rubio and kasich have already banked too many votes for them to pull out. >> the time has come to reset for our next hour of coverage. this will be midnight on the east coast.coast. already been an eventful evening. stay with us. that's it. thought there would be more to it. we welcome you back. >> welcome to my life. >> as you say. >> want the election music. ♪ >> does that help? >> it helps enormously, thank you all very much. >> we do this in our private time, too. >> here's the plot line so far tonight. michigan for the democratic party, split look for the democrats as you'll be hearing. it's all on the big board behind me. bernie sanders was awarded the state of michigan. it took a long time after the polls closed for good reason and a very high percentage before that call came in tonight.

earlier in the evening it was a landslide victory in mississippi as hillary clinton continued her success in the south, a huge victory over bernie sanders in mississippi. the gop primary late tonight, truz was the projected winner over donald trump. gop primary in michigan. part of the donald trump stitched-together victories tonight that's giving him a very impressive national map. ted cruz narrowing out john kasich in the later hours tonight. looked like kasich was going to have a second place finish there in michigan for a while. down south, donald trump, the victor. in mississippi, cruz in second and then a hunk drop-off to single digits. the national map right now, the gop primary, our last graphic there in the corner, you see the

various colors, trump, cruz, marco rubio and nothing for john kasich. here's the democratic map. hillary clinton in gold, bernie sanders in blue. that's where we stand. andrea mitchell watching it all with us from washington. i'm sorry. she's not. hi, rachel. >> i'm rachel maddow watching from right here. >> got a big board behind us. >> the issue on the republican side remains the same which is that donald trump is going to win or nobody is going to win. right now it looks like the only other person in contention to even try to win is ted cruz. john kasich wants to win his home state. probably his best shot of winning anywhere else was tonight in michigan. right now at least he's not even second in michigan. he's third to ted cruz. marco rubio keeps telling everybody that doesn't matter at all unless he wins hawaii in which case that will be very

important but so far he's only been able to pull out wins in the minnesota caucus and in puerto rico. he's hanging it all on his home state but your home state alone is not enough. either donald trump is going to wrap up the nomination in effect next week, one week tonight with the big delegate prizes and all the states that will vote or it will be decided at the convention. there's no other option for the republican party, and if donald trump keeps having just commanding nights like he's having tonight, he's going to have a difficult -- i think anybody else is going to have a difficult argument on their hands in terms of trying to make a small "d" democratic case for why he shouldn't get the nomination, why he didn't earn it and we knew that was sort of the forecast heading into tonight. it's underscored absolutely when you look at this devastating national map. you look at his absolute dominance in the republican race, and you look at the eves these victories tonight. i mean, it's -- there's no reason to compare him and hillary clinton at this point except for the fact that they are both front-runners, but for

her to lose michigan and him to wrap it up as handley as he did, he's in a commanding position. >> you know what's amazing about his win map is that it's so heavy in the shout. that was supposed to be the ted cruz path to victory. >> right. >> it was supposed to be, a map that was made for krurksz and essentially trump took it. he was able to -- he's run even with him essentially with evangelicals, give or take, depending on the state, and then he ends up winning all the white working class voters, some of whom have come in that haven't voted in primaries in the past. look, you laid it out very fairly. this is it. it's do or die next tuesday. they either stop them in florida and ohio or he's the nominee. >> is there any coherence to the places where ted cruz has won, because he didn't pull off a traditional southern strategy which we thought he would. he's won in the scatter shot spots. >> he's won in places where it's usually -- you can tell a ted cruz state in a few ways, number one, it touches the state of texas. >> okay. that's helped. >> sure. >> it's a closed process, closed

primary. only open to registered republicans. donald trump does better when you have independents and democrats coming in, and then the third part of it is if the little more rural, a little more rural, a little more religious it is, and, you know, idaho fits that pattern a little bit, even iowa fits that pattern, but it's also, you know, while it's same-day voter registration, only open to republicans only. that's the pattern for cruz which is really the traditional santorum/huckabee pattern. the problem for cruz he's not demonstrated an ability -- all he is a better-funned version of santorum and huckabee. >> that's devastating but totally true. >> but he's yet to prove he can do something greater than that, that he can go and win a big swing state. wants to target illinois and missouri. if he pulled off something like that next tuesday, that's a big deal. he needs to find a place to win next tuesday in the big five. north carolina he can pick off a lot of places, see how he does. illinois and missouri, i think he's going to spend time in. he needs to win. missouri should be right for

him. that's a southern-like state these days, a reason the university of missouri joined the s.e.c., cultural as much as anything else. i think there's a shot that he has there, and if he's going tonight nominee he kind of needs to win there. >> can we talk just briefly about cruz's shot in florida. obviously there's been a lot of noise about cruz making a very big splashy entrance into the florida market and people are seeing that as basically a psych-out move for marco rubio. if marco rubio does as badly as it looks like he's going to do tonight and he continues to crater, if his national momentum slows down even further then it does really damage his prospects in florida. does cruz have any shot of doing anything in florida? >> all he does is handing it to trump. >> kicking rubio while he's down. the whole point is to just bash rubio, keep him from winning and get him out. >> this is the gamble that cruz is making and i get it. the gamble is i want to get rubio out of the way sooner or later. quick way to get him out and

dilute the vote and let trumps win. strengthens trump short term which is why it's such a high risk and gets rubio out of the way because one of the things they discovered is rubio and cruz, they are more each other's second choice than people realize, do share more supporters and the two have been in each other's state though tonight marco rubio wasn't in anybody's way, but that's what the cruz campaign is calculating. >> let's go to detroit. >> strengthening trump short term was a good idea? >> i agree. >> i think sthom of this is driven by personal antipathy. >> a lot of it is. >> a lot of bad blood here. but some people hate each other. i've heard. >> chris matthews in detroit. i called this if you would have told me a year ago election sentence, everybody starts the democratic side, on the democratic side and the republican side. if you would have told me a year ago i wouldn't have believed you. >> what?

>> fill in the blank, bernie sanders, democratic socialist, donald trump would be at the top of the pack on the republicans. >> well, that would have been a wild pick. i've got rick tower here who tried to stop that from happening had a long time, communications director for ted cruz. by the way, lying ted and little marco. this is what -- that's how the conversation went tonight from trump. >> yeah, and i think you can expect more of it. if the republican establishment wants that kind of a person to get the nomination then -- then they won't do anything about it. look -- >> what about rachel's argument, i think we all agree, it makes historic sense, that right now it looks like trump can win the nomination by cleveland. no one else can, and if someone tries to win at cleveland, having not beaten trump in the primary season, will they get away with it historically? will a party nominate someone who didn't come in first?

it hasn't happened -- >> gee, i don't know. >> go back to adlai stevenson back in 19452. >> those are the rules. >> i note rules. >> if you don't arrive at the convention with the requisite amount of delegates there's a process to nominate. >> usually a way to get the deficit filled um so the leader does end up getting the nomination. >> right now marco had a really bad night, third, third and fourth and john kasich effectively replaced marco as the establishment candidate tonight, i think, and if -- if marco goes into florida, i think he's going to lose and i don't know what his path is for losing florida. >> what's cruz going to win next with week? >> i think he can win missouri. >> the two big winner take all states he's in the in contention, ohio and florida. >> he could possibly win -- possibly could win north carolina. i think winning florida would be a long shot. if rubio got out maybe he could win florida but that's the whole point. if rubio got out. >> rubio's not getting out.

>> i don't think he is either. >> so how does cruz win? >> he could win -- he could win if marco is effectively out and people stop voting for him which he did tonight, he got single digits. no delegates tonight. >> cruz is not going to win the big industrial states. >> he came in second in michigan. >> he was pretty song. >> when do we give trophies out for stekd? >> these are winner take all states, you don't get a trophy, close but no cigar. >> donald trump did well in these states and -- and these other candidates are going to have to decide. if donald trump was any other candidate it would be over. we would have all said that, but they are not and the other candidates are in the race and if they continue to be in the race donald trump will be the nominee and you have a nominee that says things like little marco, et cetera. >> if you were still in the camp, only one of us in a campaign recently, if you were still in the campaign with ted cruz and you watched that strange performance by trump tonight where it was, first of

all, selling all his wa re-s and defending every attack made against him by lindsey graham, a strange defensive campaign point by point for an hour what would you be anything? >> that this is a very insecure individual and do i want him to have the nuclear codes. >> do you think he still has political firepower? >> well -- >> he seems to. >> in the conventional sense no, but he does. he has consistently broken all the rules, but we'll see going forward. people finally started to attack him and people started to spend money against him. it remains to be seen. >> who do you think right now will be the nominee? >> the best bet. >> besides trump? >> is trump the best bet? >> yeah. >> you're willing to concede that now? >> i think he has the best path to the nomination. i think just because of the numbers. the question is whether the party is going to accept that and whether they are going to try to rally people behind cruz. the establishment now is talking about rallying behind cruz.

you are lindsey graham talking about getting behind cruz and that he could work with cruz. >> i'm only interviewing you but i must say he's been very lucky in his opposition, whether it was the pope or vinci fox or jeb bush or your guy, he seems to relish and exploit every mano-a-mano encounter, and if the establishment shows its ugly head at the convention in cleveland and tries to stop the guy who went in there with the most delegates i think you're going to see a major problem. >> if he doesn't get the requisite number of delegates i think they will try to stop him. >> and what will happen then? >> you'll have a very ugly convention. >> i think so. >> guys, back for you. >> i think it's going to be worse. i think it will be civil war. >> i think trump walks if he doesn't get the nomination and having won the most nomination and if he does win the nomination there's a lot of people that will walk because naff. >> at least we've got that to look forward to. chris, thank you. doesn't look like a peaceful ending either way. when we come back, more of our live election coverage on this

sub tuesday two have we agreed to call it? >> super tuesday-ish.

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we are back and still at play. if you fly way, way west. first of all, you're doing better than any of us in this room, you're going to land in a magical place, a place so beautiful you get off the plane that you can't believe they don't ask you for a passport and you realize you're home still. >> and you realized you've made a bad decision about where you live because you don't live there. >> tonight we've got a bunch of results already. we've got democratic and republican results from mississippi and from michigan. we've got republican results from idaho. what we await is the hawaii results. marco rubio is going for it in hawaii. he's just tweeted out this tonight, the hawaii caucuses are open until 8:00 p.m. hawaii

standard time. check your caucus location here and go vote for me. >> that's why they call it social media. >> yes, exactly. marco rubio having obviously a devastatingly bad night tonight in the other contests that have been fought so far. >> bernie sanders has gone out. >> bernie sanders puppet has appeared at the chris matthews location. >> things are going great for everybody except marco rubio but he still has hope in hawaii. >> wow. >> chris matthews has been converged upon. >> the lid was blown off the hot dog place. >> speech, speech, speech. >> we've got a great bernie rally here. >> the celebration has unexpectedly erupted on chris matthews' set. >> let's go! >> look at this. look at this. look what's going on here. >> the downtrodden. >> seconds away from a bad word i have that feeling. the hair on your neck stands up. >> the part of the night when

things get weird and that's why we stay up this late. speaking of weird. our own friend steve kornacki. >> he knows exactly how i mean it and knows it's possible. >> what's going on with the delegate situation on the democratic side? >> a huge night for bernie sanders, just win the biggest state he won yet. just won michigan. let's take you through what it means with the delegates. what was at stake in michigan? 130 delegates. they give these things out proportionally so this is a very close race in michigan, it's proportional by district in the state so it's not official right now but it looks like bernie sanders may have won more districts than hillary clinton, so if things go really well for bernie sanders when these are distributed he'll win 70-60. the pledged delegate count in michigan, a gain of about ten. the other state that voted tonight, of course, was mississippi. they also give out a lot of the delegates by district there. to get any delegates at all in

those districts you need 15%, so it looks like there are districts in mississippi where sanders didn't even clear the 15% threshold. what does that mean? 36 delegates up for grabs in mississippi tonight. wait for this. hillary clinton, it looks like, is going to win that thing 32-4. so if you add those two together, hillary clinton will get about 92 delegates tonight and bernie sanders will get about 74 delegates tonight. if you add that -- again, allocated, delegates being given out in the primary season, add these together. what does that mean for hillary clinton, about 761 when this night is finished and for bernie sanders about 545 so he'll be down 216, came into the night down less than 200. gets his biggest win of the campaign and ends up down 216 or thereabouts in the pledged delegate count. remember, his campaign's theory is they catch hillary clinton here, they win the allocated delegates, the super delegates over here change their mind and

go with bernie sanders, but this is why it's so hard to make up a 200-delegate gap in that pledged count. >> forgive me if i'm wrong but in 2008 we saw a little bit of a mirror image of this where we saw barack obama in 2008 having built up a small but significant delegate lead early on in the primary process and even though then senator clinton kept winning states never able to catch up. very hard to come from behind in the democratic race. >> he got big wins in small states in 2008. big wins in caucus states, racked up the delegates there and remember that, hillary clinton late in that process, won pennsylvania. she won ohio. she won big states late, but because barack obama still got 45%, 46% of the votes in those state, proportionally she wasn't getting the huge numbers he was getting by winning small states 70-30. >> the margin matters, the margins matters. >> the margin matters. >> can i say one other thing

about hawaii in terms of our guests, elise jordan and lawrence o'donnell is back with us. >> we re-welcome you. >> in hawaii one weird sidebar story of what's going on in the marco rubio case. marco rubio campaign say they had a dirty trick played upon them. the ted cruz campaign specifically in hawaii sent out an e-mail blast last night effectively telling voters, republican voters across hawaii that marco rubio was getting out, forwarded the cnn story that marco rubio campaign vociferously shade he would get out of florida, calling it a dirty trick. the same kind of dirty trick ted cruz played on ben carson in iowa. hurt ted cruz on his reputation and the sense of perception of decency. is this the thing that's going to potentially resonate around the ted cruz candidacy or one of the wacky things that happens really late at night in a small

state? >> i think it is resonating. that was the robo call i got in mississippi from the trump campaign talking about how ben carson had been played this dirty trick and it was so terrible and ted cruz wasn't a man of character and et cetera, et cetera, so i do think that this is a narrative resonating among republican primary voters, though the radio campaign didn't do enough to magnify it. they started hard by pushing back at the cruz campaign but i think they could have blown it up even more. >> you know, if it's a dirty trick, as dirty tricks go, it was perfectly targeted for tonight because the only place, the only place where marco rubio had any kind of chance to do anything, and, you know, the cruz campaign gets to say if it was delivered, oh, it was hawaii, those people, we had nothing to do with them and there kind of a ring of credibility to that because it's so far away and who is paying attention to their hawaii campaign. this week everybody is paying attention to their hawaii campaign and they know exactly what they are doing in hawaii,

and there's an echo hand that's the big problem in politics. if we've heard something about this like you before and now hear it comes again, it has extra credibility. >> but also look at the bombast deficit, just like the perceived deficit. a perceived slight in the hands of donald trump gets magnified. look what he was able to do with cruz on the honesty score. this time, to your point, it wasn't picked up. it wasn't used as -- >> rubio campaign is doing a little with it but they haven't made it resonate. >> partially because they don't have the mega phone right now because everyone has seen what happened tonight and his really disappointing performance and rubio is getting pushed aside and everyone is focusing in on this two-person race and kasich was hopeful for a second place finish in michigan. that might mike him the new establishment front-runner, and maybe he'll win ohio hand maybe there will be a glimmer of hope but it just doesn't seem very likely now. >> when and if rubio is out of the race donald trump will add

this to his list of dirty tricks that lying ted, as he calls him, has pulled off. this will take its place right beside the ben carson one but he won't use it until rubio is out of the race. >> if you're in charge of the rubio campaign, what's your public stance tomorrow? what do you stay to the candidate? how do you send him out? what do you do? >> listen, he's got to go out there -- chuck made a point earlier. so many early votes have already been cast in florida. rubio owes it to those voters to stay on the ballot. you kind of corrupt or destroy future prospects for early voting in florida if major candidates were in positions and end up dropping out before election day after i've cast my early vote. >> even after they have banked a lead in the early vote. >> and he's a senator from your state. his challenge is going to be to just face questions in the media who to my eye are trying to kick

these candidates out the door. i mean, as soon as they get an interview with somebody who is not the front-runner in either party they are always asking him how long you going to stay in here. >> i think what's more important for tomorrow for rubio is thursday night's debate. he's had two terrible debates now and this is his last shot for any kind of redemption in florida. >> at least at a political pro, we've got to go. just as a quick look ahead. for florida and rubio, the big thing in marco rubio's life right now is that he doesn't have a job once the presidential campaign is over unless he's going to be president. he's not going to be in the senate. he's not running for re-election. is there a case to be made that he ought to get out in florida before he potentially loses that race because it would be better for him to have quit before losing badly in his home state than to get beaten badly in his home state if he ever wants to say run for florida governor. >> well, i think that's a tricky position for him because on the one hand, yes, in terms of legacy if he wants to run for

governor, probably not best to be a liars, but on the other hand the donor class that he's very dependant upon and will be depending upon in the future is really invested in wanting him to deny trump a victory in florida. >> i wouldn't want to run in that state again for any office if i took thousands of early votes and then dropped out and wasn't there for you on the day of election day. >> you know what he should do. >> he should run in minnesota. problem solved. >> well, look at the time. >> another break. we'll be back with more right after this. >> or puerto rico.

raise your hand. i swear i'm going to vote for donald trump next week. >> it is like nothing we've seen before in modern american political history. the stop trump movement reaching a new level of urgency. >> donald trump is a phony, a fraud. his promises are as worthless as a degree from trump university. >> you refused to give them their money back. >> you see the money they spend. you see the millions of negative ads about me. >> trump is just a fraud. >> stop him now. >> you a lot of people, establishment or not who agree with me that donald trump should not be president of the united states. >> he's attacking all of the core tenets of the republican

party platform. >> i reject trump and encourage other republicans to do the same. >> if i had to support ted cruz over donald trump i would. >> i will not stop until we fight a man who chooses not to disavow the kkk. >> how many times are you supposed to be disavowed? >> they don't have a chance if the conservative movement is hijacked by someone who is not a conservative. >> this is a campaign that doesn't begin to be over. it's broken all the rules of history so far, and i have a feeling it's going to break a few more before we're finished. >> wow. >> it has been one week of the stop donald trump effort on full blast. >> a week in the life of what passes for, and there's been so much discussion around this, the gone establishment trying to do a takedown of donald trump after this incredible campaign season. >> and at the end of that one week he wins michigan and mississippi. >> here we are. the board doesn't change and gets more impressive for him. >> let's bring in hour next two

guests to talk about this. steve schmidt is a friend of ours and has been on already tonight. a lot of campaign experience. mccain/palin, george w. bush, george w. bush white house, arnold schwarzenegger, and the republican congressional committee, and you also know ben ginsberg as a former general counsel to the rnc, former national counsel to the romney campaign, bush/cheney. okay. steve, i'll start with you. sum up what you see on the board tonight for donald trump and also the losses on the part of a guy like marco rubio. >> tonight, brian, donald trump is the overwhelming front-runner for the republican nomination, and if he wins in florida and in ohio next week he becomes the presumptive nominee. when we look at the contests tonight, the two candidates in the republican race who have any path to the nomination are donald trump and ted cruz.

john kasich, attempting to win ohio next week, marco rubio attempting to win in his home state, they are attempting to essentially be favorite son candidates, but neither has any path to the republican nomination, and this notion that the washington establishment will deny the nomination to the person who secures the most votes over the primary process i think is fanciful, but even if it were to happen, and i don't think it would happen, but if it would happen, then it would destroy the republican party. it would blow it up and guarantee that hillary clinton was the winner in the november election, and that's why i think it's unlikely that that will -- that that will happen hat cleveland during the convention. >> well, ben, that's where you come in, i'm afraid. you're like it or not part of the washington establishment. >> thank you. >> we should also note that you also love your party, and you've meant a lot to it over the years. last time you were here i think it's fair to stay you shared a

moment and you got very candid about how one would go about wrestling the nomination from donald trump. how much of that do you still stand behind and do you think it is at all a possibility for cleveland? >> well, look, here's what's interesting about it, and what those who might choose to try and derail donald trump will take some solace in. mitt romney at this stage after the second week of march had 54% of the delegates. your statistics just showed that donald trump has 43%. that is a tough trajectory to get to a majority of delegates unless he wins both ohio and florida next week, and so this is not so much a trump versus cruz, trump versus kasich, trump versus rubio. this is trump's contest with himself to be able to amass enough delegates to come to

cleveland with a majority. truth of the matter is there are procedural and rules obstacles that a candidate would face if he doesn't have a majority of the delegates on the first round that don't involve rules manipulation. it involves the way the rules are now. >> ben, in terms of those rules and in terms of just us all being able to imagine what that convention might might be like, one of the rules is you have to have won a majority of delegates in eight states i believe in order to be even considered for the nomination. is that a rule that would go out the window along with every other convention once we got there? >> in fact, that's not a rule. that's part of what's called the temporary rules. each convention has to pass -- well, each convention has to pass for itself the number of states that put a candidate's name and nomination, so that rule was in effect for 2012. it's not in effect for 2016.

in the 2016 convention and its rules committee has to make that decision, so there is no eight-state rule in effect right now for the next convention. in fact, in 2012 the number of states required was increased by that convention from 5 to 8 and the 2016 convention can make that number 1, 18, 28 or 58 if it wishes so fun, fun, fun. >> the temporary rules versus the rules, versus the rules that we think they will stick to is a net set of dividing line. >> it's the world in which we'll all live. >> all summer vacation is hereby cancelled because we'll have to be studying up until the conventions. >> as somebody who knows, steve, the republican sort of consulting class very well and you know a lot of professional political operatives, is there an active market right now in people who are good at things like convention organizing,

delegate work, the types of insider play that will be necessary to win a fight at the convention if the other campaigns are going to try to have an effort to take it in cleveland. are people on market for that kind of work? >> look, weeksy is filled with people who have the expertise to execute a plan laid out by somebody like ben who would be able to look at the rules, to navigate the results and get to the outcome and the scenario that ben just laid out. putting that aside though, i think that there's a reality here, and the reality is this, the republican party has seen a roblion against its establishment, against its leadership in washington, d.c. by the grass roots. can you imagine a scenario where the result of the election would be the person who got the most votes and most delegates and let's say he was short narrowly

of the threshold to be nominated that it would be arrested away and the nomination would be given to whom, to a washington insider. perhaps to mitt romney, to marco rubio. i think it's fantastical, and the consequences of it would be i think hard to -- hard to imagine. it could put the house of representatives majority into jeopardy. it could put the u.s. senate majority into jeopardy. it would absolutely fracture the republican party. >> ben ginsberg, i can surmise from the way that you're talking about this, that you disagree with steve schmidt, that you don't necessarily think it would be fracturing or crippling to the republican party to have that kind of fight at the convention where the person who went in with the most but not a sufficient number of delegates didn't end up with the nomination. >> i think it's very much -- if somebody gets a majority they are going to be the nominee. if donald trump has the majority, it's done he will be the nominee. if he's short, then it's going to depend how short he is.

somebody who goes in with 43% of the delegates will be barely over 1,000, more than 200 delegates short. that's an historically weak nominee or a candidate going into the convention. if in fact he's 50 delegates short, then that's pretty tough to take away. the rules, once people start peeling back the rules, will make it pretty obvious that there's no skulduggery that has to be done if a candidate comes into a convention 2002, 50 shorts short that in fact the rules deal with that process, and that's where you'll get the wide-open contested convention. >> ben ginsberg, former rnc general counsel and steve schmidt, republican campaign veteran. great to have both of your expertise here tonight. >> good to be here. >> talk about two different views. ben ginsberg is seeing all the ways it's possible and steve

schmidt is seeing all the ways it's impossible and those guys are equally connected and equally as a matter of fact and that is just a view of how split the republican party is even now, not even looking ahead to that possibility of sorting it out at the convention. amazing. >> absolutely right. that's exactly it. you'd want both of those guys heading into a fight. they are just going to use different weapons. >> yeah. no one is fighting here. you can tell the kids to go to sleep. we'll keep going for the adults. on the other side of this break, as we cover another amazing night in american politics. man 1: [ gasps ]

man 1: he just got fired. man 2: why? man 1: network breach. man 2: since when do they fire ceos for computer problems? man 1: they got in through a vendor. man 1: do you know how many

we are back on this super tuesday evening two which is now wednesday and one thing i don't say preceding interviews of all kinds, both parties, if you're connected to a campaign, it's

just an assumption that you haven't slept well, eaten well. you haven't worked out since the last time you were home, wherever that is. there's a 50-50 shot you can name if someone comes up to you and says where are you? 50-50 shot that you'll get it right. i've seen some fantastic reporters get it spectacularly wrong and given all of that, also spouses have to travel separately often. jane sanders, first lady of vermont. >> of the sanders -- >> no, first lady of the sanders campaign. >> first lady of the sanders campaign, college president in her own right, traveling separately from her husband, was approached tonight with, after the good news arrived, that her husband had. won michigan. >> jane sanders, you just walked into this hotel room here having learned. you got stuck on a plane and weren't able to be here for the results but saw them on the

plane and your reaction? >> we're all very excited to see it. i mean, we were going to be here for the real but cancelled plane turned into another delayed plane hand the third plane just got us here now so i'm excited to go up and see my husband. >> you were just on the phone with him. what's his mod like right having unexpectedly won michigan? >> pretty happy. what else could it be? ? >> you are in many ways not just his spouse but a close political adviser. what's your view of what goes on here? >> i think he has a winning campaign. has a message of what i've always known anyway is that the more people see him, the more they get to know him the more they like him so every bit of time that we have we're out there on the campaign trail and he's got a whole bunch of things tomorrow and on the next day in florida we, of course, have the univision debate tomorrow. >> hillary clinton has already in the past couple of days saying she's looking forward to

running against the republicans in the general election, coverage sol dating support behind her. what's your reaction of that in light of this news out of michigan tonight. >> well, we wouldn't be so presumptuous ourselves. and you think he'll be in this all the way to the convention? >> i think he will be. a lot of people are counting on him and he won't let them down and there's a lot of steps to vote and the idea is to not just -- it's not just about person. it's about. the issues he believes so strongly in. we need to keep giving voice to that and what's happening now. the states that he -- he keeps on winning. he won three caucus states this week and -- and now michigan, o so -- what do you think is next up on the map that had can win? >> the next ones, illinois, florida, ohio, all of them. i mean, he can win.

the -- where he doesn't win is where they don't know him. the more time that goes on, the more people know him, so i think the skies's the limit and i think he's winning the debate in terms of setting the agenda and giving voice to the -- to the concerns of americans and that's a good -- that's a win right in and of itself. >> jane sanders, thanks very much for your time tonight. >> just off of the plane here where her husband who has just learned he's won the michigan primary. >> kasie hunt in miami. i forgot to add that it's a game rouse job, too, being on a campaign. you get to end your day separate from your spouse in a bar in miami. both correspondent and spouse. bernie sanders was awarded the michigan many primary tonight, and you listen to the republicans talking about fractures in their party and oh, my goodness the democrats have

their own set of worries. don't they, chris matthews, who is standing by in detroit? chris what, a wild night. >> sure, is and i think every time we think there's a trend line it gets interrupted and bent out of shape. i will say though that that there is a parallel theme here, isolation i isolationism, certainly protectionism strong in both parties with trump and bernie sanders against the wars we're fighting and iraq and also the trade deals. they do have the two common shared themes to their campaigns, both in opposition to their party establishments and i think it's going to continue. i think what hillary clinton realizes as she goes to bed she's not going to shake bernie sanders. he'll be with her all the way to philadelphia and he's got the money and the dream and has that spouse who is gung-ho for hi. i think he's going to stay with this thing. not going to get a second shot. he's 75 this shept. this is his chance in history. he's going take it, and on the

other side i with trump, i agree completely with steve schmit but not ben ginsberg, if trump comes in with anywhere near the numbers for the delegates, he has a chance to win ohio, winner takes off. if he knocks off rubio in florida, rubio will stay in this fight, look out he's head today cleveland pretty darn strong so the democratic party is the in much better shape because hillary and bernie sanders can find an agreement together, they are not that far apart because hillary has moved towards bernie and will move further towards bernie before this is over, on the other hand, the republican establishment has been shattered and compare hillary clinton's performance tonight even though she lost to jeb's performance in this campaign. the two symbols and persons of the democratic and republican establishments didn't do as well this year. hillary clinton is in this fight and will probably win it. jeb bush has been blown away so the republican establishment is in much, much worse shape than

the democratic establishment. >> excellent point. >> a lot to think about. chris, thank you. the only one when i know who gets better as the hour grows later. >> that's true. he gets freed from the bounds of existence and gets smarter and matter whereas you and i turn into bumpblers. >> sitting here writing notes on file folders, but there's more of that when we come right back. looking down the primary calendar, particularly on the

democratic side with this win by bernie sanders tonight in michigan, the next big state that is demographically almost identical to michigan is, of course, ohio, and everybody has been talking about florida and ohio on the republican side, but ohio has suddenly become a real locust of interest on democratic side. looking in terms of next week, march 15, florida, illinois, missouri hand north carolina and ohio, do the prospects look different on the democratic side than they did when we got the results out of michigan? >> i think it's exciting for person and they will have a lot of energy and the supporters already had that and they needed something to make them believe that they had had a shot hand this is definitely a great infusion of the bigger campaign. >> bernie sanders has been saying on the stump he thought he would win michigan, do great in michigan. the polls in michigan said absolute lit opposite and he was right and the polls were very wrong. >> and he had a great night. donald trump had the best night

and he had the best night two ways, not just in vote-getting, but in his control of the media. donald trump on -- we gave him a 40-minute infomercial uninterrupted here as did every other cable news network. he invited the media to criticize and fact-check everything he said during that who minutes. that was three hours ago. we haven't had a minute to do that yet and we know that, all the doubt pouring in and he knows there won't be any of that. he was asked one substantive question by the press, and the press is deliberately not miked during these events so that you can't hear what the questions is. that's deliberate on trump's part. it was about imposing 35% tariffs on cars and other things coming into this country which is to say a 35% sales tax on american consumers. he refused to answer it. he belittled the reporter who he called jeremy. i don't know who that jeremy is and told him it was a serious

question and wasn't listening. >> nobody is listening to you, jeremy. >> he did spend time that trump steaks is a going concern. it's been out of business since 2007. to catalog the number of lies he told in his 40 minutes would take 40 minutes. that's how much there was because each one of those lies deserves a few minutes of explanation. we'll deal with one of them hon my program again tomorrow night which is trump university where i will have another victim of trump university testifying. here's a presidential candidate who some people can't imagine not being given the nomination if he simply comes close to winning the nomination by votes. he is a defendant in fraud cases can, a federal fraud case in california that he will be testifying in during the presidential campaign. he's a defendant in a fraud case in new york state for trump university which he called the

university the attorney general the new york said it would be the same thing as if trump opened, you know, a place where he sold band-aids and called it a hospital this is the most ridiculous candidate to get this far in this process that we've ever seen. to imagine him not being given the nomination if he doesn't earn it through votes is easy. remember, he'll be the only one scheduled to testify in his own fraud case while that convention is going on. >> and lawrence, we didn't want to let the night go by. a man who has generated more talk than actual media time is john kasich, and as we head into ohio he desperately wanted a second place finish tonight in michigan and the kasich campaign was saying second place is a win for us in michigan. we did hear from him, and here briefly are part of his comments tonight. >> i'm going to continue to run

a positive campaign and not get down in the gutter and throw mud at anybody. so i think the people are beginning to reward a positive campaign, one that they say to their children this is the way to conduct yourself in politics. i think that people are beginning to see that and secondly, and secondly because of that just wait one week from tonight. we are going to win the state of ohio, and it will be a whole new ball game. >> if his projection comes true, if not a whole new ball game, a very interesting ball game. >> it will be a shrunken ball game. he says if he doesn't win ohio, he will get out of the race. we expect that marco rubio will do the same if he doesn't win florida so a week from tonight, should meet here and do it again because that's a big one. >> i think i saw the schedule in the break room and i think we're both down to work that night. >> we should totally do that. >> yeah, yeah, i was going to bring some -- >> hot dogs?

>> yeah. >> yeah, maybe. >> i'm so in trouble. as we head into next hour what have we learned? that's been another eventful night in campaign 2015 into 2016. >> the front-runners tonight -- both had good nights, but donald trump had the best night of all. bernie sanders did have an upset win in michigan. hillary clinton is going to get the delegate wins tonight but bernie sanders gets the morale boost and momentum and donald trump continues to just steam roll towards what looks like a commanding tap into that nomination this summer. >> thanks to chris matthews in cleveland and all our friends in detroit. all our friends here.

we welcome you back. >> as we say. ♪ >> does that help? >> that helps enormously. thank you very much. >> here's the plotline, so far, tonight. michigan, for the democratic party. split look for the democrats, as you'll be hearing. it's all on the big board behind me. bernie sanders was awarded the state of michigan. it took a long time after poll closed for good reason and a very high percentage before that call came in tonight. earlier in teche evening,