projects. thanks for being on the show tonight. >> thank you. >> that is "all in." we'll be live from phoenix, arizona at 8:00 eastern covering the primaries. you can catch a special live bonus hour at 3:00 p.m. eastern if the travel goes according to plan. tune in. the rachel maddow show starts now. you're the guy that got the magic carpet checked out. >> i'm about to hop on it. >> safe travels. thanks to you at home for joining us. when franklin roosevelt died several months into his fourth term in office, his vice president harry truman assumed the presidency. that have 1945. he was then elected president in his own right in 1948. at the end of that term in office, harry truman had a decision to make because the united states ratified be the 22nd amendment that said a

president would only serve two terms in office. no more fdrs. when the 22nd amendment was ratified it had a grandfather clause. it wouldn't apply to the current holder of the job. in effect, harry truman was the last u.s. president who would be allowed to seek term after term in office before being limited by that constitutional amendment. it wouldn't have been his third full term but he could have run again in 1952. as that date approach, as the decision approached, harry truman did test the waters a bit about maybe running for a third term. he soon realized he was too unpopular. he was never going to make it. interestingly, truman at one point, he had approached general eisenhower, he approached the five-star general who led the allies to victory in europe and world war ii. this incredible war hero. he had approached eisenhower and

tried to persuade eisenhower to run for president as a democrat. truman offered ike he would scoot down from the presidency to the vice president if ike would run as a democrat for president. it's an amazing offer. him offering to step aside if you'll step in and run for the job he had. eisenhower decided not to. he decided not to run for president as a democrat. in 1952, he ran as a republican, which was uh-uh territory. he's really unpopular. eisenhower is running as the republican in 1952. i don't know if the democrats could see it coming. i don't know if they could see how badly they could get clobbered. whether or not they saw it coming, the man they decided to nominate was a man named

adelaide stephenson. he just got clobbered by eisenhower. he just steam rolled him in 1952. then four years later, it was 1956. eisenhower was running for re-election. the democrats looked around for a nominee to run against eisenhower and for a second straight time, they decided that, again, they would run stephenson. again, he got completely clobbered. just land slide destroyed by eisenhower. then it came time to try again. that had been 1952, 1956. now it's 1960 and thanks to the 2nd amendment, eisenhower cannot run again. the republicans decide to r runnizen howrun eisenhower's vice president. who did the democrat decide to run against the vice president? how about stephenson? why not. he did not actually compete many the primaries in 1960, but it

wasn't mean he wasn't in contention for the nomination. at that time running in the primaries was kind of optional. lots of states didn't have primaries. everybody knew that the parties really picked their nominees at their national conventions. there were some state contests in 1960. candidates like john f. kennedy from massachusetts and humphrey from minnesota did campaign and compete around the country. stephenson was competing just for the nomination. he decided to just cut to the chase. like most of the other potential candidates, he didn't bother with these little primaries in these few states here and there. he got busy preparing for the democratic national convention is where the candidate was picked. in the spring of 1960 having run in 1952 and lost and 1956 and lost. in 1960 he had staffers working on a speech for the convention. he was getting ready in case his party would turn to him again to be the democratic presidential

nominee for a third straight cycle. he was going to be ready in the event they couldn't decide between the other candidates. make the convention got deadlocked or maybe there was going to be a tie or maybe the party elders would decide the nomination shouldn't go to the front running democrat that year, this upstart senator from massachusetts who many thought was too young, too untested and maybe too catholic and definitely not stephenson enough to be a democratic nominee for president. in the event that something else happened and the party need eed him, that spring he was getting his speech ready. he had a bright young man working on the speech. the young man in june of 1960 found himself invited to a dinner party of ben bradley. he was friends with ben bradley. it was not out of ordinary for

him to socialize with this particular set in washington, d.c. but the specific reason for this dinner in june 1960, was that the front-runner for the democratic nomination, this young, upstart massachusetts senator, john kennedy, he wanted to have that dinner party at ben bradley's house june of 1960 because he wanted a word with this young man who was writing this speech. he wanted a little word about whatever scheme was being hatched for the democratic convention that summer that might try to keep him from getting the nomination he was otherwise earning. from all accounts, that dinner in june of 1960 seems to have started with a big tense fight about that subject. apparently, it ended well. by the end of the evening senator kennedy was practicing chip shots with a dinner party on the remember and was chatting about who would be the best

secretary of state. by the end of that even with the golf game on the rug and everything, jfk asked that young man who he argued with about his convention speech, by the end of the night he asked the young man if he wanted to be part of the kennedy administration after he got himself nominated and elected president of the united states. it turns out the answer was yes. that young man's name was william atwood. once jfk was nominated by the democratic party and elected president of the united states in 1960, william atwood was made an ambassador by president kennedy. he also worked as part of the u.s. delegation at the united nations. in 1963, days before john f. kennedy was assassinated, he became kind of a secret agent for jfk. this is at a time when things

were as bad as they would ever be between the united states and cuba. sure, it was one thing for cuba to have its local revolution, it was another thing for cuba to become an outpost an instrument of the soviet union just 90 miles off the coast of florida. eisenhower in the closing days broken off diplomatic relations with cuba. president kennedy not just formalized the economic break between our two countries. we had the bay of pigs failed invasion in 1961. we had the missile crisis which almost brought about a nuclear war between the united states and the soviet union. it was a really bad time. in the fall of 1963, fidel castro decided he wanted peace with the united states or he wanted talks about peace with the united states. either of which seemed equally

unimaginab unimaginable. at this shaking nuclear pinnacle of one of the cold war, when cuba was as much the great say tin say tin satin to us as we were to them. to find out if the u.s. and cuba could start a secret line of communication. if he and john k. kennedy could have a line of communication. nothing was going to happen in public. in public these two countries could not have been more at each other's throats. we were on the brink of war but would apply a secret back channel discussion between these two men, at least start us toward something else. william atwood, the guy from the dinner party received this overture when he was working at the u.n. it first came from the cuban ambassador to the u.n. it came from the top aid, the

senior advisor. atwood received from the cuban government. he reported up the chain of command. on november 5th, 1963, we have these amazing scratchy tape recordings. the new taping system in the oval office under president kennedy. he's talking with his national security advisors, november 5th, 1963 about the possibility of using atwood as a go between. would they send him to cuba to start a conversation between john k. kennedy and fidel castro. >> he responded to astro and now has an invitation to go down to havana on the qt and talk with fidel about the terms and conditions on which he would be interested in changing relations

with the united states. >> we'd have to have an explanation. >> we would have to only cover plan that makes any sense to me that is the cuban initiative. >> can we get atwood off the payroll? before he goes? >> i think we ought to have him off the payroll. >> president kennedy in the oval office november 5th, 1963. talking about the payroll there. he brings it up a few times. talking about whether they can get atwood down to cuba to meet with fidel castro but can they get him down to cuba with such secrecy they will try to make him no longer a u.s. government employee. they want him off the payroll so he appears to be going to cuba as a private citizen. that means if anything gets found out about this, if any of think leaks or goes south they

can defli having anything to do with it. think about the timing here. jfk will be running for re-election the following year nor 1964. this comes after the bay of pigs fiasco and the cuban missile crisis. he cannot seem to be soft on cuba. that could be politically fatal for him. still, evenknowing that, the prospect of peace or talking about peace, it's too tempting to walk away from. it's too important to walk away from. within two weeks of that conversation at the oval office that we have a tape of, within two weeks, this was jfk in black tie in miami giving a formal speech about cuba. he's speaking to a very anti-castro audience. on the surface this speech is what you might expect from him to that audience at that time. all the tough talk and using cuba to advance its imperilist

aims. there's a note that discordant because in the midst of this tough speech denouncing the evil of the soviet union, there was this hopeful note. it just seemed different. it stuck out. it seemed like maybe an opening, an overture. that was apparently on purpose. >> it is important to restate what now divides cuba from my country and the other countries of this hemisphere. it is the fact that a small band of conspirators have stripped cuban people of their freedom and handed over the independence and sovereignty of the cuban nation. the force is beyond the hemisphere. cuba is a victim of foreign imperilism and dictated by

external powers. this and this alone divides us. as long as this is true, nothing is possible. without it, everything is possible. >> everything is possible. that was not the kind of thing, even in the midst of all that tough talk, everything is possible. that was not the kind of thing that american leaders, at that time, said about cuba. that was a signal. that was an opening. it was a coded signal delivered this public but in private we now know plans for these secret talks were on. will atwood had been given the go ahead to talk to fidel a castro. he had not the logistical arrangements of how he would get to havana. they needed to know his agene l

ageneral -- agenda and atwood would go. fidel castro came back to will atwood for what he wanted to talk about at the first secret talk in havana. that reply from fidel castro arrived for will atwood in the united states on november 23rd, 1963, which is five days after john k. kennedy gave that speech in miami and one day after john f. kennedy was shot and killed in dallas. will attwood did an oral history at jfk presidential library in which he explained this sequence of event. his role as the secret messenger. the negotiations around that leading up right until the day that president kennedy was

killed as the arrangements were being made and as attwood told the library, quote, nothing ever came of it. he says he did write it up at the time. he wrote up a memo of what he had done and what was left hanging. he wrote it up in a memo he gave to stephenson, who by then was u.n. ambassador. all of that happened more than 50 years ago now. now today, look at these images of president obama and his family arriving in havana. it is almost unbelievable that it's been nearly 90 years since an american president has set foot in cuba. that's astonishing given how physically close cuba is to our country even if you know nothing else about our two nations. the intrigue and political effort it took to make this happen is multigenerational. even this breakthrough that president obama has engineered, even over the last few years it

took secret meetings, negotiations brokered by the pope. undercover talks at random anonymous office buildings in ottawa, in canada. two u.s. negotiators involved in initial opening of discussions were told to come up with cover stories for those meetings in canada even for members of their own immediate families. they were not allowed to tell their own families what they were doing on these trips to canada where they were meeting with cuban officials. they were reporting directly to the president. the pathway to today's visit involved spy swaps on both sides and prisoner releases. it took utmost political intrigue and secrecy. you know what, the results after all of this for this first visit very awkward, including physically awkward. look at this. at the press conference between president obama and president castro. physically awkward and politically difficult.

there were moments of legitimate suspension and confusion and anger today when american political reporters put raul castro on the spot about political prisoners being held in cuba. he processed that there were none and that anybody, if anybody knows of any they should give them the names and those political prisoners would be released within a day. this is difficult and it is strange and the cuban government and its economy, if not its people, have been trapped in a time capsule for nearly half a century and nobody knows what will happen to the cuban economy or the cuban government now that the time capsule has been cracked. president bill clinton tried to open up relations with cuba and failed. president carter tried to especially up relations with cuba and failed. president kennedy was in the act of trying to find a way to open up cuba, literally as one of his last active and covert efforts

at the time he was killed. that was he was working on the week he died. this is hard. there may be a reason it took 50 years to get this done. when the castro brothers die and when cuba opens and becomes a new it ration of itself no longer trapped in the politics of the 1950s and before, nobody knows who will get to write the history of this moment in cuban history, but in american history, we know, in american history we know that president barack obama will be forever the american leader who got done what every other democrat since jack kennedy tried and failed to do. he got it done. ♪ [ star spangled banner plays ] ♪

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comcast business. built for business. if i don't do that it doesn't sound quite right. it's monday. we're not used to hearing election music on monday. we do have new results to report. if you're a u.s. citizen and you are a registered voter and you have a democrat but for whatever reason you do not live in the united states right now, you can still vote in your presidential primary, but where do you vote? turns out you vote in an abstract concept of a primary called democrats abroad. you're everywhere and also nowhere. nearly 35,000 americans cast votes in the democrats abroad primary. 35,000 americans living overseas

in more than 170 countries cast votes in this primary and turns out those democrats living abroad really like bernie sanders. senator sanders the projected winner of the democrats abroad primary by a margin of 69 to 31. that's huge. more than lapping secretary clinton in this field. that's big enough lead of the 13 delegates apportioned to this contest, senator sanders will get 9. secretary clinton will get the remaining four. the next big prize is arizona. on the democratic side there's 75 delegates up tomorrow. we have more on that ahead the stay with us. (son) pa, i know we settle for cable... but directv has been number one in customer satisfaction over cable for 15 years.

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behold the mormons. they are wyoming, idaho, utah and nevada. wyoming has the third largers mormon population. donald trump is winning mostly everywhere, but when it came time for the wyoming republican caucus he didn't do well. he came in third. he came in 59 points behind the front-runner, ted cruz in wyoming. idaho has the second largest mormon population in the country. donald trump is winning again. mostly everywhere all over the country, but also did not do well in idaho. he came in second place in idaho. 17 points behind ted cruz. wyoming had the third most

heavily populate mormon and idaho is second. that's part of why lots of people expect donald trump to not be able to work his trump magic in utah tomorrow given how poorly he did in wyoming and idaho. even if he's expected to do well in other states, it's pretty much the common wisdom he will get crushed tomorrow in utah. it's the mormon voting preferences thesis that explains why. here is a wrench in the works for that. the pattern holds in wyoming and idaho. those were third and second in terms of proportional mormon population. the fourth is in nevada. donald trump won nevada. maybe the donald trump can't win mormon states is bunk. we've had two states that disprove it and one that proves

it. we may find out in utah. polling is general lly sort of impossible in caucus states. on the republican side the polling shows that ted cruz is favored in that utah caucus. on the democrat side, in the democratic caucus in utah, we have one poll this month and it shows bernie sanders up by eight points. senator sanders does pretty well in caucus states. there's a democratic caucus tomorrow in idaho where there's been precisely zero recent public polling but where senator sanders is expected to win. both the sanders campaign and the clinton campaign say they expect senator sanders to win both democratic caucuses tomorrow in idaho and utah. we won't know until we know but those are the expectations. the big prize on both sides tomorrow is arizona. arizona has long been seen as friendly territory for hillary clinton. she beat barack obama in the arizona primary in 2008 by

nearly ten points. bill clinton also won arizona in the 1996 general election. to this day that's the only time a democratic presidential candidate has won arizona in a general election since harry truman. this time around the polls look good for clinton. the polls have her up by 26 points over senator sanders. then again, there's only been two polls of the democrat race in the past five months in arizona. the number crunchers say they won't even forecast what's going to happen in the arizona primary because there's not enough data to base any forecast on. it should be noted that bernie sanders is making a serious play for the state of arizona. he's held a bunch of events across the state last week. look at the time now. bernie sanders has yet another rally planned for later tonight in flagstaff, arizona. on the night of last tuesday'

primaries as he was getting swept in five straight states, remember where he was. he was already in phoenix, arizona rallying a crowd of 7,000 people that night. the sanders campaign is going for it in arizona. they made a $1.5 million ad buy in the state. those ads are battling it out on the air waves with hillary clinton spots featured gabby giffords. arizona is the big contest tomorrow. on the democratic side both candidates are fighting really, really hard for arizona. yes, i know what the polls say but two polls in five months, i don't think anybody knows what's going to happen in arizona on the democratic side. we won't know until we see it. on the republican side winning arizona is a huge deal. whoever wins in the republican

contest will get all the delegates from that state. it's winner take off. the conventional wisdom and some scant polling says that donald trump is the favorite but maybe ted cruz' internal polling is telling him something different. in a winner take off state there's no use campaigning to come in a strong second place. you wouldn't waste your breath until you think you have a chance to win. the only thing is winning. knowing that senator ted cruz has been making a play. he spent friday in arizona. he held a big rally at arizona christian university where some of the state's congressional delegation joined him. the cruise campaign made a six-figure ad buy. something about ted cruz' campaign. something about arizona tells him it's worth trying for first. any effort now to come from behind and try to put that state

in play might be too late almost structurally. early voting started in late february. it ended last week. it ended on friday. in state's two most populous counties, a majority of voters requested early voting. over 50% have been received and more are in the mail. candidates still competing are competing for a slice of the electorate that is narrowing by the day. many, if not most made up their mind before the candidates had their fully formed thought about the state. in a context like that, is it possible to pull off an arizona upset in either party? joining us now is rebecca sanders, congressional reporter for the arizona republic. thanks for being here. i appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me. >> there's been very little polling in the state. there's been some here and there. feels like it's not enough to

extrapolate from. you've seen some of these candidates ground cagames. what's your sense of who has the best shot? >> i'd agree with your assessment. i don't think an upset is possible here just from watching the ground games here and also talking to voters, and just knowing the kind of temperament of voters here. i would say that clinton and trump have the best chance here. as you said, the polling has been very sparse. in terms of events, cruz did come through with rally on friday and a surprise visit to a church on sunday morning. i hear that even the campaign of supporters who are trying to get an upset for him just haven't been given the resources from the national campaign that they need. i think it's going to be too little too late. >> on the democratic side one of the things that just me in nevada is that the sanders

campaign in nevada went in all in. campaigned there heavily. they had a lot of volunteers and the observation by veteran political reporters the it was a bit rag tag. there was a lot of enthusiasm and effort but not channelled in an efficient way. obviously arizona and nevada are two different things. we know hillary clinton won that contest. are you seeing the same pattern in arizona right now in terms of the enthusiasm for the sanders campaign but not necessarily being channelled properly? >> i think that's exactly it. the rallies here, barn storming he's done across the state from north to south across this week, they have been huge crowds, extremely passionate. you know, one of the problems is a lot of his supporters are young and independent. this is a closed presidential primary in arizona. i've spoken with young voters

who didn't even know they needed to re-register with the democratic party to participate. also, right, clinton's campaign has been very well mobilized for weeks now. they've just been much more disciplined, bigger staff and well it does look like the grass roots support for sanders with this being state with a long history of relationships with the clintons, i just don't see him overcoming here. >> rebecca sanders, reporter for the arizona republic. thanks for being with us tonight. >> thanks a lot. >> lots more ahead this primary eve. my friend frank rich is here. stay with us. it's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast. it's not how fast you mow, it's how well you mow fast. ...it's how well you mow fast! ...it's how well you mow fast. even if it doesn't catch on, doesn't mean it's not true. the john deere ztrak z535m

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marco rubio saying donald trump had small hands. that didn't work. flooding this great state of florida with $15 million of anti-donald trump ads. that did not work. mitt romney calling donald trump a dangerous con man. that didn't work. there's a new plan by anti-donald trump to defeat their front-runner. this will work perfectly. that's next. frank rich is here. stay with us. i take pictures of sunrises.

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marginally more happy than before i took that sip. that said, coffee feels terrible when it comes up the other way like when it comes flying out of your nose and splatters over the new ipad of which you're reading the sunday edition of the new york times like when you're reading this story. headline, republican leaders map strategy to derail donald trump. oh, really. sip. at last, sip, what is this strategy? sip. what will they do? they are quote, preparing a 100-day campaign to deny him the presidential tom nation starting with an aggressive battle in wisconsin's april 5th primary. starting april 5th. starting april 5th because why not wait until the wisconsin primary to get started. obviously they got nothing but time between now and then. friendly heads up, early voting in wisconsin started today. the associated press reported

this guy voted today wearing a superman sweatshirt he was first in a line of nine people waiting to vote when doors opened. he got there 45 minutes early so he could cast a ballot for donald trump. in case this plan waiting for a week into april before starting their 100-day plan, in case that doesn't work, there's another backup option for trying to stop donald trump within the republican party. also reported by the times this weekend. leading conservatives include bill crystal very excited about the idea now of fielding an independent candidate to run against mr. trump once he gets the republican nomination. they have two names in mind. i'll tell you more. sip. the first is former oklahoma senator tom koburn who retired frd the senate for health reasons.

the same tom coburn who said he's proud the u.s. elected president. who said of president obama i love him as a man. i think he's a neat man. if you cannot hear the clamor of republicans excitedly rallying around him for president, it's because it's a very, very quiet clamor. the other white knight waiting is rick perry. close observers will note that rick perry already ran a 100-day campaign to stop donald trump. it was called the rick perry presidential campaign. he announced he was running for president on june 4th of last year. 100 days later he was gone. it was over. it's not like the idea of rick perry for president has yet to be thunk as an idea. in response to his name being floated thus ruining my new ipad the campaign manager said with all due respect to bill crystal and donors have called, where

were you when governor perry was actually running for president of the united states. today donald trump predicted he will easily get enough delegates to get the nomination ahead of the republican convention in cleveland. he says he may get over 1400 delegates. he only needs 1200 to lock up the nomination. launched a 100-day effort to stop him starting a week into wisconsin because everybody should take a vacation and think about it first, it just, it gives you some idea of why the man is still winning in that party. got more ahead. stay with us. are part of what make you, you. and you're not going to let anything keep you sidelined. that's why you drink ensure with nutritious calories, 9 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. come on, grandma! giving you the strength and energy to get back to doing

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there's more going on around here than you might realize. tonight, lawrence o'donnel will host two hours of the last word right after this show. two straight hours including live coverage of a big bernie

sanders rally that's coming up later on this evening. tomorrow, it would not be a tuesday night if it did not involve you, me and everybody that works here. here's what you need to know for tomorrow. tomorrow night, 9:00 p.m. eastern we'll still have this show and after my show, i will be joined by brian williams and chris matthews and the rest of the team for full coverage of the primaries and caucuses in arizona, idaho and utah. it kicks off with this show and goes on forever. we still have lots more tonight. stay with us.

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you know, we're doing very well. it looks like we're doing very well in arizona and very well pretty much every place else. and i think we're going to maybe easily make that number of the 1,237. we should make it pretty easily, based on what i'm seeing. so we won't have to worry about fighting at a convention. >> he might be right. joining us now is frank rich, "new york" magazine's writer at large. his latest piece is on how donald trump is actually quite representative of today's republican party. it's out in this week's "new york" magazine. thanks for being here. >> delighted to be here, as always. >> my feeling about donald trump vis-a-vis the republican party is that it says nothing about the republican party that they like donald trump so much, other than they like donald trump a lot. i don't think it means that this is a fundamentally different type of party than it used to

be. >> no, exactly. my point about the so-called establishment, very frail, as you've been saying, is that trump isn't hijacking the party from them. they're trying to hijack the party from the voters who are voting for donald trump and whose second choice seems to be ted cruz, a man who called mitch mcconnell a liar on the floor of the sfath. >> if there isn't a republican establishment that represents the will of the voters in that party, what do they represent? are they just a separate republican political class? >> the country club. >> i mean, is it? is that what it is? >> it's like green acres. >> with less good outfits. >> less good outfits, although they do have a sort of -- anyway. but, anyway, i think that, i think what they represent is the donor class, the rich -- you know, particularly the corporate wall street types who routinely have financed the republican party, and they represent, you

know, the old school, the old past office holders, romney, has-beens, losers, as trump would say. look at the establishment. they backed jeb bush, chris christie, marco rubio. they all fell apart, and so will john kasich, i think, their last establishment choice. so they really represent themselves. a very 5% economic upper class niche within the party, i think. >> one of the things that i think is -- i agree with you on and i think it's a provocative point, and you argue it much better than i have been able to. which is, there's all these people saying, listen, if donald trump is picked, the republican party implodes, it falls apart, it will be unrecognizable, there won't be a republican party anymore. there were those kinds of warnings about nominating barry goldwater in 1964. what happened is they lost an election in 1964 and came back in the same party, a little more right wing. i feel like the donald trump nomination is something the

republican party will acclimate to. i don't think it's going to do anything disastrous to that party. >> no, i think it's a going to make a little bit more to the right, have a new cast of characters that are not the old establishment. just, after goldwater lost in a landslide to johnson, arthur schlessing schlessinger, "the new york times" said, we need a two-party system. this system is gone. two years later, ronald reagan was elected governor of california. here, we have a situation where there'll be a new establishment. it will be trump people and the people who are already cottoning up to him, jeff sessions, even karl rove, bill kristol will leave by the highway, so what? so i think there'll be a new establishment of these people, but it will be fundamentally the same, very conservative party that's gotten much more conservative in the past 20 years. >> what do you -- in terms of who's on the roadside there, that's also an intriguing point. we have the "national review," conservative magazine, putting out an anti-trump opus.

we have some rp operatives and some republican leaders, one republican senator, at least, saying, no, no, never trump, and i mean it, i'll never vote for him, i'm never do. if and when he wins the nomination and he becomes the leader of the republican party, what happens to those people who have been intransigent in their resistance to him. >> i think they'll make the art of the deal with him. they'll try to make a deal with him. they want to keep power. what you notice about a lot of these people, and kristol is typical of it, is they were people in the neocon foreign policy wing of the republican party, who are essentially discredited by the iraq war. they, you know, jeb bush used much of them as his foreign policy team. they were rejected by republican voters. they'll find a way to crawl back in, because in the end, they want power. and trump, probably, will be magnanimous, because he's happy to take anything from anybody, and exploit it to his own advantage. >> he has been willing. he represent himself as a counter puncher, which is true. he's also shown an incredible

willingness to get over any sort of grudge to the extent it can help him again in the future. >> exactly. and karl rove, who has been involved in various anti-trump activities, he had a column last week that said, how trump can make himself more presidential. they're already kissing up to him, waiting for exactly that moment you said, when he's in power and they may have to just surrender. >> democrats are excited about the prospect of him being the nominee, to the extent that democrats are excited about that, it's because they think he might lose, and even if he does win, it will blow up the republican party. i don't think there's any reason to believe that he would, a, lose, or blow up the party. >> i agree. careful what you wish for. >> frank rich, "new york" magazine's writer at large. good to see you, frank. we'll be right back. stay with us. [engines revving] you can't have a hero, if you don't have a villain. the world needs villains [tires screeching]

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♪ president donald trump knows how to make america great ♪ ♪ deal from strength or get crushed every time ♪ >> these are the usa freedom kids. the usa freedom kids perform patriotic choreographed murvegical numbers. we were first introduced to them at a donald trump rally in pensacola, florida, last year. obviously, they are a treasure. very cute, super talented. this is just one of the many incredible things that we have seen at donald trump rallies. but, with the freedom kids, we sort of thought we'd seen the apex of this as a musical phenomenon, right? i sort of felt like this was the brightest, this particular type of star could shine. but the trump campaign, you know what, they keep going back to florida. so it turns out there's more. and now i think we really have reached a new apex, or nadir, i can't really tell. but without further ado. here is a thing that happened. ♪ i won't cry ♪ no, i won't cry

♪ i won't shed one tear ♪ just as long as you stand ♪ by me come on! ♪ so, donald, donald, stand by me ♪ ♪ oh, and we'll stand by you >> so darling, darling, it's donald, donald. that is a thing that happened. that does it for us tonight. we'll see you again tomorrow. now it's time for "the last word with lawrence o'donnell." >> rachel, two last words. we'll do two hours tonight. >> wonderful. >> thanks, rachel. so welcome to this special two-hour edition of the "last word," which will include live coverage of a bernie sanders campaign speech in arizona, a state he's hoping to pick up a win tomorrow. but first, mr. trump goes to washington. >> donald trump convening a secret meeting of top republicans in washington