not have two candidates who are really very, very strongly disliked. i don't want to see the american people voting for the lesser of two evils. >> in our new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll this morning hillary clinton and donald trump are locked in a virtual tie. a one-time double-digit lead for clinton is now all but gone. >> my campaign is not going to let donald trump try to normalize himself in this period. i do not want americans and good-thinking republicans as well as democrats and independents to start to believe that this is a normal candidacy. it isn't. >> as you can see a lot to talk about this morning. our political correspondents are spread out across the country this morning. i'm going to start with msnbc's steve kornacki. let's do some big boarding, steve. where do things stand? >> it's tightened up. in the last couple of weeks you

could see it right here, hillary clinton up 3 over donald trump just a few weeks ago. hillary clinton was leading this thing 50-39. what's happened since then? the big development, donald trump, he locked up the republican nomination. we stopped asking if he'd be the republican nominee. we started to know that he will be the republican nominee. people looked at this race anew. donald trump polls within 3 points of hillary clinton. you had bernie sanders a second ago talking about this. the unfavorable numbers for these two candidates. look at this. we knew donald trump's was high. he's close to 60% negative. but look at this, hillary clinton almost as high, 54%. both likely candidates for president in each party well over 50% in the negative category. that has not happened before when it's this high for both of them. we have not seen that before. why is trump closing the gap more specifically? the reason is among republicans. he's jumped 14 points in the

support he receives from republicans in that race against hillary clinton. last month when that republican race was still unsettled, there were a lot more republicans saying, hey, if it's trump versus clinton, i don't know where i'm going to go. now that they know it's going to be trump versus clinton, they're going to donald trump and that is tightening this race up. on the democratic side you can see hillary clinton's support from democrats a little lower than that 86% trump has from his own party. the reason for that, you have some holdouts there, some bernie sanders supporters who right now are saying they're not ready to get behind hillary clinton as the nominee, as the candidate against donald trump. the hope for hillary clinton is that things could settle down in the next few weeks, maybe bernie sanders comes around and endorses her. that could move her support up overall. so if there is a silver lining in this poll for hillary clinton, it's we saw republicans unifying around donald trump when he locked up the nomination. if and when hillary clinton does the same with bernie sanders, will his supporters rally around her. that's her challenge. it's also her silver lining,

jose. >> steve, 83%, when you're still running against someone and it's been a pretty competitive race so far is really good numbers it seems like. >> yeah, that's the thing. i think there's a risk here of overstating this a little too much because, look, the bottom line is in 2012, mitt romney as the republican candidate, he got 93% of republicans on election day. barack obama, he got 92% of democrats. that's sort of the baseline. i think both of these candidates, these numbers are really saying both of these candidates are likely to end up basically where the last two candidates ended up. so i'm not sure when things settle down there will be a clear advantage there in terms of party loyalty. >> steve, on the general numbers, the face-to-face numbers, the fact that donald trump has locked up the nomination and hillary has not yet locked up the nomination, that they're so close, things will probably change when there are two enclosuclear-cut candid >> that's the question. there is still work to be done for donald trump. we could say sanders supporters, will they come around for hillary clinton, will they give

her a boost there? there's certainly room for her to grow. the flip side is a lot of republicans have rallied around donald trump in the last month. there are still some holdouts. again, he's at 86% now with republicans. mitt romney got to 93% by election day. so there's also room for trump to grow among republicans. of course then you have independents who are in the middle. we asked about independents in this. trump is actually leading right now by five in our poll among independents, 42-37. >> steve kornacki and the big board, thank you very much. it's good to see you this morning, my friend. >> sure, no problem. now let's go to kasie hunt. she is in detroit following the democrats. great seeing you. i guess the question is what happened over the weekend that made sanders angry? >> reporter: well, jose, this primary dragging out in a way that really is doing more damage than i think many folks expected to hillary clinton here in this late stage. i think you've seen it come out particularly with regards to debbie wasserman schultz, the chairwoman of the democratic

national committee. she, of course, had been quoted in the press and was talking about what happened in nevada, that slap at the nevada state convention and some of the violence that erupted there. very clear that her comments got under sanders' skin. of course he this sunday was talking about how he's supporting her primary challenger and would not want her to run the dnc under a sanders presidency. and i think one thing that's gotten a little out of hand here and democrats privately will say that the negotiations between the party and bernie sanders campaign have gotten out of hand a little bit in a way that might have actually been prevented if they had been willing to address it earlier. you've seen the clinton campaign in particular treat bernie sanders very carefully in the press. now, of course clinton herself coming out and much more forcefully saying she is going to be the nominee running against donald trump than she has before. and one thing i thought was really interesting that she told chuck todd on "meet the press" yesterday was talking about how she doesn't want donald trump's

campaign to be normalized for, she called them, good-thinking republicans. she also talked about independents and said she wants those people still essentially to think that donald trump's candidacy isn't a normal thing. and so that, of course, is their struggle. that's why we see this new nbc news/"wall street journal" poll potentially causing more problems. any poll showing them so close together will make donald trump seem normal as a candidate and let republicans start to believe that he could win this election, which of course has been a major hurdle toward unity on that side. so the question now for the clinton campaign, they say privately that they think that there is room for them to close this gap and that some of what we're seeing in these polls are because the primary just isn't over yet and they think that republicans are coming home to donald trump and that democrats haven't yet begun to do that with hillary clinton. the challenge now, whether or not bernie sanders is actually willing to get out of the race after california or if, as both sides say is possible, they say

this race is close enough in california that he could close that gap. if he were to win such a big state like that, i think all bets are off as far as whether or not he'd be willing to step aside ahead of that convention in philadelphia, jose. >> kasie, what do the polls show california looking like for both of them? >> privately, i'm talking to campaigns, you know, to both campaigns and they say that their internal polling, both of them have been in the field. they're trying to decide when and how to go up with ads on the air. basically they say this race is at the point where it's in contention. of course sanders has been camping out functionally in california and will continue to do so. we do know that at least in some of the states in the past when he was maybe in a hotter phase of his campaign, he was able to go places, hold these big rallies, big events, and start to move poll numbers. the question is whether or not he can do that in this case, jose. >> kasie hunt in detroit. thank you very much for being with me this morning.

hallie jackson is in new york outside trump tower. good morning to you. speculation swirling this morning about the veep search and that's kind of heightened with a private meeting today, right? >> reporter: yeah, the one with senator bob corker, jose, who is coming up from washington to meet with donald trump here at his office at trump tower. i'm told by an aide that this meeting was originally set to happen in d.c. after trump's foreign policy speech before trump's visit down there, but it was rescheduled and so it's happening here in new york today. you talked about the veepstakes. a lot of talk swirling about who could be in the running, who's on the short list, who's being vetted, what's the talk. corker is among those names being bandied about and there's conflicting reports about how seriously trump is taking him as a potential running mate. i'm told today the conversation may be about foreign policy. remember that corker is the chair of the powerful senate foreign relations committee. but donald trump being donald trump, this meeting could touch on anything, political strategy, possibly those veepstakes. we hope to find out a little bit later this afternoon. you know senator corker.

he's 63. he was part of the foreign relations committee. he chairs it, in fact. he was elected to the senate in '06 but doesn't see eye to eye with donald trump when it comes to policy. he spoke out against trump's proposed temporary ban on muslims coming into the country back when trump first talked about it. corker and trump do have some things in common. they're very wealthy. corker is one of the wealthiest members of congress. we will get a sense of what the two discussed hopefully after that meeting at trump tower. >> hallie, let's talk about the house of representatives. paul ryan still really not 100% onboard with the trump train, is he. >> reporter: no. and here's some new comments he's making to a podcast talking about donald trump's chances for success in a general election against hillary clinton. let's play the sound bite and talk about it on the other side. >> do you think he can really win? >> yeah, sure, of course i do. >> would you put him -- if you were a betting man, would you

say he's gonna win? >> i'm not going to -- i'm not a betting man. so, you know, i think if we get our party unified and if we do the work we need to do to get ourselves at full strength and if we offer the country a clear and compelling agenda, that is inspiring, that is inclusive, that fixes problems, that is solutions-based and based on good principles, then yes, i think we can win. >> reporter: so there you hear it from speaker ryan, jose, similar to what we've heard from ryan over these past few weeks saying, sure, he thinks donald trump could win in november but he's not a betting man. there's talk about when and if ryan will come out and wholeheartedly, full throatedly endorse trump. as you know, he has hesitated to do that, at least so far. staff members from both camps have met to talk a little bit about policy. the two men have talked about sort of overall broad-based conservative principles. for ryan, though, the question is when this could happen. and for members of congress, how

long ryan might wait to endorse. there's a sense among some, particularly the pro-trump supporters, that the longer ryan waits, the more divided the party becomes. trump aware of the need to reach out and build some bridges in washington. that meeting with corker potentially another step forward on that today. remember, jose, corker was one of the first people to come out and back trump after he delivered that foreign policy speech, something that resonated about the candidate. jose? >> hallie jackson outside trump tower in new york. thank you very much. let me bring in msnbc political analyst, former senior advisor to rand paul, elise jordan. great seeing you. >> thanks for having me, jose. >> if you look at how voters view clinton and trump, nobody really loves either one of them. is this more a reflection of the candidates or a country that seems more and more polarized. >> historically we've never had two leading candidates for their party's nominations that have some high of unfavorables, so i do think it's an interesting moment in our country's political history just because

voters from both sides of the aisle really are not that enthusiastic about either party's nominee. >> you know, is there an argument to be made that while trump's negatives might be, well, yes, higher, people don't see him as part of the d.c. establishment and that actually could help in the long term? >> i think certainly, and i think that's what you're seeing on the democratic side is the establishment chosen one, hillary clinton going up against bernie sanders, the outsider insurgent candidate. on both sides of the aisle you see that voters really are looking outside of the establishment elites for new voices, for new leadership to challenge the entrenched washington status quo. i think that's somewhere where donald trump certainly has strength just because hillary clinton has been on the scene for 24 years now, as first lady, as a senator, as secretary of state. she has a lot of baggage and she's a weak candidate overall so certainly that's where trump stands to benefit. >> elise, let's talk about, because this is a question i

think a lot of people have. how does trump lose with african-americans, with latinos, maybe even with women, and still win an election? >> the only foreseeable way that he could win while repulsing all of those groups, and right now i think it's three out of four women are not favorable towards donald trump, i think the same is true with hispanics and with african-americans, the only way is if hillary clinton really does not motivate the democratic base to come out and vote and voter turnout is severely depressed on the democratic side. i just don't see that happening, just because donald trump by the flip side of the coin, really motivates people to come out and vote against him. so i think donald trump has serious work ahead of him to really mend fences and build bridges with groups outside of white voters. >> elise jordan, thank you very much for being with me. appreciate your time. >> thanks for having me. breaking news in maryland. in just minutes a judge in baltimore is set to hand down his verdict in the second trial involving one of six police

officers charged in the case of freddie gray. 25-year-old gray died in april of last year, you'll remember, after his neck was broken in the back of a police transport van while he was handcuffed and shackled, but left unrestrained by a seat belt. nbc's ron mott is live in baltimore. ron, good morning. what's this officer facing? >> hey there, jose, good morning to you. well, as you can see here coming into court here he's going to learn his face at the bottom of the hour. we will get a verdict unlike in december where the jury was dead locked. officer nero is perhaps the most -- the least culpable of all the six officers who were charged in this case. his attorneys argued during the six-day trial that he had very little physical contact with freddie gray. he only touched him once and that was to retrieve an inhaler that freddie gray asked for after he had been detained and arrested. as you mentioned, jose, he was

later placed into that van, shackled, but not secured by a seat belt. the result of that ride was a broken neck. he died a week after that, setting off a lot of protests here in the city of baltimore. now, in advance of this verdict that's scheduled to be read at 10:30 eastern time, maryland congressman elijah cummings is asking folks to remain calm regardless of what this verdict is. we'll just have to wait and see what this is and if this is an acquittal, whether there will be calm throughout the city. there is a very heavy police presence inside and outside the courtroom. there's also a small group of people with signs in front of the jose. >> this verdict is expected to be learned about 15 minutes from now? >> reporter: 15 minutes from now. the most serious of those charges is the second-degree assault charge carrying up to ten years in prison. he's also facing a charge of reckless endangerment carrying upwards of five years in prison. these are all misdemeanors. there are more serious charges facing the other officers. and again, we've got five other trials to go after this.

one of the reaches we've had such a delay between that mistrial in december and this trial is that the officer in the first trial, his attorneys argued with the state about whether that officer should be forced to testify against his fellow officers, maryland's highest court ruled just last week that the state can compel william porter to testify against his fellow officers, so that will be very interesting as we watch these trials going forward. >> ron mott, thank you very much. we'll keep a close watch on that, about 14 minutes from now. still ahead, the latest on the search for wreckage from the egyptair flight 804 crash. egypt deploying a submarine to search for the missing flight data recorders. if they're found, what could those flight boxes tell us about the minutes leading up to the crash? we'll have all the very latest next, right here on "msnbc live." constipated?

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the frustrating search for

egyptair flight 804 goes on in the med tra mediterranean sea. there's only so much time, the batteries run out after 30 days. the crews have found pieces of the plane but not the crucial data recorders. >> we have been recovering wreckage, we have been recovering human remains and other parts of the plane and it's now in hands of our army operation and we will expect it once they finalize the process. >> so at this point there's still no clear indication of exactly what caused the plane to crash last thursday. egypt's president said over the weekend that, quote, all scenarios remain open. the final voice communications from the plane were normal, but there were several warning signs. the first two messages indicated some sort of problem with the cockpit windows and two more smoke alarms, one coming from the lavatory right behind the

cockpit. the others from the avionics underneath the cockpit. then after three more error message, the system goes silent. what do these signals really mean? that really remains a mystery to investigators. we've got all the angles covered. chris jansing is live in paris and lucy is on the eastern coast of sicily. chris, let's start with you. what's the very latest of what could have happened to the plane? >> reporter: the search for the blacks boxes is intensifying because they're going to be key in finding out exactly what happened in those final minutes, jose. a couple of pieces of critical equipment of made their way to the eastern mediterranean. first of all, from egypt, there's this submarine. it's not manned, it's a robot submarine, usually used in offshore oil drilling, but that will help them in their search to locate these black boxes. in addition from france there is a ship with specialized equipment on it that could help

them find those pings that last just 30 days. also divers who specialize in this kind of deep dive search. finally, some police onboard. so anything that is found in the water below the surface they bring onboard, that they will have it secured there. in the meantime, there is a lot of rumor out there. in the absence of hard, physical evidence of any one theory about what might have happened, officials here in france and also in egypt find themselves denying reports, including, and you just saw egypt's civil aviation minister talking, here he is again saying it's not true that they have located those black boxes. >> we haven't recovered them yet. i haven't got any information from the military operation team that is in charge of the search, and we will announce when we get close to them or at least identify where they are. >> reporter: meantime, i can tell you that here at charles de

gaulle airport where that plane took off, we are seeing visible signs of heavier security today, more police patrol, armed police, and more denials by officials here in france that they have found anything on videotapes or any of their searches through computer programs that suggest to them that something happened here to suggest terrorism. jose. >> chris jansing in paris, thank you very much. i want to bring in lucy on the island of sicily. good to see you. we've got a closeup look at the search. what does it look like? >> reporter: good morning, jose. american surveillance planes are up in the air again today continuing that search, but we were able to see that operation firsthand joining the u.s. navy onboard the p-3 orion aircraft. it's normally used for hunting down enemy submarines, but it is critical to the search for flight 804 because it can get down low in the water and stay in the air up to 14 hours

without refueling. the area where we were searching is roughly 90 miles south from where flight 804 disappeared from radar contact. 70 miles away from the egyptian coast. we were able to spot several small pieces of debris that could be important to the investigation, but nothing like what the crew found on their previous mission, jose. i spoke to one of the p-3 orion pilots who described that he was the one who witnessed with his own eyes the oil slick or what looked like an oil slick in the mediterrane mediterranean. he also described seeing seats and orange devices that could have been the flotation devices onboard that aircraft. the u.s. navy confirming that this crew that we were in the airplane with spotted over 100 pieces of debris in the m

mediterranean. this is equipped with sonar and radar technology. they can zoom in very close on what they were looking at but at the end of the day it was the human eye that found this debris step brings us one step closer to find out what happened to flight 804 and the people onboard. breaking news from the supreme court. pete williams is standing by with the very latest. pete. >> reporter: well, jose, the supreme court has blown the whistle on what they say was blatant racism in the choosing of a jury in a georgia death penalty case. this is a case that actually goes back to 1986. a man who was then 18 years old, sentenced to death, and the jury was all white. the prosecutors repeatedly excluded from the potential jury panel all black members, and there was very damning evidence against the state here. the names of the black jurors were in a different color on their list of people that were

potential jurors. several of the black jurors had the letter "b" out to the side and the memos that were discovered during the course of these appeals have the prosecutors talking back and forth about, well, if we have to accept a black juror, then this one would be acceptable. they also said during the trial when this was challenged that they were omitting a black woman from the jury because she was so close in age to the defendant, but she was 34, he was 18. today the supreme court in a 7-1 ruling said that it's clear that the prosecutors here unconstitutionally excluded these jurors based on their race. 1986 is another key year in this case because that's the year the supreme court said you cannot bar jurors solely based on their race. it was a racially charged case to start with. now the defendant in this case will get a new trial. interestingly a 7-1 decision and the court's only african-american justice, clarence thomas, dissented but

he did so for technical reasons. he said that the supreme court, and indeed the federal courts, didn't have the jurisdiction to review what the state court did here. so for technical reasons, he doesn't reach the merits of the case, he just said the supreme court had no business deciding this case, but he was the only justice to have that view. so a new trial for this defendant and some strong words from the supreme court today about prosecutors excluding jurors based solely on their race. >> pete williams in washington. thank you very much. still ahead, 16 years after his lost bid for the white house, former vice president al gore weighs in on the 2016 election and whether he's been approached to back hillary clinton or bernie sanders. and i'd like to... cut. thank you, we'll call you. evening, film noir, smoke, atmosphere... bob... you're a young farmhand and e*trade is your cow. milk it.

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but despite donald trump's comments on the topic, gore says he remains hopeful a possible trump presidency won't completely take the country backwards. here's more from nbc's anne thompson's interview with the former vice president. >> what do you think of the tone of the presidential campaign so far? >> well, i'm one of millions who sometimes just -- i do a double take, whoa, what was that? >> who believes in global warming. raise your hand. >> it's been unusual. >> nobody? >> do you see a trump presidency undoing all the progress that the u.s. has made in the last ten years in the fight against climate change? >> he has said some things on the climate crisis that i think should concern everyone. i'm not pollyanaish about it, but i do think there is still some basis for some hope. >> this is a man who's called climate change a hoax and other words that we cannot use on network tv. >> and a chinese plot.

>> right. >> so where's the hope? >> president carter said that he hopes he'll be malleable. i don't know. >> climate change, gore insists, cuts across party lines. >> i'm proud to have some tea party allies. what's being called the green tea party. >> gore praises both bernie sanders and hillary clinton for addressing climate change. but bill clinton's vice president is not yet picking sides. >> has either democrat sought your endorsement yet? >> i've gotten signals that you could easily interpret that way. >> the earth is so big -- >> and that's because "an inconvenient truth" made al gore a tv star. >> as somebody said al gore giving a slide show, what doesn't grab you about that? >> anne thompson, thank you for that. hillary clinton and donald trump running neck in neck according to the latest national polls. is clinton losing ground in typical democratic strong holds

like pennsylvania? first, check out "saturday night live's" spoof of the long democratic primary process. >> all right. i think i'm going to head home. don't you work too late now. >> oh, i won't, mrs. clinton. i'm actually closing up the bar right now. so everybody has got to go. that means you too, sir. >> no freaking way! i'm not going anywhere. i can stay here as long as i want. >> senator sanders, i'm sorry, but the night is over. >> no, no, it's not over! it's not over till i say it's over. make a statement... make sure it's an intelligent one. ♪ the all-new audi a4, with available virtual cockpit. ♪ ♪jake reese, "day to feel alive"♪

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a one point lead. in ohio a five-point lead. in pennsylvania, the most recent poll there shows a razor-close race. msnbc's jacob soboroff is back from a recent trip to pennsylvania where he spoke to some voters and officials. jacob, good morning. >> good morning, jose. you mentioned florida and ohio, which are normally known as swing states. pennsylvania is often mentioned in that conversation but never quite gets from blue to red. but if you take a look at where i went, beaver county, that shift has already started. if you look at the numbers, two republican state senators in the southwestern portion of the state, two republican state representatives and a tea party congressman are now representing an area that was once reliably democratic, a steel town, the headquarters of j & l steel. that is why we went there because effectively this is ground zero for a very blue state that quite possibly could shift to red in this presidential election. here's what we found. these trains and this town would once reliably deliver steel

across america and votes to democratic politicians, but times have changed and this blue state could possibly turn red. so where are we, mayor? >> this is the downtown city of aliquippa. >> who are your constituents. >> staunch democrats. appear quilla is a staunch democratic town, always have been, blue collar, blue steel, that's us. >> i heard beaver county for the first time ever has two republican county commissioners. >> commissioners. >> and one democrat. what happened? >> they don't believe in the politics anymore. they don't believe in the candidates anymore. >> this is downtown aliquippa. at one time this was a bustling place. >> you'll have to forgive me, but it looks pretty dead. >> well, that's just the way it is. it's gone. everything is gone. these were all bars, restaurants, shops, markets. everything was here. >> and now what's going on downtown? >> now you can see what's going on downtown, not a lot. >> not a lot. >> this is the tunnel that 11,000 people would come through every day? >> right. right here. >> aliquippa industrial park.

everything out here was steel? >> the whole valley. >> whoa, this is a big ole empty lot. so this is where you used to work? >> over here, yeah. >> when you look at this now and it looks like we're walking on the surface of the moon, what goes through your head? >> oh, man, there's a lot of people got financially destroyed when the mills were gone. >> how many people worked out here? >> i think at one time there was like 13,000 i believe worked in the mill. >> 13,000 people. if you polled those 13,000 people in its heyday, what would the politics be at that time? >> well -- >> democrats? >> there was a lot of democrats, right. >> you're a hillary clinton guy? >> i like hillary. but i mean things might change when it comes to the election. who knows. >> you could go trump? >> i don't know. >> pennsylvania usually, you think it's in the democratic column. >> it's a blue state. >> blue state. >> right. >> maybe not this year? >> i agree with you. >> how come? >> he said we're going to do this, we're going to build this, we're going to do that, i'm going to bring jobs. >> and then they look at this --

>> there's nothing. >> what you heard there, jose, from george is almost unheard of just a decade ago. this is since 1992, the presidential contests in pennsylvania. here's the county, beaver county where we were. it was blue 2004, blue again -- sorry, turned red in 2008 for the obama administration, but the big question is how red is this map going to get? these are steel workers, again, that were through and through democratic. but at this point they feel alienated by the system, they don't like what they're hearing from hillary clinton and donald trump is speaking to their wishes and their wants and their desires. we'll see what happens come november. still a lot of time left. >> jacob soboroff, thank you very much. very interesting question. i want to bring in senior political editor mark murray. mark, good seeing you this morning. >> good morning, jose. >> let's pick up where jacob left off. why are we seeing such close numbers in some of these battleground states, ohio, pennsylvania, florida? >> the biggest reason why is we have a very close race right now. and the national polls are going to end up reflecting close

battleground state polls. if you really do believe that swing states like florida, ohio and pennsylvania are swing states, that usually they'll be the average of a national horse race which includes blue states like california, red states like texas and the swing states where jacob was just in pennsylvania, smack dab in the middle. as jacob was reminding us, in 2012 barack obama was able to ending up winning pennsylvania and did it really fueling in the cities and urban suburbs. so obama cleaned up in philadelphia, in pittsburgh and then of course in the areas surrounding that. and where jacob was profiling is going to be a place on can donald trump make gains in some of these counties that have actually kind of been lost, or is the democrats' superiority in urban areas enough to win swing states like pennsylvania. it's going to be a fascinating question to follow the next five months. >> i'm wondering, mark, do the numbers today, are they in any way meaningful when we're so far

away, when hillary clinton is still in a battle against bernie sanders and, you know, trump is by himself. i mean are they meaningful, these numbers? >> well, the scoreboard is always meaningful, jose. and we are just five and a half months out from the general election and both hillary clinton and donald trump are very well defined characters. i think what you're getting at is the republican primary race is now over with. what we've seen in our polling is republicans have started to rally around donald trump more so than they did a month ago and that's boosted his number in the national nbc/wall street journal poll where it's a three-point race. donald trump's numbers have gone up. meanwhile, hillary clinton's numbers have gone down because bernie sanders and his supporters are dragging her down. so really to be able to maybe get the best apples-to-apples comparison, we'll have to wait until the democratic race is other with to see if that same unifying, rallying around factor happens to hillary clinton. if that does end up happening, you could see hillary clinton's numbers go up two or three

points over where they are right now but the big question is if they don't go up, we might be in store for a very close general election come november. >> absolutely. you do point out that our new poll finds clinton's biggest challenge is winning over sanders supporters. can she do that or are they just so different it's going to be tough to get enthusiasm from the sanders supporters if hillary clinton turns out to be the nominee. >> here is the good news for hillary clinton, jose. in 2008 barack obama was only able to get 60% of hillary clinton voters at this same point in time in that presidential contest when the democratic contest was still ongoing. in our poll it shows that hillary clinton is getting 66% of bernie sanders supporters so a little better than obama was doing in '08. the problem, though, is still a third of bernie sanders voters are not backing hillary clinton and that's weighing down her numbers. the question is does bernie sanders get on board, does he endorse hillary clinton once the race is over with or is an indication like his war against

the dnc chairwoman debbie wasserman schultz asking for a primary challenge and supporting the primary challenge there an indication of things that bernie sanders still might not play nice with hillary clinton and the national democrats even after the primary season concludes. >> interesting to put some historical perspective on these numbers. mark, always a pleasure to see you, thanks. >> thanks, jose. president obama kicked off his historic week-long visit to asia on sunday. up next, the latest on his visit to vietnam and the warming of relations between the u.s. and its one-time foe. we'll be right back. oh yeah, hebrew national. they're all-beef like yours but they're also kosher. is that a big deal? i think so. because not just any beef goes into it. only certain cuts of kosher beef. i guess they're pretty choosy. oh, honey! here, have some of ours. oh! when your hot dog's kosher, that's a hot dog you can trust.

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with humira, control is possible. turning to news overseas, a major offensive to retake an isis strong hold in iraq. iraq's prime minister announcing the offensive on sunday, calling it zero hour for the liberation of fallujah. the government warned residents to flee the city or raise white flags to mark their location. it's the latest in a string of

efforts to reclaim territory from the islamic state. if successful, would leave mosul as isis' only major foot hold in iraq. meanwhile the white house confirms the taliban's top commander was targeted and killed in a drone strike along the pakistan-afghan border on saturday. this morning president obama called it a milestone for peace in the region. and president obama had a major announcement during his visit to vietnam today, announcing the end of the u.s.' long-standing arms embargo. ron allen has more from hanoi. ron. >> reporter: good morning, jose. well, a lot has changed here with between the united states and vietnam over the past 40 or 50 years since the end of the war. and the lifting of this arms embargo gives vietnam the ability to buy lethal military weapons, something they could not do for a generation since during the war. the president said that this represents one of the final chapters of trying to normalize

relationships with vietnam, which is now seen as a very important american ally in this part of the world, particularly because of the rise of china, not just economically but militarily out in the south china sea. there are a lot of islands and territories out there that are disputed by nations in this part of the world, china, taiwan, vietnam. and the united states wants to ensure the free transit of cargo and trade through that vital waterway. that's why one reason the u.s. is giving vietnam the ability to purchase military hardware so they can defend itself and help in the efforts to combat china. the other reason, of course, is that the vietnamese-american relationship now is mostly about trade, business. vietnam is part of that transpacific partnership, that masses i've trade deal. the united states invests a lot of money here and the president wants to deepen that and to continue those relations so it's a strategic relationship, an economic relationship. also here today besides the lifting of the arms embargo, there were some huge deals signed. $16 billion worth of deals

between american companies like boeing and the vietnamese government. the bottom line, the relationship has moved a long way, since the last 40 years since the end of the war. it's now about business and commerce. it's not so much about the vietnam war anymore and that legacy. jose. >> ron allen, thank you very much. and you're looking at live pictures outside the court house in baltimore, maryland, where a judge is expected to deliver a verdict against one of the officers charged in the death of freddie gray. we'll bring it to you live as soon as it occurs. we'll take a short break and we'll be right back. heating and cooling systems so reliable. if there's a breaking point, we'll find it. it's hard to stop a trane. really hard. trane. the most reliable for a reason.

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and i want to go more on the supreme court's decision which affects race and jury selection. i want to speak with msnbc chief legal correspondent ari melber about this. ari, good seeing you. let's talk about this decision. what stands out for you? >> what stands out for me is the 7-1 nature of the decision. that's overwhelming. that shows unity on the court, even at a time that we know the court is a person short and

chief justice john roberts has talked about trying to find unity, as pete williams first reported with you here in this hour. this is a decision that reinforces and upholds a pre-existing rule back from 1986 that says something very simple. when you are picking juries, you can remove a potential juror for almost any reason, but not a bad reason and not a racist reason. in other words, the court has always said people's right to a fair trial doesn't mean that the prosecution and defense can't strike people for basically no reason. in other words, you look at a potential juror and you say i don't think they're going to be fair, not sure why, gone. that is okay. it's not okay under the precedent to look at a potential juror and say that juror is black, the defendant is black, i think i'm going to remove them because i'm worried they're going to work together. >> ari, explain something to me because if the attorneys can strike a juror, potential juror just because he may not be, quote, fair, right?

that's a personal decision, very subjecti subjective. how do we know that that's not because he's black or latino? >> you just there, jose, are articulating what thurgood marshall said in in his dissent. if you look for explicit racism, all you're going to do is remove all the cases where someone is clever and the only time you'll get in trouble is if someone says they're removing someone because they're black. having said that, chief justice john roberts writes in today's opinion that the prosecutor's notes which wrote down each juror that was black did constitute that kind of evidence, that kind of racism. still not okay the court holds today. that means this defendant, who has basically been serving for years on a very gruesome murder conviction will get a new trial. >> so, ari, it's just if you're, to use nonlegal terms, if you're dumb enough to write exactly i'm taking this person out because

of his race, then this would apply. but if you're not and you just say, it's just not the type of day that this guy looks like he can be fair, they could still do it, because they're african-american or you're latino or whatever. >> exactly. and that, i think, is one of the critiques of this line of argument. in other words, the court has tried to draw clear lines. obviously people who are victims and who are looking at these trials don't want them to have to have do-overs so this is a clear line. as you say, it's a line that may leave a lot of bad acts not ever fixed. this was one that was so extreme people thought what is the court going to do, surely this can't be okay. chief justice roberts say today not okay, unconstitutional, new trial. >> ari melber, always a pleasure to see you, my friend. thanks for being with me. that wraps up this hour of "msnbc live." be sure to tune in to andrea mitchell's interview with jeh johnson today at noon. tamron hall picks up our coverage, next.

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good morning, everyone. we are starting off this hour with some breaking news out of baltimore. we begin with a judge and his decision now handing out the verdict in one of the cases against the baltimore police officers charged in the death of freddie gray. officer edward nero has now been found not guilty of assault, conduct and reckless endangerment. officer nero charged in the death of 25-year-old freddie gray who died in april of last year, setting off a series of protests in that city. let's go straight to our reporter on the ground there, nbc's ron mott. he joins us live from the courthouse in baltimore. ron, the judge now just handing down this verdict of not guilty in this case. the officer and his attorneys choosing to not have a jury hear this case. what's the very latest from the ground there? >> reporter: hey there, tamron. a lot of folks are going to say this is