through the long process. >> we showed a clip earlier of bill clinton, president clinton, comparing sanders' supporters with tea party supporters. is that a comparison that you're comfortable with? >> again, you and i -- you've seen lots of campaigns, i have been in them. lots of things happen. what i appreciate right now is folks, all across the field are focusing on the issues that matter. >> but you don't compare bernie sanders' supporters to tea party supporters, do you? >> again, i focus on -- >> let me just -- >> so many distractions. >> let me ask you. i'm curious. do you personally believe that tea party supporters have something in common with bernie sanders' supporters?

>> i personally believe there is a lot of passion across the board. i think it's going to be even more intense election. i think the way our two candidates on the democratic side have behaved towards each other is a remarkably good model compared to what we're seeing on the republican side. this is a heated campaign. there is a lot at stake here. >> right. >> all of us were involved campaigning for our person will be very passionate. i'm happy to see the candidates on the democratic side having a discussion and a vigorous debate in a way that i think reflects better on our country. >> so do you believe that the tea party supporters have something in common with bernie sanders' supporters? i'm not going away. >> you're not going away. >> i want to talk about your book, but you have to answer the question. >> i feel like i am answering the question. >> it's either yes or no. >> come on, baby! just answer. yes or no? >> i think we paint these tremendous generallities.

we talk about them in south carolina as if they were a hegemonic group. >> you're saying the president made a mistake by painting a broad brush. >> i am not saying that. joe, this is amazing. i watch your show all morning. these are the kind of things we focus on as opposed to the real issues. >> we're focusing on your book but you won't answer the question. >> leave the book aside. the reality is we have an incredible country with real challenges. we have millions of senior citizens living in poverty, violence in this country like we've never seen. >> i want to get to that, but you need to answer the question. do you think that the tea party supporters have something in common with bernie sanders' supporters? >> when i go about my own politics i meet tea party supporters who i can work with in congress, that i find common ground with. i find tea party supporters who won't let me get a sentence out without judging me. to say that there is a tea party supporter is a gross grnenerali.

>> i agree with you. let's talk about the book. >> i am one of those people who believes our country started with a great declaration of independence but right in that document was a declaration of inter-dependence. we pledged to each other our lives, fortunes and sacred honor. we have a divisive nation. we need to be working to find a common ground. >> were you disappointed right after -- i'll ask you an easy question. were you disappointed minutes after scalia's death republicans coming out saying they won't even look at any nominee of the president's? >> of course i was. you know, i found out about it. i was campaigning for senator clinton in nevada, and jumped into the car and the staffer was driving around and told me that a supreme court justice died. i don't care what you think about their juris prudence. there was an american who served his country. there was a sadness. he was a father, a great family

man. and there was -- didn't even seem to be a pause for a moment to feel that grief. >> not a second. >> this is often what we miss when we go about politics in a spectator-sport kind of way. we often lose the humanity that's so important in our communities. one of the things i try to do is just focus in my life on that humanity. the reason why, in the senate i found lots of common ground and passed legislation with senator cruz, legislation with marco rubio, working on a broad-based criminal justice reform piece of legislation with grassley and mike lee, it's because you recognize the humanity of your -- you recognize the humanity of your person across the aisle and you find ways to bond with them and understand that we have differences in this country. our differences matter but our nation matters more. >> senator booker, i think people watch what happens on a day-to-day basis and they're disgusted by it. they feel like it's getting more divided instead of uniting.

what do you say to a young person who is considering a life in public service who is watching this play out. you went to stanford, oxford, yale law. you could have written your ticket and done anything you wanted in the world but you chose politics. what do you say to the person who says nothing gets done in washington. >> people who say i have no ability to make a difference and throwing up their arms falls into a world that's more dangerous. king said that about apathy. the silence and the difference of the good people is the problem. a lot of people could have been cynical about the horrible conditions, slavery, sweat shops. child labor, people caught in those circumstances didn't give up on this country and didn't give up the fight. so this is a time that calls for what i think is a courageous empathy where we stop judging

each other and start figuring out what we have in common and how we can continue to build our country. a lot of themes that seem to be celebrated, the idea that you can't be tough without being mean, that you can't be strong without being cruel, that's not really what our history is. at the end of the day this country -- i think the character of this nation, as much as we want to say about rugged individuals and and self-relian we are the best as a country when we find ways to stand together even against insurmountable odds. >> we started the conversation talking about hillary clinton. let's end there. often when i ask people what her message is because there has been the question, what is the message of the campaign, i am given a long, meandering list. so i am giving you 25 seconds. why should hillary clinton be president? >> her message to me is simple. we are a great nation but we have work to do. there are still too many people struggling in the nation. we need to come together as a

country and rise to the challenges before us. >> there you go. >> senator cory booker. >> i want to ask you quickly. criminal justice reform. will that pass? >> it's a frustrating slow process. we're in the scrum. a lot of fierce negotiating. what issue can you say you have all these people -- there is a lot of hard work going on. there is an urgency -- >> will we get it done? >> remember, this problem -- 10% of the prison population is at the federal level. it's gone up 10%. a massive explosion. in the '90s we were building a new prison every 10 to 12 days. this issue is draining our national treasury. we would have 20% less poverty in america -- >> will it pass? >> the urgency is there. it's not just a federal issue. it's a state issue. it goes down to our jails.

nine times more admissions to our jails, mostly poor people and mentally ill people. >> this is what bernie sanders is talking about. >> this is what senator clinton's -- >> everybody is talking about it. >> on the debate stage he brings it up. he draws the circle between the system being rigged and ultimately it's so unfair -- >> like you said, from the koch brothers to bernie sanders. everybody in between. >> this is not about partisan politics. it's about the soul of our cancer. mass incarceration is a shameful reality. >> congratulations on your first book. it's awesome. >> "united, thoughts on finding common ground and advancing the common good". morning in america. >> vancouver is beautiful. >> i love vancouver. i'm just not putting it in my ad for northwest florida. >> it's okay.

does sitting behind a new desk make you feel like an svp instead of a vp? then you might be gearcentric. ♪ this president's day, all chairs are on sale! save $150 on this chair! office depot officemax. gear up for great ®. donald trump: "pedonald trump..." look past the boasting and you'll see right through him. he supported partial-birth abortions. his phony trump university? accused of fraud.

he tried to seize private property to line his own pockets. four bankruptcies... and small businesses screwed over. poll after poll shows him losing... to hillary clinton. if trump wins, conservatives lose. right to rise usa is responsible for the content of this message. frodoers don't stop. wake up, every day is a chance to do something great. and for the ones they love, they'd do anything. sears optical has glasses made for doing. right now, buy one pair and get another free. quality eyewear for doers. sears optical.

♪ no, you're not ♪ yogonna watch it! ♪tch it! ♪ ♪ we can't let you download on the goooooo! ♪ ♪ you'll just have to miss it! ♪ yeah, you'll just have to miss it! ♪ ♪ we can't let you download... uh, no thanks. i have x1 from xfinity so... don't fall for directv. xfinity lets you download your shows from anywhere. i used to like that song. you guys see the new marco rubio ad? >> i love america. >> it captures -- >> i love america. it's like the paul simon song. american tune. you see the statue of liberty and everything else. the new ad, the rubio ad. left me cold at the beginning. i don't know why. >> see what you think. take a look. >> let's see.

♪ >> it's morning again in america. >> okay. see, i don't know why it is, i don't feel it. >> it's morning again in america. the skyline there. vancouver, canada. >> oh, my god! >> if you go back to that and look closely, the boat has a canadian flag on it. >> willie. first you have cruz. he is a canadian. >> isn't there a little -- >> doggonit. i knew those dirty canadians would try to infiltrate us in a way that the kgb. >> don't say that. >> you know i'm joking. my friends in canada, i'm going to be moving to vancouver if 14 of the 16 candidates get elected. beautiful city. >> gorgeous.

the name on the clip of the stock footage sight is boats passing near city at sunset. >> it's not morning in america. >> basically he's saying that america is facing its sunset. >> yeah. >> so the rubio campaign -- >> do not go quietly into the dark night, america. >> rubio campaign copped to it saying, ha! nice catch by "buzzfeed." our next guess -- >> i'm sorry, 9/11 truth. willie, this is a canadian truth. >> this is the real conspiracy theory, the canadians are trying to get in. they can't invade us. >> it wasn't a ted cruz ad. >> you have to watch out -- >> apparently he's quite the whipper snapper. he is coming to america for a state dinner. >> is he really? >> see? look, the invasion continues. i have to get a website up.

>> you do? >> yes. >> up next, our next guest points out how much is at stake this election season. maple leaf madness. >> all three branches of the federal government could see a major shift not just in party but ideology. that conversation is ahead. ♪ my lenses have a sunset mode. an early morning mode. and a partly sunny mode. transitions® signature™ adaptive lenses... are more responsive than ever. experience life well lit®. ...upgrade your lenses

to transitions® signature™ aren't moving in the right direction,bers it can be a burden. but what if you could wake up to lower blood sugar? imagine loving your numbers. discover once-daily invokana®. with over 6 million prescriptions and counting, it's the #1 prescribed sglt2 inhibitor that works to lower a1c. invokana® is used along with diet and exercise to significantly lower blood sugar in adults with type 2 diabetes. it's a once-daily pill that works around the clock. here's how: invokana® reduces the amount of sugar allowed back in to the body through the kidneys and sends some sugar out through the process of urination. and while it's not for weight loss, it may help you lose weight. invokana® can cause important side effects, including dehydration, which may cause you to feel dizzy, faint, lightheaded, or weak, especially when you stand up. other side effects may include kidney problems,

genital yeast infections, urinary tract infections, changes in urination, high potassium in the blood, increases in cholesterol, or risk of bone fracture. do not take invokana® if you have severe kidney problems or are on dialysis. stop taking and call your doctor right away if you experience symptoms such as rash, swelling, or difficulty breathing or swallowing. tell your doctor about any medical conditions, medications you are taking, and if you have kidney or liver problems. using invokana® with a sulfonylurea or insulin may increase risk of low blood sugar. imagine life with a lower a1c. are you loving your numbers? there's only one invokana®. ask your doctor about it by name. out on the town or in for the night, at&t helps keep everyone connected. right now at at&t, buy one get one free on our most popular smartphones.

no matter how you hang out, share every minute of it. buy one get one free on our most popular smartphones. and right now, get up to $650 in credits per line to help you switch to at&t. all right. 45 past the hour. joining us now, author and "new york times" columnist. >> we have a sympathy built in. >> i'm jealous. so you always seem to come on right after an explosion of starts politically. there was an explosion politically on saturday night. at least in the early polls maybe it changes. we have had three or four polls post debate that suggest donald trump was not damaged but actually solidified his

position. what's going on? >> i think nobody knows what's going on and everybody should preface everything from now on in this election that know one knows what's going on. >> why are you here then, man? i thought you were going to tell us what was going on. >> a little bit. >> you have written about donald trump and what's behind the support. >> i think, you know -- when you have a new tech product come out, there are hackers who go after it. some are good hackers, paid to do it, some are bad hackers. what they do, whether good or bad is expose flaws in the system. this whole election is exposing flaws in how we pick this person. whether or not these are good candidates, the system of ads, of money, of us in the media, of primaries, of making new hampshire and iowa the gate-keepers, all these elements of how we pick this person are in some ways being ridiculed by the fact that some of our

unthinkable candidates are winning. and i think we have to ask. i trovlavel a lot around the country. we have bright, reasonable people in this country, reasonable people in all walks of life. our political system is not putting them anywhere near the top. what is it about us, our system, all of us, not just these personalities that's allowing what some feel is a high-jacking to go on. >> who is high-jacking what? >> both parties are being hijacked by people they loathe for different reasons. the people on your show who are supposedly neutral in the dnc and rnc, the loathing is hard for them to contain. of sanders on the dnc side, of trump on the republican side. but it's not just the parties. i think the people who are winning the momentum right now, whether it's sanders or trump, are in the internet age speaking directly to people. the logic of the internet is direct connection to people.

jam things through the kind of viral network. when you have hillary clinton sending john louis out as a kind of very sad gate-keeper of the civil rights era saying, here is who was in it and here is who wasn't. it's a pre-internet way of thinking where you have editorial boards, book reviews and wave of things that are being frankly disrupted by the internet. >> do you think that we view what's happening through the prism of politics, we have people on. we just had cory booker on. we ask them about things through a prism of politics. but you have actually -- one of my cockamamy theories, we have a cultural and a political track and they're both going in different directions. the people in the cultural track focus in on things like that, ideas, progress, success, look at the political system and say, huh? it's just -- they're going off the edge and we're heading toward the future. >> you're absolutely right. there are still -- i get to

travel around the world, very fortunately, and we remain the kind of america is number one thing may not be true in a lot of ways people say it's true. but it's true in other ways that people don't say it's true. culturally. where do you want to start a company these days? france, sweden? where do you want an ap idea? our newspapers. we're mournful about our newspapers. go to britain. their newspapers are really not that great. people don't -- >> that's a very polite way to say that. >> we have a bench of five newspapers that are probably better than their first one. that's true of university. it's true of many things, just not our politics. >> we complain about universities. we complain about education. even china says we have eight of the top ten universities on the planet. what we did in energy. the energy revolution. we've shaken to the core the world markets because of what we figured out a few years ago, what american ingenuity figured out without the government's help. it's a revolution.

>> and so i think we have to ask ourselves and introspect, why is it that in any number of domains we are able to truly build extraordinary ecosystems -- >> by the way, the domains you' talking about the energy sector, whether you're talking about the tax sector, whether you're talking about the education sector. >> let me challenge that on one point. none of those domains matter at a certain level of dysfunctional politics. >> i agree. >> we have to ask ourselves is it the lack of who goes into one versus the other, but why are we not able to have -- an even reasonable quality of politics right now? >> go ahead, which will. >> based on everything that you just said and i agree with you about money, ads, all the old ways of doing politics have not mattered, jeb bush's super pac has $600 million and he's sitting at 6th place in south carolina. this is not an aberration that donald trump fell from outer space and bernie sanders shocked the world. go forward we will see more

candidates doing well. >> don't you feel like we are living in one of these things that you will be explaining to people 20 years from now? >> i think we're living in the amped up internet version of what happened in 1960 when john kennedy exploited a new medium, tv. and had people like my mom who admitted she voted for kennedy because he was good looking but she refused to tell my dad. because my dad was a nixon guy. >> to that point a great jiert writes about the information age made the point in a tweet which is, what is the scarceest commodity in our digital age? attention. 500 channels instead of three and a million websites instead of three newspapers, attention is the scarceest commodity. who has been the best in this cycle at getting attention? donald. that feels like a new reality. >> and bernie. >> and bernie to a great extent with those ads. >> actually better. donald already had a platform, he already was a celebrity. >> yeah. >> bernie sanders, who was he?

it's his message. >> do you know what we -- >> criminal justice reform. >> one thing we figured out in this election. >> different parts of it. >> -- having celebrity is a more powerful sort of fail-safe system than having 100 million sooinld in a super pac. >> he has the best show. trump has the best show. >> bernie has the best message. >> one final question. what do you do with your hair? because i just put spit in mine. what's your product? >> i'm going to come a few minutes early next time and i will work on yours. >> could you do a demonstration. >> i do. i use a little wax, that's it. >> oh, my god. >> it takes five seconds. >> anand -- >> i thought it was dapper dan. >> thank you so much. >> thank you all. >> up next the must see moments from last night's grammy awards, the acceptance speech from the cast of hamilton. we will be right back. i think it landed last tuesday.

one second it's there. then, woosh, it's gone. i swear i saw it swallow seven people. seven. i just wish one of those people could have been mrs. johnson. [dog bark] trust me, we're dealing with a higher intelligence here. ♪ the all-new audi q7 is here. ♪ rheumatoid arthritis like me,e and you're talking to a rheumatologist about a biologic... this is humira. this is humira helping to relieve my pain and protect my joints from further damage. this is humira helping me reach for more.

doctors have been prescribing humira for more than ten years. humira works for many adults. it targets and helps to block a specific source of inflammation that contributes to ra symptoms. humira can lower your ability to fight infections, including tuberculosis. serious, sometimes fatal infections and cancers, including lymphoma, have happened, as have blood, liver and nervous system problems, serious allergic reactions, and new or worsening heart failure. before treatment get tested for tb. tell your doctor if you've been to areas where certain fungal infections are common, and if you've had tb, hepatitis b, are prone to infections, or have flu-like symptoms or sores. don't start humira if you have an infection. talk to your doctor and visit humira.com. this is humira at work. advisor and team who understand where you come from. we didn't really have anything, you know. but, we made do. vo: know you can craft an investment plan as strong as your values. al, how you doing. hey, mr. hamilton.

vo: know that together you can establish a meaningful legacy. with the guidance and support of your dedicated pnc wealth management team.

"could you double check "scothe envelope?"wins." "best actress, 1984." "and i can't deny the fact that you like me." "life is like a box of chocolates." "you never know what you're gonna get." "we're gonna need a bigger boat." "xfinity x1 lets you access the greatest library of oscar moments, simply by using your voice. live oscar sunday, february 28th on abc." a lot of good stuff at the grammys last night, taylor swift opened the show and won album of the year. one of the moments everybody is talking about is the cast of the hit broadway musical "hamilton" performing a song live from new york city and moments later the writer and star of that show accepting the award for best musical theater album from that same stage. >> we write music, we write

music to tell stories. tommy kale set the stage to kick our boots through, the whole roots crew, atlantic, my right-hand man this fran 'tis hispanic is best idea. the best idea goes in the pot. the cast unstoppable, band is unbeatable. inevitable, always inspiring me to pull through. van saeed abedini, angie, ellie, we adore you, sebastian, daddy is bringing home a grammy for you. goodnight. >> that's night. >> do you know what the wait is like to go see "hamilton". >> about eight months. >> my wife's birthday is thursday, we're going to see it. i cannot wait. >> you got those six months ago, right? >> about six months ago. now that they won this you have to wait 20 years to get tickets. >> my 12-year-old girl kate saw it because she knows people, i guess and just said it's

extraordinary and was telling me i have to go. i said i'm trying. it's hard to get in there. >> up next, new poll numbers show donald trump falling way off, way off after saturday's republican debate, right? >> no. plus jeb bush teams up with his brother, the former president, to take on trump, but trump makes it clear he isn't ready to back down on w. "morning joe" will be right back. some cash back cards are, shall we say, unnecessarily complex. limiting where you can earn bonus cash back... then those places change every few months... please. it's time you got the quicksilver card from capital one. quicksilver earns you unlimited 1.5% cash back on every purchase, everywhere. doesn't get much simpler than that. what's in your wallet? frodoers don't stop. wake up, every day is a chance to do something great. and for the ones they love, they'd do anything. sears optical has

glasses made for doing. right now, buy one pair and get another free. quality eyewear for doers. sears optical. until one of you clipst da food truck.. then your rates go through the roof. perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won't raise your rates due to your first accident. liberty mutual insurance. is caring.ng because covering heals faster.

to seal out water, dirt and germs, cover with a water block clear bandage from band-aid brand. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ (dog) mmm, beneful healthy weand low-calorie... keeps me looking good. hey, i get some looks, i hear the whistles. (vo) beneful healthy weight, a delicious,

low-calorie meal your dog will love. with wholesome rice, real chicken, and accents of vegetables and apples. we're spending a lot of time on iran where we're become tree farmers, gives me a chance to practice my stump speech. i've been one to defy expectations, i've been

misunderestimated most of my life. and as a real shock to people, i've become an oil painter. let me assure you i know that the signature is worth more than the painting. good morning. it is tuesday, february 16th. welcome to "morning joe," everybody. what year is it? with us on set we have legendary columnist and msnbc contributor mike barnicle, in washington pulitzer prize winning columnist and msnbc political analyst eugene robinson, and in columbia, south carolina, msnbc political correspondent hunt. >> the donald trump press conference in the middle of the day was pretty shocking in what he doubled down on so many of

the things -- he threatened lawsuits. >> he really did. >> he kept going after george w. bush on 9/11, which i just don't understand. >> well, i do, but i don't for south carolina, i don't for, you know, republican politics. >> when you say you do what do you mean? >> i was watching his press conference and i was sort of agreeing with what he was saying in some ways, not in the vitriol lick ways. >> like what? >> i get very, very thrown off when people just unequivocally say george w. bush kept us safe because i don't think he did. i think he brought us into a war that has destabilized the entire world. so it's just -- it's interesting to see donald trump saying that in south carolina. >> so what's interesting is that this has been one of these issues, we have few issues where i say something. >> yeah. >> and it drives her crazy. >> it drives me crazy. >> and the fight comes because what i will say about bush s you know, he is a lot of things that i disagreed with, i was very critical of him, but he kept us

safe. i say that and she goes crazy. >> yeah. >> right. >> keeping us safe after making us unsafe. thank you. >> so what that means is i'm thinking like a republican thinks, donald trump is speaking to democrats and you wouldn't think he would double down because he's speaking -- i mean, democrats -- >> it seems like a mess. >> the liberal democrats have been saying that, even moderate democrats don't say what donald trump said the other night and what he said yesterday. >> if you listen to him it's tone rather than content, i think that throws people off. his tone throws people off. the content of what he says is actually accurate in the sense that he talks about all of the warnings that the bush administration had prior to september 11th. >> that's correct. >> leading up to september 11th, but it's tone. >> it was interesting, willie, he said you give up 19 runs in the first inning and said i had a pretty good game after that. he went back to the 9/11 attacks. >> what republican is saying that?

>> no republican said it. >> nobody has the guts. >> it's not that they don't have the guts. i don't believe it. and most republicans -- >> you don't believe there were warnings? >> i believe there were warnings -- i don't want to renegotiate -- redebate this. okay. let's just not redebate this. we disagree on it. that's not the important point. what the important point s willie, for republicans like me who vote in republican primaries that's not stuff what you say. >> right. >> but he did the equivalent because we are going to show new polls that have come out, he did the debate equivalent of shooting somebody on fifth avenue and getting away with it. >> yeah. i mean, you're watching that debate on saturday night and i heard democrats and lefties saying my sin apps aren't expecting because i'm agreeing with everything donald trump is saying and this is hatching in the context of a republican primary. i think it is all about the content of what he said. for republicans they're going, wait a minute, this is what the other side believes. this guy? i don't think so. and i do actually believe that it was a spontaneous moment.

he was angry, you saw it on his face at jeb bush all night. jeb says my brother kept us safe and i think trump fired that off and doesn't want to back away from it. >> it goes to strength and there are a lot of people that are watching on tv, even though i disagree and a lot of republicans disagree, a lot of south carolina voters, gene robinson, are looking at that and going, wait, you're right, he didn't keep us safe. >> yeah. exactly. >> it's amazing. and this is what happens when you have a clinton running against a bush. hillary clinton as we described yesterday in maureen's column is paying for the since of the past 20 years of the women who enabled bill clinton. >> it's a chilling column. >> jeb bush is paying for the since, political since, of george w. bush and it just -- it seems -- it seems like republicans even in the deep south are saying -- if you look at these polls, we want to put that behind us. >> yeah.

i mean, it's amazing. you know, once again it appears that donald trump had his finger on the pulse of actual voters more than the professional republican politicians or professional democratic politicians for that matter because all the recent polls after the debate show him at worse unscathed and at best, you know, actually getting a little boost from it. it's incredible. the moment of the debate that just really struck me was after trump said what he said, marco rubio came back and said, no, no, no, it wasn't george w. bush's fault that 9/11 happened, it was bill clinton's fault. now, i have written columns saying we should blame terrorist acts on the terrorists not on the officials who tried their best to keep us safe because they did try their best to keep us safe, but i think trump points out that it is -- it is totally hypocritical to say, well, you can't blame bush hofts in office, but you can blame bill clinton who was not in

office. it doesn't make any sense. >> well, and, yes, there was a lot of intel that went before in front of george w. bush specifically, bill clinton had some chances to kill osama bin laden, he refused to do it, but at the end of the day my gut reaction, whether it's donald trump saying it or whether it's rand paul saying it, is, no, it's not george bush's fault, it's osama bin laden's fault. >> yeah. >> but anyway -- i do want to say this, though. this south carolina debate is going to be looked back upon if these numbers hold up as just a historical moment in the republican party where the republican establishment fell off the cliff. as matt dowd said anybody who thinks that booing donald trump as a member of the republican establishment does anything but strengthen donald trump is a fool.

>> by the way, he knows it in realtime. a new post debate poll out of south carolina shows donald trump unscathed by saturday night's debate. the survey taken on sunday and monday by public policy polling gives trump a 17 point lead, 35% over senators ted cruz and marco rubio who are tied at 18%. >> right now, willie, it looks like if anybody lost that debate it's ted cruz who lost his firm grip on second place. >> look at jeb bush which i thought it was a good night at him. >> who i thought would get the biggest bump out of this debate. >> that jeb bush number is stunning. >> it's staggering. >> they thought if he could survive new hampshire, get to south carolina with his money and the bush family's respect down there that he could do well, but that number he's 30 points back of donald trump. >> and he put in his best debate performance. >> yeah. >> what the hell does anybody know? i thought he put in his best debate performance, mike barnicle, he was strong, he was aggressive. >> joe, you just summed up the entire primary season and entire political year, what the hell does anybody know? >> but this really does, though,

take it to a whole new level. saturday night the craziness of 2016 and the republican party was melted down to a core, a red lava-like steamy core, and yet donald trump has gone up and this so-called grown-ups in the room have collapsed. >> he's playing in another league. he's playing a different game than the rest of them are. >> watching that debate, though, i'm fighting my instinct that nothing hurts donald trump. >> i thought it was a terrible debate. >> i said, wow, he's going almost into michael moore territory in a republican primary debate. this has to hurt him a little bit and it hasn't at least according to these new polls. >> gene, i've written three books and every one of them basically has the same theme, the republican establishment in washington, d.c. has dee trade the conservative party, conservatives, they've made promises, they've lied, they promised to restrain foreign policy, they lied, they promised

to balance the budgets, this he lied. they promised to pay down the debts, they lied. >> wow. >> and i wrote my first one in 2004 when bush was running for reelection, wrote my next one after obama. i guess i shouldn't be shocked by this. there are a lot of people out there who see george w. bush and say, george and jeb and the entire washington establishment have been lying to us for 20 years now. >> yeah. i hope you're getting lots of royalties because maybe a lot of people are reading your book. >> no, unfortunately not. >> yeah, that's the -- >> it happens, you know. >> look, it's the reality out there. the republican party is a different party now and it's a much bigger tent and not everybody believes in establishment republican orthodoxy because they see themselves as having been betrayed by establishment republican orthodoxy, which promises everything and delivers nothing. you know, you can only do that for so long.

you can only do that for so long until people wake up and say, hold it, you know, you guys keep telling us this and doing that and we're not going to vote for you anymore and that seems to be what's going on this year. >> that's what the polls are saying, an automated poll taken for the south carolina house republican caucus on sunday afternoon shows donald trump at 33%. >> after the debate. >> ahead of rubio and cruz at 14%, bush at 13, kasich at 10. both polls showing no change from trump's lead in pre debate poll from one america news and also graves marketing where trump led cruz 37 to 23. now, this comes after right to rise super pac told a fox news commentator that their internal polling showed trump and cruz essentially tied at 26 and 24 while the cruz campaign also -- >> yeah, that's just not true. >> another poll just crossed -- >> i've been hearing that for the past couple days, that the polls are tightening and they're not. >> right to rise.

>> and cruz's numbers actually seem to be going down in every public poll that's been taken. >> this is one from virginia, i don't know if you want to take a look, the judy ford wasen center for public policy has trump leading 28% to rubio's 22%, cruz at 19% and everyone else in single digits. >> we also have new national numbers this hour tracking the republican race. donald trump's lead has expanded by 5 points this week. >> the nbc news survey monkey online tracking poll has the businessman at 38%, 20 points ahead of ted cruz who is at 18%, marco rubio is at 14%, ben carson 8, kasich is posting his highest number up 4 points to 7 nationally. more than half of republican voters expect trump to eventually win the nomination. that is up from about 40% after his defeat in iowa. >> so, willie, come on, man. again, the debate equivalent of

shooting somebody on fifth avenue and they are all not only with him but stronger and ted cruz seems -- i mean, if these numbers hold up, i mean -- >> what's going on? >> it seems like he's marching straight through the south towards the nomination. >> that national number, the nbc number doesn't matter much going into south carolina but the one mika showed afterward that shows 56% of republicans now believe trump will win the number nation, that's up 14 points, cruz is down 9 points. that shows you that the country, republicans are starting to come to terms with the fact that this is happening. that donald trump could very well and is likely to be now the nominee if he rolls through south carolina, sweeps through the south, it's game over. >> look at the reality. south carolina, saturday night, trump says what he says, trump picks up in the polls. does better in the polls after the debate. he's going to roll through this thing to the nomination. >> it seems that way. >> well, if these numbers hold up he rolls through the deep south, ted cruz, again, it's

strange to me but ted cruz is the one that seems to have lost a little momentum from that debate. by the way, nevada is next and every internal poll that i know of in nevada and all the campaigns even admit this have donald trump way up in nevada. >> do you think one of the keys to donald trump's strength is he says what he says on saturday night, in the context of the way politics has worked for a millennium, for 20, 30, 40 years politicians say something like that on saturday night then they backtrack on sunday. >> right. >> he doesn't. >> doubles down. >> marco rubio apologized -- here is what's interesting. i would put donald trump's performance on saturday night on par with marco rubio's performance the previous saturday night, but marco rubio's failure was a failure that made him look too weak. >> which he had to even say i messed up. >> too robotic. he was sweating, he looked scared.

donald trump, his weakness was too much strength and it goes back -- you asked do you think -- >> or was it a weakness. look at the polls. >> just stop there. donald trump's strength is strength. the appearance of strength. and it goes back to the bill clinton. for the republican party it goes back to what bill clinton said, it's better to be strong and wrong. >> and you would never guess this to be the case. >> i thought he was going to drop 20 points after that debate. >> but his anger works for him. his anger on tv works for him. everything works for him. >> it does. >> so look at this. -- well, there's donald trump last night in greenville, south carolina, in what's going called his biggest crowd since the campaign began. jeb bush hosted his brother. the 43rd president in south carolina. all framed by donald trump's statements, lines started forming hours before the campaign stop, before ballooning into the biggest event since his launch in miami. in front of 3,000 people in north charleston, george w. bush

made the case for the man he calls his big little brother. he called for tolerance and vision and in direct contrast to donald trump praised his brother for being thoughtful, trustworthy and measured. he also relived the single day that defined his presidency. >> laura and i loved our eight years in washington, but we really don't miss it too much. but here is really what i do miss -- [ applause ] >> thank you, but let me tell you what i miss. i made it pretty clear we're going to defend ourselves after 9/11 and millions volunteered and to be able to salute the brave men and women who wear a uniform was an honor of a lifetime. the highest honor of being president is to be the commander in chief of the greatest force

for freedom ever. so i would look for a candidate who has genuine respect for the united states military, who will support them on the battlefie battlefield -- [ applause ] >> -- who will support them on the battlefield and when they return home. >> seems like americans are yearning for a strong leader. i'd like to remind you and the voters what true strength means. strength means facing challenges and prevailing, it means sacrificing and enduring and emerging a better and bigger person. it means having a set of core principles, beliefs that are true on the campaign trail and will be still true in office. strength is not empty rhetoric, it is not bluster, it is not

theatrics. real strength, strength in core purpose comes from integrity and character and in my experience the strongest person usually isn't the loudest one in the room. >> interesting dynamics. reporters were kept in a pen, they weren't allowed to go in and talk to the audience, large crowd, i don't know exactly what many of them were doing there, they might have been there to see a former president. >> yeah. >> very supportive crowd. did you see any common amounts between george w. and donald trump at least -- personality wise? >> i actually see a big commonality and it's not something the bush family will appreciate, but it's very real. i remember in 2004 driving around and i commented and every time i would see somebody with a w. bumper sticker i would laugh because a w. bumper sticker, people don't remember now, in 2004 was the equivalent of sticking your middle finger up

to the political class, to the editorial pages, to all the smart guys out there, all the smart women out there. gary wheels at the time was saying bush supporters had more in common with al qaeda than with the american tradition. maureen dowd said bush was going to take us back to the dark ages. i remember one time flying on an airplane and having a polite conversation with somebody until about an hour into the flight, she said, and can you believe that some people have voted for george bush twice? i said i did. she literally gasped. i said what did you want me to do, vote for al gore? vote for john kerry? i remember you talking about -- this is politics on the gut level. this is what a lot of smart people don't understand. bush steps up to the microphone and there is a certain -- i won't say it but i will say it's a middle finger to the

establishment. back when he was running against bush. >> and a swagger. >> back when he was running against kerry. people in 2004. we were driving around nantucket, we were looking around and somebody pointed and was like, oh, there's a w. bumper sticker outside the house and somebody in the back seat goes, yeah, that's the help. because nobody else in nantucket would put those on the back of their car. it was -- there's that resentment that bush tapped into in 2004 and 2000 that trump is tapping into now and maybe the bush's can't see that but it's true. >> we talked about the morning after the 2004 election in manhattan people walking around in stunned disbelief as if to say, wait, i think i thought we all agreed this guy was terrible. they couldn't believe george bush had won. donald trump is even a bigger middle finger, he's even farther inside the system and looking back and that's why he's popular. not because he has sound policy prescriptions, i don't think

we've heard those, but because on a gut level people respond to what he's bringing which is you guys have been screwed by the media, political correctness, by everybody in your life and i'm here to change it. still ahead on "morning joe" bernie sanders steals the show in michigan drawing nearly 10,000 people into a town who is population is 20,000. that while hillary clinton sticks around nevada a little longer. could her position there and in south carolina be vulnerable. >> do you see that barking thing? >> i liked it. >> i thought it was very -- >> i liked it. >> and bill clinton comparing bernie sanders' people to tea party members. boy, that's bad. >> you're watching moeng. we will be right back. in new york state, we believe tomorrow starts today. all across the state the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and university partnerships, attracting the talent and companies of tomorrow.

like in utica, where a new kind of workforce is being trained. and in albany, the nanotechnology capital of the world. let us help grow your company's tomorrow, today at business.ny.gov trust safelite. with safelite's exclusive "on my way text" you'll know exactly when we'll be there. giving you more time for what matters most. (team sing) ♪safelite repair, safelite replace.♪

ifor all the wrong reasons.gical you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. because it starts working faster on the first day you take it. try zyrtec®. muddle no more®.

new polling on the democratic sideshows hillary clinton with a 10 point lead nationwide over bernie sanders. our nbc news survey monkey weekly online tracking poll has clinton at 50%, sanders at 40. that comes as a new survey shows clinton up 21 points on sanders in south carolina. in that poll the two were tied among white voters but clinton leads among african-americans 63 to 23. still sanders has narrowed the gap since november when clinton led among black voters by over 70 points and clinton also leads out of a new poll out of virginia, the judy ford wason center has her ahead of sanders 52/40. bernie sanders traveled to michigan yesterday where he drew a crowd of over 9,000 people to east michigan university. it was the first in the state since launching his campaign and comes three weeks before the march 8th primary there.

sanders told the audience he was going to begin his remarks differently than he normally does and they launched into a story about meeting with families affected by the flint water crisis. >> i have four kids, jane and i have four kids and we have seven very beautiful grandchildren. i just talked to a mother who said that she has a kid who was very bright, did schoolwork really, really well and in the last two years here she has seen her child's ability to do schoolwork markedly deteriorate. can you imagine being a mother seeing your own baby's, your own child's intellectual development deteriorate in front of your very eyes? and that is happening -- that is happening all over that city. if the local government cannot protect those children, if the state government cannot protect

those children then the federal government better get in and do the right thing. >> we're talking about safe infrastructure. that's all. senator sanders' remarks came on the same day as the clinton cam pain announced that it will be opening a campaign office in flint and drew endorsements from a number of ministers. hillary clinton canceled events in florida to stay in nevada yesterday and with just four days to go -- >> boy, that's really getting tight. as general boston said yesterday this race may have gotten a lot closer than they ever thought. i thought they were up by 20. >> the "wall street journal" is calling the race there almost a total mystery. yesterday on the trail clinton continued to paint her rival, bernie sanders, as a single-issue candidate. but her most animated rift of the day came during an attack on republicans and their explanation for what caused the great recession. she said it brought to mind a radio ad she heard in arkansas while her husband was running for office.

>> one of my favorite, favorite political ads of all time was a radio ad, rural arkansas, where the announcer said wouldn't it be great if somebody running for office said something we could have an immediate reaction as to whether it was true or not? well, we've trained this dog and the dog if it's not true he's going to bark and then the dog was barking on the radio. and so people were like barking at each other for days after that. i'm trying to figure out how we could do that with the republicans, you know? we need to get that dog and follow -- follow them around and every time they say these things, like, oh, you know, the great recession was caused by too much regulation [ barking ] >> i think we could caught right through a lot of their claims. >> she's funny. >> i saw some -- >> i thought it was funny.

>> that was awesome. >> let's go right now to our politicians as barking. >> that was funny. >> like dogs desk and of course the man who has been holding down that desk for 47 years, he is willie geist. >> been waiting for this story for 47 years. >> give me your best chihuahua. >> you don't want me to bark. it was a pretty human moment. it was good. >> i thought she was funny. i'm not sure about the point she was making but it was really funny -- a funny moment. it was good. >> i love that old arkansas humor. >> let's go to kasie hunt, she is in south carolina. casey, let's go back a couple minutes to some polls we showed there that showed hillary clinton up by about 20 points with a 40-point lead over bernie sanders, he has closed the gap there among african-americans, 40 point lead for hillary clinton among african-american voters. he obviously can't win with that margin. what's the strategy to close that gap in the next few days? >> well, they can't, willie, but

if you look across the map and if you dig into some of the numbers where sanders has done well, yes, you have hillary clinton obviously as we're showing way ahead with african-americans and that is clearly her strategy, she's giving a big speech on race today, but the sanders campaign believes that they can build a coalition that realize less on minority voters than you might think and it's a coalition that realize heavily on white working class voters. you remember those were the people who stuck with her that whole time she was running against president obama in 2008, she dragged the nominating contest out until june smartly because a lot of those voters were with her. if you look into the numbers what happened on primary night in new hampshire, what happened in iowa, those voters a lot of them are with bernie sanders this time around and they feel like if they can get those people plus add in some liberal activists who are also part of the obama coalition and then peel off maybe a few more latino voters than african-american voters, you potentially have a path in a lot of these places

and i think nevada is a good example. if you talk to people on both sides, the clinton campaign and the sanders campaign, they privately say this one is up for grabs and if, in fact, bernie sanders comes out of this with a win, i mean, think about how long hillary clinton will have gone without notching a very clear aggressive victory in this nominating fight. >> coming up on "morning joe" donald trump was supposed to go down in the polls after the south carolina debate performance. that's what everyone thought. our political round table is next with msnbc's steve kornacki and "the washington post's" ann gehren. the future belongs to the fast. and to help you accelerate, we've created a new company... one totally focused on what's next for your business.

the true partnership where people,technology and ideas push everyone forward. accelerating innovation. accelerating transformation. accelerating next. hewlett packard enterprise. (cafeteria noise) ♪ ♪ (flourish spray noise) ♪ ♪ (flourish spray noises) ♪ (school bell) ♪ ♪ (sigh) ♪ (flourish spray noise) ♪ share the joy of real cream... share the joy of real cream... (flourish spray noise) ...with reddi-wip. ♪

watching tvs get sharper, you've had it tough. bigger, smugger. and you? rubbery buttons. enter the x1 voice remote. now when someone says... show me funny movies. watch discovery. record this. voila. remotes, come out from the cushions, you are back. the x1 voice remote is here.

pointed to as a potential supreme court nominee is his sister. now, it's good to be -- stand with your sister, but donald's sister was a bill clinton appointed federal appellate judge who is a radical pro abortion extremist. indeed, she wrote an opinion striking down restrictions on partial birth abortion, saying that restricting partial birth abortion was irrational. >> my sister has nothing do with me, she is at a federal judge at high, high level, court of appeals and she was appointed by ronald reagan, originally appointed by ronald reagan, a highly brilliant woman, known as a great -- you know, as a very brilliant judge. i don't even know what her views are and i don't think she would want to tell me. i said, listen, they want to do

a great story about you, she said i don't want to do stories. she's very much like me in that respect. >> so, mike, what was going on there with ted cruz? >> ted cruz in trying to prove that donald trump is a moderate, a liberal and had been a democrat chose to go after some of donald trump's sister's rulings from the bench, she is a federal district court judge here in manhattan. >> what does that have to do with anything? >> is his dramatic speak ugly. >> clearly they are jumping ugly with one another. >> my brother and sister would to not want my views like cast upon them and i wouldn't want theirs cast upon me. that's just ridiculous. >> you're playing with fire when they're going after donald. you find that out, we have found that out as well. >> joining us on set anne gearan and in columbia, south carolina, msnbc anchor and political correspondent steve kornacki. good to have you both. where do we begin? >> let's go with anne. we're playing a game here called

what's happening? we're trying to figure out what the hell is happening. we saw the debate on saturday night, we thought that trump had melted down to his core and they would be running for the exits, at least in the polls that have come out over the past 24 to 48 hours it doesn't seem that way. >> nor has he backed away the all from his attacks on george w. bush and the bush family. he repeated them and, you know, he went further even yesterday. so he's not april jieszing, he doesn't same he melted down, he doesn't think there are any consequences for t i think what's happened is he has carved out a space he thinks he's going to stick to and none of the other republicans have been able to knock him off that block. >> now, consequences mean he did something wrong, except for tone which i guess we could argue, what was it that he said about george w. bush that was wrong, that was factually incorrect during the debate and during the press conference yesterday? >> well, that's a question of whether it was factually

incorrect it's as to how republicans hear it. he said during the debate that the bush administration lied, that they had -- that they knew better than to invade on the -- iraq on the strength of the evidence they had about wmd. he said they knew it was wrong and they lied about it. that goes to bush's character and the character of those working for him and whether or not they intentionally led the country into that war. that i think is what -- what rubbed a lot of republicans the wrong way in hearing that. they are like, hey, wait a minute, we can say that we didn't think that the iraq war was a great idea, but to say that the president who took us there did so knowingly lying is a different thing. >> right. >> and that i think is where -- if trump was going to back away from anything, that's what he would back away from and he didn't. >> he didn't. steve kornacki, you could say that at a bernie sanders rally and you would fit comfortably in with many people in the crowd. not so usually in a republican

debate and yet you look at some of the numbers we've been seeing over the past 24, 48 hours, not a big bleed off of trump support, even the post cbs debate poll. what are you hearing on the ground? what's your reporting suggesting on the grow under in south carolina? >> yeah, i mean, i'm tempted to say haven't we learned this lesson by now, when donald trump in these debates say something that we are all conditioned to say that's poisonous with the republican party base he doesn't pay a political price for it. the most interesting bit of reporting, this is not from -- i guess this is benji sarlan our reporter there as well, he was at that jeb, george w. bush event and he's going through the crowd finding people who like george w. bush who are there to cheer for george w. bush, who have fond them reese of george w. bush and still say in the same breath but i'm voting for donald trump. it feels like -- this is an untested thing in republican

politics for the last, you know, decade or so, the idea of going back and saying something critical about we shouldn't have gone into iraq, iraq was a bad idea. you had rand paul out there saying, but otherwise the kinds of things donald trump was saying in that debate, those are things we are accustomed to hearing from democrats, but when you have a voice like donald trump stand up and say it, a voice who is trusted now by a big chu u. chunk of the republican electorate, they don't turn on him and say you are a trader to the cause, they may give up george w. bush when it comes to it. >> reporters were very concerned that they were being kept in the pen and not able to talk to voters. one of the reasons -- >> strange. >> -- that was the case obviously had to do with the fact they didn't want people going outside of the pen and hearing exactly what steve kornacki was reporting on, which is we're here, we respect the president but we're going to vote for donald trump. >> you've written about the impact of the iraq war on our politics this year and there are

very few states who have paid a larger price than south carolina with the huge military installations, constant reemployments to iraq, over 15 years of war. so it's donald trump's fast lane in that sense. >> it is and, i mean, in addition to the active military bases it's a huge military retirement state. >> wow. >> so you've got a combination there. >> so you've got veterans, their families, military retirees, people who have witnessed now 15 years of war, which you can't really argue that it all was started under george w. bush and it all has borne out to perhaps be more problematic than it was effective on the world stage in terms of stabilizing things. i feel like, steve kornacki, donald trump has nailed it in bush country. >> well, i mean, it's amazing. we're sitting here, obviously this is the state that saved george w. bush back in # 2000. if there is a heart of the

george w. bush base in the republican party we're in it now. yeah, he's proving -- and we're seen this on issue after issue over the last eight or nine months, there are all these assumptions that the media had, republican party elites had, all these assumptions about what was sacred to republican primary voters and one by one over the last eight or nine months donald trump has systematically blown them up. here we are, we are on to george w. bush, you can't say anything critical of him, you can't say anything critical of iraq, that's been a assumption for a decade and he hay may be proving that wrong. >> once again i hope it's driving up book sales my friend bill goldman wrote a book about hollywood and the title of the book is "nobody knows nothing." >> actually, something that i tweeted out on sunday afternoon when i woke up to the fact that looking at the post cbs poll and some of the other online polls that aren't scientific but just general feeling calling south carolina, that's what i said, nobody knows anything.

it looks like he may survive this. >> all right. we still have to talk about hillary clinton so can you stay? >> absolutely. >> steve kornacki, thank you very much. anne will stay with us. still ahead the stock market has been under pressure for months. could donald trump and bernie sanders have something to do with it? sara eisen joins us for business before the bell. pitch you inve opportunities. i've got a fantastic deal for you- gold! with the right pool of investors, there's a lot of money to be made. but first, investors must ask the right questions and use the smartcheck challenge to make the right decisions. you're not even registered; i'm done with you! i can...i can... savvy investors check their financial pro's background by visiting smartcheck.gov

can a a subconscious. mind? a knack for predicting the future. reflexes faster than the speed of thought. can a business have a spirit? can a business have a soul? can a business be...alive?

donald trump: "pedonald trump..." look past the boasting and you'll see right through him. he supported partial-birth abortions. his phony trump university? accused of fraud. he tried to seize private property to line his own pockets. four bankruptcies... and small businesses screwed over. poll after poll shows him losing... to hillary clinton. if trump wins, conservatives lose. right to rise usa is responsible for the content of this message.

i am benedict arnold, the infamous traitor. and i know a thing or two about trading. so i trade with e*trade, where true traders trade on a trademarked trade platform that has all the... get off the computer traitor! i won't. (cannon sound) let's bring in cnbc's sara eisen. sara, what are you looking at this morning. >> i'm watching the price of oil. what we got overnight was the first coordinated move by a group of major oil producers to actually stop the sliding price of oil. first move we have seen in over a year since the 70% plunge in the price of oil. what happened? saudi arabia, russia, qatar and venezuela got together and agreed to freeze the current level of productions from january. so they didn't agree to a cut which some were expecting which would have gonna little farther, but they did agree to a freeze. the big caveat is that other

major oil producers need to agree as well, that includes iran and iraq, no word if they will be on board. both have been trying to ramp up production, iran because the sanctions have come on and iraq because it's expensive to fight this war against isis. a lot of geopolitical moving parts, but the price of oil is getting a little bit of a boost from this. just this idea that there is finally some diplomacy and these powers are getting together to try to stop the pain from the low prices. also wanted to talk to you about politics and the markets. we know that there has been a lot of doom and gloom on wall street, worries about china and oil and the economy, but also some smart pieces over the weekend like barons and the "wall street journal" suggesting that the political uncertainty in this country has a lot to do with it including the rise of bernie sanders and donald trump at the top of their parties in the primaries on the concern their not the establishment, could rock the boat on wall street and the economy specifically on trade, that 45% tariff on china that donald trump has proposed is

particularly worrisome as a lot of people look at the great depression and they say a lot of it was caused by protection nichl. just one example of some of the policies wall street is worried about. >> thank you very much. up next anne gearan has been covering hillary clinton's campaign from the very beginning. we will ask her some questions, how is the campaign doing, is there going to be a shake up? her latest reporting next on "morning joe." and i didn't get here alone. there were people who listened along the way. people who gave me options. kept me on track. and through it all, my retirement never got left behind. so today, i'm prepared for anything we may want tomorrow to be. every someday needs a plan. let's talk about your old 401(k) today. you can fly across welcome town in minutes16, or across the globe in under an hour. whole communities are living on mars and solar satellites

provide earth with unlimited clean power. in less than a century, boeing took the world from seaplanes to space planes, across the universe and beyond. and if you thought that was amazing, you just wait. ♪ is caring.ng because covering heals faster. to seal out water, dirt and germs, cover with a water block clear bandage from band-aid brand. frodoers don't stop. wake up, every day is a chance to do something great. and for the ones they love, they'd do anything. sears optical has glasses made for doing. right now, buy one pair and get another free. quality eyewear for doers. sears optical.

this bale of hay almost derailed the ranch. when a wildfire raged through elkhorn ranch, the sudden loss of pasture became a serious problem for a family business. faced with horses that needed feeding the owners were forced to place an emergency order of hay. thankfully, mary miller banks with chase for business. and with a complete view of her finances, she could control her cash flow, and keep the ranch running. chase for business. so you can own it.

job all right.

we're back with anne gearan of the washington post. how would you characterize the state of the clinton campaign right now as we approach nevada? >> kind of white knuckle. they have to do well in nevada and in south carolina, which votes a week later and it does not look at this point like she's going to do well in nevada. if she wins there and it is at this point probably about tied, if she wins there it will be another squeaker, maybe not as close as iowa, but a squaker. >> what does a loss mean in nevada? >> a loss means in nevada -- if it was the only one it wouldn't mean a lot, but it will come on top of, you know, less than one percentage point victory in iowa, absolutely -- she absolutely got creamed in new hampshire. >> new hampshire, yeah. >> and nevada is the first test of anything other than white -- the white vote and organizing power. it's a test of union support, it's a test of hispanic support,

it's a test of men things that she will need going forward. in many ways it will show flaws in her organization that weren't revealed by the other two contests if she loses badly. >> mike, what are you hearing about inside the campaign? >> i was going to ask anne because you hear anecdotally that there is beginning to be increasingly bitter infighting within the campaign amongst some of her aids about policy and direction, communications, but have you heard anything from political professionals because i have, like thing the 2008 campaign underpinnings to the similar underpinnings of this campaign wondering how can this happen again? >> well, only -- that's only just beginning to start and it's only been born out of the experience in iowa and new hampshire. up until iowa the political chattering class and those both inside the campaign and close to the campaign were saying exactly the opposite. this campaign was built to not be 2008.

the staffing is different, she brought in all -- basically all new people other than john pedestriane pedestrian he is is that there are not a lot of old time clinton loyalists. the campaign manager robby mook his mantra is no drama. he is an obama style campaign manager. we are not going to fight, we are not going to talk to anybody outside the campaign, there will be no leaks. and he really had held that together certainly pedesta as well up until iowa and new hampshire. now we are beginning to see cracks and fissures and question about how the message and internal design of the campaign has served the candidate. >> time to talk what we learned today. mika. >> i guess i learned nevada was a nail biter. i didn't know. i already know that we didn't know nothing about donald trump. anne, did you learn anything? >> i learned that hillary clinton can do a pretty mean

small dog bark. >> and apparently you say you have a good chihuahua. mike barnicle. >> similarly i learned that there is nothing funnier than ozark humaner. >> it's fantastic. i'm learning what david axelrod tweeted out a couple weeks ago may be the case, if you have the same candidate, two different campaigns, two different staffs and you're running into the same exact problems you need to look at the top, you need to look at the principals and see if they are making the same mistakes they said before new hampshire last time. >> steve kornacki picks up coverage from south carolina after a quick break.

i know how it is. you're all set to book a flight using your airline credit card miles. and surprise! those seats sometimes cost a ridiculous number of miles, making it really hard to book the flight you want. luckily, there's a better way... with the capital one venture card. with venture, you'll earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. and when you're ready to travel, just book the flight you want, on any airline,

then use your miles to cover the cost. now you're getting somewhere. what's in your wallet? go, go, touchdown!, go... ♪ choir and harp music. this place, it's the best-kept secret in football since... hey, how did he get in here?! and with toe nail fungus! fight it! with jublia. jublia is a prescription medicine used to treat toenail fungus. use jublia as instructed by your doctor. now that's prime time. most common side effects include ingrown toenail, application site redness, itching, swelling, burning or stinging, blisters, and pain. you ready to fight it? ask your doctor if jublia is right for you. y'know, i look great in purple.

♪ ♪ for your retirement, you want to celebrate the little things, because they're big to you. and that is why you invest. the best returns aren't just measured in dollars. td ameritrade®.

good morning. i'm steve kornacki. live from columbia, south carolina, the state capital. also the home of the university of south carolina. we are here for msnbc's special coverage of the republican presidential primary here in south carolina and also for the democratic caucuses out in nevada. we are just four days away now from both of those crucial contests and today is another busy day, a frantic day on the campaign trail, as donald trump's war of words escalates with ted cruz and now also with george w. bush on president's day yesterday and for the first time since leaving office the