trail. >> i'm going to do it, i know how to do it, i'll get it done. but i'm not going to tell you what i'm going to do. you know, i kind of think a lot of folks, republicans, democrats, independents, a lot of folks are going to be thinking what's he talking about? >> our political team has it all covered for you this morning. let me start with mark murray on the new polling. mark, good seeing you. we see the national race tightening, but when you really get into the numbers, there are some big splits, no? >> yeah, and it's a familiar demographic splits that we have seen in the 2008 and 2012 cycle. let me break it down. hillary clinton has a substantial lead over donald trump when it comes to african-americans. 84% for hillary clinton. just 9% for donald trump. among latinos, it is hillary clinton at 65%, donald trump at 28%. donald trump, though, with a 14-point lead among whites.

hillary clinton is up 15 points among women, donald trump up 11 points among men so you add it altogether and it shows that hillary clinton is up three points over donald trump. it was five points last week. so a little bit of tightening. jose, i think one of the theories that's going on here is as donald trump has become presumptive nominee, more and more republicans are getting on board. it will be interesting to see if hillary also seems to solidify some of her poll numbers once the democratic race is concluded. >> mark, if we look at those numbers once again, 84% hillary clinton in the african-american community, plus 60% latinos for hillary clinton. is there any scenario that trump could actually succeed with those numbers, if those numbers remain steady? look at that. >> jose, given my knowledge of politics covering the 2004 cycle where george w. bush overperformed with latinos, 2008, 2012, demographics mean so

much. many republicans after their losses in 2012 said, hey, we need to start getting -- we need to do better with latinos, we need to do better with african-americans, we need to do better with women. this poll shows even with a three-point race they still have pretty significant deficits there. we put it that donald trump has a demographic problem. hillary clinton has a message problem. we'll see in november which problem is more debilitating and the bigger problem. >> of course you can always change your message or define your message, but when you have tons of people against you for a specific reason, it's tough to go there. let's talk about that because just a few minutes ago, i was saying that hillary clinton could possibly clinch the nomination tonight. what are the possibilities of that? >> so here is our delegate math, jose. she's now 140 delegates away from hitting that 2383 magic number, the total number of pledged and superdelegates. she just needs to 13% of all

remaining delegates to be able to do it. the problem for her is she's not going to be able to do it tonight. the number of delegates that are up for grabs in oregon and in kentucky don't get you there. it's also possible she probably doesn't get there in puerto rico on june 5th. the biggest likelihood is for her clinching on june 7th, but we have to count those delegates, count the superdelegates and keep on going. >> june 7's in california. i just got back from a week in california. everybody is skvery, very jazze up about this race on both sides of the aisle. >> a lot of democrats feel that has helped their party. it will be interesting to see that once there is a presumptive nominee, whether the bernie sanders people come on board. we'll be watching. >> mark murray, we all will be watching. thank you very much for being with me this morning. maybe the most important number for trump in our new polling is 87%. 87% of his fellow republicans are now saying they will back their presumptive nominee but there are still some notable

holdouts. trump isn't waiting for them to come around, he's beefing up his national campaign with new hires and a changing strategy. nbc's hallie jackson is outside trump tower here in new york. hallie, what is this changing strategy? good morning to you. >> reporter: hey there. well, when you talk about a changing strategy, look at some of the new hires and some of the meetings that donald trump has had. so he's bringing on board, nbc news has confirmed, tony fabrizio who will be doing some polling work for the trump campaign. if it were any other campaign we wouldn't be talking about their pollster but donald trump has made a point to rail against those traditional mechanics of a campaign, things like polling. he's talked about public polling and talked about his wife being his pollster. now he's got sort of this more institutional presence in his campaign to help not just with the number crunching but also potentially for strategy. fabrizio and paul manafort had a long relationship dating back to the dole campaign back in 1996,

so trump is reaching to pull in some of these veteran folks to help as he makes this turn towards the general election and, frankly, towards hillary clinton's data operations machine, an area where clinton has been staffing up for months. trump will have access to the rnc's data operation as well, which as the rnc likes to say is robust in and of itself. when you look at some of these holdouts as you talked about, this idea of party unity, one of the most notable points of our new online poll has been this look at where donald trump stands compared to speaker paul ryan when it comes to conservatives trusting him to lead the party. right now trump has the advantage. six in ten compared to paul ryan's four in ten. if we have that graphic, we can show you here. that can be significant as trump tries to make the case to folks on capitol hill that he is the one who can bring together the party, he is the one who is the de facto leader. we know teams for trump and ryan will be talking this week, drilling down on policy topics,

but not everybody is on board. look today at what we saw, tom ridge running an op-ed in which he emphasizes he will not support donald trump as the nominee. there is still a contingent of hard-core never trump folks, people who do not believe donald trump should be the nominee, and they're taking steps to try and stop that in whatever way they can. there's a long shot. there's talk of doing something at a convention with delegates. there's talk of getting somebody to mount an independent bid for the presidency but all of those just appear to be if not fantasy, then at least close to it. as one operative said to me, it may not be tactically fantasy, but if you can't find somebody to run it becomes harder and harder to find somebody to say yes. >> hallie, is the campaign ready to handle a general election, multimillion dollar campaign against mr. trump by mrs. clinton and others? >> especially when you're seeing now the super pac ads that are coming out against donald trump. it's a good question, one that donald trump will be ready for or is hoping to be ready for as

he makes the turn towards convention and towards the fall. he has said now, nbc has confirmed, that he will be fund-raising to help pay off what is going to be a very, very expensive general election campaign and one in which he will be inundated with ads hitting him on, for example, his comments towards women, hitting him on his comments towards latinos and some of the other minority groups that democrats believe will be effective messaging in a general election. >> hallie jackson, thank you very much. great seeing you this morning. on the democratic soide, there are primaries today in kentucky and oregon, two states where hillary clinton hopes to put a stop to the recent string of wins by bernie sanders. bill clinton is weighing in on a possible role in her administration. here's what he said in an exclusive nbc news chat. >> i'll do whatever i'm asked and i like this economic design. >> let's go to clinton campaign headquarters in brooklyn, new

york, where kristen welker is. kristen, good morning to you. >> reporter: hey, jose, good morning. well, we are seeing this general election battle heat up, even though it hasn't officially started yet. secretary clinton and her allies sharpening their attacks against donald trump. you talked about those super pac ads with hallie jackson. we're getting our first look at them. priorities usa releasing $6.5 million in ads in key battleground states and using donald trump's words, particularly about women, against him. take a look at one of the ads. >> if ivanka weren't my daughter, perhaps i'd be dating her. >> a person who is flat chested is very hard to be a 10. >> and you can tell them to go [ bleep ] themselves. >> does donald trump really speak for you? >> donald trump tweeting this morning, slamming that ad and secretary clinton. let me read you a part of his tweet, jose. it says, quote, amazing that crooked hillary can do a hit ad on me concerning women when her husband was the worst abuser of

women in political history. now, important, of course, to underscore that the super pac and the clinton campaign are not affiliated. in terms of that slam against former president bill clinton, though, the clinton campaign insisting again today that secretary clinton will not directly address donald trump's personal attacks against her and against her husband. what we are seeing is an attempt to shift the narrative about bh bill clinton. secretary clinton saying she's going to put him in charge of revitalizing the economy. when you dig in a little bit deeper, campaign aides says that really means focusing on distressed communities throughout the u.s. a top democratic strategist, david axelrod, tweing this. strong on bill clinton's record was, @hillary clinton was ill-advised to put him as econ czar. folks with him be looking to her for that. so you're starting to see this

debate emerge, is this the wisest strategy and some other democrats questioning whether this could remind folks that secretary clinton is no stranger to washington and the white house in a race that is clearly favoring outsiders, jose. >> let's talk real quick about the primaries in kentucky and oregon. what are the expectations of the clinton campaign -- and the momentum that bernie sanders has had, you know, i guess one of the concerns is that after today that momentum could go on to california, as mark was telling us, probably california is the final battle area there. >> reporter: that's right. everyone is looking to california, but kentucky and oregon could be pivotal as well. the clinton campaign bracing for a loss in oregon but they're hoping for a win in kentucky. secretary clinton has been campaigning aggressively there. she's added a number of events over the past 48 hours and also outspending senator sanders 2-1 in terms of ads there. she needs to turn this momentum

around, mow sjose. that is really the key phrase here. she has a huge lead when it comes to the math, nearly insurmountable, but the momentum is important too because she wants to head into the convention on solid ground and look loekike a strong democrati front-runner and nominee if she wins but you're right, california will be the final and biggest battleground. >> kristen welker, always a pleasure to see you. thank you for being with me this morning. i want to bring in former advisor to mitt romney, len he chen and former spokesman for ted cruz's presidential campaign, rick tyler. rick, let me start with you. you heard that ad kristen was talking about. the target is not trump voters but moderate. moms in the suburbs and younger voters. do you think it's going to be an effective ad? >> i don't. jose, look, i don't think this race is going to be about the gender gap. i don't think it's going to be about who wins hispanics, although trump is underperforming with hispanics

with the republican party. i don't think it's going to be about african-americans. donald trump will not win them, he's doing terrible with them but so is every other republican candidate. this is going to be about white working voters. who's got them? bernie sanders has got them and donald trump has got them. if mitt romney had got 3% more of the white vote, he would have won. the question is can hillary clinton keep those working white voters that bernie has or will she cede them to donald trump. it seems so counterintuitive. we talk about the gender gap and the racial divides, but it looks like this race is about white working voters and who's going to win them over. >> and i'm wondering as america every single day becomes a different america, right? i mean every single day, every single year america looks more like all of us. >> that's right. >> on a daily basis. how is it, rick, do you think that putting aside women, putting aside african-americans and putting aside hispanics, is there a possibility that doing that, you could win?

>> yes, there is a possibility that you could win despite what the numbers are showing and it won't be that way going forward. we know that, for instance, the hispanic community has been growing largely and the republican party can't continue to lose that vote in the future. but if you were to say is the strategy to win the presidential race the hispanic vote? no, it can't be for donald trump. is it to win the african-american? no, he can't win them. his strategy is working white voters. that's in conflict with the party's vision. reince priebus and paul ryan have wanted to attract hispanics and african-americans for a very long time, but it is not going to happen this year. >> len, let's talk about the importance of defining a candidate to voters early and often. how is trump going to counter this against someone who has 100% time in recognition? >> well, i think for donald trump here, the big key is he's willing to do things other

traditional candidates aren't willing to do so part of the process for trump is defining hillary clinton in a certain way. i think this whole notion of crooked hillary has been effective in the sense that it has begun to brand her and that was the death nell for contenders people thought would be more formidable. he's defined himself as a businessman and practical experience, but do you how define hillary clinton in a way that makes her unacceptable to a large number of voters. >> lanhee, i just want your thoughts on this. as you know, one of mitt romney's position on immigration, the self-deportation i think cost him a lot. i think had he had a different position on immigration, maybe the situation would have been different as far as hispanic support. is there anything do you think that trump could do to pivot away from what he has been so

dogmatic about on immigration and that could make a difference? >> i think to rick's point, donald trump is not going to be winning the hispanic vote. that's probably not going to happen. so i think for him the issue is intensity. how does he ramp up intensity with those white working class voters. and part of his message and not just on illegal immigration, on immigration generally, has been to speak to that part of the population so i'm not sure there's anything that he can do to repair the damage he's already done. i think the issue is going to be what is the long-term perspective going to be for the republican party and republican candidates, and that's where i think down-ballot candidates can do a good job beginning to articulate a forward-looking position on immigration. >> as he ramps up the intensity in a general election towards the white voters, you know what, that could also ramp up intensity with latinos and african-americans. every single month in the united states of america, 53,000

u.s.-born latinos turn 18 years of age in this country. >> that's absolute lly right. my problem with donald trump is you can win more of the white vote without -- it befuddles me why he has done that. donald trump's goal is to make hillary the third term of barack obama. this is the group that the white working class does not want to see a third term of barack obama because they feel like they have been hammered over the last eight years and they don't believe that hillary clinton will shake up washington. they do believe that donald trump will. >> rick, lanhee, thank you both for being with me. house speaker paul ryan is talking to reporters. let's listen in. >> one of the most divisive primaries in memory is to go into the fall at half strength. that is why what we want is real unification over our common principles and policies that we all agree with and believe in. those are the kinds of productive conversations we're having. so, chad, we can get in full

strength in the fall and win the election. everything is up for grabs. supreme court, congress, the presidency. andrew. >> what's the reasoning behind this decision to -- [ inaudible ] >> well, i'm not saying he's the reason. i didn't mean to say it that way. i'll just say that the chairman and the author of that amendment put inside their preferred policy. if you want, i'd be happy to defer to you. >> i just make two comments -- >> that is paul ryan at his weekly press conference talking a little bit about party unity and the need to have that for the november elections. we'll take a short break. still ahead, voters casting their ballots in today's kentucky and oregon primaries. can hillary clinton snap bernie sanders' winning streak in those two states? it could present big challenges in november. and it could be the most important road for the presidential candidates. jacob soboroff will take us there, next. if you're going to make a statement...

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it is decision day for two states today. the polls are now open for kentucky's democratic primary. in oregon, primaries are taking place today for both democrats and republicans, no polling places open. we'll have more on that in just a couple of minutes. first let's head to a polling station in bowling green, kentucky, where tony dokoupil is talking to voters there. tony, good morning. what are they telling you? >> reporter: good morning, jose. they call this a supersite. we have five precincts, one, two, three, four and five in the back there. the morning rush is over and we've had fewer than 100 voters so far.

unclear who that helps exactly. to judge by what bernie sanders has to say, high turnout helps him, not hillary clinton. we'll talk to a hillary clinton voter to find out if that is true or not and we've got to go 100 feet outside of the voting booth area, that is state law here in kentucky. every state has a different law. here we find brenda, a hillary clinton voter. how about that. >> hi. >> thank you for being with us oori really appreciate it. hillary clinton got your vote today. >> yes. >> why do you think she's good for kentucky? >> i don't think if she's just necessarily good for kentucky, i think she's good for the country. >> why do you think she's good for you? >> i think we have a lot of the same interests. i like the attention that she pays to women's equality. >> this is a manufacturing capital. all the corvettes in america are made right here in bowling green. all of the corvettes. a thousand people have a job

there. do you think she's going to be good for that kind of manufacturing base? >> yes, i do. >> how come? what do you like about bill clinton maybe. she's been saying bill clinton will fix the economy if she's in office just like he did in the '90s. >> i can't really say for sure, i just know of the record that she's had and that she has put a lot of time and her experience just throughout her time and policy experience, i just take her for her word. >> very good, brenda. thank you very much for being with us. i appreciate it. jose, part of the reason why bernie sanders may not have a great day here in kentucky, particularly western kentucky, is western kentucky university, 20,000 students, they can't vote unless this is their permanent place of residence. no dorm rooms allowed, no same-day registration. also independents cannot break on primary day, they have to wait until the general election. in bernie sanders' case, voters for him may not get that chance.

back to you. i want to go now to oregon where for the first time in a presidential primary there are no polling places. no voting. voters there are submitting their choice via mail-in ballot. cal perry is here to explain this unique voting process. how are you, man? >> good. so in 1998, oregon went to vote by mail and things got great there. the turnout is fantastic. we've got some turnout numbers for you. let's show you the national turnout first. national turnout, 80%. that's huge. that's 20 points higher than most other states. the problem is how does that affect the primary? you're automatically registered to vote in oregon when you get your driver's license. that's great, very progressive. well, the problem is you have to fill out a little card, you have to sending it back in if you want to be registered in a primary. how many people are filling out that little card? well, 20%, 30% maybe so i think we'll see low turnout today in

oregon, but come november probably large election turnout. no polling places. what people do is basically drive their ballots to these boxes. >> you have to physically take it. >> you can mail it in if you want. but if you're worried your ballot can be lost by mail, drive them to these boxes. there's 140 different locations around the state. the boxes will be shut at 8:00. >> cal, it's always a pleasure to see you, buddy. thank you very much. meanwhile house speaker paul ryan just spoke to reporters a couple of minutes ago. he didn't want to rehash the trump meeting. luke russert was there and spoke to him. he joins me this morning. luke, good seeing you. >> reporter: good morning there, jose. paul ryan saying what he said all along that he was not going to comment on every ebb and flow of this presidential election in regards to donald trump but did say there would be ongoing policy discussions between his team and trump's team as they march closer to cleveland where donald trump will eventually become the official nominee of the republican party. there was a question i asked him

about a new nbc news survey that said six in ten republican voters trust donald trump to lead the republican party as opposed to four in ten for speaker ryan. take a listen to his answer to that question. >> speaker ryan, a new nbc news poll questioned who do you trust more to lead the republican party, donald trump 58, paul ryan 39. >> i hope it's donald trump, he's getting the nomination. he should -- he's wrapping up the nomination. good lord, i hope it is because the person that's getting the nomination of our party is the person to lead our party. thank you. >> reporter: so, jose, interesting there. paul ryan passing the torch to a degree, essentially saying that the nominee of the party should be the leader of the party and he had no real problem with that. i'm sure that he is trying to be humble to a grdegree there. kind of interesting to see the breakdown because there are many conservatives that look to paul ryan as the true leader of the

conservative movement and the true leader of the republican party as opposed to donald trump and that's the divide that we're going to see ongoing moving forward is can there be unity between these two faxctions, those who accept donald trump and those who do not. paul ryan is not 100% there but it seems that he's moving there ever so slightly. >> thank you very much, luke, good to see you. tune in tonight for msnbc's special live coverage of tonight's primary which kicks off at 5:00 p.m. eastern time. take a look at the rundown here. look at that. you do not want to miss this. by the way, come back to me real quick. how lucky am i. i have cal perry to my right and to my left it's cokornacki. how long are you today? >> six hours tonight. hillary clinton smelling an upset in both states. let's see if it happens. >> i'm smelling a good night for all of us. the ntsb holds a hearing on what caused an amtrak derailment

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right now the ntsb is holding a hearing on that fatal amtrak crash in philadelphia that killed eight in may of last year. tom costello has been following this story and he joins me on the phone. tom, what's the very latest? >> bottom line here is that the ntsb has concluded that it is likely that the engineer simply lost what they call situational awareness. the reason for that is that he was distracted by radio chatter between the dispatcher and multiple other trains. an amtrak train and a regional train both reporting they had been hit by objects, either a rock or bullet. they later determined there were no bullets fired. those conversations so distracted the engineer of amtrak train 188 that he forgot where he was. he forgot he was headed into a

stretch of track where he had to slow the train down. instead he was speeding up, double the posted speed limit, and when he crashed the train, he was doing 106 miles per hour. as you mentioned, eight people were killed, 200 were injured in that horrific crash in north philadelphia. the ntsb says if they had had positive train control, that automatic braking technology on that stretch of track, this would have never happened. they have since rolled out positive train control on the entire northeast corridor, but today it looks like the cause of this accident a year later is quite simply human error and distracted driving, distracted engineering, not by text messaging, not by listening to music, but by listening to radio traffic about other trains being hit by objects and that was so concerning that the engineer forgot where he was. >> tom costello, thank you very much. as hillary clinton begins to turn her attention to the general election, who's on her short list of potential running mates?

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i'm gonna need monday off. again, not my call. as hillary clinton moves closer to securing a democratic nomination, her search for a running mate is now under way but picking one of her top choices will run the risk of benefitting the republicans in the senate. alex seitz-wald joins us to explain. alex, good morning. >> good morning, jose. >> so who are clinton's top vicks f picks for vp? >> this is not a complete list almost certainly and the most buzzed about, talked about names and would make a lot of sense. kind. first name on a lot of people's lists is tim kaine, the senator from virginia. he speaks fluent spanish. one of the only people to be a mayor, governor and senator, also former dnc chair. you've also got elizabeth warren, big liberal hero. sherod brown.

cory booker. both minnesota senators on that list, al franken and amy klobuchar as well as two cabinet secretaries, tom perez and hjulo castro. both of them hispanic options if she wanted to appeal to that demographic. >> what are the risk of pulling some of the senators and, for example, perez and castro will essentially be out when the obama administration is out, so they would be available. >> right. one of the big risks for three of those names on that lists, elizabeth warren, sherod brown and cory booker are senators from states with republican governors. what that means is if hillary clinton chose any of them to be vice president, the republican governor would get to replace them in the senate and it depends how long that would last before they were replaced in a special election. in the case of ohio, it would be two full years.

sherrod brown would not be replaced until 2018. so in the critical early months of her presidency, which is when most presidents midweget the mo their agenda, she could be down control in the senate but in the best case it would just mean less margin of error for tough votes. >> has elizabeth warren, whose name has been repeated over and over again, has she had anything to say about this? >> she's been a little bit cagey, which is interesting. she hasn't ruled it out sboir y entirely. take a look at what she told mike just the other day. >> this is something that right now we've got to get all of our nominations settled on the democratic side. for me, i'm going to keep doing my job every single day and i'm not thinking about another job. >> that is definitely not a no,

jose, and that's kind of the answer that people tend to give when they're being considered for vice president. so, you know, she would like to have her name continued to be floated out there even if she doesn't actually want the job in the end. >> there's also some out of the box possibilities. "the new york times" had the possibility of even someone like javier becerra of california being considered. >> there's a lot of options here. we're probably going to end up with the campaign putting out a list that will include people that appeal to lots of different demographics in the democratic coalition and you're also going to have people floating their own names. aides and allies talking to reporters and saying, hey, i hear the clinton campaign is talking to so and so to get their name out there. always good if you're a politician on the rise to have your name floated as a vp possibility. >> alex seitz-wald, a pleasure to see you, my friend. thanks for being with me. the road to the white house goes through through two battle grounds. our own jacob soboroff takes us

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ohio will be crucial in the general election this november and that's because no candidate since 1960 has won the presidency without winning ohio. the state has correctly picked the winner in every election but two since 1904. msnbc's jacob soboroff is in columbus talking to a unique group of voting block, the truckers. jacob. >> reporter: jose, it's amazing to think about, but the key to the presidential election in 2016 may run along these highways here through ohio, in particular the swingiest part of one of the swingiest states in the union, interstate 80, which goes east-west across the entire united states but in particular through pennsylvania and ohio.

i went up there to i-80 yesterday to an amazing truck stop to see what folks up there are saying. take a look. i'm at the truck world truck stop on the i-80 corridor in hubbard, ohio. and very few roads are as important to the 2016 presidential election than this one because it runs through the swing states of ohio and pennsylvan pennsylvania. nobody knows this area better than these truckers. >> have you thought about who you're going to vote for yet? >> i don't know. i don't trust either one of them right now. >> donald trump or hillary clinton? >> yes. >> is it possible for hillary clinton to win over your vote? >> yes, it is. >> donald trump, possible for him? >> yeah. he has a lot to prove between now and then. >> retired salesman. what are you doing here at truck world. >> well, i have to do something. everybody has got to be somewhere. >> what do you think is going to happen. have you figured out which way you're going to go in that general election? >> yeah, i think so. i think trump is the lesser of two evils. >> chuck, i want to look at this map right here. what does the next president need to do to win over the voters of the i-80 corridor through ohio? >> i think he's got to convince

the voters that he's going to bring back industry that went overseas and mexico. i think trump is a good man to do that. >> or she. >> not she. no, no. >> where are you from? >> kentucky. >> kentucky. so are you a truck driver? >> yeah. >> what kind of a truck do you drive? >> kenworth. >> 16-wheeler? >> 18-wheeler. >> excuse me. i don't know anything about trucks. who are you going for in november? >> i'm going for trump. >> donald trump. >> yeah. >> so where you come from, kentucky is going for trump but this i-80 corridor could pretty much decide it. which way do you think they'll go up here? >> i believe they'll go for trump, i do. i believe it's going to really surprise a lot of people. >> could we check out your truck by any chance? >> yeah, yeah. sure can. >> what is it about what's going on here on this i-80 corridor that people go for him over hillary clinton? >> to me it all boils down to jobs. i have made a lot of money in

ohio in my 28, 29 years but there is a lot of places, you know, that are no more. these factories, a lot of them have just closed up and left, you know. >> when you pull the air horn, where is that? >> right here. >> can i do it? >> yes, sir, help yourself. >> here we go. >> reporter: nothing like blowing that air horn, jose. one thing i think everybody should think about is priorities usa action, the super pac for hillary clinton, has already spent money. they just announced that here in ohio $1.75 million against donald trump in the general election. they are looking at this state very closely. like i said, the folks that know this state better than anybody else are the folks that drive across it every single day. you heard from them right now. jose, back to you. >> horn blowing jacob soboroff, thank you very much. coming up, president obama takes another swipe at donald trump. >> a republican nominee who many of them say isn't qualified to

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our country is better off when the democratic nominee for the presidency and the republican nominee are both qualified to be president and can be effective. because you never know what happens. i'm a democrat, i prefer democratic policies, but i want a serious republican party and serious republican nominees. >> one day after ripping into donald trump during his commencement address at rutgers, president obama once again took a shot at the republican front-runner in an sbrinterview

with buzzfeed. molly, let me start with you. president obama's approval ratings have bumped up a couple of points the last weeks. is that going to have an impact? >> yeah, absolutely. i think especially once the democratic nomination is officially decided and the president can weigh in more decisively. he will be key to getting democrats around the linominee, likely hillary clinton. we've seen a lot of animosity around clinton supporters and sand erserz supporters but the president is very well liked. i think he can do a lot in terms of rallying voters against donald trump. you hear him previewing some of the attacks that he intends to make. a lot of democratic voters or nondemocrats but voters across the spectrum who may not be superenthused about hillary clinton may be receptive to that message from president obama.

>> julia, you were tweeting about the new ads put out by priorities usa. one is almost identical to one from the anti-trump pac. how is the anti-trump movement paving the way for hillary clinton? >> well, the anti-trump movement may have accidentally set the stage for what democrats will spend weeks and months doing which is really developing a strong message against donald trump as a con man, a phony, a fraud. you're seeing already priorities usa recycling some of the very same ads that groups like the never trump movement and stop trump used in the primary election, which just ended a couple of weeks ago. they have got a lot of material to work with thanks to the republicans. >> it wasn't just the never trump movement, all the other candidates at one time or another called him all kinds of things. >> yes. and the clinton campaign and democratic groups like priorities usa have been very

good about chronicling exactly who said what and we can expect to see them roll those people out using their own words against them as the general election goes on. so that is to say that even if ted cruz comes out and says that he backs donald trump and thinks that trump earned the nomination and should be the next president, ted cruz has also seld ve said very, very nasty things about donald trump the democrats will be all too eager to remind voters of. >> molly, specifically "the new york times" just oput out an article about trump's strategy to attack clinton. just getting nasty with hillary clinton won't work. you really have to get people to look hard at her character and to get women to ask themselves if hillary is truly sincere and authentic because she has been really ugly in trying to destroy bill's mistresses and she is pandering to women so obviously when she is only interested in power. so can that strategy be

effective? >> i think we'll see. you know, earlier in the hour i heard a correspondent talking to some swing voters who said they didn't trust any of the candidates, and so i think that the more hillary clinton can be discredited, you know, along similar lines to the way a lot of people on the other side feel about donald trump, the more those attacks will stick. and we've seen with trump that he's very willing to get intensity personal against absolutely anybody that he's up against and that those insults tend to be effective, at least in the republican primary. the question is with a different electorate, a general electorate, does that work. >> there's also an article saying trump will take a page from sanders' playbook, stake out more populist positions on things like minimum wage, taxes and wall street to win over democrats. do you think that could work you think? >> well, we'll see. what's clear is that bernie sanders has attracted a huge movement on his side. he's got big rallies just like trump has big rallies. and i think that trump is on to something in trying to woo his

voters. it's a playbook that's worked for him in the republican primary and it's worth a try on his part. >> julie and molly, thank you both for being with me. appreciate your time. be sure to tune in for our special live coverage tonight beginning at 5:00 p.m. eastern time right here on msnbc. take a look at the roster tonight. chuck todd, chris matthews, rachel, chris hayes and then i'm seeing kornacki. it's going to be a great night here. that wraps up this hour of requests msnbc live." i'm see you here tomorrow. take care.

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they officially face off. our weekly tracking poll shows clinton's slim lead is shrinking, this as politico now reports that trump's claims that he is expanding the gop are not backed up by the numbers. also developing now, we now know what distracted an amtrak engineer before a deadly derailment in philadelphia, killing eight and injuring hundreds of others. what the ntsb is reporting this morning. good morning, everyone, i'm tamron hall coming to you live from our msnbc headquarters in new york. we begin with the numbers i referred to, the new nbc news/survey monkey weekly tracking poll. it's out now and it shows the likely general election matchup between donald trump and hillary clinton is the closest that it's been. now, keep this in perspective, these are weekly tracking numbers. clinton's lead now down to just three points nationally compared to what we saw last week, which was a five-point difference. in that same poll, it showed six in ten republican voters think donald trump should be the

party -- lead the party over house speaker ryan. minutes ago speaker ryan was asked about that number on the screen. >> i hope it's donald trump. he's getting the nomination. he should -- he just -- he's wrapping up the nomination. good lord i hope it is pause the person who's getting the nomination of our party is the person to lead our party. >> meantime, trump launched a new twitter tirade this morning against hillary clinton, including this quote. crooked hillary can't close the deal with bernie sanders. will be another bad day for her. let's bring in hallie jackson, she's covering the trump campaign for us. and nbc's luke russert, who was just there with paul ryan and asked him the question about the new polls. hallie, let's start off with already this morning donald trump being described as flip-flopping on another issue, this regarding using a pollster. let me play what he said to our chuck todd not long ago. >> i don't have pollsters. i don't want to waste money on pollsters because, you know