in. if anything, they feel that the political wins are on their side. whether or not that means there's any actual movement remains to be seen. >> luke russert on capitol hill, thank you for that. >> reporter: thank you. >> that's going to do it for us this hour. i'm steve kornacki. see you right back here tomorrow morning at 9:00 a.m. eastern time and "mtp daily" starts right now. if it's wednesday, all five presidential prospects should remind themselves of these words by the late great merle haggard. "the good times ain't over for good." this is "mtp daily" and it starts right now. well, good evening. happy hump day. i'm chuck todd in washington. welcome to "mtp daily." well, as predicted, the front-runners fell in wisconsin and the circus is coming to the big apple. but, folks, the big story

tonight, get ready for a rumble in cleveland. because after last night, it looks a lot less likely that trump will be able to clinch the nomination outright by the time the primaries are all finished. that means this thing is headed toward a convention floor fight this summer. maybe it's only two ballots or maybe it's more. we're going to dive into the delegate math on the republican side tonight in some detail. remember, folks, at the end of the day, it's delegates that choose the nominee, not voters. it's a representative democracy, even inside the private institution that is the republican party. so here we go. as i mentioned, ted cruz beat republican front-runner donald trump in wisconsin last night by a hefty 13-point margin. more importantly, cruz won a vast majority of the state's 42 delegates. trump only picked up six. he won two congressional districts, the third and the seventh. and trump is still leading cruz, but his lead has shrunk now to 239 delegates. trump's campaign reacted to the loss with a scathing statement against cruz that read in part, quote, ted cruz is worse than a puppet, he is a trojan horse, being used by the party bosses

attempting to steal the nomination from mr. trump. cruz responded today to those remarks while campaigning in new york. >> the men and women of wisconsin resoundingly rejected his campaign, and the reason is simple. donald has no solutions to the problems we're fating. he likes to yell and scream and insult and curse and his statement last night was consistent with that. >> so with the dust still settling a bit, rump now needs to win 58% of the remaining delegates at stake to hit the magic number of 1,237 before the convention. it's virtually impossible to get there now. he needs 87%, and of course, kasich is actually mathematically eliminated. but he has been for a while now. he's up to 132%, which is why his only shot is a contested convention. the next big prize is new york, where trump holds a sizable lead, according to many recent polls. in fact, you are now looking at live pictures at a scene outside

the venue, where trump is holding a rally tonight in beth paige, long island. police are bracing for large crowds and perhaps thousands of anti-trump protesters. we'll keep a close eye on that situation in this hour. adds we said, folks yesterday, we told you that the margin in wisconsin was critical. cruz picked up a net gain of 30 delegates on trump. and here's what i that number looms large. our political unit has crunched the numbers here and we've looked at all of the remaining contests on the board. and based on our back-of-the-envelope math, trump could very well missing that magic number of 1,237 by somewhere in the vicinity to 20 to 60 delegates. basically the number that cruz got. we should all note this is based on hypothetical. we'll rack at the rest of the race, and as we've seen before, anything can happen. with that said, let's dive in. and we do assume that tmp covers a bit from wisconsin and is as at least as strong as he's

been so far. we'll begin with last night's results. as i mentioned, trump picked up just six of wisconsin's 42 bound delegates. it gives him a total of 756 delegates. he now needs 481 to hit 1,237. the next delegate action is saturday, when the state of colorado will choose its delegates at the state's convention. some of these folks running to become delegates will tip their hand and commit to supporting a candidate. we expect for now roughly five of them total to be trump delegates. we're giving him that assumption. maybe less than that. he could get goose egg, but we'll give him five from now. moving ahead to april 16th, it's wyoming. they'll also be choosing a slate of delegates at their state convention. 26 are bound. we don't expect trump to get any of them there. that's where cruz seems to be out-organizing them. then it's on to new york on the 19th. if trump hits 50%, he gets all the state's delegates, but that's a high bar. at this point, we don't think he'll get out all of it. but he'll still pick up a lion' share of what's available in new

york. a new monohowamoth university p had trump barely above the 50% threshold. there is really no room for error for him on that one. which then brings us to april 26th, when connecticut, delaware, maryland, pennsylvania, and rhode island all hold their contests. delaware and pence are winner-take-all. we expect trump to win those states, but we should note in pennsylvania, only 17 of the state's 71 delegates are bound to vote for the statewide winner. so we're also expecting trump to do well in the other states that night. if you add them all up and you can see our estimates there, we can have trump getting somewhere around 931 delegates total by the end of those april 26th primaries. that brings us to may 3rd, indiana. the trump campaign acknowledges they got a late start in the hoozier state. it's possible he could get totally shut out. but for this estimate, we're giving him 12. on may 10th, it's nebraska and west virginia. they both hold primaries.

nebraska is winner-take-all, but since cruz has won in neighboring states like iowa and kansas, we don't expect trump to win this one, so we're giving him a goose egg there. but we're calculating trump could have roughly 973 delegates by that point because we expect him to do well in west virginia. next up is oregon. delegates there are awarded proportionately. let's say we'll give him half of them. i think we're overestimating there, but best-case scenario, essentially. we're now at the end of may. washington state is not exactly trump country, but he'll pick up a few delegates. so we'll give him some there. again, we may be overestimating, but we're going to give him some there, best-case scenario. that could put him over the 1,000 mark before the june primaries. so, folks, we have now hit the final day of the primary season. june 7th. it's a big one, california, montana, new jersey, new mexico, and south dakota. in california, most of the state's delegates are awarded by congressional district. we assume trump will pick up a sizable haul there, but there is

some dispute about how well they'll do. again, we are being generous with trump for now and giving him 120. montana is winner-take-all. frankly, we'd be surprised if trump were able to win there. i think that feels like a cruz state. new jersey is winner-take-all. that should be a good state for trump. and we expect trump to clean up in the garden state, thanks in part to chris christie's endorsement. then we have south dakota, also winner-take-all, but the plains and the midwest hasn't been trump country. put that one in for cruz. that adds up to a total of roughly 1,194 delegates. that is 43 shy of 1,237. again, we were very generous in these estimates and as i mentioned earlier, there is a pool of unbound delegates up for grabs from various states and territories. the exact number is in flux. but it could total somewhere around 120 to as many as 300 if those rubio delegates become unbound. but if our math shakes out, trump is going to need a big chunk of those unbound delegates to win the nomination on the first ballot. so there you have it, folks. it is a very rough path forward for trump.

it is a very, shall we say, positive, optimistic path for trump. and even in the most optimistic scenario, he comes up short. let's talk about where things stand. brian todd is a republican strategy itself and admaker. he was advising a super pac supporting bobby jindal's 2016ed by. and carrie dan in our nbc political unit, she's been helping us crunch these numbers all year long. how are you? carrie, let's go very quickly. again, walk people through, we assume that trump would be at least as strong as he has been, correct? >> exactly. this is a pretty rosy estimate for donald trump. it assumes that he comes in, as you said, with sort of the strength he showed before that wisconsin contest. so we're estimating he'll come away from new york with 75 of the 95 delegates that are up for grabs. we're assuming he'll get 20 in connecticut. so places where there's favorable ground for him, we are giving him a pretty rosy estimate. as well as some of those states like washington and oregon. those are proportional states. he could come up short of where

the estimate is, where we have put him at. right now we've shown with this rosy estimate, him coming up about that, 40 delegates short, like you mentioned. obviously, it's going to be about the margins. as much fun as it is to picture a photo finish at the very end, he's seven delegates behind. he'll be able to pick up those unbound folks. >> so trump comes in, let's say our rosy scenario plays out. and he's less than 50 short. that's fine, he's less than 50 short. he can probably find 50 unbounds. >> i think he'll negotiate all of june. and he's actually coming into a pretty big fork in the road. and i think the worst thing possible is going to happen for h him, he's going to win new york. he doesn't need to win it for his mental state, but it's going to improve his confidence. he's going to come upon a place -- >> you mean attacking the party last night?

that's the party, i didn't understand, it wasn't well thought through. >> the same exact people he has to woo in june. if he's going to come in short of 1,237, it's all about how he can -- what his powers of persuasion are, not his powers of attack. >> so you look at our scenario here, jeff row is running the ted cruz campaign, he's got to figure out how to de-rosefy these scenarios. what states where trump is likely to do well could the cruz campaign overperform? is it new york and california? where is it? >> in the individual congressional districts in both new york and california, picking those off will hit into donald trump's margins. trying to keep him under 50% in new york with the combined efforts of ted cruz and john kasich. you've got to play defense too. donald trump is ceding a bunch of winner-take-all states, we assume he's not going to do well, not favorable ground for him. and indiana is going to be a big

black box. a state we haven't seen a lot of polling in this thus far. it's a police you want to make sure donald trump isn't making up any ground. we estimated 12 delegates, but that could be a goose egg. it looks a lot like wisconsin in the way they allocate their delegates. keeping donald trump at a zero there really cuts into his margins as well. >> how do you think cruz goes about this? to me, the tricky situations are new york, california, new jersey. >> i think there are three states cruz needs to focus on. indiana is first. all three candidates can make a case as to why they can win indiana. cruz needs to win it. maryland is another place. donald trump fared very poorly in the suburbs of washington, d.c. on the virginia side, fared very poorly in d.c. itself. maryland's primary looks a lot like northern virginia's and d.c.'s. so ted cruz and john kasich, they need to deny trump in -- >> but do they need to work together on this one? >> well, that doesn't happen, okay? that just doesn't happen. but i think the statement about northern virginia really was that trump was weak there. in every suburb where there are high-income, high-education voters, trump fails.

he's only succeeded in chicago, of all of those places. probably will succeed in some of the new york suburbs. >> and in chicago, because of a unique situation that happened before. >> the third place cruz needs to focus is california. a very diverse state. it's 53 states, not one state. so cruz, there are a lot of opportunities, he needs to win at least a third of the congressional districts in california. >> i guess, the other thing that i've picked up on, and i think it fits why he didn't do well in wisconsin, trump seems to do best where republicans have not done well on a state level, or where it's a fractured republican -- >> you have republican governors, republican voters, generally happy with their governments. >> so it's interesting, and we don't have a lot of instances yet, but in primaries, so you've got in primaries, where the state -- not caucuses, and primaries, so where you have democratic governors, trump has won those. virginia, vermont, louisiana is another one. new hampshire, of course, is another one. and the northeast is filled with states with democratic -- >> these are rookie mistakes.

he's a first-time candidate and it's showing, the fact that he goes into wisconsin and attacks scott walker. >> with an 80% approval rating among republican primary voters. >> and the republican primary voters have defended him three state times in elections. they have ownership in scott walker. and trump, his ego got in the way. that's the case a lot of time. his ego got in the way of him having strong advisers. his ego gets in the way of attacking scott walker. it's a stumbling block. and that's why he keeps getting third place. >> john kasich, he's the one in second and not ted cruz. >> john kasich could be one of the people who keeps donald trump from getting that 50% in new york. >> and connecticut too. >> connecticut as well. a place that he can play as a spoiler. but, again, yesterday, he performed very poorly, even in places we thought he was going to do well, like madison, deane county, we thought maybe jake jacques would be able to pull out -- he came in third. a close third, but third. >> second straight state he looked like he was going to do

well. >> there's not a lot of market for a moderate in the republican primary and kasich's finding that the hard way. >> we'll be doing this back of the envelope thing all the way. >> we're all like russell crowe in "a beautiful mind." >> except russell crowe would probably be doing a better job. this is much harder sometimes. bernie sanders wins big in the badger state, but can he beat back the reality of the math. we'll look at the fight that's spreading across the south and whether it's all headed for a big court case. stay tuned. but that is changi. at temenos, with the microsoft cloud, we can enable a banker to travel to the most remote locations with nothing but a phone and a tablet. everywhere where there's a phone, you have a bank. now a person is able to start a business, and employ somebody for the first time. the microsoft cloud helped us to bring banking to ten million people in just two years. it's transforming our world.

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who has the lowest. just go to compare.com and get up to 50 free quotes. choose the lowest, and hit purchase. so you can get back to whatever it is you civilians do when you're not thinking about car insurance. compare.com the race for the white house is moving into a new york state of mind. only one of the remaining candidates has a campaign experience in the empire state. hillary clinton won two senate elections in new york, plus she beat barack obama there in the 2008 primary. take a look at the strength of that win. it was a 17-point blowout in her home state. clinton took all but one county in new york. obama notched a win in tomkins county, home to cornell

university and ithaca college. sanders, by the way, is likely to take tomkins this time, but in 2008, clinton underperformed in parts of the new york city metro area, specifically in manhattan and brooklyn. her vote percentage was notably below her statewide nurls. in contrast to her current campaign, clinton struggled in the biggest, more urban counties in the state. does this mean sanders could beat clinton in brooklyn, the location of her campaign headquarters? we'll see as the election gets closer. but clinton's new york state primary strength is actually upstate. we'll see if it holds true in two weeks. we'll be right back. i'm terrible at golf.

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surfaced in the ten months since the supreme court ruled in favor of marriage equality. according to the aclu, 109 anti-lbgt bills have been introduced in state legislature since january. 22 have been religious freedom restoration acts, unquote. the human rights campaign reports that 44 anti-transgender bills were filed in 16 states, in just january and february alone this year. now corporate america is stepping in with opposition to both new types of laws. in mississippi, tyson, mgm resort, nissan, toyota, and at&t voiced objections. in north carolina, the backlash is even stronger with 120 businesses signing a letter of opposition. this includes the state's biggest employer, bank of america. other major corporate players against the law include google, facebook, apple, and comcast, which, by the way, of course, is a parent company of nbc and msnbc. states from washington to connecticut and cities from san francisco to new york have also restricted government travel to both of those states for now.

now, opponents say these laws are unconstitutional and legalize discrimination. last month, i spoke to one of the original sponsors of north carolina's so-called bathroom bill. state representative dan bishop maintained the law doenot cut back on any protections. >> those who would dishonestly attack this law, they -- the problem for them is they want to carry the argument that men should go into bathrooms and locker rooms with girls and women. that's an impossible burden for them to bear, so they're just dishonest about it. but they can point to no protection that's been rolled back. there is nothing that we've cut back, nothing at all. >> i would like to bring in russell moore, he's president of the ethics and religious liberty commission of the southern baptist convention. and aclu deputy director, louise melling. >> thank you. >> thank you. welcome to you both. mr. moore, let me start with you. it is -- there's an argument to be made that these laws are legalizing the ability of

people, using religion to discriminate against lesbians and gays. and obviously, the argument is being made, on the other hand, that these folks with religious convictions are being discriminated against. explain how you believe people with religious beliefs are being discriminated against more than lesbians and gays are being discriminated against? >> well, that's not the argument that i'm making. what i'm saying is that these laws are simply the state saying that it will not discriminate against people who have conscientious objections to people participating in religious ceremonies they find morally objectionable. the state is saying we're not going to discriminate against them. it's addressing problems that we've seen in states such as massachusetts, where catholic adoption agencies are essentially been put out of business, because they, by conscience, will place children in a home with both a mother and a father. these laws are simply enabling people to be able to coexist with one another, without saying that one must put one's conscience into a blind trust before coming into the

marketplace. >> how is it that the business, let me start with this, how is it that somebody's faith is being infringed upon in commerce? >> well, you see that in several states, where you have people being fined out of business, because they can't use their creative gifts in order to participate in religious ceremonies they object to. the state of mississippi is proactiveltrying to keep that culture war from happening, within its state. and one of the problems we have here is when it comes to the marriage issue, we see that the supreme court circumvented the democratic process. and decreed this throughout an edict through the supreme court, which means many of these issues weren't able to be worked out along the way. >> and pretty much most of our social contract changes in this country have come through our court system, not through legislative means. but let me move to -- >> most of them come after a prolonged time of debate, within the country. that's not what happened here. >> all right. miss melling, let me ask you, why are these laws -- why do you

believe these laws are unconstitutional? >> i'm here from the aclu, we defend religious exercise. we care about religious freedom. but religious freedom gives you a right to your beliefs, but it doesn't give you a right to discriminate. what the bill in mississippi does, which is a radical bill, it authorizes government, government employees and constituti institutions to discriminate. it will let clerks turn away same-sex couples who show up, it will let shelters turn away a mother who turns up who's not married. it will let hospitals turn away people because they're transgender. that is not what religious liberty means. it does not mean it's a blank check to put up a sign in your window that says, we do not serve your kind here. >> mr. moore, respond to that? >> that is a complete caricature of what this law does. it does not allow people to put up a sign that says, we do not serve your kind here. and it does not empower people to refuse medical treatment or shelter to people because they're lesbian or gay or

anything else. what the law simply states is that the state is not going to discriminate against people who have religious convictions about marriage and sexuality. and if we're going to coexist with one another in this country, we have to be able to learn how to do that without simply saying, you know, you people who have religious convictions are just going to have to get with the program or get out. that's not the way we're going to move forward. >> well, miss meing, explain how this would be -- obviously, we have a separation of church and state here. is this how a supreme court would look at this? >> i think that the supreme court you see language in the obergerfeld decision, where justice kennedy says, people have sincere faith, but people doesn't mean that people can use that faith to deny, for example, the right for same-sex couples to marry. what this law does, for example, in mississippi, is say that government and private institutions can act based on their faith. they can't be punished based on their faith. and anti-discrimination laws say that you can't do that.

one thing that's important to remember is we've seen, i'll say, this playbook before, in the context of the civil rights laws. when this country was trying to end segregation, there were institutions, schools, and businesses, restaurants who said, i can't comply with this law, because of my faith. my faith at that time said that the races were supposed to be segregated. we, as a country, said, you could have your faith, but you can't impose it on other people by turning them away, by closing the door. that's the same question that's at issue here. >> mr. moore, what do you say to that? >> well, that's actually not the way it happened in the context in fact civil rights movement. i am a mississippian and the reason that mississippi was able to move forward and other states in the civil rights movement because you had people of faith, who were standing up and applying their faith in the public arena and saying, we have a duty to justice and to seek to persuade one another as to why -- as to why justice is in the best interest of everyone. and simply coming in and

squashing religious freedom is going to do great damage to people of all convictions. and not simply for people who are religious conservatives or others who dissent from the reigning view of marriage. ultimately, if you don't protect the right of people to see themselves as subject to things, more than just the momentary political decisions, that's bad for american democracy. >> miss melling, let me -- how would you write the law that would protect the religious faith, that would not force somebody to -- to whatever. conduct business, do something that they were morally against. how would you design legislation to protect them? >> chuck, here's the issue. religious liberty doesn't give you a right to discriminate. it doesn't give you the right to harm other people. if you're going to have a business, you're going to open the door to people, you cannot turn away people because of their race or gender, because of who they are. that's just inconsistent with our core notions of fairness in this country.

you can have your beliefs, you can hold those beliefs, but you can't impose them on others in a way that sends real people away. imagine the door shut in your face when you go to have your license registered. imagine what feels like to be turned away from the shelter because of who you are. imagine what it's like to be denied health care because of who you are. that's not what religious liberty means. >> i take it you both expect this to be decided in the supreme court? mr. moore, i'll start with you? >> i think it probably will, but one thing i would like to say, it's funny that same mantra about discrimination in businesses doesn't apply here, when we have businesses who are saying, we object to what these states are doing, therefore we're going to pull out and not do business with them. that's hypocrisy. >> and miss melling, do you expect it to be in the supreme court sometime soon? >> i expect these issues will go through the courts, yes. we're seeing some of them go through the courts now, and to date the courts have said that businesses, for example, don't have a right to turn away, even to use religion to turn people away, because of who they are.

again, this isn't different from those cases where peggy park in south carolina argued its religious rights to turn away african-americans. schools argued their right to pay women less than men because of their religion. that wasn't tolerated and, again, it is the same question here. >> russell moore and louise melling, we won't resolve this today, but it sounds like the supreme court will resolve this sometime soon. thank you both for coming on. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> all right. still ahead, we're going to look at clinton's strategy, heading into these east coast contests that dominate april. and president obama's pick for the supreme court, slowly by surely, has been making his case on capitol hill. senator susan collins joins me to discuss her meeting with supreme court nominee, and what i she's one of the very few republicans who want to hold hearings. ♪ if you have allergy congestion, muddling through your morning is nothing new. ...your nose is the only thing on your mind... ...and to get relief, anything is fair game.

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and we are back. more "mtp daily."

let's dig into where the democratic race goes from here. bernie sanders has got the double-digit victory in wisconsin that his campaign was looking for, but guess what, as we told you about math on the democratic side, 14 points means he netted all of ten pledged delegates, three total if you count the supers. that's how tough it is to make up ground when you're behind on the democratic side. and the percentage of overall remaining delegates clinton needs to clinch the nomination technically got smaller after yesterday. it went from 34% to 33%. why? because there are fewer delegates left to win. and with the race now moving on to new york, today's cover of the new yo"new york daily news" couldn't have come at a worse time, after sanders told the paper that the families of the newtown connecticut shooting should not be able to sue gun manufacturers. and heading into the primary of her adopted home state, hillary clinton is trying to cast doubt on bernie sanders' democratic party bona fides. >> he, himself, doesn't consider himself to be a democrat. and, you know, look, he's raised a lot of important issues that the democratic party agrees,

income inequality, first and foremost. but it's up to the democratic primary voters to make that assessment. >> and listen to clinton's critique on politico's off-message podcast. >> senator sanders spends a lot of time attacking my husband, attacking president obama, you know, calling president obama weak and disappointing and actually making a move in 2012 to recruit somebody to run a primary against him. i rarely hear him say anything negative about george w. bush, who i think wrecked our economy. >> well, sanders fought back against that notion, in an interview with supporter and director spike lee. here he is, speaking about president obama. >> he came to vermont to campaign for he, way back in 2006. i worked on his elections in 2008 and 2012, and, you know, just was in the oval office a couple of months ago, so we have a very positive, and i think, friendly relationship. is he closer to hillary clinton?

i suspect. >> let's bring in tonight's panel. perry bacon, of course, is an nbc news senior political reporter. eliana johnson, washington editor of the national review, and democratic strategy, chris kofinis, who's been doing a bunch of focus groups on the presidential debates this year, welcome, all. perry, let me start with you. if it wasn't for the republican race, we'd be saying, boy, the democratic race is getting kind of nasty. now, it's because it's not as nasty as that one, that we think, oh, it's oh, so quaint. but it's been getting personal. and apparently, cbs news has a snarky bernie sanders saying he's asked about apologizing to sandy hook victims, and he said, oh, yeah, is hillary clinton going to apologize for iraq war victims? >> whoa! >> after super tuesday, clinton's campaign was hinting, sanders can keep running as long as he doesn't attack us. he's obviously not following that. it feels like '08 in a lot of ways. obama had some bad periods where

he lost lots of primaries, even though the math was broadly his way. and hillary's probably going to lose another state likely soon. so she's having a bad string of primaries that don't make her look very strong right now, even though she's still the overwhelming favorite when the delegates get back to her states. >> it was in early mid-may when it was a whole bunch of kentuckies and west virginias. >> and he did terribly in some of those states. >> chris, i am curious of what you make of her attack on sanders for not being a true democrat. effective? >> i personally don't think it's effective. voters have, i think, a strange way of deciding who is a democrat and not a democratic primary. it's really that simple. i think here's the challenge. and -- >> there's a strategic reason they're doing it. >> sure, of course. they're trying to mobilize -- >> no, the remaining primary states, a lot of them are closed that are left, no independents can vote. only rank and file democrats.

>> and when you're in a campaign, emotions get hot and you get competitive. but the clinton campaign has to step back and accept the reality that i think is true, the math favors them. that is a profound reality. >> there's no reason to go heavy on him. >> why attack santa claus? he is santa claus offering the moon. you don't need to attack him. it's not the strategy, i think. >> eliana, do you look as a conservative who would probably like to see a conservative elected president, do you look at this democratic infighting and think, with oh, what could be. what could have been for the republican party? you know, the democratic party's fracturing, they're having this fight, hillary clinton looks weak. boy, she's so -- they're both so vulnerable, and yet? >> no, i know -- i don't, but one thing that does occur to me watching the democratic primary unfold, i hear a lot of people say, and just in an interview earlier today, that the republican candidates, ted cruz and donald trump in particular, are going to be very, very weak general election candidates. and i think that's been the conventional wisdom. but looking at hillary clinton

duke it out with bernie sanders over the past several months, i think her weaknesses in a general election are underestimated, even though the two republican front-runners have, perhaps, more obvious weaknesses, going into november. >> you've got to think that some of these people like michael bloomberg are going, what did i do? i could have split this -- split this party and done some interesting things here. anyway, we'll take a pause here. we're going to talk about the republicans on the other side of a break. so you'll stick around. still ahead, merrick garland has been making his case on capitol hill, actually speaking with some republican senators. i'll talk with one of them, senator susan collins, about her sit-down with the supreme court nominee. right after the break. ♪ he has a sharp wit. a winning smile. and no chance of getting an athletic scholarship. and that is why you invest.

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at ford. w time. tonight's who. it's former congressman aaron schock. plit reports he's hiring frank luntz's messaging firm, but it's not clear why. schock resigned from the house over campaign spending issues and ethics issues and is subject to a grand jury investigation in illinois. now to the what. it's some wikipedia editing by florida congressman david jolley's senate campaign. according to buzzfeed, the campaign admitted to scrubbing references to the republicans' contributions to democratic candidates as well as mixing notes about his career as a lobbyist. now to the where, it's tennessee. the state attorney general says any fantasy sports amounts to illegal gambling, even free contests. the opinion carries no legal weight, but certainly adds some fire to the ongoing debate. so cash in your ncaa pools immediately if you're in

nashville. now to the when, it's 2012. that was the last time a team other than uconn won the women's national basketball championship. the huskies rolled over syracuse, 82-51. now to the why. ted cruz is heading to the wyoming republican convention. he won nine delegates in the wyoming caucuses last month, but the state still will elect 14 delegates at the next -- at the convention next saturday to show up in cleveland. here's why it matters. while cruz is appearing in person, donald trump is dispatching sarah palin and john kasich is sending idaho governor butch otter. last week, cruz headlined the convention and most of his delegates were selected. we'll see if showing up in person pays off again. we'll be right back. i love to take pictures that engage people

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priority: you president obama's supreme court nominee, merrick garland, was back on the hill today, continuing to pay visits to senators on both sides of the aisle. today he met with democratic senators d s durbin, feinstein, whitehouse. 11 more republican senators say they are open to meeting with him, but only two republicans say they support holding hearings on garland's nominations. one is senator mark kirk of illinois, who is facing a tough re-election in a very blue state and the other joins me now. senator susan collins of maine. she met with judge garland yesterday and is urging her republican colleagues to do the same. senator, welcome back to the show. >> thank you, chuck. >> what do you make of judge garland? is he somebody that belongs in that echelon of, of nominees, that he is of that caliber of a

judge? >> he's clearly an accomplished juror. he's highly intelligent. i found that he had thought very deeply about the issues facing the courts, and we had a very good discussion for more than an hour. i can't say, for certain, that i would vote for him. that's why we need hearings. >> what do you want to hear from the hearing? what is it -- obviously, hearings are important in this process, but what specifically are some areas that you want to hear him have to answer questions on in a public forum? >> he's had 19 years on the d.c. circuit court. and during that time, he has authored some controversial decisions that we discussed yesterday. but the issue that is most important to me are his views on the separation of powers. i think that in both president bush's administration and especially in president obama's

administration, that that has gotten out of whack and that president obama has used executive orders to circumvent congress far too often. so if i had to pick one issue that i think really needs to be explored further, that would be it. >> what is the appetite, in your conference right now, for hearings. without giving away names. do you feel as if in a secret ballot, a majority of the conference would say, let's have hearings? >> i'm not certain about that, but what i am certain of is before the recess two weeks ago, there were only two of us who were willing to meet with judge garland. and now there's something like 14 republican senators who are willing to sit down with him. i view that as an evolution. that is a good sign. and to me, that is what would customarily be done. and ai'm glad many of my

colleagues willing to sit down with him. >> are you optimistic or pessimistic that there will be hearings? >> i don't think there will be hearings right off. i'm hoping that as more of my s garland, that they will conclude, as i've concluded, that he deserves a hearing. it's difficult to predict. i know that feelings run very strong on the other side, and they're sincere as well. >> where are you on this idea of a lame, you know, that whether this should be something that should -- could be taken up in a lame duck? do you think that's appropriate? let's not -- i mean, obviously, a presupposes a lot of things in november. democratic president, democratic senate, things like that. but forget that, just philosophically, would you be comfortable with having the lame duck deal with the supreme court vacancy? >> i haven't given that a lot of thought. but what i have thought a lot about is the irony that if a democratic were elected

president, i think the chances are that he or she would choose a nominee that would be to the left of judge garland. and that would certainly be ironic, if that ends up happening. that might be the case that would lead to the lame duck scenario. it is my understanding, however, that the republican leader has ruled that option out. so i don't know how likely that is. >> all right, let me just ask you quickly on i know your favorite topic, you were on here last time, i'll ask you about it. you love answering this question. are you going to be able to support donald trump if he is the nominee? >> i knew that was coming. i just knew it. >> i might as well update our files, right. >> well, as i said, my heart belonged to jeb bush, and he obviously didn't prevail. i campaigned for him in new hampshire. i'm not going to make any endorsements.

i'm see what happens at the convention and who the nominee turns out to be. i think there will be a lot of twists and turns on the road ahead. >> philosophically, are you comfortable with the idea that the convention could nominate somebody who did not get the most votes? >> certainly if someone goes into the convention having the magic number of delegates that are needed, there should be no attempt to overturn that. but right now, it is such an uncertain, unpredictable situation that that does not occur, in which case, we may be facing an open convention scenario after the first vote. but i think it's important that everyone follow the rules. >> all right, senator susan collins, republican from maine. see, it wasn't too bad asking you that question one more time. i appreciate you coming on. >> thank you. >> we'll have more "mtp daily," and more with the panel, right after this.

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time for the lid. panel is back. perry, illiana, chris. i think it was a good day for stop trump, but this calendar stinks for ted cruz now. he got everything he wanted and needed, and there is an easy path for donald trump to rehabilitate himself. >> i think trump will rehabilitate himself, but i wouldn't say -- it depends on what you mean by rehabilitate himself. he'll win new york, but after that, i think the calendar looks

more challenging. i don't think he has an easy path to 1,237, which really the only thing the stop force trump cares about. >> that is true. he is not going to win 120 delegates in california. the point is, perry, trump can't get 1,237. i'm curious. does it matter if he is less than 50 short versus 50 to 100 short versus over 100 short? is there different scenarios, less than 50 shot? >> i think less than 50 will help, but mitch mcconnell was on hugh hewitt the other day, and he essentially said 1,237s 1,237. i'll one of the delegates. i'll be thinking about that in that context. i think for cruz, he did well among conservative and non-evangelical. so he broadened his base out last night. if he can do that in

pennsylvania, connecticut, cruz will lose new york, but beyond that that's a new path. >> it is, and chris, i think that like cruz now was able to show, see, look what would happen if kasich fully dropped out. because he did win vote that some people didn't think he could win. thought only kasich could win that vote. that's bad news for john kasich. i think the pressure on him to get out is going to be greater. >> i think it's going to grow, but i don't think he is going any where. they're betting on, because there is no mathematical way he can win. they're betting on a convention, and he'll rise like a phoenix. we need someone that can beat hillary clinton. >> but -- >> i don't see any scenario where he drops out, because if he was going to be pushed out, he would have already dropped out. >> a goose egg. >> look, but i think in many ways, wisconsin showed, it doesn't matter whether kasich dropped out, because the outside

pressure, the club for growth spent $1 million and back ted cruz as the only alternative to trump, so going into the next races, if they can get people to do that john kasich can stay in the race. >> if you look at states like pennsylvania and new york, he is actually polling second, far back in new york, but still polling second t kind of reenforces their narrative that we can stay in this. >> he has his resources. like cruz has got to raise money, which by the way, he was a little nervous about. he kept saying ted cruz.org. he needed some cash. >> i'm not sure why rubio support just dropped off in a few primaries. it was like he was running, but dead any way. kasich, same problem, voters consider you a no chance candidate. >> gone. >> it's like zero, nine, rubio's numbers tailed off. kasich, unless people feel like it is a wasted vote.

>> one other trend. i told you about the democratic governors, fractured parties, donald trump does better. not so good in the big ten states. minnesota, iowa, ohio, i don't think that's a coincidence. >> calm people. >> midwesterns, not so crazy about those new yorkers. chris will be back tomorrow with more "mtp daily." home opener tomorrow. just a hint. "with all due respect" starts right now. i'm mark halperin. >> i'm john helemann. with all due respect to donald trump, i bet you're wishing national teflon day, which is today, had arrived a little earlier. happy