was he born -- >> he was indeed. good luck on tuesday, sir. >> thank you. >> thank you for the time. >> our thanks to governor john kasich and to the lima pallet company for hosting us tonight. this is the place for politics on msnbc. have a great night. >> this sunday the republican establishment has tried persuasion. >> mr. trump is a conman, a fake. >> it's tried schoolyard tactics. >> and still, donald trump keeps winning. but last night, more ugliness at a rally. as trump warns of violence, if he's denied the nomination. >> i think you'd have riots. >> but can he be stopped at a convention? john kasich, the last establishment cdidatending joins me. plus, the battle over the supreme court. the republicans say no hearings

for merrick garland. >> the senate will continue to observe the rule so that the american people have a voice in this momentous decision. >> why can't they just do what they're supposed to? do their jobs. >> both senate leaders mitch mcconnell and harry reed exclusively join me. >> and do you like buzzer beaters like this one from friday night? well, weave got the trump atology buzzer beaters for what could be a wild national convention. join me. welcome to sunday. it's "meet the press." good sunday morning. let's agree on this much about the 2016 campaign. the rise of donald trump is

basically paralleled the fall of the republican establishment. the more the establishment cries never trump, the more the voters snub them. on tuesday night in spite of millions of dollars of negative ads and high profile criticism by mitt romney and others trump won four of five primaries and he nearly tripled his delegate lead over ted cruz. republicans are desperate to use any means necessary, candidate collusion, delegate jiu jitsu, rule changes, to deny trump in part because of scenes like this. last night in tucson, arizona, this anti -- an antitrump protester was set upon and beating up as he was being escorted out of the rally. police arrested and charged the man who assaulted the protester that you see there in that video. and then this was the scene earlier in the day yesterday in arizona where protesters blocked a road to a trump rally. so the rise of trumpism and the

undoing of the republican establishment has been years in the making. it began in 2007 when conservatives killed president bush's push for immigration reform. in 2010 the tea party revolt. the party lost control of the primary process but they won so many seats they chose to ride the tiger instead of fight it. more recently the falls of boehner and all at the hands of a resurgent populous conservative movement and now many in the party are trying to stop donald trump. >> they don't know what they're doing. they have no clue. >> the stop trump movement is limping forward, but though republican opponents have the will to defeat the front runner it's not clear they have a game plan. there have been meetings, a confabin washington two blocks from the white house. another meeting of big donors in

florida and new ads from outside groups. but stop trump groups spent $13 million in primaries this week and trump nearly tripled his delegate lead. >> my numbers went up. >> still many republican voters are not comfortable with trump. 29% of primary voters in florida said they would seriously consider a third party candidate. so did 39% in north carolina and 45% in ohio. but what's the alternative? >> for me to win 1237 delegates i've got to win 78% of the remaining delegates. >> mitt romney is encouraging republicans to vote for cruz. >> are you sure he's a mormon? are we sure? he choked. it was so sad. >> but only to force an open convention. >> vote for john kasich is a vote for donald trump. >> but john kasich is only stepping up efforts to challenge cruz in utah which holds its

caucus on tuesday. >> nothing's changed other than the perception that this is more likely to become an open convention than we thought before. >> trump warns of violence if a floor fight produces another nominee. >> i think you'd have riots. >> but for many republicans denial in anger, bargaining and depression are turning into acceptance. >> if mr. trump does become the president of the united states, he's going to need a republican majority to p govern and i think he would welcome working with republican majorities in the house and the senate. >> that's an admission that the republican establishment long on life support may officially be dead. >> just a reminder, john cornyn is a ted cruz supporter, we think. joining me now to talk about the establishment's efforts to stop trump i'm joined by the men who ran the last two republican presidential campaign.

welcome to you both. let me start with you, stew. prior to last tuesday you wrote there was still time to stop trump. do you still believe that a week later? sure. i mean, 40% of the people haven't voted so you know, we got upset in 2000 when they closed the polls in florida. they announced it when the panhandle was still open. we have to say -- i think it's going to be very difficult for anybody else other than donald trump to get to 1237 but there's credible scenarios out there with 40% of the vote out there that you could easily have donald trump, you know, 1,000, 1,100 votes and ted cruz around 900, 950. we've done this before. this was the reagan strategy in 1976 against a sitting republican president. >> but the most expedient way to do this would be to rally around ted cruz and that seems to be something that washington republicans can't bring themselves to do. >> well, look, ted cruz is exactly right. a vote at this point for john kasich is in fact a vote for

donald trump. >> why isn't the cavalry rallying around cruz? >> donald trump is well on his way to securing 1237 delegates to be nominated on the first ballot. if he gets to 1237 delegates he'll be nominated on the first ballot. if it does not it goes to an open convention. anything of course can happen, but if you look at the amount of new voters coming into the process this year for them to be denied what they view is a small deed democratic process and in fact, these parties are the vessels that we advance democracy in america are not themselves democratic small d institutions. so as the rules would play out and there was a denial of it, dire consequences for the party and for the senate majority. >> there is a way to do this and stuart you were on the receiving end of delegate manipulation. paul never won any states but he came to the convention with majorities of delegates. let me show some results in

iowa. this was the iowa results in 2012. first and second depending on the day they announced their vote but ron paul had a majority of the delegates by the time of the convention. louisiana we had a similar finding here. ron paul ended up with 6% of the vote in the primary but nearly 40% of the delegates once he got to the convention. there is a -- and this happened last night in louisiana. there is a way to elect delegates that are more supportive of cruz if you're the cruz campaign to deny trump this but then it does undermine what steve was talking about. >> i think what we're going to have is a period where the candidates are really going to be looked at more closely than they have before because there's fewer of them. you're going to have a different threshold for it. i think there's going to be a lot of pressure on donald trump to really behave as a front runner, as someone who could lead a party. had the democrats gone through this when john edwards was leading and we discovered this about john edwards people would have had second thoughts about

going into a party with john edwards. so i think it's a real test here and we'll have to see how these candidates perform under this test. >> and mitch mcconnell is sticking by the nominee. paul ryan who some believe is the head of the republican party given his position, he's getting criticized this morning going hey, where are you? you can make a difference here, but he seems hesitant. >> a lot of the republican leaders, they may welcome to a moment where it's country over party given their sense about a prospective trump nomination. you have people out there saying anybody but trump but are also saying i'm going to support the republican nominee for president. they've not yet crossed that rub con and so as we go through the next couple of weeks of contests, as donald trump i suspect continues to win at the proportion that he has been winning at and he moves closer to 1237 it will be interesting to see what the leaders of the

republican party say. now, what the consequence of it would be for them to peel off the republican nomination is to forfeit the election to hillary clinton. there will be multiple supreme court nominations made by her if she's the next president of the united states, and of course, also the republican senate majority hangs in the balance here, and the -- it's tough to see how senate republicans maintain that majority if the 35 to 40% of these trump voters are feeling disenfranchised from the process and they take a walk. >> okay. but then you have 10 to 15% of the party, maybe more of that. look at those numbers that i showed in the exit polls in battlegrounds. these were republican primary voters who said they'd prefer a third party option than pick between trump and clinton. >> trump is a disaster. you know, politics ultimately is about addition, not subtraction and the whole idea is that not that he's going to take these romney voters and add to them, he's losing romney voters.

there's not tons of hispanics in the republican party. he has a 60% negative with republican hispanics. romney won white women by 12 points. it's going to be tough for any nominee to do better than that but it's going to be necessary for them to do better against hillary clinton. >> we went ahead and ran the numbers in the exit polls using the exit polls from 2012 in ohio and wisconsin just on the white folk and assuming all things were equal and here's wisconsin first. trump would have to increase the romney share by 5 points. romney got and still lost this state. 56% of the white vote is what trump would need to flip it. in ohio, to flip ohio he would have to move the romney white vote number from 57% to 61%. this assumes that the nonwhite vote doesn't move at all. this seems like an impossibility. >> i'm not sure it is an impossibility. i think it's a very difficult task but he is an asymmetrical

candidate. it's more expansive than that. we live in an era where trust has collapsed in every single institution in the country with the exception of the military. and it's not without cause. an ere sombrea of systemic frau business, in sports, in religion, all of it accumulating to this moment in time where someone has come forward with profound communication skills offering easy answers to people who through these wave elections have seen no changes. >> 37% of the people don't trust hillary clinton. huge opportunity for republicans. so now we're turning to a guy who has 27% of the people don't trust him. he's one of the few people in america that is trusted less than hillary clinton. >> only 27%trust.

>> only 27% trust donald trump compared to 37% for hillary clinton. he's trusted less than hillary clinton which is hard to do. >> i'm trying to figure out what turnout is going to look like if the two candidates are the most unpopular among swing voters. appreciate you both. >> one man who's still in the race against trump is john kasich whose win in his home state on tuesday did keep his hopes alive and the hopes of the antitrump movement alive. john kasich joined me yesterday from salt lake city. >> why are you in utah? and i ask that because if you didn't campaign in utah and ted cruz won 50% of the vote, then you deny donald trump any delegates which actually helps your path to getting to cleveland in a contested convention. >> hey, chuck, i'm in utah, you know why? because i'm running for president and because i want people to understand what is a good positive message with a record of accomplishment.

>> do you want to win? >> but chuck, i'm going to compete across the country and tell people who i am and let the chips fall where they may and let me also tell you, no one -- no one is going to that convention with enough delegates. i will have more delegates moving in there that will give memo mentum and then the delegates are going to decide who can win in the fall because the other guys can't win in the fall. hillaryill be president and secondly i have the record and the experience and the ability to bring people together to be a good president. that's why i'm doing this. >> we saw the evidence of what happens when there's three people in and two antitrump candidates split the vote. missouri and illinois, donald trump cleaned up on delegates. if you go about this in new york and pennsylvania and some of these other states you and cruz could end up handing more delegates to trump inadvertently. >> maybe ted ought to get out because he can't win in the fall and maybe these people that are hot on that, you know, ought to tell him to do that. they tried to tell me to get out

of the race how many times? >> quite a few. >> and now they should be thanks me for staying in. if trump had won ohio it would be over. i have a record of bringing people together. a vision for the future of this country and guess what? in the grass roots, people are getting it. now, they didn't get it because frankly you put me on the tube a lot, but trump got, you know, $1.8 billion worth of free media. i got like none. okay? >> not all the media was very positive. >> and people are starting to hear me and we're starting to rise. >> if you thought your candidacy were helping trump, not hurting him, would you get out? >> chuck, i'm running for president. this isn't a parlor game of who gets this or who gets that. >> but you're stuck with a parlor game. i understand that but you're stuck having to play a parlor game because your only -- the convention, that's the ultimate parlor game. >> i am not playing a parlor game.

the convention is the extension of the process of nominating somebody. i was there in '76 when reagan challenged the sitting president. they didn't like him doing it either, but you know what? his vision, his message mattered. listen. nobody's going to that convention with enough delegates and at the end you know why i'll get picked? because i can win in the fall and secondly because i have the experience to lead this country. and chuck, if i didn't think that i wouldn't be running. >> yesterday -- earlier in the week you totally ruled out ever being donald trump's running mate. >> under no circumstance. what are you people kidding me? >> what about ted cruz? >> no, i'm not going to be anybody's -- i'm running for president. >> just as sure with ted cruz as it is with donald trump. >> absolutely. you folks got to get -- you know, you're a great guy, i like you very much, but you guys, you got to get out of washington. you don't understand me. you know, the problem is that a lot of people just can't figure that how could this guy mean

what he says, how is it that he's no different than what he appears? you can't figure that out. people are like okay, what's his calculation? what's this or that? folks, i don't have time for that. >> ted cruz is going to use issues to try to wedge. if it's a delegate fight and that's common core and immigration. >> well, let me just say this. i'll tell you what is common core in my state. our state board of education has approved high standards and our local school boards are the ones that devised the curriculum. we need high standards for our children in the 21st century. i am for shipping all the federal education programs out of washington to the states so look, i'm telling you what we do in ohio and at the end of the day, presidents should not run k-12. on immigration, i do not believe it is practical, nor doable to search in the neighborhoods and yank the people who came here illegally who have not committed a crime since they ooefz been here and ship them out of this country. that is not going to happen. the plan that i support

finishing the border, making sure you have a guest worker program and having the 11.5 million who came here illegally who have not committed a crime pay back taxes, pay a fine, let me tell you, they then can have a path to legalization and not citizenship. and any other position than that isn't going to work. i hate to tell you that. it isn't going to work. >> you talk about yourself as a consensus builder. what do you make of the republican senate strategy on the supreme court pick? should the senate at least hold hearings. >> this is one i'm not going to answer directly because i don't think the senate is waiting for my opinion, but the fact is i never thought the president should have sent it up. i think they can have a meeting with him. the jasenators can meet with th president and if i'm president, maybe he'll be under consideration for the supreme court. i don't know. but they ought to meet with him,

you know, show him that amount of respect. >> what about hearings? >> look, the hearings aren't going to mean anything, but that's up to them to decide. ask them. >> all right. i'll leave it there. >> always a pleasure. >> stay safe on the trail. >> and if it's sunday it must be "meet the press." >> following that interview with john kasich he walked back his comments onmeric garland saying he would not consider merrick garland as a potential replacement of justice scalia. >> and the fight over the supreme court mitch mcconnell and harry reed, exclusively right here on meet the press. and the debate over hillary clinton's speaking style. >> i've never had more faith in our future and if we work together, if we go -- >> we've heard the criticism before. does she sound shrill, that she doesn't smile enough. the question, is this just

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it is time for our "meet the press" data download. we wanted to share some brackets of our own. i'm not here to brag about middle tennessee state and that pick. instead, three scenarios for winning the republican nomination. in bracket number one it's

donald trump receiving a bye while ted cruz and john kasich fight it out for the rest of the primary season. end up splitting the anti-trump vote, but trump is able to come away with the majority he needs and hits that magic number of 1237 and he wins the nomination. game over. in bracket number two, we start with the same standings. but in this scenario cruz catches fire and wins enough delegates to deny trump the 1237 that he needs. so we move to an overtime and an open convention. trump delegates eventually abandon trump and cruz emerges as the conservative compromise choice in a buzzer beater. in bracket number three, this is our cinderella story. it looks familiar at the beginning, cruz, kasich, trump, they all compete. and, again, trump ends up short of his magic number of 1237. and again we head to an open convention, but in this scenario we go to overtime and we go to multiple ballots. we go to double overtime.

the nomination ends up going to, how about that, somebody not running. probably house speaker paul ryan. more possible than you might think. so who is going to have their one shining moment in cleveland this july? it's something that we have a whole rest of a primary season to figure out. we'll be back in a moment with the battle over the supreme court and two the leaders of the senate, mitch mcconnell and harry reid. >> announcer: if you miss "meet the press," catch highlights in under two minutes. brought to you life as spokesbox is great. people love me for saving them over half a grand when they switch to progressive. so i'm dabbling in new ventures. it was board-game night with the dalai lama. great guy. terrible player. ♪ go paperless ♪ don't stress, girl ♪ i got the discounts that you need ♪ it's a balancing act, but i got to give the people what they want --

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welcome back. the expression elections have consequences usually refers to the fact that presidents get to choose who sit on the supreme court. well, when president obama named merrick garland this week to be his nomination to replace antonin scalia, republican senate leader mitch mcconnell immediately announced republicans would not even give garland a hearing. mcconnell said the choice should be made by the next president. well, democratic senate leader harry reid immediately criticized mcconnell's move saying the senate was abdicating its responsibilities. i spoke to bh tch mcconnell and harry reid and i began with a conversation with senator reid that took place yesterday.

let me start with a piece of sound on judges that you said over ten years ago. let me play it and get you to react on the other side. >> duties of the united states senate is set forth in the constitution. nowhere does it say the senate has a duty to give presidential nominees a vote. >> and yet 11 years later you wrote this. the senate's constitutional duty to give a fair and timely hearing and a floor vote to the president's supreme court nominees has remained inviolable. i guess i'm confused. which is it? what has changed from 2005 when you said there was nothing in the constitution that said a vote to 2016? >> this is the same thing as you guys talk about the biden rule. there is no biden rule. what happened then was worked out. it was an effort to try to get something done. what i have tried to do during my entire career in congress and in the senate is to get rid of obstruction and what we found the last eight years especially

with republicans, boehner first, mcconnell, is everything was obstructed. that was what they set out to do and they've done a good job of it, but we have always tried, and i have been part of that for many years, to get rid of obstruction. i don't believe in it. >> well, then what happened in 2005? i can quote you during the estrada hearing. you said there's no reason to mince words. we're not going to allow an up or down vote. that was a form of obstruction. >> that man had a full hearing. it came to the senate floor and all we asked was -- you worked in the white house. you wrote a lot of legal opinions. we're entitled to see them. that was reasonable. and the white house instructed this good man not to do it. it was unfair to him, but that's what happened. we and the american people are entitled to what he had written in those legal opinions. >> but i guess i'm going to back to what part of -- what has changed other than the political party affiliation of the white house?

>> what has changed is you have to look at what has happened. we have never held up a supreme court nomination. since 1900 in a lame duck session, there have been six, they've all been approved -- >> wait a minute. alito, you did a filibuster for alito and roberts. >> where is alito today? >> it failed but that's the point. you can draw all these extracurricular activities that took place but look what happened. for example, let's look at two very famous cases that came before the senate. bork, he didn't get enough votes in committee. neither did thomas. but we brought them to the floor anyway. we met with them. we had hearings, and they were brought to the floor. they could have been killed in the committee. we believed there should be a full vote and that's what we should do now. i don't know why mcconnell has

done this to us senators. he's marching these men and women over a cliff and i don't think they're going to go. he said we're not going to meet with him, not going to hold hearings, not going to have a vote but that facade is breaking as we speak. we now have eight or nine senators who said, i guess we will meet with him and we had a senator the day before yesterday who said let's man up here. we are elected to take votes. we should be voting and there's going to be a break through here. i told -- >> how are you going to get a hearing? mitch mcconnell has said no hearing at all. >> mitch mcconnell has said a lot of things but his republican senators are not going to go over that cliff with him. they're not going to do it. i said this is going to break, you're going to become a supreme court justice. in addition to the people agreeing to meet, we have republican senators, senators that are veterans senators saying maybe what we should do is do it in the lame duck. orrin hatch, lindsey graham --

>> four years from now if you're in the fourth year of a republican presidency, you don't think the democrats should do whatever it takes to prevent that republican president from appointing a supreme court justice in a presidential year before the election? >> not only do i think they shouldn't do it, they wouldn't do it. whoever is elected president has -- is elected for four years. obama was elected for four years. he filled that duty he had to the american people. he was re-elected. he has an obligation to do his job for four years, not three years. senators have an obligation to do their constitutional duty -- >> do you blame republicans though for wanting to do whatever it takes -- this is going to change the makeup of the court, and they believe this is worth fighting for. do you blame them for doing this? >> absolutely. when you have orrin hatch who was a chairman of the judicial committee, now is chairman of the finance committee, said you could not pick a finer nominee

than garland. why didn't you do that he's complaining to obama. of course i blame them. of course i do. here is a fine man -- >> you don't think they should fight to prevent the change in the makeup as hard as they possibly can? >> it's not been doing in the past. excuses are lame. they are going to wind up as a result of this foolishness, they're going to lose senate seats they shouldn't have lost. i'm glad they're doing it, but mcconnell is leading his senators over the cliff and i'm telling everybody that is watching this, the senators aren't going to allow that. >> a little earlier this morning i was joined by the republican senate majority leader mitch mcconnell. senator mcconnell, welcome back to "meet the press," sir. >> good morning. glad to be with you. i'm going to start with something you said in 2008 about judicial vacancies. here it is. >> our democratic colleagues continually talk about the so-called thurman rule under which the senate supposey stops confirming judges in a presidential election year.

the obsession with this rule that doesn't exist is just an excuse for our colleagues to run out the clock on qualified nominees who are waiting to fill badly needed vacancies. >> i started my interview with harry reid with a similar quote from him back during the bush years too. essentially, you guys have changed places in your position on supreme court vacancies, and it seems to me the only difference is the political party affiliation of the white house. >> well, there was no supreme court vacancy in 2008 and that's what we're talking about here, chuck. you have to go back 80 years to find the last time a vacancy on the supreme court created during a presidential election year was filled. you have to go back to grover cleveland in 1888 to find the last time a presidential appointment was confirmed by a senate of the opposite party when the vacancy occurred in a presidential year. we're talking about the supreme court here. the election is under way. and what we are using is the biden rule, 1992 when joe biden was chairman of the judiciary

committee. he made the point that a vacancy had it occurred in 1992 would not be filled. harry reid when he was leader in 2005 pointed out the senate had no obligation under the constitution to give a nominee a vote, and chuck schumer in 2007, 18 months before bush's term was up, said if a vacancy occurred -- >> but, senator, in each of those occasions republicans at the time criticized those senate democrats for having that position. and, frankly, that's what we're seeing here. if feels like there's hypocrisy on both sides. democrats essentially don't want to confirm a supreme court justice if a republican is doing it and republicans don't want to confirm a supreme court justice if a democrat is doing it. isn't that what we're staring at here? >> nobody has been entirely consistent so let's just look at the history of it. it hasn't happened in 80 years and it won't happen this year. the principle involved when an election is under way as joe biden was talking in 1992, when

an election is under way, the american people are about to weigh in on who is going to be the president, and that's the person, whoever that may be, who ought to be making this appointment. >> you said something though about three months ago, you said this, my view is just because there's an election coming up doesn't mean you're not supposed to do anything. you even voted we've had an election every two years right on schedule since 1788. when does a president lose his authority to make appointments in your view? >> oh, well, we've been -- the senate has been quite active. we had an incredible year last year. this year we're going to have another year, we've got a great chance of passing every single appropriation bill for the first time since 1994. the senate is not doing nothing during this election season. but we're not giving lifetime appointments to this president on the way out the door to change the supreme court for the xt 25 or 30 years. >> let me get you to respond to

a criticism that george will has that's all over papers today, and you have probably seen it, but he doesn't much care for your strategy here. he writes this, conservative george will, the republican party's incoherent response to the supreme court vacancy is a partisan reflex in search of a justifying principle. the multiplicity of republican rationalizations for the refusal to even consider merrick b. garland radiates insincerity. what do you see to george will? >> well, i just disagree with him. i think when you have got a nominee that moveon.org is extremely enthusiastic about and multiple articles pointing out that if judge merrick were, in fact, confirmed he would move the court dramatically to the left, i just disagree with george will. i don't think it's a good idea to move the court to the left but that's not really the issue here. it's not the person. it's the principle. who ought to make this lifetime appointment? it's the next president, not this one. >> are you completely ruling out a lame duck scenario if hillary clinton wins the november election? >> yes. we're not going to be confirming a judge to the supreme court

under this -- >> even if it means hillary clinton nominates somebody even more liberal than merrick garland? >> well, it would be hard to be more liberal than merrick garland, but it's my hope that she will not be making the appointment. >> let me ask you about who could be facing her in the fall. are you comfortable with donald trump as your party's standard bearer? >> well, i'm going to support the nominee. i have got an obligation to my colleagues and to my party to support the nominee and i fully intend to do that. >> what did you mean when you told them privately you could drop him like a hot rock? do you think it's appropriate for any of your republican senators to run against him if necessary? >> well, i think we've got a bunch of senate races in purple states that are very competitive and each of those races will be crafted very differently to try to appeal to the people in new hampshire or pennsylvania or ohio, wisconsin, nevada, colorado, illinois. every one of those races are going to be individual standalone contests with people

who we think have a great chance of winning in november. >> and if that means running away from donald trump, that should be their strategy? >> oh, i think every campaign will have a different strategy to appeal to different kinds of voters that we have in different parts of the country. >> are you going -- and one other final thing, donald trump is having a meeting with various republican leaders tomorrow in washington before he speaks to aipac. are you going to participate in that meeting, sir? >> no. i'm in kentucky. he did call me last week. we had a good conversation. >> all right. senator mitch mcconnell, i will leave it there. thanks for coming on, sir. appreciate it. >> thank you, chuck. when we come back, when male pundits say hillary clinton is shrill or yells too much, is that legitimate criticism or is it sexist? pet moments are beautiful,

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welcome back. take a listen to a moment from hillary clinton's victory speech on tuesday night when she swept all five primaries. >> i've never had more faith in our future, and if we work together, if we go forward in this campaign, if we win in november, i know our future will be brighter tomorrow than yesterday. thank you, all, so very much. >> so some people saw and heard, they heard a presidential candidate celebrating a huge night in which she took a giant step towards winning the democratic presidential nomination, but when others heard it, many of whom were men, when they heard her speak, they called her a bit shrill, loud, hyperaggressive, some even said she lacked grace, and then there was the admonition that clinton should smile more which many women found particularly insulting. when we come back, we're going to talk to the panel about whether male candidates would be subject to the same type of criticism.

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>> welcome back. the panel is here to talk about 2016. jose, molly ball, joy ann reid, and robert costa. i want to pick up on what i teased before. here is what dana milbank wrote. the criticism is the same as in 2008, she doesn't connect, she seems shrill.

how does she inspire people? that in some ways and this is a male writing this but in some ways that she has -- that she's being graded on a different set of rules in her style, that this holds her back, fair? >> i think it's very difficult to parse what qualities are specific to hillary clinton and what qualities have to do with her gender. i have looked into some of the political science research. there's been a criticism for example that women are more subject to commentary on their appearance. the political science has studied and it's not true. men and women get comments on their appearance at the same rate and it doesn't hurt women to have comments on their appearance. a neutral woman a made up woman in a political science experiment is viewed a little more trustworthy than a man because they're seen as outsiders. not seen as being part of the system, and there's some positive stereotyping about women. but we've never had a woman president so i think there's not

a mold there. there's not a stereotype you can fit hillary clinton into and that makes it difficult. >> and i think particularly older women, joy, see some of the criticism against hillary clinton and truly get -- here is barbara mikulski. she said many of we women feel there is a double standard. what's being said about hillary is what women have heard for centuries, too loud, too aggressive, to pushy. senator feinstein, i think women go through a magnifying glass that men do not. look at trump. trump about braggadocio, talk about shouting, demeaning, insulting, it's all there. >> i think out on the campaign trail, particularly when i was in midwest when i heard a lot of people who sound like hillary clinton, who have that same midwestern twang. you can almost pick them out whether they like hillary clinton or not, particularly if they're women over the age of 60. this really bothers them. this sense that she's being judged differently because

they're also taking in their experiences at the office where if you're a woman boss, you're judged as being something that rhymes with witch if you're a strong person. women who feel undervalued themselves. younger women who have not maybe experienced that in the workplace yet and their experience is more in the collegiate world, they don't necessarily respond to that argument. but women with some years in the workforce and have dealt with the biases, they feel incensed. >> jose, it goes to does this mean any criticism of hillary clinton is going to be -- is the clinton campaign going to automatically go -- emily's list is stoking this right now. almost as a way they're hoping to galvanize women. >> when is the last time we heard criticism of a man screaming too much? >> howard dean. >> look what happened. i was just looking at joy right now. we use our hands a lot more. i can't tell you how many times i have been told latinos, you guys are a lot louder in a public setting. probably we are in a lot of ways, but i got to tell you something, i don't understand

why hillary clinton has to be said she's screaming. she has to smile more. i don't hear men being asked that in the same way. >> talking to top republicans, there's a real fear when it comes to how donald trump may approach secretary clinton's delivery. look at the instagram video he put out which featured secretary clinton barking as part of a joke on the campaign trail. and they worry if you're pat toomey in pennsylvania, kelly ayotte, senators in blue states, how is it going to help you when the party front-runner -- >> and look at the most prominent woman he attacks which isn't hillary clinton, megyn kelly. whenever you see an unnamed statement from fox news, he might as well say it's in roger ailes. >> it was very striking. to accuse him of having a sick obsession. it may be true. it's very bizarre the feud between these two and it's interesting that trump keeps picking these fights with the most prominent organ of journalism on the right.

but to your point about the general election and the gender politics there, i think to this point hillary clinton has tried very hard to turn herself into a sort of feminist identity politics candidate, right? she has really leaned into the woman thing this year and it hasn't worked. >> that hasn't worked yet. donald trump is a candidate who explicitly uses women's looks and appearances to attack them. the stuff that he did even with carley fever th carl carley fiorina and he wants that male primacy back and that is a core part of his message. hillary clinton is an excellent position to counter that in the

general election. >> and it goes back to this trump issue and it's that one ad that was run that hasn't had any money behind it of women reading the things that trump has said about women, can you imagine if they put money behind that ad and ran it for two weeks. northern virginia we're going to see it a lot. >> and that's the real concern for republicans. how do trump play in the suburbs of philadelphia, these swing areas where the trump campaign believes they can really rouse the white working class vote but they still need to win the suburban voters who went for mitt romney. >> we'll be back in a moment and talk about something that hasn't happened in nearly 90 years. not a contested convention. it's in coolidge was in office. it's a visit to cuba by the sitting president of the united states and it's happening today. . volkswagen believes safety is very important... so all eleven models come standard with an intelligent crash response system... hmm. ...seven stability-enhancing systems...

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end game time. jose, i have a feeling the cube ban people are going to be more excited about this trip in cuba than necessarily the entire cuban >> everybody's looking at this trip. let's put a little context in it. the united states when castro took power in 1959 had 48 states. hawaii and alaska weren't states. mcjagger was 15 years old when the castro brothers took power. a lot of people in south florida

think of it as un-il and the president is going to be seen as someone by the cuban people who can speak to them. let's hope that he uses those words to inspire. >> it's interesting, i've been to cuba and cuban people love america. >> they love america. they don't want to come. they love america. many of them not happy living under the regime they lived in. but the criticism of the president is too soon for you to be going. let the vice president go, let secretary kerry go, but until those guys release all those political prisoners, don't do it yet. >>nd a i think there's going to be significant pressure on president obama. i think it's going to be really important that he do it in the same way -- it will be difficult and he's going to do the baseball game and i think sports has been a unifying along with music because i know particularly in south florida there's been a lot of unity there. the openness to the united

states is there. there's been a great bit in the poll that showed tremendous openness on the island to us. >> but we cannot ignore the issue of repression. he has to do both. >> this is what's making the cuban community in south florida anxious. is that the best way to describe it? >> people want to see change. hopefully the president will help that. >> speaking of change, the republican party is still hoping to change the trajectory of this race. molly and robert, you two cover this. the new york times claim it's to deny him but you just heard, there is no strategy that they can unite around. >> this has been a keystone cops operation from the start. if there were a republican establishment that had its stuff together and make sure he didn't get the nomination, they should have done this six months ago. even know this is not unified

and the chances of stopping him are very, very small and as donald trump said, you know, he got a lot of flak for saying there will be riots, but i think it's true you can't just say to his voters, this large, so far plurality block of the republican party that your vote doesn't count. donald trump doesn't go away if there's a contested convention. >> none of them talk about how they're going to woo the trump voter. >> that's right. they hope they can bring the party together on a convention floor. every person who left the army navy club the other day seemed depressed. they got a presentation about a possible third party bid and they realized logistically and financially, it's very difficult to do and the other meeting that bothers them, monday at jones day trump is going to be meeting with some republicans from capitol hill. long time party consultants and there is a fear the more he

moves to the nomination, the more they could rally behind him. >> what you heard was a capitulation to the idea that donald trump can lead their party and lead this country. other than governor kasich there is a complete capitulation that you can see. >> the relationships with cruz have been so severed since the 2013 shutdown that he doesn't have the capital he needs. >> let me close with the supreme court. does anybody here think we'll get hearings? >> i think that those eight very vulnerable swing state senators are going to be in a world of hurt during this recess. >> i think we'll get meetings hearings, hard to say. theyeed the conservatives to come out in the general election. >> no way they're getting hearings. they'll get some meeting, but no way to get hearings. >> mitch mcconnell has made up his mind. >> that is true. if a poll comes back and he's under 50 in his election i think that's the one way we could see.

>> are you saying we could see them? >> i think there's more of a chance for hearings, but it's in the hands of the political -- the political standing of chuck grassley in the next six weeks. great discussions. that's all we have for this week. we'll be back next week after more primaries because if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

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