sexual assault case and now verdict watch begins. we wanted to tell you jurors began deliberating today. they spent five hours and will be back tomorrow. weinstein faces up to possibly life in prison if convicted. we will keep an eye on that verdict and bring it to you on msnbc when it breaks. that's our show. "hardball" starts now. what happens in vegas, let's play "hardball." good evening, i'm chris matthews in washington. the stage is set for a clash between vermont senator sanders and the billionaire, former new york mayor michael bloomberg in tomorrow night's msnbc presidential debate in las vegas. a new poll, by the way, tonight shows sanders opening up a big lead in the democratic field with bloomberg surging into the top tier. the just-released nbc news/"wall

street journal" poll shows sanders leading at 27%. that's a familiar number with him. in both priet marmary and the f caucus in iowa. a double-digit lead over his four closest rivals who are bunched together. joe biden is at 15, biden has lost 11 points since january while sandingers remains unchanged. bloomberg and senator elizabeth warren are each at 14% followed by pete buttigieg at 13. i said they're close, basically tied with the poll's margin of error. amy klobuchar is down at 7% however. an npr/marist poll shows sanders at 31% and bloomberg in second at 19%. sanders has gained 9 points in that poll since december. bloomberg has gained 15 points. anyway, joe biden is next with 15% followed by warren at 12%, klobuchar and buttigieg are in single digits so the polls depart a bit. the npr officially earned

bloomberg a spot on tomorrow night's debate stage even though he's not on the ballot for saturday's nevada caucuses. senator warren blasted his inclusion saying it's a shame mike bloomberg can buy his way into the debate. but at least now primary voters curious on how each candidate will take on donald trump can get a live demonstration on how each of us would take on an ego maniac billionaire. he has face d problems on his stop and frisk and profane comments against women. his democratic opponents have also taken the opportunity to criticize him on the record. >> michael bloomberg with $62 billion can buy every ad he wants, but he can't in fact wipe away his record. >> but as for what michael bloomberg did, stop and frisk, that is unconstitutional. and i'll say this, i am on your

show right now, margaret, answering these tough questions. where is he? he just keeps running a bunch of ads. >> i don't think that the democratic nominee ought to be somebody who's got a bunch of nondisclosure agreements for having harassed women. >> today we say to mayor bloomberg, we are a democracy not an oligarchy. you're not going to buy this election. >> they're all laying out the welcome mat for mike bloomberg as you can see. i'm joined by susan page, washington bureau chief for "usa today," sam stein and zerlina maxwe maxwell, senior director of progressive programming for sirius xm. zerlina, i see you smiling. what are you thinking? it's not exactly the welcome wagon party. you go into this party and you get punched right in the face coming in the door. here we go, mike bloomberg, nice to have you. what do you think? >> look, i think that the democratic base has been talking about the influence of money in politics, not just bernie sanders and not just elizabeth

warren. and i think their voters are not necessarily primed to support a billionaire. but we will see, because tomorrow night is actually where michael bloomberg will actually be able to compete against the candidates that he's avoiding by just going up on radio and on television. and i think that when he's standing side by side with the women, i think elizabeth warren might be taller than him, chris, so i'm interested to see that. but when you see that -- >> do you think that's funny that he's short? >> no. i think it will just be an interesting visual, considering the historical fact that the taller candidate has won in every single presidential election. >> richard nixon beat george mcgovern in 49 states. >> sorry, one example, one exception. >> sam, your thoughts about this. it's going into basically a wrestling match right now. they're all primed, i think zerlina is right. i think they'll all go after

bloomberg, as they should. although a candidate running around telling people in their 20s and 30s i'm going to pay of a all your student loans, you don't have to get a real job because you're getting health care automatically and getting free tuition in college if you go to public school. a lot of people are promising things based on money. go ahead. >> those are receipts versus payments. >> the government is going to pay the bills. >> incredible recall on the mcgovern thing. >> wasn't carter shorter than gerald ford? >> he never told us his height just like wilt chamberlain told us his height. some people keep these things secret. >> back to bloomberg, you could not tee it up more perfectly for bernie sanders candidacy. a man who's been warning about oligarchies and billionaires, comes in -- >> you rolled the r there. >> finally gets someone to come in and play the role. >> do you think these guys and women, i call everybody guys now, when they get together they all seem to pull their punches.

they say it to other people on sunday shows. >> what's going to happen on wednesday is that bloomberg gets the worst and you have someone who's clearly the front-runner in bernie sanders, popular vote winner in two contests straight, clear momentum in the polls, likely to pull out the nevada caucuses, is going to get -- >> did you say nevada. >> nevada. is going to get the secondary focus of the night. >> i think that's a great point. i want to start with susan and zerlina. it seems if you look at all the polls we just showed you, there's a battle between bernie who has a plurality right now. that against about half the votes that are bunched among four moderates. so the moderates are going to kill each other, including bloomberg, so that bernie gets a higher number next time. >> so something like what happened last time around for the republicans. so you had donald trump with a lane to his own and you had several establishment moderate conservative candidates who battled each other and who

divided the field and it created this pathway for donald trump that was very useful. so maybe you've seen the same thing happen. >> and just like -- just like jeb bush was the perfect foil for donald trump, old breed republican, michael bloomberg is the perfect foil for bernie sanders. >> the nbc news poll shows among democratic primary voters, that's who they polled, who identify as liberal, bernie sanders is a clear front-runner. no surprise there. these words like liberal, progressives, democratic socialist, they're all i guess redundant at this point. among democrats identifying as moderate or conservative, biden and bloomberg lead followed by sanders at 16%. so sanders is preferred, moderates like him. as concerns about being a socialist, 53% said they were enthusiastic or comfortable. i would think there's a big difference between enthusiastic or comfortable but the majority, give to it bernie on that one. 42% have reservations or uncomfortable with a socialist.

let me go back to zerlina on this. it is an interesting shape of the field that defines the winner. if you have four moderates and one man on the left, he or she is going to win because it's based on a plurality. at some point before we get to milwaukee, you need to get it up to a majority. your thoughts. >> whoever gets 1,991 delegates. if you come up short we're going to have a mess at the convention. i do think the likelihood of that is growing each day we go past because with michael bloomberg's really buying his way into the top tier, he has not talked to a reporter like yourself, chris, on a national television interview like all of the other candidates. so in a lot of ways, he hasn't been tested yet. so i agree with sam and susan that tomorrow is very important to have him alongside the other candidates to see if his message actually resonates with this base of voters. this electorate is not the 2016 electorate, it's not the 2012

electorate. somebody turns 18 every single year, chris. so even young voters are more and more engaged, particularly since the parkland shooting you saw the millenial voter engagement go up in the 2018 midterms. so i think what we are trying to see -- what we're going to see is a new coalition. whoever can get that coalition to the polls will be successful. i don't know if it's michael bloomberg, but all of the candidates need to do that same work and he has to actually answer a question for a change. >> let me ask you about that. you can start, zerlina, this is the question. michael bloomberg will be hit on stop and frisk, on red lining and what he said about that, that was getting rid of -- what was it, getting rid of red lining caused the financial crisis of '08 and '09. that's not going to help him at all. the ndas aren't going to help him. his complaints about his manner at the office. what are they going to hit him with hardest? all three? he's going to play defense on everything or what? zerlina. >> as a black woman all of those

things impact me. so i would say when you're thinking about who the base of the democratic electorate is, the primary electorate and particularly a state like south carolina, now, he's not going into the race until super tuesday, but we'll be able to see if those things are hurting him in south carolina. and i think that certainly the racial issues, and it's not just stop and frisk. i keep bringing up the central park five. and the reason why is because america collectively, including oprah, just went through a whole moment where they became the exonerated five. and michael bloomberg was the person in charge of the new york city administration that blocked their settlement. i don't know why he did that. he should be asked at the debate tomorrow. he should have an answer for that. so i think some of these issues are going to come up and it's going to be up to the voter to decide whether or not they're going to hurt him at the polls or not or whether they're going to support him or not. >> bloomberg knows all this is coming. this is all telegraphed. how does he turn it back to

where he can talk turkey about the economy and his strengths. if he plays defense on this stuff he's going to lose. >> i think he knows that. one problem he has, he hasn't been in a debate for 11 years while these other candidates have now -- i think this is their nooininth debate. debating on a national stage is heart and it's hard not to be defensive when you're under attack. especially when you're a billionaire. my understanding is people don't challenge you that much if you're a billionaire. >> well, the business press is never as tough as the political press. but he was mayor of new york and went through that crazy every minute media world there. >> he's got competent people around him that have done this stuff and i think can prepare him. i think the pivot is fairly easy. i apologize for what happened in the past but my current record is the most important one and i helped elect candidates up and down the ballot in 2018, i pushed gun control legislation, i've been at the vanguard of public health and climate activism. the pivot is easy. >> he won't say i'm out of time

like joe biden does. >> by the way, i need to stop talking. no, the question is -- two questions i have. one is what are the moderators going to do? zerlina is right, no one has been able to ask this guy a question. is it so tempting for the moderators to go right at bloomberg or treat senator sanders like the front-runner, which he is. the second question is what does the rest of the stage do? do they let bloomberg bury himself or jump in and try to do the kill shot and i don't know. >> well, the stage could take some of the focus away from bernie sanders, the target of criticism in recent days not only for his policies on the left but attacks from his online supporters. here we go. >> bernie acknowledges that he doesn't even know how much his program is going to cost. it's going to be well over $30 trillion. he said we'll all find out. how do you ever pass anything in the united states congress. >> you know, it's really disturbing to see the culinary union attacked when these are workers who have stood up and

fought for among other things good health care plans. they're not interested in washington taking away their choice. >> we are all responsible for what our supporters do. and i think bernie has a lot of questions to answer here. >> i think, zerlina, you first, the question, does this confirm notions people have about the toughness and anger of the people around him, not just the people out in the country, the twitter people, but actually the people they have confronted personally? if this matches up with his anger and sort of his manner, does it matter or not? i think it does, but i'm not sure it matters to voters, just to people who cover him. >> i think it matters because some of the attacks are very tinged with sexism and racism. i've been personally attacked by bernie sanders supporters for saying critical things of him. i'm critical of all the campaigns, i haven't endorsed and i won't. i think that he -- it's an issue that he will have to address because to your original point at the beginning of this

segment, he stays around 27%. and until he's able to grow his coalition, he's talking about droves of new voters coming to the polls. that has not yet manifested in the early states so far. so he's going to have to pull from the existing pool of voters or register new ones in time for the upcoming states to grow his coalition. i honestly believe that the chickens are coming home to roost in a way. he's never adequately addressed the harassment online that his supporters absolutely are participating in, including some members of his staff. and so he needs to get that into check in order to attract new voters to his coalition because there are people that are being harassed and they're not likely to vote for him when they are the target of harassment. >> we've all met his aggressiveness face to face and i just wonder in an election where you choose between a socialist and a sociopath how much turnout there's going to be. >> anecdotally -- >> that's not a hell of a

popular choice. >> i talked to tons of voters at different rallies who were considering bernie but were hesitant to vote for him because of the culture around him. i don't think it's necessarily all his fault. >> what is that culture? >> well, it's sort of a fandom that borders on angry sometimes. that's online culture. but it hurts him in this sense. he and elizabeth warren had that fight over who was saying what about a female running for president. his supporters responded with vitriol. they put snakes emojis into everything, called hr a rat and a back stabber. if you're a elizabeth warren supporter, that's not a great sell. you don't want to be part of that crap. >> is that how they do it in denmark? >> i don't know. >> you don't even have to support warren, just a woman could be mad about those things. >> yeah, i think -- well, i'm hoping, by the way, and i should say hope, but i'm thinking there might be an elizabeth warren comeback in nevada. we'll see.

everybody will see. i think there's going to be some surprises out there. susan page, sam stein and zerlina maxwell. coming up, president trump broadens his assault on the rule of law, attacking judges, prosecutors and jurors. he thinks he can do whatever he wants. >> i'm allowed to be totally involved. i'm actually, i guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country. >> and now he's commuted the sentence of former illinois governor rod blagojevich. is he sending a signal to his friend, roger stone, just sit down, it's okay? plus trump's historic rivalry with barack obama won't quit. he can't quit that guy. he says obama deserve nos credit for improving the economy. the facts say differently. we've got much more to come tonight. stick with us. to severe rheumatoid arthritis. and take. it. on with rinvoq. rinvoq a once-daily pill can dramatically improve symptoms... rinvoq helps tame pain, stiffness, swelling. and for some...

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bill? karolyn? nope! no, just a couple of rocks. download the my account app to manage your appointments making today's xfinity customer service simple, easy, awesome. i'll pass. welcome back to "hardball." the u.s. justice system faces a deepening crisis tonight as the president continues his assault

on the rule of law, intervening again today in the case of roger stone. trump threatened to sue the justice department attorney who say prosecuted his former political at viersz. he's going after the prosecutors in his own justice department. he said everything having to do with the fraudulent investigation is badly tainted and i in my opinion -- and in my opinion it should be thrown out. if i wasn't president, this is the president talking, i'd be suing everyone all over the place, but maybe i still will. this is the president again. and his continued political meddling, trump is openly defying attorney general bill barr who specifically asked him not to tweet about criminal cases last week. but trump today refused to stand down, even through the openly -- he openly admits he's making barr's job more difficult. >> he said that your comments on twitter are making it impossible to do his job. are you making his job impossible? >> yeah, i do make his job harder, i do agree with that, i think that's true. he's a very straight shooter. we have a great attorney general. he's working very hard.

and he's working against a lot of people that don't want to see good things happen, in my opinion. >> most astonishing is that in defending his tweets, the president actually usurped the attorney general's job description. trump described himself, not barr, as the chief law enforcement officer of the country. >> i'm actually, i guess, the chief law enforcement officer of the country. but i've chosen not to be involved. but he is a man of great integrity. but i would be -- i could be involved if i wanted to be. >> now in a possible sign of things to come, the president used the power of his office to granting clemency to former governor rod blagojevich and police commissioner bernard kerik. both were high-profile political figures found guilty of lying to authorities among other charges. i'm joined by yamiche alcindor and barry grisham.

bare, barry, it seems he wants to show how powerful he is. he gave rush limbaugh the medal of freedom. he's showing he can do anything he wants to -- it seems to be a message to his cellmates, the guys out there waiting for their sentencing that, look, don't worry, sit tight, i'll take care of you. >> yeah. i've heard a term used today, banana republic and that's really what we have if the president of the united states thinks that he can step in as the chief law enforcement officer and do all the things that the attorney general and the department justice does. we talk about we're losing the rule of law if we allow a tie ranti tyrant to take over and take up prosecution of people he wanted to go after as his enemies. it reminds me going back 40 years ago to richard nixon's enemy list, wanting to use the apparatus of government to go after people that disagreed with him. thank goodness in watergate we had two attorney generals who

were convicted and sent to jail, both gray and mitchell, and it took attorney general levy a long time to get the credibility of the department of justice back. i know that when this president is no longer in the white house, the next attorney general is going to have a pretty tall order trying to restore the d dignity of that institution to the respectability that it should command. >> is there any real restraint on the part -- i mean infamously, notoriously bill clinton pardoned marc rich. could a president simply say, okay, it's january 19th, i'm about to leave office. i'm going to pardon everybody i sort of like, the picture of. i just looked at pictures of prisoners. i like him or her. i want to pardon them. does a president have unlimited to pardon even people with whom he's been associated with politically? >> the quick answer is yes. but using your example of marc rich, there was a process in place at the department of justice and that process as i understand it still exists, but

apparently it's not being utilized where you have a team of lawyers go through the application that someone might have petitioned for being pardoned. i know that's what mr. rich did. and i think that was roundly criticized later. but what the president is doing now, i doubt very seriously he's going through any vetting process or any of the procedures that are already in place at doj to assist in the process of figuring out whether or not someone deserves a pardon. >> apparently the president liked -- i like her too, she's very loyal to her husband, patty blagojevich, she went on fox and made her case for her husband to get clemency and get out of prison. trump responds to what he sees on fox. in this case it does show some compassion i suppose. i think eight years is a lot for what blagojevich did, but your thoughts. >> well, i think we're at a crossroads as a country. the country is learning that there's an honor system that the department of justice and the white house have been operating on and that president trump is

changing the way that that honor system is working. what you have is president trump saying very plainly i can do whatever i want and legal experts i talk to say the president pretty much can do whatever he wants when it comes to the department of justice. he can be as close to the attorney general as possible. he can be talking about what he wants to do and what sentences he wants for his friends. none of that is illegal. and i think the fact that president trump is continuing to underscore that scares a lot of people, a lot of his critics, but it's something that's actually true. when it goes to rod blagojevich and his wife going on fox news, we've seen over and over again that this president is someone who watches tv very closely and who can be swayed when it comes to things that he thinks kind of tug at his heart strings. it's happened in this case and also happened on foreign policy with syria. what we see is the president continuing to be this kind of reality tv president in the fact that he's very, very moved by the television. >> he's also like the guy in being there, chancy gardner. he sees it on tv and it's reality to him. all of this comes as roger stone's lawyers seek a new trial

for their client. last week trump attacked the jury foreman, woman in that case, complaining she had expressed opinions that were critical of him, the president. and today he's quoting a fox new commentator on twitter to call on the judge to order a new trial. the judge amy berman jackson will consider, however, stone's motion for a new trial but will not do it until she proceeds with sentencing on thursday. barry, what do you think are the chances of having a new trial because a juror was tweeting against the president? >> if that tweet was occurring during the trial, that might be something to look at but as i understand it, that was not the case. when you sit on a jury, you go through voir dire and mr. stone ld ve had very good, very kpengt legal counsel that engaged in questioning jurors. i'm sure they asked about political persuasion and what they thought about the president. if in fact they did not do that,

it really is on them. that's their job to vet out who may or may not be favorable to their client's position. but this idea or this notion of reaching out to people who are on juries and from my perspective intimidating them, you know, it's tough enough to get folks sometimes to sit on jury duty. the idea that the president of the united states might sending out a tweet against you, and goodness knows a lot of people read those tweets and a lot of people behave irrationally. and i just hope that nothing happens to any person, particularly a juror, doing their civic duty. >> yeah, i understand. >> yeah. >> barry, do you think there's any outside chance that the lawyers working for roger stone purposely let someone who's problematic into the jury so that they could if they didn't get the case they could always go and appeal and say look at this person, they're a total partisan, they were ought to get me? >> that could be possible, but i've got a feeling that judge jackson will review what their motion says, that she'll review her own notes and court record

about the questions that were asked during voir dire. and if they were intentionally from her perspective shying away from somebody for that purpose alone, i think that would play into how she would rule on this motion. the great thing about this judge, and all federal judges, and we've got to give credit to our founding mothers and fathers, basically fathers, is that we gave lifetime tenure. this is not a political position that they have to worry about getting voted out or being unhappy. so i think she's going to carry out, as she would any case like this. >> thank you so much, barry grissom. the president has never let caps get in the way of the all caps twitter ranting. but who gets credit for the current economy, it's a wonder he even tried. you're watching "hardball." uggl, i need all the breaks that i can get. at liberty butchumal- cut. liberty biberty- cut. we'll dub it. liberty mutual customizes your car insurance so you only pay for what you need.

only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ othroughout the country for the past twelve years, mr. michael bloomberg is here. vo: leadership in action. mayor bloomberg and president obama worked together in the fight for gun safety laws, to improve education, and to develop innovative ways to help teens gain the skills needed to find good jobs. obama: at a time when washington is divided in old ideological battles he shows us what can be achieved when we bring people together to seek pragmatic solutions. bloomberg: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

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i don't want to pretend that today marks the end of our economic problems. nor does it constitute all of what we're going to have to do to turn our economy around. but today does mark the beginning of the end, the beginning of what we need to do to create jobs for americans scrambling in the wake of layoffs, the beginning of what we need to do to provide relief for families worried they won't be able to pay next month's

bills. >> welcome back to "hardball." that was former president barack obama back in 2009 at the signing of his signature recovery act. yesterday obama commemorated the 11th anniversary of that event writing on twitter that it paved the way for more than a decade of economic growth and the longest streak of job creation in american history. that's actually all true. but not in president trump's book. revisionist history. trump tweeted did you hear the latest con job? president obama is now trying to take credit for the economic boom taking place under the trump administration. if dems won in 2016 the usa would be in a big economic depression and military trouble right now. but the numbers tell a different story actually. if you look at these numbers, president trump gloated that his presidency would bring 4, 5, 6% gdp. in the last quarter it was 2.3%.

as for jobs, since trump took office the economy has added an average of 189,000 jobs per month but during the final three years of obama's administration, his average of producing jobs was 224,000, several more. for more i'm joined by david plouffe, former obama campaign manager and michael beschloss, presidential historian. david, thank you for joining us. first of all, the psychological part of this, what is trump's problem? >> he's a lying narcissist, so we know that and are reminded of that every day. let's not forget barack obama won re-election in 2012 with an unemployment rate of almost 8% because people thought he would fight for people like them. and i think voters generally don't view the economy through macroeconomic statistics. i think there's a very powerful argument to be made against trump on the economy, on the tax cuts for billionaires, they want the companies that didn't deccre jobs. what's interesting to me, chris, if you were just giving trump political advice, he might say i

didn't agree with what obama did but compared to this cast of characters he's almost a centrist but his ego and narcissism prevents him from doing that. i think he is quite vulnerable, though. job number one for our nominee will be to prosecute a winning economic case against donald trump. >> but aren't you curious about when trump went to psychological war with barack obama? was it the white house correspondents dinner when barack took him down rather brilliantly? just took him down. you could see his face. there was some jutting of the jaw there. there was something going on at that moment, i thought. what do you think? >> well, that might have intensified his hatred. but if you look at his -- and it's hard to do, but if you look at his tweeting history, which goes back a long, long time, his hatred for obama was there in the beginning. it maybe intensified through that personal episode but went through all of 2012 and really through 2016. so -- but i think at the core,

donald trump can't give credit to anybody for anything but himself. i mean occasionally he'll say good things about our troops, but i think even that's a challenge for him. that's what makes me so concerned about four more years of this guy is someone who is this much of a narcissist, somebody who's this ungenerous, who's not intellectually curious, at some point he's going to be faced with a real crisis and i think we should all be very, very scared about that. >> general grant after the civil war wrote his own history, which is pretty smart. churchill wrote volumes of it, won the nobel prize for literature for it. but trump seems to be trying to do it in realtime. the first draft of history is written by trump it looks like. >> well, that's right. just today he was defending his use of social media saying that if he depended on the press to get his word out, he'd never get his word out. so we've got a president giving his version of events in realtime. but as you know, that's what presidents who are running for re-election do anyway.

remember pretty early in this administration he said when i came to power, i had to deal with this mess that barack obama left me. well, that adds to the story line and adding even further to the story line would be a claim that when he came in to power, the economy was on its back. of course it wasn't. some day historians will sort it all out. >> it's not just the economy, president trump can't seem to get past his predecessors on a whole array of issues. look here, look at this. >> they asked me what about race relations in the united states? now, i have to say they were pretty bad under barack obama, that i can tell you. so president obama had separation. i'm the one that brought them together. most of the isis fighters that we captured, we, we, not obama, we, we captured them, me. and we've gotten rid of a lot of really bad pieces that were sign bide president obama, believe me. president obama has been the

most ignorant president in our history. >> i don't know what to say, david plouffe. i mean this man is not a gentleman, and i don't know why he is obsessed -- he has two things. this sort of fits the pattern. one is he wants to expunge everything to do with his impeachment. he wants to get rid of everybody. he wants to get rid of mueller, get rid of pelosi, anything that had anything to do with it he wants to blame. he wants to blame mitt romney for it. everybody has to be blamed so he can have his history book that says he wasn't impeached. but as pelosi points out, the history book will say he was impeached, david, and there's nothing he can do with all his e erasure to change that. >> trump walks loudly and carries a small stick and a pretty big bag of grievances. listen, he lives in a reality distortion field. i'm not even sure he thinks he can rewrite history books, it just makes him feel better, to michael beschloss' point. trump is a marketer, that's what

he has been his entire life. he understands the power of social media. he's not relying on journalists to interpret events or economic data, he's just going to shout as loud as he can into his phone and create his own version. only he knows, i guess, but i'm not sure how much of this is to convince others as much as it is himself. he talks about how he's more popular than abraham lincoln. he sees himself as this grand historical figure. that's why i think he is more obsessed with re-election than any president we've ever seen. maybe more obsessed than all of them, and they all had more than a passing interest. because he understands if he gets defeated, he is going to be historically, i think, in a much more challenging position than he already is with all his lies and distortions. and so that's why i think to michael's point, he's running for -- he started running for re-election the day he put his hand on the bible on january 20th, 2017. we've never seen anything like it. >> michael, your last thought?

>> i think what we are seeing is a president who is determined to get re-elected and particularly knew from the very beginning how much a strong economy has to do with presidents getting re-elected. you look at modern times, chris, how often have we seen a president in office who has a strong economy who has a hard time getting a second term? >> wow, thank you. i know, these numbers are something else. thank you, david plouffe. by the way, obama's numbers were pretty good at the ending too. michael beschloss, thank you, gentlemen. by the way, enjoy san francisco, david, love that city. still ahead, the biden campaign is hoping to bounce back in upcoming primaries as they move into states with more diverse voters. that's coming up next here on "hardball." we made usaa insurance for members like kate. a former army medic, made of the flexibility to handle whatever monday has in store and tackle four things at once. so when her car got hit, she didn't worry. she simply filed a claim on her usaa app and said...

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right now the results from the two smallest -- two of the smallest states are being seen

as predictive of america's values, and that's just not true. we've got 50 more contests coming. we've got a whole lot of people who want to be heard, and our responsibility is to not start telling people what they have decided before they have had a chance to -- >> welcome back to "hardball." that was voting rights advocate stacey abrams telling viewers and voters that iowa and new hampshire do not represent the entirety of america. the 65 delegates apportioned from those two states come from a pool of nearly all white voters. in fact according to recent census data, iowa is 90% white, new hampshire's population is even more disproportionate with more than 93% identifying as white. with the nevada caucuses four days away, all that is about to change. the candidates will take their messages to states that are dramatically more diverse and representative of the party as a whole. nevada the most diverse state so far is 29% latino or hispanic, 10% black, 10% by the way asian

american. south carolina, which is set to vote on february 29th is 27% black and 6% latino or hispanic. while these -- while those voters will have their voices heard this saturday in nevada, according to a new poll out today, one candidate is leading the pack by double digits. we'll get to that next. you're watching "hardball." zemp♪ (announcer) once-weekly ozempic® is helping many people with type 2 diabetes like james lower their blood sugar. a majority of adults who took ozempic® reached an a1c under 7 and maintained it. here's your a1c. oh! my a1c is under 7! (announcer) and you may lose weight. adults who took ozempic® lost on average up to 12 pounds. i lost almost 12 pounds! oh! (announcer) ozempic® does not increase the risk of major cardiovascular events like heart attack, stroke, or death. there's no increased risk. oh! and i only have to take it once a week. oh! ♪ oh, oh, oh, ozempic®! ♪ (announcer) ozempic® should not be the first medicine for treating diabetes, or for people with type 1 diabetes or diabetic ketoacidosis.

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that senator bernie sanders is the strong favorite among latino democrats registered in nevada. 1 in 3 latino democrats registered to vote say they intend to vote for sanders at the caucus this weekend. he has a double-digit lead over former vice president joe biden who is at 22% in the same group. businessman tom steyer is third at 12%. for more i'm joined by amy ruiz, former state director for hillary clinton in nevada and former senior advisor to kamala harris. don callaway is here with me, former senior advisor for deval patrick in america. well, let's just hear the voices, a little preview since we're not going back to iowa and new hampshire for a while. let's look at the preview of what's coming up next. what's going to be different or more interesting maybe or is this different between the voters who are about to vote in places like nevada and south carolina and then on super tuesday a few days later than what we heard from in iowa and new hampshire? >> hey, chris, thanks for having me on. well, i'm really excited for the nevada caucus.

i will tell you one of the reasons it's so important, not just because it's the first in the west but it is also the most reflective of our country. as you mentioned earlier, 30% latino, 10% african-american. the fastest growing api suburb rural, you name it. nevada is reflective of our country. also, you know, there's going to be a lot of engagement. there are campaigns that have already been posted in nevada for more than a year. it comes down to organizing and who can get supporters out. >> let me ask you about this thing. minorities, they say poor people is too much of a general raks, they are more left than democrats. how can you get more left than bernie sanders? he won the first two in popular vote, he is there. >> it won't be left. minority voters are extraordinarily practicing matby. that's why joe biden is going to win south carolina. he will not win by as much as he would have won six, eight months ago because tom steyer is going the take a significant chunk out

of that. >> who is tom steyer to a voter? >> i thought you were asking for real. tom steyer in south carolina is a guy who has invested a lot of money both on the ground and on the airwaves, and he has real people who know -- >> who is he as a voter? when you say a vote, what do you mean? >> he has made a good argument with green stuff. you have to remember south carolina is coastal so she have climate change issues. he made good investments charitably throughout the state. he is hiring folks grandsons, aunts and uncle goes, people they know he has put to work on the ground. he will be about third in 8% to 10%, but he made real investments in the state and it is taking out of biden's statement. i expect bernie to finish a solid second in south carolina and he will have a legitimate claim to the african-american support. >> let's talk about nevada because we go out there in clark county, which is basically vegas. any family lucky enough to go on vacation, it is pretty family friendly unlike it used to be. you are going out there. one thing i think is good for

the union labor movement is that you spend most of your time face-to-face with members of a union, whether it is a wait person or it is a croupier or a pit boss, everybody is in the union. everybody thinks like that, what side are you on mentality, which is great. what is that going to do? all of these working hispanic women with the basic job, does minimum wage mean a bigger deal out there than elsewhere? what are the issues that grab people out there in their daily lives? >> yeah, i mean nevada is definitely a labor state. it is the strongest of the first four in terms of the labor population. you have the culinary union, you have sciu, nsca, a lot of really, really strong unions. what does it mean? that means that these unions have really created a lot of opportunities for the candidates to speak firsthand, one-on-one with their members. i mean we are seeing it just this past weekend. vice president joe biden was doing a back-of-the-kitchen tour of a casino to talk directly to culinary members. the unions are doing a lot of work around caucus education and

turnout, and so you will see a really high percentage of their membership reflected in the caucus results. so some of the issues they care about, i mean similar to other states. they care about the economy. in nevada as we mentioned, it is an incredibly diverse state. latinos care about immigration, more so than other states. that will be an issue, an issue that's been popping up a lot especially over the last week has been health care. so where the candidates stand, if they're supporting medicare for all or building upon obamacare is really important to them. >> what do you think happens to people in this campaign? what happened? >> let's be honest about something. two billionaires in a race fundamentally altered the political marketplace in south carolina as well as in the earlier states. i hope that -- i'm more excited for south carolina than i am nevada, to disagree with my friend emmy, because nevada is a caucus. we need to move away from a caucus system and to a more pragmatic system. >> who does the caucus hurt?

>> lesser organized candidates, candidates who haven't been running for president for the last four years, candidates who have less rabid supporters, more pragmatic supporters. you know, the more immutable voter, the voter who is not going to change is more likely to support throughout the arduous caucus process. that supports pete buttigieg, that supports bernie sanders. >> you think like me. >> let's be clear about this. >> she wants to get in here on you. >> sure, sure. >> go ahead, emmy. >> about the nevada caucus, they are really taking the steps to make it the most transparent, most openly accessible caucus. so we've had early vote in nevada for the first time ever, so people who wouldn't be able to attend on saturday have had the opportunity across the state, across tens and tens and tens of locations to show up to register to vote. >> i think you will do better than on iowa. i am betting you do better than iowa. thank you. great to meet you. up next, what the numbers from the latest nbc "wall street journal" poll tell us about the

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in politics, the shape of the field determines the winner. right now the race for the democratic presidential nomination includes a self-proclaimed democratic socialist, senator bernie sanders in the lead, followed by four moderate democrats, joe biden, mike bloomberg, pete buttigieg and amy klobuchar. look at these numbers released

today of democratic primary voters. bernie sanders at 27%. former vice president biden at 15%. down from 26% last among. bloomberg at 14%. warren is at 14%. buttigieg at 13%, klobuchar at 7%. that puts sanders at a bit above a quarter of the democratic vote. if you throw in the vote of fellow progressive warren it comes to 42%. if you throw in the moderate vote it comes to 50%. this means if sanders can keep senator elizabeth warren from staging a comeback he can win the race by polling in mid 20s. when each of the moderate democrats duking it out for the same position, sanders never has to widen his appeal. he can win with his core supporters. if he doesn't need to moderate -- go to moderate democrats to win the nomination, why would he try to woo them? buckle your seatbelts. we are heading into serious turbulence. that's "hardball."

heading out to vegas for tomorrow night's democratic debate. tune in at 7:00 p.m. for a special of "hardball" out there. the debate is at 9:00 and i will be back in the spin room post debate. that's the best night for me. you won't want to miss it. "all in" with chris hayes starts right now. ♪ tonight on "all in" -- >> this whole thing is about drup corruption. >> a president impeached for corrupt abuse of power pardons a coterie of corrupt politicians. >> i'm only interested in corruption. >> tonight as the president continues to attack roger stone's judge, are more pardons on the way. >> thank you. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> plus, congresswoman maxine waters on what democrats can do about an out-of-control president. then, how a bloomberg surge just creates a genuine debate showdown. >> i don't think anyone ought to be a