obama is expected to become the first commander in chief to set foot in cuba since the ball point pen hit the market. it is 5:30 here on the east coast, 2:30 out west. this is "way too early." good morning, everyone. it is thursday, february 18th. i'm alex witt. we start with a potential moment of history in the making. a senior administration official tells nbc news president obama will visit cuba in the coming weeks, as tensions ease and trade reopens. he would become the first sitting president to visit the island nation 90 miles off of florida's south coast since calv calvin coolidge in 1928. the president raul castro met

last april in the first official meeting of the two nations since the u.s. cut diplomatic nations in 1961. president obama said he'd consider traveling to cuba if there was evidence of an improvement in civil liberties. plans for the president's trip could coincide with a trip by a major league baseball team given the island nation's passion for the sport. let's turn to the presidential race and two polls that produced two different results. in our new nbc news/"wall street journal" conducted after saturday's debate, senator ted cruz has pulled ahead of trump, 28% to 26. that's a 15 point swing in cruz's favor since just last month. the poll also shows a drop for trump in the percentage of republican voters who can see themselves supporting him. marco rubio does best in this category at 70% followed by cruz at 65. ben carson at 62. but that comes a as a new national poll from "usa today"

and suffolk university conducted last thursday through this monday shows trump with a healthy 15 point lead over cruz. yesterday in south carolina, both trump and cruz weighed in on the nbc poll that shows them in a virtual tie for first. >> i have never done well in the wall street poll. i think somebody there doesn't like me. i never do well with "the wall street journal" poll. i don't know. they do the small samples. i don't know what it represents. >> nbc and "the wall street journal" announced new national poll. and for the first time in many months, there's a new national front-runner on the republican side. nationally, we're in first place with 28%. [ cheers and applause ] in second place is donald trump with 26%. and then the next closest candidate is way down at 17%. so the sound you're hearing is

the sound of screams coming from washington, d.c. >> well, this as new polls show rather out of south carolina, they show trump with a big lead ahead of saturday's primary. a new monmouth university poll has him ahead of cruz by 16 points. a new bloomberg politics poll has him ahead by 19 and a new poll by the house republican caucus also showing him ahead by 19. digging a little deeper into the numbers from bloomberg, south carolina voters say trump is the most likely candidate to bring about needed change. be the strongest leader. win the general election and take on the washington establishment. and in keeping with the state's late breaking tradition, 43% of south carolina voters say they either have not made up their minds or could still be persuaded to support someone other than their first choice. however, a majority of trump supports and cruz supporters say say not with us, we are locked in. after being threatened with

a lawsuit, ted cruz has a singular message, yeah, bring it on. during a news conference yesterday, cruz read from a cease and desist letter his campaign received from a lawyer for trump and they're demanding that the cruz campaign stop playing the ad you're seeing right here because it shows part of a 1999 "meet the press" interview where trump said at the time he was very pro-choice. cruz insists he'll keep playing it on tv and dared trump to bring on that suit. >> to mr. trump, you have been threatening frivolous lawsuits for your entire adult life. even in the annals of frivolous lawsuits, this takes the cake. so donald, i would encourage you if you want to file a lawsuit, challenging this ad, claiming it is defamation, file the lawsuit. >> as you might expect, trump later responded in the statement saying, cruz is a liar and these

ads and statements made by cruz are clearly desperate moves by a guy who is tanking in the polls. if i want to bring a lawsuit, it would be legitimate, likewise if i want to bring the lawsuit regarding senator cruz being a natural born canadian i'll do so. time will tell, teddy. trump discussed cruz's challenge and talked about his conversion on abortion issues with joe and mika in charleston last night. >> i have had great success in business. i have had great success with lawsuits. i have had great success in things i do. i don't know that we'll have a lawsuit but we want to keep somebody honest. when you make statements like as an example i'm pro-life and he said i'm not pro-life. you can't say that. it's like saying -- >> but your opponents would say though you haven't always been pro-life. >> that's true. ronald reagan likewise. >> when did that change come? >> it changed years ago and what happened is i saw things with people and people that i know and people that i respect that it made me change. and ronald reagan changed.

if you look at -- he said he evolved. he used that expression. ronald reagan actually used to be a fairly liberal democrat and he became a fairly conservative conservative. i mean, fairly. >> but ted cruz says we can't count on donald trump in the future. especially in picking supreme court justices if he's changed in the past. so -- >> what -- >> how do you convince a republican like me if you were nominated you're not going to nominate the type of supreme court justice that seems to flip? >> so if you look at me as a conservative, okay, and i'm not sure that that's necessarily the most important word, but i say i'm a common sense conservative. >> now, joe and mika also asked trump about whether his temperament would hold up as president. >> as a politician, i always had a rule. you couldn't be at war with more than one person at a time. your rule seems to be you have to be at war with at least a dozen people at a time. what happens if you're president of the united states and you

look at barack obama, one of his problems -- biggest problems, people on the hill, democrats and republicans will say, is that he doesn't have friends on the hill. >> he doesn't have friends. >> okay. are you going to have friends on the hill? >> i started out, i was one of 17 people. we're not including the democrats. it was coming at me from every which way. i was very strong and very bold and i hit a lot of people. i knocked out graham and perry and i knocked out a lot of people. walker. >> you're still hammering people. >> i have to. >> but if you knock everybody else out and you're president of the united states, then you have to deal with 535 people that will be hammering you. >> do you have the temperament? >> do you have the temperament to be the president of the united states? >> i think my biggest strength -- >> jeb bush would disagree. lindsey graham would disagree. >> look, jeb is a sad case. okay, it's sad there there you go again! >> donald -- >> our country doesn't win anymore.

you're so worried about being nice and politically correct. would you rather have me be nice to everybody and they're still hammering me? you get out -- >> it's not what i want or what she wants, but the question is do you have the temperament to deal day in and day out with -- >> finger on the button -- >> finger on the button. >> during the debate, i was thinking, should this guy have his finger on the button? >> during the debate i was being hit by announcer, john dickerson. everybody was being sort of cold to go after trump. they were asking your brother was told to do this or this by donald trump. they have to respond. i was being hit by everybody. finger on button. i'm the only one who said don't go into iraq, so don't tell me about finger on the button. >> you'll hear more from trump on "morning joe." the most coveted endorsement has gone to marco rubio. the state's widely popular governor nikki haley threw her

support behind marco rubio, characterizing him as somebody with fight, power and conviction to do the right thing. >> we say that every day is a great day in south carolina. ladies and gentlemen, if we elect marco rubio, every day will be a great day in america. help me welcome the next president of the united states, let's go to the polls on saturday and move that down the way, marco rubio! [ cheers and applause ] >> well, reaction to the endorsement from rubio's rivals ranged from disappointment to defiance. >> she's a good governor. if i won the nomination i'd put her in the cabinet. i'm disappointed she didn't endorse me. >> you know nikki haley gave a speech a couple of weeks ago and she said that we -- we -- yeah.

it's not good. first of all, she's very weak on illegal immigration. very weak. she's very, very weak on illegal immigration. you can't have that. >> now, over on the democratic side a new "usa today"/suffolk university poll of voters nationwide shows hillary clinton ahead of bernie sanders by ten points there. 50% to 40% which is a 17 point swing in senator sander's favor since december. now, the poll shows sanders outperforming clinton in hypothetical head to head match-ups with donald trump and ted cruz beat clinton. john kasich beats sanders by just three. meanwhile, yesterday in chicago clinton continued to hammer away at sanders over his past criticism of president obama. >> my opponent has been quite critical of the president. he's called him weak, disappointing. veep tried to -- even tried to

advocate for somebody to run against him when he ran for re-election in 2012. i have to tell you, anybody who understands how hard it is to make progress, anybody who understands what this president accomplished from getting the economy back on the track, getting the affordable care act passed which covers 18 million people, i don't know. that's pretty impressive to me. and i am unapologetic. i will build on the progress that president obama has made. >> all right. let's turn to business now. "the new york times" reports this morning that the president's top intelligence advisers and lawyers tried to convince apple to play ball in unlocking the iphone belonging to one of the san bernardino attackers syed farook, but apple refused and is facing a federal

court order. steve sedgwick is joining us live from london. even google's ceo joined in the conversation yesterday. >> yeah. good morning to you, alex. very interesting some of the bitter rivals commercially are supporting each or over the encryption issue. you have sundar pichai saying he thought the letter was important and you have the ceo of whatsapp supporting them. and the home delivery service, it will start to launch not exactly nationwide, i'm afraid. areas that are select in san francisco and l.a. will get this offering. they won't have their own distribution centers or own warehouses. they're more of a middle man between the likes of whole foods and costco and the consumer as well. elsewhere, we look at this market which has had a fantastic three days. the s&p still down 6% for the year to date, but the dow logged out the first three day rally. and i'm looking at the future

news. we are called flat to slightly higher on the u.s. markets at the start of trade today. back to you. >> google groceries, got to see it coming. thank you, steve sedgwick. a deadly car bomb in turkey leaves the president there vowing retaliation. and what manny pacquiao says after being cut from nike. that and a check on weather when "way too early" comes back.

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welcome back to "way too early." we're following a developing story out of turkey this morning where the country's leaders are vowing to retaliate after a deadly car bomb attack in the capital city of ankara killed at least 28 people and wounded dozens more. the country's prime minister says the attack which occurred during rush hour nearing military headquarters was carried out by a syrian national

with links to the kurdish rebel group. though that group denies any involvement in the bombing. the man in charge of reviewing cases of sexual misconduct on the main campus of indiana university stands accused this morning of sexual misconduct himself. the investigation comes after a woman accused the associate dean of sexually assaulting her. according to "the new york times" the university will now review 18 prior misconduct cases where kasaries led the hearing. he as denied the claim and he has been placed on administrative leave. no charges have been filed. in los angeles, two officers have been charged with repeatedly sexually assaulting women, most while on duty. james nichols and luis

valenzuela are set to be arraigned today. the alleged attacks sometimes happened in the police cruiser prosecutors say. the women are arrested for drug related offenses and the chief of police called them a disgrace to the department. they have been suspended without pay since 2013. nike terminated the contract with manny pacquiao after he made anti-gay comments on filipino television this week. pacquiao who has been with nike for nearly a decade said people in same-sex relationships are quote, worse than animals. nike released a statement calling those comments quote abhorrent. the fighter apologized on instagram asking for forgiveness from those he offended but cited allegiance to religious believes. >> i'm humbling myself before you and before god for my mistake. thank you and god bless. >> well, let's turn to other headlines out of the sports world. and we begin with hoops in chapel hill, the fifth ranked

tar heels hosting number 20 duke. the tar heels got 20 points from allen and took the lead for three with 1:09 remaining. duke then holds off the unc defense to shock the tar heels with the 74-73 victory. after the game, roy williams took blame for not calling time-out with a chance for the win in the game's final seconds. >> i think you should always attack before the defense gets set. i have always believed that, that's the way we always played. i told the kids i should have called a time-out. heading out to lubbock, texas, the texas tech red raiders could be climbing the ranks after this 65-63 win against third ranked oklahoma last night. the third straight victory over a top 25 team. aaron ross had 17. keenan edwards added 14.

and texas tech comes out on top after a back and forth game that saw 15 lead changes. talk about exciting there. and finally, we have all heard the advice use your head. but what about using your opponent's? in calgary, matt jones scored his ninth goal of the season against the wild last night. but check out this replay, right? . i mean, seriously the shot by jones, that's deflected off a stick, off another defenseman's visor into the net for one of -- i guess you can call it one of the most unconventional goals you will see all season. can i say as we head to weather, colorado last night, they're still -- >> you're still paying attention to that? >> always. >> why not? right? >> yeah. >> you have to, it's in your blood. well, good morning. i think a lot of us are ready for a nice taste of spring. even feel like summer in a few areas. big storm in the west, all the problems are in california with some rain and snow depending on the elevation. rain and snow moving into utah today too.

and the warm air out ahead of this, in oklahoma, arkansas, missouri, in north texas, we have a high fire risk danger. winds are going to be 50 miles per hour at times. temperatures in the upper 70s, low 80s. that's like early summer-like conditions. that's why the fire danger is high in this area. here's the high temperatures. today it will be 86 in amarillo. easily record high. dallas near 80 three days in a row. this warmth going to spread to the north. minneapolis, 51 on friday. your normal high is 30. so this is 20 degrees above average. this sell nino weather. unlike the arctic cold weather like last week. it will head to d.c., new york city, 52. vermont not quite as warm but 43 is not bad by the time we head to the weekend. anyone's travel problems will be in the inner mountain west and east coast looks chilly this morning. especially in the northeast. highs in the 30s.

in the 50s in the weekend, even in the mid-atlantic and northeast. >> what are you calling chilly here? remember last weekend? >> i was in florida last week. so my memory is short than yours. still ahead, no, "the tonight show" was not a rerun. jaylen know return -- jay leno returned and he took a swing at several candidates. "way too early" is right back. four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth--

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welcome back to "way too early." "the tonight show" is continuing their week in los angeles with more surprise guests and gags. last night, fallon got some help on his monologue from the last host who called the west coast home. >> you know what? [ applause ] i think i might have pulled something on that last joke. actually, i'm not sure i can go on. i need someone to tag in. can anyone can tag in? can you help me out? thanks. [ cheers and applause ] >> thank you. this email problem continues to dog hillary, but she says it's just an honest mistake. you notice the only time people in washington are honest is when they make a mistake, why is that? after the big win in new hampshire, hillary's team is trying to dig up dirt on bernie sanders. oh. you know what you call someone who digs up dirt on bernie

sanders? an archaeologist. i watch the debates, trump attacks cruise, bush gets into a fight with trump. remember when the republicans were united against the poor and the minorities? what happened. >> terrific tag team there. well, bill de blasio has beef with jeb bush and apparently it's delicious. met with criticism and mockery, the presidential campaign posted a picture of a handgun engraved with governor jeb bush to twitter. and in response, mayor tweeted this picture. he wrote, we need to be clear that we can respect the constitutional rights and still have a safe nation. it does not come with putting a weapon on a pedestal. that does it for me and "way too early." coming up on "morning joe," joe

and mika's town hall with trump in the heart of downtown charleston. plus, will nikki haley's endorsement of marco rubio help him? and plus john kasich live from across the cooper river. that and more coming up for you on "morning joe." if your family outing is magical for all the wrong reasons. you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® for powerful allergy relief. and zyrtec® is different than claritin®. you may be muddling through allergies.

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[ applause ] all right, come on inside. good morning, everybody, it's thursday, february 18, we are live in beautiful, charleston, south carolina, where it's now just two days to go until voters go to the polls to pick their choice for the republican nominee for president. with us we have msnbc contributor and legendary columnist in mike barnicle. managing editor of bloomberg politics mark halperin. in washington, we have senior political editor and white house correspondent for the huffington post, sam stein. good to have you all. >> well, you know, this is -- i just -- being here really