joining me now is joan walsh of salon.com. thank you for being here, joan. >> thanks, rev. >> i want to start with the fight over planned parenthood. will ted cruz back down from this fight after virtually threatening a government shut down, joan? >> no, i don't think he'll back down at all and i think you showed rand paul is with him, marco rubio made similar noises, well, if it happens he's not committing to it. if it happens, if it will be president obama's fault and the democrats fault. you have presidential candidates who are having a hard time getting traction against donald trump finding themself up stail staged by donald trump and have an opportunity to get back up there, get the limelight and grab the right and show that they are worriers. so -- >> even if it hurts the american public, even if it hurts people closing down their jobs? >> they don't care about that. they didn't care last time. mitch mcconnell says it will not happen. you see leadership but they tried to say that before. they are not entirely in control,

i'm joined by michael steele, joan walsh and "the washington post" robert costa. thank you all. joan, i'll start with you because you're smiling so much. kasich really timed it right. he's the one candidate who i think is the most appealing if you're center-left or center. but the fact that he squeezed in, that rick perry is out and that trump has got the catbird seat. he's the tent pole. as we said in catholic school, the may queen. >> i remember that. >> everyone will be dancing around him. >> i love that. >> megyn kelly and everyone will be gunning for the big guy. >> this is terrible news for rick perry who ran a better campaign, a more coherent campaign this time around. it is good news for john kasich. it's a huge opportunity for kasich who has wanted to set himself up as a more compassionate conservative, as somebody who has governed more from the center, who has done good things around medicaid, who has done good things around drug treatment and really could be the person. i would look to him to possibly be the person to stand up to donald trump if things get ugly and lay

joining me now is henry fernandez, senior fellow for the center for american progress and joan walsh of salon.com. thank you both for being here. >> good to be here. >> joan, what's worse, what donald trump said or the fact that others are going along with it? >> i think the fact that others are going along with it. donald trump is who he is. this is the trump effect. this is what he's doing to the race. he's pulling these candidates to the right. scott walker was totally incoherent in that answer. >> he said follow the law like he never read -- >> he said yeah -- right, that would be against the law but casey asked him and he said yes twice. they didn't support it but they didn't oppose it and come out and morally say this is a terrible idea. people deserve that birthright. so, you know, also, i think it's really, it would really create a kind of police state to enforce it. what's he going to do? put them in cattle cars? buses? >> henry, i mean, to me the thing that is so disturbing, first of all, how do you find -- >> house to house. we're already dealing with a law enforcement ques

. >> joining me now is joan walsh of salon.com. thanks for being here tonight. >> thanks for having me, rev. >> joan, the last two days, another bach of e-mails and an eye-popping iowa poll. should the clinton campaign be getting a little nervous? >> you know, i think they are a little concerned. it's still very early but senator sanders is running a great campaign and it's resinating. he's getting across the message of economic fairness and college affordability, expanding health care, single payer health care, things that progressive would want to be in the mix for a long time and hearing it and it's resinating. i think that's good for the party in the long run. you know, the iowa poll on top of new hampshire, those have to be somewhat troubling. >> let me stop you right there. the iowa poll, i mean, we would expect bernie sanders to do well in new hampshire but iowa for him to start surging. >> right. well, you know, we'll see if he can turn the surge into organization. a very good ground organization when people compare him to s

joining me now is msnbc political correspondent casey hunt and joan walsh of salon.com. thank you for being here. >> thanks, rev. >> thanks, reverend. >> casey, let me go to you first. clinton is tieing trump to the rest of the gop candidates. isn't that exactly what they were afraid of happening? >> well, reverend, i think that at this point secretary clinton is in someways having as much trouble breaking through the noise as any of those other republicans candidates and the reality thety is that the clinton campaign expects they will be facing one of the other people in this field and not donald trump and so in someways, it's actually muted their message and their attempts to hold candidates accountable for what they say are anti women views but really tough to even break past that and i will also point out that also on "morning joe" it wasn't part of the clip you discussed but they put questions, policy questions on women's issues on donald trump and he refused to answer. he couldn't talk about the policy of equal pay. >> and i think, joan, that that is selling. he wo

joining me now, joan walsh and jonathan capehart. thank you both for being here. >> thank you very much, rev. >> joan, what do you make of the phone call? do you think present was hoping trump would run? >> i love this story. it's got everything. right? republicans heads are exploding. they've been wanting to blame him -- call him a democrat, say he was a hillary plant. now they have a tantalizing piece of evidence. of course it's not true. bill clinton doesn't have that control over dond trump. donald trump has changed his stripes, he's thoroughly in the mainstream of the republican party, but it's enough for them to put this problem off on the clintons, the democrats when it's a real republican problem. but i think it's hilarious and bill clinton would want to see his wife run against donald trump. it's the easiest task for her. >> jonathan, former president clinton is known to be a great political strategist. could he have planned what's happened with trump any better? >> we've known that he likes to pick up the phone and call anyb

. >> thank you to joan walsh, eugene, coming up. did she go too far? as anti-woman as the world is anti-terrorist this shows joe biden would be doing better than either one. ten years later, president obama goes to new orleans to mark the ten-year anniversary of hurricane katrina. wait until you see the pictures of before and after. on the 2016 front, no filter. we'll tell what you people come out with. a warning. most of those top one words are brutally honest. and let me finish with some of the reasons why donald trump is commanding the republican field. this is "hardball." the place for politics. >>> request news for investors and americans worried about the retirement savings. a rally on wall street after positive news about the growth pace of the u.s. economy. stocks closed higher for a second straight day out of correction territory as the dow finished up nearly 370 points. and the nasdaq and s&p up nearly 2.5%. >>> i have to admit, i take it a little personal when they go after women. when they go after women's health, women's rights, extreme vi

up in new york joan walsh is also with us. katy tur is out there with me. let me go to katy tur. what did you make, having been a student, i guess, you can write a book on this guy trump right now. maybe a short book. we don't know how long it will be, but it's a book. what do you make of the way he handled the guy from univision. the guy was bothering him, reacting negatively. it was causing him to be off his game. then wait a minute, i went too far. i better get him in here and make nice. >> initially he was caught off guard and he did not handle it well. ramos got up and started pretty aggressively throwing questions at him. but that's to be expected. ramos has been trying to get an interview with donald trump since he made those immigration comments two months ago now. >> okay. who is the big guy, the lug that pushed him out the door? >> that's his body man. he's actually a very nice guy, i should say. but when it got heated and trump didn't want to answer the question, didn't like that he stood up and challenged him. wanted to go to chip reid who was sitting a couple people

msnbc political analyst joan walsh is also editor at large of salon. katelyn, let me start with you. do you think there's a cohesive plan or unified effort within the republican party right now to ice out trump? >> well, they've tried that in the past and it hasn't worked. remember the rnc chairman called trump. you had some of these rivals going after him directly. it kind of helped to propel him. i do think though we're seeing a little bit of change in terms of the supporters of trump. they want someone that is serious about this. the frustration is real. he has tapped into that vein. but they want someone who can, you know, take this all the way. and i think they're starting to see, as we saw in the debate the other night, that he may not be as serious as they want him to be. so the question is, which of these candidates sees that, embraces that opening? we've seen a couple of them kind of competing for that lane. do these supporters move on? >> david, donald trump has his own money. and he's got lots of it. so what kind of control, if anything, can

let me go to john walsh. joan and michael steele and paul. joan up in new york.of the people that care about illegal immigration and don't refer to it as undocumented workers, who really don't like illegal immigration, this guy seems to be scoring. >> yeah, because he's telling them what they want to hear, that it's going to be an easy problem. that proposal would create essentially a police state, to round up and move out 11 million undocumented immigrants and possibly their american-born children. >> so who else has a solution to illegal immigration? >> good question. >> well i asked the question, i want an answer. who has a good answer to those who are concerned about illegal immigrations. most people in most countries do worry about it. they're not all feverish about it. what do you think is the solution to illegal immigration? >> the senate worked hard on a bipartisan bill that wasn't perfect but that was going to make a difference. and you know, the answer is definitely not rounding people up and putting them on cattle cars and. >> i'm just trying to get to