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tv   Hardball With Chris Matthews  MSNBC  May 24, 2016 11:00pm-12:01am PDT

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yet another victory. and more delegates getting him closer to that magic number of 1,237. as soon as we have an official projection from >> even as trump officially closes in on the nomination, the focus has been on controversial comments he made about a favorite right-wing conspiracy theory. in an interview with "the washington post", trump called theories about the death of vince foster very serious. and called the circumstances surrounding the death very fishy. well, a federal investigation concluded his death was a suicide. but in the past weeks, trump has also gone after bill clinton as the worst abuser of women in the
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history of politics and hillary clinton as a nasty enabler. tonight his rally was marred by protesters. and at that rally trump ratcheted up his attacks on clinton. >> hillary cannot even put away bernie. she can't put him away. crooked hillary, she can't put him away, and it's gonna be a mess. hillary clinton will be so bad for our economy, so bad for jobs. she's going to be so bad for the second amendment, we are going to save our second amendment. she wants to abolish our second amendment. believe me. she wants to take your guns away. and she wants to abolish your second amendment. i don't know for a fact that hillary's going to be allowed to run. she's got a thing called an fbi investigation. one of the big things we have going, and we have to do it, supreme court justices. if you let hillary clinton get in there, and appoint the kind of people that she appoints,
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honestly, your country will never recover. >> nbc's hallie jackson is covering the trump campaign and joined us from albuquerque. the one thing about trump, like him or not, and a lot of people don't, he has this up to the second knowledge of what's being said on the airwaves, on cable. the guy responded almost instantly to the opening the clintons were jumping into, which is that he had said, it's a pretty smart move to make money when the housing market pops. and he comes out and said, who wouldn't buy housing when it's cheap? your thoughts. >> he said, hey, doesn't that make sense, i'm a businessman. i want to show you this here. there were protests outside. this is common to see at trump events. as people were trying to come out, cops continued to sort of barricade this area, security
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blocked it off. you can see one of the glass doors was broken by some protesters. cops barricading that window in order to keep anything from coming in or out. we've had crews outside who said there were rocks being thrown that it got pushed back at least from the line. so obviously another very active trump rally from albuquerque. you're right, he went after the clinton comments almost immediately. he said, i'm a businessman, what else would i do? he said he felt bad for the people impacted by the housing market crash. and there was another interesting and notable attack, this one on governor susana martinez, the governor of new mexico, trump citing negative statistics about the economy, the state of north america, said, maybe i should run for governor of new mexico, and
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implored her to do a better job. when you talk about party unity, that's significant. here comes trump essentially -- we'll head over here and see what's going on. here comes trump talking about her in a way that is not conducive necessarily. of course martinez has come out against trump's policies as well. and as we've been following the continued protests here at the trump rally, there's a police officer filling in some members of the media as to what's going on. who are the protesters, what is their protest? >> reporter: so what we've seen in the past at these trump rallies are dreamers, for example, members of the latino community. what i can tell you tonight, we saw folks being escorted out, we saw signs that said "undocumented and unafraid." what made tonight notable is some of the heightened security we've seen. but again, that is something that has occurred at these
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rallies in the past. >> waving the mexican flag, does anybody understand what the message is supposed to be, when somebody does that at a rally here in this country? it seems to me, it will simply agitate against the people who have come here from mexico illegally, and that this is helpful to trump's argument. if they were waving an american flag, it would be one thing. i guess that's an editorial comment by myself, but it's one that i wonder about. >> and i would say too, you look at people who are at the trump rallies, the people who are coming here to support donald trump, and they are supporters of him. so they are not going to be necessarily swayed by some of these protests that you're seeing. he's used to dealing with these kinds of interruptions.
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>> we have enough votes in to call the state of washington, a projected winner for the state of washington and with that, the victory he has, he's moving closer to securing the delegates he needs to clinch the 1,237 at the republican convention. the democrats, their folk suss on the june 7th contrast and the big prize, california. hillary clinton held a rally earlier tonight in riverside, california, and kristen welker, there she is with us now. were there any protesters against hillary tonight? >> there were some protesters at the hillary event, chris, you're right. doesn't seem as though it got as heated as what hallie was just describing, but not unusual at this point in the campaign. i think there are a lot of emotions on both sides. one of the headlines from the hillary clinton event tonight, that she went after donald trump for comments that she made, essentially saying that he
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wanted to benefit from it. he said, so what, what's wrong with benefitting from the housing crisis? but we're getting our first glimpse at the unfolding strategy from the clinton campaign, to hit at one of the core parts of donald trump's message, which is that he is a candidate for working-class voters, that he is going to help them lift them, make sure they realize the progress that we've seen in the economy, in recent years. and the clinton campaign essentially trying to tear that argument down and they're taking a page from president obama's playbook back in 2012 when he tried to paint mitt romney as gordon gekko. that was effective back in 2012. the question is, will this strategy be effective against donald trump? big question mark around that. and of course secretary clinton not engaging in any of those personal attacks that donald trump has been waging in recent days against her husband and, of course, the latest is vince foster unearthing that story
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again as well. but what's challenging for secretary clinton, chris, is what you and i have been talking about throughout the day, the fact that she's fighting on two fronts. she's still locked in this primary battle with bernie sanders. the math is certainly on her side, but she wants to win california, which has the biggest delegate prize, because if she wins california, she would head into the convention on pretty strong footing. if she loses this state, however, that would give senator sanders leverage heading into the convention and he wants to have a big impact on the party's platform. >> and we might have an announcement as to hillary using her pledged delegates. she'll probably come over at 5:00 pacific time, pretty much the winner of this whole fight. it will be too late for bernie to beat her, but he will make a hell of a statement. a last hoorah if he wins california. thank you, kristen welker. >> you got it, thanks. >> bernie sanders, the senator,
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is still fighting hard, hoping to beat clinton in california. had a rally in san bernardino. kelly o'donnell with is with us. thanks for joining us out there in the great inland empire. >> reporter: well, chris, bernie sanders is on stage here now and he is sort of taking an approach that you might think he was ahead. because he began tonight here in san bernardino, talking to more than 5,200 people who are here, saying that donald trump will not become president. sa sanders himself looking to november. as he works through his subjects for november, there have been several times when this crowd has had a loud and sustained boo when he brings up secretary clinton. sanders is talking about how he is working harder, his third hour-plus-long event today. he intends to spend the next
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several days here and wants to be as visible as possible. and as you've been discussing, sanders winning california, if he can pull that off, it's essential to his larger argument. we also heard him tonight talking about sending a message to the leadership of the democratic party, who know there's been a lot of tension between the sanders campaign and the chair of the national party, debbie wasserman schultz. the sanders team said she's not been even-handed in debates, and how the party has treated his campaign. wasserman schultz said she has been neutral. but the tension continues. my sense of it, from covering sanders' events, he's kept a respectful tone. many in his crowd have a lot of passion here and not a lot of support for hillary clinton. >> okay, thank you very much, kelly o'donnell in san bernardino, california. nbc's jacob rascon has more on the protesters at the trump rally. jacob, why are the people there,
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what are they saying? >> so we're outside and the officers are now moving the line back away from the event. now, earlier, just moments ago, the protesters were up against the glass banging and trying to break it. then the officers came in and they started to move the line forward. then we got smoke canisters and you have rocks being thrown at the protesters. there are hundreds and hundreds of them. what you're seeing are some protesters who don't want to move back. we've seen a couple instances of officers who push the protesters that didn't want to move. and then you had rocks being thrown, as i said, and you had some of the smoke canisters that were going. it wasn't tear gas, but you had the smoke canisters going, and the entire time, there's a group of protesters, mostly made up of those who are angry.
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those are all of the chants and signs that thyou see. they vowed they wouldn't leave until they shut it down. and so far, they're still here. they're not leaving, chris. >> what are the hands out there, what's the message of the demonstrators? >> you're looking at the hands-up with the peace sign. you saw this earlier, it got really physical, you had the officers shoving people down, because they were refusing to move. and you see here, a lot of younger protesters and we see a lot of that at trump rallies and those who are not shy about saying that they support bernie sanders, that they're out here protesting trump, because they're very upset about his immigration stance and other stances. sorry about that, chris. >> no, that's all right. it shows you're right there in the line of action. thanks so much, jacob rascon in albuquerque with the protesters against donald trump.
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steve kornacki is at our big board, a relatively safe place to be covering tonight from headquarters. surprise us, you always do. thank you, steve. >> well, a little bit of news here, i guess, on the democratic side. i want to stress what's going on here in washington on the democratic side. this is a non-binding primary. hillary clinton and bernie sanders, they had caucuses that count for the delegates in march in washington. bernie sanders crushed hillary clinton, this was his biggest, big state win. he got a massive delegate haul, by winning caucuses by 46 points. what is bernie sanders always talking about in his campaign? he said when turn-out is higher, we do better, we win. this is the second time this primary season we've got an experiment. because today in washington, they had a much -- and i stress "much" higher binding primary.
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there's a check mark there. presidential race, do you want sanders, do you want clinton? we got 30% of the vote in right now. no official declaration, but about 250,000 votes have already been cast. you see how many were cast in the caucuses. with 250,000 votes cast in the primary tonight, hillary clinton has 51% of the vote, and bernie sanders has 49. we saw this before in nebraska. where you had a split like this. and here it is again, much higher turn-out tonight in this washington primary. non-binding. i stress, non-binding. but again, this gets to that argument bernie sanders has been making this entire primary season. when more people turn out, i do better. in the caucus, he cleaned up. in a primary, non-binding, people have to check a name off on this ballot and more of them are checking off hillary clinton's name. >> but he's the projected -- so you don't have a winner yet? >> we're not going to make a projection. we're just going to let the votes come in.
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about 30% so far have come in. about 250,000 votes, it looks like. hillary clinton is leading. >> we used to call these things beauty contests before trump came along. >> the delegates are given out in the caucus part. >> why do they do it like this? >> so the party decides they want to hold the caucus, that's how they want to give out their delegates. they think the activists deserve more of a voice, but the state holds the primary. they're paying for this thing today and they say you got to put the names on the ballot. >> if hillary clinton wins the beauty contest and bernie sanders wins the delegates, is that democratic? >> it gets to the argument, because one of the things sanders is pushing for is reform in the democratic nominating process. you hear them floating in idea of doing away with super delegates. >> and how about doing away with caucuses? >> this is a big state,
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washington, millions of people out here. this is his best big state win. not only did he win washington, he was able to win it by 46 points. that meant a massive delegate haul for him. if it had been a primary, he probably is not cleaning up like he did. >> you don't have to agree with me, but i think the argument that people say about the sanders people, they believe -- the sanders people believe the only true democrats are sanders people. that everybody else is not a progressive. and those who don't show up at the caucus, they're not really sanders people, that sanders is a democrat at least for a while. it gets kind of complicated, this argument. but anyway, i think we're better off with one person, one vote, a real pure democratic process for the democratic party. no more caucuses and super delegates. everybody gets a vote. that would be my vote. thanks, steve. when we come back, our panel will join us as we join the protests outside the trumperal
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-- trump rally in new mexico. this is "hardball," the place for politics.
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>> we're back on this special edition of "hardball." protests continue in albuquerque, new mexico. trump is the winner in the state of washington, we called that. let's bring in the chairman of the washington state republican party, susan hutchison. thank you for tonight. the question is wide open. i keep looking at polls showing the republican is uniting men and women both, overwhelmingly around your nominee for president. >> i think it's happening slowly, but the rank and file voters are getting used to the candidate and the grassroots is following suit. it's going to take a little while longer for the establishment and also the d.c. folks to jump on board, but i think over time, they're getting
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used to the idea and i believe that donald trump is going to win in november and he's certainly going to give it a good shot here in washington state. >> how about the gender breakdown? do you think women will be as enthusiastic as men among the republicans? >> that's up to the candidate. the candidate has a chance in the next five-plus months to win over all kinds of folks. and i'm convinced that donald trump is smart enough to figure out how to do that. most of all, we say in our state that our candidate is better than the democratic candidate. and so we expect that as time goes on, people are going to be able to see that. washington state has been blue for a very long time, and we haven't had a republican candidate for president campaign here and donald trump has been in two cities already in this state and he's committed to washington state. and so we have a chance to change the electoral map. we have more electoral votes in washington state than in any state west of the mississippi except for texas and california.
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so we matter out here. so i'm delighted that donald trump has decided he wants to help flip this state. >> you're a good arguer. good argument. our special coverage continues after this.
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>> protests continue outside the trump rally. let's bring in the panel, joy reid, host of a.m. joy, michelle bernard, a columnist and howard fineman, the global editor of
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the huffington post. also with us, steve schmidt, from the mccain-palin campaign. steve, it's your fight now. you won this washington state thing tonight, i mean trump did. this question, i thought the chairman was pretty smart, susan hutchison. she said trump's going okay, but if he wants more women voters, he's got work to do in the next five weeks. she wasn't cheering him yet. she was sort of admonishing him, i think it's fair to say. >> there's no question if donald trump is going to win this election in november, he has a lot of work to do with women voters. he has record high unfavorable numbers with women voters. that being said, though, this is not a popularity contest. it's a choice. and the choice is between candidate a and candidate b. and we watch these scenes playing out, you see the mexican flags, you see the intimidation, some of the broken windows, the
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rumblings of violence. you look ahead to the convention, this is going to be a tumultuous election. donald trump is going to be poised to take advantage against some of these things. i think as you look out over the next couple of months, we'll get a better picture if donald trump is going to expand his base, whether he'll be growing as a candidate. whether he's going to do some of the things necessary to rehab his image with the women voters and the convention will be key to that. >> right down the line here, i normally thought that marcus queensbury rules applied, but below the belt doesn't apply anymore. you can hit as low as you want, going after someone's husband and his behavior, and it's pretty well known, but using it against them and saying she's an enabler, so there's something there that's working that we didn't think would.
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>> and what's interesting to me, all this stuff would be happening at a lower or outside level in the campaign. >> whispering campaign. >> yes. this is donald trump himself with his own twitter account, doing it directly on his own, using social media in this way. not only admitting that he's the guy putting the stuff out, proudly portraying himself as the combatant who knows no rules. >> so transparency cleans up what would normally be dirty pool? >> i don't say it cleans it up. he's calculated that we're at a time in american politics when somebody who plays by the rules is not what the american people want. the american people want -- this is trump's thinking. the american people want somebody who knows no rules. >> street fight. >> why he thinks that -- well, i know why he thinks that. whether that's true or not will
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be the real test of this election season. >> we're watching the scenes of the protesters and some of them quite offensive. i think this is not helping the cause. >> i'm watching all of this and so many people in trying to win the election and how, we keep talking about demographics and the obama coalition and whether or not donald trump can win this race without women's votes. and everything about this election is so different than what we've ever seen. i'm going to stand by my belief that donald trump doesn't care about the women's vote. -- >> it's there whether he cares about it or not. >> what i'm saying, if he can get out the vote that most politicians have never had anything to do with, haven't spoken to -- >> it won't work. >> i hope you are right, but it's been bubbling up for a long time. he's doing what we saw coming out in 2008. people saying, i can't stand hillary clinton's voice, she sounds like my ex-wife. how is sarah palin going to win
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the vice presidency -- >> the numbers don't add up. he needs women. >> on the republican side, when you get down to 88-8 among republicans, that includes an awful lot of women. >> and here's the thing we have to keep remembering. donald trump is channeling the aid of a certain kind of guy, certain kind of man, who feels put upon because he can't call women gals in the first place. >> he's getting half the vote. >> of republicans. >> no, nationally. the national polling match-up. >> because he's brand x republican. any republican will get to 45. that's what happens, as soon as the republican candidate consolidates. most people will default to the republican candidate. here's what we have to remember. mitt romney had a 14-point advantage among white women in 2012, which was double the r plus 7 advantage with white women that john mccain had in
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2008. the result was the same in both of those elections. with mitt romney it was 5 million votes in favor of the democrat, barack obama. donald trump will get some republican women because they are republicans. they'll vote for whoever the republican is. he isn't adding anyone to his coalition. >> i know, but what i thought very shrewd and interesting republican chairwoman in washington state was saying -- >> susan hutchison. >> -- quit putting obstacles in the way of getting any more women votes. because the numbers will not add up for donald trump, no matter how popular he is among men -- >> he doesn't care. >> -- unless he gets some more women. >> he doesn't care. [ all speak at once ] >> you're saying he doesn't care about the majority of the population? >> no, exactly. i'm gonna say, i would put it as
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crass as, he doesn't care about any part of the population that he thinks is okay looking. >> i'm talking about numbers, he wants 51% of the vote. >> what has he done to demonstrate to you that he's in any way willing to change his language? >> he's not going to. >> exactly. so it's common sense he doesn't care about the women vote. he's going out for the republican man who is aggrieved and saying, look, honey, go out and vote for donald trump. >> in his crowd view, attacking bill and hillary clinton for what happened with bill clinton back in the day is a way to go after some women voters. now you may find -- wait a minute. you may find that laughable. but that's what he's doing. >> can i raise one point from the women's perspective? for all of the women who he attacks, because hillary clinton stayed with her husband, how many women is he offending, her
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age group and older, who might have wanted to leave their husbands and didn't have the ability to do so, and they grieve for hillary clinton? >> and he's getting women who are already gonna vote republican. he has to do some addition. you have to a..dd to your coalition. if romney couldn't win with a 14-point advantage with white women -- >> so the election's over, hillary won? >> no, but the demographics are against the candidate. >> if he loses women, he'll lose the election. >> he doesn't care. >> he's not running for president? >> he's running as a narcissist. donald trump lives in a bubble wherein, they believe the vanishing voter strategy. he's listening to the same people who said if mitt romney could have unearthed six or seven million male white voters -- >> i've spent time in trump tower, they want to win the
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election. >> there are conservatives who believe in this theory. there are people who have written papers believing that there are six million unearthed white voters, that they're out there, if you can excite them and get them to vote, that you'll win. >> let's go do hallie jackson, you're with the protesters in albuquerque. >> reporter: hey, yeah. hey, chris, yeah, we are. we turned our light off for a second. i'm going to have our cameraman pan over. this is what we've been seeing all night, if you can hear me. >> i hear you. >> reporter: immigration protesters, at one point, we were inside the convention center. you saw, it looked as though, we are hearing reports from albuquerque police of possibly pellet guns fired, rocks being thrown, we saw a shattered door and a hole in a window at the convention center. cops have barricaded that door. we walked outside.
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people were blocked from entrance and it's quite the scene out here. it's what we often see at this trump rallies, protests where he goes, this tends to follow, particularly given his positions on immigration, particularly when you look at where we are, albuquerque, new mexico. we talked about his rally tonight, earlier in the evening, his comments about hillary clinton and the housing market crash. his comments on new mexico governor susannah martinez, fellow republican and head of the republican governors association as well. it's a little loud, hopefully you can hear me. but we're monitoring what's happening on the street. at this point, it looks like this smaller group -- we have seen some folks disperse, but it looks like this crowd is going to be here for a little while. >> what is that smoke on the left part of the screen, hallie? the yellow smoke? >> it looks as though -- we
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understand it's not tear gas. that's the reporting that we're getting from police. but there was some sort of smoke deployed and we were inside the convention center when it happened. you can see essentially the smoke come up and kind of cover the glass and the windows of the convention center. and inside you had these hundreds of people trying to leave the trump rally, trying to walk out and it created a real bottleneck as folks got log-jammed when they saw the smoke come towards the window. when they heard rocks or pellets hitting the glass, there were audible gasps. people were talking about the protesters outside. we have to stress again, not unusual to see rally police at a trump campaign event. when you look at where we are, new mexico, a state obviously where there's a big latino population, a state where immigration is a major policy topic. it's not particularly surprising that you are going to see these protesters and it's something that we have been expecting. chris? >> yeah, i don't think they're winning their arguments in terms
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of the tv cameras right now, at least that one guy. hallie jackson, thanks so much. much more as we continue to cover the protests at the trump rally in albuquerque, new mexico. this is a special late edition of "hardball," the place for politics. ♪ you're not gonna watch it! ♪
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♪ no, you're not gonna watch it! ♪
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♪ we can't let you download on the goooooo! ♪ ♪ you'll just have to miss it! ♪ yeah, you'll just have to miss it! ♪ ♪ we can't let you download... uh, no thanks. i have x1 from xfinity so... don't fall for directv. xfinity lets you download your shows from anywhere. i used to like that song. welcome back to this special edition of "hardball." we continue to watch the protesters where trump held a rally in albuquerque, new mexico. he'll likely have events all the
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way through november. from the washington post, robert, you've been following this and there's different kinds of protesters. these are young people, a lot of them, and they're angry, not violent yet, but you can see kids pulling their shirts off. and there's a demonstration demonstration of anger. so this is going on right now. has this become part of the display of the american division, the mexican flags and the other gesticalation that we're catching now, anger in the streets? >> the anger in the streets also underscores the challenge trump faces with hispanic voters. he's moved to the far right of his party to immigration, talking about a border wall, and this has settled interest the national consciousness, talking to people close to trump, they recognize they may never be able to close that gap, even if they have an overture or two. >> what do you think about the
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nbc/"wall street journal" poll this weekend amongst latino voters? >> trump believes his anti-democratic appeal, his ability to go after clinton, he can be change. if the country wants change, even hispanic voters who are wary of his immigration policy, he thinks he has a shot at them. >> how does he do that? how does he wheedle out a strong minority of support that he has basically cartoonized and made fun of them as rapists, when they're just coming here to get a job, 90% of the time? how does he win their hearts and minds? >> i've spoken to trump about this recently and it's an issue he's grappling with, but his theory of the case is that because of his non-ideology, that he's not running as part of the right-wing project, he comes out of the business world, he thinks his success could be a way to win success with voters
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who don't see him as a traditional republican. >> i think he made a mistake in terms of messages. when he was asked by what dangerous places in the world have you visited or do you know about. he threw out a word that's magically negative. he threw out ferguson. it has a racial connotation which is crystal clear, and then he threw in oakland, another largely minority community. why does he do that if he's trying to win minority voters, because that sounds like i'm at war with these people, from his perspective. >> reporter: covering trump, it's hard sometimes to see a coherent strategy, what you're looking at is a reactive personality that is forceful and overwhelms at time, which is part of his appeal, but also his limitation in this general election. >> this crowd hasn't gotten violent yet, but there's dangerous stuff with the police car, a smashed window. rock-throwing, and yet the whole crowd looks pretty calm so far.
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it's a young crowd. let me ask you about trump and minority people. what is he actually doing? i've heard one theory that northeastern people who are hispanic, they may be citizens, voting here for a couple generations, that that's his target, have you heard that? he's helping to get that qua quadrant at least. >> look at the scenes tonight. >> that's different, it's the southwest. >> right. but the unrest in the country, it reminds me of when trump first started to run last year, he revived the old nixon term, the silent majority. he's not running on identity issues, this is a law and order candidate who is appealing to the groups in the suburbs, in the more rural areas who are unhappy with these scenes they see on television. that's not the normal way the republican campaigns are run, but that's how he sees his appeal.
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>> it's very nixonian, to see a write-in crowd -- a crowd perhaps causing trouble, that's the way to get the conservative white person energized. let's to go hallie jackson outside the trump rally. hallie? >> reporter: hey there, chris. so we were behind the police line at one point. we saw the police on horseback move. i'll show you the street scene behind us. what we saw a couple of minutes ago, were a handful of protesters running down this street. cop cars have been parked here. they were running on top of them. you can see the rally police coming out, a show of force to try to keep the protesters back. it's obviously a tense situation. you've seen some interaction, near fights, scuffles, some back and forth between these protesters and people coming out walking the streets.
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you can ulsa see people remaining in the streets. cops are trying to get them to leave, but if you look, for example, over on this side as i direct my cameraman to come back to the riot police. this person in his car, trying to get out, this intersection was almost entirely blocked. there were cars coming through, honking. we can see off in the distance what appears to be some smoke. my colleague jacob rascon who is also here on scene, had reported seeing some of that deployed by police. so at this point, you can see the officers out here are trying to get the officers under control. we are working to find out reports of arrests. we've seen a couple of people escorted away by police. but at this point, they're trying to make sure everybody stays as safe as they can out here. >> why isn't anybody trying to get to you? you guys aren't hearing from people. don't they come up to you and
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say, don't they have a chance to speak to a national audience, is anybody doing that? >> reporter: i think you're asking why people aren't coming up to you, trying to get their message across. at one point, that was happening. but at this point, police are trying to get some order here. i'm looking at some signs that are around. i see fewer signs now than we saw earlier. often times, you know this, when you see protests happen, you see people who come out, who were not part of the original protest, but want to be part of the process -- >> they fish in troubled water. i know what it's about. thanks so much, hallie jackson. much more on the protests in albuquerque that come the same night that donald trump wins the state of washington primary. you're watching a special edition of "hardball," the place for politics.
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>> we continue to monitor the protests at the trump rally in albuquerque. let's bring in steve kornacki at the big board. steve? >> we'll just take a quick look here, move ahead from the washington stuff tonight to the general election, to the prbl probable match-up between donald trump and hillary clinton. interestingly, a lot of polls in the last few days, one of the ways to look at them is to average them all together. when you do that, real clear politics, take a look at this. donald trump with the polls that have come out in the last couple days, has moved ahead of hillary clinton by .2 of 1%. what does this look like in conte context? at this point in past campaigns, in 2012 around this time, barack obama led mitt romney by 1.7 in the average of polls. that's where he stood at the end of may.
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he went on to win that election in 2008. barack obama was still fighting off hillary clinton at the time, his average lead this time in 2008 was close to five points, won by over seven. but this is not obviously a perfect indicator of where things are going, back in 2004, john kerry emerged at the end of may 2004, a little more than a point ahead of george w. bush in the polls. of course george w. bush ended up winning that election by 2.5 points. it's interesting, donald trump right now, barely ahead in the average of polls. >> howard, let's talk about some things, and also joy. let's talk about some factors here of what changes between now and july, the convention. i think there's -- this thing about, we're all watching the republican party coalesce, fall in line, in not in love. and it blows me away. i'm amazed how fast this is happening on paper. i wonder whether there's something in the culture of the republican party that says, the
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very fact that he won legitimizes him. the fact that he's the presumed nominee, makes him, if not wholesome, acceptable to republicans? you got to understand, a lot of it is based on con formity. he plays golf, reads the "wall street journal." i've been to a lot of corporate rewards conventions where all the guys play golf and are vaguely republican and the idea, the democrats are totally disorganized. i grew up watching the democratic conventions. will the delegates please clear the aisles? and they never clear the aisles. in the republican convention, will they please clear the aisles and they do. it's a different culture. is that giving trump a bump that gets him above where we thought he would be in may? >> politically speaking, the cultures are different between the two parties, but they are the same in the sense that for the most part, democrats will
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vote for democrats, republicans are going to vote for republicans and you don't see large -- >> they didn't in '72 and in '64 and a lot of them didn't in '80. i know the history. parties don't always -- >> you just gave us three example in history. i'm saying for the most part, democrats vote for democrats. and republicans are going to vote for republicans. >> they are? >> i never thought we'd see all these people falling in line for donald trump, but they're doing so. >> you said you didn't think they would do it? >> i didn't, but they are. >> so it surprises you? >> absolutely. >> and you've had a reckoning among republican elites, they realized they misjudged the situation so catastrophically, at this point, they're falling in line behind him. paul ryan has signalled his capitulation. the leadership of the republican
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party have realized they were wrong. they're getting on the train because they think they're out of step with the party. >> they're surprised? >> yeah. and it's not just the golf-playing conservative republicans. most of the people voting for donald trump do not play gulf of mexico so far. >> the o -- do not play golf. >> the reason they're falling in line, they're both impressed and scared that donald trump has captured lightning in a bottle here that they didn't even know existed. and it dawned on them they may be able to ride that energy to the white house and not lose the house and the senate. mitch mcconnell, he said, sometime those pesky voters decide. and he says basically he's going with the pesky voters because of the energy that's there. they think they can ride it. of course, everybody thinks they can ride the energy of donald
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trump. donald trump always has the last word. they're going to maybe ride him into the white house and not like what they see when he gets there. >> same thing with the tea party. and now it's the institution of the white house, not the congress. >> exactly. >> and the thing with donald trump, when he hits you, he makes sure you're not going to get back up. that's why they're all falling in line. >> so there's no way he wins? >> i think we're in very serious trouble of having a president trump. >> there's no way he wins? >> sure there is. >> how does he win? >> you can have a 1972 -- >> the average white male that you refuse to believe about. [ all speak at once ] >> it's very simple. if you have low turn-out. if this becomes such drek that voters stay home in droves -- >> you think minorities are going to stay home in the face of a trump presidency? >> it happened in '72. voters of color could just drop
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out. so that's why it's incumbent on democrats to get the vote out. >> do we have hallie jackson still in the street there? tell us what's going on here in these pictures. we're looking at our camera here. and i'm just watching this thing. is this going to die out? it doesn't look like it. these are young people. it's early out there, it's not in the middle of the night where they are. it's rough-housing, showing off, really. we'll see. jacob, give us a sense of -- we're watching and people are hugging each other and shaking each other up more than they're protesting. what's going on here? and shirts are off for some reason. jacob? >> reporter: there we go. hey, chris. so we're at the intersection of copper and 3rd. and protesters have taken over a
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couple of streets. we're about a block and a half away from the trump venue. it's almost a party atmosphere with some of them. a lot of the original protesters have left. you had two groups. those that wanted to be peaceful and then the more aggressive group, maybe the most aggressive we've ever seen the protesters as we follow the trump campaign around the country. we see a lot of aggressive protesters, but not usually like this. a lot of them have their faces covered. a lot of them are looking to pick fights with officers, for example. the officers by the way, are -- there they are. the officers were a block away or so. you see them on horseback, just in the distance there. but again, this intersection is taken over by these protesters as they burn out their tires and they make a lot of smoke for the last almost half hour, chris. >> we'll be following it. jacob, you'll be there for us.
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thank you. we're coming back for another live hour of coverage as the protests continue outside the trump rally. we hope it ends peacefully. back with more after this.
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back with more after this.
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>> we're covering breaking news this evening. donald trump has won the republican primary in the state of washington, but all eyes now on albuquerque, new mexico, as
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protests have erupted outside a trump rally. police say they've used smoke grenades on those protesters. let's go live to the scene and again with hallie jackson of nbc. hallie, give us your report. >> you can see police have been clearing, block by block, intersection, by sberkz, trying to get the demonstrators out of the road, get their vehicles away. when we last talked, you were asking about the smoke. >> yes. >> reporter: what we saw on the intersections, were people spinning out tires. we saw that four or five times in the span of a couple minutes here. as we walk here with the police, as we walk here with the officers on horseback, trying to get out of the street. when you ask about what these protesters are here for,