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fight and have to make sure the banking system doesn't collapse and the american people are pretty sensible. and i think they'll make a sensible choice many the end. >> you're lucky i didn't run last time when romney ran because you would have been a one-term president. >> and there you have it. and we're all laughing. >> good morning, it's wednesday, february 17. >> that was in queens, boom. >> and welcome to "morning joe." >> so i am going to quote shakespeare now. boom! >> oh, gosh, the president is going to endorse hillary clinton, why doesn't he just do it. they had a deal like six years ago. >> and by the way, why would he -- why is he just tiptoeing around the fact? >> the whole exit interview. >> the "60 minutes" exit -- you've been saying for years this has been cooked. >> just do it. >> but why would the president get in the middle of a democratic primary, especially when bernie sanders represents what he represented eight years

ago, why would he go corporate now. >> maybe it makes it awkward. because there's a deal. on this the set, we have mike barnicle -- >> you've seen deals. >> i know a deal when i've seen it. >> so the president apparently knows the art of a deal. >> that's one of the art of the deal he knows. former democratic congressman harold ford, jr., is with us. pulitzer prize winning historian jon meacham and in columbia, south carolina, managing editor of bloomberg politics john heilemann. >> thank god you added south carolina to that one for john heilemann. >> right. exactly. you never want just columbia. >> he's usually not the right state of mind. >> so tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern, joe and i -- joe, that's me, and kmmika is here. we'll be sitting down with donald trump for an exclusive town hall event in charleston, south carolina. >> you can go by yourself if you want. >> just three days, mika. just three days.

>> that's what makes this interesting. we're down to the wire here with the historic south carolina showdown and donald trump is going to answer any questions, all questions from us and south carolina voters. that's tonight at 8:00. if you have a question for mr. trump, tweet us using the hashtag "trumpsctownhall. ". >> what's the question you'd like to know? >> i want to know the three people he'll surround himself with foreign policy. >> write that down, that's good. this is a really good day -- i'm serious about this -- to have jon meacham here. >> it is. because he's going to talk about chai shays' rebellion again. >> it stuck with you. >> we are about to show a set of polls -- >> can't get it out of my mind. >> -- and there are going to be a lot of friends that are going to want perspective and i'm dead serious. i have had some very kind notes

from some very earnest friends who do not understand what's happening with their country right now. and after we read these polls, they are going to get the lighter fluid, douse a little bit of in the their hair and set fire to it. >> things could change. >> so we have you here to calm the waters. >> put the fire out, calm the waters. >> that's one way to do it. >> talk about the crimean war and its impact on nevada. go ahead. >> the latest south carolina poll shows this. the new poll from american research group -- >> franco prussian -- >> no franco prussian. trump at 33%, 17 points ahead of marco rubio, ted cruz, and john kasich tie at 14%. with jeb bush at 9%. and ben carson at 3%. the south carolina house republican survey has trump up 18 points ahead of his nearest competitor. trump is at 34% while ted cruz takes 16%, closely followed by

marco rubio and jeb bush, both at 15. the cnn/orc poll taken from last week through monday shows trump at 38%, cruz at 22%, rubio at 14%, and jeb bush -- >> what's the date on that poll again, mika? >> 14. >> so the south carolina poll, actually, was last week, and the cnn poll was four days, i think, last week and two days post-debate. >> last week through monday. >> these other polls are post-debate. >> yeah, so interviews conducted before saturday's debate had trump at 40% which fell to 31% who said they supported him after. trump holds a commanding lead with evangelicals. nearly 20 points. in a state where 80% of the voters identified as protestant in 2012, but with three days to go, just 49% of those polled say their minds are made up. >> so let's go to an international poll of the republican race. the quinnipiac poll showing donald trump rebounding from a dip to its highest level yet.

he's at 39%. 20 points ahead of marco rubio. ted cruz dropping four points to third at 18% after trailing trump by nine points in the same poll taken after iowa. the three other candidates in single digits. kasich at six, bush and carson at four. the polls show republicans are most favorable towards marco rubio as a positive, 47 compared to cruz, 39%. but rubio supporters are the weakest of the top three candidates with only a third saying they are definitely supporting him while cruz and trump have firm support from six in ten of their backers. >> the poll also finds republicans are most confident in trump's chance of winning the general election. 77% say he has a good chance of defeating the democrat where only about 60% say that about rubio and cruz. that's very interesting. >> that is. >> and the reuters tracking poll also shows trump towering over the competition, 41% to cruz at 17%, carson at 12%, rubio 10%. >> so john heilemann, much did i

just hear before jon meacham puts out fire in people's hair. let's start right now, though, with first of all we've been asking what can stop donald trump. if i could, i don't know, put together something that could stop donald trump, it would look a hell of a lot like what happened on saturday night. i would say make it sound like you're not sure about planned parenthood. make it sound like -- you know, you're launching conspiracy theories about george w. bush and 9/11. make it sound like a lot of the things that happen the other night. the only thing that's happened is he solidified his lead and now seems to be in a stronger position than ever before. what's going on down there and what in the world are other campaigns trying to do to stop this freight train? >> well, look, joe, i think that the first thing you can say

about the debate on saturday night and the aftermath of it is that it most vividly and dramatically underscored the thing that some of us have been saying about donald trump for months now, which is that donald trump is not going to bring donald trump down in south carolina or any place else. he seems to be immune to all the kinds of mistakes and self-conflagrations that other candidates get into and that destroy them. somebody, one of these other republicans, is going to have to climb up and not just knock donald trump down off his horse but emerge as a stronger alternative and that's what's been lacking so far. but trump won't self-imlate. that won't happen and what we're seeing down here right now, very quickly after the con tremendous tempts, cruz has shifted his focus with mostly arguing with marco rubio again and trump after a day in which it looked like he was in real trouble to a lot of people's eyes, now

yesterday he was basically wandering around south carolina pretty much unmolested and you have cruz and rubio beating each other up going back to the old dynamic where no one is taking trump on anymore and he is just as strong as ever. i can't tell you what will stop him. i can't come up with a good answer and neither can these republican campaigns at this point. >> well, nobody can. by the way, we have breaking news, cnn just released a poll that has hillary tied in nevada with bernie sanders: 48%/47% and that race we'll get that and get the information there. that race just as john rolston predicted the other day, is too tight to call. really quickly, explain this trump phenomenon. it looks like he's solidifying his lead. andrew jackson, you wrote in news week that he was remembered as a mindless populist if anything else but you, of course, would make the argument, would you not, that this is not shocking, this is not the first

time this has happened, that actually that began with andrew jackson and the virginia white landowners were just as shocked by jackson's rise and his supporters trashing the white house during his inauguration as many people in the republican are shocked by donald trump. >> right. in the 1820s, 1790s, too, people were exhausted by the conventions of politics. and i think that's what's happening here. the reason to go to john's point that trump seems indestructible is the rules don't apply because the ordinary conventions of politics have fallen away. people feel that the conventional politics have not delivered what they had promised. this is the ultimate expression of american populism and people don't care what the ordinary power centers of politics have to say. >> you set up what happened yesterday perfectly. in california, the president expressed his dismay at the

republican side of the white house race. after a summit with southeast asian nations he singled out the front-runner donald trump. >> i continue to believe mr. trump will not be president and the reason is because i have a lot of faith in the american people and i think they recognize that being president is a serious job. it's not hosting a talk show or a reality show. it's not promotion. it's not marketing. it's hard. and a lot of people count on us getting it right. it's not a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day and sometimes it requires you making hard decisions even when people don't like it. and doing things that are unpopular and standing up for people who are vulnerable but don't have some powerful

political constituency. >> so we have news now that donald trump is reigning in nevada as well? >> 45-19 in the cnn poll. >> with the president's words in mind at a rally yesterday with about 1,500 people in south carolina, donald trump put the focus on people, beginning with the daughter of a woman whose mart gaj he helped pay off as well as two men who helped remove a protester who put two middle fingers in the air. trump called the men up to the stage to say a few words and here's what happened. >> do not let them intimidate you. [ cheers and applause ] you back this man right here to the hilt. they will say anything, they will do anything to keep in power okay? we don't need what we've got in there now. i'm talking republicans and

democrats, he's right. we need to get some fresh bunch up there. some fresh blood, some fresh thinking, okay? and my man donald trump, i tell you, what i ain't gonna lie to, you donald. when you first got into this, i ain't gonna lie, i said i don't know, donald trump. you the best we got by far. >> i got two tours in iraq, i'm a county deputy. [ cheers and applause ] if it wasn't for mr. trump right here i don't think any of us would have the voice that we have. this is the only man that's going to really bring america back. he understands what it means for me and my people out here who have been to war. please, everything you talk about, mr. trump, i can promise you right now, my department, the departments around me, we need you. >> mike barnicle?

>> well, you know -- >> there's your focus group. two random people pulled out of the crowd. >> pulled out of the crowd, jon meacham and i were talking earlier not only about the trump phenomenon but this is pretty much going to be the end of the jeb bush campaign in south carolina. after investing everything he's invested to be confronted with this unstoppable machine that is the trump campaign. it's literally unstoppable. i've never, ever, encountered anything like it in my life covering politics, writing about politics. i've never heard of anything like it. it's all-consuming with the crowds that gather in front of him. he can literally, as he indicated a couple weeks ago, shoot someone on fifth avenue and he can get away with it. >> he did the debate equivalent of that on saturday night. he really did. >> and his numbers go up. >> he proved his point. >> listen, i don't think they were polling when andrew jackson was on the stump, but this is

just -- can you think of anything comparable to this, what's going on? >> no, not really. it's a nationalist movement, populist movement that is incredibly effective at channeling -- what that man said there, this is the man who will give us voice. that's a fundamental transaction in populist politics. >> totally. >> the country's been taken away and there's an apostle, a vessels, a means by which the country can be taken back. >> and on the democratic side it is bernie sanders. >> absolutely. >> undermaes estimated again. >> people want their country back. you have democrats like amy klobuchar saying "we need to take our country back." from whom? right? and you have other democrats saying the same thing. harold, i want to go back to the president talking and wringing his hands about this. i'll just say, for me and you

may disagree with me and i'm sure a lot of people watching will disagree with me, if somebody asked me what the defining moment of donald trump's campaign was and his rise to this position was, i would go back to the president's tepid, weak response to paris. paris was this campaign's defining moment on the republican side and the weaker republicans -- i'm just saying republicans -- the weaker republicans saw barack obama the more they invested in donald trump and strength. after paris, after san bernardino, after mortgage defaults, all they want is strength and barack obama can wring his hands, but in my mind he has contribute is issd as mu anybody as the donald trump phenomenon.

>> i think there's a lot of truth to that. after paris and you mentioned the last seven or eight years, things that have happened to the country, listening to those gentlemen, they're speaking from eight, nine, ten years of frustration. i share the view of -- of both michael and jon about the rise of trump. i was curious to watch -- barack obama is a very smart political being and political athlete. i think his comments last night don't hurt donald trump. in a lot of ways what he said yesterday at the asian-pacific conference that trump would not be elected, that people would be more sense to believe do that, he probably should have just not said anything. >> nothing. >> i think it emboldens and increases the level of support you saw from those two gentlemen there in south carolina and democrats and republicans alike. what donald trump has done, whether he wins or loses here, and i happen to think he's in a much, much better position to win than he was three months ago, six months ago, both bernie and him have fundamentally changed politics and fundamentally changed the way the democrat and republican parties will operate nationally

for some time. we say that every four years but these two have tapped a vein and have said the democrats who identify as democrat, even republicans, to the party, you have to think differently about how you approach policy and think differently about how you approach politics. mrs. clinton has to understand that as well as the establishment in the republican part yeench party. >> show those crowds we just showed. this is going to horrify people, but going through the crowds, i made no secret that bobby kennedy is one of my political heroes, i looked at the crowds like those around kennedy especially when he was in california, those extraordinary pictures and i said who gets those type of crowds? again, i'm going to horrify a lot of people -- >> i know what you're going to say. >> i'm reminded of those bobby kennedy pictures from '68. >> there's a great -- he has a

bobby kennedy moment where kennedy's campaigning in that period where they -- the young women in the crowd who were so excited they used to call them jumpers. just as this moment where kennedy is in campaigning in upstate new york for a congressman and the congressman watches him perform and says "man, that was electric." and the character of bobby says "it's not electric, it's sexual." it's this elemental force. and you know, it's a remarkable moment because everything we've been taught to expect out of the political process out of the primary process out of the way the media vets candidates is out the window and -- >> there is no vetting, there is no media vetting anymore. there is no political party vetting anymore. there's no editorial board vetting anymore. >> i think there is i just think the country to john's point are

exhaust bid these conventions. i think what you've said has happened. i think the press has given light to more controversial things he said but it hasn't affected him. >> the "new york times" -- let's take iraq and 9/11. the "new york times" could do a ticktock where donald trump in 2000 accused saddam hussein of having weapons of mass destruction. they could then go back and find that they couldn't find any evidence of him being against the iraq war. they could get statement he is made a few days after the war began but one that would appear that he supported it, one that would appear he opposed it. they could write a 5,000 word story, donald trump could do a 60-second instagram post and it would wipe away -- >> when he said he saw muslims celebrating across the river and no press outlet said they could

find it yet he stood by it and, frankly, was not challenged or hurt by it. >> it has happened. what you described has happened. the "new york times" has had a major piece, began, jumped inside of donald trump's business businesses doing business with the mob. he said "you have to do business on all sorts of people." done, it was done. >> you could also say bernie sanders get crowd like that. people desperate to have a signature on a hat pouring over each other. the one way to have hillary clinton get those crowds is to have elizabeth warren on her side. the only problem is she'd be overshadowed. >> the problem is the longer -- if she had listened to you two months ago it would have made a difference. bernie sanders now as we've seen by the nevada poll is picking up

such steam at some point elizabeth warren is going to want to be sanders's vice president. this is getting out of control quickly for the clinton campaign. this is a state that hillary clinton led by 20 points, 30 points just a month or two ago and they were ignoring nevada. >> i hope hillary clinton is holding out for every commitment she wants from the next president of the united states -- i remember you saying a few months ago when you saw bernie sanders' crowds that this could be elizabeth warren's crowd. that's the only other person on the landscape who might get those crowds. it's not on the democratic side anyone else. >> we were talking about the new cnn/orc poll on the democratic side. on the republican side it's just as astounding. it's outsider, outsider, outsider. trump/sanders, trump/sanders. >> he doubles the field among

nevada voters at 45%. rubio is back at 19%, cruz at 17%. carson well back at 7%. the nevada republican caucuses are next tuesday. >> let's stop right there and keep that up. john heilemann, all we have to do the understand the state of this race is look at the person at the top of the nevada poll and the person at the bottom of the nevada poll, jeb bush. in any other year, jeb bush would be at 45% and others would be at 1%. in this nevada poll, donald trump is at 45% and jeb bush is at 1%. when he had all the money, all the expectations, all the party support and, dare i say, all the talent and the wisdom. the conventional -- everything conventionally you would need to be the next president of the united states, jeb bush had. and he's at 1% and donald trump is at 45%. >> yeah, i mean that's a

striking poll, joe, and the point you're making, i think, is on the money. i'd go back to the very first poll you showed from south carolina and say the same thing. the idea that jeb bush in south carolina in that first poll you showed post-debate here is in fifth place behind not just donald trump, ted cruz, marco rubio, but also john kasich. here in south carolina after bringing his brother, george w. bush, in for a big heralded event that i was at on monday, this is supposed to be bush country and yet instead in south carolina this is turning out to be maybe the starkest example of all of bush fatigue. jeb bush is in fifth place in south carolina, there is nowhere jeb bush is going to be in first place. and his failure thus far -- i mean, no one wants to count anybody out before they leave the race -- but his failure before he leave this is campaign is partly about jeb bush, partly about bush fatigue but it's also about these bigger things that

happen in the republican party that we've been talking about all morning. it's not just to say this isn't a hospitable climate for jeb bush, but this is the most inhospitable terrain possible for his kind of politics. >> no doubt. and mika we thought that actually jeb bush had a great debate the other night. i thought that was jeb's best debate. i knew the next day when cbs had the polls out that had him at 5% i was thinking the guy can't do anything. the guy can't do anything to connect in 2016, this is the about the clintons, this is about the party establishment. >> i don't think it's just donald trump who's been underestimated. when you look at the administrations back to george w. bush, the iraq war, people have been underestimated. how smart they are. i think bringing his brother to

town, jeb bush needed to look at this entire campaign as opposite day, whatever you think you should do, you should do the opposite, because bringing his brother to town just reminded everybody of exactly what donald trump is nailing even as a rain, is he went there. it is's unthinkable but it's happened. >> south carolina, as we said for a long time, iowa is his home turf, new hampshire was trump's, south carolina should have been bush's. no more. >> not on opposite day. >> one way of thinking about this is two american political figures made the same point this week, that this is a serious job, it's time for serious people. if people have a lot of free time today, look at george w's speech in north charleston and look at what obama said yesterday in the press conference. you have two former presidents of the united states who agree on very little saying the same thing, making the same anti-trump case and and you see the polls. >> along with the booing it only

makes him stronger. still ahead on "morning joe," isis under pressure. reports they are slashing salaries and ending perks like free energy bars for fighters. reverend al sharpton joins us live a day after meeting hillary clinton and after today's show joe and i are headed to charleston, south carolina. tonight we will be hosting an exclusive town hall with donald trump. it airs right here on msnbc at 8:00 eastern time. and starting tomorrow, we'll be reporting live from the market pavilion hotel. if you're in the area, come by early to watch the live show. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. covering

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so we have a confession to make here. jon me a channacham who is sitt our distinguished mitch mcconnell chair this morning suggesting the president is no longer relevant. >> i said two former presidents. i meant the incumbent president. >> that is what we would call a freudian slip. and mika when you have barack

obama wringing his hands, george w. bush wringing his hands and the republican party establishment, the big donors in the crowd, booing donald trump -- >> and bill clinton. >> and bill clinton. this is a perfect storm. donald trump and bernie sanders could not ask for more than when they're gettingatacked by people running this country for the last 30 years and the people angry believe they have run this country into the ground. >> how old is donald trump? >> same age as bill clinton. >> 69. can that you believe? >> so off 69-year-old democrat republican now proud republican and a 74-year-old self-avowed democratic socialist captivating the country. have we ever seen this kind of polar opposite attract this kind of support? i don't remember in the modern era. >> two-part question. a sitting president dising the republican front-runner. >> dissing the front-runner so early in the race.

>> that was almost scary. >> it's unusual for the president to get in the arena this quickly. the in '48 four parties were cracking up. you had henry/wallace on the left, truman and dewey. the difference here is that people who would ordinarily be breaking off for the parties are the front-runners. >> you've been predicting for a long time an end to the 150-year duopoly between the republican party and democratic party. i think we may see that breakup before our eyes right now. so you may end up seeing people more in favor of jeb, the governor's part of the party moving away because the party

itself has been taken over by an outsider. usually outsiders leave, this is a case where outsiders have gone over the insiders. reverend al sharpton is up next a day after he met with hillary clinton. we'll get his impression and her hear declaration in harlem on how she plans to fight racism that in some place is understand constitutionalized. we'll be right back. you both have a perfect driving record.

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♪ 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. hillary clinton gave a

wide-ranging speech on race yesterday in harlem in which she unveiled a $125 billion plan to combat what she called systemic racism in the united states. >> so when i decided to run for president i knew these issues had to be at the heart of my campaign. that's where they've always been, that's where they will always be. but i want to add something else. we democrats have a special obligation. if we're serious about our commitment to the poor, to those who need some help, including african-americans, if we continue to ask black people to vote for us we can not minimize the realities of the lives they lead or take their concerns for granted. [ applause ] we can't just show up at election time and say the right things and think that's enough. we can't start building relationships a few weeks before

a vote. [ cheers and applause ] >> clinton also met with civil rights leaders yesterday in new york, including members of the national urban league, naacp, and the national action network. >> you've got to watch her, she's trying to have us endorse her. i told her only you know and are not telling. >> my lips are sealed. >> clinton's new york city visit came on a day in which bernie sanders campaigned here in south carolina and in georgia. his day ended with a massive rally at historically black morehouse college in atlanta, a prayer breakfast and an event with eric garner's daughter erica at the university of south carolina andrey rend al joins us now. give us your reflections from inside the meeting yesterday. >> i thought it was a good meet ing secretary clinton was very prepared. she was very specific in dealing with a lot of issues that the

civil rights leaders that are out front today, what our concerns were because we're more at what we're going to endorse than who we're going to endorse and she was prepared for that. and then we had our younger leaders in each organization. i brought four in from around the country under 40. so did urban league, so did naacp, she spent an hour with them because a lot of young people, young blacks are no more monolithic than old blacks that have different views. she's met with different groups and they challenge her and they met and i thought it was a very candid meeting and then i attended a speech in harlem. i thought it was one of the best speeches she's given. >> so there's a divide obviously in polling between older americans and younger americans. do you see that divide among civil rights leaders as well? that younger civil rights leaders that met with her may be more skeptical kl of her and may be more -- >> i don't know if it's generational as much as it is where you've got a lot of things that go into it,

insider/outsid insider/outsider, traditional, untraditional. i might have been one of the few older civil rights leaders in the room that didn't support her in '08, that supported barack obama. then you have people older than me, the john lewis generation, remember joe lowry, 20 or 30 years older than me that supported obama. so i think sometimes we're simplistic with the generational divide. >> are you going to be endorsing? >> i don't know. what i'm very concerned about is what are we saying? not the slogans. not what is easy to say. i think we need to hear what we started hearing yesterday from hillary clinton, some substantive things that they're committed to. i think they must earn our votes and i think they played us cheap with just rah rah rah. >> exactly. so hillary clinton is -- i think it's ironic. hillary clinton is saying you need to have been there in the fight for a very long time.

if you look at their economic messages, actually, bernie sanders' economic message has been far more consistent over 30 years than hillary clinton's. >> and just automatically addresses the african-american community. >> and bernie sanders has been opposed to wall street consolidation for 30 years hillary clinton, like joe biden said is new to the party. >> and we're meeting with bernie sanders. sanders has been there 30 years about wall street and about economic populist views but the problem he has to deal with is but where does race factor in. if all the big banks fall, that still doesn't deal with the inequality -- >> that's not the only thing he's talking about. he's talking about the criminal justice system. >> i'm talking about the message joe raised. you still don't deal with the inequality of black to white if you -- >> do you have any doubt that bernie sanders is as committed to civil rights as hillary clinton? >> i don't have any doubts that both of them are committed but

what you must deal with is then who would do the better job and who has the track record to make people believe that. and i think that's what they're going to have to convince voters. >> two quick things. i think it's important to know that black voters care about everything, from foreign policy to infrastructure policy to banks to all of these things. i'm certainly representative of that. the longevity issue, mrs. clinton makes the point she has been there. i've not seen the speech, i think the excerpt was compelling. what points do you and other members of the group that were there yesterday, do you think they will give to how long she's been there on many of these issues and i repeat what i said last week, i don't recall congressman sanders or senator sanders ever being a part of any significant discussions, put aside race, but any discussions about income inequality or race in the congress. how much credit does she get for that? >> i think she gets some credit and i think that where i saw the

tripup in my conversation with sanders -- and, again, we're going to meet with him, is that to say i marched 50 years ago and to say i supported people 30 years ago, well, i've been leading marches for the last 25 years, i wonder where you've been there. you're from new york, so i wonder where you were benson hurst, howard beach, all the way to abner louima to eric garner. i think the question with her is that we had some issues during the clinton years in terms of mass incarceration that she's had to deal with and how long have you had these issues. so i think both of them have to do that personal convincing that we have serious questions. but the platform and commitments we started hearing yesterday we want to hear specific commitments. up next, a cease-fire in syria is in doubt before it even begins. >> do you ever feel like it's hope sfles li hopeless? like there's no reasoning with this group of people or that

group of people and why am i here? why am i not home in bed? >> am i allowed to lie? >> of course, isn't that what politicians do? >> and john kerry goes to hollywood to try to get studio execs to help fight isis' narrative. the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. >> and i have to say apple is fighting a judge's -- a court's request to actually get the phone of the san bernardino terrorists unlocked. and apple's fighting them. that is so outrageous. we'll talk about that next. thank you, rev. 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.

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apple is planning to fight an order to help federal investigators access an iphone that was used by one of the san bernardino shooters. i mean, does anyone -- >> that's outrageous. >> a u.s. magistrate ruled yesterday that apple must provide reasonable assistance to the fbi.

in a message to customers, apple says it cooperated with the fbi investigation but argues the government is asking for something the company does not have and considers too dangerous to create. >> too dangerous? with us now, the president of the council on foreign relations, richard haass. too dangerous? this is outrageous. this is outrageous, richard. >> apple is going to have to find a way that it also looks to be not just, you know, beholden to the world of privacy and libertarianism but it has to be a citizen of the united states and we've got to find that balance between privacy and collective security. it seems they're too much on one side of that. >> it seems by engaging in this excess, playing to the cheap seats in the stands, which they are doing, they are playing to the cheap seats in the stand -- >> they don't need to. >> they are risking a larger backlash that will have the federal government step in and do what dianne feinstein politely asked them to do right after paris, right after san bernardino.

>> they don't want to get in this if god forbid there's another san bernardino or paris and people are using encrypted iphones. the backlash would be tremendous, not just apple but basically this entire industry has to think about how again they balance their political instincts and their devotion to privacy and commercial interests with the fact that we have collect i security interests as a society. it seems the pendulum has gone way too far towards the individual privacy thing. they have to find a much more realistic balance. so, you're right, they will have rules written for them that they won't like. >> maybe they could be invasive like poll their customers, because they have our data anyway, all of these companies, and ask them what their customers think about being able to create something that would allow us to see the phone that was used by the terrorists in paris. i am sure most of the customers, if not all of them, would support it. that's wrong with apple? >> that's what's so outrageous is that all of these high-tech companies -- >> they're invasive. >> they give you lectures about privacy when they are the most invasive people in our lives

ever. whether you talk about apple or google or you name it. they're the most invasive corporations for individual rights of americans and they're reaching you. >> can i e-mail you a receipt in? this e-mail gives me so much information, i'll -- >> walking down the street, a google alert, would lie like to buy the pink socks you're looking at in the window right now? there's a word i can't say on the air. >> i think i'll change phones. i'm going to change phones. >> i swear to god, apple -- if apple puts this -- again, playing to the cheap seats above america's national security, at some point i throw this away. >> get over yourself. >> what apple is doing in a lot of way aids the donald trump argument, it aids the anti-establishment argument. but this is a big, big argument, as richard knows, occurring between government and the high

tech community about what's permissible around privacy, what's not. this issue here, apple, because it's so big and everybody either affiliated or has one of these things, this will have repercussions more than other debates we've seen over the last six to 12 months. >> odds are at some point some terrorists are -- >> no doubt about it -- >> going to do something bad. turns out they will have apple or some other phone and there will be a tremendous backlash. >> what message is apple sending to isis today? what messages are they sending to the next san bernardino shooter? what message are they sending to terrorists across america and the globe? buy apple, they will defend you even after you shoot and kill innocent americans. >> like i said, i think they have the balance wrong, it's unsustainable and if i were running one of these companies, what they need to do is say, look, we understand what you're saying, let's try to meet you halfway. i don't think they can insist on a pendulum that basically says privacy is the only thing that

counts and it's not a responsible position. >> this is post facto. it's -- it's not like they're asking to tap into something ongoing. >> they are dead. they are committed a terrorist act in america and apple is still putting their rights as dead terrorists above the rights of living americans. and law enforcement officers who want to actually stop the next san bernardino attack. >> richard was here to talk about the munich security conference. >> we'll do that coming up. stay with us, if you can, coming up, black cloth hangs on the chair where justice antonin scalia once presided. but as republicans seek to block president obama's upcoming nominee, the president doesn't have much of a defense for when he tried to filibuster samuel alito a decade ago. >> there are times where folks are in the senate and they're thinking, as i just described, primarily about is this going to cause me problems in a primary? is this going to cause me

problems with supporters of mine? and so people take strategic decisions. i understand that. but what is also true is justice alito is on the bench right now. >> that's absolutely stunning that he admitted that. and also one of the most depressing things that i've ever heard from david axelrod is that he wanted to support john roberts but david axelrod told him he could not support john roberts because it would hurt him in a primary. >> we'll dig into that. >> there are dirty hands on both sides. the republicans are shameless on this, shameless for what they said in response to chuck schumer several years ago and the democrats are shameless as well. both sides shameless. >> more of this ahead on "morning joe." y. all across the state the economy is growing, with creative new business incentives, the lowest taxes in decades, and university partnerships,

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coming up at the top of the hour, new polls show a gold rush for donald trump in nevada and the odds are increasingly favoring bernie sanders there as well. we'll bring in mary kissel of the "wall street journal" editorial board along with former vermont governor howard dean. stay with us. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

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marco rubio released a new campaign ad but some of the footage used in the ad is not footage used in america. >> it's morning in america. >> that's vancouver, canada. [ laughter ] that's vancouver. it gets worse. take a look at this. >> it's morning again in america. today more men and women are out of work than ever before. >> no, that's not -- come on, that's oz! that's oz. that's not even a real place. >> wow. who -- >> what the heck? >> john had the best tweet after this. he said "can't anybody --" >> can't they get that right?

>> what's the quote from "a league of their own"? can't anybody play this game? how hard is that. >> welcome back to "morning joe." we have jon meacham, former democratic congressman harold ford, jr., the president of the council on foreign relations richard haass. in columbia, south carolina, managing editor of bloomberg politics john heilemann and joining the conversation -- >> uh-oh. >> i know. >> we had her on the other day she was sending out nasty tweets for the next day. >> i was not! >> whining tweets. >> does this face look nasty? >> member of the "wall street journal" editorial board and host of "opinion journal" on "wall street journal" live, mary kissel. and in washington, former governor of vermont, former chair of the democratic national committee howard dean. >> we have so many great people to talk to. let's dive into the news and let me go ahead and i'll give them the readers' digest condense version of the polls. donald trump -- >> he's winning. >> -- for reasons nobody can explain on this planet is way,

way, way, way , way ahead. >> there you, go and now on the democratic side? >> people feeling the bern. it's getting interesting on both sides. you really are seeing the collapse of the party establishment on the republican side and the democratic side. in numbers out of nevada for bernie sanders and donald trump are stunning. if you want to see where america is -- why don't we do it this way. let's go to nevada. you have a lot of polls in order. let's go to the two nevada polls quickly because these two nevada polls do more to explain the state of the american electorate in 2016 than anybody else. anybody that can explain how this is going to end or can explain why this is happening send them to us. donald trump at 45%. jeb bush at 1%. >> that's about it. >> that tells the story right there. >> hillary clinton was up 20, 25 p 30 points in nevada not too long ago. it's a dead tie now.

john heilemann, this is an electorate that is in protest. we have so many other polls that show donald trump light years ahead. >> here they are. trump winning. >> yeah, trump wins. >> polls that show john heilemann that also republicans think donald trump has the best chance of winning the general election. everything's upside down right now. what are you seeing in south carolina? >> well, you're seeing the state here that is up and the arch establishment state in the republican party, joe, as you know, this state except for 2012 has been the most reliable indicator of who the republican nominee will be. whoever wins south carolina becomes the republican nominee in 2012. that wasn't true because newt gingrich won here by a lot as you will recall. but in this state, the most arch establishment candidate, jeb bush, is right now in fourth or fifth place and still in single digits despite drinking his brother george w. bush in here for a much heralded event on monday. i was at that event. there was a decent crowd there.

they were respectful, they were happy to see george w. bush and if you walked out among them and asked them whether they were for jeb bush, a lot of them said, "no, i'm for donald trump." or "i'm not sure what i'm doing, i might be with marco rubio or ted cruz." >> and donald trump in another poll, american research group, 33%, rubio 16%, cruz 14%, kasich 14%. this in south carolina. jeb at 9% and carson at 3%. howard dean, you rode this wave in the summer of 2003 into early 2004. what's happening on both sides? >> i think it's slightly different than what's happening. i think the establishment in the republican party has been hurting for a long time and in some ways they're a victim of their own rhetoric because now they've got what they've been asking for for all these years, somebody who's really out there, is laying it out like it is and going after everybody and saying politically incorrect things and

that's what they wanted. it looks like they may get it. on the democratic side i think it's the classic battle between the inside candidate, very experienced, been around a long time and the outside candidate, exciting, new ideas and so forth and so on. we've seen this movie before. obviously i think everybody knows i'm for hillary but i think it's a close race, it's an interesting race. i think hillary will win and i think she will win the general election unless mike bloom bergets s is in in which case k donald trump will be president of the united states. >> mary kissel, when i was campaigning in 1994, i would do two things. the rnc would send me their talking points, i would tear them up, throw them away. by fax. that's how old i am. i would read the "wall street journal" editorial page and listen to rush limbaugh while i was driving to my events and that actually brought two worlds together, that brought of sort of more the populist and more

the establishment side together. >> you mean the thinking conservatives and the talk radio folks. >> there were thinkers on both sides, stop being such an elitist. we're on the same team here. it seems there was a great balance there. people like steve, myself, mat salmon, mark sanford, there was populist but conservatives. it's really tilted more to the populist side right now. >> you have to ask what produces a bernie sanders and what produces a donald trump and that is seven years of a 2% economy in the global disorder that we have because of this administration. so that's where it comes from and it's funny to hear howard dean describe bernie sanders, who has been in the senate for three decades, as an outsider. but you have to understand -- >> but you were just at cr critical, the "wall street journal" page was just as critical on george w. bush. when i was writing a book in 2004, one of the first republicans attacking him for spending, the only ally i had

was the "wall street journal" editorial page. you were hammering bush as well. >> you have to understand the context these are emerging in, that's the obama era. that's why they're still in the race. >> but obama emerged in the bush era, too: yes, he did. but look at donald trump. the question in south carolina is, is donald trump expanding his base of support? because really in south carolina you're talking about 30% of the voters. or that a ceiling? and when this field narrows, you're not going to see donald trump leading because you're going to have another candidate. is it because the vote had split -- >> i would have said that a week or two ago but john heilemann, i'm seeing a three person race between trump, rubio and cruz and trump still ahead. i would have said exactly what mary said a couple weeks ago, doesn't look that way anymore. >> yeah, look, i think if trump's ceiling is -- the highest we've seen trump so far is probably about 40%.

at 40% trump will probably lead in most three-way races. the question, is as mary points out, when you get to a two-person race, we have never seen that proposition tested. there's never been a poll that's had trump over 50% and we don't know whether 40% is a hard krieling for him or after winning a bunch more contests, winning here, winning in nevada, maybe doing well on march 1, whether trump's support then will creep over 50% and he'll look like the inevitable nominee in even a one on one race with whoever the establishment candidate turns out to be or a one on one race with ted cruz. >> so let's -- you guys get the nevada republican poll back up in a second. harold ford, let's talk political reality here. i'll upset supporters by saying this and support a lot of my friends but listen, it's not too hard to figure out how this race will become a one-on-one race. you have jeb bush at 1%. jeb can't stay in the race much

longer, if he doesn't do well in south carolina, he'll get out of the race. marco rubio is young, he's got a bright future ahead of him. marco rubio can't afford to lose to donald trump in his home state of florida by 25 points or 15 points. he could go back, be a senator, fight the good fight for scalia's replacement. a lot of people in florida are hoping he will do that. it looks like we may be -- and, of course, a lot of hair is going to fall out of washington republican establishment. we may be heading for a cruz/trump one-on-one showdown. >> if cruz continues to attack rubio and gains traction, coupled with what chris christie was age ble to do to him in tha debate a week or so ago, it will be there. but the question i have for you and mary, if you believe jeb is in trouble -- and i happen to be in that -- does kasich still have a path to end up being one on one? because if it's cruz, talk about

washington insider, they would rather have trump. >> that's a great point. if i'm kasich i wait through the south and i have to wait until i get to the midwest. >> he's betting on the midwestern firewall. the question about kasich is does he have the campaign infrastructure to move through the south. but i go back to the temperament and the policy ideas we talked about last time. these candidates haven't done a good job explaining what trump's policy ideas actually mean to that 30% of the electorate that's supporting him. and i think that's hard to do when there are a lot of guys on the stage, once you get two or three guys on the stage, that becomes easier to do. >> but who might that be? i hear you, i don't necessarily disagree. that theory will be tested if we get there but who might that be? >> the problem is, jon meacham, that you have donald trump talking about planned parenthood in a fairly positive way. you have him actually attacking george w. bush on 9/11 in a way that no republican or democrat in the mainstream has done. that debate on saturday night,

if i could have put together an establishment's dream of what donald trump would say to destroy donald trump, i would have fed him that script. and yet he's stronger today than he's ever been. >> i think the conventions of politics, people are exhausted by them and i think that there's -- you know, he's not a classic conservative. he's not a movement conservative but this is not a moment that's rewarding classic ideological patterns in american politics. who would have thought that senator clinton would be in trouble because she's not progressive enough? i mean, that's going on over there and the trump appeal defies all the ordinary ways we think about these things. they defy -- it defies analogies. it defies our ordinary conception of how nomination races take place. i agree that a cruz/trump fight could give cruz, obviously, more support. but at a certain point, you know, the numbers are the

numbers. >> well, campaigns and certainly analysts are supposed to -- good ones are supposed to be able to get ahead of the game and figure out how to get in front of it. but even the candidate of hope and change, the president yesterday, made some statements that were just quizzical to me and one of them focused on donald trump and kind of played out if you look at them what happened the same day at donald trump's event, played out to show that even he doesn't get the trump appeal. take a look. >> i continue to believe mr. trump will not be president and the reason is because i have a lot of faith in the american people. and i think they recognize that being president is a serious job. it's not hosting a talk show or reality show. it's not promotion or marketing,

it's hard. and a lot of people count on us getting it right. >> do not let them intimidate you. [ cheers and applause ] you back this man right here to the hilt. they will say anything, they will do anything to keep in power, okay? we don't need who we've got in there now. i'm talking republicans and democrats. he's right. we need to get some fresh bunch up there. some fresh blood. some fresh thinking, okay. and my man donald trump, i tell you what, i ain't gonna lie to you, donald, when you first got into this i kind of was a little iffy, i ain't gonna lie. i said i don't know, donald trump. you the best we got by far. >> i got two tours in iraq. i'm a county deputy.

[ cheers and applause ] if it wasn't for mr. trump right here, i don't think any of us would have the voice that we have. this is the only man that's going to really bring america back. he understands what it means for me and my people out here who have been to war. everything you talk about, mr. trump, i can promise you right now, my department, the departments around me, we need you. >> howard dean, can you explain that? the president was talking about what people need and truly addressing the needs of people and hearing them and then we saw people with donald trump going wild and random people being brought out of the audience speaking in a way that really shows the core of the heart of american politics at its best if you can believe it. what's going on? >> i wouldn't say those were random people brought out of the audience most likely. >> okay, sure. >> i suspect -- any campaign is

going to try to make sure it's not anybody out of the audience. >> i'm sure it was a hired actor. >> well, that's happened in other campaigns before. here's the deal. we've been talking about this two-way and the three-way. the hour glass is emptying, march 15 is winner take all. it's possible trump will have such a lead by the 15th of march when all the primaries are winner take all on the republican side that he's going to have won it by then. because you can't catch him in a two-person race if he builds up a big delegate lead. then when florida comes, that's the coup de grace. i think we'll know by march 15 whether trump has a shot and whether he'll win because that's winner take all in florida. if he beats both rubio and jeb in florida they're gone and he's the nominee. >> john heilemann, it's so ironic the republican national committee did everything they could do to try to control the 2016 race. they by setting it up the way they did and the way these primaries are set up, they

couldn't have played into donald trump's hand any better if i had to pick, john heilemann, the states that would be best for trump i would say new hampshire -- i would have said this a year ago. new hampshire, south carolina, the deep south. that's exactly what's lined up. new hampshire is giving him momentum into south carolina which if he wins will give him momentum going into the s.e.c. which will make him unstoppable in florida. game over. >> yeah, well, look, it's perfectly possible. i totally agree with you, joe. one of the things we've seen over multiple cycles in both parties is thatter one whateve the national committees tries to control debates and how the debate process works or the nomination calendar they always end up not recognizing the law of unintended consequences that anything they do will end up to turn out to be the wrong thing that will come back to bite them. in this case i think it's absolutely right. you think about -- you know, trump is strong in places even on march 1, places like massachusetts, you think about states like georgia, his

strength is such that there almost is not a calendar that wouldn't favor him. >> john heilemann, i saw those two polls yesterday. he's light years ahead in massachusetts, like years ahead in georgia and i was looking back trying to figure out a gop candidate that could have lifted those two polls up the same day too show he's a as many points ahead 30, points ahead in those two states. >> right. someone was talking about the kasich path earlier and it's illustrative. the kasich people look at march 1 and say, well, we'll stick to the northern states, we'll compete in massachusetts and vermont and minnesota and hopefully do well enough that it will get us through to michigan the following week. but think about trump's strength in all of those places. trump could win vermont. trump could win massachusetts and minnesota in addition to being strong in the deep south. so it points out how hard it is for any alternative candidate, for any establishment candidate left in the game to find a way to head trump off the pass if he wins here in south carolina and nevada. >> mary kissel, what did you see

when they showed those two? >> i saw trump giving a very positive message to make america great again which actually speaks well of the voters who support him because they don't want to become japan, they don't want to become continental europe. so that's great. what those voters don't understand and what i think the media has done a poor job in explaining and i hope you grill him on this tonight, what does threatening a global trade war mean for those blue-collar guys in south carolina? is that a responsible thing for an american president to threaten? >> but what's happened to those blue-collar guys in south carolina over the past 20 years? how good was nafta and gatt? how good are the free trade deals? >> it's terrific but no one is explaining that. >> for working class guys that used to work in textile mills in south carolina? >> if you had the economic gret, the normal recovery we usually have after the deep recession that obama and bush went through we would be growing at 4%, 5%, 6%, 7% -- >> but the textile factories

were shutting down when george w. bush was there, when bill clinton was there. >> they can't find a job because of our 2% economy, because of the growth of government, because there aren't jobs out there for those guys to go to. growth is the issue here and trump is speaking to that. but, again, i come back to the explanation. the media does not probe him on what the policies mean. they talk about his insults, they talk about, as i said before, bush, chaos candidate, that's not an explanation. >> mary, he's been asked at several debates to explain his policies and he's given answers and he's -- i can't -- i'm not -- >> there's never a follow-up. there's never a follow-up. look, my colleague asked about entitlements in the last debate. >> she did a great job. are you saying the media is not doing a good job. >> she wasn't hosting the debate, there was no opportunity for her to keep going and keep probing him. one on one tonight you guys are going to have an extraordinary opportunity to probe him. >> i'm glad you brought her up. she asked great questions and guess what?

not only donald trump but nobody answered them. >> that's true. >> nobody will ever talk about entitlement reform. nobody does. >> and maybe nobody will in this election. >> so would you like us to get on top of him and put our knees on his chest and shoot him with truth serum? people say why don't you ask -- we ask him the questions and the follow-up questions like with other politicians, i can't get any politician to be honest other than chris christie about entitlement reform and look where he is now. >> nobody will talk about that, they'll talk about terrorism, income inequality and growth. those are the three issues they'll talk about. >> and they'll talk about the munich security conference. boom! richard haass, that's our segue. >> please tell me more. >> so richard, i read your reports out of there about how mesh america's standing among world leaders is lower than it has been in a very long time and that seems to actually reinforce what i said before. barack obama post-paris did more to help donald trump's campaign

than anything else. and you say a lot of people are asking of you "where is america? what's happened to you guys?" that was. >> that was the stunning thing at that gathering of a lot of people from europe, the united states, the middle east. russia on the march, the prime minister of russia talking about a new cold war. europe being overwhelmed by refugees and low economic growth and there was a sense that this is a post-american world when fareed zakaria wrote a book about that, he wrote about the rise of the west, but now it's that we've opted out and people are looking at their futures and they're increasingly -- rather than deferring to the united states, they're saying how do we navigate our way -- >> explain how we've opted out according to world leaders. i've been trying to say this on the air for several years because we've heard the complaints from ambassadors and world leaders who ask where's your president, what's your president doing? does he realize you have to be

engaged in the world or the world goes to held? it sounds like that all came together. you've been hearing it, too. >> it came to a head. in no small part it's the president, the syria red line fiasco, libya the calendar to get out of afghanistan, troops out of iraq. those things have added up to a sense of american retrenchment and not being part of the world. but also congress and the dysfunction of american politics. we can't pass a trade agreement, we've shut down government. so this combination of a washington that doesn't work, they see problems with american society and american foreign policy going through a large phase of retrenchment, leaders get up around the world and say "how can we put our security futures in the hands of these people?" we're seeing a world not simply where power and the rest is distributed through proliferation and the rest, we're also seeing decentralization of decision making so saudis and others -- >> and harold we've been hearing this from gulf state leaders especially but from arab leaders

across the middle east saying, okay, wait, why should we get involved in isis when you guys are going to walk away? you're not even committed. >> this show is a great friend, ambassador from the uae. i read something interesting here. ap says isis is cutting the salaries of its fighters in syria and iraq. on the face of it, it sounds good. if it is, why? >> we're finally going after their ability to sell oil, we've cut down the flows of money. so there's progress there, progress in iraq, progress in syria. but the larger story -- look, the middle east is in the midst of a historic unraveling in part because of what we've done, the 2003 iraq war, what we haven't done, syria and other things, we have contributed to it, they have a lot of responsibility themselves but we're going to face a phase of history where this part of the world will unravel for decades and we'll have to deal with terrorism and other consequences. >> and our good friend jon meacham would be able to describe how there are faint echos of yorktown here.

[ laughter ] for isis because they've taken away sports energy drinks and snickers bar from their fighters. >> they were crossing the delaware to get to the red bull. >> that explains it all. >> richard haass, thank you so much, meacham, no thank you. mary kissel, howard dean, thank you so much, jon heilemann, thank you as well. >> and whether how hard dean admits it, he was riding that wave. i remember bryant park in 2003. >> it was fun. >> it was extraordinary and a political revolution, dare i say, with a small "r,". >> but he's so cynical when it's not -- >> stop that! >> i'm not cynical! >> he thinks actor's donald trump brought to the stage. >> i didn't say they were actors! i said they were pre-screened. >> anything donald trump is pre-screened. >> still ahead on "morning joe" -- they're yelling in my ear. we have to go to break. if you can win over

evangelicals, you can win over south carolina republicans. ted cruz speaks straight to the camera. we can't wait. we'll be right back. >> i can wait. also, tune into msnbc at 8:00. joe and i are hosting an exclusive town hall. >> we have mary's question and harold's question. >> if you have a question, tweet us using the hashtag "trumpsctownhall." and tomorrow morn live from the market pavilion hotel in charleston, if you're in the area, come by, visit us, watch the show live. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back.

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29 past the hour. ted cruz is squarely focusing his campaign on social issues and upping his attack on trump, invoking jesus christ and ronald reagan in a straight-to-camera video. cruz said he will prosecute planned parenthood and he had this to say about trump. >> trump spent most of his adult life prior to this election enthusiastically pro-abortion. even for partial-birth abortion, if you can believe it. now donald trump is the only candidate left in the republican field who won't even pledge to

defund planned parenthood, which is why planned parenthood named donald trump their favorite republican last fall. >> trump responded with this statement. "despite senator ted cruz attempting to smear me and totally lie about my believes and positions on almost all of the issues, i am a conservative person and i believe in conservative values. like ronald reagan, on many issues, i have evolved, i am pro-life and have been for a long time." joining us now from columbia, south carolina, political reporter for the "washington post" and msnbc political analyst robert costa. bob, it seems like he's going after trump using the issues that would be important to south carolina voters, but isn't it opposite day in south carolina? i mean, as it pertains to trump, doesn't everything turn upside down? >> senator cruz has taken the tried-and true path for the c

conservative movement to get that slot but we here in a year of the populist outsider and the ideological litmus test that used to guide conservatives in the past, the same evangelical that used to lift someone like mike huckabee or rick santorum isn't having the same payoff this time around. >> it isn't having the same payoff. this is probably one of the better fields i've seen. i should hand it to jon meacham, mike barnicle. this is a strong republican field of candidates but it doesn't seem like anybody can break through. >> what i want to know is given the nature of the show -- and it is a show, wherever donald trump appears, in the interest of increasing the attention paid to the show, how palpable is the anger between trump and cruz? can you feel it when you here in the hall? >> you can feel it, trump takes things personally, especially

attacks. he's a first-time politician so when he has an ad campaign like that of senator cruz intense him, he internalizes it. you can see his campaign team is not as close as they once were with senator cruz's staff. there is a chance they could reconcile. cruz and trump were closer than most of these rivals months ago but right now you're seeing carson, trump really aligned against cruz saying we'll stay in this race, we'll fight him. and it's getting personal. this attack of a liar is taking it to a degree we have not seen. >> jon meacham? >> robert, is there some sense that -- trump went to liberty university and said there were -- he quoted "two kruntians" and so his familiarity of the vernacular of the evangelical right is perhaps not deep. is there any pushback on that? any sense he's not one of them. >> a deep sense among many evangelicals he is not one of

them. he's a thrice-married billionaire that he isn't particularly a social conservative, he doesn't have that foundation in their world and if there was a test who would be the best evangelical, it's clear that ben carson or ted cruz would pass with flying colors. but when you talk to evangelicals like jerry falwell, jr., like i have, you get the sense that even though trump doesn't meet every one of their litmus tests, he's not one of them in every sense, they like his strength, they have solidarity with him. that's why you see people like sarah palin, an evangelical favorite, endorsing trump. there's a sense he can fight. they think he's a winner and that's what they want more than someone who's a purist. all right, bob costa, stay with us. coming up, president obama picks a fight while vowing to pick the next supreme court justice. that and much more ahead on "morning joe." my school reunion's coming fast. ♪ could be bad. could be a blast. can't find a single thing to wear.

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i should remind everybody that when we began this campaign in iowa we were 50 points behind in the polls and we ended up a virtual tie. [ cheers and applause ] when we began in new hampshire we were 30 points down and we won. [ cheers and applause ] and i am almost embarrassed to tell you how far down we were here in south carolina. like single digits, 70 points

behind. well, you know what? on election day, i think folks here in south carolina are going to wake up the next morning and find a very big surprise. >> exactly what i was thinking. >> mika, this is a man last year who a major broadcast news network, the evening news, devoted 80 minutes to donald trump and 20 seconds to bernie sanders. >> that's according to the report and that's not our network. >> that's the tindal report. you can say it of many networks. we're all talking about donald trump obviously because trump is so dominant right now and it looks like one of the great ironies of this race may be, everybody's been talking about how dysfunctional the republican party is and how bitter that convention fight is going to be. the republicans may wrap this thing up before mid-march. this democratic battle is going

to go on a long time. it could go to the convention. bernie sanders is not going away. >> it's one of the most incredible things i've ever seen and i've never seen somebody so across-the-board universally underestimated. >> donald trump has been known for 35 years, 40 years -- >> i saw that coming. >> he's had best-selling books. >> that's easy. >> everybody is saying, oh, joe and mika, why thhave they been biased towards trump? all we have said is what no one would say, trump is going to stick around. but bernie sanders, he didn't have a prime time show for a decade. he didn't have a best-selling book, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. this sanders thing -- >> is incredible. >> we'll talk about it with our people. up next, with jeb bush's campaign gaining traction and donald trump's rise, big money doesn't mean what it used to in

elections. plus a former partner -- >> somebody is coming. >> a former partner at goldman sachs refers to hillary clinton's speaking fees as her golden handcuffs. >> that's unfortunate. >> we'll be right back. ♪ (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. ♪ in my business i cbailing me out my i.all the time... i'm not the i.t. guy. i'm the desktop support tech supervisor. and my customers knowing right when their packages arrive. introducing real-time delivery notifications. learn more at myusps.com

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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. joining us from washington, senior national correspondent for bloomberg business week john green. senior political columnist in for the "national journal," ron foreigni i fournier. robert doos costa is still with from columbia, south carolina. josh, we'll start with, you golden handcuffs? >> we talked to some rich wall street bankers, one of them an ex goldman sachs partner said they have a nickname for hillary clinton, the fact she's given so many speeches, made so much money, they refer to it as hillary's goldman handcuff which is obviously a reference to golden handcuffs.

i tweeted that yesterday and liberal twitter went wild because it gets at the lurking fear that democratic voters have that maybe clinton is too close to these wall street banks. >> ron fournier, for hillary clinton this has to be a slow motion train wreck, the polls in nevada, she was light years ahead, the clintons didn't they would have to go out there. she's fighting for her political life out there right now. this happened eight years ago. what -- we're trying to figure out why has hillary become worse of a candidate eight years later? what is happening to this campaign? >> well, in part because she's the wrong candidate for these tim times. you've been talking about this the last several months. we live in a time of unprecedented change, technological, economic, demographic, the kind of change we haven't seen since the beginning of the industrial era. like back then, our institutions aren't adapting. so the american public is seeing some of these institutions being

disrupted, the retail industry, the entertainment industry, and they've noticed that politics and government hasn't changed at all. so they're asking, what side of the barricade are you on? bernie sanders on the left and donald trump on the right have positioned themselves, whether it's authentic or not, whether you agree with them or not, on the people's side of the barricade and the people who are supporting them actually share a lot of attributes, a lot of values, they want the country to face inward and not outward, they want their privacy protected from the government and business, they want to track down on corporate welfare and on big banks like goldman sachs. >> and ron fournier, whether it's on the republican side or democratic side -- mike lup a, whether it's the republican side or democratic side, they're running against bush, running against clinton, and as you've said and as i've been saying trump has been running against one person. he's been feeding off of one person.

>> the president poke it had bear yesterday. >> barack obama. >> because i thought this fight got out into the open yesterday because what trump has been is the opposite of what obama's been. the problems of that people have with this president are he's aloof, distant, he was distant after the paris attack, all of this stuff. and now he poke it had bear yesterday and it's on now and, by the way, it's tough for the president to cop an attitude about reality shows when he just did "running wild" with bear grylls and what trump has done is he's gone after him in a way that drew him out into the open yesterday. and he's the opposite. whatever you think of that -- and when the president says "i have faith in the american people." which ones? the ones that aren't voting for trump? are they the only ones making a reasoned on on this election? i don't think so. >> bob costa, if these numbers hold up and trump wins by 20

points, we're not saying he is but, my gosh, the data right now suggests he's running away with this race in south carolina. you could write a book about five days in south carolina, from the debate forward, it's a stunning turn of events where the republican party establishment seems to be getting the same treatment as the democratic party establishment. >> joe, when i talked to some of trump's rival campaigns there's a sense trump will likely win south carolina. they saw in some of their internal poll numbers a dip for trump after the debate but nothing like a collapse. he's still well ahead in their polls and public polling. the big question for these establishment campaigns is can the field be narrowed before the big contest in ohio and florida in march. can it get down to just rubio or cruz versus kasich because until then they're all crowding each other. >> it's funny.

when you look at trump and what the president said yesterday, you don't to agree with a single thing donald trump says, but to simply dismiss him as a reality show star ignores the fact of what this guy has done in business. if you're trump you think wait a minute, what did you do as a junior senator from illinois before you became president that's comparable to building a business empire? >> ron fournier, i've got to say when i heard the president talk yesterday and saw the quotes i actually thought, you started this fire, man. you were marketed like a can of pepsi, you were glorified state senator who got elected to the united states senate and the second you got there you started running for president of the united states, you wrote a couple of books, people were comparing you to abraham lincoln when you hadn't done anything in your political life, nothing to warrant that. except making a politically convenient stand against the iraq war in a district where it was politically convenient and

now he's shocked and stunned that this is where american politics has come? that's like somebody running four years after jfk worried about their hair and people criticizing him. >> well, first, i think this goes back much further than barack obama. like i said, this is part of a historical trend, the world has been changing on us for 30 years and people are starting to realize how much power they have. the irony is, barack obama was a disruptive force. i would argue more positively, but he comes out of the same strand as donald trump. the world is changing and i'm going to help guide you through it. to mike's point, what obama is not realizing is the historical trend we do tend to vote for the opposite of the long-term incumbent. carter was the anti-nixon, reagan was the anti-carter, clinton was the anti bush, bush was the anti-clinton, obama was the anti-bush. trump is the anti-obama. >> they're xing each other out. >> i think obama is being more clever than you guys give him credit for.

here he is going and singling out donald trump on the eve of a big primary that will put all the focus on this fight between trump and obama and republicans are going to see, that's who democrats are afraid of and they're all going to hustle and go vote for donald trump. >> all i can say is -- >> wait. >> -- as chris matthews loves to remind people, jim carter's white house through a celebration after ronald regan won the republican nomination. how did that work out. by the way, the clintons want nothing to do with donald trump. they put out they dropped the president's approval ratings from 51%. as william f. buckley told his son, never debate an amount ate. they don't play by the rules. >> i remember the campaign saying, we would love to run

against trump. it was resounding so much that they had that "saturday night live" episode celebrating we have trump, we have trump. don't celebrate that. >> president clinton yesterday basically looked to compare the sanders movement to the tea party and so you can argue -- he said they've got to get over that hump. >> everybody's got to get over trump. >> they've got a big -- >> larry willmore had the funniest line. hillary's looking at bernie saying, wait a minute, i'm about to get obamaed by an old white guy. that's exactly what's happening. >> i can't help but think that tony's got a break. i keep going back to how this all started, how badly her campaign started because the clinton foundation, because of the money that bled into the e-mails and you've always said everything always goes back to the money and it actually is the money. >> money matters. >> this couple that was worth $100 million that was still

taking half a million from interests that -- foreign interests that had business before the state department, taking a quarter of a million for an hour speech at goldman sachs. just unthinkable and now it's coming -- it's -- as maureen dowd said, the self-pity thing doesn't work because most of the clinton's problems are self-inflicted. >> if the central question americans are asking across the spectrum is what side of the barricade are you on, you've got to be trusted to be able to say, i'm staying with you. that's the problem with the e-mail scandal. it's trust. a large majority of the public don't trust her. when she says, i stand with you, they go, maybe not. >> two things that don't work, the woman card and also i've got the scars to prove it. i think they can put that line to bed. it has been repeated probably hundreds of times on the campaign trail. they're self-inflicted and people aren't buying the victim game. so they're going to have to find

a mess sachbage that resonates stop being defensive, i'm a woman, that's amazing. i'm a victim, isn't that sad, you should vote for me. i am -- oh, i've got a long list of accomplishments. that also doesn't work. you've got to have a message. >> glen fournier has clarified it. mike lupika, appreciate it. josh green, robert acosta, thank you all. still ahead. >> remember when politicians 4e8d ne held news conferences walking back -- >> what i meant to say. >> the no apology approach of the republican front-runners ahead on "morning joe." the future belongs to the fast.

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new numbers out of south carolina leave us again playing the game what, if anything, can stop donald trump? if you think it's getting old, how do you think jeb bush feels? on the democratic side, for a while we didn't know how nevada was looking. this morning we find out. and it's tighter than ever. we'll be right back.

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whoever's standing where i'm standing right now has the nuclear codes with them and can order 21-year-olds into a firefight and have to make sure that the banking system doesn't collapse and the american people are pretty sensible. and i think they'll make a sense in choice in the end. >> you're lucky i didn't run last time when romney ran because you would have been a one-term president. >> welcome to "morning joe." >> i am going to quote shakespeare. boom. >> oh, gosh. the president. >> going to endorse hillary clinton. why doesn't he just do it? i mean, come on, they had a deal like six years ago. >> by the way, why would he -- why is he tiptoeing around the fact. the 60 minutes exit. >> oh, god.

>> you've been saying for years that this is cooked. >> just do it. >> but why would the president get in the middle of a democratic primary, especially when bernie sanders represents what he represented eight years ago? why he would be corporate now. >> anyhow, because there's a deal. with us on set we have msnbc contributor, mike barnacle. >> that's what a deal is for. >> i know a deal when i see it. that's the deal. >> the president apparently knows the art of the deal. that's one of an art of a deal -- former democratic congressman harold ford jr. is with us. >> good morning. >> john meachem and in columbia, south carolina, managing editor of bloomberg politics, john heilman. >> thank god you added south carolina to that one. >> yeah. >> not just from columbia. >> he's usually not in the right state of mind. >> so tonight at 8:00 p.m. eastern -- >> yes.

>> -- joe, that's me, and mika is here, i'm stumping about columbia. a trump town hall event. >> you can go ahead yourself, if you want. >> it's just three days, mika, it's just three days. >> that's what makes this interesting because we're down to the wire with the historic south carolina showdown. donald trump is going to answer any questions, all questions from us and south carolina voters. that's tonight at 8:00. if you have a question for mr. trump tweet us using #trumpsctownhall. >> what's your question you'd like us to take? >> i'd love to know give me three people he's going to surround himself with on foreign policy. >> that's a great one. >> i've got that. >> carl icahn. >> that's good. all right. so this is a really good day, i'm zero yousz about this, to have john meachem here. >> it is. >> yeah, it is. >> he's going to talk about the chaise rebellion again. >> it stuck with you.

>> we are about to show senate polls and there are going to be a lot of people out there, a lot of my friends that are going to want perspective and i'm dead serious on what's going on. i've had some very kind notes from some very earnest friends who do not understand what's happening with our country. >> all right. let's show -- >> after we leave these polls they are going to get the lighter fluid, just douse a little bit of it in their hair and set fire to it. >> things could change. >> so we have you here to calm the waters. >> put the fire out. calm the waters. >> that's one way to do it. >> talk about the crimean war and its impact on nevada. go ahead. >> the latest south carolina poll showed this. the new poll from american research group -- >> franco question. >> oh, god, no franco question. puts trump 33% and marco rubio 16% and ted cruz and john kasich

tie at 14% and jeb bush at 9% and ben carson at 3%. it has trump up 18 points ahead of his nearest competitor. trump is at 34% while ted cruz takes 16% closely followed by marco rubio and jeb bush at 15. the cnn/orc poll from last week through monday shows trump at 38%, cruz at 22%, rubio at 14% and jeb bush again at the -- >> what's the date of the poll again, mika? >> 14th. >> so the south carolina poll actually was last week and the cnn poll was four days last week -- >> last week through monday. >> these other polls are post debate. >> interviews conducted before saturday's debate had trump at 40%, fell to 31% who said they supported him after. trump holds a commanding lead with evangelicals. nearly 20 points in a state where 80% of the voters identified as protestant in

2012, but with three days to go, 49% said their mind is made up. >> the quinnipiac poll showing donald trump rebounding from a dip after iowa to his highest level yet. 39%. this is after trailing trump by 9 points in the same poll taken after iowa. three other candidates in single digits, kasich at 6, bush and carson both at 4%. the republicans are most favorable towards marco rubio, 47%, cruz, 39%. 1/3 of them are saying they are supporting him. >> and the poll also finds that republicans are most confident in trump's chance of winning the general election. 77% say he has a good chance of defeating the democrat where only about 60% say that about rubio and cruz.

that's very interesting. >> that is. >> the reuters tracking poll finally also shows trump towering over the competition 41% to cruz at 17, carson at 12, rubio at 10. so -- >> so john heilman, much to digest before john meachem puts out the fire in people's hair. let's start right now though with, first of all, we've been asking what can stop donald trump. if i could, i don't know, put together something that could stop donald trump, it would look a hell of a lot like what happened on saturday night. i would say make it sound like you're not sure about planned parenthood, make it sound like, you know, you're -- you're launching conspiracy theories about george w. bush and 9/11. ma i can it sound like a lot of the things that happened the other night. the only thing that's happened is he's so lidified his lead an seems to be in a stronger

position than ever before. what's going on down there and what in the world are other campaigns trying to do to stop this freight train? >> well, look, joe, i think that the first thing you can say about the debate on saturday night and the aftermath of it is that it most vividly and dramatically underscored the thing that some of us have been saying about donald trump for months now which is donald trump won't bring donald trump down in south carolina or anyplace else. he seems to be immune to all the kinds of mistakes and self-conflagrations that other candidates get into that destroy them. somebody, one of these other republicans, is going to have to climb up and not just knock donald trump down off his horse but just emerge as a stronger alternative. that's what's been lacking so far. none of the other candidates have caught fire. trump is not going to self-emulate. after the contratalks between

ted cruz and donald trump were very hot in the day after the debate, cruz has shifted his focus and is mostly now arguing with marco rubio again. after a day in which it looked like he was in real trouble to a lot of people's eyes after the debate, yesterday he was wandering around south carolina pretty much unmolested. you have cruz and rubio beating each other up going back to the old dynamic where no one is taking trump on anymore and he is just as strong as ever. i can't stop him. >> cnn just released a poll that actually has hillary tied in nevada with bernie sanders, 48/47 and that race we're going to get all of the information there. that race, just as john ralston predicted the other day, is too tight to call. really quickly, explain this trump phenomenon because it looks like he's really solidifying his lead. andrew jackson, i remember you

wrote in "newsweek" several years ago that he was remembered as a mindless populus if nothing else. you would make the argument that this is not shocking. this is not the first time this happened. this began with andrew jackson and the virginia white landowners were just as shocked by jackson's rise and his supporters trashing the white house during his inauguration as many people in the republican party even are shocked by donald trump? >> right. in the 1820s, 1790s, too, people were exhausted by the conventions of politics. and i think that's what's happening here. trump seems indestructible because the rules don't apply and the ordinary conventions of politics have fallen away. people feel the conventional politics have not delivered what they had promised. this is the ultimate expression of american populism and people don't care what the ordinary power centers of politics have

to say. >> so you've set up what happened yesterday perfectly. in california the president expressed his dismay at the republican side of the white house race after a summit with southeast asian nations. he singled out the front-runner, donald trump. >> i continue to believe mr. trump will not be president, and the reason is because i have a lot of faith in the american people and i think they recognize that being president is a serious job. it's not hosting a talk show or a reality show. it's not promotion. it's not marketing. it's hard. and a lot of people count on us getting it right. it's not a matter of pandering and doing whatever will get you in the news on a given day, and sometimes it requires you making hard decisions even when people

don't like it and doing things that are unpopular and standing up for people who are vulnerable but don't have some powerful political constituency. >> so we have news now that donald trump is reining in nevada as well, is that what you're hearing. >> he's leading 45 to 19 in the cnn poll. >> with the president's words in mind at a rally yesterday with about 1500 people in south carolina donald trump put the focus on people. beginning with the daughter of a woman whose mortgage he helped pay off as well as two men who helped remove a protester who put two middle fingers in the air. trump called the two men up to the stage to say a few words and here's what happened. >> do not let them intimidate you. this man right here can help.

they will say anything to keep them in power. we don't need what we have in there right now. i'm talking republicans, democrats. he's right. we need to get some fresh blood up there, fresh blood, some fresh thinking, okay. my man, donald trump, i'll tell ya what, when you first got into this i kind of was a little iffy, i ain't going to lie. i don't know, donald trump, you the best we got by far. >> i've got two tours in iraq and a bergren county deputy. if it wasn't for mr. trump right here, i don't think any of us would have the voice that we have. this is the only man that's going to bring america back. he understands what it's like for people out here who have been to war. please, everything you talk about, mr. trump, i can promise

you now, my department, the departments around me, we need you. >> powerful. >> well, you know, this -- >> there's your focus group of two random people pulled out of the crowd. >> pulled out of the crowd. john meachem and i were talking earlier not only about the trump phenomenon, but this is pretty much going to be the end of the jeb bush campaign in south carolina after investing everything he invested to be confronted with this unstoppable machine that is the trump campaign. it's literally unstoppable. i have never, ever encountered anything like it in my life covering politics, writing about politics. i've never heard of anything like it. it's all consuming with the crowds that gather in front of him. he can literally as he indicated a couple of weeks ago shoot someone on fifth avenue and he can get away with it. >> he did the debate equivalent of that on saturday night.

>> saturday night. >> he really did. >> his numbers go up. >> he proved his point. >> listen, i don't think they were polling when andrew jackson was on the stump. >> right. >> but this is just -- can you -- can you think of anything comparable to this, what's going on? >> no, not really. it's a nationalist movement, populist movement that is incredibly effective at channelling -- what that man said there, this is the man who will give us voice. that's a fundamental -- that's a fundamental transaction in populus politics. it's been taken away, there's an apostle, a vessel, a means. >> on the democratic side, it is bernie sanders. >> absolutely. >> the same thing. >> underestimated again. >> 11,000, 12,000 people coming out. why? because people want their country back. you have democrats like amy klovichar saying, we need to take our country back. from whom? >> right. right. >> from whom? and you have other democrats

saying the same thing. harold, i want to go back to the president talking and ringing his hands about this. i'll just say, for me, and you may disagree with me, and i'm sure a lot of people watching will disagree with me, if somebody asked me what the defining moment of donald trump's campaign was and his rise to this position was, i would go back to the president's tepid, weak response to paris. paris was this campaign's defining moment on the republican side and the weaker republicans, i'm just saying republicans, the weaker republicans saw barack obama, the more they invested in donald trump and strength. after paris, after san bernardino, after mortgage defaults, all they want is strength and barack obama can ring his hands, but in my mind,

he has contributed as much as anybody to the donald trump phenomenon. >> i guess probably a lot of truth to that. after paris and you mentioned some of the other last seven, eight years, things that have happened to the country, listening to those two gentlemen, they're speaking from eight, nine, ten years of frustration. i'm -- like i share the view of both michael and john about the rise of trump. i was curious to watch barack obama as a very smart political being and political athlete. i think his comments last night don't hurt donald trump. in a lot of ways what he said yesterday at the pacific -- that asian pacific conference that trump would not be elected and people would be more sensible to do that. he probably shouldn't have said anything. >> nothing. >> it emboldens, empowers, increases the level of support from those two gentlemen there in south carolina. democrats and republicans alike. what donald trump has done whether he wins or loses here, i happen to think he's in a much,

much better position than he was three months ago, six months ago. both bernie and him have fundamentally changed politics and fundamentally changed the way the democratic and republican parties will operate nationally for some time. we say that every four years after dean or somebody, but these two have tapped a vein and in ways have identified democrats, republicans to the party. you have to think differently how you approach politics and policy. mrs. clinton has to think about it. >> i want to go back to the crowds quickly. show the crowds we showed. no, where he was shaking hands with people because -- >> look at zblim -- this is going to horrify people when it comes, but him going through the crowds. i've made no secret of it throughout my life, bobby kennedy, one of my political heroes. i always looked at the crowds like those that were around kennedy, especially when he was in california, those extraordinary pictures. i said who gets those type of crowds? again, i'm going to horrify a lot of people.

>> yeah. >> i'm reminded of those bobby kennedy pictures from '68. there's a great -- political fiction but he has a bobby kennedy moment where kennedy is campaigning in that period where they -- the young women in the crowd who were so excited they used to call them jumpers. >> yeah. >> just has this moment where kennedy's campaigning in upstate new york for a congressman and the congressman watches him perform. he says, man, that was electric. and bobby -- the character of bobby said, it's not electric, it's sexual. it's an elemental force. you know, it's -- it's a remarkable moment because everything that we've been taught to expect out of the political process, out of the primary process. out of the way the media vets candidates is out the window. >> there is no vetting anymore.

there is no political party vetting anymore. >> i think there is. i think the country to john's point are exhausted by these conventions. i think a lot of what you've said has actually happened. i think the press have been, you know, questioned and probed donald trump and have made light -- brought big light to some of the more controversial things. it hasn't affected them. >> i'm sorry, i misunderstood what you were saying. >> "the new york times" could -- let's just take, for instance, iraq and 9/11. "the new york times" could do a ticktock where donald trump in 2000 accused saddam hussein of having weapons of mass destruction. this he could then go back and find that they couldn't find any evidence that he said about the iraq war being against the iraq war. they could get a few statements after the war began, one that would appear that he supported it, one that would appear that he opposed it. they could write a 5,000 word

story. donald trump could do a 60 second instagram approach. >> remember what he said when he saw the muslims celebrating. no press outlet said he could find it. he stood by it and frankly was not challenged or heard about it. >> it's happened. what you've described has happened. "new york times" i think within the past couple of months have had a major piece begin on one and jumped inside of donald trump's businesses with the mob, doing business with the mob in new york city. mob affiliated construction companies and trump's response was, yeah, well, you have to do business with all sorts of people. done. >> there you go. >> it was done. >> i don't know how they catch up with him on the democratic side. i would say on the democratic side bernie sanders gets that crowd. the one way hillary clinton could get those crowds is to have elizabeth warren by her side. wouldn't it happen immediately?

only problem is she'd be over shads deed. >> if she had listened to you, let's say, two months ago. >> yeah. >> it would have made a difference. bernie sanders now as we've seen by the nevada poll is picking up such steam at some point elizabeth warren is going to want to be bernie sanders vice president. >> but didn't -- >> this is getting out of control quickly for the clinton campaign. >> look at that. >> this is a -- this is a state that hillary clinton led by 20 points, 30 points just a month or two ago and they were ignoring nevada. >> i hope elizabeth warren is holding out for every commitment she wants from the next president of the united states if the democrat -- i remember you saying a few months ago when you saw bernie sanders crowds that this could be elizabeth warren's crowd. >> zble that's the only other person on the landscape who would get the crowds. >> so we were talking a couple minutes ago about the new cnn/orc poll on the democratic

side. on the republican side it's just as astounding. outsider, outsider, outsiders, trump/sanders. >> he doubles the feels at 45%. rubio is back at 19%, cruz at 17%. carson well back at 7. the nevada republican caucuses are next tuesday. >> let's just stop right there and keep that up. john heilman, all we have to do to understand the state of this race is look at the person at the top of the nevada poll and the perch at the bottom of the nevada poll, jeb bush. in any other year jeb bush would be at 45% and others would be at 1%. in this nevada poll donald trump is at 45% and jeb bush is at 1% when he had all the money, all the expectations, all the party support and dare i say all the talent and the wisdom, the conventional -- everything conventional that you would need

to be the next president of the united states jeb bush had, and he's at 1% and donald trump is at 45%. >> yeah. i mean, that is a striking poll, and the poll you're making is on the money. i'd go back to the very first poll you showed from south carolina and say the same thing. the idea that jeb bush in south carolina in that first poll you showed post debate here is in fifth place behind not just donald trump, ted cruz, marco rubio, but also john kasich. here in south carolina after bringing his brother, george w. bush in, for a big heralded event that i was at on monday, this is supposed to be bush country and yet instead in south carolina this is turning out to be maybe the starkest example of all of bush fatigue. if jeb bush is in fifth place in south carolina there is nowhere where jeb bush is ever going to be in first place. nobody wants to count anyone out

so far but jeb bush's failure is partly abouten busch, bush fatigue and these bigger things that have been happening in the republican party that we've been talking about all morning. not just to say that this is a hospitable climate. this is the most inhospitable terrain possible for his kind of politics. still ahead on "morning joe," why politics means never having to say you're sorry. "the new york times" mark levowich tells us why 2016 has introduced us to an emboldened slate of candidates. tonight -- >> speaking of which. >> -- on msnbc we'll be hosting a town hall with donald trump. tomorrow morning we'll be live with the market pavilion. >> that's in charleston, south carolina. >> it's going to be so nice. you're watching "morning joe." we'll be right back. was engineered...

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still ahead on "morning joe," do politicians like ted cruz feel vulnerable? we'll see how jerry jones explains the idea of faults courage. that's next. stay with us. ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

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the supreme court began memorializing justice scalia yesterday draping his chair and his place in the court's mahogany bench in black. the justices are set to meet in conference for the first time without scalia friday, the same day that his body will lie in repose at the high court. meanwhile, president obama says he intends to do his job and nominate a qualified supreme court candidate in spite of the republican calls to pick his successor. the president said he expects the senate to do its job and consider his nomination to replace justice scalia. >> the constitution is pretty clear about what is supposed to happen now. when there is a vai can say on the supreme court, the president of the supreme court is to

nominate someone. the senate is to consider that nomination. historically this has not been viewed as a question. there's no unwritten law that says that it can only be done on off years. that's not in the constitutional text. i'm amused when i hear people who claim to be strict interpreters of the constitution suddenly reading into it a whole series of provisions that are not there. there is more than enough time for the senate to consider in a thoughtful way the record of a nominee that i present and to make a decision. i intend to nominate in due time a very well qualified candidate. >> the president's comments came as several republicans said

they're open at least to holding hearings. chief among them senator chuck grassley who said he would not rule those hearings out. let's bring in right now the chief national correspondent mark leeb bow vish. he writes in part, for as scrutinized and unprivate as the lives of politicians have become, i would venture that they can get away with much more today than they used to. it's not just trump, all politicians today seem to operate with a greater sense of invulnerability. when you keep shocking people it becomes harder to shock the next time. you lose the capacity for shame and you build up antibodies that eventually give you a sense of immunity. people become lesseesly outraged by the shattering of taboos and a candidate becomes emboldened to go further next time. shamelessness is false courage disguised as refreshing straight talk. barack obama and this year i

would say marco rubio. you have candidates who have a more carefully crafted image publicly. barack obama, i remember people being upset that he wasn't available. with donald trump you have a guy hiding in plain sight. there's hardly a tv show or a radio interviewer that he won't go before. >> it's true. and it does sort of build up, again, a certain immunity and a kind of just level of antibody where you can just keep saying things. i think this has been an extraordinary week for donald trump. if you started saturday or sunday, over the weekend, with the debate, when everyone said, look, timely he's touched the third rail. he's gone to 9/11, he's gone to iraq. >> that's what we said, mark. >> it's unbelievable. you have a president coming down, campaigning against him. a former president, now you have

the current president basically calling him out yesterday and yet the guy keeps surviving. missed in all of this, we are talking about supreme court vacancy. yesterday trump essentially sort of propelled the notion that, you know, maybe antonin scalia was -- you know, maybe he didn't die by natural causes entirely and no one is even talking about that now. that's sort of where he has gone and where the conversation has gone at this point. >> yeah. let me ask you a radio interviewer, i heard a clip of a radio interviewer asking him a question he said he didn't know. i want to ask you about two different candidates. you've got donald trump who can say anything and get away with it. you've got hillary clinton that can't jay walk without "the new york times" writing a 5,000 word essay on what it means to the clinton character. why is that? >> i think -- look, i'm not sure how much these 5,000 word -- we've done plenty of 5,000 word pieces on donald trump that -- >> i guess the question is why

does everything seem to stick to hillary clinton and nothing sticks to donald trump? >> i think, actually, a better example, joe, is actually marco rubio. marco rubio is someone who basically got -- he got whacked pretty seriously after that debate in newman abo hampshire week and a half ago. he got whacked for being scripted. politicians have been doing that for years. i can't name a politician that doesn't do that. rubio has created this perfect disciplined structure around him. he will create a situation where he will get in trouble for doing something like that. donald trump his trademark is being able to say anything and being unscripted and that's his brand in a sense. a lot of it is what kind of apparatus you build up and what you build up. >> it's very interesting, john meachem, ronald regan, his supporters say he gave his same

speech. >> it was pat schroeder who named him the teflon president. marco rubio, things stick because it suits a prevailing narrative. george h.w. bush and the supermarket scandal despite whatever the details of that might have been -- >> right. >> -- he seemed out of touch and so, therefore, it stuck. so to some extent this is a media issue because in the making of a campaign narrative you have to have what we -- another cliche. we have to have these defining moments. rubio has that defining moment. i just think what trump has done and what sanders is doing on the left is turning these rules upside down. >> mark, you know you were

talking briefly about definitions of shame for politicians. it reminds me of daniel patrick moynihan defining deviancy now and then our standards, our definitions, what shocks and shames, never mind candidates but what shocks the american public is now so much less than it was just a fraction of time ago, four, five years ago. >> it's true, and i think, you know, in a way trump has sort of created this power around not apologizing. i mean, that has become his trademark. he's certainly offended a lot of people in this campaign, but i can't remember him apologizing for anything. i think that's part of the appeal. i think that's part of the exhilaration of someone who feels he can get away with things and who, frankly, does get away with things. rubio has created a different set of standards and, you know, maybe hillary clinton has also but, again, you sort of do create this kind of mystique where you can get away with things and others can't.

>> mark, thank you very much. we always like talking to you. >> thanks, guys. still ahead, apple is facing off with the feds. why the company's ceo tim cook is calling the government's request chilling and why most americans possibly think apple's response is chilling. "morning joe" will be right back. 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.

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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®. let's bring in cnbc's sarah eisen. all we can talk here about on the set is apple an apple seemingly to put the privacy concerns of two dead terrorists over the concerns of millions of americans. it's an interesting decision tim cook's made. and a lot of us think it's chilling. >> yeah, well, he posted a letter defending himself and the company's position on his website. basically the story here is that apple is opposing a federal

judge's request ordering it to help investigators unlock an iphone, basically break into an iphone belonging to one of the terrorists behind the san bernardino massacre, sayed farook. tim cook published this letter. i'll read an excerpt saying that the government has, quote, asked for something we simply don't have and consider too dangerous to consider what he is calling a back door to the iphone. cook says we feel we must have to speak up. we haven't taken this lightly. he calls this an overreach. now the background here, joe, is technology companies in the silicon valley and the government have been discussing this issue for a long time. relates to civil liberties and privacy though this specific case could be different because the fbi is specifically requesting that apple provide the information of the pass code. it's a contentious issue. apple is sticking by the decision and previous history

speaking out about privacy to protect the consumers. we'll see. it's pretty much gone viral. there are a lot of people that agree with apple saying it would set a very dangerous precedent when it comes to unlocking security and also opening iphones and ios software up to hackers, foreign governments, who knows. >> all right. >> and that the government could use it again. i will say though on a lighter note, joe, the mood is better on wall street. if we get a better gain the mood is better. >> sarah eisen, thank you so much. greatly appreciate it. maybe that's how they think of silicon valley, that it's not who they think. >> we're talking about multiple homicide investigation here conducted by two terrorists. it's not something that's going to go on the stage at madison square garden where they show how to get into the back door of the apple iphone. they want to encrept it to see who they were in contact with that would perhaps pose a

potential danger. >> talking about protecting consumers, i'm sure there are apple consumers gunned down by the terrorists. yeah, it's a bizarre decision and i think in the end it just causes a backlash in washington, d.c., that that's what silicon valley wants. coming up next, it will change predictions. vo: know you have a dedicated

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robots don't feel fear. they don't feel anything. if they're hungry, they don't sleep. >> i do. i even have dreams. >> human beings have dreams, dogs have dreams, but not you, you are just a machine. an imitation of life. can a robot write a symphony? can a robot turn a canvass into a beautiful master piece? >> can you? >> a scene from the film "irobot." with us now former senior adviser to secretary of state hillary clinton, alec ross. talk about the industries of the future. what are they? >> i think that there are a handful of fields that are going

to go from modest size to tomorrow's trillion dollar industry. tomorrow's trillion dollar industry will be built out of genetic code. the long hoped for commercialization of genomics we're two or three years away from having breakthroughs in cancer and personalized medicines that my kids are going to think make today's medicine look like cave man medicine. >> mike? >> so will this mean that there will be cities, metropolitan areas where these groupings mean new industrialization era, with all of these, new component parts, new industries? who will work in these places? >> that's a really good answer. first of all, you've brought up geographies. much of the prosperity of the last 20 years has flowed through an area that's 30 miles long and 15 miles wide called silicon valley. >> yeah. >> i do think that over the next

10 or 15 years silicon valley will remain strong but we're going to see 10, 12, 15 places around the globe that are similarly wrong. to your question about who's going to work in them, what's interesting is that there actually is a skills gap in the highest growth industries of the future, in the life sciences, in cyber security, in data science, in artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics. so if you're a parent, and i wrote the industries of the future in large part for parents to try to light a little path for them, if you can help guide your children to some of these fields, there are abundant jobs to be had for the next 20 years. >> talk about those jobs. we're in the middle of a prolonged political debate about the nature of the american middle class, about jobs in the u.s. as opposed to globalized. what can american policy makers do to see if enough of those jobs can stay here? >> that's a really important question. i would focus in on two things and it's not sexy stuff. it's not stuff people talk about at the cool kids table.

vocational education and community college. you know, there isn't an ounce of blue blood in this body. i worked as a beer truck driver and mid need janitor. the men i worked alongside with on the midnight shift in west virginia were men who in the past could have worked in a coal mine or in a factory but they were displaced in the last wave of globalization. what we need to do is we need to focus on the very vulnerable parts of the working class and middle class. the millions of people who go through vocational education, the millions of people who go into community college and make sure they're getting very targeted educations that map to where we know growth. >> in what areas? >> in cyber security, for example. i live in baltimore which we all know has long-term problems with crime and with poverty, but around baltimore there are literally thousands, thousands of jobs just in cyber security where you don't even need a college degree, you just need a

certificate from a community college with a basic certification showing you've done 18 months of training and you've got a $70,000 a year job. that's a good middle class job. >> that sounds great. all right. alec, thank you so much. the book is "the industries of the future." alec ross, we greatly appreciate you being here. >> thank you for having me. >> coming up next, what, if anything, did we learn today? 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. ♪

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she asked me did rosa parks not give up her seat for a white man? and i said, yes, and i had to explain to her that it's not really over. this is what mommy is. i'm an activist and the same thing martin luther king was, he fought for her rights, this is the same thing i'm doing in honor of her pop-pop. my dad's name is eric garner. i was able to see my dad die on national tv. they don't know what they took from us. i'm just trying to get the truth out there. he was being a loving, caring man that he was, and he was murdered. for a whole year i've protested. i feel like a representative; because i'm doing this, i'm speaking out, me being his daughter. i'm never giving up. i'm never gonna forget what happened to my dad. our people died for this, martin luther king died for this.

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joe." it's time to talk about what we've learned. first we have an exclusive town hall with donald trump tonight going to be at 8:00 p.m. down in south carolina and, mike, all the polls that came out today suggest that trump is the politician of the hour and looks like he could be moving towards a south carolina win unless something earth shattering happens over the next couple of days. >> that's actually what i've learned today, finally, finally i've learned that donald trump, as he indicated in his own words, could shoot someone on fifth avenue and continue on. >> he did that at the debate the other night. what did you learn? >> watch out in nevada, senator clinton. bernie sanders pulling even with her that they expected not to have to work very hard on. >> i guess that's what i learned today, that as much as we focus on the republican race, it is actually the democratic race that i think could go if not to the convention, late, into the spring and early summer. this one is going to be every

bit as contentious as what happened in 2008. and on the republican side, it could be over in the next couple of weeks. >> who would have been on that? >> nobody. absolutely nobody. >> steve kornacki picks up our coverage from south carolina right now. we will see you there tonight at 8:00 p.m. ♪ ♪ and good wednesday morning to you. i'm steve kornacki live from columbia, south carolina, the soda city. i'm not kidding. that's what they call it down here. my kind of town. also, home of the gamecocks, the university of south carolina and the state capitol. msnbc is live on the ground here. we are just three days away from the pivotal south carolina