msnbc headquarters in new york, just about high noon in the east, 9:00 a.m. in the west. welcome to weekends with alex witt. welcome to las vegas, candidates make the final pitches, the goal avoiding a repeat of the mess in iowa. russian meddling part two, now trying to help the bernie sanders campaign. it comes after a bombshell report that russia has already begun interfering to get trump re-elected. we have new reaction and details at this hour for you. just one hour from now, the caucus doors will be open for the people in nevada to choose a democratic presidential candidate. doors open beginning at 1:00 p.m. eastern to voters. alicia mendez is in las vegas today. she's going to share the stage with me for the next couple hours. welcome. it's the start of the

traditional caucuses there. is there a sense of how big the turnout might be? is there anything you gleaned on that front from the early caucus period? >> there was a lot of turnout, about 70,000 people caucusing. that's about 90% of the overall turnout we saw four years ago. of course turnout in 2016 down from 2008. so one of the stories we're going to be following today is whether or not the enthusiasm we saw in early vote will continue into the caucusing that we're going to see today. >> that makes sense. let's get to what we've got here at stake. 36 delegates up for grabs. does a victory in nevada -- does it mean more in momentum than the actual delegate count? is that where the value lies? >> make no mistake, alex, these campaigns won't those 36 delegates, but yes, in some ways

what happens here in nevada will tell us about what is going to happen in the west, with latino voters. and since so much of the conversation around electability in this election has come down to who can build a diverse coalition, that's one of the stories we'll be following. >> you mentioned the latino vote. i know the outreach is something you've been focussing on. how key ultimately is that today? >> incredibly. this is a state that is 30% latino in its overall population, about 20% of the eligible voters are latinos, the campaigns understand this. they've made big investments on the ground. so the question is which campaign can motivate them but also what the e lek or tlectora like in other states like california, texas. >> a couple of notes to make for all of you as the sites open up this morning, the seven candidates on the ballot have been on the move throughout the state and the country.

so are the msnbc road warriors. we're going to start with gaudy schwartz in reno, nevada. welcome to you. voting begins in a little less than an hour now. walk us through what happens when those doors open because we have to remind folks caucusing is different than going and casting your vote in a primary. >> reporter: yeah, a lot different and a lot of pressure out here. especially considering that this is the first caucus since the fiasco in iowa p. also seeing a bell weather state like nevada that represents the country demographically, but it's also the first time we'll see the inclusion of early voting. as you just heard, a lot of those early voting numbers we could see a huge turnout today, a small turnout because in 2016, again, about 84,000 people showed up to caucus. this year so far 77,000 people

have already early voted. so we're going to show you how that's all going to play together. but here at north valley high school, people are going to be coming here, checking in, if they need to register to vote, they'll register here. and then they'll go into where the actual caucusing is going to happen. a lot of that caucusing will start right around noon, that's the time for the first vote. we'll step into the cafeteria. we're trying to get that 15% of the vote for viability. so the candidates will have the different groups here. those groups will split off after the first vote to see who's viable, who has the 15%. and then when things get a little bit more complicated, we are going to be painting by the numbers here in nevada. this is nevada caucus 101. this is kind of a breakdown of exactly how things are going and this is the caucus map poster. this is where a lot of that is going to be tabulated.

you heard about the i pads, how they're going to tally the votes. you have the number of in person participants, added to the early vote participants. it'll be calculated here on ipad by these gentlemen here. you've been practicing? >> yes. we've been trained and certified. >> you had a mock up a few days ago. >> that's true. >> how did it go? >> we used harry potter characters, electing hermone grainer. >> she was the most qualified. >> a mugle born candidate. >> yes. >> reporter: all of that is supposed to start around noon. the second vote, the realignment, should start shortly after that. this shouldn't take more than three or four hours if

everything goes as planned. so the results should then go back to headquarters. >> you walked down the hall and you showed a same-day registration table. i want to confirm that anybody who is watching who has not voted, they can still make their voice heard today. >> yes, they need to go to their precincts and they can participate in the caucuses today. >> let's get to new numbers released from january, which show bernie sanders outraising his opponents pulling in over $15 million more than his closest come ppetitor that bein elizabeth warren. but here's what amy klobuchar's campaign said. >> we have the ability to compete here, we have staff on the ground in super tuesday states we're on the air in super tuesday states where our competitors are not.

>> von litthillyard is joining from las vegas. so even though amy klobuchar's campaign manager is confident, the campaign is fifth in contributions. does everyone in the field make it past nevada, south carolina and into super tuesday? >> reporter: it's hard to see any of these candidates dropping out at this point. most of the candidates, including amy klobuchar have been campaigning for more than a year. so why not stick it out at least through south carolina. but we can't underscore the significance of these next ten days. for the campaigns these next ten days mean everything. you were hearing about it, this nevada caucus, this is the first time in which voters of color have a true say in this process. about half of the democratic electorate today is expected to be non-white voters. about 25% of them being latino. and then five days from now you have south carolina. about 60% of the electorate being black voters. yes, you're looking at the

instance of the pete buttigieg campaign, they came in top two in iowa and new hampshire, along with bernie sanders. but now this is a moment they have to prove their viability long term. on super tuesday, half the delegates will be allotted. and the california electorate, which will be allocating the largest delegate share of any in the country looks like nevada. so if you are amy klobuchar, pete buttigieg or elizabeth warren, you need to be able to make the case out of here that yes, you may have the resources to stick around, but at what point is this -- this process needed to determine who that foil is going to be to bernie sanders, but also the operation that it's going to be able to take on the big money operation of michael bloomberg. >> that is a big money operation for sure. thank you von hillyard from las vegas. down the strip there to my college alicia menendez. >> for more on how the key latino vote will be today.

i want to welcome our panel. paula ramos, jennifer ma diekah- you've turned around and endorsed vice president biden, what went into that decision? >> latino's victory mission is to increase the power. and vice president biden has been part of that commitment since day one. he's campaigned with us every cycle. including most recently here in nevada, in 2018 he campaigned with us for the first latino state senator and jackie rosen who flipped a seat critical to the state, giving us two female senators, including the first latino senator. >> and yet members of your own

membership angry about this endorsement. some saying they haven't grappled with the obama administration's record on deportation. >> i think our members are valid. it points back to our community being diverse. we have a diversity of opinions, and a lot of our elected candidates that we previously endorsed, including a bulk of them in florida have already supported vice president joe biden. what i think is important is we made this endorsement right before nevada. as we know, the whole country is looking at the latino vote and we have this one week period where we can really make strong asks of our presidential candidates. and two days ago, latino victory had dinner with vice president joe biden where we had a real candid conversation about immigration. we talked about the folks who have been protesting him and contextized it from the real

fear and trauma. >> did he get it? >> i think he did. i think we it's important we're at the table and getting firm commitments. including his commitment to introduce legislative immigration reform in his first week of office and he's going to work with congress to make sure it passes. and this is huge, he is for a moratorium on deportations for the first 100 days that he's in office. >> that's where we've seen activists pushing these candidates. you had a piece, jenny, in the times talking about the frustration in the feelings of the way candidates approached people of color. you write it wasn't that they had a chance to share their background rather they chafed at the narrowness of the message when they addressed black and latino voters. >> a lot of people are angry, feeling they're hearing the right words and talking points and lip service but they're not hearing anything substancive

beyond that. you come to nevada, everybody made a stop in a taco shop. what goes beyond that? are people talking about issues in the community. >> do they feel they flattened them to one dimension, in one way it becomes about immigration when really it's a concern about health care. >> yes. latinos want to hear about housing, poverty. they care about immigration but they want more than that and how do the issues impact the community. >> pick up on what myra was saying about the importance of nevada. >> to ground this conversation, today is historic. i think it's the first time in history it marks a new chapter in latino power. we say this time and time again but today is the first time we see the strength of the latino vote and we become the second largest voting block. i think it's also historic today is the day we go from underestimating, undermining the

latino vote to suddenly understanding and realizing, there is the best measure we have to test which candidate is best equipped to beat donald trump. everyone is like why is that? mostly because he has targeted latinos more than anyone. so they know what's at stake. who they trust, who they give their lives too is big in the rest of the country. >> we've seen in the reporting that jenny has done, that is not enough. trump as a boogie man for the latino community is not enough. they want democrats to proactively offer them something. >> absolutely. trump is not enough. what latinos want the last three years we felt we don't belong in this country. you don't feel that more than nevada. for three years they felt this was not their country. so they want a candidate who sees them as human, understands their pain and takes them along the ride. that's what we're seeing here today. >> they're all staying with us.

coming up we'll discuss the ground game strategy and where the candidates should be put their focus. for now back to alex witt in new york for today's other top stories. so what's in it for putin? why russia wants to help the sanders and trump campaigns. r w. what do you think? i don't see it. only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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healthcare that lets people keep their coverage if they like it. a record on job creation. a doable plan to combat climate change. i led a complex, diverse city through 9-11 and i have common sense plans to move america away from chaos to progress! i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

it's the first test of diversity in the 2020 primary season. the nevada caucus as voting begins in roughly three hours at noon local time as we give the look at a registration table in reno, we'll take you there and other caucus locations throughout the afternoon. as the caucuses are about to get under way we're learning russia is trying to interfere in the contest. senator bernie sanders confirming his campaign was told by u.s. officials that russia is trying to help him win the democratic nomination. this as the "new york times"

reports officials issued a warning that moscow is meddling in the 2020 election to help get president trump re-elected. joining me is now the hans nichols and natasha bertrand. welcome to you both. hans you first, how are the president and senator sanders reacting to this? >> differently. the president himself appears to be evolving on this. yesterday afternoon in las vegas when it was just about interference helping his campaign, he was very dismissive. he was downplaying it. a couple hours ago he tweeted, this is the new revelations that bernie sanders' campaign was also being helped potentially by russia and the president seems to be taunting democrats about it. what's interesting to me about the tweet where he says russia, russia, russia when he's weighing in on this, he seems to be weighing it off of adam schiff not his own intelligent officers, intelligence officials. that's who briefed bernie

sanders' campaign that they were interfering. let's have a listen to their sound today and talk on the back end about how different their responses are. >> it's disinformation. that's the only thing they're good at. they're not good at anything else. they get nothing else done. do nothing democrats. that putin wants to make sure i get elected. listen to this. so doesn't he want to see who the democrat is going to be? wouldn't he rather have, let's say, bernie? >> the intelligence community has been very clear about it, whether trump recognizes it or not or acknowledges it or not, they did interfere in 2016, the intelligence community is telling us they are interfering in this campaign right now, in 2020. and what i say to mr. putin, if elected president, trust me you are not going to interfere in american elections. >> reporter: what's interesting about the president's response

there is according to "the washington post" he had been briefed about the efforts on behalf of bernie sanders. so the idea of him suggesting that russia may actually want sanders, he might have had some inside information on that. we'll see to what extent anyone from the white house clarifies that and see to what extent the president comes down on twitter or if he decides to address it any other way. >> given the language the president uses it's hard to interpret a russian warning as sincere. natasha, how is it resonating? hans is reporting the sanders campaign found out about it a month ago, so why is it coming out now? >> it's unsurprising that the russians are trying again. this is something that robert mueller warned about, saying the russians are doing this right now. they're interfering and trying to sow chaos and division like they did in 2016. that part is not necessarily

surprising. what is surprising is that bernie sanders' campaign seems to have been sitting on this for a month. their excuse, this was a classified briefing and as a sitting senator he has access to this kind of classified information. but it's unclear whether the ic officials that briefed him would have given him classified information. that's something we don't know. and bernie sanders could have taken the liberty to ask them, look, so it seems like i'm not sitting on this, i'm not trying to be not transparent, can i reveal, basically, what you said, which is the russians are interfering, operating a social media campaign whatever, in order to boost my candidacy, we reject it. that's something that fbi officials who i spoke to who said have done these briefings in the past it was his right to ask that and likely they would not have pushed back. because hiding russian attempts to help your campaign would help

the russians and for malicious actors who may want to blackmail the sanders campaign. we ran into the same thing with the 2016 trump campaign. so it definitely raises questions about why the sanders campaign was not more forthcoming about this, knowing it would have come out eventually, especially since the officials briefed congress on this. moving forward we have to see how they're going to respond to this. the russians are trying to prop up bernie sanders and the president, it's not going away, because they know by pitting two rivals against each other, they can create maximum division. >> can i ask, hans, how angry was the president when he heard that intelligence officials had briefed the house intel committee? >> angry enough to dismiss his acting director of national intelligence, joseph maguire. what the precise reason is for all of this is we should be

careful but the president was plainly upset. he was upset he heard about it from someone else, he heard about it from devin nunes, who told the president about this. when you listen to what he said at the rally at las vegas, he's almost saying it was imparted to him as a rumor, not an official intelligence briefing. it raises the question of what's the president hearing from his intelligence officials? is it settling in with him? is it making an impression? or is it more on the political front when his allies tell him, it's le it's leaving a lasting impression. >> thank you. she can't vote but a lot of people listen to her can. that's next. (howling wind)

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try to win by attacking, now, we know the trump strategy- distorting, dividing. mr. president: it. won't. work. newspapers report bloomberg is the democrat trump fears most.

as president, universal healthcare that lets people keep their coverage if they like it. a record on job creation. a doable plan to combat climate change. i led a complex, diverse city through 9-11 and i have common sense plans to move america away from chaos to progress! i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message. caucus sites in nevada open in just about a half an hour, we have a team of reporters at

various locations to see what unfolds as battling both in and outside of nevada is under way. joining me now road warriors lea lea leann cal caldwell and shaq bruster. welcome leann, how confident are leaders that unlike iowa these caucuses are going off without a hitch? >> they're doing a lot of practice right now. we are in the western part of las vegas in this big planned development called somerland at a high school called palo alto. we have a lot of campaign caucus leaders have gathered. how do you feel about senator warren today? >> we are excited. we have the momentum out of the debate. hoping for a great in person can

you cuss today. >> you have the warren people here, the bernie people here, the pete buttigieg people here. how are you feeling? is he going to have a good day today? >> yes. the rain is a good symbol in las vegas. when it rains gamblers go outside to get sprinkled on. it's good luck. >> they're getting ready now, it is raining, it never rains in las vegas, perhaps it is good luck today it's raining. what's happening as the volunteers are in the room behind me, they're going over on the ipads figuring out what to do today. there's 13 precincts who are going to be at this site, divided into classrooms, the add tore yam, ca cafeteria, we'll b here throughout the day. >> we appreciate that. let's go to shaquille in san an

t antonio, texas. he's getting some momentum, do you think that's affecting his being in texas? >> reporter: yes. yesterday you saw senator sanders spending most of his day not in nevada, instead he was in california. he had two get out the vote early rallies there. he's focussing on the super tuesday states. he did have a rally last night in las vegas and he was pushing the message of turning out. having people bring their friends, neighbors, having people show up to the caucuses. they're happy with the numbers they're seeing in the early vote and they want that to continue to happen. they want their supporters to continue to come out in force today. there's also frustration from his campaign with "the washington post" report that you were talking about earlier that russia was trying to help him in this election.

and his campaign aides they acknowledge that briefing was real. and they acknowledge bernie sanders saying putin i don't want your help. there's frustration because it came out the day before the caucuses, believe it was leaked the day for the caucus in an effort to hurt his campaign. they're feeling good about nevada but there's frustration about what happened in the hours before. >> thank you for the coverage from san antonio. let's talk about how latinos are making sure their voices are heard in today's contest. let's send it back to alicia in las vegas. >> today's caucus is giving the fast growing latino electorate, a chance to amplify its voice. and astro silva is a civil rights activist who's emerged as the face of daca participants.

thank you for being here. it is raining, not something i prepared for in the if the desert how does that affect the turnout? >> it's going to make people want to get there and get their ballot cast. we're very grateful. we in the desert we love our water hopefully we'll get a little bit more of it. >> 2016 you endorsed hillary clinton, she went on to win both the caucus to carry the state. you have not endorsed this year. why? >> for me i think the most important thing right now is getting people to go out and vote for whoever it is they want to cast their vote for. a lot of the immigration platforms the candidates have released to me have given us at least something to look at with each candidate -- >> enough? >> i think a lot of them, compared to past elections where we've gotten nothing, where right now we have dreamers on every campaign working, this is a complete change. i think a lot of people want more, more, more, and we're

getting it and still continuing to get more. but right now we've seen what they've all proposed. i think this is where our community, the ones who can vote, they can go out and decide who it is, and then we continue putting the pressure on for those immigration platforms and other issues, not just immigration but other issues the latino community cares about. >> you have developed a reputation for an effective advocate, you have met with most of the presidential hopefuls. what are you pushing them on? >> for me it's not to talk to me, i want them to talk to the community members, the ones that would never otherwise have an opportunity to share their story. it's incredible and humbling they want to speak to me but i'm not the only immigrant. there's hundreds of thousands struggling we have citizenships, u visa, there's a big umbrella of immigration, it's not just dreamers. we want to make sure as dreamers we get a path to citizenship we

want to stay in the country but the population is so diverse. >> especially in a state like this where so many are mixed status families. talk to me about new citizens and the role you think they'll play today. >> i'm excited for our new citizens. we've had citizenship classes for a while now, and just the at the nance si of these -- a lot of them are senior citizens who came to the united states 30, 40 years ago and never felt like they didn't belong enough until this administration took over. they've been studying, going to their classes so they could become citizens. i think people are underestimating how important their vote is going to be, because they're voting, they're not talking about it, they're not answering these polls. they're saying i'm going to my class, becoming a citizen, those who are eligible to do it. they said we're doing it because we received this ability to do it and we want to do it for those who can't. >> there's a lot of attention on

nevada today, on the latino vote, how do you keep up that moment and attention moving to super tuesday? >> the most important thing we can do is continue to raise our voices. depending on the outcome, it's going to be that people need to understand that's what we went out and voted for. our community doesn't just vote for a candidate, they vote for what that candidate is saying. especially in a community we have mixed status families we have every alphabet soup of immigration they can have. they all know somebody. one in five in nevada is an immigrant. our community is young compared to other states. and the candidates need to understand they need to talk to us early and need to talk to our families, and not just wait until a few days before and say here's what it may be. i think we've seen that. and hopefully from here out, they'll understand the road to the presidency goes to nevada.

>> thank you so much. more from las vegas ahead. we'll talk about strategy and where the campaigns are putting their focus as they look towards more diversity rich states on super tuesday. for now back to alex in new york. mike bloomberg under fire. should democrats give him a pass if it means he can beat trump?

we are giving you a live look at a gymnasium in henderson, nevada. it's one of the caucus locations

opening at the top of the hour. we'll take you there in our next hour. one candidate not on the ballot today, mayor mike bloomberg taking criticism after appearing on the debate stage for the first time this week. bloomberg sat down with msnbc host and president of the action network, reverend al sharpton for an exclusive interview, his first since wednesday's debate to talk about a variety of issues, including the mayor's stop and frisk policy. >> the stop and frisk you apologized, you said you regretted it. how do we repair some of the damage? is this where you're working with people -- >> i think part of the answer is i've sat down with groups of clergy and business people, african-americans mostly, and asked their advice and asked for forgiveness, but listened to what they had to say. everybody has different views. i think what is clear is we had a policy, i was trying to stop 650 murders in new york city.

the policy got carried away, when i realized it, stopped it, cut 95% of it, apologized. i tried to meet with people who have been stopped and people who their friends have been stopped to learn what it's like. i never had the experience, and my daughters were never stopped, so i can't tell you that i was that close and that's what i'm trying to fix. >> join me now eddie glaud and rick tyler. welcome, gentlemen. eddie, you first here. is that a satisfying answer from the former mayor for you? >> absolutely not. it is not -- i think elizabeth warren made a great point during the past debate that it wasn't about the policy going wrong, it's about the policy itself. what does it mean to target black and brown people? what does it mean to engage in a form of policing that

disproportionately targets black and brown men and women in particular. and in that conversation he needs to do more than to say i'm listening, asking for forgiveness. he needs to put forward a criminal justice agenda. we need to hear more specifically what is he going to do to help us dismantle the state. he also engaged in this fudging of the data. we know under his administration he increased stop and frisk seven-fold, the idea of him decreasing it by 95% we know he's spinning his 234urnumbers . >> he may come forward with policy that's doing what you ask him to do, but this perspective, the evangelical christians, they have given donald trump a pass on so many things, should democrats give bloomberg a pass if it means that he would beat donald trump in november or do

you think they should be holding him to a higher standard? >> absolutely not. one of the things we say about white evangelical christians giving donald trump a pass they're hypocrites they have compromised their faith. we shouldn't do that. the country is in crisis, the crisis goes deeper than simply donald trump. it goes to the heart of wealth inequality. i think in some ways mayor bloomberg is the poster child of that inequality. i don't think democrats and particularly african-american voters should compromise on this issue. we should demand more bold vision and in some ways a candidate that reflects where we are as a country today, not where we were a decade or so ago. >> after what you saw in the debate performance by michael bloomberg, do you think he could take on donald trump toe-to-toe? >> no. not with that performance. he missed so many opportunities. take the gun issue, something i

doen don't agree with mayor bloomberg on but that never came up in the debate, and the city of las vegas where the largest mass shooting had occurred. and michael bloomberg to his credit to that issue has done a lot of work on this issue and he failed to bring it up. he is a philanthropist, he could not pivot away from elizabeth warren's initial attack on him, and it took him a full 45 minutes to sort of get back on his feet. now he could improve that performance but if that's the performance -- look, he's not a great political performer, he's just -- you know, he's not going to win by charisma, that's why he's spending as much money as he's spending in this race. >> what about eddie as we look at the poll numbers from the nbc "the washington journal" national poll. bernie sanders is gaining ground on joe biden relative to black

votes, joe biden has 31%, sanders putting the -- or rather the backing of 29%. can you explain the momentum? >> it has something to do with the first two primaries but also the organization on the ground. as we talk about black voters i think it's important we don't reduce them to a monolith. so part of what i think we're seeing is there's a shift in the electorate, millennials, gen-zer's, yers, however we want them known, at the same time we have the baby boom generation. i think sanders improvement among black voters has everything to do with the organization on the ground. i think they learned their lesson in 2016. >> let's get to what bernie sanders confirmed last night

that russian officials are attempting to aid his campaign. why would they be aiding bernie sanders, is it to help trump or could it be he's their second choice? >> the russians are not trying to help donald trump and bernie sanders. they're trying to undermine the election system. they're trying to create chaos in the system. eddie is right, he didn't say this, but i think he's saying that, you know, the people we elect are a reflection of our culture. if you look at the candidates who are coming forth here, i don't think a mike bloomberg comes forth if we had someone who was running away, like a barack obama or other very talented political figures, and think about this alex, you're going to have -- you may end up in november with two candidates, where you know who was never really a republican all his life, donald trump, and one who was never really a democrat all

his life, bernie sanders or even mike bloomberg's bets pay off, he's never been a democrat all his life. i think that's the weakness of these parties and what russia wants to do is undermine and create chaos to undermine the whole idea of a self-governing people. >> is bernie sanders the one reflecting our culture to play off what rick just said? >> in some ways. in some ways. we know among younger voters, the worry about socialism isn't a big concern among them. we know that they -- they understand that capitalism in m some ways has failed them. they're bearing the burden of the great recession in terms of student debt and stagnation of wages. remember, bernie sanders is a reflection in some ways alex of the excitement and energy around occupy wall street. we have to think about bloomberg in relation to the park. so yes, there's a shift that disrupts the traditional ways we

talked about the spectrum. it doesn't mean that bernie sanders is the representative, it just shows us everything has been mixed up. >> what a great conversation, thank you guys so much. >> thank you. the numbers candidates can't ignore, what's at stake in nevada today. also capture the full interview with mayor mike bloomberg tomorrow night at 5:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc. i thought i was managing my moderate to severe crohn's disease. until i realized something was missing... me. you ok, sis? my symptoms were keeping me from really being there for my sisters. (announcement) "final boarding for flight 2007 to chicago" so i talked to my doctor and learned humira is for people who still have symptoms of crohn's disease after trying other medications. and the majority of people on humira saw significant symptom relief and many achieved remission in as little as 4 weeks. humira can lower your ability to fight infections. serious and sometimes fatal infections, including tuberculosis, and cancers, including lymphoma,

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i'm allye a menendez, where the start of the caucus in nevada is just moments away. it's a chance to see who's building the most momentum with millennials and younger voters. we had one of our producers go out on the strip, talk to nevada voters about where they are. i want you all to take a listen. >> who are you going to vote

for? >> from the start joe biden. >> you seem pretty sure about that. >> i'm pretty sure about that. >> how can you beat somebody who has been for years vice president. now you can be that. he's older, he can go one to one to trump, and he's my best shot. >> this nation is going too far left and too far right, and i think we need to find what's being called a moderate democrat. i think that needs to come back. >> two names, joe biden or michael bloomberg. >> all right. so a lot of people pushing for a moderate conditionandidate ther. when you look at the polling, telemundo released a poll, voters under 50 want bernie, 43% polling higher with younger people. to what do you attribute the skisism. >> bernie sanders inspires younger latinos, joe biden does

it with older latinas. bernie sanders does it because they feel like they're part of something. joe biden does it with the older generation because they want to feel safe. they go back to the obama years where they feel hope. that's the generational divide, is it survival or to dream. >> you've asked this question in every state. does that comport with what you're hearing? >> absolutely. there's a lot of people who are excited by sanders and those people are, for the most part, young. one thing that's interesting that's also happening is young people are trying to convince their parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles -- >> are they succeeding? >> it's hard to know. today is the first test of if they're succeeding. one person people mentioned is michael bloomberg. he's waiting to compete -- >> spending a lot of money. >> already spending a lot of money on latino outreach, millions and millions of

dollars. >> is there also a skizism around voting in general? >> yes. i think there's a generational divide but also a regional divide. i'm excited to see states like texas and florida where we see how younger voters fare in the latino community. >> thank you so much. thank you for bearing with me through the rain. at the top of the hour i'll be joined by a senior adviser to the bernie sanders campaign. now i want to send things back to alex, who's dry and warm in new york. >> i guess i'm sorry, but you look great. that's okay. we wouldn't be able to tell you're being drowned out by the rain. the doors across the caucus sites in nevada open in just minutes. we'll take you to locations and get an early read on the turnout. ar insurance so you only pay for what you need. i love you! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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you are watching msnbc's special coverage of caucus day in nevada, and at 1:00 p.m. eastern the doors are open around caucuses sites for the third contest in the democratic primary race. people are lining up at some of the 252 polling locations across nevada. doors close at the sights in two hours and that's when the caucusing officially begins. alicia menendez is in las vegas today to cover it all for us. as we look at the details and i welcome you back for this hour of coverage.

36 delegates up for grabs today, that could boost the momentum for some of the candidates but really nevada is a much more racially diverse state than iowa and new hampshire, how does that change the results and how they are interpreted? >> it's important to a lot of these campaigns to have a good showing here today. you know, so much of the question around electability going into the general has been about which of these candidates and organize black and brown voters and today big first test of who has that power. >> is it possible a candidate wins today without significant support of latino voters there in the silver state? >> no. this is a state that's 30% latino, about 20% of the eligible vote population is latino. if you talk to campaigns, they understand it, they spent time and money in the state, tried to

organize the community, they know how much hangs in the ambulance. >> you do as well. you'll be talking about it this hour. hour road warriors are at locations around the state. chris jansing, cal perry, garrett haake and leann caldwell. >> reporter: what's happening is the volunteers and the caucus goers are starting to gather. it's raining outside, they're all under this one tarp, getting ready to go in any second. and right now more campaigns have shown up. here's someone from joe biden. how do you feel about today? >> feeling great. look at the turn out. i think we'll see a lot of people come out to caucus today. first in the west, baby. it's going to be great. >> reporter: what they're really interested in is how many people

are going to show up. of course there were three days of early voting and 13 predincis like this one. hoping to have big turnout, especially elizabeth warren's supporters who say she had a great debate hoping to boost her today. >> let's go to the bellagio hotel and chris jansing. talk about where you are right now and what you're seeing right there. >> reporter: the doors aren't open yet, but they're going to open any minute now. this is a fascinating place to be, it's a silo site. you don't have to live around here to come to this caucus. what you have to do is work within two and a half miles of here and you have to be a shift worker whose shift starts within an hour on either side of the beginning and end of this caucus, so it's going to be interesting to see the mix of people who come here. it's everything from people who perform on the strip to folks

who work here in the hotel. otherwise, here's where you pick up your ballot from michael bennett and joe biden down to andrew yang. and you're seeing it in spanish and english. these are the folks checking people in. we got new information here about early voting. this is john summers, he's a senior adviser to the nevada democratic party. 10,000 of the people who came in the early voting days were first-time registrants? new voters. >> new registered voters or people who might have changed their registration from one party to democrat. so very exciting. >> what does that say to you? people are saying so many voted early, does that mean fewer people come here today or does it mean you may break records? do you have a gut feeling? >> that's the big question. we had 75,000 people who voted

early in the 2016 caucuses we had 84,000 people total who participated. this is the first time ever in a caucus where there's been early voting. so it's hard to know how many of those people -- how much that might have cut into today's turnout or how much it's going to add to it. keep in mind, in addition to those 10,000 new registered democrats, that about half, more than half of the people who participated in early voting were first time caucus goers as well. >> amazing things. something to watch. thank you, john somers. we have about 100 chairs set up in the ballroom behind me. they should open the door any minute now. >> in terms of confusion when you went through those on the ballot, among them andrew yang who has since withdrawn. were this to be a primary, that would be concerning, people could go in and cast a ballot, are they thinking it's going to

be okay because this is a caucus where everybody can get together, talk? is that what you're hearing? >> reporter: yeah. we saw that in iowa as well. obviously if you decide you want to vote for somebody who's no longer in the race, they're not going to hit the 15% threshold and you go to your second choice, that's the second part of it, what they call the realignment. however, this is important to note. you don't have to. if you really wanted only andrew yang or wrote it michael bloomberg you can leave, you don't have to realign. >> i'm going to say i would cast a vote for chris jansing but that's another story. thank you my friend. >> i thank you. let's go to cal perry. who joins us from a medical school -- middle school in las vegas. >> reporter: this is where they're going to be registering, same day registration table here on the left, people will be coming in here as soon as they open the doors.

see if i can't trip dana up so you can see where people are cueing. you'll see the precinct captains are sort of over here, this is where people are cueing up. we talk early voting, people in this area, 4,000 people in this area in henderson, the question is how many voted early and how many will come together? one of the things people are worried about is the weather. it's awful out today in las vegas. people are worried that's going to keep the voting down. this is the actual caucus sites. there are 12 different caucus sites at this middle school. four go into the gym. as you look at the areas, we put the candidate signs up. as i walk you to center court, let's talk about the voting here. we bumped into a woman who said we are not iowa, we are ready here, las vegas and specifically the state of nevada is ready. here's the ballot. there are four ways this will be reported out to the party here in the state. the first is via a work sheet

they can take a photo of. the second is the ipads, new this year, they're using the ipads. they are not using the shadow app that had so many problems in iowa p. they're using google spread sheets. there's a number they can call, it was just published today. and fourth way, paper backups. if we're counting paper ballots by the end of the day it's going to be a long day. >> props to you and your camera man, just seamless. let's head to garrett haake at the east las vegas community center. what are you seeing there with the voters? >> reporter: this is another site with multiple precincts in it in the gym over my shoulder there will be ten precincts. they just started the check in process, that will be time consu consuming, bad news for the folks who are waiting in line. however at least they got people

inside and people aren't in the rain in las vegas. this is a battleground site, clark county, 80% of the vote comes out of this county. i've been working the line talking to folks, i have supporters from all the major campaigns, elizabeth warren, bernie sanders well represented here, too pete buttigieg. people on the fence over the head versus heart question. how do you deal with the question of electability, do you vote for someone you want to see as president of the united states or someone who can get rid of the president we have now? what's more important to people? i'm hearing people say they're voting for their heart. for a lot of the folks i've heard that's elizabeth warren. with ten precincts in one room, no single voter is going to be representative. we'll see the process go through here as cal just lined up here, the thing to watch in all these caucus sites is how the early

voting information gets tabulat tabulated. nevada has never done this before. whatever we see here today at the caucus sites, based on that big early vote number we're likely to have fewer people caucus today that voted early. i think that will be the way to know who won tonight before going to bed. >> ten precincts in that massive caucus site in east las vegas that you're at. thank you for that. >> alicia? >> many are saying that nevada is bernie sanders' too lose. in large part because of the way his campaign has pounded the ground game. he hopes his commitment to latino voters who comprise nearly a third of the population will be enough to put him over the top. joining me is chuck roche, a senior adviser to the sanders campaign. i have to ask about the reports

of russian interference. what's the campaign's responsibility to push back. >> what the senator said yesterday was great, he was forthright. mr. putin we don't want you here. when's president he'll make sure there's no russia interference, you're not welcome in these elections. >> we're sitting in nevada, this is important for your campaign, what's on the line today? >> we have invested a lot of and money talking to latinos who normally aren't talked to. normally black and brown people are window dressings in campaigns. in this campaign we've been part of the process to develop the overall operation. we've been here eight months, in the neighborhoods, investing in the community, hiring the community and today it has to bear fruit. >> does that mean registering voters, persuading voters. >> in the last caucus there was about 1800 latinos. so there's a big drop off, we went intentionally into those

neighborhoods to talk to drop off latino voters but newly registered. in the last four years, 100,000 latinos have voregistered to vo in the state alone. we're going to fight for every ballot, all day long, we're not taking anything for granted because a caucus is hard. you see the weather we have today, it's not the most conducive for going out. most of our voters are working class folks who work in many of these hotels trying to make a living. that's who has to show up today. >> when you look at the early vote numbers, 90%, turnout was down from 2016 to 2008, does that tell you about the turnout we're going to see today? >> it's an imperfect science but you have so many people register on site. bernie sanders talks about bringing new people to the process, that's what we saw in the early vote, lots of new people. on the last day at unlv with the

big rally, there were young people standing in line for hours waiting to vote. that's a great sign for our campaign. >> you talked about black and brown voters, a recent poll says bernie sanders has gone up 2 points, biden slipped, bloomberg has gone ch up 15% in that time frame. what are you doing to reach out to this demographic? >> the campaigns want to talk about endorsements. i don't want to hear it. how much are you spending, when did you spend it and how many black and brown people you have within power in your campaign. in south carolina 82% of the staff are color, and 83% are from south carolina. when you're talking about hiring the community, you get these polling results. >> does it freak you out about the amount of money mike bloomberg is ready to spend? >> i've never seen anyone spend that money, so i don't know the direct impact. i know the ads aren't great. they're running a bunch of

people of color ads by excite consultants, but what doimpact does that have with people. >> today is a big day, thank you for spending time with us. we'll look at issues that matter most to latino voters here in nevada. for now back to you alex witt in new york. congress, everyone, set to be briefed on election security early next month. but a week after super tuesday. will it be too little, too late?

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caucus sites across nevada are now open. we should note, though, people in las vegas are dealing with rain as they flock to those caucus locations. voters will be gathering at various precincts before voting begins at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. meanwhile bernie sanders and his campaign telling russia to stay out of u.s. elections while president trump blaming

democrats for an intel briefing that suggested russia is hoping to help his re-election and pushing for sanders to be the democratic nominee. also today, worried that the the house will get more briefings on march 10th, a week after super tuesday. so this should be good. sarah, starting with you, so the president was not at all pleased that the house intel committee was told russia is trying to help him win in 2020. what do you think comes out of these routine briefings that happen next month and what will intel officials say that could anger the president? >> i think it would be less about what the intelligence officials have to say but what democrats and republicans are going to be demanding to know from the intelligence officials. as you pointed out, this is going to be three weeks away. it's unfathomable to think these elected officials in congress aren't going to know what's

going on until then. i'm already hearing about frustration that democrats aren't able to get this information sooner. they have an ongoing primary battle right now, they are desperate to know what's going on. so what the intelligence officials are going to say, i'm sure it's not going to be pleasing to trump. we've seen him react so fiercely, strongly against any insinuation that russians are trying to again help his campaign. he doesn't want to see his election at all questioned. he doesn't want to see the va li lidty of his presidency questioned. but i'm looking at what the democrats are going to be asking at the briefings. >> it's true. naveed as a former fbi russian double agent, what's your assessmentle of what's going on here? russia trying to interfere on behalf of president trump and bernie sanders? >> yeah, look. the frustrating thing coming out of 2016 was the inability for the u.s. government to say this

was an intelligence failure. and here we are again because we weren't able to say that. so let's talk about what this means. we talk about disinformation, which is hugely important. but we forget about the a, b, c's of intelligence and counterintelligence. i wasn't working against a faceless person behind a keyboard, i was working against a russian intelligence offer, posing as a diplomat here in new york. while he's gone, he's replaced by someone else doing the exact thing. that thing is to recute americans to collect intelligence. i have no doubt that the russians have a robust network, i've urged congress to tell the american people what that consists of -- >> can you -- >> go ahead. >> can you give me a sense of what this looks like, this robust network, what are they specifically doing? >> yes. for example, i worked against a gentleman who was a captain in the russian nave.

he was diplomat assigned to the united nations. look at what military officers sit in the un for the runs, they are intelligence officers. it is preposterous to think the russians weren't trying to infew tra -- infiltrate campaigns. they also have an incredibility ability to move money threw here. >> when you say they're trying to recruit americans are they telling them, we want you to be a spy to us or are they doing it unwittingly. >> i'm not talking about the trump tower meeting where kushner and don junior, i'm talking about what they did with me, they're going after people and absolutely recruiting. they're a spy agency, they recruit people to spy. they haven't given that up since i was working against them.

we forget about that capability, the fact they're here, recruiting americans. we're talking about you're going to do this, tell me -- collect information, do this for me and i'm going to pay you. and you're, in fact, a russian spy. there's no gray area there. >> sarah, back to our conversation. by the time the u.s. intel briefs congress, two and a half weeks from now, thousands of democrats will have voted. how concerned are folks about russian influence in those votes? >> i think the reports we saw last night about sanders being briefed is going to muddy the waters for the next several weeks of primaries. there's democrats who wonder if they should continue to support sanders. we saw sanders undented by anything in the last few weeks. he really -- his continued support has mystified a lot of democrats. maybe this won't hurt him. he did come out strongly against this. the polar opposite reaction of what trump had to reports that

russia has been trying to help his re-election in 2020. but what i'm going to be looking for is how hard democrats in congress try to push for some kind of action on this. did they learn anything from 2016? there is a package in the house that has been passed by democrats that would crack down on a lot of this foreign interference. having more transparency with campaign finance and the ads being run. will bernie sanders make a push for that? will democrats try to do more to convince republicans to change the existing rules before it's too late and election day is here. >> can i ask you a question, supporting sanders and trump at the same time, to what end? is it just to sow disarray and discord, or is it because they would like to see either donald trump or bernie sanders in the white house? >> i think we need to get away from the fact that because they put their thumb on the scale for one candidate. it means that candidate is somehow beneficial to russia.

the fact that we're mentioning this is the damage enough. they want to attack our democracy, and they want to do what? make americans question the validity of their vote. they've done so already even before the presidential elections. that is damaging. we have to push back and again just because someone weighs in doesn't mean that is their preferred candidate. i want to make that clear. >> thank you so much, guys. we'll check back in with alicia menendez in a few moments to talk about the top three issues for latino voters. before we talk about tax-smart investing, what's new?

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locations for the nevada caucuses are now open. with actual voting expected to begin in about 90 minutes, a noon local time. we'll begin special coverage with chris matthews at the top of the hour. now caucus goers are filing in across the state. and joining us now is gadi

schwartz from reno, nevada. let's talk about what you're seeing now that the doors are open since we last talked. >> reporter: yeah, earlier you asked about people who might not have registered to vote early and what they could do. that line there, it's a significant line. that line right there is people that aren't registered that are registering at that table and then they are given these. everybody here is basically counted to make sure they know what the percentages are going to be to try to hit that 15% viability. they're given these forms here, this is a presidential preference card. and this, the blue side is the first alignment. the first choice. they will come into a room like this. they will all, around 12:00, break off into groups, whoever they support they will have this card, fill out their name, the person they are voting for, and then they will hold up those cards. now if their candidate is viable, those cards will be collect d immediately. if their candidate is not viable, does not hit that 15%

threshold, they switch to side two, their second choice, fill that in and then go and join one of the other groups, the candidates that are viable. this is nevada. so in the unlikely event of a tie, over here we've got a deck of cards. that is a deck of cards, and if there's a tie, the tie goes to the high card. all of this set to kick off right around 12:00. they're hoping to finish this within a few hours. we may see results start to trickle in by maybe 4:00, 5:00 tonight but they're hoping no later than that. >> it's great to see those people lining up for first time voting. >> reporter: a lot of people. >> thank you. let's go back to alicia in las vegas. >> reporter: thanks, alex. you can see us here in beautiful, rainy las vegas, immigration, health care, climate change are some of the

issues motivating latino voters in nevada. i want to bring in lieu si flores, she's endorsed elizabeth warren in this election. susan gumboa, and garcia. thank you for bearing with me through this weather. li lucy you know this state well, you have represented the state and run for state office here. i think it's the first state with a big latino population we hear about immigration but there are other issues. >> yes. we talked about the fact that the latino community cares about what everybody else cares about, education, health care, jobs, those have always polled generallily significantly higher than immigration, that's what it is. but that being said i think what i've also been hearing now is a lot of wanting change, general.

i hear a lot about corruption. i was talking to my step mom this morning and she's constantly talking about -- you know -- for them to stop being so corrupt. so people get this general sense that our system has problems. our system is broken and they want someone who's going to bring that change. in addition to, of course, the narrative that has taken hold about wanting to defeat trump. that kind of like always is the second thing they add. but, of course, we'll support whoever is going to beat trump. >> does that comport with what you're hearing from nevada voters? >> i'm glad she mentioned education, that's something i've heard a lot, health care, education, and immigration. i was surprised at the lesser extent i was hearing immigration because it's less than i was hearing it in 2016 when the daca people were getting into politics to turn out the vote.

i talked to three women last night, three sisters, at a rally for elizabeth warren, and along with health care, they were all in the health care industry. and getting a doctorate one of them in chinese medicine. they were educated people and they were interested in seeing a woman do well. one of the young women told me that she was with tulsi, she was with harris, she would do klobuchar, but right now she was warren because she said it's time for a woman. so there are latinos out there that are latinas that want to see women in charge. >> when you look at the early vote numbers, almost 90% of what the numbers were in 2016 overall, but 2016 had seen a drop from 2008. what does that tell you? >> it tells me the real winners are voters who never participated before because the process is inclusive, it allows for people who have never caucused before, registered before, to show up and choose

whoever they want to vote for. >> i appreciate your ability to stay on message, even as you were getting rained on. thank you. we had one of our producers talk with nevada voters about what it is they're looking for. i want you to listen to a little bit of sound. >> i know for a fact that my friends are mostly all bernie, my mom is bernie. but i know like there's a certain like older latino that is going off of biden's name recognition. like -- a little bit of like his age and tying that to like experience and just seeing him with obama is like drawing them in personally i feel that's the case for a lot of them. and i feel like that's where the division is. >> lucy i always say when you're talking about the latino vote, you're actually talking about the youth vote. what is it going to take to mobilize that young electorate? >> it's about outreach, about familiarity with the community, pt it's about talking to them --

i'm getting rained on -- but it's about talking to this community, listening to them, learning from them, engaging with them, you can't be lazy. you cannot be lazy with this community. that young man is entirely right. you have this generational split where you have older latinos who are certainly looking at what they know, familiarity, right. whereas younger people are absolutely wanting to be excited about something. wanting that change that we mentioned. you know, it really is about the effort that candidates and their organizations are putting into this community. if you put in that effort it will theoretically pay off. >> there has been a lot of talk about whose race this is to lose, a lot of people believe it's bernie sanders' race to lose, a question about who's second here. who has the most to gain and loose in today's caucus? >> i think bernie sanders has put a lot into the latino community. so in terms of gain he can certainly gain by showing he has

made that investment and then going into the super tuesday where you have so many more latinos in texas and california, he would gain showing, hey, i've made the investment and latinos are backing me and maybe others will follow suit and mobilize. >> what do you think? >> i think the people who have the most to lose are voters in our communities. we've been under attack by a president who doesn't care about our humanity, and we have the most to lose. >> thank you all. coming up next we'll talk about the all important union vote here in nevada and why a number of them have not endorsed a candidate ahead of today's caucus. msnbc's special coverage of the nevada caucus continues after this break. so you can bring your vision to life and save in more ways than one.

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live in las vegas as caucusing is under way across the state. endorsement from a union has been key for any presidential candidate vying for a win in nevada but several unions made the call to hold off voicing their support. one of them is the service international union, which is among the largest and most influenti influential, it has 2 million members nationwide. joining me now is the president of the union here in nevada. thank you for being with me here on this rainy day. what should it tell us you chose not to endorse?

>> to us it was important that our members were engaged and they learned and educated themselves about every candidate that was available to them. we want them to make an informed decision on what candidate makes sense to them. >> how do you do that if you don't issue an endorsement? >> we have them come and talk to our members, engage with our members. we've done multiple town halls, round tables. we've had people come and help us, you know, picket, strike, they've been, you know, doing walk a days with some of our members. so our members are getting to talk to them one on one. >> so have you been privy to any of those conversations, what are the issues they're pushing those candidates on? >> for us, there's four demands. number one is the ability to join a union no matter where you work, no matter the color of your skin. it's very important that everybody has the ability to

join a union. we want everybody to have access to affordable health care. we want environmental justice. and we want reform. we want immigration reform. we want, you know, a full immigration reform. >> i do want to ask you about health care reform, because that, of course, especially around the sanders campaign and the pushback for medicare for all, some saying his competition is trying to drive a wedge between his campaign and the unions. what is your membership looking for when it comes to health care? >> we want access to affordable health care. we want everybody to have that right. not just if you're lucky enough to be a union member. >> there are different candidates who believe that means different things or different ways to arrive at affordable health care. >> we want to see what's available. we're open to whatever that looks like, if that's medicare for all, that's great. if it's some other option,

that's great. we want to make sure that everybody in our community and across the country have access to quality, affordable health care. >> going into the general election, how do you make sure that whoever the candidate is is listening to the voice of your union members? >> we're inviting them all in. we've been talking to them since mid year 2019. they've been talking to our members, going to the hospitals that we work in, and having conversations with those members to see what that looks like. not just from them personally, but professionally. so it's important to us that they understand the reason people need health care. >> how do you hold them accountable? what mechanisms do you use -- you can have a million conversations and then there's the actual execution of those promises? >> i honestly don't know. you know, if we decide we're going to endorse somebody and we elect them, within those four

years, the only way you can do that is keep using your voice. so we'll make phone calls. we will picket. we will write letters. we will put them -- you know, put them front and center in our messaging, right, we will call them out if they are not abiding by the promises that they made to us and our members. >> brenda, thank you for joining us. that will do it for me in las vegas this hour. i'm headed to a caucus site to get in place before the doors close at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. alex witt take us through the rest of the hour in new york. >> you're a trooper in that rain, as were your guests, well done on that front, as well as the editorial information you brought us. save travels in the rain. we'll see you again in our special coverage, all of that begins at 2:00 p.m. eastern, brian williams, nicole wallace,

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the doors are open in nevada. people across people across ther state heading to the caucus sites right now, and voting will begin at 3:00 p.m. eastern time. let's turn now though to long-time trump ally roger stone. after being sentenced to 40 months behind bars, the president's former adviser is trying to get the judge in his case disqualified claiming she made comments that proved she is not able to fairly rule on his appeal for a new trial. joining me now msnbc contributor and former u.s. attorney joyce vance, also msnbc legal analyst paul butler. stone's legal team says that judge amy berman jackson's assertion that the jurors served with integrity shows bias. do you buy that arkt, and

legally would that enl be enoug get the judge dismissed from the case? >> i don't buy it, alex, and the judge isn't going to buy it either. this is another example of roger stone trying to gaslight people around him, but he's finally met his match in the federal judiciary because they're not entitled to accept arguments that are counter factual like the ones that he makes here. so, yes, there are some cases where you actually can ask a judge to give you a new trial where the interests of justice would be better reflected. they're unusual but they exist. the comments that judge jackson made at sentencing only exemplify her commitment to the rule of law, her insistence like the jurors in this case who did important work under terrible pressure, that their service is honored and respected even when someone like stone who as we know has a long-time history of

promoting himself as an agita r agitator, her ruling stands up on appeal. >> what about, paul, discussion about the length of stone's sentence, that being 40 months in prison in addition to a $20,000 fine. do you think the punishment fits the crime? and i'm going to remind folks that you're a federal prosecutor, right? and i spoke yesterday on the air here with a defense attorney, danny cevallos, who says he thinks it does fit the crime. how about you? >> so four years in prison is a long time, but when you look at what the jury convicted tone of, you have -- stone of, you have to ask the question is it enough time? the judge said at his sentencing that roger stone is going to prison for lying to protect president trump. he's going to prison because he threatened to kill a witness in the case all on behalf of donald trump. now we're in this bizarre

position where roger stone wants a new trial. the department of justice is opposed to a new trial, but the president supports it, and so it's unprecedented for the department of justice and the president to be on different sides in a criminal case in any event, alex, i think it's all kind of moot. trump has made it clear that he is seriously considering a pardon forroger stone. >> he may. i think he's likely to do that. what trump is doing is rewarding his friends. he's punishing his enemy, and he's weaponizing the department of justice with consent from barr to do that. >> i want to turn to the russia issue now. intel officials have confirmed that russia is attempting to interfere in this year's election again, and the president's response was to remove the director of national intelligence, which many in the intel community suggest could have a numbing effect.

does congress hassed a any reco constitutionally in this matter? >> well, congress has the resource of oversight hearings and impeachment. we've seen how well those have worked out to restrain the president. you know, the word that the mueller report used to describe the russian interference in our election is attack. the united states is under attack. it's not a question of whether and when the russians will interfere with our election. they're doing that right now, and as you said, alex, the president's response is to shoot the messenger. he fired the director of national intelligence. he's also authorized or barr has authorized an investigation of the intelligence officials in 2016 who brought the same information to the president. >> you know, joyce, this again feels like an overreach of presidential power. yes, he does have a right to hire is and fire in these jobs, but the motivation here for a firing like this, it feels like

it puts national security in peril. >> i think that that's right, and that's what we've seen this president do throughout the course of his presidency. he's more interested in surrounding himself with people that are sycophants that he is with people who have expertise and people that he can learn from, and that's dangerous. we know that barack obama famously drew in people with differing points of view at the beginning of his presidency to ensure that there was robust discussion and his policies were shaped by a well reasoned sort of proecapproach. that's not what president trump does. and we see it starkly here as he prepares to bring in an acting dni who has no expertise, who won't be able to conduct the day-to-day important intelligence business that's supposed to be run out of that office. instead what he'll do is he'll be a trump loyalist. that's not what we need in this country, and the president is clearly off mark here. >> i'm glad we are the eyes of

both of you on all of this, joyce and paul, thank you. that's a wrap for me this hour, i'm alex witt, i'll be back tomorrow at noon eastern with all the results of the caucus voting. our special coverage begins in just a moment with nbc's chris matthews live in las vegas. where can a healthier heart lead you? for people with heart failure taking entresto, it may lead to a world of possibilities. entresto helps improve your heart's ability to pump blood to the body. don't take entresto if pregnant; it can cause harm or death to an unborn baby.

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welcome and by the way, welcome to our kickoff of msnbc's special coverage of the nevada caucus. i'm chris matthews live in las vegas here on the strip where caucus sites are already set to open in just one hour. the dem skr-- to win over the ft majority senate, that's a state which has a majority of minorities. some of the contenders have stayed here making their final pitches across nevada while others have moved to the south carolina site next week and super tuesday the week after that. state democrats here have hired a massive call center and have been giving caucus site leaders extra training as fears of another iowa style debacle hang over this state. this comes amid reports of another election menace out there, of course, russia. russia's continued efforts to interfere with voters including in the democratic primaries to

benefit bernie sanders. sanders extcoriated russia for these efforts. let's get to the caucus goers and the candidates. we've got our correspondents staking them all out. garrett haake, let's start with you. how's it look there? >> reporter: good morning, they just opened the doors here a little while ago. folks are starting to fill in. i'm at the east las vegas community center. there will be ten sfreparate precincts here, all of which are fairly small and all of which are running on this new system. the individual chairs for each of these sites will get one of these packets. they get the packet of paper information, an ipad loaded with a calculator tool which should have the early vote totals for those individual caucus sites, and then there's the deck of cards, the particularly las vegas touch on this nevada

caucus process. if at the end of the day precincts are tied down to four decimal places, they'll do high card wins. i've been working the line trying to get a sense from people how confident they are or not in this process. the and the voters who lined up today in the rain tell me they think this is going to go pretty well today. take a listen. >> caucus is always good, you know, i like traditional stuff man, you know. people get to talk about how they're feeling, what's going on inside of them, what they're upset about. >> i'm looking around, i see a lot of bernie people. i also see a lot of people who aren't sure, and i think those people are going to come to bernie as soon as they hear the platform laid out more thoroughly. >> this is my first time ever caucusing. i'm from new jersey, so we don't do this, so i'm nervous because i have no idea how it works. i saw what happened in iowa. i think this should be fine. i'm going to be very hopeful.

>> so you hear that, chris, some cautious optimism from folks, a lot of first time caucus goers. a slow process here so far this morning in the check-in process. they're supposed to get started in another hour here or at least if they've got everybody checked in they will get started, but nobody is expecting things to go particularly fast today. as long as they don't go like iowa, nevada will consider this a success, i think. >> let ne ask you, garrett, are they using the same system as iowa or have they reworked it? >> reporter: this is a totally different system. iowa they used a particular app that was developed for this process that would both do the calculations and the reporting side. here in nevada after iowa, they've scrapped the app entirely, and they developed this system essentially using google forms on those ipads preloaded. all it does is the caucus math, the idea here is it keeps track of the numbers, keeps track of the early vote, which is kind of the x factor here that iowa did not have.

then the precinct chairs will report their results the old fashioned way over the phone. they'll also take pictures of the paper charts that they're filling out at the same time as a backup plan. no transmission through an app, no calculation through an app. it's basically like a google spreadsheet that's going to do the heavy lifting. >> i hope they have enough phone numbers to call. in iowa there's like 15 or 1,600 people calling the same phone number. it got clogged up very early and disastrously. >> this is another thing they've tried to get in front of. nevada democrats have hired a call center, professional call center, something like 200 operators standing by just to handle this task here. i don't mean this disparagingly but nevada democrats really threw money at this problem. they said what happened in iowa was a mess. how can we fix it? in many cases including with this call center, that meant going out and spending money on professionals that they feel confident can do the job right. >> well said, i'm glad you know all the answers.

thank you so much. let's go to joe biden's question there. joe biden is working for a strong showing in nevada. mike memoli is in cheyenne high school where the former vice president is expected to arrive any moment. is it too hard to say or too nasty to say that he needs to get a strong showing here today? >> reporter: no, chris, i think that's entirely fair, and because the vice president himself has set up the stakes just like that. remember on new hampshire primary night, he was not in new hampshire. he went down to south carolina to essentially throw cold water on both of those first two contests, iowa and new hampshire to say the democratic party's key constituency, latino voters and are african-american voters have not been heard from yet. here is the first test of special latino voters and next week in south carolina african-american voters. and listen, you know, the former vice president has been raising concerns as we've heard from garrett just now about the process itself. i caught up with the former vice president last night before his first final rally. let's take a listen to what he

said. >> well, look, you know, first of all, this caucus, we'll see how it turns out, you know, in terms of it's a very difficult thing to manage. i think the folks in nevada are working really hard to get it under control, but there's an awful lot of, you know, gaps that could occur, and it depends on how the the whole thing is run and when we get news of who's won and not won, i expect to do well heare. the response has been really very, very enthusiastic, but we'll see. >> reporter: so they felt good about biden's debate performance on wednesday night. either joe biden does well here in the top two perhaps and heads into south carolina with a little bit more momentum and an infusion of cash that he needs to get back on the air in super tuesday states, or it's yet another setback and he heads into south carolina that much more wounded. the firewall perhaps in doubt, and then we're looking at potentially an early exit.

chris, i just want to point out we are at a caucus site here. this is cheyenne high school. there are 14 different precincts that will go to the polls here. we have seen no indication just yet of any problems. there was a gentleman earlier who said he turned up at the wrong precinct site. that's probably par for the course across the state today. a busy turnout on top of what we saw in terms of the early turnout. at least in this case, some good signs for the nevada democratic party. >> one sign i always look for is t does the candidate stay in town to get the results. is the biden plan now for the candidate to stay in nevada today, in las vegas? >> reporter: that's the plan. i think at this point on the new hampshire primary day we had known that they were scrambling to change locations. all indications are he will be here tonight and speak and then head to south carolina. i'm just going to keep an eye out, chris, because as you said at the beginning biden is pulling up any second now. if i see him come out of the

corner of my eye, we'll try to grab him. he is going to be then in south carolina tomorrow. he has a full day of events scheduled, and he'll be in south carolina the entire week. what we've seen from some of the other kacandidates, it should b noted, bernie sanders, for instance in california yesterday, texas today, a lot of these candidates have been jumping ahead to those super tuesday states. the biden campaign, he was here every single day this week campaigning, and that's the indication of what they're planning to do for south carolina as well. >> mike, you hang in there. we'll be right back to you when the candidate shows up. let's bring in joy reid now. i'm watching biden here today. it seems to me we're all watching the message of barack obama back in '08 and the question is how well is he doing in the early running? well, the african-american vote stick with a person who's not going anywhere or wait and see if they are going somewhere. it seems to me he's got to get second here or powerful third place. >> he's got to get second here

and then he's got to perform in south carolina. it's a one, two, three punch for biden that i think is more important for him than any other candidate. he's got to do well here, at least second place, he's got to win south carolina. let's be honest this is not only the former vice president of the united states who should be able to out fund-raise anyone. this was brockarack obama's guy eight years, he has the loyalty of african-american voters. >> historically? >> it's just historically. i remember going out to south carolina and covering the bernie campaign and following them around. we're going in barber shops, everywhere you went young black people were like we love it. bernie, bernie, bernie. on primary day they didn't show up and vote. it was a very low turnout of young voters. the turnout is those church voters, those older voters,

those ladies with the church hats. that's who votes in south carolina. >> that's my parents, too. >> my mom too. >> they're the kind of people that always show up at the polls. >> dressed up. >> they get their taxes in. they show up for political, they're voting. they just know how to be disprind. >> a civic dig palestinisciplin. black women are the strongest voting base in the democratic party, but it's not all the way up and down the scale. it's black women over 30, really black women over 40, so for biden, if he can't win in a state that is dominated in terms of both six out of ten voters will be african-american in that democratic primary, and most of them will be over 30. so if he can't win there, it's hard to argue that there's any super tuesday state he could do well in. >> what do you think of biden's performance? >> you know, i think what happens with biden -- there's a question that i've asked a lot of people this. is this sort of an urgency election or is this an exhaustion election.

for a lot of time it's the exhaustion election. he's the candidate for that who's saying i just want to sleep at night. i want somebody safe that i know. i want back the obama years of hope and feeling confident and good about our country. that's who he is, but the problem that biden is having is that there's this whole giant generation of millennials and gen y that are change voters. he is holding on to half the party and generationally there's this other half that's urgent and wants tdramatic change. >> it's about even. unfortunately for joe biden, it used to be overwhelmingly that older vote. remember, numerically, millennials are as large a class of voters, of humans as boomers. they're getting to be equal in size and had number. that is the kind of voter that even though it may seem insane to their parents and grandparents. >> the music's different.

>> even the hip-hop is different. i'm generation x, and we invented hip-hop in our generation, and it's very different now. >> thank you so much. >> we continue to keep an eye as i said on joe biden's arrival in las vegas to the caucus site. as we continue our special coverage, we're just starting it now. it's going to be a big day today in nevada. that's how you say it, nevada, don't say nevoda, nevada at caucus day. ren ] give me your hand! i can save you... lots of money with liberty mutual! we customize your car insurance so you only pay for what you need! only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪

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we're awaiting two arrivals right now in las vegas at the caucus sites. former vice president joe biden, we've been waiting for him for a while. he's set to arrive at any moment, while pete buttigieg also is headed towards another site. we'll catch up to both of them when we get there. joining e nme now is former senior -- and elena schneider, national political reporter for "politico." i do know you. that's quite an honor. i'll start with you. let's talk about -- let's posit -- let's let the voters decide. let's assume they're going to do what they're going to do, bernie wins out here. i just heard some of the commentary. i think that's the way the wind's blowing. it seems to me this sounds like the old bill schneider on cnn.

let's look at second and third. it seems to me biden at the least needs to come in second out here or maybe third. i'm talking about contender for the nomination. i want to know who's going to win this nomination. it's probably bernie. it could be biden. it could be bloomberg. it could be elizabeth warren. i'm going to settle on that today. so who's going to do something today? bloomberg's not on the ballot. elizabeth or biden? who's got the most on this one today? >> i think right now biden has the most on this. he has really started to stick. obviously he says south carolina is his firewall. i think it really needs to go -- it needs to start here so that people in south carolina really feel like they're going to support -- i think that's going to be a tough -- >> does he need to come in second? >> i think that's the best case scenario. >> bernie sanders is in such a good position. we keep talking about who's going to come in second or third, the person who comes in second or third, that person

clearly needs to establish themselves as the alternative. >> it could be somebody almost as left as him. it doesn't necessarily have to be a moderate at this time. warren could be the alternative. >> i think biden needs to get second place here for sure. something else i'm looking at, chris, are these candidates, the second place contenders, are they going to clear 15%? these guys are all hovering around 15%. if they don't break 15% they're not going to get delegates. >> and that means bernie gets the delegates. >> wow, does that scare the moderates even more? >> it absolutely does. that's part of the reason there's so much stress about a contested convention. people are going to keep trying to collect these delegates. they're not coalescing as of yet. >> what happens if we have two-thirds of the democratic voters who are not happy with bernie and ber knewnie's the no. >> people are talking about what this is going to look at heading

into the convention. if bernie at 35% and the second place person is at 25%. it's a different thing versus if the second place person is down at 15 or 10%. there's a bigger chance the party will say bernie sanders is far ahead of the rest of the field. the reason -- >> you can do this. if it's 40%. >> i am not a super delegate. what gets the gimme in a golf game? five feet from the hole, two inches? what's the gimme? >> let's talk about this the morning after super tuesday because the question is are people going to drop out. >> well, no. let's go take a look right now at buttigieg. here he is coming in. and we got vaughn hillyard there to take it from there. go ahead, vaughn. >> reporter: what will nevada tell us about the rest of this race? >> it's a chance to bring our campaign to a broader electorate, a very diverse state and a place that looks to the future. >> what do you need to do here? chris, we'll let the mayor enter

this caucus site. >> there we are catching the guy. let me go back to this question of the front runners. i just had somebody on the phone, an expert from many campaigns past who says he still thinks amy's the best bet to beat trump. we're talking about who's the best bet to win the nomination. the question when i go to bed at night, 37%, is that enough? is that enough to say you won the nomination? gabe, back to you. that's a tough question. is it 45%? when do you say okay, he won? he says any amount that gets him ahead from anybody else. he was the only one on the stage this week that said if i'm ahead it's mine. that's his claim. >> which of course is a reversal from where he was in 2016, which has pointed out exhaustively. the reason i say we need to know who's going to be in this race at that point, the number two person has is very important hear. if he's only ahead by two or 300 delegates or whatever it is, it's a totally different

calculus, and i think if this works out in the next few months where it becomes very contentious and you have a lot of people splitting the vote and him rising above everyone else, there's a world in which people say he did it. >> he's a 37 and the other's at 23. does he get the nomination just because of that? >> i think harry reid on your show yesterday made it very clear. he was right that there could be a very plausible case for the moderates to coalesce around one candidate and take it to the convention. we've got to keep in mind, these guys have got get 15% and right now, california, for example, you've got bernie sanders and joe biden are the only two clearing 15%. if that is the case, that means that bernie sanders could come out of super tuesday with a disproportionate number of delegates. >> is there somebody not running that should be running? i get the feeling this race lacks somebody, and i don't know whether it's sherrod brown or who's not running that -- andrew cuomo. i don't know. >> i mean, you've got to remember these voters wanted less candidates running not more

candidates running, and these are the candidates -- >> i'm talking about contenders. i'm sorry, back to you. you know what i'm talking about? i mean, i know so many people that just don't have a candidate. >> look, i think that there is still a sense that people just feel confused, that they just want to get some answers out of who is best positioned. again, this question of electability is still driving at the heart of all of this of like who is actually going to be able to beat trump, and because there's just so many answers to that question, that's part of why there's this searching feeling of like, okay, who else might be out there? i don't think at this point we can expect these voters are going to search for another person coming out of left field. >> i'm wondering whether the democratic moderates want bernie sanders to be president. that's maybe not too exciting a question to raise. they don't like trump at all. do they want bernie sandersed to ta -- bernie sanders take over the democratic in perpetuity. maybe they'd rather wait four years and put in a democrat that they like. >> i mean, that's the big question, right?

and you know, the narrative that you're starting to see play out, chris, is that there are people that are concerned, strategists that are concerned that bernie sanders being at the top of the ticket will force us to lose the house. i don't necessarily think that's the case. >> how about the future? >> it's early, but that's why i think there is a potentially plausible argument to gabe's point depending on how many delegates the moderates can amass. if you've got four moderates that have amassed significantly more delegates than bernie sanders, you know, midway through this fight, then -- >> here's the question, if the four moderates, we call them all moderates because they're not bernie, we're talking about amy, buttigieg, biden, might be talking about bloomberg as well. if they can't agree now on which one of them's going to be the nominee, they're going to somehow agree at the convention? >> well, the big fear that everyone obviously has if we're really going to play this forward and look at multiple rounds of voting at the convention is that the party's going to be torn apart.

you tell me if the party's not going to be torn apart if bernie sanders doesn't end with the nomination. that's a recipe for electoral disaster. >> is that a lose lose? >> probably. that's one of the reasons no one is realistically thinking of the brokered convention as their best case scenario. we should be watching warren specifically now. if you look at the polls in most super tuesday states, she's right around that 15% threshold. if she tips over that number, it's a very different story than if she doesn't. >> is she the big question in terms of who's going to win the nomination? in other words is bernie so strong now -- and i think he is -- that there's really only room for one other contender, the alternative. is she the one who's more plausible than say mike bloomberg with all his tv advertising? >> it's a question of who can sustain a campaign and keep that organization running and have enough money to do it to provide them to be that alternative. obviously bloomberg has the edge in being able to do that. he doesn't have to go and ask for more money.

he can just keep dipping into his bank account. this is going to be an ongoing conversation. >> there's two kinds of voters. there's two i think, there's the ones that generally watch "dancing with the stars" and then the one that watches us. they're really interested in politics. the democratic party has both groups but it has dancing with the stars democrats who don't spend their time watching us, and they get to vote too, and their vote counts just as much. it seems like bloomberg's going for them. he's going for people that pay a little attention to politics. th they. >> super bowl ad, prime example. >> this last debate was the most watched debate in presidential primary history because regular people tuned into this thing. this was the debate this a got every other moderate candidate thinking maybe we're not going to get everyone to coalesce behind him after all this anyway. >> lacerated the guy, of course,

that was the most amazing takedown i've ever seen. >> i think chris christie and marco rubio might have something to say about that. >> mike bloomberg didn't start repeating himself half a dozen times like rubio did. he was like a broken doll. >> the question about regular voters who are not paying attention to this, this was the case that the joe biden campaign was making for months and months on why he would come out on top in iowa and new hampshire. obviously those people are not the hardcore democratic primary electorate. >> i think joe biden is arriving. mike memoli, take over. we lost mike, but we're watching the back of former vice president joe biden coming in.

there's mike, mike, take over. >> reporter: chris, you can see the former vice president -- sorry, we're dealing with a little bit of the usual chaos around a caucus. the former vice president is in this location. we are trying to grab him to come -- he said he'd come back over and talk with us in a minute. there are 14 caucuses occurring at this site. the former vice president is going to take some time mingling with the caucus goers here. here's here with congressman steven horse ford. it's unclear how much you can actually sway a caucus at this point. one of the interesting things i've heard from the biden campaign in terms of their concerns with how you merge these early votes with a record early vote turnout with the caucus turnout you see on the same day. some soft caucus is actually a psychological process, right? you know in iowa part of what people sometimes do is they arrive on a caucus site unclear,

unsure of where they're going to commit. they look at how big the respective corners are for the individual candidates and they might decide i wasn't sure, but i'm going to go to the buttigieg corner because it looks like it has the most people. the concern of the biden campaign at this point, what happens if, for instance, joe biden did very well in the early vote. he has a lot of number one preferences in terms of those who showed up early, but that cannibalized the same day turnout here as well. so you lose sort of the psychological advantage of maybe not having all of their supporters in their corner, but at least for now, the vice president's doing what his campaign says he does better than anybody else in politics right now, which is make those personal connections. he's been doing this all morning. we see him now at a caucus site, but he was also at some of the hotels earlier in the back of the house talking to those culinary union workers who may not have endorsed him on a whole but as biden said himself this week, in their heart they're with me. >> you know, mike, you know the guy better than most of us covering him.

it seems to me that biden represented a small state delaware all those years, smaller than the congressional district, and he was able to keep up his political standing, his shmoozing, saying hello to people on the street corner. he has not been able to transform that to the large platform of the debate stage. tell me how you see him dealing with you compared to how he does out there in front of 20 million people? >> reporter: it's so interesting, chris, in terms of what we see from the vice president on the campaign trail. i know there's been a lot of discussion about how he performs on the stump, you know, age as a factor. he's not quite, you know, in terms of his delivery of a speech what we may have seen ten years ago, but he spends just as much time at every event speaking from the podium, sometimes from a teleprofrpmptes he does mingling with voters one on one. he talks about that often.

he did it especially in new hampshire. one of the reasons why he thinks other states may be jealous of their early status but that new hampshire deserves to be first is because it's very much like delaware where he can campaign one on one. what we've seen of late is actually them shifting the strategy. he didn't have many public events this week. he did about one a day also including the cnn town hall in our debate, of course, but he did do exactly what you're seeing now in private, especially because with the culinary union in the back of the house, there are restrictions on what we can see. they think that this, especially in a caucus environment when the turnout is a little bit lower in the primary, he actually can make a difference here campaigning one on one. >> mike memoli, thank you so much. let's go to vaughn hillyard. >> bloomberg's performance in the debate. >> i think anybody with that much money is going to be

competitive. >> do you expect -- ahead. >> that's what we are going to see. >> is now or never for you and other campaigns? >> it's a critical few days. we're so proud of our organization. and on into south carolina and beyond. >> thank you. >> thank you very much. democratic congresswoman who's a biden supporter. okay, does he have to come in second? >> i think he's going to come in near the top, and we're confident. we've been all over this valley. he's shaking hands even today. had a good rally last night, be r ready to go to south carolina and super tuesday. >> how do the unions look in terms of biden versus bernie? >> right now ibw has endorsed, iron workers has endorsed. culinary has put out a strong statement against bernie and his medicare for all plan and

praised biden. i think he'll be strong. >> where'd you get that southern accent? >> i grew up in georgia but i've lived here 40 years. southern nevada. >> good for you. this is clark county, which is -- it's strange when you think of las vegas, but politically it's known as clark county, right? >> that's right. this is my district. you are in the heart of my district. it goes from the airport all the way downtown. this is the most diverse in the state. asian population, hispanic. >> when you walk down the strip here, and i haven't gambled, not this time, and i've never seen it like humanity. you sit at one of these outdoor restaurants, and it's diversity like you can't believe. it's like the u.n. and people come walking and walking. these are all tourists, though, right? >> well, they're tourists but also business travelers. you know, we have a really big convention business here as well as tourist. >> and a lot of kids.

>> a lot of people come for wedding parties. >> is the mob back? >> we don't see any signs of it. we've now got the hockey team, we're going to have the raiders, won't be long probably before we have basketball. >> really? so it's become a real big city. >> it is. culture. >> i'm always fascinated by how minorities move. they're trying to get opening jo jobs, this town seems to have a lot of those jobs. >> that's right, and you know, if you look at families that have been here for a while, used to be nobody lived here very long. but people who have worked back of the house with the culinary union now have children who go to unlv and work in the front of the house. >> that's american. >> that's right, it's great. >> it's amazing to watch this city and the weather here. we jouust got rain. i'm getting all the details here. i spent most of the week, and it's gorgeous weather out here. it's like spring skiing. >> it's like 70. >> it's like march or april skiing. it's perfect weather. >> and the sun's trying to come

out now. you can go a whole year without knowing if your windshield wipers work. >> you've said that before. let's talk turkey. you've got three or four candidates in contest to win. bernie's in the lead i guess in all the polling. you've got biden apparently going to still be front runner in south carolina next week. you've got bloomberg with his zillions of dollars. right down the street here there's gigantic billboards and he's got advertising on tv, billboards, social media, political outreach, mayor to mayor to mayor. he's got all that. who's still in the running for the nomination? >> i think a lot of people saw bloomberg for what he really was on that debate stage. to be found out and the more people look at his record -- >> what did you find out? >> i found out something about his record and an apology for stop and frisk is not enough, and he wasn't very good on the debate stage. of course everybody was going after him. but i don't think he's going to be the contender in the long run. >> biden still in it, certainly bernie sanders is in it, ahead

right now. how about elizabeth warren? she had a very strong performance. one could say extremely aggressive, but definitely on people's minds now. >> there was a lot of fighting in that debate but i thought what stood out was that joe biden looked like the adult on the stage. >> yeah. >> he had some good points he brought up about bernie's record on guns, on immigration. unfortunately they didn't spend more time on it. they went back to the same old question on health care, and we've kind of hashed is rehashed that a long time. >> that didn't help bernie out here. >> no, it didn't, culinary and ibw, a number of the unions have fought very good for good health care packages that they don't want to give up. >> have you been through these contract fights out here? >> i have. they're all up and down the strip in my district. often the unions will give up pay increases to get better benefits, and so they feel like that's been the case over a number of years, and why why would they want to give up those good health care benefits for a

medicare fits all? >> that's ma machiavelli taught us. he was brilliant, he was nasty but he was brilliant. he said never try to introduce something completely new because the people who have something want to hold on to it. >> it's always easier to change something a little bit than take something away. >> i want to thank you. you're a great host out here. congressman dina titus of nevada. this high stakes caucus out here, joining me at the big board with the latest entrance poll, that means people what they said on the way in to voting is great. kornacki, steve kornacki, thanks. >> we have some entrance poll numbers here. we can show you about what this electorate looks like. i want to tell you what you're looking at. what you're seeing right now are not folks on their way to participate in these caucuses today. these are folks who participated in early voting for these caucuses. the nevada democratic party said

75,000 people or so voted early. we expect that's probably going to be the majority of the electorate overall in these caucuses. an entrance poll of the early voters shows this in terms of the composition of the electorate. remember, we say after iowa, after new hampshire, nevada you start to get to states more diverse. in the entrance poll, the early voters, 66% white, 17% hispanic, 10% black. that is obviously more twediver than we saw in iowa and new hampshire. if you compare that to the 2016 nevada caucuses, this white number in 2016 was 59. so this is higher in the early vote than we saw last time. the hispanic number was 19%, and the number of african-americans, the percentage was 13. these are the 2016 numbers, so you're seeing in this early vote, at least, according to our entrance poll a more white el t electora electorate. there could be some big differences between folks who go early versus folks who show up on caucus day. one thing to look at is the composition of the electorate

going to change. one other area i can show you quickly here is the number of union households. so much talk about the culinary union, in our entrance poll, a quarter, 24% union households. last time around it was 28%. let's see if that goes higher when you get to those same day strip caucuses that the culinary union has targeted so intensely. >> so what do you think that these early returns, these entrance questions that went to the -- are they a different category of people? in other words, those who vote early, it would seem to me don't like going to caucuses. i don't want to stand somewhere for three hours. i want to go into the booth and vote. is that what separates the early voter from the caucus attendee today? >> this is what we're seeing is an experiment. this is a political science experiment because this is the first time that nevada has ever offered early voting for caucuses. we're kind of flying blind here when you talk about early voting on this scale for a caucus. and the difference between --

early voting and normal election, you'd mail in your ballot early or go and vote in the voting booth on election day. those are similar experiences. as you say, there's a big difference between filling out a preference card and leaving in five minutes. that's early voting for a caucus, and showing up and spending a few hours. we're going to find out. do they attract very different kinds of people. it's an experiment. >> yeah, i think so. i wonder when it's more white, if you will, if it's more older perhaps, people that are just more traditional. they don't want to, you know, show off their voting attitudes in front of strangers. i've always thought that was the difference between my parents who didn't even tell each other who they're voting for. i mean, it was very discreet in the old days, and now today people will wear posters on their faces to tell you where they're voting. steve kornacki, you're the best. thanks so much for the cultural understanding hear. it could happen any minute, they're going to start voting here.

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welcome back to our special coverage of the nevada caucus continues now. joining me right now is msnbc political analyst jonathan allen, sahil kapur and nevada attorney general aaron fort. how do you embrace the superficiality out there. a driver once said to me just embrace it. here we are on the las vegas strip, this beautiful setting here, incredible, spectacular buildings, everybody's sort of having a good time or losing money or whatever. in the midst of all that our democracy is flourishing out here. >> absolutely. >> explain how you put it all together. i just left a caucus site. a lot of enthusiasm i saw out there. my wife's a site lead. everybody's smiling, everybody's engaged. we enjoy our democracy as well as anybody else. >> sahil. >> i love it here. >> is that all you have to say?

you're on television brother. >> obviously the big headline out of today -- >> it's unions. the big thing out here is unions. unions are in your face. you go to a crap table, the union guy, the pit boss's union, you have a sandwich somewhere, the wait person is a union person. there are people, chamber maids, everybody's union out here. >> there's an excitement out here certainly, and this is the first state that represents kind of the demographic diversity of the party. about a fifth of the electorate in 2016 was latinos, about 13% are so was african-americans. this is the first real test of which of the democratic contenders -- >> and asian americans out hear. >> unlike iowa and new hampshire where those constituencies were much, much smaller. >> the republican and democratic party look alike in new hampshire. i think they look differently out here. >> well, i mean there's certainly a lot more diversity in the democratic party in nevada and across the country as a whole. what i think is amazing is the irony of the democrats looking like they're about to vote for

the democratic socialist candidate out here, talking about the importance of unions and the democratic caucus, and here we are on the strip, which is this massive set of monuments to capitalism. i mean, like, basic like pure perfect -- >> it's about money. >> capitalism, you know, and libertarian sort of capitalism, and all of this is sort of going on at once. i think one thing to pay attention to this week for the democrats is the president was in town here, and this was a very close state in the general election in 2016 and he's going to be fighting hard for nevada. the economy here has been good, and when you talk to a lot of the casino workers around here, folks who you would think might be voting democratic, there's a lot of them were trump supporters. >> i can imagine being a bernie supporter and saying look at this place, it's all built by people losing money out here. the people always lose, the corporations always win. look at the buildings they put up. >> i think what they're really saying out here is we have important issues that need to be addressed. that's why they've been here so

frequently over the last year, and that's why you have a nice robust discussion going on about who's going to be leading our party. >> people move here, right? they don't move away. >> sometimes they move like i did and come back. >> really? sahil, this is a part of the united states that's a mecca? >> right, well, it certainly is. to the previous point about unions, i want to note that the culinary union obviously a very influential force here, they don't support bernie sanders' signature initiative medicare for all, and yet they did not endorse an alternative. i think that speaks to the grass roots support bernie sanders has among those members of those unions. >> the democratic party, if you back bernie, you think you're going to have a tough time in november potentially. if you don't back him, then his people will go -- >> that's absolutely the conone drum. the democratic committee has tried to make sure they aren't alienated. >> that's why nobody wants to

really go afterbernie. >> it's not just that. so many other things he is with the unions. this is a very awkward place for a lot of these unions. here's a guy who's been fighting for increased minimum wages and the leadership of these unions has to worry that they are farther away from their membership than bernie sanders is when they get in a fight with him. >> we'll find out tonight when we look at the votes. did the members vote? will the rank and file vote with the leadership? thank you, john than as always, sahil kapur, and nevada attorney general, man on the moon. coming up, brian williams and nicolle wallace pick up our special coverage of the nevada caucus. they're starting rite nght now coming up next. 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. ♪ the better question would be where do i not listen to it. while i'm eating my breakfast... on the edges of cliffs... on a ski lift...

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leading our coverage from las vegas, brian williams, nicolle wallace in new york, steve kornacki at the big board, our political team across nevada, the road warriors tracking the candidates.

plus, chris matthews, jose diaz-balart, former senator claire mccaskill, john ralston of the nevada independent, former white house press secretary robert gibbs, and former obama campaign manager david plot. msnbc's special coverage starts now. greetings from las vegas, nevada, coming up on noon local time here when the doors will be ordered closed at the democratic caucus sites throughout the state. 252 of them, and the real business of these caucuses here will begin. we come to you live from the paris theater in the heart of the vegas strip where just three nights ago you may say history was made as the contenders for the democratic nomination debated before a packed and b

boisterous house and a record breaking television audience of nearly 20 million americans. we return to this site of what was easily the most bruising, most frank and most heated exchange of the entire campaign to take in the results of the candidates year-long effort as they seek the distinction of becoming the democratic party's 2020 presidential nominee. and along with it, the challenge of defeating the incumbent president. kand dau candidates are making their last minute appeals and appearances at caucus sites as they are allowed to do. we've seen biden. we've seen buttigieg. we've seen warren arrive and visit with supporters over the past few minutes. we have coverage from across the silver state along with the best reporters and analysis including our senior political anchor nicolle wallace, director in the bush 43 white house, which must seem like a long time ago. these days she is the host of deadline white house.

4:00 p.m. eastern time on this very network. nicole, it is striking to come here where the event was that you and i watched from the relative safety of new york, and we were struck by just how boisterous an evening it was. >> yeah, we've sat next to each other for many political events. i don't know that there were as many gasps as we all exchanged that night. here's the thing with the gasps, i don't know that any of them will play into whatever the results will be today. big headline, elizabeth warren ate mike bloomberg. mike bloomberg isn't on the ballot. he isn't a menu option for the caucus goers there. there's a lot of o'analysis, i guess an open question, we won't let pundits have today, today's a vote for the caucus goers. we'll see if elizabeth warren gets the kind of bump that senator klobuchar got with her standout performance before that debate. the other thing to keep an eye on today as we go through is what is the trump factor? trump is arguably enjoying some

of his highest approval ratings while he carries out conduct that has former military officials, former intel officials, former national security advisers really sounding the alarm. it's an extraordinary moment for the presidential contest and an extro extraordinary moment for the presidency. >> you have some of your favorite reporters and friends with you in new york, and i have you beat by one. john ralston is here with us at the paris theater. had the great distinction of coming to this city in 1984 while the earth was still cooling, to be a nighttime police reporter, and ended up to be the dean of nevada political reporting who moderates presidential debates in his spare time. happens to be the founder and editor of the nevada independent, which i can tell you for folks curious about the political process or anything in this state is a great source for it. thank you for being a part of our coverage. >> thanks for aging me with --

>> i'm right there with you. >> i appreciate it. >> i happen to know our math matches up. so tell us the peculiarities of this state politically, the kinds of things that we're going to be coming back to as the hours of coverage play out. what is the viewer's guide to the nevada democratic caucus. >> it's a great question. i think people don't know a lot about how nevada's actually three states, brian. we're sitting here in las vegas, clark county, which has most of the population. >> 70% of the population. >> and even more of the democratic voters. it's the most democratic county. they have a big lead here. then you have the reno area, reno sparks, wa show county, which is a swing county but they have a very active democratic base, so it will be interesting to see what the turnout is there. then you have rural nevada which generally democrats ignore because it's very deep red but they can't because of where the

delegates are. they've had the campaign in places nobody's ever heard of like elko in rural nevada. so it's three different states. but the biggest difference this year is that there were four days of early voting before the caucus. they've never had that before, and did that cannibalize the votes we're going to be looking at today, so there were 75,000 people who turned out, brian, 84,000 entirely in 2016. are we going to get way past that or just up to that today? >> and what a fascinating state this is. folks who haven't gone near an atlas for a while, may not realize northern border on oregon, the reno area is kind of -- as things grow, it's kind of eastern california, and yet clark county during the years you've lived here, it was on and off the fastest growing city in the united states. >> it's so different than when i first moved here. when i first moved here, i lived in what was known as the west part of las vegas. that's close to the middle now. that's how much it has grown,

and the state has changed a lot demographically, too. when i first started covering politics way back when as you helpfully told the viewers. no one talked about the hispanic vote. there was no such thing as the hispanic vote. there wasn't much of an hispanic population 35 years ago. now that is what nevada is known for, right? but we're more diverse than that. and las vegas, people talk about the strip where you and i are sitting, it's become a diverse metropolis, 10% asian vote. 10% black vote. it's a very diverse city. i think democrats think if you can do well here, that is more a reflection of the country than iowa and new hampshire. >> as we said, 252 caucus sites, more precincts than caucus sites, though. that's a con fauzifusing story,e have our reporters fanned out throughout las vegas, throughout the state. mike memoli was able to grab a

quick moment with joe biden as he arrived at a caucus within, if you were watching chris matthews, you were you're saw it within the last 30 minutes. let's listen in. >> show me being one that is most likely to be able to do the job and so look, we have to win. number two, we have to be able to keep a democrat in the house. we've got to pick up democratic senate. i think people are just now beginning to focus on that from north carolina and pennsylvania and arizona to wisconsin. anyway, thank you all. >> so those were live remarks, mike memoli is our representative of that scrum around joe biden right now. lets take in our first caucus site. it too is along the famous las vegas strip at the bellagio hotel.

i haven't seen you since our flight which was i guess yesterday. >> reporter: it's really fascinating what's happening here. take a look at the crowd. they didn't know how many people were going to be hear because this is not a precinct site. they call it a silo, nobody almost from my talking to them who is here lives in this precinct. it's because anybody who's working today within an hour of this caucus and who lives within two and a half miles of the bellagio can come here, and in fact, we saw a lot of people walk in here with their lunches. they are here basically taking a break from work so one of the folks i talked to, i said how many people are going to be here? she said i have no idea. they're just about to get started, but i want to introduce you to mirena she has been here since the '80s. why come out now? >> oh, because we need a big change in the country. we need, you know, the children

die on the border, separate from the family, the health care. we need this president going out. >> mirena thank you very much. >> you're welcome. >> clearly here best organized bernie sanders, but we'll see how this caucus goes, brian. >> chris jansing, and they were right, that was exactly at 3:00 p.m., we heard them bring the caucus to order over at the bellagio. many more to check in on as this process goes forward. we have some actual news for you. while chris was talking, we got the first characterization from our decision desk of this race, and it is this, and you'll forgive the rather obtuse wording. too early to call, but bernie sanders has a significant lead in the initial preference results based on early entrance

polls. such as it is, that is our early determination. too early to call, but bernie sanders we feel has taken a significant lead in early entrance polling. what does that mean in conversational english? is there anyone else we would want explaining what it means in conversational english? our chief political correspondent is steve kornacki. he is standing by at the big board in new york, steve. >> let's take a look here at what we're seeing in this entrance poll. i want to remind everybody there are two types of voting in these caucuses. there's the early vote that already happened a couple of days ago, 75,000 folks participated in that. we expect that will probably be the majority of all votes that are cast, and what we're going to show you here, what you're seeing hire right noere right n our entrance poll of those early voters. there are only a few same day voters in here. one thing we're going to watch

as these results start to come in is if there is a significant disparity between how folks voted early, and how they voted same day. with that being said, let me show you some of the splits we're seeing. take a look at the age divide. we talk about over 45 and under 45 being a significant separating line. this is over 45, according to our entrance poll this is about 60% of the nevada democratic electorate. what you see is a cluster. you've got sanders and biden tied, buttigieg, klobuchar, warren not that far behind. you've got five candidates there basically in double double-digits. that's about 60% of the electorate. about 40% of the electorate is 45 and under, and take a look at the world you see there. totally different, bernie sanders dominating here. 60% in our entrance poll among that group. only two others barely in double-digits, buttigieg 47 points behind sanders here.

warren nearly 50 points behind him. the former vice president, that is a device we've seen in polling. that's a divide we've seen in results from early states. this is again 60 for sanders would be better than he usually does with this group. like i said, brian, the key here is as we get more into this entrance poll from same day voters, are there significant changes here as we start to see same day results are there any surprises. when you're looking at sanders cleaning up this much among this giant chunk of electorate in nevada, a little bit under 40%, and being very competitive and tied for the lead. in fact, over 45. that's how you get the kind of characterization you just read to us there. >> all right, steve kornacki at the big board. we'll come back early and often. garrett haake is in clark county where we are, but he's over in east las vegas at a community center, which is a caucus site. hey, garrett.

>> reporter: good morning. this is going to be a long day here. they're nowhere close to starting. check out the check in table. a lot of folks trying to get through. this line behind me, these are folks who got into the caucus site before noon, before the cutoff. they get to stay in line until they get checked in. i want to take you inside. you were talking about the difference between precincts and caucus sites. this is a caucus site singular with ten different precincts all in here. as we get into the room, i can show you some of these prerecipien prerecipieprecincts are quite large. other these precincts, some farther away from this site, some smaller completely empty, nobody even showing up yet. some of that may have to do with the early vote john ralston was talking about, 77,000 early votes. nobody knows if that means we're going to blow the u doors off the turnout, or if it looks like 2016 where only about 80,000 people voted we could be almost done in terms of the numbers.

these sites getting set up. once they get started, i will be confined to a little bit of a pen. we're not able walk around and get quite as a direct of a look as we did in iowa. all of these volunteers, and they are all volunteers, the chairs for each of these precincts have been training all week long, getting ready for this moment. i think we can see here if we walk further, the tools of their trade here. you've got these ipads, this is not an app. if you call it an app, someone will tell you not to call it an app. it is a calculator tool to combine those early vote numbers with the results in the room here on caucus day. it doesn't transmit. it will be called in. there's paper folders, paper backups, and i think you saw the playing cards here. this is my favorite las vegas touch to the nevada caucus. in the event of a tie, a tie that goes to four decimal places on a question of delegates, high card wins, brian, aces are high.

>> absolutely, garrett. it is also my favorite aspect of this caucus. a quick transfer over to another caucus where mike memoli is standing by. as we mentioned, mike, you were able to get a microphone in on joe biden earlier? >> reporter: yeah, i know you were able to dip in a little on the conversation we were having with the former vice president. he spent about half an hour greeting the caucus goers here. there are 14 different caucus sites here. biden taking a lot of selfies, trying to sway some last minute caucus goers. he also spent a lot of time in the back of the house. the culinary union's so important. i asked the former vice president first of all about whether he thinks voters are going to be able to have confidence in this outcome. he said frankly we'll see. talked about whether or not there was concerns about

momentum, you mentioned our characterization for joe biden. all week his aides have been talking about maybe second place as something that would be helpful in giving him a little bit of momentum heading into south carolina. biden told me that he does feel like they've had momentum since that strong debate performance on wednesday night. he said they've raised about a million dollars online, which is significant for him. he's struggled to raise that kind of money online. and then i asked him, we've heard all campaign long about this campaign being a battle for the soul of the nation, but is this now a battle for the soul of the party. he enjoyed the question. he talked about the need for other candidates to be authentic. we've heard him blasting bernie sanders all week about whether he's been upfront with voters about the cost of medicare for all. he talked about the fact that he has been vetted, his entire record picked apart for the last nine months of his candidacy and only now are we seeing some of that attention being paid to other candidates. i scasked him about the strengt of that firewall.

he did talk about how south carolina continues to be a firewall, last night potentially a sign of how things are changing. he said i'm not calling this a firewall. you guys are calling it a firewall. no doubt about it, he needs to do very well here to shore him up heading into south carolina next week. >> okay, mike memoli, one of the caucus sites here. ste steve kornacki still standing by at the board. i understand we can enhance our knowledge a little bit as more data comes in from these entrance polls here? >> yeah, some very interesting numbers we can show you. again, we've talked about nevada as the first test of a diverse electorate. this is a state where you're going to have 20% of a spanish electorate, let me show you what our entrance polls are showing us. let's start with white voters: this is the largest single group here. bernie sanders is leading among white voters by double-digits here, 31%. you see pete buttigieg in second with 18%, and then you got warren, klobuchar, biden,

they're kind of bunched together. tom steyer is registering a little bit behind them. that's the largest single group in this electorate. again, this is the first state where you've got diversity. take a look at black voters. joe biden, remember, for months he has been saying black voters they are my firewall. this is the first state where you've got a significant black population. our entrance poll is showing the former vice president leading with black voters. his lead over sanders, it's just 11 points. the polling we've been seeing early in this race gave biden a much wider advantage with black voters. an 11 point advantage for him. sanders getting a quarter of the back vote. warren, steyer the only others in double-digits. pete buttigieg we've talked about his struggle with black voters. here's the first test, he's getting 2% with black voters in this entrance poll, and then hispanic voters probably about a fifth of this electorate. the sanders campaign said they

thought they had a big advantage with hispanic voters. check out what our entrance poll is showing us. showing us the sanders campaign might have been on to something, 51% in our entrance, an outright majority of hispanic voters in our entrance poll backing bernie sanders. only two other candidates barely registering in double-digits. biden, buttigieg, steyer at 9, warren at 7%. when i say the entrance poll, i stress this is the early vote. we think maybe 60% or, so we'll see if there are major changes to this on election day. our first test of a diverse electorate, that's what we're seeing in the entrance polling. nicole, sorry. >> thanks, steve. all right, we are here at the table with our friends joshua johnson also joins us, former host of npr's national talk show 1a. now lucky for us he's an msnbc anchor. let me start with you. bernie sanders dominance in this early vote, if it holds up, will

be the story of nevada. just to make sure that our coverage of these primaries isn't like etch a sketch, one of the enduring story lines is if biden is even going to be a contender in that bernie sanders alternative lane. he has to have a strong showing in nevada and south carolina. it seems based on what we've seen so far that that's still a possibility. >> it is possible. i was looking at the numbers with black voters saying they're very much in support of bernie sanders. about 10% of the electorate in nevada right now is african-american. nevada's population is 10% black. that seems to be kind of indexiinde indexing neatly. latino voters seem to be under represented. 17% of the electorate in nevada is latino, but nevada is 29% hispanic. so i'll be interested to see why some of those voters did or did not show up. with regards to joe biden versus bernie sanders, we've talked about how bernie sanders kind of has a lock with younger voters. latinos tend to be a younger

part of the population. there might be an intersection that's illustrativillustrative. i think joe biden has a genuinely diverse electorate. nothing against iowa and new hampshire, but they are very, very white states and so we kind of have two versions of the same data point. we're about to get a different one today that could give us layers of day ta on diverse voters, young voters, and all of those are going to give us lots of fodder to go into south carolina, which might be easier for joe biden because the electorate is more african-american. but here at least we have a black population in the electorate that matches nevada's population. >> and for joe biden, i mean, there's an echo to the old rudy giuliani primary strategy. i'm not winning on purpose. i'm going to win later. this isn't that. i mean, joe biden's appeal was always that he would do better among more diverse electorates. isn't that a good thing? >> it is and certainly it is as

you get closer to a general election. the challenge is if you don't make it to a general election as a result of the fact -- >> it's like a gauntlet. >> it's a great way to talk about it. the former vice president told donors a week ago that they'd finish second. >> here? >> yeah. and i think he probably has to finish second here. to really catapult into south carolina. you saw those numbers we were just talking about with black voters. if it's 10% of the population in nevada, in south carolina it'd be 60% of the electorate will be african-american. and so if those numbers hold up, they're certainly not the numbers that biden had a few months ago with african-american voters. and you see, you know, a big change in those numbers with bernie sanders. he got in south carolina and in the southern states and super tuesday in twi2016, he got crus by hillary clinton. he was getting 15, 16, 17% of the black vote. if he's already at 25 a field

that now has five or six more candidates, it means good things for him going forward. >> obviously bernie sanders dominance as it was the big story wednesday night in the debate, he e americamerged unsc. bernie sanders dominance in this field is the headline, but because all the heat and all the action wednesday night really amounted to a knife fight for that moderate lane or they probably don't like that label, especially since it now includes elizabeth warren, it has to be noted that biden seemed to really regain his footing this week, strong media interviews, some more swagger on the stump and just viewed to be revitalized a little bit by these states, these contests where he had a better chance of finishing at the top. >> well, elections are brutal. >> yes, they are. >> and we're going to have a bunch of them in the next two weeks, and you know, was it too little, too late? did joe biden refwan hgain his g

in time to translate into regaining some of his early polling dominance. bernie sanders is in a commanding position right now. >> correct. >> and i think the tory of today is not going to be bernie winning, he was so confident he was going to win he spent most of this caucus in super tuesday states. the question is who is four, five, and six and the pressure is going to be on them to say we're done, and that's really i think the story coming out of this caucus today is will there be people who will decide we're not going to run anymore because we are clearly not going to get into the circle of contenders. >> that's where i think the 2016 republican example hangs over this field where that field in large ways is to blame for leaving it in donald trump's hands to drop. i mean, that field fighting amongst christie and rubio and jeb, that field has as much to

do with his rise as anything. do you think they're aware of that? >> i think they are, and i think there was a lot of behind the scenes blowback in the fight between mayor pete and amy during the debate. a lot of questions being asked, really? i know they're in each other's way. there were a lot of people talking about it. is that really helping the counter argument to a sanders presidency within the democratic party? >> off of claire's point, the pressure that really comes at three, four, and five, and maybe even six in this race is the budgetary, the cash pressure that's going to be on these campaigns. i was struck yesterday reading "the wall street journal" at how few of these candidates are on tv in super tuesday states. the money doesn't get better if you finish fourth today. >> we are going to throw it back to our friend brian williams. brian, we miss you here at the table. >> i know, the next best thing to being there r. . before we head out north and west to reno to yet another caucus site, the news comes from

steve kornacki as we have another wave of information. i guess the pejorative is the purity argument they've been having in these debates but the way pollsters put it is ideol y ideology. >> this is interesting brian, i'm showing more entrance poll results. they are now starting to include same day responses. so this is no longer just the early vote, we are getting folks into these samples now who are there caucuses today. we have talked about that supposed moderate lane, right? this is the idea of can you unite the moderate lane to stop bernie sanders? he's a cautionary note on that. take a look among self-described moderate or conservative democrats. thatst a third of this electorate. sanders is leading. he's not doing as well here as he is with liberal and very liberal voters, but he does have a very slight plurality. 23 to 22 over biden, 14

klobuchar, 10 steyer. one of the key reasons is we showed that support from hispanic voters that this entrance poll says bernie sanders has. hispanic votes african-american voters, quite a few describe themselves as moderate and conservative. and sanders unlike these other moderate lane kacandidates is showing in nevada he has made inroads with black and hispanic voters in particular. when you look at that third of electorate that calls itself mod ra rats or conservative sanders getting more support in this entrance poll than any other candidate, brian. >> that's really fascinating numbers on a fascinating graphic. we're going to fit in a break. when we come back, john ralston is going to explain it all in nevadan political terms. we're also going to start going around the horn to the various caucuses where they are indeed right now underway. our coverage is just getting started of the 2020 democratic

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we are back from the las vegas strip for the 2020 democratic caucuses. let's go to our north and west to gadi schwartz who's standing by at a caucus location where the action's starting in reno. gadi. >> reporter: yeah, we just saw

the first alignment here. you've got the bernie folks that have lined up here. over there is buttigieg. here we have one person for yang and one person for warren, and right there over at the board, this is the calculation, i don't want to get too close and interrupt what's happening, but it seems like former vice president joe biden is not viable in this particular precinct, and she's reading off all the different early votes that have also come in, so andrew yang has obviously been nonviable here. it looks like for this precinct bernie sanders is going to carry the day. over here we've got the exact same thing. they just lined up, and we're going to go through. these are all the nametags, a little bit different. this is uncommitted. this is yang. this is warren. steyer, that's sanders, sanders appears to have the longest line right there. and then it's klobuchar, buttigieg, and biden. so by far sanders in both of

these precincts. now, this is where things get a little more complicated. they've got their ipad over there. they've got the early vote tabulatio tabulations, and a lot of people, at least here in reno have been whispering is this really a caucus or is this something else? because there are so many of those early votes that are coming in. you could have potentially somebody with no people in line, a candidate with no people in line and all of a sudden enough early votes to propel them forward into viability. so that's something we haven't seen yet, but again, the process is just beginning. biden carrying the day over here. biden having the longest line over here, and we'll go into the next round in the next probably 30, 40 minutes. brian, back to you. >> thank you. and i appreciate the golf course announcing tone when you have to because it's good to remember these are their events. we are guests in their house and it allows us and folks like you to show exactly what's going on. elsewhere on the strip, the

bellagio is a caucus site. chris jansing standing by there. >> reporter: 123 people, so you need 19 to be viable. they're doing a count right here. the largest group ryan just eyeballing it, bernie sanders. across the room joe biden, the only other group that looked like they had a number of people was elizabeth warren. it was only six. nowhere near viability. what they're doing now is they're sending one person from the bernie sanders group, one person from the joe biden group to talk to the warren folks to see if they can convince them to come over to their side. there are some signs over there in the crowd of spectators for tom steyer. he was actually physically here up until the doors closed. we didn't see anybody who was actually caucusing for him. it's important to note as we see this large group for bernie sanders and a pretty large group for joe biden that these, again, are people who work on the strip within two and a half miles of

the bellagio, largely people of color. of those, the majority are latino, and they are clearly, at least from eyeballing it, strongly in favor of bernie sanders with joe biden coming in second. >> keep an eye out and let us know if we need to come back to to you elicio menendez is also here in las vegas at rancho high school home of the rams where the democrats are caucusing in the gym. >> reporter: we are getting a slightly later start here today. they're still registering people. once they bring them in, these caucuses will be underway. we've talked a lot all day about this state. 30% of the population of this state is latino. in this community in north vegas about 40% of the population is latino. one of the most charming things at this particular site, there are 11 different precincts, four

in this room, is that so many of the volunteers are under the age of 18. they themselves cannot vote. they are very excited. they are here in their ties. they keep telling us this is democracy in action. i want you to take a look with me at some of these papers that are on the floor, joe biden, michael bennet, there are a few of the candidates who are no longer in this race who are still represented here. once the caucus gets started, people will start lining up behind their candidates, so we're just waiting for things to get underway. >> all right, great reporting by our -- of our correspondents and their camera crews. i want to bring our two experts in here, john ralston and chris matthews, who is outside on the strip as well. john, we've been watching with you what has come up in your mind while we're watching this coverage that should be spliend explained as woe e go along the

way. >> there's no better data guy than steve kornacki. every single metric you measure this by looks pretty good by bernie sanders. most of the other campaigns have privately conceded that bernie sanders is going to win nevada. that is to some extent playing an expectations game. the margin is going to be important, and the margin indicated by these entrance polls looks like it could be large. i don't think the turnout today is going to be so robust that it's going to change much of what happened with those 75,000 early voters, and there's a lot of implications if bernie sanders does end up winning by a two to one margin, which is not impossible. i don't want to do rank speculation here, brian, i'll save that for twitter. but the bottom line is that the entrance polls so far really, really do look strong for bernie sanders. and i think even though joe biden really wants to finish in second here, maybe needs to, if that margin is really large,on how he can make the argument he

has momentum. i think it's part of the reason he spent the last 24 to 48 hours casting doubt on the caucus process and on the results. >> let me ask you a meteorological question, i woke up to rain here today. it was range while i was coming here. is that going to forgive, dampen the turnout? >> i think it probably will as well. people naturally don't like the caucus process. most people don't. they'd rather do a secret ballot. if people hadn't caucused yet, and it's raining and they don't really like the process, i bet some don't come out. just to refresh people's memory. 84,000 people came out on caucus day in 2016. if you have 75,000 who have already voted, i think it's unlikely we're going to have a big turnout today. >> chris matthews, we're going to get used to certainly by the time we get to super tuesday, but it's a dynamic here the early vote. so much of the early vote was baked into the cake by the time of this debate, and i've heard it said that by super tuesday,

40, what, 50% or more of the vote could be in when we hold those primaries that day. >> reporter: certainly going on in california where the largest state and probably the most robust democratic state, that's been going on since iowa and caucus day they've been voting out there. i think this is going to be very frustrating for pundits, very frustrating for media consult t consultants and everyone who's trying to figure this out logically. bernie sanders is walking away with it. he's doing it now. he's probably going to win his third contest big time. there's questions about whether the other kacandidates will eve get on the scoreboard. what seems to be going on is bernie and buttigieg did well in the first two contests. they'll do well again today, but the voters are not playing the game any better than the candidates are. everybody knows the issue now is going to be bernie versus some alternative, not necessarily a moderate. it could be elizabeth warren, but there has to be some

alternative or we're not going to have a real contest here. bernie's going to walk away with it, the whole thing, all the way to milwaukee. how do you get an alternative? we watched the debate, they wanted to attack the guy threatening them. that was mike bloomberg. they did not attack bernie. they did not try to figure out who's going to be the best alternative. they didn't play the game. the voters out here, the caucus goers. they don't want to play the game of picking an alternative. it seems to me that's what's so frustrating. they're fight among themselves. buttigieg who may be down in the pack, fifth or sixth, he could well win second place out here today and confuse always pundits again. it could be bernie and buttigieg once again. this could well happen again, and we'll be going into the sunday newspapers and sunday shows tomorrow once again frustrated. we will not have an alternative and we'll have to wait until wednesday to see if mike bloomberg has his act together on the ndas or not, and he

probably won't. this is going to be a very frustrating fight. bernie is winning this thing. it looks like he could win it without real opposition all the way to milwaukee. that's the way it looks tonight here. in fact, it looks that way already here in the middle of the day. back to you, brian. >> chris matthews, thanks, we'll be coming back to you often. we are having results announced up in reno, gadi schwartz is there. gadi. >> yeah, some more peculiarities from this early voting versus the caucusing in person. so down there they're just tabulating this. over at the end of this section there's two people standing there for former president joe biden. however 16 people early voted for joe biden. so even though he doesn't have a significant line, he looks like is going to be viable in this precinct but again in person and with early votes, bernie sanders looks to be carrying this

precinct, this precinct over here is about to start in their second round of viability. so they will -- the people that were unviable will be marking down their second choice candidate. it's the talk of this whole area, this caucus site. earlier than this, a lot of people saying they wanted to early vote. they didn't necessarily want to express who they were voting for in front of their peers, but they couldn't make it out to early voting. you've seen those numbers, significant amounts of people turning out for those early votes. we're talking about 75,000 people early voting this year and only 86,000 people participating in the entire caucus the last time around in 2016. so we definitely are seeing some of those effects of the early voting but we're going to round two here in about 20 minutes. we'll keep you posted. >> gadi schwartz, in reno. thank you for that. another break for us, and when we come back, we go back to the

board. ste steve kornacki with another new round of numbers when we continue. in america we all count. no matter where we call home, how we worship, or who we love. and the 2020 census is how that great promise is kept. because this is the count that informs where hundreds of billions in funding will go each year for things like education, healthcare, and programs that touch us all.

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thank you all. >> as we've seen caucus goers never know if they're at the caucus that may be paid a visit by the candidate, but those folks clearly got to hear from elizabeth warren. we're looking at all our various caucuses across town. some of them are in the midst of it dividing into groups, checking for viability. we want to go on the west side of the city, summerland community here in west las vegas. leanne caldwell is at p alo vere high school. >> this caucus site is starting a little bit late. there's four different caucus sites auditorium, and right now what they're doing is they're just getting their introduction, reading the letters from the senators and the governors. what we saw because they started late, there's this uncommitted table right here, and at this table with a couple people who were sitting here, and they were descended upon by some biden

supporters who was trying to convince these uncommitted people to support joe biden, and then the amy klobuchar people came and hovered and injected themselves into the conversation. so these conversations were going on for about five or ten minutes. then they had to break up and go get this introduction and now what they're doing is they're just going through the process, and they're going to start the actual caucus process any moment, brian. >> lrleanne caldwell on the wes side of town. to the east side of town we go to garrett haake at a caucus at the community center. >> reporter: we're still waiting to get started here. this is one of the bigger sites around clark county. ten different precincts accounted for here. we've got some of these precincts which are quite large, several dozen people gathered from around their neighborhoods. some of the precincts are quite small. we showed you on our last visit some of these empty tables here, the front of the room. did some research, heard the nevada secretary of state. these two precincts have one

registered voter and three registered voters between them. not all precincts are created equal. here at the site, the start time will be created equal. there's one or two people still checking in at the table behind me before each of these precincts can get underway. one of the first things we'll see is that paper backup, the poster with all the math will go up on the wall. that's going to be really interesting to watch over the next couple of hours in all of these caucus sites. so much has been made of the not an app app, the ipad tool created to help do the math, but all of these sites will have the option to do this the old fashioned way. the requirement to do their math on these posters so that everyone here can see. when we do eventually get underway here in east las vegas. brad. >> and garrett, just one more question about something you ended your last report on that we should go back and people make sure we're not kidding about. in the event of a tie, if you've spent any time in las vegas at all, you've seen the fresh pack of cards open and they go in the

shoe at the gaming tables. in the event of a tie, they open a fresh pack of cards, and they settle it that way. >> that's right. this is not a drill. they need something to tie break. there is a lot of rounding in the actual allocation of delegates process here, but if they find that they cannot round or they cannot break a tie, down to four decimal places, it's a pack of card goes open, the two interested parties, the two campaigns who are tied have a representative draw and high card wins. it's as simple as that. >> garrett haake at the community center on the east side of town. we go back to midtown manhattan, steve kornacki at the big board with new numbers. >> i think this is interesting. we talked a minute ago about one of the surprise findings we're seeing in the entrance poll among moderates and conservatives. these numbers have changed slightly since we last showed them to you. sanders with a two-point advantage here. what's happening is we're getting a few more of these

interviews added into the sample. again, it's a surprise given how the campaign is typically covered. he is leading among moderates and conservatives, a key reason for this is if you look inside the group of voters here in nevada who are calling themselves moderates and conservatives, i can tell you 49% of black voters, basically half of black voters today in this entrance poll, i should say, in nevada nearly half of black voters are calling themselves moderate or c conservative. 42% of hispanic voters are calling themselves moderate or conservative and only 29% of white voters are calling themselves moderate or conservative. proportion is almost twice as high among black voters than it is among white voters. that is part of the story here. it's not just ideology, it's that sanders and his entrance poll is demonstrating an ability to make massive inroads with

hispanic voters and significant with black voters. a quarter of the vote with black voters, ask that's one of the things it translates into. strong support for sanders, surprisingly strong support when you look at this id logically. a two-point advantage for sanders in the moderate lain rig -- lane right now. >> i am able to watch the scene at the bellagio casino down the strip. we've been showing the action on the stage, and at that caucus, chris jansing, do they have hard results there that i'm looking at on a board? >> reporter: they're supposed to be putting them up right now. you can probably see them better than i can because all of the folks who were for bernie sanders are kind of gathered around between here and where i am. this is not like iowa where we were running around with free rein, but look, there's a couple of observations i think are critical. i mentioned it earlier, this is

a largely diverse group, largely latino. everyone here has to work on the strip. one of the more interesting things about looking at the bernie group, these are not young people. the other thing that's really interesting because i probably talked to a couple dozen of them as they were coming in, the bernie supporters and they told me almost to a person the most important thing was health care. you'll remember, brian that the culinary union did not endorse anybody, but they sent out these flyers that were implicitly a criticism of medicare for all suggesting it was going to take away the strong health care cull anywhere workers had. when i asked folks about this, what they told me is they had kids who they're worried whether they will get health care. it's important to note that of all the early primary and caucus states, the highest unemployment is here, and the highest number of uninsured is here. it's not surprising that a lot of these folks are worried for their kids and what kind of health care they will have. it looks like there's been a

split in the only six votes that were for elizabeth warren that could go in the realignment. that's the final number we're working on. just roughly it looks like 75 supporters at this point for bernie sanders, 45 for joe biden. nobody else with any delegates, nobody else made the cut. elizabeth warren only had six people, brian. >> interesting. so at this -- one of the caucus sites on the strip, four people who work on the strip, we have reason to believe it's heavily unionized work force. two candidates are viable, biden and sanders. from our headquarters here at the paris theater on the las vegas strip, we are joined by barack obama's 2008, campaign manager david plouffe whose new book "a citizen's guide to beating donald trump" comes out on of all days super tuesday.

as we've learned from our correspondents certain facts, certain observations, i've looked over at you, and i've seen a raised eyebrow. what has your interest from what was just reported in the last round? >> i think it shows bernie sanders showing real strength in the latino community, what's going to matter in states like texas where a lot of people are already voting that occurs on super tuesday and in the african-american community. so both in iowa and new hampshire, sanders won in the mid-20s. we'll see where things end up today, but if he's into the 30s, much less the mid-30s, i think he'll gain some delegate out of here and not an insignificant number. what does that mean for california and texas and north carolina and so he's showing strength here, and the difference between a front runner like bernie sanders, it's not 50, but mid-30s versus mid-20s could not be more important from a delegate standpoint. he's showing real strength. the other thing that's interesting from a general election standpoint, you see the

number of african-american and latinos as moderates or conservatives. if they can just get a point or two extra compared to '16, it could make the difference. so fascinating. >> how long ago did your ballot arrive at your home in california? >> about ten days. >> you, that's significant. >> yeah, over 1.3 million have been returned already. so that's the thing. sanders is doing well right now, and so as people in texas and florida and other states are voting, he's going to benefit from that scenario. so i think what has to happen in this race is somebody is going to have to emerge. i ideally before super tuesday who's the main contender to sanders and isn't just getting close, they're going to have to beat him by 20, 25 points in states like arizona, ohio, and florida to really get the delegates close enough. i think what this shows today, again, now this a caucus. it's not a primary, sanders strength with the african-american community, i

mean, he was in the single-digits, you know, two or three months ago in a lot of places. he's now climbed into the mid-20s here. there's polls in south carolina showing growing strength there. that is the big story out of here is bernie sanders is growing. now that sounds silly because he got over 40% last time. that was a 2% race. he's showing strength in parts of the democratic primary electorate. if you forecast what that means in super tuesday could not be more important. >> i can't let you off there. do you care to hazard a guess as to who that sanders' challenger may be who emerges as the sanders challenger? >> it looks like we may have a bunch of people bunched up. but who comes in second here, is someone like joe biden able to do well in south carolina, elizabeth warren is showing some resurgence. that's what's going to have to happen. if bernie sanders has grown into the 30s with a diverse electorate, you know, even if he doesn't grow anymore, if the rest of the field's getting 14, 15, 16, 17, he's just going to

keep adding to his delegate pile every week. i think some candidates are going to have a tough decision to make. if you don't have the ability to get many delegates on super tuesday much less after that, i think you have to take a hard look in the mirror about your ability to go but you have those -- i think something is not getting enough attention. we have bloomberg spending a lot of money. then you've got steyer in south carolina polling at least at 20. and i think a lot of that probably does come out of joe biden. i think the two billionaires in the race are definitely having an impact. i don't think they're likely to be the nominee. the other thing about this contested convention conversation. in my view, it's preposterous. if bernie sanders has 1400 delegates and somebody else has chose to 1400 then i think the convention could get interesting.

the pledged delegates to the other candidates aren't bound to whatever their candidate decides to do. he's dominating with the young vote. the notion we're going to say you got the most delegates, but the party leaders have decided the person who's got all that support from young voters, guess what, we're going to give it to somebody else based on electability. right now there's no evidence that would suggest that bernie sanders is no much less electable than the rest. if by july he's down 10 to trump and everybody would win, maybe a different question. my prediction is if there is a scenario that candidates are saying we're going to go to a contested convention, i bet trump's campaign lays off sanders until july. doesn't want to damage him. >> boy will this be interesting to watch. this is talk of realignment

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♪ this is the east las vegas community center. the serious business of the caucus has arrived. they are underway there in a town where numbers make it go, if you had 1250 as your number local time when the bellagio caucus would be done, posted, maybe you would have gotten a hearty handshake. >> reporter: i've covered a lot of caucuses over the years. this is the fastest one i've ever covered by far, less than an hour.

it really was finished except for what they're doing now which is figuring out the sell gadele. a lot of focuses caucusing for the first time. 62% of the total approximately went to bernie sanders with 76. 45 of the 123 caucus goers here went to joe biden for 36. in the end they almost split the focuses who were here for elizabeth warren. two of them remain uncommitted and really all that's left is to decide which of the folks here are going to end up being delegates. this was as smooth as could be right before it started tom perez was here, obviously the chairman of the dnc. we're asking him a lot of questions about could this be another iowa. he kind of smiled and chuckled and said we've got harry reid here, he wasn't too worried. i can't comment on all the other caucuses out there, but i can

tell you this one went very smoothly. i didn't see anybody waiting in line more than 5, 6, 7 minutes. everybody here is going to be back on their shift as most of these folks are in the middle of their workday, within maybe 5 or 10 minutes, brian. >> the culinary worker's union, the people who make this city go. fascinating results there at the bellagio. these are real numbers, real reporting coming in in realtime from the bellagio. what does that tell you? >> let's compare some numbers here. these are not ordinary precincts. in terms of the county delegates these are jumbo precincts. to win there is to really get a lot of these delegates. bernie sanders got 62% at the bellagio. these strip caucus locations in

2016, he got below -- back to you. >> we're going to go to gadi schwartz only because there's apparently been a tie in reno. what have you got. >> reporter: that tie is going on right now. the tie goes to the high card. they just decided that ace is low card. bern bernie's campaign pulled a 2 and buttigieg pull added a 3. it appears as though the tie goes to the high card and that is buttigieg. this is nevada caucusing live at work. we go up to the board. they're going to tabulate it here. this is the result. the tie-breaker goes in. 3-7, wow. result after a tie-breaker.

you just saw it right there. this is the second realignment over at the other precinct. klobuchar qualified. she got enough of the votes and then afterwards elizabeth warren did not. so there was a lot of negotiating going on over here trying to bring people in to support elizabeth warren. looks like they're tabulating that over there but they asked us not to cross this line. it's going to be a little bit difficult to get close enough to see exactly who's going to take it. but we got all of this settled in the matter of 30-40 minutes. we're expecting to see who is viable after the second round of realignment coming up. brian. >> if you could grab that 2 ycad

and 3 card they're very valuable in blackjack. i thought the state democratic rules were that aces had to be high but we are just talking about a deck of playing cards after all. >> reporter: they decided it here. the caucus decided on the spot that aces would be low. sounds like you've got quite a bit of experience with those cards. maybe after you're done, we'll see. you should split that money with us. >> just grab me that 2, that 3. i'll work them into the shoe. steve kornacki i don't know if you have a graphic set up for those caucuses decide ed by a 2 card and a 3 card drawing. >> no but i do have my own deck of cards here. we have a 10 here and an ace. the ace would have beat it in vegas and lost in reno.

just to underscore the significance, sanders by the numbers she gave us got 62% out of that bellagio precinct. these are jumbo precincts. we're talking about these precincts where these culinary union workers are. sanders to be getting 62%. the reason i think he lost statewide in 2016 was he got blown out in these strip caucuses back in 2016. 37%, 31%, 32%, 30%, 38%. he was getting blown out 2-1 by hillary clinton in one after another of these filled with union workers. this time around where chris jansing was this is the biggest single one of them.

totally opposite story. >> thank you steve kornacki. to nicole wallace and our friends there in new york it's all about odds. what are the odds we would go to gadi schwartz. >> we have no idea that what we'll take from the voters to cover. they may think it's exquisitely beautiful or they may think it's a goat rodeo. i don't know. i have no idea what voters think about anything anymore. >> let's talk a little bit about the jumbo precincts that steve was just talking about. i member back in 2012 obama got the culinary workers and lost

those prezencinctprecincts. >> why? >> if you look at the hispanic vote numbers and the early entrance numbers had it at 51% from bernie, those are the voters who have seen the sheets about medicare for all and decided to vote anyway for bernie sanders. what does that mean for his ability to organize hispanic votes. what will that mean for texas, for arizona, california, florida. >> what does it mean? >> i think what it means is you're seeing a campaign that in now a much more diverse territory has strength beyond just the vein of voters that we thought he had in iowa and new hampshire. if he's gaining with african-american voters, if he's leading with hispanic voters,

you're broadening that coalition in a way when you add the fer venn si of those young voters is going to be competitive. >> medicare for all is his brand, though. the democrats are still putting, to borrow another casino analogy, all their chips on someone whose stated health care policy is this pocketbook issue that people most likely vote on more than taxes, more than anything else. he has a position viewed as extreme by independents. >> they had really good health care with their union but they see what's going on. they're worried about their children. so i do think that the kids here, the young people are weighing even on the older generation as to what is the future of health care. that's bernie's point, is that

it is -- by the way, the entrance poll said that 62% of the people who voted in the entrance polls were for medicare for all. not the same as the polling we see nationally on medicare for all. >> whatever the coverage would be under medicare for all would necessarily be worse than what the culinary union negotiated. i'm pretty sure union leaders would be at the table demandi demanding -- the other thing that occurred to me is that nevada's caucus is kind of a hybrid because you have the in-person thing and the early voting thing. this is a case for some election reform advocates for something called ranked choice voting. you pick your first, second,

third choices and they can do this automatically. a number of cities in california, san francisco, oakland, berkeley have done that. governor gavin newsom vetoed a bill last year that would allow all of california to do ranked choice votinge ivoting. there's a voter advocacy group called fair vote which said yesterday that only about .02% of early voting ballots were thrown out because someone didn't make enough elections or forget to sign it. other than that nevada seems to understand how ranked choice works. >> they seem so like it, is that

what you're saying? >> the numbers kind of speak for themselves. >> is it a good thing for putting the most electable person on the ballot? >> i don't know. i know this is a weird thing to have early voting and then caucus. it seems to me this is now an after thought, the caucus thing. all the software is doing the calculations to figure out who's viable and who isn't. i think we need to go to a primary process. i'm on the fence about ranked voting. >> a lot of people are. >> one of the things the early voting does address is the undemocratic nature of a caucus. it can only happen in this case at noon at your caucus site. i think it's great they added

the early voting. >> brian, back to you. we hear you have news. >> we do only in that it's crunch time at a number of these caucuses. we're watching a caucus in henderson where on the risers inside a high school gym the horse trading is going on. we're watching this in east las vegas where garrett haake is where the ipad is out, they're doing the math and making announcements. >> reporter: there is a perfect example of the divide here. when they align to the in-person caucusing, the group that was available was bernie sanders. no other candidate here had more than two people who showed up in person. then they added the early vote and there were ten votes for joe biden in the early vote. there's only one person here representing joe biden on caucus day. but the addition of those ten people in the early vote made

joe biden viable in this precinct. there are a handful of votes for the other candidates. those folks now have to realign or decide if they want to say uncommitted or stay committed to a candidate who is not viable. bernie sanders has 13 people here all wearing buttons and pins and shirts. or they could go with joe biden where there's only one physical person here representing joe biden, a single voter who came out today but who is mathematically relevant here by nature of those ten early votes from this precinct that was cast. >> the two viable groups are going to give one minute each to speak on why they should switch sides or why they should switch to another vote.

>> some of those candidates may have seven or eight. they're not viable, right? but if all of these people who are unaligned got together in that group, is it possible to form a viable group? >> uncommitted. >> let me double check. >> reporter: realtime math here, brian. you heard the gentleman ask if all of them had banded together, could they form a viable group. i can't see the sheet in front of me on what the threshold number is to be a viable group but i do not think they would have enough. that would be supporters of tom steyer, amy klobuchar, pete buttigieg and one uncommitted person al decil decided they wa to go with one of those candidates, it probably would not be enough. >> as we watch this, let's bring

in david bluff. we'll remain in these pictures. david, how is this better than voting? >> my understanding if you're not viable, you're not viable. i think it makes for great television but in the social media era even's got a phone in their pocket now. this may be the last caucus. i think it's hard to believe that the next time we're doing this for real, it's not all primaries. i think we're going to have all primaries which are state run. there are some benefits to the organizing that goes on in the caucus. i agree with robert gibbs, the early voting is good but either do a primary or do a caucus. don't try and do a hybrid. i think we're going to see primaries in all states next

time we do this. >> we heard a hearty listen up but the caucus leader apparently has headed to the center of the ro room. in henderson it looks like they're arranged vertically by candidate and people are sitting in the bleachers in the area of the up pper left in henderson, nevada. they've been getting up and walking across to other areas deciding to stand for candidates other than they came there for. decided different tone, but this is the same thing. cal perry is our correspondent there. cal, what do you have?

>> reporter: as you sort of described, we're in the second realignment. there was two individuals supporting joe biden. what we saw were those speeches where people were pitching their candidates and trying to get folks to come over. they both went to the amy klobuchar campaign. keep in mind this state -- hang on. here we go. >> confirm our final alignment. the way this works is we now put in our early vote participants for a second alignment here. you'll see that we've posted them on the board. >> reporter: they are calculating the early voting results with the people who actually came here today. the state wanting to avoid a crush of people coming. here are the results. >> for pete buttigieg, there were 22. for amy klobuchar there were 37

in this realignment. if you haven't already collected the preference cards, we did that. please stay where you are. >> reporter: so they are emerging, those early voting numbers with people who came today to give their actual candidate preference cards which are right here. the state was trying to avoid a crush of people in these gyms. so what we're seeing here today are fair lly empty gyms. part of the reason as the guests were saying you've got soccer games, you've got kids stuff to do. this is taking two, three hours. i think nevada is learning its lesson that in the future this is probably something they'll want to avoid. >> thank you, cal perry. it is high time we went to steve kornacki at the board.

steve, speaking of math, do you have any new numbers? >> we do. by the way we've been showing you all these entrance poll numbers. i mentioned that it was all entrance poll numbers from folks who had early voted. now we're getting a much more significant number of same day participants. one thing we looked at is that question of sort of pragmatism versus ideology. the question was would you rather have that nominee who agrees with you on all of the major issues or somebody who can beat trump? two-thirds chose this one, beat trump. how did they vote? check this out. sanders is leading here with 23%, biden a couple points behind at 19, then buttigieg, klobuchar, warren. that's the two-thirds of caucus

participants who say just win, just beat donald trump. how about the one-third who say they want somebody who agrees with them on the major issues? that is the most important thing for them. night and day difference. one-third of voters of caucus participants said that nearly 60% of them said sanders was their choice, warren barely into double digits. buttigieg, biden, steyer. sanders running away with the folks here who say ideology is their major concern. with a much smaller lead among folks who say just beat trump. >> to our viewers, just a heads-up, we have reason to believe we're about to hear from bernie sanders because of the numbers they believe they with brag on and talk about at this hour. there's the event.

el paso, texas, so he would have moved onto el paso. sanders in addition to his remarks at this rally in texas will, we are guessing, address what look to be good numbers for him here. your impression? >> first of all, a really small place for bernie sanders to be not just texas, but el paso where the latino community in that part of the state south and west texas is going to be so important, so really smart. i think there's a conventional wisdom that people who want to beat trump, none of them are voting for sanders. we see in nevada he's winning that as well. when you win, you look like a winner. the only way i think other candidates are going to be able to make the case that bernie sanders is not electable is be more direct and tough about it and have more evidence that suggests they'd all beat trump and sanders won't. i think the real challenge with

sanders is i think he'll be competitive in some states but not in others. that's a number we're going to have to watch carefully in south carolina on super tuesday. if sanders continues to win, it would suggest that his mid 30s is not going to crumble. >> jose diaz ball lart is standing by here with us in las vegas. pick up on any of the threads you have heard us just touch on, especially communities within the democratic party, especially electability. >> reporter: great question. good afternoon. look, the fact that in this state 30% of the population is latino, senator sanders is now in el paso texas, a city that is overwhelmingly latino. we have to see how the latino

vote happens here today. we just got back from a caucus site. i met a woman who works in one of the hotels here. she was telling me this is the first time she actually participates in the electoral process. she's been here since 1985, came from el salvador, became a citizen in 1986. this is the first time she is participating because she thinks this is a time when the latino community has to have their voice heard. i think we'll be seeing today the results out of the caucuses here in this state. it could mean a shift as far as the posimportance of the latino vote here in nevada and other states going forward. >> response to jose? >> i think jose is exactly right. another point about el paso, the

most important decision a campaign makes is where their candidate spend time. it's interesting they're in texas today rather than california which suggests to me they feel good about where things are heading in california. if they can do in texas what the numbers suggest they might be able to do in california, the delegate ho delegate haul for sanders could be pretty astronomical. >> garrett haake is still in the east las vegas community center. we've had various round of caucusing and we have just been through the period where individuals, perhaps those uncommitted get lobbied by those who have joined a side. garrett, do we have a score card yet out of there? >> reporter: not yet. it was interesting we heard from a precinct captain from bernie sanders who gave a passionate speech about health care about why he supports bernie sanders. there was only one person

originally in this room who was a joeb biden supporter. this man was a firefighter. he came up and gave his speech. now there's still some discussion going on about some of the works who were commfolks with other candidates. if you're realigning in this room, you can see where other people are going. but the early voters, the folks who cast ballots earlier in this week are also realigned although they're not here to do it. they cast ballots with preferences, up to five candidates in order. let's say you voted for pete buttigieg who's not vinyl herab. your vote is going to keep going down that scale of your preferences until it lands on someone who's viable. it's an imperfect comparison

here. that is one of the flaws in this system. i will also add that our viewers today include representatives of these campaigns who are watching this process very closely and occasionally texting reporters to make sure that the math is being done correctly. there is a lot of interest in every single one of these competitive precincts like the one i'm covering now. >> let's listen in here for just a moment. this is down to the individual counting of heads now. to repeat the obvious, this differs from voting in so many ways, but standing up in support

of your candidate and especially in smaller communities all the societial pressure and judges that may bring for years thereafter. it's different from walking into a voting pooe ining booth. it's different from a secret ballot vote. gadi schwartz is in reno where i understand he has secured very valuable props from today's caucus action. >> reporter: look at what we've got here. there is the 2 and the 3 that decided that delegate tie-breaker. that was for delegates so bernie sanders carried the day there with seven delegates. but that last delegate, it came down to a statistical tie so they drew a 2 and a 3. here in the gym this is the last vote from the second realignment

from this particular precinct that's going on right now. the big surprise here is that steyer qualifies alongside bernie sanders who had the most votes as well as klobuchar. noticeably absent warren as well as former vice president joe biden and buttigieg also viable here. right now they are tallying up the different delegates to see where those delegates go. that's a lot of math. they're using that ipad over there and tabulating with a good old score sheet that everybody can see. they're trying to be as transparent as possible they say. that means a lot of people gathering around in realtime. we should have the results from those delegates pretty soon here.adi schwartz, nice going there. >> reporter: one more thing.

a quick update. i talked to the woman that drew the 3. it sounds like she had a very rough night at the casino last night at the blackjack tables, did not go well. so this was a very nice consolation price for them. >> at least once during your stay here in las vegas, it occurs to you how they keep all the lights on and the doors open and why everything looks so good. they have a lot of income along the strip. thank you. back to jose diaz balart, so much of this attention in the last few days and certainly coming out of las vegas is going to be focused on bernie sanders and as we were saying, all the subgroups by age, by which community you identify with in this country. as david the emergence of a

viable challenge to others. by super tuesday we're going to have some big numbers stacked up. >> absolutely. it seems like there is not a lot of time left even though the elections aren't until the 3rd of november. but it looks like there's little time left. yet we just kind of started this process. i just want to say something that there's so many people from around the world, latinos mostly that i found that are the ones that work here and contribute to this economy and this country and feel very much a part of this country and yet for a lot of them they haven't really participated in the electoral system.

this state has more mixed status families living here than any other place in the united states. mixed status means some are citizens of the united states and they live with someone who doesn't have documents or is a resident or doesn't have any document or just arrived with or without documents. a lot of the issues that people are worried about, they feel now for the first time that they need to vote, speak out and say we're here and what we care about needs to be heard. i think that the subdivision of our country sometimes i feel as though we live in different countries, latinos in one and non-latinos in the other. really it boils down to all of

us participating. >> right down from us here on the las vegas strip, jose diaz balart, thank you my friend. another break in our coverage. when we come back we will hear from james carville standing by to talk to us about the party caucusing here today in nevada. i am totally blind. and non-24 can throw my days and nights out of sync,

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vo:for president.ver that's mike bloomberg. a middle class kid who built a global company from scratch. mayor of new york, rebuilding the city after the 9-11 terrorist attack, creating 450,000 jobs. running for president - and on a roll. workable plans to deliver on better health care. affordable college. job creation. common sense plans to beat trump, fix the chaos in washington, and get things done. mike: i'm mike bloomberg and i approve this message.

we are back with live coverage of the nevada caucuses 2020. we're going to go to henderson, nevada, one of many places that bears the name of dell webb the prolific real estate developer around these parts. it's a school where cal perry has been watching this caucus. cal? >> reporter: so we're at precinct 1520 here in the area of henderson. here there's only ten people. early voting came and people voted and it went well. now it's not going so well. they're trying to calculate the votes. on the ten people in this

precinct came out to do the caucus today. there was some confusion about whether or not people needed to realign. add to that complication the misunderstanding of whether or not people needed to realign, some folks left. people here are upset about the way that it's gone. some people want to change their vote. this was some confusion earlier. this is part of the problem with the caucuses. ma'am, do you know what happened here? >> i think it's very confusing because they didn't know what to do on their second vote, on their second choice. it's confusing because for the people that voted early, they don't know what their second choice was. when two candidates weren't viable, the other people weren't able to understand if they could become viable because of the early voters. >> reporter: are people having to change their votes? are you recalculating? >> we're recalculating.

>> reporter: do you think we should still be doing this in 2020? >> no. it's an antiquated system. it's not fair and it needs to stop. >> let's go to alicia menendez also covering one of these caucuses. >> reporter: i have two different precincts wrapping up caucuses over my shoulder. this one over here, they've done their delegate math. bernie sanders was the only viable candidate after first alignment. there was some movement in the second alignment but he has now secured 20 delegates from this precinct. over here they've done their first alignment. in this precinct as well bernie sanders was the only candidate that was viable after the first

alignment. as each candidates' camp got to make their case, there was a bernie sanders supporter who spoke in spanish. then one of the young volunteers translated in english for him talking about the importance of health care, immigration and rights for all. the final thing we're seeing is these votes came from early votes. >> thank you. if there is a man of the hour at this hour, it's that man. here is bernie sanders in el paso. >> whoa, there are a lot of people here. and there are a lot of people outside who couldn't get inside. so thank you all very much for coming.

let me thank you for the music, let me thank you for the rema s remarks. let me thank jim hightower, a friend of 30 years. thank you for all that you do. when i look out at an audience like this and i see the diversity and the beauty in this audience let me tell you, you do look beautiful from here. when i look out at this audience, i have absolute confidence that we can create a government that is based on

compassion, it's based on love, it's based on truth, not what we have now of greed, corruption and lies. all of you know that we have a president today who is a pathological liar, who is running a corrupt administrat n administration, who is a racist, a sexist, a homophobe, a xenophobe and a religious bigot.

he thinks he is going to divide this country up based on the color of our skin or where we were born but we have news for trump. love and compassion and bringing people together is a lot more powerful than divisiveness. the message of our campaign, as i think all of you know, is us, not me. and that is about two very profound points. first of all, trump and his friends believe that the function of human life is to lie and cheat and step on people in order to make as much money as you possibly can. we have a different vision of what human life is about. we know that we are better and

stronger and more human when we reach out with compassion, when we understand that we are in this together, that every family in america has its problems and that we are strong when we stand together, when my family cares about your family, when your family cares about my family. that is the kind of america -- [ cheers and applause ] >> we're going to win this election because the american people understand that there is something profoundly wrong in the richest country in the history on the world when we have more income and wealth inequality today than at any time in the last 100 years. it is not acceptable to working people in this country that

three people own more wealth than the bottom half of american society. it is not acceptable that tens of millions of people are working two or three jobs just to take care of their families. it's not acceptable that half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. it is not acceptable that we are living in a society where so few have so much and so many have so little. today we got 500,000 people sleeping out on the streets of

america. today we have 18 million families paying 50% of their limited incomes for housing. today we have hundreds of thousands of bright young people who cannot afford to get a higher education. today we have 45 million people paying a student debt that many of them cannot afford to pay. so what our campaign is about and what our administration will be about is rethinking america, understanding that all of our people -- when i say all, i also mean the undocumented in this country. that all of our people are

entitled to basic human rights. that if you work 40 hours a week in america, you should not earn starvation wages. i have talked to too many people in texas and all over this country, yeah, they got a job, but they got a job that is paying them a wage which is unlivable. that is why we're going to raise the minimum wage in this country to at least $15 an hour. and that is why we believe that it is absurd that women in america make 80 cents on the dollar compared to men and minority latino,

african-american women make even less. that is why we are going to establish equal pay for equal work. that is why when millions of workers all across this country want to join a union, because they understand that when you're in a union, you can negotiate decent wages. we're going to make it easier for workers to get into unions, get decent wages and decent benefits. all of you know that our infrastructure, that is our roads, our bridges, our water systems, our waste water plants are crumb blinlecrumbling. you all know that we have a

major crisis in homelessness. we are going to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, build 10 million units of affordable, low income housing, put millions of workers to work in good paying union jobs. and we, when we look at this country, we understand that education is enormously important. and we understand that if this country is going to do well for all, we need to have the best public education system in the world and that means universal, high quality child care.

it means tripling funding for low income title i schools so that all of our kids regardless of the color of their skin or the language they speak, regardless of the zip code they live in, get the kind of education that they need. and we believe if we believe in education, which we do, it means we we believe in educators, teachers. i hope very much that many of the young people who are here will give consideration to becoming a teacher. we desperately need great teachers in america, we need

more latino teachers, more african-american teachers. we need more teachers. because we believe in the importance of the work that teachers are doing, we're going to fight to make sure that no teacher in america earns less than $60,000 a year. and because we believe in educational opportunity for all, we're going to make public colleges and universities and trade schools tuition free. >> bernie! bernie! bernie! bernie! bernie! >> 12 years ago some of you may remember that the united states congress against my vote voted to bail out the crooks on wall

street who nearly destroyed our country. two years ago, trump and his friends gave a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1% and large profitable corporations. well, i believe that if trump can give a trillion dollars in tax breaks to the 1% and large corporations, we can cancel all student debt in america. the united states of america, the wealthiest country in the history of the world is the only nation on earth that does not guarantee health care to all people. together we are going to end that embarrassment.

and i want you all to understand the media sometimes misses this, the idea of universal health care is not a radical idea. i live in burlington, vermont, come up and visit us some time, 50 miles away from where i live in canada everybody goes to any doctor they want, you don't have to take out your wallet or your credit card. if you get sick and end up in a hospital for a month, you come out of that hospital without owing one nickel. that's not just canada. it's the u.k., it's france, it's germany, it's sweden, it's denmark. it's countries all over the

world. they understand what you understand, what i understand. health care is a human right, not a privilege. and i want to thank the national united union. these are the nurses who are on the front line of health care. they're taking care of all of us every single day. they know how dysfunctional, how cruel the current system is. thank you, nurses for all you're doing. now you're going to see a lot of