miss. we'll see you back here tomorrow, 4:00 p.m. eastern, as voters take to the polls here in mississippi. "mtp daily" starts now. if it's monday, it's the last gasp for any effort to stop donald trump. some say it's too little, too late. it is a nightmare scenario for the republican establishment, setting up a trump/clinton clash for the white house, as she pulls away. but bernie sanders is not going down without a fight. this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. good evening. i'm steve kornacki, in new york. welcome to "mtp daily." on the left, bernie sanders will not go quietly, as a fight over trade and bailouts has ignited the liberal wing of the democratic party. and on the right, the

finger-pointing begins, inside a desperately struggling rubio operation, as ted cruz goes for the jugular. buckle up, everybody. we are in the midst of a primarypalooza that could be make or break for front-runners donald trump and hillary clinton. in just 14 hours now, polls are set to open in michigan. we've also got primaries in mississippi tomorrow for both sides, and republicans holding contests, as well, in idaho, and in hawaii. we have got a lot in the show for you tonight, so let's dive right in. in the smashmouth republican primary, it is looking more and more like a two-man race between donald trump and ted cruz. over the weekend, trump took don te contests in kentucky and in louisiana, while trump won big in maine and kansas. marco rubio notched his second victory, but puerto rico like his earlier victory in minnesota is hardly a republican powerhouse. trump picking up 61 delegates over the weekend, cruz adding 70

to his total. that makes to a very top race at the top. only 87 delegates now separating trump and cruz. meanwhile, rubio, though, falling to a very distant third place. and there is increasing evidence that he is in big trouble in this race. here's why. in louisiana primary, rubio grabbed roughly 20% of the early vote, the vote that was cast before primary day. but among those who actually showed up on saturday to vote in the primary, his support plummeted to less than 10%. the super pac supporting ted cruz is now looking for a knockout blow to take rubio out of this race, once and for all. they're unloading a torrent of new ads, targeting him ahead of next week's florida primary. >> for years, marco rubio has been making it snow for big sugar in washington. >> do you know he skipped 18 defense votes? marco rubio, absent on national defense. >> marco rubio's tax plan will hurt you and your family. >> you co-authored a bill with democrats two years ago that

allowed a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. >> you said an earned pathway was amnesty, yet you've changed your mind here. why? >> keep the promise is responsible for the content of this advertising. >> some and maybe even all of those ads could be hitting the airaways in rubio's home state of florida. and if rubio loses on his home turf next week, his campaign is all but finished. check this out. a new monmouth university poll out of florida "today" shows donald trump still holding on to an eight of point lead over rubio. ted cruz is way back in third place with just 17%. but here is a cache-22 in that race. if cruz knocks rubio out of contention in florida with those ads, the effect could be to pave the way for an easy victory for donald trump in florida. and if donald trump wince florida, that's a winner take all, you get 99 delegates, even if you win by just one vote. if trump wince florida, if he also wins ohio on march 15th, another winner-take-all state,

he is going to have a massive lead in the delegate race. that would make him potentially unstoppable. and at that point, cruz might then get the two-man race that he's looking for, but with that kind of a delegate lead for trump, it might be too late for ted cruz to do anything about it. but out of nowhere today, john kasich suddenly looks like he's surging in michigan. our new nbc news/"wall street journal"/marist poll in the great lakes state that was in the field last week, trump holds a commanding lead in michigan. kasich back in fourth place there. but today, a new monmouth poll in the field through sunday shows kasich now edging up to third place, and just two points behind cruz for second place. and here's the kicker, the monmouth pollsters note that kasich closed that gap even more with trump based on interviews conducted over the weekend. so there are a lot of signs here pointing to john kasich rising in michigan and rising fast. in all of that is just one-half of this wild race. on the democratic side, the drama is building there as well. bernie sanders coming away with

three wins over the weekend. he took nebraska, kansas, and maine. meanwhile, clinton racked up a big victory in louisiana. more importantly, though, despite only winning one of those states, she nonetheless, expanded her dominant delegate lead. she now has 1,100 delegates, that is roughly a 600-delegate lead over sanders. that is including super delegates in hillary clinton's column. she heads into tomorrow's big contest in michigan with a 17-point lead, this according to the latest nbc news/"wall street journal"/marist poll. that new monmouth poll out of michigan today also shows clinton holding a double-digit lead, a little bit smaller, but still a 13-point advantage over bernie sanders for her. but the sanders' campaign thinks this race is tighter than the polls show, at least they have to hope so. and as we saw at a fight last night -- in the debate last night, a fight boiling over at the democratic debate in flint, michigan, with sanders and clinton exchanging serious fire on trade and on guns.

>> we're going to stop this kind of job exporting and we're going to start importing and growing jobs again in our country. >> i am very glad, anderson, that secretary clinton has discovered religion on this issue. but it's a little bit too little. essentially, your position is, there should not be any guns in america. period. >> that is like the nra position. no. >> can i finish, please?! >> talk about corporate greed, the gun manufacturers sell guns to make as much money as they can make. >> but the biggest fireworks came when clinton ripped into sanders on the topic of bailing out the detroit auto industry. >> he was against the auto bailout. i voted to save the auto industry. he voted against the money that ended up saving the auto industry. i think that is a pretty big difference. >> well, i -- if you are talking about the wall street bailout,

where some of your friends destroyed this economy -- >> you know -- >> excuse me! i'm talking. >> let him respond. >> if you're going to talk, tell the whole story, senator sanders. >> let me tell my story, you tell yours. >> i will. >> your story is voting for every disastrous trade agreement and voting for corporate america. >> sanders fired back today while speaking to crowds in kalamazoo, michigan, and then he spoke to reporters in detroit. >> the only problem with her assertion is that it is categorically untrue. on december 11th, 2008, there was one vote. the only vote we had in the senate. whether or not we support the automobile industry, and i, of course, voted yes. but to suggest that when you vote against a bailout of wall street and against the crooks on wall street who have destroyed this economy, to suggest that's voting against the automobile

industry is very disingenuous and factually incorrect. it may be good politics, but it happens to be just incorrect. >> and we also have some breaking news coming in just in the last few minutes. nbc news can now confirm that former new york city mayor michael bloomberg has decided not to run for president in 2016. bloomberg has posted a piece on bloomberg news titled "the risk i will not take" and he writes in this piece, quote, but when i look at the data, it's clear to me that if i entered the race, i could not win. i believe i could win a number of diverse states, but not enough to win the 270 electoral votes necessary to win the presidency. so michael bloomberg writing this afternoon that he will not wage a third-party bid for president in 2016. this is something that bloomberg had flirted with in several recent election cycles, as well. now well into his 70s, this is probably the last time michael bloomberg will walk up to the starting line of a presidential race. again, michael bloomberg saying he will not be a candidate in

2016. that's news just in the last few minutes. joining me now is a supporter of hillary clinton and former michigan governor, jennifer granholm. she is the seminar adviser to the pro-clinton super pac, correct the record. governor, thanks for taking a few minutes. so i want to pick up this exchange we were just playing there over the auto bailout, that's obviously a very important issue where you're sitting right now in detroit. and in your state, bernie sanders is saying that that argument that hillary clinton was making in the debate last night is disingenuous. she was saying he voted against the funds for the bailout, the funds were coming from the t.a.r.p. fund, from the wall street bailout. but when it actually came to the auto bailout itself, bernie sanders was a vociferous proponent, supporter of the auto bailo bailout. doesn't he have a point there that's a little disingenuous? >> no, this is what happened. there was a vote in december of 2008. it was one of the last thing that george bush did, which was to say, let's take some money and give the autos a sort of

bridge loan to the next administration that was a $17 billion vote and he did vote for that. but when it came to the big bailout of the auto industry, not just the bridge loan, that was tied up with the t.a.r.p. money. he was so against wall street that he couldn't bring himself to support the auto industry, even though all of the senators from this region were in favor of it, the president was asking him to bail out the auto industry. and when she said last night, if everybody had voted the way bernie sanders would have voted, we would have lost the auto indust industry, 4 million people gone. this area would have decimated. i know it was a hard vote, because it was mixed up with the t.a.r.p. money, but the bottom line is, he was more anti-wall street than he was pro-auto industry. >> that's a pretty heavy thing to say, that bernie sanders, who was a supporter of the -- excuse me, of the auto bailout, originally, would have let the

auto industry die. he says he simply wanted the mown to be paid for out of the stimulus. the stimulus was something that was being drawn up at the time this vote you're talking about was taken. he said it wasn't right that the money come from the wall street bailout package, that he had major problems with. it should be part of the stimulus instead. >> reporter: well, this is exactly what she meant when she said, when you go, sometimes you have to make difficult calls. this was what was presented. he may not have liked the way it was wrapped, but ultimately, this was the vote that counted. this was when -- when push came to shove, this was the vote that stated you were in favor of the auto industry, even if it was a tough vote. yeah, it was a tough vote. but you know what would have been much tougher if we would have lost the auto industry as a result of people like bernie sanders voting no. >> jennifer granholm, thanks for the time. appreciate it. >> you bet. >> here to respond from the sanders' camp, don regal, a u.s.

senator from michigan and announced his support for bernie sanders just yet. thanks for taking a few minutes. let's stay on this issue. i think you heard what jennifer granholm just said there. she said, senator sanders might not have liked the wall street bailout, but when it came down to it in early 2009 and detroit was depending on getting a cut of that wall street money, bernie sanders was so preoccupied with standing up to wall street, that he would have let detroit be collateral damage. what do you say to that? >> that's complete nonsense. that's political talk and that's what people say in order so sort of confuse people and confuse issues right before a primary election. i was there last night in flint, i grew up in flint and i know exactly what's happened to flint over a period of time by a number of policy actions that have really devastated the community, ending up, of course, with a poisoned water supply. but, you know, the -- bernie, when he cast the vote to protect and defend and permit the auto industry to survive the first

vote that you mentioned, that made it very clear where he was on the issue. and there's no doubt about it. and hillary tried to fuzz it up last night, but putting into a combination bill to bailout wall street, especially -- why were we bailing out wall street? because -- >> but senator regal, i want to get some clarity here. because what governor granholm was just saying there, she said, hey, look, fine, he didn't like the fact that we were bailingout wall street. he was against bailingo ining o street. that bill went nowhere, so bottom line, if you wanted to bail out the auto industry, you had to take a piece of it from t.a.r.p. what do you say to that? >> well, i served in the senate for 18 years and in the house for ten, so i know how these votes go and how they're put together. there was no way the auto industry was going to go down. they married these two to great a ransom to wall street, in order to package it up with the auto industry money. the auto industry money would

have been passed. there's no question about it. and so, when it comes down to paying that kind of a ransom, and to create that situation to bail out wall street, bernie took a stand against it, although he clearly was in favor of the auto industry. but steve, what you need to understand, and what jennifer granholm didn't say and hillary clinton didn't say, is that the deregulation of wall street, earlier in the clinton administration, when they repealed the glass-steagall laws and let wall street run wild, that's what forced the whole financial system to collapse. it had a tremendously damaging impact on the auto industry. that plus nafta, the north american free trade agreement, which was another clinton administration initiative that they shoved down everybody's throat has cost us with mexico in the trade deficit, part of what's devastated flint, michigan, and other places, now nearly $1 trillion. it's over $900 billion. so, when hillary clinton tries

to move the focus to something like a single vote, to confuse the issue, you have to see why it was the auto industry was collapsing in the first place. and that's also part of the story of why flint lost all of its job base, why it's been drinking poisoned water for the last two years. these things are connected. the clinton administration, back in that period of time, planted a couple of big time bombs. and they went off later. one was the nafta time bomb, which was not supposed to create these huge trade deficits, but did, now $1 trillion. and then secondly, the deregulation of wall street, which caused the collapse and helped flatten the auto industry. and that's what needs to be addressed and it needs to be tracked back to how was this chain of events set in motion. then you've got to also put on top of it the iraq war vote, which has cost us at least $2 trillion. and that's also what's held flat in this country, and created a

situation where we haven't had money for infrastructure, whether it's clean water pipes or other things that need to be rebuilt here in america, including job creation. >> all right. don regal, former u.s. senator from michigan and a supporter of bernie sanders, thanks for your time. appreciate it. >> thank you, steve. we'll turn back again to that breaking news. again, this just in the last few minutes, that former new york city mayor michael bloomberg has decided he will not run for president in 2016. joining me now on the phone is howard wolfson, a top bloomberg adviser. howard, thanks for taking a few minutes. just take us through this, if you would, how close did he come to saying, i'll do it, this time? >> close. you know, last year, he began to become increasingly concerned with tenor and tone of the race and particularly concerned both parties were moving towards their extremes and might nominate candidates who were very much out of the mainstream. and he asked those of us who are advising him to take a look at

what a race might entail, and we did. we began that process and did an awful lot of examination to see what it would mean for a third party candidate to run. and what we found is that if the democrats nominated bernie sanders and the republicans nominated donald trump, that there would be a tremendous opportunity for a candidate who was speaking to the center, like mike bloomberg. that was less so, less the case if the democrats nominated hillary clinton. and -- so it sounds like this decision maybe, in part, is a statement of confidence that hillary clinton's going to emerge as the democratic candidate. >> i think, you know, from what i know about the democratic nominating process, which given my experience in '08, is probably more than i care to remember, there is, you know,

every likelihood that hillary clinton is going to be the democratic nominee, and i think it's more than likely that donald trump is the republican nominee. and given that scenario, mike's message was compelling, voters found it compelling, they were attracted to somebody who was a centrist, who was committed to bipartisan government, who had never taken a dime from special interests, who had experience running a large city, who had built a business from scratch. and you know, it's quite likely that mike would have won electoral college votes in a clinton/trump/bloomberg scenario, but not enough to get to 270. >> he -- >> and so he did not want to risk throwing this election into the house of representatives, where it would have gone had no candidate failed to get to 270,

because he was concerned that republicans in the house would have defaulted to trump and did not any that that would be good for the country or good for the world. >> was it on his mind at all, was there a recognition, look, i know he had looked at this back in 2008, is there a recognition on his part, this is it. saying no now is saying no for good? >> well, i haven't had that conversation with him, but certainly there was a recognition about the gravity of the decision. because all of the data that we have shows that his message and his biography were incredibly compelling. but that not compelling enough, given the structural impediments against a third party candidate, to get to 270. and again, he has tremendous concern over the rhetoric and the policy statements of donald

trump and didn't want to throw this election into the house and risk having the republicans in the house elect trump president. >> howard wolfson, top adviser to michael bloomberg, thanks for the time. appreciate it. >> thanks. and we'll have much more this hour on this decision by michael bloomberg, the former new york city mayor saying he will not be a candidate for president in 2016. coming up, remembering the life and legacy of former first lady, nancy reagan. her former chief of staff joins me to discuss her impact on the world of politics. and later, as part of msnbc and the 92nd street y's seven days of genius, the numbers game. how the delegate math gave barack obama the edge and changed the game in 2008. and why it's a different story for hillary clinton this time around. stay tuned. vo: know you have a dedicated advisor and team who understand where you come from. we didn't really have anything, you know. but, we made do. vo: know you can craft an investment plan as strong as your values. al, how you doing. hey, mr. hamilton.

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i had the opportunity to meet miss reagan once.

obviously, she was already advanced in age, but could not have been more gracious and more charming to myself and michelle when we first came into office. you know, i think it's been well documented, the extraordinary love that she had for her husband and the extraordinary comfort and strength that she provided him during really hard times. >> that was president obama earlier today, speaking about the death of former first lady, nancy reagan and her 2009 visit to the white house. the president also remarked that ronald reagan was, quote, lucky to have her. on sunday in a statement, the president said she redefined the role of first lady. and coming up next, we're here to look deeper into the legacy nancy reagan leaves behind, from just say no to stem cell research. we'll talk with her former chief of staff in just a moment. stay with us.

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and a man running for the presidency, i would look for administrative experience, i would look for courage. i would look for integrity. i would look for a record, so that i would always know where he would come down, a consistent of a record. those kind of things, i would look for. >> and that was former first lady, nancy reagan, describing the qualities she looks for in a president, in an interview with tom brokaw during the 1980 republican primaries. flags around the nation lowered to half-mast this morning. nancy reagan will live in repose on wednesday and thursday and on friday she'll be buried alongside her husband on the library grounds. according to my colleague, andrea mitchell, nancy reagan will be remembered as a loyal

adviser and confidant and also soul mate to president reagan. but also a groundbreaker in her own right. she was the public face of the reagan administration's anti-drug policy, launching the highly publicized just say no campaign. >> say yes to your life. and when it comes to drugs and alcohol, just say no. >> and joining me now to talk about nancy reagan is her former chief of staff and a senior adviser to ronald reagan, james rose bush, the author of the upcoming book called "true reagan: what made ronald reagan great and why it matters." thanks for joining us. >> happy to be here. >> you were there, you were behind the scenes, and we're hearing so much about this relation, the confidant role she played politically with ronald reagan. take us behind the scenes. what was that relationship like when it came to nancy reagan's role in the administration? >> of course their relationship has been honed and refined over many decades. and in other political administrations, when he was governor of california. so being in politics and being

in the public eye wasn't anything new to them or to their relationship. so they had a tightly formed compact that -- where one would really shore up the other's weaknesses and vice versa. so they had worked well together over a long time. and when they came into the white house, this was perhaps even more acute. because she was the protector, she was the antenna, she was always watching out for his best interests, for his health, and really, she was the person looking at his legacy, much more than he was. he didn't really ever comment about his legacy, even in his diaries. but she, i think, was a keeper of the legacy. and this had an impact on her views about his grand strategy to end soviet-style communism. and i think that her view of what he could accomplish as a pan of peace, perhaps had an impact on toning down some of the rhetoric that ronald reagan used so effectively. but that didn't mean that she was in a overarching position of power when it came to policy.

because she was very reticent to do anything that might construe her as having assumed a public or an official role. >> also, we showed, in terms of the public face of nancy reagan as first lady, i think everyone remembers just say no. i was a kid in the '80s and we had d.a.r.e., we had just say no, we had a song. where did that originate from? >> that's a great question. because the campaign was not just say no, by a long stretch. because it could be construed in a way as a something that was just too simple to just say no. because, of course, it's a much deeper problem. and it requires complex solutions, as well. and that's something that nancy reagan is well aware of. so where it came from was a visit we tad to a drug treatment center in oakland, california. and she asked a bunch of teenagers that were there, what they would say if they were offered drugs. and they said, we would say

"no." that's where it was born. this was not the theme song for nancy reagan's campaign to end, you know, the ravages of youthful drug abuse and to educate kids about it. each year, she had a different theme to her global campaign and she accomplished a number of firsts for any american first lady. she brought together first ladies from around the world in a summit at the white house, took them to the united nations. so she had over a hundred first ladies, join together in a network around the world, because this is a global problem, of course. and it also crosses borders. so, in that regard, one year, we focused on interdiction, one year we focused on treatment, another year we focused on how the media could send messages and images that were productive and informative to kids. >> there was more to it. and people have knocked what they saw as the simplicity of it. but growing up, the message that i got in school from d.a.r.e.,

from me, it worked on me. >> it's effective. >> we have a little time left here, the last time you saw her? >> it was on december 7th. we had a little christmas celebration up at her house. there was a little christmas tree there in the library and i was very touched by the fact that she was patting -- there was an octagonal table where she was resting her arm and she was patting the table, and she said, you know, jim, this is where the diagnosis in 1994 was delivered from the doctors at mayo clinic. and i said, how did the president react when he got this news from the doctors? and she said, jim, typical of ronnie, he handled it with optimism. and i thought, well, there's an object lesson for all of us. no matter what we're facing. and you know ronald reagan always said america's best days are still ahead. and so i've asked myself, would he say america's best days are still ahead now? and i think reflecting on what

she told me, i think that's absolutely true. >> still would. >> right. >> all right, james rose bush, former chief of staff of nancy reagan, thanks for the time. appreciate it. we'll have a lot more "mtp daily" right after this. those seats sometimes cost a ridiculous number of miles, making it really hard to book the flight you want. luckily, there's a better way... with the capital one venture card. with venture, you'll earn unlimited double miles on every purchase, every day. and when you're ready to travel, just book the flight you want, on any airline, then use your miles to cover the cost. now you're getting somewhere. what's in your wallet? people are taking charge of their type 2 diabetes with non-insulin victoza®. for a while, i took a pill to lower my blood sugar. but it didn't get me to my goal. so i asked my doctor about victoza®. he said victoza® works differently than pills. and comes in a pen. victoza® is proven to lower blood sugar and a1c. it's taken once a day, any time.

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more breaking news. there's a lot happening this hour. first it was michael bloomberg's decision not to run. and now this. a verdict has just come down in the erin andrews case. the sportscasters was awarded $55 million in her civil lawsuit over a 2008 incident. she was suing the owners of the nashville marriott hotel, after a stalker in an adjoining room took a nude video of her and posted it on the internet. she had sought $75 million in damages. again, being awarded $55 million just moments ago. more "mtp daily" after this. but first, mary thompson with a cnbc market wrap. >> i am mary thompson with your cnbc market wrap. stocks closing mixed today with declines in tech shares as well as energy and gains in energy

stocks. the dow adding 67 points, the s&p up one, the nasdaq losing eight. oil stocks made a comeback. brent crude a three-month hide of over $40 a barrel. this since coming off its 30-year low, just two months ago. hopes of declines in production has helped to stabilize oil prices in recent weeks. apple shares were down after the u.s. supreme court rejected an appeal by the tech giant, regarding allegations of ebook price fixing. apple has to pay $450 million to end the suit. the bulk of which will fall to ebook customers. that's it from cnbc, first in business worldwide. ♪ it was always just a hobby. something you did for fun. until the day it became something much more. and that is why you invest. the best returns aren't just measured in dollars. td ameritrade.

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welcome back to "mtp daily." i'm steve kornacki in for chuck todd. this week, we are celebrating the seven days of genius here at msnbc. and today, we're going to take a look at the genius way that barack obama's 2008 campaign

team actually won the democratic nomination, putting him on the road to become president. and what that means for hillary clinton's strategy this time around. now, obama's 2008 team knew from the start it wasn't about how many wins they put on the board necessarily in those primaries, the name of the game was really delegates and winning the most votes didn't always mean winning the most delegates. so they set up a strategy that relied on a combination of complicated math and on-the-ground organizing, devoting time, energy, and money into caucus states the democratic candidates had previously written off. and that kind of organization proved key, for instance, in the nevada caucuses back in 2008. now, in that race, hillary clinton was the victor in the traditional sense. she won the caucuses by a six-point margin, but obama won the race that really mattered that day. he won the delegate race, by focusing on more rural counties and winning support evenly from around the state, obama actually won 13 delegates while clinton only won 12. and the caucus states continued

to pay dividends for obama for months to come. he won more than two-thirds of the delegates in the caucus states on super tuesday back in 2008, and those overwhelming caucus victories erased any delegate advantage that clinton had gained in the primary states that also voted that night. karen nutumult jy described the scene as it was happening. harold m.icies, who had helped write those delegate rules, was horrified. how can it be that the chief strategist doesn't understand allocation. and the campaign remained the same. clinton's team still wasn't ready to admit it, but nbc's own tim russert knew it. >> we now know who the democratic nominee is going to be. and no one's going to domestic dispute it, keith. you know, sometimes in campaigns, the candidate is the last to recognize the best timing. it's very much like being on

life-support. once they start removing the systems, you really have no choice. >> now, it would be another month before clinton conceded the nomination fight, but fast forward eight years later from that fight, and the clinton team isn't making the same mistake this time around. they are, this time, competing in the caucus states. and even though sanders is winning many of those contests, he's not winning by the kinds of margins obama was winning by in 2008. so this time around, it is sanders who has a delegate math problem. sanders, for instance, won three states this weekend, clinton only one one of them, but still, clinton won more delegates this weekend. she won the primary in louisiana by a huge margin, and that gave her the majority of the delegates for the night, further adding to her already significant delegate lead over sanders. so it goes back to that old adage, it's not win or lose, it's how you play the game. and here now as part of msnbc's seven days of genius is steve

hillebrand, one of the masterminds behind obama's historic campaign back in 2008. so, steve, thanks for joining us. let me just ask you to stake us back take us back to the early days when you were mapping out the obama strategy for 2008. what did you see that made you draw up that kind of plan? >> steve, it's great to be here. we had a phenomenal team with obama, really focused on delegate math. john carson and jeff burrman and david plough himself, there are a lot of great people who really were able to get around a conference room and say, look, let's figure out exactly the nufrl delegates and let's break it down as to how you garner each of those delegates in each of these states. and it was a tenacious effort on behalf of our campaign led by david to really hone in on not just a victory in each state or

a victory in a number of states on a particular day, but to figure out exactly how many delegates we needed to get out of that, we believed that we could win a delegate fight against senator clinton at the time, if we stayed very focused. >> and what was the moment? think back to that campaign. what was the moment when -- you had the plan, right? and you won iowa and then she took new hampshire. what was the moment you knew it was going to work? >> it was a few more weeks from where we are right now in the clinton/sanders race, where we coined this phrase within the campaign where we thought it was mathematically impossible for clinton to beat obama at that point. and honestly, we had a lot less of a lead over senator clinton at the time than what she has today over bernie sanders, so i

just find this very daunting process for sanders to be able to ever catch up and get ahead. >> do you look at this race right now and say, do you see a clinton campaign, a clinton infrastructure that learned lessons from 2008? or is this a just a better matchup for her? is that why she's ahead right now? >> i think any smart campaign isn't going to repeat a mistake twice. and i do think they learned, you know, they've got a super smart team put together who understands this math and paying attention at better than they did last time. and they're going about this right and they're methodical about it. and frankly, they're, you know, they're not out there bragging about it. but i do think that with the very significant lead she has ahead of sanders with delegates, it's going to be mathematically impossible for him to ever take

over. >> i'm sure they're glad they're not facting you again this time. steve hildebrand who helped put together that obama win eight years ago, we appreciate it. >> thanks, steve. >> as part of the seven days of genius, msnbc.com will be live streaming events all week from the 92nd street "y." more "mtp daily" straight ahead. stay tuned. when you think what does it look like? is it becoming a better professor by being a more adventurous student? is it one day giving your daughter the opportunity she deserves? is it finally witnessing all the artistic wonders of the natural world? whatever your definition of success is, helping you pursue it, is ours. t-i-a-a. 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.

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is and we are going to have more ahead on the news breaking just this hour in the race for president. former new york city mayor michael bloomberg says he will not run for president, writing on bloomberg view that it was a risk he is not willing to take. the panel's here to discuss what this means for the rest of the field. that is ahead. stay tuned. lows us to access information from anywhere. the microsoft cloud allows us to scale up. microsoft cloud changes our world dramatically. it wasn't too long ago it would take two weeks to sequence and analyze a genome. now, we can do a hundred per day. with the microsoft cloud we don't have to build server rooms. we have instant scale. the microsoft cloud is helping us to re-build and re-interpret our business. this cloud helps transform business. this is the microsoft cloud. frequent heartburn brand in america. i hope you like it spicy! get complete protection with the purple pill.

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. i honor his decision. if he did run, it would probably get 270 electoral votes from either major party and you'd go to the house. in that regard, that's probably not a good outcome for the country. i respect his decision. he clearly put his interests ahead of the country here. >> lindsey graham reacting to the news that michael bloomberg will not be running for president this year. senior fellow at the think tank demoss, and founder of bold. nick, let's start with you. the "bloomberg news," i guess not a lot of surprise. howard wolfson was on earlier saying, look, once hillary clinton separated herself from bernie sanders, the path that they maybe saw for bloomberg had disappeared. >> it's a weird thing. they were seeing the idea there

would be a widening path down the middle with sanders as the nominee and cruz or tump as a nominee. instead the path down the middle is shrinking. hillary clinton and michael bloomberg have a lot of issues nationally. >> do you think he will endorse her? >> i'm not sure. he could have endorsed her now if he wanted to. >> this is interesting, apparently there's a rough cut of an ad, howard wolfson gave this to "the new york times," an ad that bloomberg might have run if he had run. let's play this and then talk about it. >> now with our political process broken and washington gridlocked, bloomberg is running for president. he won't take a dime in political contributions. never has. because he finances his own campaigns. he will be totally independent to take on the special interests and push both parties to get things dorn. >> nick was saying this a minute ago. would this have hurt mill hear

laer more than the republican nominee? >> it would definitely have hurt mill laer more, or cruz, but i don't think bloomberg was going to run even if bernie sanders was the democratic nominee. i never thought that. >> why not? >> ever. because in that race, i think he also would have helped to elect trump. i think he would have taken more votes away from the democrat than from the republicans. but also, i mean, bloomberg is not a great candidate. we've seen him in new york for like a lot of years. he struggled against bill thompson one year when thompson didn't have a lot of money, and bloomberg spent a ton. if you get out of the metropolitan area, or if you get out of the greater washington, d.c., area, i mean, where's the constituency for mike? >> where is the constituency for a new york billionaire? speaking of which, there's our segway, carey, on what's going on on the republican side now. there are so many theories what's happening on the republican side. it looks like marco rubio's losing support. we saw that in louisiana.

we see that in new polls today. looks like cruz might be gaining some. there's a question of, did something happen in this race in the last week between the debate, mitt romney coming out and making his statement, donald trump having trouble, addressing the klan and david duke? do you think something fundamental has changed in the republican race in the last week? >> i think the dynamic is that ted cruz is going up. those forces i think are confluencing together. i think the fact that romney came out polarized truch ed tru supporters to are more loyal. cruz said i would be willing to go with -- >> to me, that was the most extraordinary part of what mitt romney had to say. because a year ago, if mitt romney was going to say ted cruz is a good candidate in my mind, cruz is the one they're all scared of. >> no, i think trump pulled the goal post so far out there, that cruz was seen as palatable to

the, quote unquote, establishment. i have a lot of friends who work for draft bloomberg. they were organizing for the draft bloomberg movement, and they were disappointed by this. the bloomberg, you know, statement himself said he thought him running would actually help the republican candidate more. that's why he stepped aside. i think, you know, someone who is more conservative, whatever, establishment, i would have voted for a bloomberg by far over a cruz or a trump, to be honest. >> is that -- i'm wondering, nicky, if that is a choice that -- it seems to me the cruz strategy, he wants the one-on-one with trump. his assumption seems to be if i can hold him short of the delegate majority and get to the convention, the romneys of the world, lindsey grahams of the world will say, we don't like cruz but we're not going to vote for trump. and they'll leapfrog over trump and go to cruz. >> the question is whether the

sense that trump would be a disaster for them electorally than their personal an i mouse to ted cruz. there are scenarios in which donald trump is better than ted cruz. you saw the talk among the donors, party leaders slowly before the kkk thing, slowly getting their heads around the ideas of backing trump. >> it's such an overused term, i'm going to use it anyway, a game changer. >> i think it was, but i think it was a game changer in connection with other things. i think that debate in detroit really hurt both trump and rubio. you combine, you fight with the pope, you combine the poor debate in detroit. you have the kkk, david duke thing. this whole idea of talking about, you know, the male anatomy and stuff like that, it really turned off a lot of people. i think all of that combined has changed the die namt iks of the race. >> talking on the debate stage like lbj used to talk behind the

scenes. >> sustain advertising against donald trump for the first time in the last two weeks, has to play a role in this. >> i don't know if it will. it hasn't so far. >> thank you for joining us. chuck is going to be back tuesday night with special primary night coverage. "with all due respect" starts right now. >> i'm mark hall per in. >> and i'm john. i'm a little disappointed you've only done it twice, but at least you inhaled. >> hello, and welcome to monday. brave and exciting new week in this thing of ours, the u.s. presidential race. especially the red-hot republican contest. late breaking news affecting the race overall. former new york city michael bloomberg, the man who owns this company, has decided not to launch a bid for the white house this year. we'll have more on that decision in just a moment. but tomorrow,