he had a longer response, perry bacon, to stick with iran.out a statement and unlike what we were used to from senator schumer, not a verbose statement. it was two sentences. praising kerry for working hard and saying i'll take a look. >> you say a lot this week, republicans against the deal. >> all unified. >> democratic -- murphy was enthusiastic just now, but hillary clinton, schumer, a lot of democrats, i'll look at the details. one thing about menendez is that he's not going to be a ranking member anymore of the committee. that does matter when the hearings start. when you have ben cardman, much less hawkish than menendez, they're very opposed to the president's views. >> if i'm bob corker, i'm trying recruit tim kaine to become the sponsor. >> going into the conspiracy theory for a minute, there is a republican governor of new jersey. so if he were to leave, would a republican be picked to replace him? >> temporary. >> but still important. >> will we have a new jersey senator serve a full successive term. >> they believe in giving every

i also want to bring in nbc's esenior political reporter, perry bacon. he joins us now from the white house. so perry, we're now getting a sense it could be anytime this hour of the afternoon on a sunday. what's the thinking, you think, behind the timing? >> so the big thing we learned, looking at the e-mail that john podesta sent to people was the quote, we need to make the middle class mean something again. that gets to what alex is talking about. a big focus on the middle class, reducing income inequality. that's the big focus of the campaign, which we learned officially today for the first time. in terms of the timing, i will be curious to see how they explain this. because, you know, it's been a -- we've all been kind of waiting all day. on some level, we all knew that hillary was running for a long time. i do know they wanted to tell -- like alex, they wanted to tell key supporters, members of congress first. there'll be a conference call, members of congress, chief of staffs tonight. that will give some insiders a chance to talk to the campaign sta

let's dig into those headlines this morning with nbc's senior political reporter perry bacon. tamron. >> jeb bush and this aggressive fundraising campaign today, but still waiting for the official announcement. >> he's probably going to announce may or june but what we do know is he is raising a lot of money. i think all the other campaigns are acknowledging if there's a contest in money, jeb bush is going to win it he's going to have the most money, at least for the first six months. there's talk of something like $100 million, which will be a lot more than most of the candidates. the question is can he turn that money into support, because the polls right now suggest he's not doing much better than the other candidates among actual voters, even though lots of donors like him. >> what's also interesting, bush plans to visit europe in early june germany, poland, and astonia. >> trips abroad to really show this is a field that doesn't have a lot of foreign policy experience, very few served in the military, very few have been senators so you have republicans trying to go abroad

when she makes a decision to announce. >> nbc senior political reporter perry bacon is joining me fromare telling "the new york times" in a general election, the president is expected to help mrs. clinton raise money, and he would be asked to campaign for her in the swing states he won back in '08 and in '12. how about your sources? what are they telling you? >> my instinct is she's going to run on the kind of things you heard president obama talk about in his state of the union address in 2012. focusing on the middle class and improving economics. her message is going to be focused on the economy and every day americans and kind of fighting the notions of wage stagnation and declining social mobility. obama's talked about those ideas himself. she'll try to run and build on some of the thing he's already done. you've seen she's been very supportive of the affordable care act, one of his big initiatives. >> right. i also want to get really quickly with you on panama. the president back from that. let's talk about what he has to do in terms of leaving off the selling deal, if you will, o

i'm joined by usa washington bureau chief susan page and perry bacon. perry, i don't understand this one charge. this thing gets pretty complicated, and there are both sides to the argument. they keep saying how secret it is. any u.s. senator, any time they want, they can go look at the exact language of the trade deal as it's being negotiated right now there is going to be 60 days for public review of it there is going to be 90 days all together on notification. this thing could last 180 days lots of exposure. why are they pushing this argument that it's being done in secret, and is it honest? is it an honest argument? >> i'm confused by it too, chris. i don't get that. stronger is the one senator schumer made. the argument basically that china manipulates its currency, one, and two, that since nafta, there has been a greater growth in income inequality, middle class wages have been stagnant. those i think are hard arguments to argue against. and those are going to be the arguments going forwards, i think. those are really strong cases. i think a lot of

they are focused on speaking carefully and cautiously. >> perry bacon, thank you so much. capsized ship hundreds feared dead. why this incident is part of a growing problem. plus in just minutes we expect the baltimore police to brief on the death of that maryland man while in police custody, what scherr saying about the arrest and the death as the cycle continues. enter this world with a shout and we see no reason to stop. so cvs health is creating industry-leading programs and tools that help people stay on medicines as their doctors prescribed. it could help save tens of thousands of lives every year. and that w ould be something worth shouting about. cvs health, because health is everything. when a moment spontaneously turns romantic why pause to take a pill? and why stop what you're doing to find a bathroom? with cialis for daily use, you don't have to plan around either. it's the only daily tablet approved to treat erectile dysfunction so you can be ready anytime the moment is right. plus cialis treats the frustrating urinary symptoms of bph, like needing to go frequ

thank you. >>> let's bring in the panel matt bai helene cooper, amy walter perry bacon. did we learn from the republican party on this issue? >> lots of nervousness. you saw mike pence, jeb bush, good politicians people who won a lot of elections, all this week had to change and move their position on the issue and jeb bush in 48 hours. you learn the republican party always had the evangelical wing which focuses on abortion, gay marriages, versus the business wing. those groups are usually not in conflict. there is a real conflict this week and you saw the business part of it won and evangelicals are angry, this is a weakening of their movement more broadly. >> amy, i'll tell you, i've been hearing this for some time. they feel lite ofa lot of republicans pay them lip service and when the going gets tough, the first part of the republican constituency gets abandoned is evangelicals. >> ted cruz, you saw his strategy. here is the point. the tipping point has been reached and the tipping point is done, which is this is not an issue in which republicans can win. they could

with me now from washington is msnbc's alex seitz-wald and nbc's perry bacon. ntlemen. perry, you've reported while sanders is a long shot for the nomination, some ideas might resonate with voters. tell me about that. >> there's a big push in the democratic party around three issues -- the idea that you should go to college and pay no tuition and be debt-free. so debt-free college increase in social security benefits and making the minimum wage $12 or higher. i suspect that bernie sanders will push those three issues in debates and other candidate forums. so his role will be to some extent to try to push hillary clinton and make sure she at least thinks about these ideas and alex has reported she's already talking about the debt-free college idea. so i think his role will be seeing if he can get hillary to adopt the ideas that progressives want her to take up. >> alex i would imagine a presidential candidate is not excited when they get a challenger but what is the clinton campaign saying? >> nothing publicly jose about bernie getting in the race but their stand

. >> perry bacon, political reporter, lisa lair, and david corn is the washington bureau chief with motherones. lisa, a couple of things are going on there. is this the norm of journalism, if you've got a record of public statements on hot issues, you're going to be asked about them. >> certainly in a presidential campaign you're going to be asked about what you said previously. this is the "today" show. personality matters in politics. the "today" show is where you go to do -- introduce yourself to casual political observers, let people know what you are like, get a feel for who you are and he's blasted into everyone's households in the morning fighting with savannah guthrie. >> impression he make? >> i don't think he made a good impression for someone who didn't follow politics and he looked contentious and with a female host, which he has a history of. >> does he? >> yes. >> rachel? >> yes. >> let me ask you this. we were talking about this before with our producers. maybe this is the fight he wants. not that it's right or wrong but when you have people who feel alienated on the right,

joining me now, msnbc reporter perry bacon and patrick healy of the new york times.has not yet been clear or taken a stand? >> i think it will be around issues among income inequality and the middle class social security right now where you've seen chris christie has a plan where he wants to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64, versus a lot of liberals want to see social security benefits increase, where more people get them and the benefits are much higher. so far, that will be interesting to see where senator clinton will lay down on that issue, increased benefits, retirement age, in the middle. that's the issue where it will be interesting to see where she goes. >> patrick, campaign says clinton wants input from americans before rolling out specific policies. she's had some time to think about this. do you expect we're going to be hearing about that in the future? >> in the future, but i don't think necessarily any time soon jose. look, this is the no worries campaign with hillary clinton. this is the slow ramp up and the reality is she is going at exactly the

and bringing in perry bacon. and is this good for america?bably isn't good for america to have a dispute over support for israel. both parties are fairly supportive of israel. the underlying dispute is about policy in the middle east. and what you are seeing here is netanyahu and president obama have very different views about the future of the middle east and these are long-standing. back in 2002 netanyahu talked about the benefits potentially from the iraq war. the president also spoke about there was a war we should not fight even then. so these two people have radically different views and it is less about who is pro-israel and who is not and how should the middle east look and it is a sincere disagreement but a strong one. >> and perry, what we have right now is a framework. if we do come to an eventual deal this seems like a clarifying issue for 2016. you have hillary clinton coming out basically supportive of where we're headed and all of the republican candidates lining up on the opposing side. this seems set to elevate foreign policy

nbc's perry bacon jr. is at the white house this morning. toric meeting? >> reporter: it was. well, good morning, steve. you know the president talked about normalizing relations with cuba in december. and this was a big first step was this meeting they had yesterday, a very historic meeting. the next two steps are, one, currently the u.s. government has cuba on its list of state sponsors of terrorism. so that's the next step. the president talked about it a bit yesterday. there's a study and review going that's likely to see the u.s. remove cuba from that list. embassies opening up in havana and here in washington. i should also note since it's kind of hillary clinton day, clinton was a big advocate in her big book she wrote about needing to change our policy on cuba. she wanted to normalize relations as well. this is one issue where hillary clinton agrees with president obama. and the republican candidates all strongly disagree with president obama. >> perry bacon jr. live for us at the white house. a beautiful spring morning behind you. >>

with "the washington post," howard fineman, global director of the huffington post and reporter perry bacon. i'll start with you. you're on this case. it looks like it's starting. not why now because it's the right time. it's april. but why this way? a video followed up by apparently small meetings with people without a lot of press around? >> well because they're doing the opposite of what a lot of the republicans are doing right now, which is to go big. they want to go small they want as many people as possible to see the initial part of it so it will be online. she'll probably tweet because that's her preferred medium of late. she'll tweet and release a video. she released a video in 2007. we're sure this will be significantly better than that. rather than follow up with a big rally and glitzy thing with television cameras in tow, she'll do deliberately small events in iowa living rooms and coffee shops which the campaign better showcases her strengths in terms of being a policymaker and a problem solver and a listener and will help dispel they hope the whole kind of juggernaut inevitabi

thank you so much, anne gearan and perry bacon. while democrats from hillary, the republicans have the most wide open fight in modern political times. you want experience? you have jeb. generational change, you have rubio. a heat-seeking missile you have ted cruz. who is going to break out of the pack and give hillary clinton the best fight? who knows. >>> plus chris christie isn't in the race yet, but it sure looks like he is raring to go. he says he can beat hillary by putting blue states in play like new mexico. where did he get that one? we'll put that claim to the test. >>> and the saudi connection to 9/11. the former chair of negligence committee says the evidence he has knows exists links the saudi arabian government to the 9/11 terrorists. you got that? senator bob graham is going to join us tonight. >>> finally, let me finish with a man who loved a woman. this is "hardball," the place for politics. audible safety beeping audible safety beeping audible safety beeping the nissan rogue with safety shield technologies. the onl

the krispy kreme donut hot dog comes with bacon and ras perry jam on a bun. or you can see it serves as a birthday cake as well. and in d.c. this eight-pound, yes, i said eight pound burger sells for 59 bucks and comes with a pitcher of soda or then there is the pulled pork par fay in milwaukee. what would be better instead of yogurt and granola. >> that does sound good. >> you have to do more than stretch during the 7th inning. >> that's true. i'm so glad you didn't bring any props. >> not at 7:00 a.m. >> no. later. >> you know you and i would have tried it. you know i would have. >> thank you, amy. >> march madness time. robin you were talking about it earlier. the tournament heating up. the big championship game tonight of course. duke taking on wisconsin after the badgers ended kentucky's dream of that perfect season. it is now a battle of two basketball giants and abc's alex perez has the lucky assignment in indy with all the excitement. good morning to you alex. >> good morning, lara. wisconsin and duke fans invade indianapolis over the weekend and ever