that donald trump appears to have. to simply go out and go against decades of bipartisan policy about preventing allies and other countries from getting nuclear weapons does not make sense. >> matthew bunn, thank you very much. "the rachel maddow show" begins right now. >> thanks at home for joining us at this hour as well. happy friday, whether or not you get a three-day weekend for memorial day. i always think it's a good idea to keep an eye on the news on the friday before any holiday weekend. without fail, there is always late-breaking news on the friday before a holiday weekend. like by late-breaking, breaking after 7:00 p.m. news that somebody has tried to submarine into a news cycle that a lot of people are not going to be catching up with until the following tuesday. we talk all the time on the show about a friday night news dump. that's what we name our game show on friday nights.

the friday before a holiday weekend, that's friday night news dump on steroids. and i'm here to tell you we do have some exclusive news of the friday night news dump variety to report to you in just a minute. it concerns a big honking threat against the democratic party from somebody who is frankly in a position to hurt the democratic party pretty badly. we've got that coming up exclusively in just a moment. but the more pressing news of the evening is about presidential debates. presidential debates are one of those things that we think have always been with us. you look back at old foot an of kennedy versus nixon, the old iconic black and white footage. you think, oh, presidential debates in the general election, they've always been with us, they've always happened. but that 1960 debate footage is actually a pretty singular thing. we all remember those debates because that footage is so compelling and because those debates ended up being so important in that race.

it was the sitting vice president, richard nixon, against this unique upstart senator, john f. kennedy. the debates went poorly for nixon, great for kennedy. that's part of how jfk put together that win in the election of 1960. we all remember that from 1960. what we don't remember as well is that in the next presidential election, 1964, there weren't any presidential debates that year. they just didn't do them. it was lbj versus barry goldwater in 1964. the two of them did not debate in 1964. and then in the next presidential election after that, in 1968, there were no presidential debates that year either. the next presidential elections in 1972, there were also no presidential debates that year. and since then, yes, we have had debates in our presidential elections. but there's no rule that says you have to. and it's not that long ago every election cycle's hit or miss as to whether or not there might be debates on tv between the

presidential candidates or not. and tonight for this 2016 race we've got a good, fresh reason to question whether this year's presidential election might be one of those years when we don't have presidential debates. >> donald trump just said that he would not debate you. he put out a press release saying that here in california. what do you say to that? >> that's the first that i heard of it. i heard that he was going to debate me, then i heard he was not going to debate me, then i heard he was going to debate me. now you're telling me he is not going to debate me. well, i hope that he changes his mind -- again. mr. trump is known to change his mind many times in a day. >> bernie sanders tonight in california learning from a reporter as you heard there that donald trump has reneged on what he said yesterday about wanting to debate bernie sanders ahead of the california primary next tuesday. nothing has materially changed since donald trump said yesterday he was very eager to debate senator sanders. but for whatever reason mr. trump has now concluded "now

that i am the presumptive republican nominee it seems inappropriate that i would debate the second-place finisher from the other party." i mean, to be clear, donald trump was also the presumptive republican nominee yesterday when he came out publicly at a press conference and said he wanted to debate bernie sanders. so nothing has materially changed. but his feelings, i guess, have changed. his perception of what's appropriate has changed. his state of desire has changed. his decision has been reversed. boy, a donald trump presidency's going to be a hoot. strategically, both mr. trump and senator sanders have incentive to try to pull off this kind of thing. this debate, this literally unprecedented debate of one party's nominee verses a candidate who is not going to be the nominee from the other party. obviously a head-to-head matchup between bernie sanders and donald trump in a presidential-style debate that would make bernie sanders look like he was the democratic nominee.

which would be awesome for bernie sanders. it would also be great for donald trump. because he's likely going to be running in the general election against hillary clinton. him choosing to elevate bernie sanders that way by putting him in a head-to-head presidential-style debate, that would be a nice way for mr. trump to play in the democratic primary, to undercut hillary clinton who is the democratic party's likely candidate and his likely opponent in the fall. so they doeth have real incentive to do it. but unless mr. trump changes his mind again, apparently the trump/sanders debate, first floated yesterday, is now off. sanders campaign put out another statement pleading with mr. trump to change his mind again. but as things stand right this second, this creative and weird anti-clinton strategy from the sanders camp and the trump camp, it appears to have gone kerestimate. but that brings us to the news dump news. tonight we have obtained a letter that was just sent by the

lawyers from the bernie sanders campaign to the democratic national committee. now, as you know, the sanders campaign has basically gone to war against the democratic party recently. senator sanders personally endorsed a candidate who's running against the chair of the democratic party, debbie wasserman shuts, in her home congressional district in florida. he's asked his supporters to donate money to that challenger's campaign to try to turf the national party chair out of her seat in congress. that said, even with personal stuff like that going on, the democratic party under debbie wasserman schultz, they have to negotiate with the sanders campaign, they have to come to terms with them as the sanders campaign stays on in the primary and the party gets ready for its convention in philly in july. this past week the dnc gave the sanders campaign a pretty big concession when they agreed debbie wasserman schultz wouldn't appoint all 15 members of the platform committee as the rules said she could, instead she'd appoint a handful of members and let the rest be

split between sanders and clinton according to what share of the vote each has received in the primary. that was a big concession. from the dnc to the sanders campaign this past week. they get big-time representation for writing the party platform, even though nothing in the party rules says they have to. but as my partner susan always says, you give a mouse a cookie, dot dot dot. that concession has apparently only whetted the sanders campaign's appetite for what they want from the dnc. now with this lawyer letter that we have obtained tonight the sanders campaign is lodging a formal credentials challenge against the chair of the platform committee and the chair of the rules committee for the democratic convention. on the platform committee the vice chair is connecticut governor daniel malloy. rules committee, vice chair former congressman barney frank. the lawyer for the sanders campaign as of this letter sent tonight demanding governor malloy and barney frank be removed from their leadership roles at the convention.

removed from the rules committee, removed from the platform committee. the sanders campaign lawyers calls the two of them self-proclaimed partisans intent on marginalizing bernie sanders campaign supporters. the sanders campaign ends this letter with a threat. that if dnc doesn't kick governor malloy from connecticut and barney frank out of those leadership positions the sanders campaign will essentially grind the process of the convention to a halt. by using all procedural means at their disposal to stop those key committees at the convention from getting on to the business of actually naming the party's nominee. they will gum up the works so nothing happens. they're not threatening to sue the democratic party which is what i thought this initially was when we first obtained this letter this evening. what they're threatening to do is to bring the democratic party convention to a halt unless barney frank and governor dan malloy get replaced. the letter's four pages long. we got this exclusively tonight.

we'll post it online on our website. check it out and read the exciting legalese. in addition to that threat over the national convention, there's also some significant worry tonight in the democratic party about this thing that happened last time a democratic state party had a convention. the last one was nevada. remember how that went. yeah. that was the last one. the next one is tomorrow. it's in wyoming. and bernie sanders won the wyoming caucuses long ago. but the delegate allocation is still under way. that will happen in a final forum at the wyoming state democratic convention tomorrow. and there are apparently widespread concerns about whether or not there might be a repeat in wyoming tomorrow of what happened a couple of weeks ago in that las vegas ballroom. top democratic officials in wyoming say in advance of tomorrow's convention they have been receiving threats from sanders supporters, threats by

phone, threats by mail, threats on social media. a member of the dnc from wyoming tells politico he didn't take seriously "a wave of threatening messages" he received from sanders supporters but he was alarmed once somebody posted a photo of him on facebook along with his accurate home address. along with what he described as basically instructions that people should go to the man's home to find him, to complain in person about wyoming's delegate process somehow being rigged against bernie sanders. the executive director of the wyoming democratic party says in addition to the threats she has received, "someone let the air out of her tires" as well. after the last one, after nevada was such a bad scene, the state democratic party chairs from all over the country called for new rules for how these state conventions are conducted from here on out. tomorrow will be the first test of those new rules. because of their concern about what happened in nevada, their interest in making sure it

doesn't happen again because of the threats that have already happened toward democratic officials in wyoming what they're going to do tomorrow for wyoming is they're going to have high-level people on site from the sanders campaign and high-level people on-site from the clinton campaign as well as high-level representation from the dnc. nobody wants a repeat tomorrow of what happened in the last convention in nevada. but all eyes will be on cheyenne, wyoming, to see if that happens, to see if having these high-level folks on-site makes any sort of difference in how things go. the other visibly ragged edge of our political process happened today and tonight in san diego, california. donald trump held a large rally at 2:00 p.m. local time, 5:00 p.m. eastern time. big, rowdy protests outside that rally resulted in at least three arrests. there were troubling scenes of violent conflict between protesters and police. long after the trump rally itself wound down, some

protesters are still in the streets in san diego right now as i speak. we'll have a live reporter joining us from san diego in just a few minutes. this scene today in san diego, this is the second round of protests just this week outside of donald trump events that have gone beyond rowdy and raucous and have actually gotten a little bit violent. it's an amazing moment to be in. it's amazing how fast fortunes and worries have changed over the course of this campaign. i mean, look at what i'm reporting tonight. the democrats are worried about what's going to happen in wyoming tomorrow after a very worrying scene at their last state convention in nevada. everybody's looking at this scene in san diego worrying whether the next anti-donald trump protest like the one in costa mesa, albuquerque, san diego, everybody's worried maybe the next anti-trump protest will be violent or dangerous. for a long while throughout this year of politics, the big worry about the possibility of

violence in this presidential campaign was about whether republicans would get violent against each other, pro-trump and anti-trump forces could conceivably make a decision about who that party's presidential nominee would be without blood running in the streets. there was a time when the republican party was really, really, really emotionally worked up about the supposedly desperate threat of donald trump to the very idea of what it means to be a republican. the degree to which that is now over, the degree to which that is no longer the concern, the degree to which they have all gotten over that now is a thing to behold. on this friday before this holiday weekend, just take a snapshot of this. senator marco rubio tweeting in a round-about way that he will vote for trump. senator rubio telling cnn that he wants to be "helpful" to donald trump's presidential effort telling cnn he would be "honored" to help out at the trump nominate is convention this summer. asked if he would speak on

trump's behalf at the convention if asked rubio said "yes." and i know in general parties come together after primaries. but this is really something else. this is a big distance to have traveled in a fast amount of time. it was not long ago marco rubio was saying, yeah, he'd be happy to speak. he'd go anywhere and speak to anyone. he'd do anything to stop donald trump at all costs. >> i will go anywhere to speak to anyone before i let a con artist get ahold of the republican party. let me tell you something. i will never quit. i will never stop until we keep a con man from taking over the party of reagan and the conservative movement. he's a con man. he's a con man. he's a con man. he is wholly unprepared to be president of the united states.

the world has become a very dangerous place. there is a lunatic in north korea with nuclear weapons. and some would say a lunatic trying to get ahold of nuclear weapons in america. this is the most important government job on the planet. we're about to turn over the conservative movement to a person that has no ideas of any substance on the important issues. the nuclear codes of the united states to an erratic individual. >> well, that erratic individual, marco rubio's own words, will now have the honored support of marco rubio at the republican convention this summer. >> if donald trump asked you to speak on his behalf, you would do so? >> i'd certainly -- yeah. i want to be helpful. i don't want to be harlful. i don't want hillary clinton to be president. if there's something i can do to help that from happening and it's helpful to the cause, i'd most certainly be honored to be considered for that. >> i'd be honored. anything i can do to help the erratic con artist lunatic who should never get ahold of nuclear weapons in america. anything i can do. leadership!

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this is a live shot from the streets of san diego where thousands of protesters gathered outside a donald trump event. fights broke out after the event between protesters and trump supporters leaving the venue. san diego police are out in force. they have declared this assembly in the streets to be an unlawful assembly. police in riot gear as you can see here have begun breaking up the crowd. they have started making arrests. we'll be joined live by a reporter who's been at this scene all day. that's just ahead.

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even while you're sleeping. you can exhale now. enjoy free wi-fi and free hot breakfast. get up to 20 percent off as a hilton hhonors member at hampton.com. you are again looking at live images from san diego, california, where police are very obviously out in force. an estimated 6,000 turned out in san diego to protest outside a donald trump campaign stop. that trump event started at 2:00 p.m. local time. it's after 6:00 p.m. local time now. but you can see here the police, maybe the highway patrol, i can't tell exactly from here. you can see police in pretty large numbers facing off with and shutting down what remains of that crowd. police declared this gathering in the streets of san diego, declared it an unlawful assembly, telling protesters to disperse, they've use d loud speakers warning if necessary

officers would use chemical agents and other means to clear the streets. but these are live shots. the streets are not clear. much of the protest today was peaceful but fights definitely broke out in pretty significant numbers given demonstrators, anti-trump demonstrators and trump supporters. particularly after the event ended when trump supporters were starting to leave the convention center. san diego police telling the crowd to disperse. we do have reports from the police department of a handful of arrests. but you can still see the crowd in the streets. we're also getting reports from the ground of pepper spray being used. possibly more arrests in progress. let's try to get a handle on what's happening on the ground now. joining us from the scene is nbc news reporter jacob rascone. appreciate you being there. i've been following you on twitter and on the air all day. what's going on at the moment? >> reporter: at the moment what you're seeing are a couple hundred police officers who are pushing the line forward. if we switch around we'll show you the protesters who are left.

we probably have a few dozen just refusing to disperse. as you said, it started out peacefully and it usually does. we have four, five groups who organized for days on social media. of course they came out as planned. they marched. they had their signs, their chants. mostly peaceful. but what we see happen in city after city is that when protesters stick around until the end of the rally, until the supporters go out and they wait for those supporters and they engage each other, that's when we see clashes. that happened in albuquerque, that happened in anaheim. and it happened here. in fact, it happened here in a larger scale than we've seen in a very long time. the only thing missing really were the smoke canisters like we saw in albuquerque. i will say that san diego police department was incredibly prepared. they had the barricades set up. they had huge buffer zones in between the line of supporters, the big crowd of protesters. but it all sort of breaks down

after the rally is over because again, the supporters, they go out and they just meet each other, find a way. we saw many fistfights, many people getting detained. a lot of pushing and shoving, a lot of throwing. just moments before we went live we had a couple of the officers shooting -- it sounded and looked like a paint ball gun, but shooting what i think are pepper balls. our eyes started to sting a bit. one of them hit our photographer. i'll leave it there. that's what's happening now, what i've seen throughout the day. >> jacob, let me ask you, "a," is the photographer okay? and have you seen other people get hurt? >> reporter: he is okay. it hurts, doesn't it. he's saying yes. he's all right, he'll be fine. we have -- i saw a couple of protesters who were pepper sprayed by police trying to wipe it off, for example. i saw one woman, a protester, on the ground who said that her arm really hurt, she thought it was broken. in fact, one of the trump supporters was helping her up. looked like he knew what he was

doing. i saw a few punches being thrown. those who were detained were detained very forcibly, thrown to the ground, a few officers kneeling on top of them, making sure they got him. i'm not should urif this this we injured or anybody was injured but that's what i saw. >> jacob, great work getting the information out and the visuals out by lots of different means today. state safe, buy your camera person a beer on my behalf, i'll reimburse you the next time i see you. thanks, man. still ahead, that good stuff that people are hoping you won't notice on a friday night before a holiday weekend. always watch the news on the friday night before the holiday weekend. (woman) and there's no way to restart it. (jon bon jovi) with directv there is. ♪ you see, we've got the power to turn back time ♪ ♪ so let's restart the show that started at nine ♪ ♪ and while we're at it, let's give you back your 'do ♪ ♪ and give her back the guy she liked before you ♪ ♪ hey, that's the power to turn back time. ♪

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so here's my pledge to you. i will be a commander in chief that will have the back of the military. i won't trash talk. i won't be a divider in chief, agitator in chief, i won't be out there blow-harding talking a big game without backing it up. i think the next president needs to be a lot quieter but send a signal that we're prepared to act in the national security interests of this country to get back in the business of creating a more peaceful world. please clap. >> please clap. also, never forget. >> i was thinking you were going to bring up the tragedy that

took place. i'll never forget that when i went as governor of the state of florida on the tarmac to -- for a tribute to the astronauts that died in -- i think it was 2005, wasn't it? no? well, the -- >> '86? >> no the other one. 2002. in the 2000s. it was horrible. >> never forget that. jeb bush was supposed to win. remember? but then he actually started running and it was fun to watch for a number of reasons. but it got clear very quickly that he was not going to be the guy who won. >> i'm a candidate for president of the united states of america. whoo!

twitter universe, there's heads exploding right now. i can feel it. we're going to win when we're hopeful, optimistic, big and broad rather than rrr! grrrr! >> the whispering campaign has started that bush is falling apart. >> blah, blah, blah what. i wish we could actually have that argument on a debate stage. instead of rrrrr! rrrr, grrrr! blah, blah, blah. rrrrr! >> when it became clear that jeb bush was not going to happen, the next big idea, the next clear favorite if you asked anybody in the beltway, was a visitor from the boy scouts. >> does the prospect of being commander in chief daunt you? because the world that you describe about safety is going to require commitments of american men and women abroad at some point.

how do you think about that? >> it's an appropriate question. as a kid, i was in scouts. one of the things i'm proudest of when i was in scouts is i earned the rank of eagle. being an eagle scout is one of the few things as a kid that you're not in the past, it's something you are. >> are you comfortable with the idea of evolution? do you believe in it, do you accept it? >> for me i'm going to punt on that one as well. >> no. >> that does you -- >> really? >> not laughing with you, laughing at you. the overseas trip to make you seem presidential? what we have just gone through, it ended not with a bang but a whimper, was a remarkable year-long, weird and strangely weak display. and it is now just ended. after a bit little over a year. i get it, it's over, they picked their guy, it's done as of last night. but even still, it is impossible to believe that this is the process we had to get through in order for that to happen. that this is how it happened.

>> mr. trump had a couple of interesting things to say about you and i'd like to get your response to them. he said you don't belong on the debate stage on august 6th. he questioned your energy, toughness, and quote-unquote brain power that it might require to run a successful campaign. what would you say to mr. trump if he were standing here saying that? >> let's get a pole out there. >> you were talking about gay marriage. you said, i believe in the traditional definition of marriage and that no group has the right to the change that. that may be your common sense but there's a lot of people, in fact a majority of the country now, whose common sense is different. so how do you walk into this arena and manage that? >> well, you simply have to recognize that if you change the

definition of marriage for one group, what do you say to the next group that comes along? >> what is the next group? >> do you say -- well, we changed it for this group but that's it, we're not changing it for anybody else. does that seem fair? >> well, but what other groups are there? >> you can't think of any other groups? >> no. i mean -- men and women? >> there are more groups, i guarantee. >> like -- >> i think you know that there are more groups. everybody knows there are more groups. >> honest to god, i don't know what you're talking about. >> the next question is how old is rand paul? the answer is or the real answer i guess is 52. but i sometimes feel about 10 to 20 to maybe 30 to 40 to 50 years older after a day of this. the third question, most popular question from google, is rand paul still running for president? and i don't know, i wouldn't be doing this dumb-ass live streaming if i weren't.

yes, i still am running for president. get over it. where's rand paul in the polls? this is not live, we can edit this, right? >> the other thing he says, he's calling me little marco. and i'll admit he's taller than me, like 6'2", which is why i don't understand why his hands are the size of someone who's 5'2". have you seen his hands? they're like this. and you know what they say about men with small hands. >> if you kill ted cruz on the floor of the senate and the trial was in the senate, nobody could convict you. >> you think they have control over their sexuality? >> absolutely. >> do you think being gay is a choice? >> absolutely. >> why do you say that? >> because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight, when they come out they're gay. so did something happen while they were in there? >> then he asked for a full-length mirror. i don't know why because the podium comes up to here but he

wanted a full-length mirror. maybe who make sure his pants weren't wet, i don't know. >> anybody remember throwing rocks at cars when they were young? sometimes the police would come. always in unmarked cars. and they'd be chasing us across the field. they would think they had trapped us. there were these tall fences. they were about ten feet tall. they had no idea how adept we were at getting over those fences. i mean, full speed ahead. never break stride. leap high into the fence. allow the momentum of your feet to swing you over the top. drop down on the other side. all in one motion. and laugh at them because they couldn't do that. now, that was back in the days before they would shoot you. >> the nice guy is ben carson. he tried to kill his cousin. and hit his mother in the head with a hammer. he's the one we all like. how did i lose to these guys?

>> this is the race where ted cruz fake proclaimed himself to have a running mate at one point. and then she fell off the stage. this was the race that was convulsed for half a week by marco rubio wearing high-heeled boots. this is the race that featured the release of an album by one of the candidates' spouses in the middle of the campaign, a very candy christmas from candy carson. this is the race where one candidate gave out another candidate's personal cell phone number to an angry crowd and the candidate who had just been docked like that responded by hitting his cell phone off a golf tee. a race where not one not two but three candidates went to a rally with a guy who was calling from that same stage at that same rally for the execution of all gay people in america. this is the race that started with the eventual nominee hiring actors to pretend they were his supporters at his announcement event. paid fake supporters for which

they put out a casting call. this is the race where so many people were running they had to divide the field into people who got to go to the real debate and people who were only allowed to go to the also-ran kids' table debate. even at the adults' table they couldn't manage to get them all onto the stage. >> let's welcome the candidates for the republican nomination for president. new jersey governor chris christie. dr. ben carson. texas senator ted cruz. businessman donald trump. florida senator marco rubio.

former florida governor jeb bush. ladies and gentlemen, the republican candidates. >> and dr. ben carson, please come out on the stage. he's standing there as well. dr. carson. >> and donald trump. >> and lastly, we welcome back to the debate stage donald trump. it's no noisy in here.

we're going to introduce ohio governor john kasich. >> it is over now they did all eventually find their way onto the stage. the big picture, 16 of them who made it onto the stage lost. last night the magic number of 1237 delegates was hit. the nomination was officially clinched. and as remarkable as it is that it was clinched by donald trump, this is the process by which that happened. this is how the republican party this year became donald trump's to do with it whatever he wishes. and it is arguably a terrible process. and this year it was inarguably a cringe-inducing one. but it produced an outcome that is really serious for this country and this did officially happen. as of last night this race is over. this is how it happened. the question i think now is, is

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crude. vernaling on nasty at times. or they're just him sitting at his desk and scowling through some kind of argument. but this one, this new one, it's pretty good. and i'm not being snarky. i'm not kidding. i think it's pretty good. it definitely makes its point. >> i'll leave to it you to speculate on how this whole race is going to go. >> well, i don't think it's likely that donald trump will be the nominee. >> he is not going to be the nominee. >> he's not going to be the nominee. >> donald trump, who is not going to be the nominee -- >> donald trump is not going to be the republican nominee. >> donald trump is not getting to 1237. >> he might get to 1237. realistically i wouldn't bet a dollar on it. >> he might be leading the republican ticket. >> i know you don't believe that but i want to go on. >> donald trump has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the republican nomination for president. >> i'm so honored. >> i continue to believe mr. trump will not be president.

>> admit it. not bad, right? and i'm not sure how good an argument that is, that bit at the end in terms of predicting what's going to happen in november. ah, people thought he wouldn't get the nom nation and they were wrong, people think he won't win the general and they're wrong too. but everything that came before that is good and real evidence how much the beltway and most people in politics got wrong about where we have ended up today. and that is what i want to talk about with my friend michael medv medved, host of "the michael medved radio show." it's nice to be here on the friday of a holiday weekend, thanks for being with us. >> my great pleasure. good for you for focusing on where the country is right now, rather than just the game that we're playing. because it's not a game. this is one of those things that -- one of the things mr. trump has said, among others,

find very disturbing. he natural jitss to the world series. he says, i've just won the pennant, why change my strategy with the world series? well, in baseball, you do that. if all of a sudden you're facing a new pitching staff that is all left-handers, you're going to want to have a lot more right-handed hitters in your lineup, right? and the idea that it doesn't matter to try to unify the country, to try to appeal to the center, to try to sound and look and act like a responsible president of the united states? that's simply wrong. the republican primary process that you took apart so amusingly just there, there were a grand total of fewer than 10% of eligible voters who voted in all of the republican primaries over the course of the electorate. we now have to, whoever is going to win this election, has to do much, much better than that. unless we end up having a bernie sanders candidate and a hillary

clinton candidate and some kind of real conservative candidate -- independent conservative -- and mr. trump. that happens? have you considered what that might mean for the country? because it could happen. >> the multiple candidate election, the libertarians are having their convention this weekend in orlando. they're going to be -- >> be still my heart. >> right, exactly. the one thing about the libertarians though is that, yes, they run somebody every year and it never matters, david koch running in 1980. but they did have ballot access in all 50 states. to the extent sort of the lifeline is the idea that this presidential campaign isn't going to be the candidate we think it is. maybe the libertarians are your lifeline. >> well, who knows. look, i will say this with william weld running for vice president who was a two-term governor of massachusetts, gary johnson who was a two-term governor of new mexico. they were both very good governors. >> very popular. >> both republicans, former republicans. i would rule out the idea that

they could end up getting significant votes? no i think they will do much better than libertarians normally do if there isn't another conservative candidate. the kind that a lot of people are still hoping for. i do want to say one thing, that i think with all of the ridiculing of the republican candidates, i think it's appropriate to recognize some of the courage and integrity of people like paul ryan, like mitt romney, like jeb bush, like president george w. bush, who have not rushed to get on board the trump train. because they recognize this really is a matter of the survival of the republican party. and really the survival of our constitutional system. i do not use the term "never trump" because what i would like to see is mr. trump magically perform the way that

cinderella's pumpkin is turned into a coach, magically transformed into some kind of viable, honorable, respectable, reputable candidate who actually would have a chance of bringing the country together. instead of the kind of candidate who brings out riots and devi divisiveness and negativity and a sense of dread in everybody other than his true believers. >> michael medved, you've been -- you're eloquent on everything. you've been eloquent on this. i felt a real -- i wanted to have you here tonight because i've been going hammer and tongs about the fact that every republican who used to be against trump, who used to take a principled stand against trump, has caved, including apparently marco rubio today. you haven't. and your eloquence and level-headedness about your principled states on this issue stands out. thank you for that, thanks for talking with us tonight. >> thank you. look, let us all hope -- i hope that mrs. clinton, who will be

the democratic nominee, can stand up, have her sister soldier moment against some of these demonstrators, for instance, who are flying flags and really helping donald trump. and if we're going to have a viable alternative to donald trump, an alternative that could actually unify the country and bring people together, i think it would be very, very helpful and please help communicate this to mrs. clinton, that for secretary clinton to try to offer an antidote to anger, a more positive moan hope and change message. we can't allow hope and change to be replaced by mope and cringe. that's not going to win. >> michael medved. i can't promise to deliver the message but i can promise to have that said on television. >> thank you. >> michael medved, great to see you, thanks very much. we'll be right back, stay with us. no one speed... no one way of driving on each and every road.

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whether or not you've been focused on politics or not, there has been breaking news starting tonight and through the evening. for instance, see that spot there? this was seen a short time ago along the hudson river, which is the river that runs between new york city and new jersey, and this is about two miles away from the george washington bridge right off manhattan. a small plane crashed into the hudson river just before sunset tonight in new york. the faa says the aircraft was a vintage world war ii plane. there's been conflicting information tonight in terms of the fate of the pilot. earlier this evening, the new jersey state police said the pilot had been rescued, that he had sustained only minor injuries which seemed like a miracle given the crash and that the plane is sunk. now the new york city police say that that new jersey police statement from earlier is erroneous, and the new york city police are saying actually the pilot is unaccounted for. we'll be trying to get a handle

on that situation seeing the divers going into the hudson trying to do rescue and recovery operations there with that vintage world war ii plane crash into the hudson. in addition to that, there has been an ongoing situation in san diego where 6,000 protesters turned up at a donald trump campaign event, and there were fist fights between anti-trump and pro-trump protesters and supporters. it's because of this ongoing situation, actually, in san diego tonight that you are not going to be going to prison here on msnbc after this show ends at 10:00 p.m. eastern. we'll have live coverage tonight on msnbc with that and ongoing stories. stay with us. ♪ ♪ (vo) making the most out of every mile. that's why i got a subaru impreza.

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i told you, you got to watch the news on a friday before the holiday weekend. this next story is the prime reason why. we have one more story for you tonight. it's about something everybody knew was coming for years. they tried to plan for it, they tried to accommodate it, they thought they had accommodated for it. but after tonight it's here. as i speak, it's here, it has arrived, and it turns out it's really, really, really going to screw up an important thing in the republican party. they thought they had this under wraps. they do not. it's happening now. that story is next. i take pictures of sunrises,

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whether or not you yourself are a basketball fan, every basketball fan you know is very distracted right now. forgive them. if you are not yourself a basketball fan, there is still probably one basketball player who you do know, who you know on sight. that would be king james, right, lebron james of the cleveland cavaliers. everybody knows him. in the nba playoffs, lebron james and the cleveland cavaliers are one game from advancing to the nba finals. here's why you care about that even if you don't care about basketball. if lebron james and the cavaliers win tonight and make it to the finals, the nba arena in their home town, the quicken loans arena, that arena could be hosting away games as late as june 19th. that matters to you because the other thing scheduled this summer at the quicken loans arena is the republican national convention. if the cavs win tonight and make it to the finals, they could be

using the arena to play basketball as late as june 9th. that's four weeks before the convention starts. it takes at least six weeks to set up for the national convention. what's amazing is this problem did not come up out of the blue. they knew this might be a problem back in 2014. in fact, their original convention target date was in june. one of the factors they considered when they ultimately pushed it back to july was that cleveland had just signed king james back onto the team. that's part of the reason the republicans pushed their convention back to july. but if lebron james and the cavaliers win tonight and go to the finals, that july date will not have been pushed enough. they tried to account for it. they didn't. donald trump has said he wants this year's republican convention to have more of a showbiz feel. how about more of a sweaty basketball arena feel? watch this