this sunday, terror in brussels after another horrific isis attack on yet another european capitol, are major intelligence failings putting more lives at risk. >> this country seems overwhelmed by the scale of the threat. we'll have the latest from a city on edge. plus, the trump effect. the republican race devolves even further. >> donald, you're a sniffling coward and leave heidi the hell alone. >> is this now the new normal. also, convention chaos. >> the delegates are not bound to vote according to the primary. >> how the republican establishment can deny donald trump the nomination no matter

how many states he wins. one of the candidates who hopes to benefit, john kasich, joins me. >> and a big night for bernie sanders who won big victories in three caucus states saturday. >> state after state huge voter turnouts. >> bernie sanders is joining me live. joining me for inside analysis are members of the nbc campaign team, andrea mitchell, katie tur, hallie jackson and kristen welker. welcome to this special easter sunday edition of "meet the press." >> announcer: from nbc news in washington, this is "meet the press" with chuck todd. good easter sunday morning. it was a big saturday night, by the way, for bernie sanders. he will join me later in the show. sanders swept the three caucuses in washington, alaska, and hawaii. and he did so by huge margins. that said, he still faces an uphill path to the nomination because hillary clinton still has that commanding overall delegate lead, but we're going to start with what's been a

strange week in the republican campaign, even strange by this standard. you might have expected the conversation to have been dominated by the isis terror attacks in brussels which claimed the lives of 28 people including two americans who we can identify, justin and stephanie shults. they had been married and been living in brussels since 2014, but as donald trump has done countless times, he somehow or had it moved for him, the focus of the conversation away from terror and his own foreign policy weaknesses to an opponent and this time the focus got turned to ted cruz. >> his first and natural resort is to go to sleaze and to go to slime and one question americans are wondering all over this country is how low will donald go. >> reporter: a week that began with questions about donald trump's readiness to be commander in chief and a rush of establishment endorsements of ted cruz is ending with a dispute over this photo retweeted by trump to his 7 million twitter followers. >> donald, you're a sniffling

coward and leave heidi the hell alone. >> in a tabloid story that he believes he had planted. >> this is garbage. it is a smear that has come from donald trump and his hinch men. >> reporter: trump says he had nothing to do with it and a digital ad placed by a targeted ad. the charges and countercharges, insults and innuendo are just another day in this campaign dominated by donald trump. other candidates have struggled to keep up. >> donald, you know, is great at the one liners. he's a chaos candidate. >> reporter: trump is a master at the chaos he creates, of insults that stick. >> hostility works for some people, it doesn't work for everybody. >> it's been incareen or used up. trump changed the subject to john mccain. >> he's a war hero because he was captured. i like people that weren't

captured, okay? >> when rubio and cruz got the upper hand in a debate last month, trump ruled out chris christie's endorsement. >> and this week when his awkward appearance raised more questions about his readiness for the white house. >> this was about isis. >> by the way, could i do one thing. this is a very good looking group of people here. could i just go a around so i know who the hell i'm talking about here? >> sure. >> where trump leads on issues. >> donald j. trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of muslims entering the united states. >> other candidates follow. ted cruz is still trying to walk back a plan to, quote, patrol and secure muslim neighborhoods. >> if you have a neighborhood that is plagued by gang activity it is standard and good law enforcement to direct more resources. >> it's an echo effect that has trump to his own success and detriment setting the terms of the campaign debate.

>> yesterday i was joined by john kasich and i started by asking him about the brussels attacks and why he thinks so many republicans who have voted in the primaries agree with calls from trump and cruz to not just ban muslims from entering the united states but even introduce extra surveillance in muslim communities in america. >> i think when they see things it makes them very concerned and very nervous so it's sort of a knee jerk i think, chuck, but let's talk practically here. in order for us to have great human intelligence, i want the public to hear this, we are going to have to have intimate communication and coordination with our friends in the muslim community. there is no question about it. i mean, in order to find out about the radicalized friends and neighbors or people that you may not even know at all who you observe doing things, this has to be a coordinated effort worldwide. one other thing i want to say, chuck, that is that i think that

we ought to have a dramatically reformed nato. right now we think of nato as a military organization. i think it needs to involve itself in policing and in intelligence gathering because when we look at europe right now, we find there's so many holes and an inability to get their act together. >> you have a europe right now where every country feels as if it's every country for themselves. we talk about the rising ri sid did i vimp in this country. you have it in efrp western european country, sort of a similar pattern where there's distrust of their own allies. they're concerned about sharing their economic wealth with other less economically -- with more economically challenged countries. it seems like europe is about to fall apart. >> either we hang together or we hang separately is what the message from a good leader is. chuck, this is a little bit of a different illustration, but in

our state whenever we have a difficulty somewhere, almost our entire cabinet shows up. i have told them all that we work together to solve a problem. we can't have silos. we just have to work together. that is what the president of the united states needs to communicate to our allies around the world and, frankly, it's got to include our friends in the arab community. we cannot beat this unless we do this, strengthen ourselves militarily, destroy isis and begin to have a message out there particularly by the muslim imams about the fact that this is not tolerable. this is murder and it's not acceptable in our civilization. >> you were pretty critical of the president for not cutting short his trip in cuba and not immediately coming back to washington. should he do that after every single terrorist attack? he also shares your belief that you can't overreact to every incident or you unnerve the public. >> well, look, i would say, chuck, when you have an attack

in the heart of europe and you have this type of slaughter, if i were president, i'm telling you what i would have done. i wouldn't have gone to a baseball game in cuba. i would have come home, called all my military experts and sent them to europe to sit down and assess our vulnerabilities. i'm not over rreacting here, bu you can't under react. when somebody says you should ban all muslims, that's a statement that's not based in reality. i don't know how you would do it and secondly, we can't be out there aggravating the very people whose cooperation we need. in terms of the president in cuba, don't go to a baseball game after this happened. you come home. >> let me ask a politics question. ted cruz's campaign has repeatedly called for you to get out saying a vote for you is a vote for donald trump. we went through this last week. if you thought your position in this race was to strengthen trump, would you get out? >> chuck, i'm beating hillary by 11 points.

i'm the only one that can win in the fall. the narrative has been what is wrong with the party? kasich's the guy that can win the general. some people have said kasich would be the best president. i mean, get out for what? if i'd of gotten out, trump would be the nominee, he would have won ohio and frankly we'll win some districts in wisconsin. we will move to pennsylvania where i'm basically in a statistical tie no new york. we'll pick up delegates. it's absurd. let them consolidate behind me. frankly, i'm the one that can win in the fall and i'm the one that can get the crossover votes. happy easter. >> there you go. campaign tone has been every time you think we've hit a low it goes lower. you've based your whole campaign on not participating in that so i get that. i know that's going to be one part of your answer, but can ted cruz or donald trump do something about this? is this -- is this all a trump effect? what do you make of this?

>> well, first of all, chuck, families have to be off limit. i mean, you cannot get these attacks on families, and if this becomes the order of the day, what kind of people are we going to have in the future that are going to run for public office? there's got to be some rules and there's got to be something that gets set there, some decency, and frankly, chuck, at the end of the day, you know, it's -- what we need to do is we need to have programs to lift people and not diminish people and that's what we're seeing a lot of happening. look, it's a long way to cleve land. let's see what happens. >> you still are committed to supporting donald trump if he's the nominee? >> we're going to look at it every single day and we'll see what happens. we've got a long way to go. i don't want to project that he's going to be the nominee. i don't think he'll be the nominee and if he is, i review it every day. >> sounds like it's more hesitance every day. >> i said what i said, chuck, and i'm done talking about the

subject. >> fair enough. how about that? anyway, let's bring in the panel. we've got four of our top campaign correspondents here in studio another few brief days. andrea mitchell. she covers the hillary clinton campaign. hallie jackson and kristen welker and katie tur who is on the donald trump beat. welcome all. sorry that i am sucking up holiday time. i appreciate it. >> that's all right. >> obviously a bizarre week, andrea, in so many ways. i want to go because what i think could have been the story of this week was this unbelievable editorial board interview that donald trump did with the washington post. i'm going to play a longer excerpt of it and get you to respond. >> if you could substantially reduce the risk of harm to our ground troops, would you use the battlefield nuclear weapon to take out isis?

>> i don't want to use nuclear. rubio hit me, bush hit me. when i said low energy, he's a low energy individual. he hit me first. by the way, he spent $18 million worth of negative ads on me. >> this is about isis. you would not -- >> by the way, could i do one thing? this is a very good looking group of people. could i just go around so i know who the hell i'm talking about. >> when he excerpted it, when he went around the room, the subject got changed. >> he changed it. >> national security is very noticeable. especially to your ears and mine. >> absolutely. this was on. there's a lot happening and the president had some vulnerabilities, so does hillary clinton. but instead he's all over the lot. then "the new york times" do an interview with him, 90 minute interview, in today's paper and

online and the transcript, if you read the transcript online, he would cancel defense treaties with japan and south korea. he doesn't mind if japan and south korea go nuclear. since world war ii we've been trying to keep nukes out of that arena. he would stop importing oil from saudi arabia if they don't pay more for their defense. we need oil. we are not energy dependent for our daily needs. >> sure. >> he is skpleetly a completelye lot. iran, it had to be pointed out to them that they're still under sanctions and can't buy that. he thinks north korea and iran are the biggest trading partners. he is completely uneducated about any part of the world. >> katie, it is clear. you cover this campaign every

day. there isn't a big team around them, is there? >> no. >> you don't see the foreign policy advisers. he's telling the times some of them are under contract as he told me first, he learns a lot of things from the shows. i guess he's going to hire a foreign policy team based on people that are appearing on various -- >> but you don't see them out with donald trump at all. we're not seeing them very much on the tv circuit as you mentioned. it's unclear how many conversations he's had with them. we've made phone calls to all of these people. very few of them have gotten back to us and given us a flushed out idea of what's going on. >> how he learns. >> how he learns, whether he's taking it all in. i dare say that that washington post audio excerpt will come back to haunt him in the general election especially if he's going up against somebody like hillary clinton who is so well versed over foreign policy. he didn't understand the function of u.s. bases around the world.

the question is, can he change the subject as he has been doing? >> this is a chance for trump to appear presidential. give a big foreign policy speech, she took the ball, ran on it, went on offense and hit donald trump. >> very traditionally. she did it very traditionally the way you would expect a presidential candidate should do. then the tone got changed. the ball came in cruz world a little bit. you know, was de-escalated quickly. i guess, sort of what happened here? how did this go from a super pac digital ad get turned into what it got turned into? >> right. tuesday we're talking about this terror attacks, the candidates talking about it. saturday we're talking about the national inquirer and the tabloid story.

i think this shows that donald trump can shift the conversation with a single tweet. the tweet that came out retweeting heidi cruz next to ma lan yeah trump. it was stunning to the cruz campaign. very emotional about this even before we started talking about the inquirer story. one of the things ted cruz has been hit on is that he's inauthentic. he's emotional, mad, sthoeg. >> speaking of it, let me show you. you asked him twice two days in a row. can you still support trump if he's the nominee. it was interesting to watch him from thursday to friday. >> will you support him as a nominee? >> i'm going to beat him for the nomination. >> that's not answering. >> i am answering the question. donald trump will not be the nominee. >> he's leading now. you said he's a coward. will you support him? >> donald trump will not be the nominee. >> i don't make a habit out of

supporting people who attack my wife and attack my family. >> so an evolving movement. by the way, for the record, kasich is having a hesitation. i can show a montage. take a listen to this. >> so on -- on this where john kasich has moved and shifted that same way, do you think cruz will ever go all the way? >> that's a good question. i think you're seeing him lay the groundwork over the last 48 hours. he didn't say he wouldn't support donald trump as the nominee but he didn't say what he's been saying for months which is affirmatively, yes, i have made a commitment, i have made a pledge to support somebody and i keep my promises. that is fundamental to ted cruz's campaign. yesterday he said i don't make a habit of supporting people. donald trump is not a

republican, not donald trump is not a conservative, donald trump is not a republican. may open the door. >> andrea, final thing, what is amazing, trump is almost trying to borrow a page from the lbj playbook. he said, i hope that story's not true, also trying to fan the flames. hey, look, the national inquirer got it right on edwards, got it right on o.j. simpson. then he throws in ted cruz. this is sort of make them deny it lbj. >> of course. as katie's been reporting, he's got a very close relationship with the people at the national inquirer. >> there's more evidence that ties trump to planting the story than there is to the story itself tying anything to cruz. >> i hope this is not true and then tell me everything about it. it has been a remarkable and extraordinary -- at the time he should be vulnerable.

>> we have to move on. the audio of this washington post thing if it ever got legs could he even get the nomination. thank you all. we'll take a pause. coming up, we'll have the latest from brussels. a key question, do systemic intelligence failings in europe make more attacks inevitable, not just there but maybe even here? ♪ ♪ geico motorcycle, great rates for great rides. if you misplace your you can use freeze it to prevent new purchases on your account in seconds. and once you find it, you can switch it right on again. you're back! freeze it from discover.

i'm bushed! i've been on my feel alyea me too.er.com. excuse me...coming through! ride the gel wave of comfort with dr. scholls massaging gel insoles. they're proven to give you comfort. which helps you feel more energized ...all day long. i want what he has. [engines revving] you can't have a hero, if you don't have a villain. the world needs villains [tires screeching] and villains need cars. ♪ we need to be ready for my name's scott strenfel and r i'm a meteorologist at pg&e. we make sure that our crews as well as our customers are prepared to how weather may impact their energy. so every single day we're monitoring the weather, and when storm events arise our forecast get crews out ahead of the storm to minimize any outages.

during storm season we want our customers to be ready and stay safe. learn how you can be prepared at pge.com/beprepared. together, we're building a better california. we're always looking for ways to speed up your car insurance search. here's the latest. problem is, we haven't figured out how to reverse it. for now, just log on to compare.com... plug in some simple info and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest and hit purchase. now...if you'll excuse me, i'm late for an important function. compare.com. saving humanity from high insurance rates. welcome back. it's been reported this morning that theyrian army has retaken the historic city of palmyra welcome back. it's been reported that they have retaken the historic city

of palmyra with support. this morning church services have been taking place on easter sunday to remember the 28 victims of the attacks on the city subway system and airport. brussels is still on edge. a peace rally had to be canceled. let's check in with keir simmons in brussels. i understand a new arrest this morning in connection with the brussels bombing. tell us about it. >> reporter: hey, chuck. that's right. this is an international manhunt for suspects. this morning they have arrested an algerian man in italy. he's accused of producing documents for the terrorists. we're learning about the international nature of the various items of the day.

they say that they have injured from 19 nationalities. among them killed the belgium ambassador andre adam who spent some time as the belgium ambassador to the u.s. justin and stephanie shults, two families that didn't know where they were, finally they got that terrible news. they say that that couple were really enjoying their time here in europe going around seeing the sights. terrible news. you can see here behind me, the army still on the streets as we learn they're targeting this city. they've targeted an international city and would have known they would have killed people from many, many parts of the world. >> made it a global reach. seems as if there is obviously

some connection between the paris attacks and what happened this week, but a week ago, a week ago friday there was a big arrest in the paris attacks having to do with abdel saleh, an arrest made in paris. did it take place in brussels within 72 hours of the arrest? >> reporter: right. good question. another point, too, they put out an arrest warrant for a man kamd najim rash wa lee. they said abdeslam was talking to the police and that he was telling them that there might be another attack. it has now emerged that he was not saying that during interrogation. i think there will be questions. there are questions about what the intelligence services knew and whether they could have prevented an a being at that.

they're going to wonder whether some of the publicity and things that were said may have led a terrorist cell to act and whether or not that was completely wise. chuck. >> keir, thanks very much. for more on this i'm joined by our chief foreign correspondent richard engel and michael is now with the national security company leidos. michael, i want to go to you on this last point here. the arrests here, arrest of abdeslam on friday. less than 24 hours this attack happened. there seems to be something here that connects these two incidents. >> i think almost certainly, chuck. this shows a likely serious tactical judgment. the first thing did you for, what other attacks might be coming. it looks at least from the outside that that didn't occur, but there's a second more strategic piece here.

this is the first time since 9/11 that we have had a cell or network in the west conduct an attack and then it survives to fight another day and launch another attack. this is after four months. >> never happened in any other incident. >> never happened. >> able to eliminate that cell. >> we've never gotten back to the planners in pakistan or somalia. the cell in the west, london, madrid. >> able to destroy it. >> >> we broke it up. four months of intense investigation, they have another attack. >> able to reconstitute itself, attack new members and strike again. >> you talk about a tactical failure, strategic failure, michael hayden said something startling to me. the quickest path to get information around europeans is to tell the americans. if france and belgium couldn't coordinate on dealing with this,

if those two countries that share a language, how does the rest of europe do it? >> there were so many intelligence failures on this. it makes you wonder how many more will there be. look what happened with one of the chief suspects. he was arrested in turkey while trying to sneak into syria. the turks say they deported him, shared this information with european partners and he still got out and was able to become one of the major attackers. it seems like the dam has been broken for a problem that has been building up for a long time. 7,000, that's the number you're hearing as well, foreign fighters -- >> right. >> -- from european countries gone to fight with isis and maybe 1500 or so have come back and europe doesn't know where they are and isn't talking. >> i'm going to say a question i can't believe i'm saying. is brussels a safe haven for

terrorists? >> brussels is worse safe haven than other places. regrettably, much of europe is. it's wonderful for the free movement of people, goods, commerce, but it's terrible from a security perspective. so the borderless society has very much bored derd intelligence officials. >> you know, it's interesting. i want to play a quick clip of your interview with john kerry, secretary of state. you pressed him on this. it was an amazing non-answer from him. i want to play it. >> do you think europe has a handle on the level of the isis infiltration or isis problem here? >> europe's done a lot and particularly the government of belgium has done a lot. before this event took place they had already had our foreign

fighter surge team here a month ago. they are the ones that apprehended saleh abdeslam. that may or may not have initiated this attack. >> he tried everything he could do to praise and yet behind the scenes you can't find an american analyst that says this was on belgium. >> i speak to people who said they were pulling their hair out. he's coming there as a diplomatic mission but it seems like there are many, many problems. if you're in one state and you drive across the state line, let's say the cops are chasing you from north carolina to south carolina, they're still going to be chasing you when you get to north carolina. that is not the case in europe. the intelligence stops. >> stops at the border. >> at the border. it's like a 1950s system. if you get away the state line. >> you're safe. >> scott free. >> they're trying to go

borderless in europe and trying to do all of these things. what we're seeing, the rise of nationalism and natoism. ted cruz is calling for the watching of the muse limb community. did a whole op ed and yet this morning in brussels, anti-immigrant protests, nationalism is on the rise in europe, too. that will make your job in the intelligence community that much harder. >> that's right. intelligence and law enforcement have to deal with the communities whether it's in brussels or boston. >> anti-immigration protests. >> that's my biggest fear. that means they're not going to cooperate, they're not going to feel integrated parts of society. that integration is what kept the u.s. more immune. >> we don't have these ghettos

that europe has, but the more chatter like this it can create the ghetto. >> absolutely. i have to leave it there. up next, back to politics, back to the presidential race. big wins for bernie sanders last night. hillary clinton has a commanding lead in the delegate account. i will ask him what changed and does it help his path to the nomination. later, donald trump's problems with women. why it could change the electoral map in a big way. al, how you doing. hey, mr. hamilton. vo: know that together you can establish a meaningful legacy. with the guidance and support of your dedicated pnc wealth management team.

i'm bushed! i've been on my feel alyea me too. excuse me...coming through! ride the gel wave of comfort with dr. scholls massaging gel insoles. they're proven to give you comfort. which helps you feel more energized ...all day long. i want what he has. i have an orc-o-gram we for an "owen."e. that's me. ♪ you should hire stacy drew. ♪ ♪ she wants to change the world with you. ♪ ♪ she can program jet engines to talk and such. ♪ ♪ her biggest weakness is she cares too much. ♪ thank you. my friend really wants a job at ge. mine too. ♪ i'm a wise elf from a far off shire. ♪ and sanjay patel is who you should hire. ♪ thank you. seriously though, stacy went to a great school and she's really loyal. you should give her a shot. sanjay's a team player and uh...

hey how's it going, hotcakes? hotcakes. this place has hotcakes. so why aren't they selling like hotcakes? with comcast business internet and wifi pro, they could be. just add a customized message to your wifi pro splash page and you'll reach your customers where their eyes are already - on their devices. order up. it's more than just wifi, it can help grow your business. you don't see that every day. introducing wifi pro, wifi that helps grow your business. comcast business. built for business.

welcome back. now to the democratic race and my next guest, bernie sanders, he scored some impressive victories over hillary clinton in the three well come back. now that the democratic race and my next guest scored some wins over hillary clinton. in alaska he won by a whopping 64 points. washington state another big win for sanders. 73% for him, to clinton's 27 and in hawaii, he won by a smaller margin, 42 points. 71%. so big wins in all three states. sanders picked up so far 46 of the delegates that have been allocated from last night. clinton has 14, however, clinton still has an overall commanding lead in the delegate count, 1672

to sanders 994. that does include super delegates in our count, by the way. senator sanders joins me from vermont. good morning. >> good morning. >> you have to continue to win by margins like this to catch up to hillary clinton. can you win 60% of the vote or more in wisconsin, in pennsylvania, in new york, in maryland? how does this -- >> our calculations -- our calculations are that, in fact, we can win the pledge delegates and at a time when we have the momentum, we have won five out of the six last contests in landslide fashion, in all of the national polling that i have seen we are beating donald trump by much greater margins than

secretary clinton. we started this campaign at 3% in the polls, 60 points behind clinton. we have the momentum. a lot of the super delegates are beginning to look at which democratic candidate. that's your point at this point. do you think you should be the nominee? if you don't win a majority of the pledged delegates, do you think the super delegates should decide who the nominee is? >> well, i'm not going to speculate. i think we can win the pledge delegates. i think if we continue the momentum we have right now, we will. and the reason is, i'll tell you, the issues that we are talking about, a corrupt campaign finance system, the disappearance of the american middle class, the grow tess being income of wealth, the need to deal boldly with climate

change. kids graduating college $50,000 in debt. chuck, those are the issues the american people want to hear discussed and acted upon. >> i want to talk about how the two of you bring this party together once a nominee is decided. i notice some change at your rallies over the last couple of weeks. i want to play some excerpts here. there's a lot of booing of hillary clinton going on. take a listen. >> she voted for the war. what she has done is established a number of super pacs. her largest one recently reported raising $25 million from -- >> secretary clinton has given speeches on wall street behind closed doors for $225,000 a speech. >> what's interesting is then your reaction to the booing. you had no reaction here.

here's what you did a month ago when booing started about hillary clinton at your rallies. >> one of the areas where my opponent, secretary clinton and i have a strong disagreement -- no, i respect secretary clinton. we can have differences. >> now according to our folks, the last time you chastised your supporters for booing hillary clinton was on february 23rd. now you don't do that. any reason? >> no, no reason at all. you know, every day we are in a different position here. i respect secretary clinton. i don't want our supporters to be booing her, but there are real differences of opinion, and one of the differences is that she has raised $15 million from wall street. we have raised 6 million individual contributions averaging $27 apiece. people respond the way they respond, but what we are trying to do in this campaign to

differentiate our positions on the war in iraq, on fracking, on how we raise money. that's what the american people want here. by the way, one other point, chuck. i would hope very much that as we go into new york state, secretary clinton's home state, that we will have a debate. new york city, upstate, wherever on the important issues facing new york and, in fact, the country. >> are you worried she won't debate you anymore? >> yeah, i do have a little bit of a concern about that but i would like to see a debate in new york state. >> very quickly. in a web interview last week you set parameters of things, of demands that you have of hillary clinton, that she support medicare for all. free public college and that that's what it would take to earn your support and your supporters' support. is that correct? if she doesn't sign on to medicaid fraud, for instance, you won't support her as the

nomin nominee? >> no, that's a misinterpretation of what i said. those are my views and i think those are the positions that are imperative that we move forward toward for the betterment of the working class and for this country. >> you are not going to support her if she -- >> no, i didn't say that. i said it remains absurd we remain the only country that does not guarantee health care. we have got to change that. >> is there conditions for you to support her? >> right now i am to become president of the united states and i hope very much, chuck, that you'll be asking her that question. >> i understand that, and i will, the next time i have her, but there are conditions of your support? >> right now we have a lot of momentum. we're focusing on wisconsin, new york state. we have a path to victory. we are going to win this nomination process.

>> bernie sanders, i will leave it there. senator sanders, thanks for coming on. stay safe on the trip. >> thank you very much. up next, a look on how trump's comments on women can turn the gender gap into the gender grand canyon. soup and sandwich and clean and real and inside jokes and school night. good, clean food pairs well with anything. try the clean pairings menu. at panera. food as it should be. to folks out there whose diabetic nerve pain... shoots and burns its way into your day, i hear you. to everyone with this pain that makes ordinary tasks extraordinarily painful,

i hear you. make sure your doctor hears you too! i hear you because i was there when my dad suffered with diabetic nerve pain. if you have diabetes and burning, shooting pain in your feet or hands, don't suffer in silence! step on up and ask your doctor about diabetic nerve pain. tell 'em cedric sent you. chuck, i know i have a 798 fico score, thanks to experian.com. kaboom... get your credit swagger on. go to experian.com. become a member of experian credit tracker and take charge of your score. for crash survival, subaru has developed ours most revolutionary feature yet. a car that can see trouble and stop itself to avoid it. when the insurance institute for highway safety tested front crash prevention nobody beat subaru models with eyesight. not toyota. not ford or any other brand.

subaru eyesight. an extra set of eyes, every time you drive. welcome back. it's meet the press data down load time. we'll take a deep dive into donald trump's problem with women volters and how it could cost him big time in november. among all women trump's favorability rating was an astonishing 21% positive, 70% negative. 49 points under water. really unprecedented for a major candidate. mitt romney's was only five points under water just before the 2012 election, 5. trump has a 41 negative rate among republican women. in 2012 president obama beat romney by all women, 55 to 44.

hillary clinton beats donald trump by nearly three times that margin, 60 to 31 among all women. what about white women? a group of republicans that typically win contests. romney, white women, 56/42, pretty impressive. trump would lose white women, 48/38. a remarkable 24 point swing among that group from a plus 14 to a minus 10. why is this important? trump is going to have to drive up the vote among whites to win? how do you do that when you lose roughly half. finally, let's look at where elections are won and lost. the suburbs. clinton beats trump by a whopping 60 to 30. that makes trump vulnerable in key states with large suburban states. think, northern virginia, philadelphia, cleve land, orlando, denver all in states

president obama won in 2012 largely because of a significant gender gap with romney. now add in charlotte, north carolina, atlanta, georgia, and phoen phoenix, arizona. they were lost by obama and could be won by clinton if she wins by margins with women against donald trump. republicans are used to having a gender gap to deal with, but now this looks like a gender canyon or gender grand canyon. after the break, inside the gop plot to take the nomination away from donald trump to win the convention. be ready to learn about zombie delegates. we'll be right back. i think we should've taken a left at the river. tarzan know where tarzan go! tarzan does not know where tarzan go. hey, excuse me, do you know where the waterfall is? waterfall? no, me tarzan, king of jungle. why don't you want to just ask somebody? if you're a couple, you fight over directions. it's what you do. if you want to save fifteen percent or more on car insurance, you switch to geico. oh ohhhhh it's what you do.

ohhhhhh! do you have to do that right in my ear? don't let dust and allergies get and life's beautiful moments. wi flonase allergy relief, they wont. most allergy pills only control one inflammatory substance. flonase controls six. and six is greater than one. flonase changes everything. legalzoom has your back. for your business, our trusted network of attorneys has provided guidance to over 100,000 people just like you. visit legalzoom today. the legal help you can count on. legalzoom. legal help is here.

we're always looking for ways to speed up your car insurance search. here's the latest. problem is, we haven't figured out how to reverse it. for now, just log on to compare.com... plug in some simple info and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest and hit purchase. now...if you'll excuse me, i'm late for an important function. compare.com. saving humanity fromigh insurance rates.

donald trump is in a race to 1237. it's a number now we're all getting used to and familiar with. he can't afford to miss hitting that magic number and here's why. because there's already an effort underway to stop him on a second ballot at the convention in cleveland. right now trump has 752 delegates. a 282 delegate lead over ted cruz. in order to hit the magic 1237 majority number, trump has to win 54% of the remaining delegates. he has some favorable contests coming up like his home state of new york which has 95 delegates and a winner take allstate of new jersey where maybe his buddy chris christie can help him win those 51 delegates, but the race is already on to create sort of delegate double agents.

if trump fails to win that majority on the first ballot, these are people who will promise to dump trump on the second ballot. then there's an effort underway to mobilize zombie delegates. these are delegates pledged to candidates who promises to drop out of the race. maybe it's cruz, maybe it's trump. to discuss this i'm joined by our resident zombie expert who served as lead counsel in the bush/cheney campaign and he was mitt romney's lawyer in 2012. so the zombie apocalypse will hit cleveland. i want to talk about the free agent delegates first. we had donald trump this morning already angry about this. >> yes. >> louisiana, he wins that big. the cruz campaign says they'll have more delegates out of louisiana, a state they lost, than trump. how did they do it? explain. >> the way they managed to do it is that 44 of the 56 states, territories give the candidates

no role in choosing who the delegates will be. >> who the individuals are. >> who the individuals are and so a well organized campaign will go into state campaigns, state executive committee meetings and manage to get supporters of theirs. they'll be bound on the first ballot to the winner of the primary but not to any of the procedural rules issues and not for the second ballot. >> all right. so they're the double agents. now let's talk about zombie delegates. i want to put up a graphic here. there are a group of unbound delegates. we know there are always going to be over about 100 of them, 169 of them come from states that have chosen not to hold a contest, colorado chief among them. >> right. >> then there's another 175 of the zombie delegates, these are people, mostly marco rubio delegates, a handful of carson, maybe one or two jeb bushes. what is their role in all of this? >> well, their role in all this have is almost the equivalent of the democrats super delegates.

in other words, they can be for whatever candidate they want. so, for example, the campaigns will be very aggressive in going to the state conventions where these unbound delegates are selected. you're going to have three tests coming up in the first three weeks. you'll have fargo, north dakota, you'll have colorado springs, colorado, and then you're going to have casper, wyoming. >> there you go. >> there are three great places to go. >> i'm going to specifically go to katie and hallie. it's the cruz and trump campaign. the cruz campaign seems to know everything about this process. >> they are incredibly well organized when it comes to sort of this on the ground micro targeting data kind of thing when it comes to these delegates. this is something that the campaigns have successfully in iowa have done, drilled down. >> they know the delegates likes and dislikes? >> certainly the 334 and probably all of them that are going. the campaign has said they are not just focusing on the races to come but looking back, in

order to make sure they lock it down, make sure they watch colorado. >> you have south carolina. the trump campaign doesn't like this narrative that they don't know what they're doing. >> absolutely. they do have a team in place. about a dozen people, their delegate convention team. they are going out and trying to convince delegates to get on their side. their internal projections say that they're going to get to 1400, 1450. who knows where they're getting it from. that's what they're saying. if they don't get that, they believe they have a real opportunity in that full window between the last primary and the convention to woo the unbound delegates by negotiating for whatever they want. >> there are no rules. as we know. he is a negotiator, as we know, zblump the deal maker. >> they have a mind of their own. i want to play an interviewee did with kurmy haugland. >> well, here's another thing

that's not very well understood. the priority of rules and authority in the republican party is the convention first. the convention is the highest authority and so the convention rules govern everything. >> ah, the convention rules. guess what, we don't have convention rules yet, do we? >> no, we do not. that's the point of this that donald trump doesn't yet understand. they must be passed by each convention for that convention. there will be a lot of carrolly haugdens out there on what can be done. >> this is going to be madness. sneak in one more break. end game time in less than a minute. more on the battle for the women's vote if it is a trump/clinton contest. coming up, "meet the press" end game brought to you by boeing. building the future one century at a time. ent reminders to your customers... ...and share promotions on social media? you know it! now i'm seeing dollar signs.

you should probably get your eyes checked. good one babe. optometry humor. right now get up to $650 in credits to help you switch to at&t. trolling for a gig with can't blame you. it's a drone you control with your brain, which controls your thumbs, which control this joystick. no, i'm actually over at the ge booth. we're creating the operating system for industry. it's called predix. it's gonna change the way the world works. ok, i'm telling my brain to tell the drone to get you a copy of my resume.

umm, maybe keep your handsin on the controller. look out!! ohhhhhhhhhh... you know what, i'm just gonna email it to you. yeah that's probably safer. ok, cool. "meet the press" end game is brought to you by boeing. building the future one century at a time. end game time. pane . "meet the press" end game is brought to you by boeing. building the future one century at a time.

"end game" time. panel is here. we've been ping ponging a lot. i know that you guys have a lot of interest in our little data download. andrea, what's been interesting is the clinton campaign for months has been trying to galvanize her candidacy as a huge step for women in politics. haven't had much success and yet they've got donald trump. >> donald trump is the gift that keeps on giving to the clinton campaign because everything that he says and every insult and every perceived insult only adds to women's concern. i mean, the clinton campaign is looking in a general election, republican urban women. >> kristen, are they embracing the idea of running against trump or just sort of dealing with it? >> they're dealing with it and trying to determine what his achilles heel is going to be. this women's issue is certainly going to be -- >> they think it is? >> a part of that. they think it's a key part of

it. his controversial comments about muslims, for example. their biggest challenge is to figure out what to do with all of this material. remember back in 2012 when the obama campaign had the 47% comments. they didn't just roll it out all at once, they allowed the media to sort of take aim at it first and then you saw this very measured rollout. i think that's going to be one of the big challenges. someone said something very smart to me, which is, they have to be careful not to throw everything at him all at once. the mention saging gets lost. >> what's funny about that, kady, if hillary clinton saturday down with marco rubio, jeb bush, what advice did you give me, don't assume all of it's vulnerable. >> she has the ability to be a monday morning quarterback here. she can see everything they've done wrong and learn from it. the trump campaign is excited to go against hillary clinton. they do believe that she has a lot of faults. they do believe she is vulnerable and they're not so worried about this gender gap

right now. they keep saying over and over again that donald trump has worked well with women in the past. they have ivanka trump to help minimize it. they believe white men will come out and vote. they believe they'll turn out new voters. it will mitigate the women losses. >> he just rolled out incompetent hillary as the nickname of lion's head. >> do you think that's going to -- >> well, he is vulnerable on foreign policy. the more she hugs president obama, which she is doing now, and not distinguishing herself from him, the more she is vulnerable on everything going wrong if things are going wrong. >> donald trump is a master at repackaging himself. >> absolutely. >> he doesn't have to win. he has to close the dwap. >> hallie, what they're learning here, the trump campaign, the vulnerabilities, all i have to do is say hillary clinton. the clinton campaign says how do i motivate people, donald trump.

>> we're not through the primary. ted cruz and john kasich say, i can beat hill try. you will see ted cruz and john kasich use the perceived vulnerabilities to try to take him down in july. >> i want to depress you all here for a minute. i apologize. do you realize there are more days ahead in the primary contest between now and june 7th than there have been in the contests that have been held so far. >> that's exciting. >> we are not yet at the calendar halftime. unlike the ncaa tournament, our march madness goes on to april, may, june. >> the wildcats beat kansas. >> all right. we shall see. that's all for today. have a very happy easter. we'll be back next week because no matter what the holiday is, if it's sunday, it's "meet the press."

good afternoon. i'm chris janseng, 3:00 on the east coast, 9:00 in brussels. night has fallen and we are live which today was supposed to be the end point for a peaceful easter sunday solidarity march. it was canceled over security concerns. instead, police in riot gear faced down 400 people dressed all in black as they marched into the city carrying with them anti-terror and anti-isis barriers. hundreds of riot police closed in to move them