into the field, spending all that money in super tuesday states and sort of the stronger michael bloomberg is in super tuesday the harder it is for certainly joe biden and the other moderate, you know, lane candidates in this race to survive and to have a chance to knock bernie sanders off. so, you know, in terms of whether this will knock off michael bloomberg, he's going to still be spending a lot of money. what was important for joe biden and his campaign was saying he had his strongest online fundraising performance last night. he needs -- he desperately needs that to be able to compete. no one else is on the air in super tuesday states, amy klobuchar just a little bit. so anybody who is able to get on the air now off of strong debate performance last night is helpful in countering michael bloomberg's advantage so far. >> thanks, mike. that does it for us on this wednesday morning. i'm yasmin vossoughian alongside ayman mohyeldin. "morning joe," everybody, starts right now. i'm hearing my name mentioned a little bit tonight. i wonder why.

>> mr. steyer -- >> i think we are talking about -- >> let's talk about it. >> first of all -- >> let me go -- >> tom, i think she was talking about my plan, not yours. >> i think we were talking about math and it doesn't take two hours to do math. >> let's talk about math. >> thank you, mayor buttigieg. vice president biden, please. >> i guess the only way to do this is jump in and speak twice as long as you should. bernie in fact hasn't passed much of anything. the fact is -- >> we are out of time. >> i'm not over time. he spoke over time and i'm going to talk. >> i am the author of the bill to close the boyfriend loophole that says the domestic an certificates can't go out and get an ak-47. >> i wrote that law. >> you didn't write that bill. >> i did write that bill. >> amy klobuchar, next question -- >> -- this whole campaign. >> -- if you could honor the rules of the debate. thank you. senator klobuchar, i'd like to change topics. >> well, that was your democratic presidential debate

in charleston, south carolina, last night. really messy. two hours, kind of a slugfest that spun wildly out of control and it was really hard to even hear anyone talking. good morning. >> that was a mess. >> i mean, we talk over each other here so we know a little thing or two about it, but that was a wreck. good morning and welcome to "morning joe," it is wednesday, february 26th. along with joe, willie and me we have msnbc contributor mike barnicle, the host of msnbc's "politics nation" and president of the national action network reverend al sharpton and msnbc national affairs analyst co-host of show time's the circus and editor in chief of the recount john heilemann. they are both in charleston, south carolina. what did you think? any winners? >> yeah, i think so. our political editor who, of course, lives with the dalai lama in an adjacent hut wrote up

a list of winners and losers last night. >> perfect. >> do we have it? ? >> let's see. winners and losers. >> joe biden arrows up, turned in his best performance even if his gun homicide number was off by 150 million or so. mayor pete the cal ripken of debates always shows up, usually good and one of the only candidates on stage not engaged in a wrestling match with the english language. >> you are right. he is always good, his answers are always on point. he never seems unhinged or thrown off ever. >> bernie sanders sure he screams and, yes, he was shaky last night but bernie's still got the best shot of winning his party's nomination and inviting lee green wood to sing the nicaraguan national anthem to kick things off in milwaukee. amy, the senator was solid and steady even if moderators for goat she was on stage for most

of the night. >> yeah. >> they did forget she was up there. elizabeth warren after a solid start she repeated the same attacks against a guy with zero delegates. warren's strategy remains a riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside a short man's joke. >> i think she went too far last night. >> mayor bloomberg the successful three term new york mayor looked as confused at times as brick tanland in anchor man and that was before senator warren unsheathed her rhetorical ax and went to work. tom steyer the billionaire may end up funding campaigns but not his own. the businessman didn't belong on the big stage. >> you haven't met him. >> he is very good. >> with hangs with -- >> reclusive. >> he is a recluse, he hangs with the dalai lama for the most part. >> we should pay him. >> he does this for -- >> he doesn't seek monetary

reward. >> no. >> kind of sums it up. >> that sums it up. what do you think, winners/losers, what do you think? >> there was no question who the front runner is, it was bernie sanders obviously and most of the fire was directed at him. i thought joe biden did have a good night. >> he really did. >> as our reclusive analyst said because obviously this is make or break for him. he has put all his chips in south carolina. he said you have to wait for me in south carolina. a lot of people said it was the most important night of his political career last night and he delivered. he held up. he was much better last night than he has been in the past. another headline is elizabeth warren briefly at the beginning of the debate turning and going to bernie sanders and drawing some contrast with how she's going to pay for her medicare for all plan, for example, but then for the rest of the debate going at michael bloomberg. so it's curious to see what her strategy is exactly when bernie sanders is the front runner but most of her attention is on mayor bloomberg. >> with the same attacks that she used last week.

mike? >> well, i almost clicked over to a cactus league baseball game given the chaos at the beginning of that debate when, to mika's point, i couldn't understand who was saying what, they were yelling at one another. i had trouble figuring out what tom steyer was doing on that stage with those people. i thought joe biden had a really good night, his best night of all in the debates. i, too, wondered why other than ideological sympathy why elizabeth warren didn't go after bernie sanders instead she chose again to go after mike bloomberg. i thought mike bloomberg had one highlight of the evening in bringing up the coronavirus and what he did in new york city. >> he always has -- >> thank god someone did. >> he always has one. it's always 70 minutes in, but, man, he looked shaky last night. at the beginning he looked nervous. >> i thought bernie was rattled for the first time in any of these debates. >> what's that? >> bernie was rattled for the

first time in any of these debates. >> bernie was rattled for the first time. john heilemann, what's your take of the night's events? >> i'm kind of where the rest of you guys. i think it's right. i think the last thing mike said is ultimately the most important thing is, you know, what happened last night to potentially slow the momentum of bernie sanders. that was the central question of the debate. we saw people -- it was a messy sloppy raggedy debate, the first segment before the break was sometimes more chaotic and pandaemonium laced than anything we have seen in the entire cycle so far. there was a period of time when they were literally screaming at each other cross-shouting for a solid 45 seconds and each one of them was flailing their arms and legs and i couldn't tell what was going on. the reality is that sanders did seem rattled. it was the first time when there were not as many clean hits against sanders as there were against bloomberg last week but a lot of what we've been hearing over the past couple days was

deposited on the stage and to see the whole stage turn against sanders, it may have arrested what had seemed to be an unbreakable momentum on sanders' part. we will see what these -- again, to think about bloomberg last week it was like a clean kill, they took him out in some respects and by the end of the debate it was clear that bloomberg had been knocked down, it was a full knockout. that didn't happen to sanders last night but i do think that now we have three days before the vote on saturday and there's a lot of stuff that came up in this debate that all of sanders' rivals now have some work to do but it's been laid out there in front of the large audience and i think you're going to see a lot of people trying to build on this debate. you saw, for instance, joe biden last night go after sanders on the question of whether he was for primarying barack obama in 2012. a question that potential has real political consequences for sanders given how popular barack obama is here, bernie sanders is

on tape calling for a primary and, yeah, he continues to deny it publicly that he ever did it even though we have the audiotape. i think joe biden and the orts will make something of that over the next three days. i think that's the big question. what now happens, but i do think sanders took it -- got kind of clipped last night and it's the first time we have seen it and i do think joe biden had a good night. >> i agree. i think biden had a good night politically and reverend al, i think pretty remarkably it's the first time anybody has stood in front of bernie sanders to slow down his momentum in any of these debates. he always gets to say what he wants to say, he gets to shout where he wants to shout, he gets to point his fingers wherever he wants to point his fingers and nobody stops him and last night was the exception to that rule. what impact do you think it will have? >> i think it will have some impact. the question is how much.

what was very effective by joe biden, and i agree with others that have stated here that joe biden had his best debate and i have been to all but one of the debates, but i think when he connected the fact that bernie sanders had voted five times, and he emphasized it, against the brady bill and connected that to the white supremacist killing here in charleston at mother a.m.e. and saying i'm not saying he's responsible for the killing but that the killer couldn't have gotten the guns had the brady bill passed, that is going to have an impact here. it also has an impact on the fact that part of what bernie sanders' brand has been is his authenticity and his consistency and for the first time we heard bernie having to say he had to change on guns, which is not his brand. so i thought that biden had a very good night. i thought sanders was not knocked down, but he certainly

was shaken. i think bloomberg did better, but when you are starting below zero that's not difficult, all you have to do is still be on the feet at the end of the debate. clearly i think joe biden was the one who had the most to lose in the debate and in south carolina and to hit the gun and connect it to the killer at mother a.m.e. was a big winner and to hit the fact that we are looking at a man that wanted to primary barack obama i think is effective in south carolina. as one that has been on that presidential stage debate, i know when someone feels certain ways and i was a little surprised sanders was not more prepared to answer these things because he should have known they were coming because they were telegraphed all week. >> absolutely. >> all of them are at the minister's breakfast at national action network this morning, i hope he comes with an answer but

a lot of people that was talk afterward on i didn't know that about sanders how does he respond to this stuff. he didn't last night. >> let us know. >> as john heilemann said, it's on tape. he thinks somebody should primary barack obama. he was thinking about primarying barack obama. he's just not telling the truth. so he is going to have to come up with an answer for that that actually lines up with what's on tape or it's going to cause him problems in south carolina. >> "hardball's" chris matthews left us his analysis after the debate from the spin room last night in charleston. >> hi, joe and motor vehicle karks i'm here in the spin room about an hour after last night's debate. i have to tell you it was biden's big night. i started saying that, everybody else seemed to agree with me. he was very much in it, he was being funny, he used his time properly, asked for more time, first time ever he insisted on more time, ignored the moderator and at one point he said i'm a

catholic school kid and i obey the teacher. i think he had the best night clearly. i thought that elizabeth warren was very tough on mike bloomberg. very tough. going after him on the nda issue, said he told a woman who was pregnant to kill it. she repeated that. she did it again here afterwards in the spin room. very strong stuff. went after him on red lining, et cetera. she decided to go in that direction. she took other shots at bernie, but also mainly there. i thought buttigieg was very good. what i really thought was something different. for the first time i guess because he is the front runner we all know that they're going after bernie sanders. the audience went after him. there was some booing. i think some of it was around castro and his -- the words he said positively about the castro administrati administration, about education, for example. there was a lot of anger in the audience about booing, i thought. so it's almost like the debate has begun really in the comprehensive way it should have about ideology, philosophy, history, what you stood for.

it got very serious tonight. i thought it wasn't a great night for bernie sanders, it was a great night, i think, or a very good night for joe biden. i think it was a good night for buttigieg. i think he was very tough, tough on sanders of course, that's part of what's going on right now. it may be a turn in the road, we'll see. if biden wins this saturday maybe there is a fight here we're going to see in the weeks ahead especially on super tuesday. biden could pick up three or four other states if he wins here with the large black populations in the deep south. it's all possible but i still think personality has it in california. this is a race in which bernie is the leader. >> i think everybody agrees bernie is leading, but that momentum slowed down last night and joe biden -- >> he was right there. >> -- was there when he needed to be. >> yes, he was. he came to play. >> he is down to his last card or two and so, yeah, he has to have a big win in south carolina and has to propel him forward if he has any chance to challenge

sand sneers before she fell back into focusing solely on mike bloomberg elizabeth warren began her night with a direct challenge to bernie sanders over who is best to carry the progressive mantel into the white house. from there other candidates jumped in to take on sanders on russia, electability and guns. >> bernie and i agree on a lot of things, but i think i would make a better president than bernie and the reason for that is that getting a progressive agenda enacted is going to be really hard and it's going to take someone who digs into the details to make it happen. bernie and i both wanted to help rein in wall street. in 2008 we both got our chance, but i dug in, i fought the big banks, i built the coalitions and i won. bernie and i both want to see universal health care, but bernie's plan doesn't explain how to get there, doesn't show how we're going to get enough

allies into it and doesn't show enough about how we're going to pay for it. i dug in, i did the work and then bernie's team trashed me for it. progressives have got one shot and we need to spend it with a leader who will get something done. >> vladimir putin thinks that donald trump should be president of the united states and that's why russia is helping you get elected so you will lose to had i'm. >> let me tell mr. putin who interfered in the 2016 election, try to bring americans against americans, hey, mr. putin, if i'm president of the united states trust me you are not going to interfere in any more american electiones. >> tell you what the russians want, they don't have a political party, they want chaos and chaos is what is coming our way. i mean, look, if you think the last four years has been chaotic, divisive, toxic, exhausting, imagine spending the better part of 2020 with bernie

sanders versus donald trump. >> you know, we talk about progressive. let's talk about being progressive. walking distance here mother emanuel church, nine people shot dead by a white supremacist. bernie voted five times against the brady bill and wanted a waiting period -- no, let me finish -- and waited -- and waited -- a waiting period of 12 hours. i'm not saying he's responsible for the nine deaths but that man would not have been able to get that weapon with the waiting period had been what i suggest until you are cleared. >> all right. that was tough stuff. john heilemann, it's interesting, elizabeth warren started with her first approach, measured, actually went after the guy who has the best shot of winning this inning and then turned to bloomberg, a guy who i think was hurting himself without anybody else's help and kept this focus in a really

extreme focus. >> it was uncomfortable. >> on mike bloomberg, in a way, again, i want to bring this up, that nobody that i've talked to, nobody on twitter could figure out. it makes no sense to keep attacking the guy with zero delegates who is performing so poorly in the debate. do you have any insights that we don't? >> well, i think if you watched it, joe, she said in the middle of one of her attacks when she went in on the thing that i think made people the most uncomfortable when she raised this allegation that bloomberg told a female employee in the past that she should have a pregnancy terminated when he supposedly used the words kill it which he denies. when she told that story she said -- she prefaced it by saying this is personal to me. if you look at the tape, watch it again, you can see her -- her ee moment nlism rise when she says t she says this is personal to me and she tells a story about herself and raises that

allegation. i thought it was plain what was going on which was to a large extent elizabeth warren is an incredibly composed debater and she rarely seems to let her emotions get the better of her on the debate stage n that moment it did seem like she was telling us the truth which is she feels a personal animus towards plume berg on this front. she also mentioned not just that personal story about her life in relation to this abortion question, she also told -- mentioned that plume berg at some point had backed scott brown in the race in her senate race and she mentioned it in passing that bloomberg -- as she was going through various republicans who plume berg had backed, those are politically damaging critiques or allegation -- not allegations, charges against bloomberg, facts, but both those two things felt to me like they were a key to understanding what's going on with elizabeth warren and mike bloomberg. she does really see -- you have a personal thing here. >> we all -- >> do i think it's strategic, i

don't. >> we all have people who have tried to kill us politically. if you ever get into politics. >> i know. >> the people who tried to kill me politically and were the nastiest to me during campaigns, they are the first people i called up after the campaigns were over. like you see it time and again where people are trying to beat other people in this race or that race. i just don't -- again, this is -- mike, this is the second week in a row she has gone after a guy who is going nowhere and if it's personal with her, god bless her, but if you want to win you don't go after the guy that's going to have zero delegates, you go after the guy who seems to be the unstoppable freight train. if it's just personal, go at it, but she's wasting a lot of time and wasting a lot of effort if she wants to be the next president of the united states. >> well, she does want to be the

next president of the united states. >> does she want to make a point or does she want to win? >> that's an interesting question. i've watched her for several years now since prior to becoming the candidate for the united states senate against scott brown. she is a skillful, highly disciplined debater. maybe the best debater certainly on that stage. pete buttigieg is very good, but elizabeth is highly disciplined, yet in this case now twice with mike bloomberg to her right both times her discipline disappears. it leaves her. and i think it's her utter contempt for mike bloomberg that causes her -- >> i disagree with you and john. i don't think at this stage for a woman who has run a disciplined campaign as she has run, i don't think that she just can't control herself. i think she knows exactly what she's doing. she has a strategy. she has a reason she's doing this. i just can't figure it out. >> it's not a lack of

discipline. >> no. >> it's a strategy. you don't stumble into those exchanges. she comes loaded for bear in these debates and it's all toward mike bloomberg. >> this is elizabeth warren really going after mike bloomberg in a truly personal way. she's taking information that is part of a lawsuit that he disputes and she's taking what's in that lawsuit as absolute truth, which it might be, and it's awkward. i can't tell if the audience is with her. we're going to show it and then we can comment. here it is. >> he called me out by name and referred to what i talk about as a sideshow. you know, this is personal for me. when i was 21 years old i got my first job as a special education teacher. i loved that job and by the end of the first year i was visibly pregnant. the principal wished me luck and gave my job to someone else. pregnancy discrimination, you

bet, but i was 21 years old, i didn't have a union to protect me and i didn't have any federal law on my side. so i packed up my stuff and i went home. at least i didn't have a boss who said to me, kill it, the way that mayor bloomberg -- >> i never said that. >> -- alleged to have said to one of his pregnant employees. people want a chance to hear -- people want a chance to hear from the women -- >> i never said that. and for the record if she was a teacher in new york city she would never have had that problem. >> senator warren, that is a very serious charge that you leveled at the mayor. >> yes. >> he told a woman to get an abortion. what evidence do you have of that? >> her own words. >> and, mayor bloomberg, could you respond to this? >> i never said it, period, end of story. categorically never said it when it was accused -- when i was accused of doing t we couldn't figure out what she was talking about, but right now i'm sorry

if she heard what she thought she heard or whatever happened, i didn't take any pleasure in that and -- but i never said t come on. >> this allegation was made by an employee of bloomberg llp in a lawsuit 23 years ago that was eventually settled with no admission of guilt. bloomberg has denied making the remark over the years and according to the "new york times" his aides even have said that in 2001 he passed a lie detector test but the results were not released. last week the "washington post" quoted a former bloomberg employee who said that he witnessed the conversation and that it was outrageous. just should it have been on the debate stage? i don't know. it felt -- >> they are talking about workforce discrimination, she veers over into that and the thing is, again, bloomberg could have very easily just tornado to her and said has somebody ever lied about you, elizabeth?

i a lot of people say that pregnancy story you're telling you keep changing the facts of the story. a lot of people are saying that's not true the way that you're presenting it. bloomberg should have said that. he didn't say that. i'm just saying for her to go there, i mean, she -- >> precarious time with me too. >> she can do whatever she wants. i'm talking about what's best for her campaign. >> right. >> you heard the boos. i don't think that was a good move for her campaign. >> i want to get rev in the conversation. beyond the strategy i couldn't help but wonder as i watched that exchange are voters in south carolina, are voters in the country, interested in that issue? is anyone voting on that issue or are they more interested perhaps in coronavirus or climate change or health care or guns or some of the other topics they got to? is that a winning issue to go into a 23-year-old lawsuit with the former mayor of new york

city? >> certainly is not a winning issue with the concerns of people around the country or the people in south carolina. let's not forget michael bloomberg is not on the ballot here saturday. >> right. >> so what i feel that we were seeing with elizabeth warren is two things, and i don't doubt it was not personal, but i think her political strategy was one she wanted to become, again, at least perceived to be the candidate for women because she raised this issue that would make her not amy the one that is carrying the banner of how women are treated or mistreated at the workplace and that she would stand up for them. and, two, she wanted to separate herself from bernie by saying i would make a better president and bernie's figures don't count up, but at the same time she wanted to feed red meat to the progressives by saying but i will beat up on the big billionaire on stage even though he's really irrelevant to saturday's election.

don't get too angry at me because i'm going to fight him more than i'm going to fight bernie. i think that her strategy was to try to have the thread that needle of trying to sever herself from bernie without looking antagonistic to a lot of the progressives that are like both of them and i think bloomberg became the punching bag for her to be able to do that. >> you know, john heilemann, she did this in nevada and got a lot of praise and made some money, got a good fundraising raise, got a good poll, national poll and then scored in the single digits. strategy didn't work for her there. she repeated that strategy. i thought she was going to follow through with what she did with the first answer which i thought tonely was absolutely perfect and i thought she hit the mark, but, again, went back through her strategy from last week, again, attacking a guy who is not even going to be in the

race in south carolina. how do you sense it played inside the room, especially as willie was saying after four or five minutes of her going on and on about michael bloomberg and past charges and past claims and past this and past that, i think voters, a lot of voters were starting to say, well, okay, can we talk about living wages, whether i can earn a living wage, my kids education, are my kids going to be safe when i send them to school in the morning. again, it just seemed sort of bizarre. >> yeah, i think to your question in the middle there, joe, i think about the reaction in the hall, you know, last week in vegas one of the most striking things was how much the hall was against bloomberg and you could hear they laughed at him, they booed him, you know, they took part in the dismembering or the kicking of the toemt co can as we were referring to yesterday down the

street. last night you heard the audience boo at one point when warren went this on the kill it claim and it was the first time i had ever heard in either of these two dwats and the only time when you heard the audience was with mike bloomberg. i think if your attack on mike bloomberg is the one moment in the debate when the audience rallies to his defense, i think you can tell that you are on the wrong track strategically and tactically in this case. this state as we all know is a state where african-american votes dominate 60% of the electorate or so, on saturday it's going to be african-american. so to me the way i'm fit ring as i'm watching this debate is who is connecting with the core democratic constituency in this state and it strikes me that as rev said it's not just that mike bloomberg has zero delegates to your point earlier, but also his name is not on the ballot here. the idea that that set of attacks are going to help elizabeth warren here in south carolina with african-american average ordinary african-american voters here strikes me as absurd and

misguided. i think if she comes up with another performance on saturday where she comes in fourth or fifth place, you know, she is going to be back where she was before the vegas debate which is to say, you know, with very little rationale to continue her candidacy and with her money situation very rapidly becoming precarious again, she talks all the time about how she has 1,000 staffers in 21 states. that is a show of force if you are winning and the money is coming in. if you are losing and the am unis drying up, 1,000 people in 21 states is a giant problem in terms of your -- in terms of your cash burn and you could see elizabeth warren come out of this state in a very, very, very precarious situation with a lot of pressure on her to drop out of the race. >> john is right, the audience was very active and loud last night and another big boo came when bernie sanders defended again castro's literacy program. i know we will talk about that coming up, but i know the sanders campaign and his supporters think this is a fringe issue, but i can't

overstate how much donald trump is going to live on this if bernie sanders is the nominee. he's going to read from sanders' speeches up at rallies all summer long, the trump campaign loves this issue. >> they will cancel each other out on this. >> and the voters also, the suburban voters also. bernie does not expand and we talked about "the new york times" article yesterday, bernie does not expand the electorate. just doesn't. and at least he hasn't through these first primary contests. he will lose suburban voters. i'm just sorry, you know, if somebody is shocked by that, the suburban voters who left donald trump will either go back to donald trump or they will just stay home or they will vote for a third party. >> mike bloomberg raised that very issue. that's an important issue. moderate republicans, where do they go with bernie on top of the democratic ticket. >> a lot of people saying this, it's not that they have anything against bernie sanders, i like bernie sanders a lot, i just do, it's just a lot of people are really focused on defeating donald trump.

i want to ask quickly before we go to break about the tomato can in the room. there was some kicking of the tomato can last night, but i'm just curious even with the punch lines that he paid for from late night writers, delivering poorly. >> naked cowboy. >> naked cowboy joke and a few others and that joke where he stumbled and said i don't even know why you all showed up, i won so much well last good week last week. so i'm just -- come on. we've got to ask -- and, by the way, i hate to -- i'm friends with everybody, they're not friends with me after they run for office but i like mike, i've always liked mike. he is a good guy. i like mike, but, i'm sorry, i'm going to ask each of you, heilemann called him an empty tomato can that shouldn't be kicked around. is the tomato can's campaign

over. >> it's not over. he has too much money for it to be over. no one outside the midtown radius of new york city knows who the naked cowboy is. that might not have been the best joke in south carolina or a national audience. >> they loved it on the upper east side between 72nd. >> he's not finished. he's going to wait and see what happens in south carolina. he has been, remember, for months now the only person in many of these super tuesday states. he has built organization, he has been advertising, he is not going away. >> mike, those two performances, people take note of that, don't they? isn't that going to impact him on super tuesday. >> sure they do? this is the last look they get at mike bloomberg before super tuesday. >> it is more than amaze to go me here is a guy, mike bloomberg, we're here in new york city where the population during the workday swells to about 15 million people, he was perhaps arguably the most competent mayor this city has ever had. rebuilt the city after september 11th and yet on stage he can't come up with a reply to an

attack from elizabeth warren or any of them? it's amazing to me. >> it wasn't a good night for him. >> al sharpton, is mike bloomberg's candidacy all but over? >> mike bloomberg will probably continue all the way. he has the money, he mentioned last night he has 100 mayors. i think he will continue, though his performance is certainly not inspiring to say the least, but one of the things he succeeded, stop and frisk and other issues that really would have alienated him more with these particular voters that were there last night, we opened the program honoring john lewis and jesse jackson who are southerners who changed voting. none of the issues that really would harm michael bloomberg were highlighted last night and i think that -- so he won in that regard, but he won because of what they didn't go after with an audience that would have

responded more than his performance. talking about the naked cowboy i think me and two others on the front row might have known what he was saying and one of them was gayle king who lives in new york. >> john heilemann, bloomberg -- future bloomberg's campaign, is it on thin ice? >> i think it's -- look, i agree with you, joe, i think the performance was poor. it was better than it was last week, a little bit, and to rev's point i think the places where he could have really been hurt with african-american voters were not largely focused on. i think, look, we're going to see how he does on super tuesday, how many votes, what kind of vote share have those hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising across 16 states and territories what does that get him on super tuesday and i think they will then assess the state of the campaign, the combination of all that advertising and two one very bad debate performance, one mediocre to poor debate performance, where does he stand after super

tuesday and what's their prospect in the rest of the match states. i find it hard to believe that bloomberg will get out of this race until after the march delegates have all been meted out and he will be able to see where he stands and makes a judgment. >> he would have been much better not qualifying for the debates. >> actually, he just should have done a lot of interviews, many, many, many and gotten all of that stuff out in interviews. >> john heilemann, reverend al sharpton, thank you both. now the president is back from india, he arrived at joint base andrews just moments ago. he is now headed back to the exhaust. let's check in quickly with geoff bennett live at the white house. especially the president sort of interesting comments on the coronavirus. he's got a lot on his plate this morning. >> reporter: he does, mika and joe, you're right about that. as the coronavirus really worsens around the world you have the cdc, the center for disease control, living up to its job description giving americans frequent accurate updates about what they should do to keep themselves safe, but

that apparently reportedly has agitated president trump, he believes that those kind of updates is what is spooking the markets and that's one of the reasons why you've seen him try to put a rosy sheen on things, to say that everything is under control. larry kudlow was in the press briefing room yesterday and said that the coronavirus had been contained when, in fact, the cdc says that it's a matter of when not if the virus spreads here in the u.s. there are already some 50 some diagnosed cases. pen time, though, you have the administration asking congress for $2.5 billion in emergency funding to deal with this issue. democrats have said this is too little too late, they've been calling on the administration to make a more substantive request for weeks and now that they've done it you heard chuck schumer say it's really just a drop in the bucket, guys. >> all right. nbc's geoff bennett, thank you so much. we will have much more ahead on the administration's curious comments about its response to

the virus ahead. >> listen, one of the reasons the stock market is crashing now, lost almost 2,000 points in a few days is because china they have had -- they have an authoritarian leader who was in the up front at the beginning. so businesses can't trust the word. >> uncertainty. >> -- of the chinese. there is the uncertainty when are we going to be able to go back in, when do the supply chains start back up, are we going to have to start building supply chains here? but it's uncertain. the chinese leadership have to prove themselves to the rest of the world, especially business leaders that their word can be trusted. no you we have a president who is angry at the cdc for telling the truth to the american people. >> which he got it. >> he's going to say it's going to be nice and spring and don't worry about it will all go away. then he's also trying to paint a rosy scenario which will also

make the markets very nervous. so if he think that getting angry for his people telling americans the truth about a possible coming pandemic, that's only going to spook the markets more, mike. >> well, i believe that we have coming up in the next segment clips of a senate hearing yesterday in which various united states senators asked for answers about the coronavirus and where we stand in terms of dealing with it and they didn't get very many answers. >> we will have more on that and on the debate straight ahead. also, we will show you some of joe biden's strong moments last night and just a note, guess where we are going to be tonight. you can catch joe's band tonight at prohibition right mere in new york city. the show kicks off around 7:30. it's going to be so much fun. i'm bringing some friends. you're watching "morning joe." we will be right back. - [spokeswoman] meet the ninja foodi pressure cooker,

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♪ ♪ 44 past. so here is that exchange on capitol hill yesterday that mike mentioned before the break. acting homeland security secretary chad wolf was grilled by republican senator john kennedy about the u.s. response to the coronavirus outbreak, with kennedy bewildered by wolf's lack of specifics. >> how many are you anticipating? >> again, we're working with hhs

to determine that. >> how many are you anticipating? >> we do anticipate the number will grow. i don't have an exact figure for you, no you. >> do you have an estimate? is someone modeling that? do you have any way of guessing? >> again, hhs through their medical professionals -- >> yes, sir, but you are head of homeland security. >> yes, sir. >> your job is to keep us safe. you can't tell us how many your models are anticipating? >> no, senator, again, i would defer you to health and human services for that. >> sounds like you ought to check on that. >> we will. >> as the head of homeland security. >> yes. >> how is it transmitted? >> a variety of different ways. >> tell me what they are. >> again, human to human is what -- >> well, obviously human to human. how? what's the mortality rate so far nationwide -- worldwide? >> worldwide i believe it's under 2%. >> how many under 2%? >> i will get you an exact figure. you're asking me a number of medical questions -- >> i'm asking you questions because you are secretary of the

department of homeland security and you're supposed to keep us safe. >> yes, sir. >> and you need to know the answers to these questions. >> okay. i'm not scared at all. >> this is -- and, by the way, talking about rattling the markets, you have donald trump angry for people in his administration preparing americans, telling them the truth, you have donald trump saying nothing to worry about here, move along, just like the chinese. >> yeah. >> it will all go away in april, we will be fine. you have donald trump hiring -- well, first of all, firing just about every competent person in his administration and hiring one acting secretary after another acting secretary. these people who are political dupes who are loyal to donald trump, but that's the only thing they have going for them. it's the richard grenell model. he knows nothing about the intel community, he failed this in his

last job. >> might have committed a crime. >> he might have committed a crime, but he will be loyal to us. i'm telling you -- i'm telling you this stuff is about to get real with a lot of trump supporters who say i like how he speaks his mind and he's cleaning out washington. no, he's making washington not only more swampy, but he's making washington more stupid, mike, with people who don't know what they're doing when a pandemic could come in. >> incompetence kills. >> and if a pandemic comes in, incompetence kills, and it doesn't matter whether it's killing people in blue states or in red states, the pandemic sweeps through an entire country. and donald trump is only worried about the stock market collapsing. donald trump's incompetence and his covering it up and saying everything is fine, move along, it's only going to further panic the market. >> if you just read, just read the news accounts of this

epidemic globally it's enough to obviously become concerned and scared. you also way down in the stories and throughout other stories you realize that there is a purge going on within the trump administration to your point where people who are skilled at what they've been doing for years in various departments are being purged, thrown out of their jobs because they are not loyal to donald trump. in the case of the economy i believe you had a few days ago larry kudlow -- >> mike, i hate to interrupt you. they're not blindly loyal to donald trump. they're being purged because of that. and in this case they could be purged because they are telling the truth and donald trump doesn't -- so because they are allowed to be able to say shouldn't a president have somebody who is loyal to him? yes. but if telling the truth is a sign of disloyalty which donald trump sees it as a sign of disloyalty. >> then we are china. >> that's where we are. >> case in point the director of national intelligence admiral

joe mcguire out, told we don't like bad news, we don't like the truth. out. larry kudlow, i believe, a few days ago indicated what's happening to the stock market was a great time to buy low. that was his response. >> look, i think it's what a lot of you guys said, you're dealing with a different kind of administration than what we're used to. if this were still george w. bush or barack obama we would be in a different place. let's remember in the ebola crisis obama -- which never even got anywhere near here -- obama immediately appointed an ebola czar ron klain an extremely capable guy, the whole administration came together and a crisis and a panic were averted and you contrast that with this. by the way, donald trump is also trying to cut the budget of the cdc which i think at the moment we probably all appreciate should be augmented not cut. >> by the way, this is a great example for people to say government shouldn't do anything. this is when people want government to do something. this is when -- you know, food -- i mean, you can go down the list with food safety, water safety, air safety, all of that,

but i'm wondering -- i talked to the business leader late last night who has a global business and he said, you know, this -- this could change the landscape of the world economy depending on how far this expands. he said there are huge freighters just floating in the water in china, production lines, chain of supply lines are being shattered. this could start a recession, he actually thought a recession was going to start out of this, and he said this could change the way the world operates depending on how badly this is because china could be turned into a ghost town. >> well, look, one thing that needs to be understood is this is very different from -- the world is a different place than it was when we had sars. the world is a far more integrated place, global trade is far more integrated, the

supply lines are far more important to production around the world. if this goes on china will have negative gdp in the first quarter of this year for all the obvious reasons, if this goes on like this it could well disrupt the economy of the world in a very substantial way and that's why the stock market is reacting in addition to the dealing that there is nobody really in charge here. >> and the president has a daily kind of habit of lying, i mean, they're tracked by the "washington post" and trump supporters hong, okay, he says what he thinks, doesn't matter if he lies, they're going to care whether or not he's lying about this and we're not going to know if he's telling the truth and if all the scientists have been fired, we are in a bad place about this. it actually could careen out of control. who knows. >> i don't know who -- >> we will see what happens as he says. >> don't know who can get the president's ear because he doesn't listen to anybody around him anymore, but if somebody could they would need to tell

him, mr. president, the more you try to tamp down the reality of the possibility of a pandemic sweeping the globe and coming to america, the more you hurt the stock market. since that's the only thing you care about, you need to be transparent. this is a great -- this is a great example, mike, of how authoritarian states hong they can tamp down on information, hong they can stamp down on the truth, hong like -- in this case donald trump gets angry when people tell the truth. they just in the end hurt their own cause. if china had been straightforward from the very beginning, if they had spoken honestly about this from the very beginning, moved aggressively against it this crisis wouldn't be where it is now and now we have donald trump returning home actually trying to copy the worst traits of china from the early stages of this crisis. >> you know, steve mentioned ron klain, highly competent high who

worked in the obama administration and the ebola crisis which was handled nearly perfectly when it arose. it's not a very much to think that the way this is going, we just showed the clip of one member of the trump administration with no answers, it's not a stretch to think that this election could turn on the issue of competence in the trump administration so far has been incompetent on so many different levels, but when you're incompetent when it's a threat to people's health, when you're wondering about could your four-year-old child get the coronavirus, what would the affects be, what would the percentages be for his or her survival, when people start wore yeg about competence when dealing with a health issue nationwide this could turn something. >> you have john kennedy a guy who has blindly followed donald trump over the past several months understanding, wait a

second, this could actually -- >> this could be bad. >> -- kill a lot of people in the state of louisiana if we don't get ahead of it. >> >> any other administration would put together a task force, they would be meeting every day, there would be a czar or somebody in charge of this thing, the president would be on national television not under the helicopter blades making crazy comments but would have gone on television said here is what we're doing, this is tough but we are fighting it and i think all of that would have made a difference not just to the stock market but to the public's confidence in leadership. still ahead, money isn't everything but in politics it sure can make a difference. steve rattner was a look at the 2020 money race and bloomberg and steyer aside, how the democratic candidates are doing ahead of south carolina and super tuesday. "morning joe" will be right back. >> the virus we're talking about having to do -- a lot of people think that goes away in april with the heat, as the heat comes in. typically that will go away and --.

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you've praised the chinese communist party for lifting more people out of extreme poverty than any other country. you also have a track record of expressing sympathy for socialist governments in cuba and nicaragua. can americans trust that a democratic socialist president will not give authoritarians a free pass. >> i have opposed authoritarianism all around the world. i was amaze the at what mayor bloomberg said a moment ago. he said that the chinese government is responsive to the pilot bureau. who elects the pilot pure re. of course you have a dictatorship in cuba. what i said is what barack obama said in terms of cuba. that cuba made progress on education. yes, i think -- really?

really? literacy programs are bad? what barack obama said was they made great progress on education and health care. that was barack obama. occasionally it might be good idea to be honest about american foreign policy and that includes the fact that america has overthrown governments all over the world in chile, in guatemala, in iran and when dictatorships whether it is the chinese or the cubans do something good, you acknowledge that but you don't have to trade love letters with them. >> i just -- who is telling him? eddie, we have eddie here. who is telling him to continue to defend castro and continue to defend the sand northeast stands, continue to defend the soviets. i think you can check the cross

tabs it doesn't play well in charleston. >> right. so the politics are clear that it's not necessarily the case that castro will do well at the polls, but i think two things, one, i think it's bernie sanders playing true to his -- being true to his brand that he's consistent, he's authentic, that there are particular segments of folks that fought the battles in the 1960s and held positions around the revolutions around the world, particularly those revolutions about decolonization, fighting back against the west. >> so he has that 2% on his side. what does he do with the other 98%. >> the other 98% he should say what is it about -- he shouldn't talk about necessarily defending castro's betrayal of the cuban revolution or defending the brutality of the sandinistas in some way, what he should be talking about is what he values, what is it about the campaign for literacy that was value, what is it about the doctors that went around the world that

cuba sent around the world to help in the caribbean, what is it about education for -- so, in other words, instead of defending those people which will not help him at the polls, what he should be pivoting to is what he values, what i value is that everybody should be -- everybody should have a good education, everybody should have health care, everyone should be able to not only dream dreams but make knows dreams a reality. >> the problem is, though, he has -- he has affinity and you look at the tapes he has ain't finty for these communist dictatorships. he could find a lot of countries to praise. he could have found a lot of scandinavian countries to praise. i'm sorry to sound self-interested here, but, i mean, if you're talking about sending doctors around the world, nobody has saved more lives, nobody has fed more people, nobody has freed more of humanity than this united states of america with all its flaws.

so you really have to reach to literacy programs for fidel castro who kills people because they mimeograph newspapers and try to send them out or have a little freedom of the press or kills people because they're not the right type of christians, throw them in jail and keep them there. just it's seriously -- it's along the lines of saying that mussolini made the trains run on time. >> i think the bain and the beauty of bernie sanders is he always says what he thinks, it's part of what's gotten him here this fashion and i think he has exposed himself in this case for his passion for these communist dictatorships. there are lots of better examples. cuba is not only all those human rights things, cuba has destroyed its own economy and you have people living in far worse conditions there economically because of fidel castro than they would have in any other country. >> steve, can we bring up what cuba did to u.s. embassy -- u.s.

employees just a year or two ago after we opened relations there? you weapon niced -- used a weapon that actually damaged their hearing. >> yes. >> look, i don't want us to relitigate the 1959 cuban revolution, but i think it's important for us to understand -- >> are you about to relitigate 1959 revolution? >> what i think is important for us to understand is what was before? what was before 1959? what bernie sanders is doing and this is really important he's 78 years old so he's going to take us into the heart of the cold war, he's going to take us into the heart of some of the battles of the 1960s but there was bautista and he was a dictator put in place by this place and we know what happened in the bautista regime. we understand why the -- >> is that why he supported a party that supported the iranian hostage taking because what we did to the iranians in the

1950s? >> we're going to sit here and have an argument about whether bautista was better than castro. >> let's just stop. >> that's a reduction what have i'm saying. it's hard to have nuance here, joe. >> that's the point. on politics it's hard to have nuance. >> part of what i'm trying to argue there is a wonderful chapter in a book where he talks about the gods always fail. he is talking about the iranian revolution, those progressive int lectures who supported eye ayatollah khomeini. i think about 1960 when castro came to harlem and stayed at the theresa hotel. you think about all of those folk who were no supportive of him in that moment. castro and cuba fighting the apartheid regime in angela. >> we have breaking news. the results are in, eddie glaude has lost 49 states and we're

waiting for the 50th state, mississippi. >> we have nbc news capitol hill correspondent and host of "kasie dc" with us. mayo pete had a great night last night, he always does. he had an answer to this as well. take a look. >> the only way you can do this is to actually win the presidency and i am not looking forward to a scenario where it comes down to donald trump with his nostalgia for the social or the of the 1950s and bernie sanders with a nostalgia for the revolutionary politics of the 1960s. this is not about what koops were happening back then, this is about 2020. we are not survive or succeed or win by reliving the cold war and we are not going to win these critical house and senate races if people in those races have to explain why the nominee of the

democratic party is telling people to look at the bright side of the castro regime. we have to be a lot smarter about this and look to the future. >> kasie -- >> he was good. he always is. but that was good. >> you covered bernie sanders for some time. >> a long time. >> i'm just talking politically here and by the way, it would be a fantastic discussion in a prin princeton class but our job is to strip this down and talk about what works politically with voters and i have to say him going on about the positive side of the castro regime, just forget florida. gone forever. >> good-bye. >> the sandinistas not going to help him in california and the soviets that they have beautiful blit ring chandeliers in subways it's not going to help him in the suburbs, but he continues

talking about it. can you grant us insight on why he doesn't just swat it away? >> this was the formation of bernie sanders politics were all of these things that eddie has taken us through this morning and most people -- >> the communist dictatorships? >> the idea of a revolution, that is go back and watch the tape of bernie sanders, there is a picture of him shirtless in the soviet union, there is all kinds of old clips that, you know, never came up -- >> we're not going to look at that tape. we have already seen enough of putin shirtless. >> it's there. but, yes, i'm with you. the reality is that, you know, the people that are supporting bernie sanders and i was struck by watching pete next to bernie sanders, pete buttigieg, because they are so different in age and yet the argument that they are making are appealing from a political perspective to their respective opposites.

bernie sanders says this stuff, we all are -- and eddie is taking us through the history -- the young people that support bernie sanders that are screaming at his rallies they don't remember any of this. it is ancient history as far as they are concerned, but for older americans, you know, the voters in the suburbs, the more reliable people who are going to the polls who are voting in states like florida, this he do remember it and they remember this frame as a political -- politically losing message and they are thinking about this in the context of the cold war. i mean, the berlin wall came down before a lot of bernie sanders supporters were even born can i point. that's the contrast that's going on. i think for sanders after i covered him in 2016 it was a very bitter fight with hillary clinton, they learned a lot from that experience and sanders himself evolved as a candidate but he evolved in a candidate -- as a candidate who was trying to win a primary election and, you

know, the reality is he doesn't have any practice making adjustments in the context of a map that requires probably winning florida and so that i think was the first time that we really got a glimpse at how hard it to be in a general election for bernie sanders was on stage last night. >> reverend al and i talked about this yesterday. there are a lot of voters in south carolina, older voters in black churches in south carolina who served in the united states military. they remember fidel castro and some of them even remember the cuban missile crisis. so, again, i'm just talking about -- we are not talking about the ideological debates, those can be had bautista versus castro, though i am sure only you and jon meachum would want to have that debate this morning, but politically this is

as vexing as elizabeth warren's continued attacking of a guy with zero delegates. >> it made no sense. let's get some analysis on the candidates' debate performance. now, this came in from tibet. >> tibet. >> this is your friend. >> our political directeder izzy. >> biden turned in his best performance of the election cycle even if his gun homicides number was off by 150 million or so. biden helped his cause. >> nobody is perfect. >> pete, the cal ripken of debates, always shows up, usually good and one of the only candidates on stage not engaged in a wrestling match with the english language. this is true. and he is always steady. bernie, sure, he streams, and, yes, he was shaky last night, but bernie still got the best shot of winning his party's nomination and inviting lee greenwood to sing the nick ran want national anthem to kick things off sand northeast is that style in milwaukee. amy, the senator was solid and steady even the if the

moderators forgot she was on stage for most of the night. the end is nye. warren, after a solid start the massachusetts senator repeated her same attacks a week later against the guy with zero delegates. warren's strategy remains a middle, wrapped in a history, inside a short man joke. bloomberg, the successful three-term new york mayor looked as confused at times as brick tanland in anchor man and that was before senator warren unsheathed her rhetorical ax and went to work. steyer, the billionaire may end up funding successful democratic campaigns but not his own. steyer's performance last night made clear that the businessman didn't belong on the big stage. pretty good analysis by izzy. kind of right on. >> i think he hit a lot of those things right. i think the take away, mike, is td only person who really seemed to help themselves last night and, please, i want everybody to

correct me if they disagree here was biden. >> yes. >> in a big way. >> i know the arrows were going up and sideways and everything, but nobody seemed to help their cause last night in that mess other than joe biden. >> no, when he spoke it was very forceful and it was to the point and more -- probably better off for him he remains silent during all the chaos, the yelling and screaming back and forth. >> yeah. >> but if i could do a little flashback for the -- we got from eddie, one of the things missing from this debate and all of the other debates i would submit is talk about this country and who we are and who we've always been and pete buttigieg got to it a bit last night and i think he was wrong on it when he was talking about the 1960s movements. i mean, without people walking across the edmond pettis bridge in 1960 the civil rights

movement doesn't flourish. without people taking to the streets with regard to the war in vietnam we would have continued with the sons of plumbers and steelworkers going to war instead of once the sons of stock brokers and college professors went to war that war ended. we are not a perfect nation, we are not a perfect people, but to your point, joe, i have never been anywhere in the world -- take out the exception of the prolonged 19-year war that we were lied into that still exists today, but i have not been anywhere in the world where i have not encountered an american soldier, an american physician, a member of the american clergy helping people who needed help. we need help here at home, but by god the united states of america is still the greatest god damnation in the world. >> eddie, in i reply to that? >> huh? first of all, i think mike is

absolutely right in this sense, in this regard, the '60s revolution was so important, it's called the second reconstruction for a reason. it's an attempt in some ways to make good on the promise of who we take ourselves to be and the '60s revolution in some ways did not succeed. we know folks were murdered, we know fox were imprisoned, we know some folks succeeded. we know. we know some people went mad. so we still -- this is what perfecting the union, what ever that discourse is all about, right, is really about. we know that we're always falling short. and one of the things that we have to do, joe, and you know i've been writing about this is that we have to be honest with ourselves. and the question is how are we honest with ourselves in this moment. how will it play politically? that's not my lane, obviously. i have never run for office. but what i do know is that if we're going to get out of this crisis and be otherwise we have to be honest with who we take ourselves to be and who we actually are. >> speaking of which i thought it fascinating how few people

brought up donald trump's name last night. >> yes. >> when you have a president that's lying about the coronavirus, you have a president who is destroying the rule of law, you have a president who is actively trying to intimidate federal judges. >> they were talking all over each other and they weren't asked. >> well, they weren't asked but i think also you're dealing with a situation -- it's kind of like desperate people do desperate things. you have five or six candidates up there who are all desperate to stop bernie sanders so that was really a lot of the focus. >> except for elizabeth warren who was desperate to stop michael bloomberg who has zero delegates. >> she did go ever a sanders a little bit but she walked away and went somewhere else over to bloomberg. i agree with you completely about that and i think those are the principles and the ideas that we need to be aspiring to, but sitting here today we have to figure out how to beat donald trump and right now on present force and speed we are going to lose to donald trump because we are going to nominate bernie sanders and it is going to be as one democratic operative said to

me two nights ago a defeat of mcgovern-esque proportions. >> i should note amy klobuchar tried to bring it up. >> i'm not so sure. i wouldn't put all my money on bernie quite yet. looking at last night, i think last night is a sign of things to come. i would have said a week ago or after nevada put all your money on bernie, but you've got to know like barack obama, like ronald reagan, like bill clinton, you've got to know how to play an advantage and bernie doesn't seem to know how to play an advantage. he certainly seemed -- didn't seem to know how to play one last night. he's got one note and he's great at that one note, but i think, mike, what makes -- >> but can i -- shoo sure. >> give me an example from american political history in either party of a candidate winning the first three contests, iowa, who knows, but close enough, winning the first three contests, nevada by a knockout and not getting the nomination. >> well, i mean, nevada is a

caucus, he has won two caucuses, both of them riddled with errors and didn't bill clinton finish in third in iowa, second in -- >> he wasn't this iowa, harken was in iowa in '92, second in new hampshire. >> clinton finished second to paul sung in new hampshire. >> then he said he was the come back kid. >> steve, you are also looking at money. >> money. >> where the candidates stand in terms of fundraising. >> i just want to finish this point really quickly. what mike just said before, that's what barack obama -- people like barack obama know how to say that, talk about our history, the positive aspects of our history, the good things we've done and then challenge us and push us forward to make us a more perfect union, to make us move past the sins of our past. i don't see anybody on the stage that's capable of doing that

right now. >> all right. steve, money. >> i think part of what you saw last night reflects the money situation and part of -- the reason for what i said about sanders reflects the money situation. we have some january fundraising numbers and when you look at those numbers it will not give you any confidence that anybody but bernie sanders of the people who are raising money is in a reasonable place on the financial side. so bernie raised $25.1 million in january, it was 2.5 times what anybody else raised as you can see here and that brought his total to $121 million which is 50% more than anybody else has raised in this cycle. he is pulling away from the pack when it comes to fundraising. if we go to the next chart you can see that that means he's also able to spend more. so he spent $26.5 million in january, warren came close, but you're going to see for a second how she did that and everybody else spent a good bit less. if you look at totals again, sanders has been in a position to spend a lot more money than

his rivals. not necessarily part of why he's winning but certainly a factor that he's got going forward is his incredible fundraising prowess. let's go to the chart i think that sums up the state of lay at the moment. if you look at who had cash at the end of january, he had $16.5 million roughly of cash. that was more than twice what anybody else had, as you can see here. and warren if you want to understand a little bit about why i think she was pushing so hard last night, she's down to $2.3 million of cash, she had to borrow -- she arranged a $3 million line of credit, she drew $400,000 of it in the last -- in the last month and so she is now spending in january she spent twice what she raised, her burn rate. only bernie sanders really has -- is going to really have resources. a lot of them have said they raised a bunch of money in february after the debates, you will see some more money there, but the only one who has the

money to be competitive at this moment is bernie sanders. >> let's say, again, by the way -- >> disclaimer. >> disclaimer. >> yes. >> that steve manages michael bloomberg's money, has for a long time and is friends with michael bloomberg. we think he's friends with us, too, but as i have said -- >> it's hard to tell. >> -- he has never given us any of that money which makes us sad. >> wait. maybe now. >> i was here -- i have it right here. i just want to make one other point about this. so at the end of january donald trump and his committees and the republican national committee had over $200 million in the bank. the democratic national committee had $10 billion in the bank. none of these candidates are going to finish this primary season with any money in the bank. >> kasie hunt, i have to say the number that stuns me, bernie's numbers are impressive, very impressive, but the numbers that stun me are joe biden's numbers.

they are so anemic for a front runner, a guy who has been in washington for 40 years, i mean, i had heard he is not a good fundraiser, but i just don't know how that can be, how his numbers can be so low right now. >> it's part of why you see him where you do. i think one of the realities of that is raising money in the traditional way requires going into these small rooms, shaking hands, putting on a performance and, you know, i think for people who have seen joe biden up close, as a candidate he has had a bit of a rough go and i think it helps explain his fundraising and some of his performance on the trail. there's just really no way around it. i think the joe biden we saw last night on the debate stage if that joe biden had shown up to every campaign rally and every debate so far, i think this race would be in a pretty different place because a lot of that money would be gravitating

toward joe biden. i think that there is a ceiling somewhere for bernie sanders. he hasn't yet demonstrated an ability to expand. he tried his speech after nevada had indications that he's prepared to expand to try to include more pieces of the democratic coalition, but the reality is there is not anybody in a good position to consolidate and stop him because everyone is refuse to go drop out of this race. as long as bloomberg, you know, was at the bottom of rattner's chart in little type, $220.6 million is how much mike bloomberg spent in january. who do you think he is convincing in the democratic primary to side with him? it is not people that are voting for bernie sanders. it is cutting into joe biden's support and as long as the two of them are back and forth and you also have klobuchar and warren and others waiting in the wings, i mean, how does anybody

stand up to bernie sanders 25% to 35%? i just don't see it. >> something mika and i were talking about a couple days ago, when mike bloomberg decided to get into the race obviously it had to do with elizabeth warren at the time jumping to the top, bernie sanders doing well and joe biden completely collapsing and a lot of people talking about joe finishing in fourth place in iowa, finishing in fourth place in new hampshire. now we find ourselves in this really interesting place where if biden surges and wins south carolina, which if i had to bet on it right now i'd say he would, then you actually have mike bloomberg in a position where he could do just the opposite of what he got in this race to do and that would be helping bernie sanders instead of coming in as the alternative to bernie sanders. >> and this was a prediction -- into politics -- you can never tell what's going to happen in politics. >> this was a prediction by

"kasie dc" a few weeks ago on the show and it appears that that's what's happening. still ahead on "morning joe," senator amy klobuchar -- >> steve, thanks for the charts. >> thank you, steve. >> this chart thing is getting big. >> big. >> really? >> it's not quite at the beatle mania stage, but people do come up to us in airports. >> they do love the charts. >> all right. >> and can i rebut kasie in the next -- >> you can try. >> we don't think so. >> senator amy klobuchar joins the conversation after last night's wild debate. and "the boston globe" goes from urging elizabeth warren not to run for president to endorsing her campaign. how she won over her hometown paper maybe just a little bit too late. you can catch joe's incredible band tonight at prohibition right here in new york city. >> eddie glaude is going to start the show leading

revolutionary poetry of the 1950s. >> the show kicks off around 7:30 because we're old. >> i about the way, we are huge with the sandinistas. >> it will be fun. join us at prohibition tonight at 7:30. we will be right back. you're watching "morning joe." hi guys. this is the chevy silverado with the world's first invisible trailer. invisible trailer? and it's not the trailer right next to us? this guy?

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to close the boyfriend loophole that says that domestic an certificates can't go out and get an ak-47. >> i wrote that law. >> that bill along with -- you didn't write that bill. >> i did -- i wrote the bill. the violence against women's act that took out of the hands of people who abused -- >> we will have a fact check. >> no, let's look at the fact check. the only thing that the boyfriend loophole was not covered, i couldn't get that covered, you, in fact, as a senator you tried to get it covered and mitch mcconnell is holding up on his desk right now

and we are going to lose the violence against women's act across the board. >> okay. so if i could finish, i have the bill, anyone can check it out, to close the boyfriend loophole. >> it's very interesting, i've always said that my favorite christmas present was 1975, i got elton john's greatest hits. i always thought my mom bought it for me, found out last night joe biden did. >> okay. >> also was coaching all of our high school football games from delaware on the phone. i didn't know that. >> you can look, at any event that has happened over the past 40 years joe biden did it. >> he also wrote the bill of rights. >> come on. he had a good night. >> he did have a good night but also that was a funny moment. he said i wrote the bill. come on. >> okay. senator amy klobuchar of minnesota joins us now from charleston, south carolina. i like to consider you the voice of reason in the debate last night, but what the heck happened just overall, what did

that feel like up there? >> that was chaos. >> that seemed a little crazy. >> well, i really -- i keep thinking about all these people watching the debate who have no idea who the candidates are practically, they tune in and then they see this slugfest. so i try to see it through their eyes and my goal was to make a very clear differentiation with bernie sanders because i don't think he should be leading our ticket, as you all know in new hampshire i was the only one that raised my hand and said i had trouble with this socialist leading the ticket and so i made my case. i also made a case against donald trump, but i did not get as much involved in all of the infighting between everyone else. sure, there's valid arguments you can make, but what kind of mess is that? i thought i hl put a point on it when i said we can spend the next four months tearing each other apart and if we do that we will be able to see donald trump spend the next four years tearing our country apart. >> so, amy, i thought it was

interesting at times there would be like five, six, seven seconds straight of five people shouting at each other. were you concerned up there, are you concerned this morning about how that makes the democratic party look? because people are just now -- robert knows this better than any of us -- are probably now really just starting to tune in, sit down and say, okay, who do we have? and they see people screaming and yelling and a free-for-all. >> right, and the only one that wins when that happens is donald trump. >> right. >> so part of it is trying to keep the questions focused on substantive issues and part of it is how people ask for each other. i think you got a point early on, i was listening, some people do stuff to raise money, they want you guys to play the sound bites the next day. you're probably not going to play my answer on rural health care which is more important to the people of south carolina than a fight about who said what when, but that's what happens. so the fights get played, then

people raise money online because of it. i know because i have had a few of those moments myself. >> can we talk about rural health care for a second because people don't understand this is one of the -- i think one of the great ironies that donald trump does well in rural communities, but he has worked since he's gotten into office to gut funding for rural health care and, by the way, when you gut funding for medicaid you gut funding for rural health care. >> that's exactly -- and they are struggling right now. we have had record numbers of these hospitals close down, kind of going in concert with farm bankruptcy rates, 25% increase because of the trade war and the like, and it's very devastating. people don't see that in a lot of these towns the child poverty rate is higher in rural than it is in urban because they simply don't have the services. so i was able to straightforward answer that question about keeping the hospitals open, about getting personnel to the

hospitals through how we put incentives in our education policy as well as immigration reform. but, again, that's not the sound bite that you're going to be playing the next day. so i think to me i'm just going to keep on this with coronavirus i decided to give the cdc.gov website instead of my own website in part to make the point this is a very serious matter, people need to start listening to what the experts and science tell them to prepare because our president has not addressed the nation, he was pointed out earlier cut back a bunch of the funding for planning with the cdc in coordination and that's just wrong. >> we are moving into crisis mode certainly, the markets are collapsing, we've lost almost 2,000 points in two days, business leaders i'm talking to say the supply chain coming out of china could be disrupted for months and it will have a devastating impact on not only china's economy but economies across the globe.

we have a president who is angry at his own administration officials for telling the truth that americans have to get prepared for possible pandemic. you can tell us what you do as president, i think we know what you do as president, you would be very responsible and you would put together a task force, you would have a czar, you would do -- you would do what barack obama did and what responsible leaders do, but what can you do right now as united states senator? what can the united states senate do to push for answers and require that this administration actually protect the american people from this coming possible pandemic? >> well, our job is oversight and to push them and i think you see that starting when they just asked for a billion dollars which is not going to be enough, using, as you noted, the model from ebola and what then

secretary burrwell did in terms of coordinating. i remember remember constantly calling myself and members informing us about what was happening, answering our questions. all of that is going to have to happen, at the same time you have this coordination with all local hospitals, local health commissioners and then the rest of the world. it is a massive, massive effort and we do have the benefit of interesting learned from ebola, but his -- the way he treats allies, the existidi dissing thn all the time makes it harder to make these tough decisions. one minor illustration of the chaos in his administration was when those 14 people who had been infected were put on the plane with the people that weren't despite the recommendation of the cdc not to do that and that happened under the mess of their administration. that all being said my point last night was i think we should start acting like a president if

you want to be one. so i mentioned a few mention he had done wrong, but my main point was to the american people about what we're going to have to do going forward and i think we need to see more of that on that stage and that's what i will continue to do. >> senator, in looking at your electoral record in minnesota it's pretty impressive, pretty broad, you get democrats, independents and republicans voting for you. you've done well in that state. last night mike bloomberg raised the issue of moderate republicans voting for bernie sanders, he thought it was going to be pretty if you have for them to do that. my question to you is the state of minnesota which you know so well, does bernie sanders win or lose it in the fall against donald trump? >> i think it would be really difficult for him in our state. the proof right now is the one person that wins hugely in our state is me, there was a mason dixon poll showing me 17 points ahead. 17 points ahead of him. it was just a few months ago of

donald trump. ahead with men, ahead with women. i think that means something. i was ahead seven points of trump in pennsylvania just one point short of the vice president being ahead of him. and my point last night was this, the mayor was talking about it, i appreciate that, but i'm the one with the track record of leading where i bring in republicans and independents. the people in the middle are looking for someone to support and donald trump's worst might mare is that we actually have a candidate that has a fired up democratic base with her, but that they also want to support her and that's what we see at our rallies all the time. >> but, again, back to your sense of your state, which you work very effectively, very well and continuously, moderate republicans, i'm sure you know many moderate republicans who support you. can you see moderate republicans in your state voting for bernie

sanders? >> no, i can't, and they told me that they won't. doesn't necessarily mean they vote for donald trump, maybe they stay home. that's the issue, because i want to win this big coalition and win big and to do that and to win in those tough senate seats in states like colorado, in arizona, you have to bring them in with you. you have to. alabama. there's just no doubt that's how you win and that's one of the reasons that i raised about why i didn't want him leading the ticket as i said last night, i think he's alienating. i think it's going to push a lot of people out instead of bringing them with us. his comments on fidel castro. >> right. >> the views that he has on the spending programs over $60 trillion when you combine them all up which as i noted is three times more than the entire economy not just the federal budget, the entire economy over a ten-year period. those are the things that people

need to know before they go to vote on super tuesday. >> senator, before we go, you know, some are expressing concern we've heard over the past few days that the field really needs to narrow or we are going to end up potentially with the wrong candidate running against president trump. >> yeah, i think i heard joe said something about that. yes. i heard that. >> joe asked the question and i will ask you the question. all he did was ask the question because it was a good one at this point. >> they twisted my words in the headlines, senator. i sure you can relate. >> i'm on the show. >> what do you need to do in south carolina to stay competitive and then at what point do you step down or step out of this race to narrow the field? >> okay. let me give you the numbers here, mika. i'm actually third right now, there's no doubt about this, in vote totals. why is that? because caucuses are so limiting and i did well in a state that had a primary. if you look at the numbers people who actually showed up, i

am third in vote total. there is no doubt about it. now we go into south carolina, of course i'm not expected to win there, we know that, but then it's super tuesday and that's a whole another story. every single super tuesday state is a primary state except american samoa is a caucus state, but all the rest are primary states so that will be an advantage to me. there are states like colorado and utah and states like north carolina where i'm going to be tomorrow and states like tennessee where i will be the day after that and virginia where i will be spending a i lot of time. these are states that are more open to candidates like me that aren't always party line, candidates like me that brng in moderate republicans and independents. >> i got it. senator amy klobuchar, thank you very much. great to set the record straight. >> okay. >> thanks for talking about rural health care. >> thank you. >> yes, absolutely. we have robert gibbs here. >> robert, great to have you here. you actually know about this

stuff because you obviously have been involved in campaigns. >> done a thing or two in politics. >> does it make sense for candidates to get out before super tuesday or is that where where you take a look at the battlefield and see whether you have a future? >> first of all, i want to say it's nice to be on tv with six people who aren't yelling and raising their hands. >> oh, lord. >> but we can do that. >> and we have. >> no, i think -- i think given how short a time difference there is between south carolina and super tuesday it's unlikely that you're going to see anybody really drop out. i think the moment of truth is really going to come when the polls close on super tuesday because there is a math problem. for everybody that's worried about bernie sanders being the nominee the math problem is with him at 25 or 27 or maybe even speaki sneaking up to 30, if all the vote is divided by those five or six candidates it's impossible to hold him back from at least a plurality of the delegates as we get to milwaukee. i think people are going to have

to make really hard decisions. usually those decisions are made by lack of resources which steve talked about, but i think it is going to be both a combination of conscience and resources that people are going to have to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out i can't sixth place my way to the nomination, i can't fifth place my way to the nomination. at some point you are not going to be able to second place your way to the nomination. >> what did you see last night in the debate? what was your take away? >> i don't think it changed the trajectory of the race all that much. i think biden needed to have a strong debate in a state that he even reiterated he had to win and i think he did pretty well. i think mayor pete did pretty well. no real moment that stands out. i just thought he had a good case to make and made it. i think bernie sanders as i said, this is the first moment in two presidential elections where he has walked out on to the stage under those bright lights as the consensus front runner and he's usually a fairly consistent performer in these races, he took a lot of

incoming, he had good moments and not so good moments, there's clearly work on a series of answers and things that he has to get much better at explaining, but i don't see that the trajectory of this race changed a lot last night. it's going to be almost three weeks before we see everyone back together on the debate stage. so it really now becomes a fight inside of these states. do you have the money, do you have the field operation, can you really get out the vote. >> so you think bernie still you would say he's the favorite to win the nomination? >> you would have to think after last night nothing really changed that. again, i think as you've talked about can joe biden with a strong performance last night build on that, he's going to probably get an important endorsement from representative clyburn this morning. >> right. >> can he use that on saturday to try to build some momentum and go into these states that look a lot less like iowa and new hampshire with 90% white vote and look a lot more like the states that we've been

competing in, right. the four top prizes, california, texas, virginia and north carolina on super tuesday require multi-racial coalitions could be successful. we don't know how mayor bloomberg will do on a ballot because we haven't seen him in this race yet but if nevada is any indication the only person besides bernie sanders that's capable of adding hispanic voters and answer voters obviously not to the degree that bernie did in nevada, but the only person that's doing that in this race right now is joe biden. >> all right. another big story we're following, roger stone's lawyers are trying to get him a new trial, claiming that they were misled about the jury fore woman. but when the judge asked if they had done any research on her during jury selection they admitted they-even done a google search. >> that's unbelievable. that's malpractice. >> and now the judge is calling out president trump's behavior as well. hello. joining us now senior legal affairs contributor for "politico" josh gerstein who was

in the courtroom until the judge made reporters leave to protect the identities of the jurors who testified. >> so, josh, back when i practiced law in the ice age, the law firms i worked for would have juror consultants and they would sit there and they would pick them apart one by one by one to help them pick -- and it was -- i mean, it was a science even in the 1990s. these clowns didn't even google the jury forewoman. >> that's one of the things that came out at this hearing yesterday. you had this sort of hodgepodge of lawyers who were representing roger stone during this trial. this he did have a jury consultant, but they actually said they didn't google the jurors because they couldn't afford it. the last time i checked, joe, it's about ten bucks per google search, isn't it? that's what i got charged. >> jury pool is not that

expansive. yeah. that's unbelievable. so the judge also went after donald trump. tell us about that. >> yeah, so her frustration, this is judge amy berman jackson, she is an obama appointee here in d.c. and her frustration with the president and with some of the antics surrounding this case i think has been building. she kept it in check last week at the sentencing, but yesterday it really came out. she said that, you know, making threats or leading to intimidation or harassment of jurors is completely antithetical to our entire system of justice. she then if it wasn't clear she was referring to the president went on to cite a couple of things the president has done in his tweets and a speech he gave directly attacking the jury forewoman in this case and saying because of the danger basically created by those comments was why she needed to close the courtroom while jurors were testifying yesterday. but it was pretty interesting that she did have those jurors

come in and testify because judges as you probably know, joe, very rarely do that, they rarely pry into jury deliberations. she basically said stone's team had not made the kind of showing they needed to make of some impropriety here, but despite that they had the jurors sitting outside the courtroom and brought three of them in to testify to clear the air basically. i think that was her view. >> so, josh, what's next? >> well, you know, the sentence has been imposed more than three years, i think the judge is likely to rule in the next day or two that no new trial will be granted to roger stone and then he will be facing a report date sometime at least two weeks interest now, maybe six or eight weeks from now and that of course brings it all around to president trump whether he's going to pull the trigger here and actually issue a pardon to roger stone. >> josh gerstein, thank you so much. up next, u.s. officials are warning americans about the impending spread of the coronavirus. "morning joe" medical contributor dr. dave campbell is next on what we can do to

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>> we have contained this, we have contained this, i won't say air tight, but pretty close to air tight. >> oh, my god. no. white house national economic director larry kudlow in contrast to the cdc's warning yesterday telling americans to prepare for the inevitable spread of the coronavirus. joining us now, dr. dave campbell and business correspondent and msnbc anchor stephanie ruhle. we'll talk about that in a second. dr. dave, first, the headlines in the "new york times," it could be bad. viral crisis in u.s. is tedeeme likely. how concerned should americans really be?

>> thank you, they and we all need to be concerned but not overact difference. the recommendation now that i agree with is to begin planning to preparedifference. the recommendation now that i agree with is to begin planning to prepare but you don't have to do anything yet. like in south florida preparing for hurricane season. you know where you will go, what you will get, but you don't actually have to do it yet. the bigger question will be what to do if we get sustained transmission of the coronavirus that is affecting europe and asia and other countriecountrie. then there are things do that i'll explain. >> stephanie, you jump in, economics versus the actual medical risks here. larry kudlow and donald trump and their messaging -- go. >> this is stunning. when you look at what happened to the market in the last two days, investors aren't saying that they know that pandemic is coming, investors are selling because they have can't trust

information. people don't all make money in the bull market, it is about risk management. so whether you are a ceo of a fortune 500 company, you own a dress shop in new york city or you are a mom deciding whether to send your kid on a class trip, it is about can you trust the information you are given and manage those risks. so where are we getting our information? the chinese government? that is not a trusted source. two days ago suddenly we see it is in italy, schools and shops are closed, and then you have the cdc saying it is not if, it is when. and larry kudlow, the president's economic adviser saying not completely air tight, but almost air tight. you know what wall street said? that is absolutely not true so i'm going to sit out. >> so dr. dave, if you can't trust information right now especially from someone like larry kudlow, some argue that you can't trust president trump who lies on a daily basis 5 to 10 times, what should americans be thinking that they might need

to do to prepare and how is this disease spread, how is this virus spread. >> well, senator klobuchar really nailed it and she recommends and i do too that you go to cdc.com. that is the place to get your information. and dr. fauci with nih and also dr. azar. once we have sustained transmission, when and if, we will have it have three different layers of proesktecti. first is the personal basic layer of staying home from your workplace or school if you are sick, washing your hands and not sneezing and coughing all over even. and then secondly, the community support. the community protections. they will close schools, they will close workplaces. the third will be what the nih does with development of vaccines which they are working on, but we will not have this year. and medications which they have

in preparation for the likely coming of the coronavirus to the united states. >> you know, so dr. dave is talking about people restricting what they did socially. in business leader i spoke with last night has a global company, said think about how it will impact you. if this continues, and the government is not talking straight, are you going to go on airplanes as much as usual, are you going to go to movie theaters? all of these events. and so we're talking about the supply chain that it will impact in china, but it will impact our daily lives here in america if this crisis continues, which will have a humge economic hit. >> and also a human hit. there are other times that we've seen the market go down and the president get cute saying what am i going to do, i'll say we're getting close on a tax cut. >> he may have made up a phone call that he ahead with chinese leaders.

>> correct. deregulations coming your way. this time it is different. this could be a true health crisis. the cdc only has an approved test in four states. new york isn't one of them. this is the melting pot. did you really feel safe here while the president is going, i don't know, stock market looks good? this isn't about the stock market. >> i agree with that, i think there are three pieces to this xhi economically. there is already a real economic impact on china. it will have an economiche stoc. second thing is the administration failure to provide any kind of leadership on this. stupid stuff like announcing in the middle of the day that it may become a pandemic. and thing there is genuine uncertainty here. i'm not a medical expert obviously, but how bad this will be and it is scary for all of us. none of us know where this is going. >> dr. campbell, stephanie ruhle, thank you.

we'll be handing coverageoff to you at 9:00 a.m. and still ahead, james carville will somewhere his tahave his t night's ugly debate. try wayfair. you got this! woah. yeah! let me try! all alright, get it! blow it up! that's what i'm talking about. except that's my seat, so. all right, so maybe after the movie let's talk about that bedroom of yours! when was she in our bedroom? you're stronger than you know. so strong. you power through chronic migraine, 15 or more headache or migraine days a month. one tough mother. you're bad enough for botox®. botox® has been preventing headaches and migraines before they even start for almost 10 years, and is the #1 prescribed branded chronic migraine treatment. botox® is for adults with chronic migraine, 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more.

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only pay for what you need. ♪ liberty. liberty. liberty. liberty. ♪ hearing my name mentioned a little bit tonight. i wonder why. mr. we will get to you, mr. sanders. first of all -- i think that she was talking about my plan, not your. >> i think that we were talking about -- it doesn't take two hours to do the math. >> let's talk about math. >> vice president biden please. >> i guess the only way to do this is jump in and speak tries as long as you should.

bernie hasn't passed much of anything. the fact is there is -- i'm not out of time. he spoke overtime and i'm going to talk. here's the deal. >> i am the a author of the bill that closed the boyfriend loophole that says that domestic abusers can't go out and get an ak-47. that bill along with -- you didn't write that bill. >> i wrote that bill. >> new topic. new topic. senator klobuchar, if you could honor the rules of the debate, thank you. senator klobuchar, i'd like to change topics. >> that was your democratic presidential debate in charleston, south carolina last night. really messy. two hours, kind of a slugfest that spun wildly out of control and it was really hard to even hear anyone talking. >> it was a mess. >> i mean, we talk over each other here so we know a little thing or two about it, but that was a wreck. good morning and welcome to "morning joe." it is wednesday, february 26. along with joe, willie and me,

we have mike barnicle, reverend al sharpton and also co-host of the circus and editor and chief of the recount, john halleman. any winners? >> yeah, i think so. our political editor, who of course lives with the dalai lama in a hut wrote up the list of winners and losers. do we have it? okay. >> let's see. winners and losers. >> look at that. so joe biden arrows up turned in his best performance on the election cycle even if his homicides number was off. mayor pete, always shows up,

usually good. and one of the only candidate not engaged in a wrestling match with the english language. >> he is always good, always on point. he never seems unhinged or thrown off. ever. >> and bernie sanders sure he screams, yes, he was shaky last night, but bernie still has the best shot of winning his party's nomination and getting lee gr n greenwood to sing the national anthem in milwaukee. that is true too. amy, the senator was solid and steady even as moderators forgot that she was on stage for most of the night. the end is nigh. elizabeth warren repeated the same attacks against the guy with zero delegates. warren's strategy remains a riddle wrapped inside a mystery inside the short man -- >> i think she went too far last night. >> mayor bloomberg, he looked as confused at times as anchorman

and that was warren unsheathed her torts. tom steyer, he may end up funding successful billionaire campaigns but not his own. his performance made clear that the businessman didn't belong on the big stage. eg walter, haven't met him, he is a recluse. we don't pay him. he does this for spiritual -- >> he doesn't seek monetary reward. >> no. so anyway, that sums it up for eg. what do you think, winners/losers? >> no question who is the frontrunner is. it was bernie sanders obviously. and most of the fire was directed at him. i thought joe biden did have a good night. >> he really did. >> because obviously this is make or break for him. he has put all his chips in to south carolina, he has said

through his struggles in iowa and new hampshire, wait for me in south carolina. a lot of people said it was the most important night of his political career last night and he delivered. he held up. he was much better last night than he's been in the past. and another headline i think is elizabeth warren briefly at the beginning of the debate turning and going to bernie sanders and drawing some contrast with how she's going to pay for her medicare for all plan for example, but then for the rest of the debate, going at michael bloomberg. so courageous to see what her strategy is when bernie sanders is the frontrunner but most of her attention is on bloomberg. >> and the same attacks that she used last week. >> i almost clicked over to a cactus league baseball game given the chaos at the beginning of that debate when i couldn't understand who was saying what, they were all yelling at one another. i had trouble figuring out what tom steyer was doing on that stage with those people. i thought joe biden had a really good night, his best night of all in the debates. i too wondered why other than

ideological simle paympathsympa elizabeth warren didn't go after bernie sanders and instead she chose again to go after mike bloomberg. i thought mike blambuoomberg hae highlight of the evening in bringing up the coronavirus and what he did in new york. >> thank god someone did. >> he always has one. it is always 70 minutes in. but he looked shaky at the beginning. he looked nervous, sort of -- >> yes. and i thought bernie was rattled for the first time in any of these debates. >> bernie was rattled. john heilemann, what is your take of the night's events? >> i'm kind of where the rest of you guys are. i think it is right, i think the most important thing is what happened last night to potentially slow the momentum of bernie sanders. that is what the central question of the debate is.

we saw people -- it was a messy sloppy debate. first segment before the break was at some times more chaotic laced than anything we've seen in the entire cycle so far. there was a period of time where they were literally screaming at each other like cross shouting for a solid 45 seconds and each one was flailing their arms and legs. but sanders did seem rattled and it was the first time where there were not as many clean hits against sanders as they were against bloomberg last week, but a lot of the oppo that we've been hearing was deposited out on the stage and to see the whole field turn against sanders that way, something we had never seen before, i think that it may have kind of arrested what had seemed to be a kind of unbreakable momentum on sanders' part and we'll see now what these -- again, if you think about bloomberg last week, it was like a clean kill in some ways. they took him out in some respects. by the end of the debate,

bloomberg had been knocked down. that didn't happen to sand ers last night, but now three days before the vote on saturday and there is a lot of stuff that came up in this debate that all of sanders' rivals now have some work to do. but it has been laid out there in front of the large audience and i think that you will see a lot of people trying to build on this debate. you know, you saw for instance joe biden last night go after sanders on the question of whether he was for primarying barack obama in 2012 and has real political consequence for sanders. bill belichi bernie sanders is on tape calling for a primary and yet he continues to deny that he ever did it. i think joe biden and others will make something of that over the next three days. so i think that is the big question and i think what now happens, but i do think that sanders got kind of clipped last night and it is the first time that we've seen it. and i do think that joe biden had a good night. >> i agree.

biden had a good night politically and reverend al, i think pretty remarkably the first time anybody has stood in front of bernie sanders to slow down his momentum in any of these debates. he always gets to say what he wants to say. he gets to shout where he wants to shout. he gets to point his fingers wherever he wants to point his fingers. and nobody stops him. and last night was the exception to that rule. what impact do you think it will have? >> i think that it will have some impact. the question how much. what was very effective by joe biden, and i agree with others that stated that joe biden had his best debate and i've been to all but one of the debates. but i think when he connected the fact that bernie sanders has voted five times, and he emphasized it, against the brady bill and connected that to the white supremacist killing here

in charleston at mother ame and saying i'm not saying he is responsible for the killing but that the killer couldn't have gotten the guns had the brady bill passed, that is going to have an impact here. and it also has an impact on the fact that part of what bernie sanders' brand has been is his authenticity and his consistency. and for the first time, we heard bernie having to say that he had to change on guns, which is not his brand. so i thought that biden had a very good night. i thought sanders was not knocked down but he certainly was shaken. and i think bloomberg did better. but when you start below zero, that is not difficult. all you have to do is still be on your feet at the end of the debate. clearly i think joe biden had the most to lose in the debate and in south carolina. and to connect to the killer at mother ame was a big winner.

and to hit the fact that we are looking at a man that wanted to primary barack obama i think is effective in south carolina. as one that has been on that presidential stage debate, i know when someone feels certain ways and i was a little surprised sanders was not more prepared to answer these things because he should have known that they were coming because they were telegraphed all week. all of them are at the breakfast that we're doing this morning and i hope he comes this morning with an answer because a lot of people that was the talk afterwards on i didn't know that about sanders, how does he respond to this stuff. he didn't last night. >> still ahead on "morning joe," as we heard in joe's analysis, elizabeth warren spent most of the debate in south carolina attacking a candidate who is not even on the ballot in south carolina. we'll talk about that. and just a note, you can catch joe's band tonight at prohibition right here in new

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before she fell back into focusing solely on mike bloomberg, elizabeth warren began her night with a direct challenge to bernie sanders over who is best to carry the progressive mantle into the white house. >> bernie and i agree on a lot of things, but i think that i would make a better president than bernie. and the reason for that is that getting a progressive agenda enacted is going to be really hard and it will take someone who digs into the details to make it happen. bernie and i both want to help rein in wall street. i fought the big banks. i built the coalitions and i

won. bernie and i both want to see universal health care. but bernie's plan doesn't explain how to get there, doesn't show how we'll get enough allies into it and doesn't show enough about how we'll pay for it. i dug in, i did the work, and then bernie's team trashed me for it. progressives have got one shot and we need to stand up with a leader who will get something done. >> that was tough stuff. john heilemann, it is interesting, elizabeth warren started with her first approach, measured, actually went after the guy who has the best shot of winning this thing. and then turned to bloomberg, a guy who i think was hurting himself without anybody else's help. and kept this focus in a really extreme focus. >> it was uncomfortable. >> on mike bloomberg in a way, again, that nobody that i've

talked to -- nobody on twitter could figure out. it makes no sense to keep attacking the guy with zero delegates who is performing so poorly in the debate. do you have any insights that we don't? >> well, i think if you watched it, she said in the middle of one of her attacks when she went in on the thing that i think made people the most uncomfortable, when she raised this allegation that bloomberg told a fiee mail emplofemale em haan abortion which he deny, she said this is personal for me. you could see her emotionalism rise when she says it, she told the story about herself and then raises that allegation. and i thought it was plain which was going on there, to a large extent elizabeth warren is a composed debater and she rarely

seems to let her emotions get the better of her. and that moment it did seem like she was telling us the truth, which is that she feels a personal animus toward bloomberg on this front. and she also mentioned that bloomberg at some point had backed scott brown in her senate race. and she mentioned it in passing as she was going through various republicans who bloomberg had backed. those are politically damaging critiques or charges against bloomberg. facts. but there is both those two things felt to me like they were a key to understanding what is going on with elizabeth warren and michael bloomberg. there is a personal thing here. do i think it is strategic, i don't. >> we vaul hall have had people tried to kill us politically. people who tried to kill me politically during campaigns,

they are the first people i called up after the campaigns wereoff. but y over. but you see it time and time again where people are trying to beat other people in this race or that race. again, this is a -- mike, this is the second week in a row that she's gone after a guy who is going nowhere. and if it is personal with her, god bless her, but if you want to win, you don't go after the guy that is going to have zero delegates. you go after the guy who seems to be the unstoppable freight train. if it is just personal, go at it, but she's wasting a lot of time and wasting a lot of effort if she wants to be the next president of the united states. >> well, she does want to be the next president. >> is does she have want to mak point or does she want to win? >> that is an interesting question. i've watched her several years

now. she is a skillful highly disciplined debater. maybe the best debater certainly on that sage. pete buttigieg is very good. but elizabeth warren is highly disciplined. yet in this case now twice with mike bloomberg to her right both times, her discipline disappears. it leaves her. and i think it is her utter contempt for mike bloomberg that causes it. >> i disagree with you and john. i don't think at this stage for a woman who has run a disciplined campaign, i don't think that she just can't control herself. i think she knows exactly what she's doing. she has a strategy. she has a reason she's doing this. i just can't figure it out. >> it is not a lack of discipline, it is a strategy. she comes loaded for bear to these debates and it is all toward mike bloomberg. coming up on "morning joe" after a previous debate,

elizabeth warren pointedly told bernie sanders i think that you just called me a liar on national television. well, mike bloomberg might have said the same thing to her last night. we'll explain that next. let's be honest. quitting smoking is hard. like, quitting every monday hard. quitting feels so big. so try making it smaller, and you'll be surprised at how easily starting small can lead to something big. start stopping with nicorette. the best of pressure cooking and air frying now in one pot, and with tendercrisp technology, you can cook foods that are crispy on the outside and juicy on the inside. the ninja foodi pressure cooker, the pressure cooker that crisps.

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so here it is, this is elizabeth warren really going after mike bloomberg in a truly personal way. she is taking information that is part of a lawsuit that he disputes and she is taking what is in that lawsuit as absolute truth, which is might be, and it is awkward. i can't tell if the audience is with her. we'll show it and then we can comment. >> you called my out by name. and referred to what i talk about as a side show. this is a personal for me. when i was 21 years old, i got my first job as special education teacher. i loved that job. and by the end of the first year, i was visualbly pregnant. the principal wished me luck and gave my job to someone else. pregnancy discrimination, you bet. but i was 21, i didn't have a

union to protect me and i didn't have any federal law on my side. so i packed up my stuff and i went home. at least i didn't have a boss who said to me kill it the way that mayor bloomberg alleged -- >> never said that. >> -- to have said to one his pregnant employees. people want a chance to hear from the women who -- >> i never said that. and for the record, if she was a teacher in new york city, she would never have had that problem. >> senator warren, that is a very serious charge that you leveled at the mayor. what evidence do you have of that? >> her own words. >> and mayor bloomberg, could you respond to this? >> i never said it. period. end of story. categorically never said it when it was accused, when i was accused of doing it. we couldn't figure out what she was talking about. but right now i'm sorry if she heard what she thought she heard or whatever happened.

i didn't take any pleasure in that. and we've just -- but i never said it. come on. >> this allegation was made by an employee of bloomberg llp in a lawsuit 23 years ago that was eventually settled with no admission of guilt. bloomberg has denied making the remark over the years and according to the new york timings htimines said that he passed the lie detector test but results were not released. last week the "washington post" quoted a former bloomberg employee who said that he witnessed the conversation and that was xwrooutrageous. but thoo should it hashould it debate stage? i don't know. >> well, she were talking about pregnancy discrimination. but bloomberg could have easily turned to her and said you know, a lot of people say that pregnancy story that you are

telling, you keep changing the facts of the story. a lot of people are saying that is not through the the way that you are presenting it. bloomberg should have said that, he didn't. i'm just saying for her to go there, i mean, she can do whatever she wants. i'm talking about what is best for her campaign. you heard the boos. i don't think that was a good move for her campaign. coming up on morning j"morn elizabeth warren just picked up an endorsement that might have been more helpful a few weeks ago. why "the boston globe" decided to endorse after the new hampshire primary. [crackling fire]

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[ barking ] election, the person who got the most votes. just a thought. it brings us together. now, this country was built and there is a movement reaching into church basements and bashlbashl

barber shops and universities. shows as a beacon around the world once more. is this o this is our chance to answer that call. >> they say impace itation is sincerest form of flattery. and that is mayor pete. and mike barnicle and robert gibbs are back with us and joining us, democratic strategist james carville is with us. also with us from dhacharleston the news site the 19th, erin haines. the organization covers the intersection of gender, politics and policy. great to have you. james carville, i'll start with you. what was that last night? what happened? >> actually i thought that joe biden actually spoke to voters in south carolina. >> yes, i agree.

>> he kept coming back to president obama who was very popular and that was his best performance by far. the takeaway is elizabeth warren hates michael bloomberg more than she wants to win. >> because that is where i wanted to go next. what exactly was her strategy. >> >> i think this is what is going on here. i think that she doesn't want to attack bernie because she is scare that had she'll get primaried in 2024. and her attacks on bloomberg probably help her raise money. maybe she just genuinely dislikes him. but it wasn't for getting anymore votes. it was maybe to stay alive a little bit longer. >> erin haines, can you speak to a little bit about what elizabeth warren was trying to do especially bringing up the alleged statement that michael bloomberg made 23 years ago that is stated in a lawsuit and where she got the statement, i guess, was from the press reports? what do you make of that and was

that important for south carolina and for the narrative as a whole in this campaign? >> well, i think that she was trying to draw a contrast between herself and mayor bloomberg particularly along gender lines speaking directly to women voters who may have a problem with the allegations that may have been raised against mayor bloomberg. but what i hear there voters here is that they are so focussed on ousting donald trump that the electability argument is one that is causing them to have a head versus heart decision with a lot of people to james carville's point really wanting to go with wouldbiden b being open for a heart decision to people like elizabeth warren. i think what you saw and j vice president biden had such a good night, he was speaking drektsly to black voters, and in a way that we have not seen in the first ten debates.

issues from red lining to maternal mortality, to hbcus, all front and center in a way that we haven't seen and those are the kind of issues that i think that i'm hearing from voters on the ground here in south carolina. >> mike barnicle. >> james, bernie sanders for the first time in his long career and his distinguished presidential run, his second president hial run, he's now th frontrunner. he's run national campaigns quite successfully. and in your early days as a campaign manager ran a very successful campaign in the state of pennsylvania. what is bernie sanders' chances look like in the state of pennsylvania? >> in all my time of politicpol you got to try to win the election. and so bernie sanders says that he will ban all fracking. well, he is banning any chance of doing anything particularly in western and central pennsylvania. last time i checked, florida was a key state.

you say something about castro, you are not trying to win the election. if he is not trying to win pennsylvania or florida, then maybe arizona is the answer. but why would you do that? i mean, it doesn't make any sense. you're not going to ban fracking. castro is dead. why are you even defending him. he's not trying to win. he's trying to make a point. and that is what scares me. it really does. >> interesting. here is sanders last night talking i guess a little bit more about the cost of his programs. take a listen. >> let's talk about medicare for all. i'm sure you are familiar with the new study that just came out of yale university published in lancet magazine, one of the prestigious medical journals. do you know what it said? medicare for all will lower health care costs in this country by $450 billion a year and save 68,000 lives of people who otherwise would have died.

what we need to do is to do what over other major country does, guarantee health care to all people, not have thousands of separate insurance plans which are costing us some $500 billion a year to administer. our plan that we have laid out options all over the place, one of the options in the 7.5% payroll tax on employers which will save them substantial sums of money. >> if you want to keep the house in democratic hands, you might want to check with the people who actually turned the house blue. 40 democrats who are not running on your plat foform, they are running away from your platform as fast as they possibly can. i want to send those democrats back to the united states house. >> mayor bloomberg has a solid and enthusiastic base of support. problem is they are all billionaires. [ crowd booing ]

>> geez. on the other hand, of the last 50 polls that have been done nationally, mr. bloomberg, i beat trump 47 of those 50 times. if you look at battleground states like michigan, wisconsin and pennsylvania -- >> polls aren't the election. >> -- i beat trump. and if you want to beat trump, what you need is an unprefs den pre unprecedented grass roots movement of people standing up and fighting for justice. >> can anybody in this room imagine moderate republicans voting for him? you can't win. >> will robert gibbs. >> that was a lot. i think one of the things that we've seen the turnout in new hampshire and nevada has been margin tally up fra up from 201

haven't seen a lot of new voters. new voter participation has been down. and i think last night showed that he is certainly the consensus frontrunner, everybody attacking him, but he is not in fighting shape yet in havinging to defend those attacks and he will have to get a lot better in how to answer that and these things if he is going to make anybody feel confident that he has a plan going forward. who does last night help or hurt and did south carolinahe i to them addressed? >> i think it definitely helps vice president biden. i think that he would even admit at this point that he does not have a firewall, but he is confident that he will win south carolina. and hearing from voters here, he should be. older black voters are familiar with johnson & johns joe biden, they feel he is best positioned to beat donald trump. so they are the ones that will show up for him. especially with the expected

endorsement from jim clyburn today, him being on black radio, shoring up that support for position, i think that that helps him not only on saturday but headed in to super tuesday when you will have black voters across the south watching what happens here and trying to make up their decision. there is still a lot of undecided voters in this part of the country where these primary elections are about to happen. and i think that he helped make the indicaticase for himself to into this heading in to super tuesday and beyond. >> president trump writes crazy chaotic debate, fake new, said biden did well even though he said half of the population was shot to death, it would be over for most. mini mike was -- just ridiculous. we have a coronavirus issue that he needs to handle presidentially. and he is sitting here tweeting like this. he says that he has a news conference and of course he says that right after he watches "morning joe" and starts tweeting about our coverage.

pathetic. anyhow, democrats have their own problems. bloomberg, is he helping sanders at this point? because it looks like his participation actually hurts joe biden, not bernie sanders. >> i think that it is getting complicated here because there is only one game to play here and that is to keep bernie sanders plbelow 1991. >> it is possible that that is bloomberg's intention. >> last time i looked, biden bought $1 million worth of division on super bloomberg has $4 millio $400 mi. how much it matter, i don't know. but bloomberg has real durability because his funding won't dry up. >> but do we know who he is? >> well, you'd think people would know. he is a kind of competent

billionaire who doesn't like to get attacked. most billionaires are very uncomfortable being attacked. >> i do think strategically you've heard from a number of campaigns, this may change after super tuesday, but heading in to super tuesday, if you can get a number of campaigns that are viable and are taking delegates, there is that chance that the real gap between the rest of the field and bernie, it will still likely be there, but won't be huge or in their view maybe some what insurmountable. so i think the question is, you know, you've got to have some of those people stay in for a little bit. the question and looking in the mirror moment will come after super tuesday and figuring out we can't move forward if you are in that group, you can't move forward with six alternatives and hope? how somehow that it derails them. >> do you have any intuition into what barack obama must be thinking? >> none. but my guess is after watching last night he glad that he is

not participating anymore in these debates. >> what is your sense of political athleticism among the candidates on that stage? >> not very much. i mean, i think that we hav some good candidates in terms of political skill, i don't just see is it. i don't see them being able to like deflect an issue and go to something that really matters. i thought the fact that we were an hour and seven minutes before mayor mike even broupt tght up virus was outrageous. families are sitting at the breakfast table and lost -- i know not everybody is -- but in pinching funds and they don is happening. the trump administration has no earthly idea what do. you can read story after story after story. he doesn't even understand what the virus. and i think this was a great -- i don't know why the moderators didn't bring it up. i thut this was a really, really

negligent thing. i learned more about syria. israel/palestinian conflict been going on since 1947, probably a while longer. this thing is immediate. people are concerned and scared. >> i definitely would have wanted it hear more what presidential answers we could have seen. >> and to james' very valid point, we are left with the president of the united states basically telling the people of this country in the wake of what might happen in this country, hang in there until april when weather gets warm because the virus goes away. >> and i think from medical experts, it is not like that. >> in. >> here is joe biden's answer when they did get to it. take a look. >> we reached a turning point today with the cdc. warning schools that they must prepare that they might have to close. members of the trump administration saying we don't have enough medical masks if

necessary. what would you do? >> what we did with ebola, i was part of making sure that pandemic did not get to the united states, saved millions of lives. and what we did, we set up -- i helped set up -- that office in the president 's office on diseases that are pandemic diseases. we increased the budget to the cdc. we increased the nih budget. what i would do immediately is restore the funding. he cut the funding for cdc. he tried to cut the funding for nih. he cut the funding for the entire effort. and here is the deal. i would be on the phone with china and making it clear, we are going to need to be in your country. you have to be open. you have to be clear. we have to know what is going on. we have to be there with you. and insist on it and insist, insist, insist. i could get that done. no one up here has dealt with

these world leaders. i'm the only one that has. >> that was good and mike bloomberg also pivoted from a question about the soda ban which he nut place put in place york city. very disjointed. and in many ways what we're seeing in these debates, i mean some might complain there is too many hosts and too many candidates. so if there are too many candidates, would you agree with that? does somebody need to drop out at this point? >> don't drop out before minnesota. just stay in there. you can make a decision after that. and i don't know how far you tell someone -- people say why don't you call so and so. why don't you call them. >> but tom steyer, what is he doing up there? >> tom steyer is an intelligent man. he put a lot of money into south carolina. he will see this out. saturday night or sunday morning he will take a look where he is. but he won't do -- whatever

reason they get in there, this is so hard, it is cold in iowa, they do this and they do that, and they have a dream. and they will -- the dream will go he around on -- >> isn't their dream to beat donald trump and not have a party so weakened that there are four more years of trump? >> i think the field will get smaller soon. sometimes you need people that -- >> let it play out. okay. er richlt rchl errin, is the field so broad that are voters so clued into every single candidate and exactly what they stand for? >> they are not. and this has been paralyzing. kind of a pattern that has been emerging for me. i get on the ground, you know, days before the election. people are still undecided as to who they will vote for. and i think with them having so many choices still at this stage in the primary, that is making

this a difficult choice because they don't want to choose wrong, they are so focused on ousting president trump that they are not sure who that person is yet. there has not electable. you know, senator sanders had a decisive victory coming out of nevada, but the first two contests were close and south carolina doesn't look like it's going to be a runaway election either. so that's not clarifying very much for this electorate. i think that is why a lot of these candidates are still staying in this, we don't have a candidate that's really made the case yet for a diverse coalition. we'll probably see that play out over the next couple of contests and headed into march, but as of now we don't know who that person is that is really going to be able to build that coalition. but who knows how challenging that's going to be with so many people vying for the attention of the electorate. >> thank you.

>> are you still scared to death? >> yes. i tell you, errin has a future in this business. >> she does. >> of course i'm scared. i'm scared this is, i don't know, what, a critical juncture. >> for our democracy. >> hopefully sometimes these things work out better. i think you saw some people getting better. mayor pete is -- >> he's incredible. >> pretty good. he really is. biden got -- i actually -- i think bloomberg i didn't think he was capable as being as good as he was last night. but he did pretty good. warren was the person i wanted to most be for when it started and she just -- i don't know, somebody said never let bernie get to the left of you -- >> her fixation on michael bloomberg's problems with women, have it, but there's other

candidates on stage that have things that they have written pertaining to women where she could be as mortified and as deeply, personally insulted. it seemed a little focussed and personal. >> i think it was. i think she does not like mayor mike. now the question is, was it smart to go after him? if you're not getting votes off of him, they're not coming to you. i don't know, maybe her anger or disgust or something like that was so manifest she could not let it go. i can understand that. >> let's talks to the editorial page editor at the boston globe. thank you for coming back to the show. i take it you all have decided to get behind elizabeth warren. i'm curious about the timing and what you thought of her performance last night. >> sure. well, the timing is really i think right because we have 97% of delegates yet to vote.

we see the electorate so far, momentum for bernie sanders. we see an indication that americans want some progressive transformation. they don't want to just kick the tires of our democracy, they want to fix what's fundamentally wrong with it, but elizabeth warren is better positioned to do that than senator sanders, she set up the consumer protection bureau in the wake of the financial crisis. she's more flexible, a more evidence based thinker than sanders. that shows in her efforts and even the way she's been more flexible on the single payer health care issue. in addition to that, she has the tenacity to get things done and stick to this agenda without being uncompromising and unflinching. obviously we've seen some undeniable momentum from the sanders' campaign but we're on the verge of super tuesday, a lot of delegates at stake.

did i think that the exchange between warren and bloomberg last night was an effective line for the campaign, no. one of the things we call for is for the warren we saw on the night of new hampshire primary, where she was calling for unity among democrats making a message of bringing people together around a common agenda. that's a more effective line for her as we move towards the general election. >> mike? >> given the globe's reach into southern new hampshire, and many of the things you indicated about senator warren that are in the editorial today, why didn't you do it prior to the new hampshire primary where she was hurt, damaged, and given the globes' impact up there, what was the timing issue? >> remember we're not accountable to any of the campaigns. we're accountable to our readers. i was on the show just before the new hampshire primary talking about why we didn't

endorse in that primary. the reason is new hampshire and iowa, first in the nation primary and caucus are nonrepresentative of the electorate and the democratic party on numerous democratic factors, from age to race and home ownership and wealth. for that reason we wanted to use what influence we have in the new hampshire primary to call for the end of this -- what we think is a destructive system for our democracy. i think this election cycle is bearing this out. now that the electorate has started to converge around particular candidates and trends we think it's time for us to say who we think is the best candidate, who can carry it forward and bring in the bernie supporters and the supporters from the more moderate center part of the party without tinkering around what's wrong here. remember we had an impeachment

of the president where 52 senators agreed to acquit after the abuse of his power. we need a leader, a nominee on the democratic side who can really reform this country and reform the party. >> the boston globe, thank you so much bina for being on the show today. that does it for us this morning. stephanie rhule picks up the coverage after a short break. 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. ♪ so w>>i'm searching for info on options trading, and look, it feels like i'm just wasting time.

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hi, there, i'm stephanie rhule. it's wednesday, february 26th, and here's what's happening this morning. we start in the state of south carolina. because we are just three days away from the primary. and less than a week from super tuesday where a third of all delegates are up for grabs and the stakes are high. you can feel the pressure on the debate stage last night where seven democratic candidates took the stage and things got ugly straight out of the gate. >> bernie and i agree on a lot of things but i think i would make a better president than bernie. >> if you think the last four years has been chaotic, divisive, toxic, exhausting, imagine spending the better part of 2020 with bernie sanders versus donald trump. >> i'm hearing my name mentioned a little bit tonight. i wonder why. mayor bloomberg has a solid and strong and enthusiastic base of support. problem is they're all billionaires.