Isz. I have to say this. He hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. I never heard of this one. Look at those hands. Are they small hands . [ cheers and applause ] and he referred to my hands, if theyre small Something Else must be small. I guarantee you theres no problem. You got pretty big hands. See . My hands are big. This is the problem with politicians. Theyre all talk. They give you stuff and people you know, i have good sized hands. What about the schoolyard taunts of the debate . I mean, there were references i dont see schoolyard taunts. To hands and see how beautiful my hands are . Those are powerful hands. Hit a golf ball 285 yards. I was very proud to hold my hands up because these are politicians. They say things and they make things up and, you know, you have to clear up the record. Clear up the record. Wow. So, willie, its come to that. We get the measuring stick out. I just said weve reached the portion of the campaign thats a literal blank measuring contest. Im amazed marco rubio didnt turn to him and say prove it. Right there. Politifact is working on it right now. No, whats funny is the fix at the Washington Post a couple days ago came out with a scientific view. On stands in. Took all the hands [ laughter ] were going start with the hands right there. Thats where your mind is
willie. Sorry, misunderstood. Look at him showing his hands and they explained yes, his hands are normal for a gay whos 63. This is the election for the person thats going to run the biggest military and the biggest economy in the world, right . It is. I didnt drift off somewhere. Election for president of the fraternity. Whats remarkable is Grayden Carter started this by making up a line back 25, 30 years ago in spy magazine, greatest magazine ever. A short fingered vulgarian. I have to say quickly before we dive into everything and also that mitt romney press conference. Dude, if youre going to get into the pool, jump in. Jump in or go and put the towel on. It was just kind of depressing. And i know everybody is saying marco hit him, hit him, hit him,
hit him. Ive always said marco was too young and inexperienced and not ready to run for pakistresident. But thats 2016. Ive said stay in the senate, be governor, run in 2020 and youll probably be ready. Im just afraid for his sake and his part soa his supporters sake talking about trump wetting his pants. What happens if trump runs and loses to Hillary Clinton . Theres marco who has diminished himself . You know what im saying . It doesnt seem worth it. Hes going against his brand. Were chain saw repair shop, were a chain shaw repair shop, oh, you need your nails filed . Come on in. Beautiful. Unless four years from now hes able to say Hillary Clintons president , marco rubio runs again. He can say listen the donald trump thing was a unique
phenomenon it was once in a lifetime, well never see it before, well never see it again, i did what i did to do to fight this guy fighting on ground weve never fought before. But besides john kasich, it was an embarrassing night absolutely. The way they addressed each other and ted cruz while it was funny kind of talking and coaching trump through yoga, breathe, breathe, you can do it. There was fox tried their level obesity best to get subst but the debate was depressing. I was exhausted by the end of the day, kind of drained having watched romney and trumps reply to romney and the debate you felt like you wanted to come home and have a sauna or hot shower. And then marco made the joke, the punchline saying well, hes flexible on the yoga front and everybody laughed and there were people tweeting that was the moment of the night. Im sitting there going thats the moment of the night . Its not fun anymore. All of them need to know its not funny anymore. Were electing a president , one of the most vital times for the country where our representation across the globe was shattered. Where the u. S. Economy while it seems to be doing better if you look at unemployment numbers you have stagnant wages. Still have billions and billions of dollars offshore. Look at what the democrats have been doing. The democrats have been talking about issues and substance. I say two things. It may be a low bar. I thought it was more civil than houston which was a complete gang of whatever. Maybe that was just because the first time we saw it was houston and i think weve got used to it. I think the fox moderators did a good job. Excellent job. And when they brought up the charts to basically say, well, you say youre going to cut hundreds of billions of dollars from pharma but we only spend 80 billion a year on drugs, i
thought they got trump to be more specific than hes been. Lall right. The debate was in detroit. The remaining president ial candidates met for the 11th time and one of the question from the fox news moderators dealt with the recent attacks from marco rubio to the size of Donald Trumps hands. Can you believe that, though . The first out of the box . Out of the box. Theyre talking about the size of Donald Trumps hands. Can i say but thats not what they were exactly talking about. But if they are fighting, though, on that ground, donald trump wins. All of this were talking about, donald trump wins. Hes up 20 points in all of these polls. Theyre playing right into his hands. As David Axelrod told me the other day donald trump is somehow allowed. The Football Team hes playing against to play on his side of the field the entire time. Yeah, now, in fairness trump brought that up on some other
topic. He said and by the way little marco, which is what he called him, lying ted and little marco. He brought up my hands and went into the other thing riff. So after that insult, more insults continued into the night. The candidates debated poll numbers, immigration, honesty, even height. He has spent a career convincing americans hes something hes not exn exchange for their money, now hes trying to do that in exchange for their country. This little guy has lied so much about my record. Here we go. You see what happens when you challenge him on a policy issue . You asked him about the economy and the first thing he does is launch an attack about some little guy thing. Because he doesnt have answers and hes asking us to make him i have a policy question for you, sir. Lets see if he answers it. I will, dont worry about it, marco. Dont worry about it, little marco, i will. Dont worry about it, little marco. Gentlemen you want you have to do better than
this. I watched a cnn interview donald did where he explained. He said, well, the problem is you cant find americans who are qualified who are want to work as waiters and waitresses. Let me ask the people here, how many here have worked as a waiter or waitress . [ applause ] you know how Many Americans wanted those jobs . Roughly 300 applied. Donald hired 17. Whats been reported is that donald told the Editorial Board of the New York Times what im saying on immigration i dont believe. I wont build a wall or deport people. This is just rhetoric for the voters. If, in fact, you went to manhattan and said im lying to the American People, then the voters a right to know. Youre the lying guy up here. Youre the one. Release it. Excuse me. Ive given my answer, lying ted, ive given my answer. He scam it had people of florida. He scammed the people he doesnt vote. He doesnt show up to the u. S. Senate, he doesnt vote. He scammed the people. He defrauded the people of florida. Youve made that point. Go ahead. As you can see in his answer, its the same thing. You defrauded the people of florida, little marco. Let me ask the voters at home. This is this debate you want playing out in the general election . I tell you what i dont want playing out and ive said it before, the crowds. Who is that good for . Just the cheering and the booing. Mike, you said it sounded like a hockey game. Not only that, it looked like you know at a baseball game people seated behind home plate trying to wave. What happened there . Two things struck me. One was the crowd well, a couple things. John kasichs temperament, the idea he didnt say ive had it, im out of here. He proved he had the temperament to be president and the third thing i was stunned that they didnt go after donald more on taxes, on his lack of you know, failure to give us his tax
returns which is a point of vulnerability that he clearly wants to avoid. Well, Mark Halperin, you were there and looks like youve gotten the mud off of you. Give us your report card. Explain it. As always, my report card is based on performance and whether the candidate helped himself become the more likely nominee. I thought john kasich had his best debate. I gave him a bplus. He told stories about his record on the campaign trail and in ohio. This is a state where he wanted to do better than hes going to do but he positioned himself to be part of the conversation which ive been surprised hes not been. Trump and cruz i gave bs to. I thought ted cruz did a better job than marco rubio of going after donald trump and connecting it to things voters might care about. Marco rubio i gave a bminus. More scattered. He went for oneliners on trump and didnt do as good a job
connecting things to voters. I agree with mike, im surprised they didnt go more to the tax returns, im surprised fox moderators didnt go after that. Thats the thing mitt romney brought up yesterday. Its one of the pending issues with donald trump thats a legitimate issue and where hes not been forthcoming. Didnt it wasnt in the the fall of the election when mitt romney released his tax returns . September. He put out some earlier and some later. And then he put out all of them later in september . He put out a lot around the South Carolina primary and then he had that years return was delayed. So donald trump has cleverly brought up this notion that romney put his returns out later. He put them out he put some out later but some earlier and his people have said donald trump could release returns from years that arent currently under audit or tell us what his effective tax rate, is et cetera. Lets look at your report card. You look at this report card and if this ends up being how most
people score the debate and you look at the polls where trump is as far ahead as he is in the contests that are coming up, you probably agree with me that last night didnt change a thing. It didnt change much. Id say it only potentially changed two things in the margin. Doesnt change trumps commanding position, the extreme likelihood hell be the nominee. I think it gives john kasich another look which he needs badly. He needs to win ohio and i think this will help him get another look nationally and where other key primaries are coming up. And i think in this battle between ted cruz and marco rubio to be the more relevant figure, based on super tuesday and what happened last night ted cruz can argue he is the more relevant figure this battle to stop donald trump. You think all of marcos one liners, all the talk about wetting pants, engaging in Donald Trumps the size of Donald Trumps extremities, all of these things you think that actually plays to cruz and makes
marco less relevant . Like i said, i thought cruz when he went after trump did a better job of connecting it up to policy. Connecting it up to say to voters this is what trump is like with my one liner heres what im like. I think marco rubio is trying to find his footing in this new mode where there were more just oneliners as opposed to oneliners voters could look at and hear and say okay, thats what rubio is for, i like rubio, hes hitting trump but telling me what hes for. I thought cruz did a much better job of that. So during the debate we had all these personal attacks, we had rubio and cruz attacking donald trump on Foreign Policy, attacking hes not a conservative but at the end of the debate the candidates vowed to come together and back whomever ends up with the republican nomination. That would seem to undercut marco rubio who has been using the hashtag never trump. Can you definitively say you will support the republican nominee even if that nominee is
donald j. Trump . Senator rubio, yes or no . Ill support the republican nominee. Mr. Trump, yes or no. Yes or no, you will support donald trump if hes the nominee. Yes, because i gave my word that i would. Yeah, and i kind of think that before its all said and done ill be the nominee, but let me also say [ cheers and applause ] can you definitively say tonight that you will definitely support the republican nominee for president even if its not you. Even if its not me . [ laughter ] millions and millions of people have come to the Republican Party over the last little while. Its the biggest thing happening in politics and im very proud to be a part of it and im going to give them some credit, too, even though they dont deserve it. But the answer is yes, i will. Okay. A lot of people have said that before, that theyll back donald trump but given the attacks on him, all the con man and the establishment attacks on
donald trump its kind of remarkable to watch people sit on the stage and tear the guy down and say we can not have him president then say ill support him in the end. And i think marco rubio is hurt the most from all of those because hes been putting that hashtag up, katty, never trump and thats become a rallying cry. Rubio jumped on it. Last night he undercut himself which actually plays to type for conservatives who are putting nevertrump. He moves around and he always does it. We saw it in realtime. He went from being Chuck Schumers buddy on Immigration Reform to wanting to put tanks at the border practically. This is really interesting. Marco rubio moves around, clearly, and the never trump but yes ill support him is an example. But then we had during the course of the debate, fox news put up a series of three different graphics on which donald trump has moved around and his answer was yeah, i
changed positions. And somehow from donald trump it worked. Its fine and it worked and his supporters will like him for it. Marco rubio doesnt seem to manage to get away it with. You foe why . Because trump says i changed positions. Or people hold trump to a much lower standard than they hold marco rubio who does look at times, i said it for six months and people said, oh, you hate him. He looks preprogrammed and he looks like a robot. So when he does that, he never gives an inch on anything. When he loses and is humiliated, he goes up and stands on stage and says tonight is the night that they will remember that he turned our campaign around. I mean, its and people are like come on, just tell us the truth. And at least with trump, you know, hell say, yeah, i changed my position and it just also i think people hold him to a much lower standard, i dont know why. But, yeah. I dont know if its a lower standard but if marco is goi
going nevertrump, then but i can see him saying never that and then his support i can see trump doing that and people saying fine. I think youre right they hold him to a much different standard than traditional politicians. And he proves that unlike everybody on that stage he has never run for Public Office before. Hes not a politician. He gives the normal human response, yeah, i changed may mind. But on the afghanistan he clearly wilg lly wiggles. When he heard the word afghanistan repeatedly and he said oh, i thought they were talking about iraq. But the peculiarity of trumps personality is he will never admit hes wrong. If you say youre wrong hell go of an a tirade or tangent and say i was wrong about that. Nor does he answer a question. About Trump University, say. Its so funny, everybodys heads are exploding, the medias response, why dont you ask the followup question . Well, we do. No, you dont, yes, we do. But you keep going after him, he keeps answering the way he wants. We had a senator that said the press has been too easy on him. Have you ever talked about the dang danger . I said we have, this is looking like germany in 1933, is that Strong Enough . Yeah, but have you asked about dictators and tyrants and we said, yeah, you know hes assassinated journalists. People are frustrated and theyre blaming the media because donald trump gets away with being donald trump and not answering the question the way they want it answered and not answering the followup and the followup and the followup. He wont answer. The people and you know
what, his supporters dont care. Dont care. Because they see allover us as the enemy. Including my brother on some days. So after the after super tuesday John Heilemann was tweeting from the obama team that helped president obama get elected and he noticed that they seemed to be getting the trump phenomenon better than republicans. And i talked to several of them. John favreau, David Axelrod and others and they all came i said what is it about trump that you get . What is it . John favreau, i thought it was fascinating, said when we were writing speeches for obama, he never said give me lofty rhetoric, he said make sure you write like people talk, i dont want to sound like a politician. And john favreau, David Axelrod, everybody, they went back to the
fact that unlike everybody else out there this year, donald trump talks like a person. Like how people talk to each other. As john favreau said, like your cranky uncle talks when hes watching tv on thanksgiving day and people relate to that and maybe they cut him more slack because he talks like people talk when they talk to each other. Not with the lofty rhetoric aad i truly do believe that americas greatest days lie ahead. Come on, i want to kill myself. Just stop. Thats one of the ways hes shattered we overuse the term establishment, but everything thats been done in the past. Everything we knew about politics, according to donald trump, is untrue. Hes the guy at the end of the bar, the national id, hes tapping into something that has not been expressed through
politics before. And John Podhoretz needs to trademark the name americas id. You can go four blocks from here to the new york diner on 57th street, go in, have breakfast, you wont hear anyone who sounds like ted cruz or marco rubio sitting there having breakfast. Right. Youll hear people who sound despite his wealth, which we dont know what it is exactly like donald trump. Whether youre in manhattan, whether youre in alabama, whether youre in nevada, yes, you will. It may be what the difference is. Mark halperin, so last nights debate probably didnt change anything. Let me just ask you, well go around the table quickly. Ill just tell you my opinion right up front, i think mitt romney probably helped donald trump pick up five points yesterday because he didnt jump in the race. If he jumped in the race and said im going to win california, thats one thing, but an establishment guy
attacking trump, were going to show the clips, i think thats a win for donald trump, what do you think . I think theres an upside for trump to push back against romney. Lets just go back to this question of will people say theyll never vote for him. I think it makes people look like politicians to say those guys on the stage to say stump is the worst guy, hes horrible but ill vote for him in the end. I think mitt romney helped to clarify for people . The party what could be decisive if trump is stopped at the convention which is drawing a line and saying unacceptable, he cant be our nominee. So i think he nave the shortterm been a mix thing for trump and helped him in some ways but longer term if trump will be stopped, mitt romney will play a parent in that. If i had said the things people said about donald trump, i would have had to answer no way. Because if you think hes a scam artist, if you really think all these things they said of him, how can you say yes, i support him. Absolutely. Thats why people hate
politics. Do you think the mitt romney thing helps or hurts trump . I dont think one person who supports donald trump was changed by what mitt romney had to say. Are there persuadable people still out there . I think he was speaking to people who already dont like donald trump. Are there some people in the middle he might have persuaded . I guess. But to me i think now what i thought going into it which is that the very face of the establishment last time around attacking donald trump only helps. You can imagine in the general when he is taking on Hillary Clinton that the Clinton Campaign is dissecting and thinking well package this bit and that bit. And its useful fodder for them. And if there are 6 to 8 of people in the midwho will are undecided, it can work. Theyre telling us we have to go. When we come back well talk about mitt romney and still ahead on morning joe hes plague the member playif the American Public for suckers. He gets a free ride to the white house and we get a lousy hat. The former republican president ial nominee takes his best shots at donald trump. Plus well have more with former White House Press secretary ari fleisher. Also former president ial candidate jim webb joins us on set. That should be great. Also chuck todd will break down the chances of a brokered convention between donald trump and everybody else. First, heres bill karins. Hes got a check on the forecast. Bill . Hopefully the last snow, right, joe . We have our fingers crossed. A slippery morning from new york city southward along the midatlantic coastline to norfolk. This is where we saw as much as five inches of snow in maryland last night. Most was one to two inches from new york city south whereas the timing of this by the time we get to 10 00 a. M. , its gone, its off the coast. This afternoon will be dry so the worst is this morning for the next few hours and winter holds on from the great lakes to the northeast. This will probably be the coldest weekend until next winter. We do a pattern switch, we get the warm air from the west heading east and stormy weather
will be in california for the next ten to 14 days so saturday is very chilly. Chicago, minneapolis, but watch what happens. We zbrump the 40s 50,s, near 60s in places like st. Louis and minneapolis. A little warmer in the east but we should see temperatures in the 60s and 70s throughout tuesday, wednesday, thursday next week. So a big improvement but all of our attention will be out west and our friends in california getting the needed rains but theyll also deal with flooding. Leaving you with a shot of washington, d. C. Many reports of one to two inches. Secondary roads are slippery. Main roads look like theyre moving just fine. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. Some research. Let me introduce you to our broker. How much does he charge . I dont know. Okay. Uh, do you get your fees back if youre not happy . dad laughs wow, youre laughing. Thats not the way the world works. A
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nomination would enable Hillary Clinton to march to the oebl offi office. Let me put it plainly if we republicans choose donald trump as our nominee, the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished. You say, wait, wait, wait, isnt he a huge Business Success . Doesnt he know what hes talking about . No, he isnt, and no he doesnt. [ cheers and applause ] his bankruptcies have crushed Small Businesses and the men and women who work for them. He inherited his business, he didnt create it. And whatever happened to Trump Airlines . How about Trump University . Then theres trump magazine and trump vodka and trump steaks and trump mortgage. A business genius he is not. Heres what i know donald trump is a phony, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as the degree from Trump University. [ cheers and applause ]
Donald Trump Tells us he is very, very smart. [ laughter ] im afraid when it comes to Foreign Policy he is very, very not smart. This is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter. Who attribute add reporters questions to her menstrual cycle. Who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance. Who bragged about his Marital Affairs and who laces his public speeches with vulgarity. Donald trump says he admires vladimir putin. At the same time, hes called george w. Bush a liar. That is a twisted example of evil trumping good. Hes not of the temperament of the kind of stable, thoughtful person we need as leader. His imagination must not be married to real power. Look, mitt is a failed candidate. He failed horribly. I backed him. You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said mitt, drop to your knees, he would have dropped to his knees. He was begging. He was begging me. It was a campaign that should have never been lost. Youre running against a failed president. He came up with the 47 . He demeaned 47 of the people in our country, right . The famous 47 . Obama, say what you want, he was on jay leno, he was on David Letterman the last three, four weeks. Mitt was looking for zoning for a ninecar garage or something in california, right . So, katty, you want to tell us about yesterday . What kind of day was it . It was a very phallic day on the campaign trail. It was. And it was that day where you got to the the end of the day seriously when i felt i wanted a shower because it was so disgusting. And i cant believe there were not a lot of women watching that day, like i was, who thought
this is gross. This is what we have come to. I do not want to hear this stuff during the course of my day. Its kind of offensive that you have to sit and listen to this language as a woman, a man talking like that on television running for president. Donald trump says he was referring to romney getting on his knees to beg, but i have to say, i dont shock easily, i think you know that. None of us do anymore but that line from trump i went, whoa. And then the line at the debate where he was talking about his hands. Whoa. And that doesnt happen very often. Mark halperin, there has to be some scar tissue that is impacting the Republican Party in the fall election. What is the impact in this primary fight in march . I think it will depend when
donald trump secures the nomination. There are some people in the party who wont vote for him but the vast majority of people in the party said they will be for whoever the nominee is, including donald trump. By the way, can you talk about how significant it is for donald trump in a positive way and how negative it is for marco rubio that rupert murdoch, who was hostile toward trump is sending out Smoke Signals and tweets that the republicans need to just shut up and line up behind donald trump because hes going to be the nominee and youre seeing also new York Magazine writing stories about how fox news has abandoned marco rubio which shocking because ive never seen a candidate treated better by any network well, other than msnbc bowing and scraping to barack obama in 2008. But other than that remember that. Every night, like Hillary Clinton would win kentucky and it would be like tonight, the
racism rises over lexington. I mean, every time hillary won theres like the ghost of Jefferson Davis rises somewhere over a confederate cemetery in richmond, virginia, where barack obama was beaten. I mean, that was pretty bad, wasnt it. Who are you impersonating. Was that churchill . That was a slight churchillian sir, im not telling you who that was but he called george w. Bush a nazi everyday. So lets go back to anyway, its big news, is it not, Mark Halperin, that fox news has apparently dropped their endorsement of marco rubio and are saying trump is inevitable. The guy theyve been fighting against all the this time other than han anity, it seems things have changed. I think youve identified one voice, rupert murdoch, you can look at what sean hannity and
Rush Limbaugh said yesterday about trump versus romney. You could look at Chris Christie obviously. But its remarkable, right, in the wake of what happened on super tuesday. Trumps gotten no major endorsements this week of the caliber of a Chris Christie, et cetera, instead, youve had romney, mccain and others coming out against him. In terms of unity, if he gets a majority before the convention, he will reach out to people and be very charming, be very solicitous. He know he is needs to unite the party. And i want to say since you didnt ask me on the previous topic, i wanted to note last nights debate gave new meaning to the phrase the donald. I get it. I get it. Katty, it goes into the morning. I was fright. Today is phallic friday. There is a mother somewhere in halperin gave it a name. That just spit out her
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can i answer a question . [ laughter and applause ] i really hope we dont ceo ga on this stage. Well, hes very flexible so you never know. [ cheers and applause ] were going to take a break to take a few deep breaths of our own. Doesnt move. Doesnt move. Coming up next, we have the wall street journals mary kissel and pissed off. Are you, mary . Are you upset . Im just joking. She looks good. Shes fine. Looks happy. Mom and dad were just joking. Shes standing by and why shes zeroing in on Foreign Policy in the dividing line in the republican race for president. Mary is always fun to have her. Shes ready to go. Well be right back. The cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. Then quickly fell back to earth landing on the roof of a dutch colonial. Luckily geico recently helped the residents with homeowners insurance. They were able to get the roof repaired like new. They later sold the cow because they had all become lactose intolerant. Call geico and see how much you could save on homeowners insurance. Hey kevin. Hey, fancy seeing you here. Uh, i live right over there actually. Youve been to my place. No, i wasnt. Oh look, you dropped something. Its your resume with a 20 dollar bill taped to it. Thats weird. You want to work for ge too. Hahaha, what . Well were always looking for developers who are up for big world changing challenges like making planes, trains and hospitals run better. Why dont you check your new watch and tell me what time i should be there. Oh, i dont hire people. Im a developer. Im gonna need monday off. Again, not my call. Is better for your skin than wearing no makeup at all . Neutrogena® cosmetics. Powders, concealers and foundations in new shades for more skin tones. With vitamins and antioxidants. Your skin will look beautiful when you wear it and even after you take it off. Neutrogena® cosmetics see whats possible. All right, with us now, we have mary kissle from the wall street journal Editorial Board. Is that how you introduce every guest . An angry guest . Got up early, schlepped out of bed. I dont remember other guests being introduced that way but thanks. Listen, i only said the only reason i got elected is because in 94 i wouldnt read the rnc talking points id read the wall street journal editorial page so im one of the most loyal readers every time. Thats great. You guys are angry. We had Bret Stephens here yesterday. We had to take him out and put oxygen on him he was so wired. How are you feeling this morning . I feel tired. Its friday morning. Its been a long week and that was one heck of a debate last night. What about the whole day . A lot of what did you call it, katty . A phallic day. I would call it a vulgar debate but a very revealing debate about donald trump. It became very clear if it wasnt already clear that the guy just makes things up as he goes along and i thought the fox moderators did a terrific job in calling him out on entitlement reform, putting the numbers up and saying, look, you cant reform entitlements by getting rid of waste, fraud, and abuse. Your numbers dont add up, his flipflop on assault weapons bans, his flipflop on highskilled workers and immigration. He put out a statement this morning that was different than what he said last night. But, mary, we knew that. When we had a town hall meeting i talked about entitlement reform and i said it doesnt add up. But voters dont Pay Attention until they have to. But im saying i dont think theyre paying attention now. Do you . I think voters rely on incentives and their incentive is to Pay Attention when an election impacts them personally and when the vote is coming up. But, mary, do you think it
will have dissuaded any people who supported trump . Trump seems to have a ceiling. Its around 30 to 35 . So people mary, hes at 49 in the latest National Poll but look whos voted. Look at the average of the people who have actually voted. Im saying, though, theres always a momentum to this and as weve said if he wins New Hampshire hell blow through South Carolina and the deep south and the latest i guess its a cnn poll has him up. I think well find out where the momentum lies and whether he can get past ohio and florida. How many people were polled in that cnn poll . 300 . You. Youre sounding like Walter Mondale in 1984 now. Any time somebody starts asking questions like that from a reputable poll, youre like, okay, mondale, youll lose 49 states tonight. Look, the voters will get the
candidate they want. Theres no incentive on for the guys on that stage to drop out. You saw a Clear Division between the candidate last night and it became very clear early on that trump has no principles, he has no policies and hes making it up. Marco rubio last night said if donald trump was the nominee he would endorse and support donald trump. If donald trump is the republican nominee, will the wall street journal editorial page support donald trump . If you read us everyday, joe, you know we dont endorse candidates. You do everything but endorse candidates. We talk about policy. We try to help readers i read your paper everyday i know who you like, who you hate, who you loathe, who you adore. So then thats a nonsense question. No, its not a nonsense question. Because we talk about policy. So you all will be framing the president ial race as you do every four years between Hillary Clinton and donald trump. Are you going to frame in the Donald Trumps favor . Hillary clintons favor. If donald trump is the nominee, well analyze his policies just as we would analyze hillarys. In many respects hes very similar to hillary. He doesnt want any kind of entitlement reform. He thinks government should create jobs. He hasnt talked about things like, for example, School Choice which kasich talked about last night which is the only way to reform public schools. By the way, one of the spokespeople for hillary is the Teachers Union chief. So we will talk about what the consequences of his policies, if he has nominated. I think last night the interesting thing to me was that ted cruz actually came out with a very respectable and cogent electability argument. Cruz essentially said, look, im a adult, im not a vulgarian, im a conservative, ill appoint a Supreme Court justice whos conservative and i have real policies here, go and look at it and examine and i have won four states and i beat hillary in the National Polls. It was a strong argument. I think it was a good night. But cruz has a set of
policies on the extreme end of the conservative ideology. What do you mean by that . The flat tax. Thats not extreme. Well, it depends its extreme to you. Its extreme to democrats but not its extreme to the American People. No, it isnt, its the fairest tax. Well, theyve had a progressive income tax for over a hundred years. I think suddenly telling them they have a flat tax and his vat would turn the tax system inside out and upside down and its highly regressive. Thats your opinion. Well, regressive is an opinion. Absolutely not. There are facts. Whats fairer than a 10 detective i didnt say fair, i said highly regressive. It provides more benefits for those at the top than the bottom. Thats a fact. So we have a white board with a couple math formulas. Right now we need to get to Peggy Noonans oped. For that we get away from math and go to english with katty kay. This is interesting, talking of the wall street journal. Peggy noonan is writing the Republican Party is shattering. I think we are seeing a Great Political Party shatter before our eyes. Im not sure i see a way around or through. We are witnessing history. Something important is ending, its hard to believe what replaces it will be better. No one knows where this goes. The top of the party and the bottom have split. They disagree on the essentials. The gop elite is about to spend a lot of money and hire a lot of talent quickly to try to kill trump off in the next two weeks. It will no doubt do mr. Trump some damage, but not much. It will prove to Trump Supporters that what they think is true their guy is the only one who will stand up to the establishment, so naturally the establishment is trying to kill him. And Mark Halperin that goes to the point we were making about mitt romney being the face of the establishment trying to kill him. To marys point that theres no incentive for either of these other candidates, rubio, cruz or john kasich, i nut there as well, to get out of the race at this point, what is the outcome
by which donald trump does not become the nom see in if they cant get to 1237, if he doesnt get to 1213, they hang in long enough, how do you take the nomination away from donald trump . Well, look, if you look at what you were talking about before, is mitt romney or john mccain going to influence Trump Supporters . No. What mitt romney and others are trying to activate are donors and people who may not vote because they dont understand the stakes, they dont understand if they dont vote donald trump will be the nominee. Its a threestep process. They have to deny him a majority of delegates. I think chuck will talk about this later. If you run the numbers, if trump doesnt win ohio and florida its very possible, even if he continues to win at the rate hes winning, to deny him the delegates. So california, oregon, washington state, those qualifying dates have not come up. Are those winner take alls or are those proportional . California is winner take all statewide, i believe. There are not that many winner
take all states. Winner take all South Carolina was kind of winner take all because they had an exemption. Then florida and ohio are. Theres only eight total winner take all states. So thats what i dont understand. If mitt romney wanted to stop donald trump, then mitt romney should have announced yesterday that he was going to run on the west coast. That he was going to run in california, he was going to run in oregon, he was going to run in washington state. If romney wins those states and kasich or somebody else wins ohio, rubio or somebody else wins florida then, yes, trump is stopped. But just giving a speech isnt enough to do it. He will have to jump in the race and win on the west coast. Not necessarily. California vote on the last day with new jersey and i think three other states. The threestep process is keep him from getting a majority, then make the case to the public at the convention that the rules are you need a majority to be nominated. Going to the convention with the most delegates doesnt guarantee
you the nomination. Then you have to find somebody to stop him at the convention. If things stay the same, hell get the majority. Hes way ahead in michigan and the other states and florida. Trust me, if theres not a change in dynamics like mitt romney jumping into the race and trying to shake things up and giving an alternative rubio is not an alternative. Cruz is not an alternative. Kasich has to prove he can start winning before people see him as an alternative. There has to be a fundamental change in the dynamics or trump wins this. And i think its hard if trump has 1230 delegates or some number right, that it will be hard to deny him the nomination. Mary kissel, stay with us. Well talk to the chairman of mississippi Republican Party. Plus, the leader of cpac explains why the rise of donald trump and what it means for the conservative cause. Morning joe is coming right back. For your retirement, you want to celebrate the little things, because theyre big to you. And that is why you invest. The best returns arent just measured in dollars. Td ameritrade®. two text tones now . text tone excuse me. phone tone again . Be right back. Always running to the bathroom because your bladder is calling the shots . text tone you may have oab. Enough of this. Were going to the doctor. Take charge and ask your doctor about myrbetriq. Thats myrbetriq, the first and only treatment. In its class for oab symptoms of urgency. Frequency, and leakage. Myrbetriq mirabegron may increase blood pressure. Tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder, or have a weak urine stream. Myrbetriq may cause serious allergic reactions. If you experience. Swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue or difficulty breathing, stop taking myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away. Myrbetriq may affect or be affected by other medications. Before taking myrbetriq. Tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. Common side effects include increased blood pressure. Common cold symptoms, urinary tract infection. And headache. Its time for you to make the calls, so call your doctor to see if. Myrbetriq may be right for you. Visit myrbetriq. Com to learn more. Then smash it into a tree. Ch on a perfect car, your Insurance Company raises your rates. Maybe you shouldve done more research on them. For drivers with accident forgiveness, Liberty Mutual wont raise your rates due to your first accident. Liberty mutual insurance. My school could be bad. Ing fast. Could be a blast. Cant find a single thing to wear. Will they be looking at my hair . Wont be the same without you bro. When its go, the new Choice Privileges gets you there faster. And now, stay two times and you can earn a free night. Book now at choicehotels. Com hey hows it going, hotcakes . Hotcakes. This place has hotcakes. So why arent they selling like hotcakes . With comcast Business Internet and wifi pro, they could be. Just add a customized message to your wifi pro splash page and youll reach your customers where their eyes are already on their devices. Order up. Its more than just wifi, it can help grow your business. You dont see that every day. Introducing wifi pro, wifi that helps grow your business. Comcast business. Built for business. Coming up next hour, former White House Press secretary ari fleisher joins us to weigh in on this race. Plus, jim webb, who toyed with an independent run for president after ending his bid for democrat. All that and more when morning joe comes right back. Oh, look. Another antiwrinkle cream
in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works. In one week. With the. Fastest retinol formula. To visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. With mitt i just wanted to tell you that he came out, it was very nasty, i thought he was a better person than that. I did help him. I raised money for his campaign, we had a fund raiser in my apartment in trump tower and because everybodys shoes were so wet, i ruined my carpet. This carpet was wiped out and nobody thanked me for the carpet. Hey, maybe i can send mitt a bill for carpet ruined, right . This was yeah, man, it really tied the room together. This was a valued yeah. Tie what tied the room together . My rug. Were you listening to the dudes story, donnie . Were you listening to the dudes story. I was bowling. That rug tied the room together, did it not . [ laughter ] we have to give a hat tip
where a hat tip is due. Laura kim, our producer. Laura kim, thank you for that. It really tied the room together, man. Can we just watch lebowski for the rest of the show . Shut up, donnie. We need to run that clip at the end of the block, too. Welcome back to morning joe, its friday, march 4. Mika, of course, is in the south of france. Nice today . I think its nice today. Yes, if its friday it must be nice. Monaco is tomorrow. She goes down the coast tomorrow. She does her whole princess grace thing. I hope not the whole princess grace thing. Well, she doesnt drive off a cliff or anything like that. Im talking like you know princess grace, you know 1960s, 1970s. It must be nice. Everyday a different place. And there is willie going to be one or two people this morning that, like, think shes actually there. Yeah. And shes faxing in the mustreads. Instead of doing what we know shes doing which is, you novkn
vacuuming and smoking a cigarette and watching soap operas. Lets introduce everybody. Its mike barnicle, legendary columnist in. Legendary. Member of the wall street journal Editorial Board, host of opinion journal on wall street journal live, mary kissel. Very angry, angry. No, shes good. Angry. [ laughter ] look at the smile on her face. Its okay treasury official morning joe analyst huge fan of the flat tax steve rattner. Regressive taxation until the economy is choked to death. Weve only had it for a hundred years. Who needs reform . And managing editor of Bloomberg PoliticsMark Halperin. Also joining us, moderator of meet the press and host of mtp daily chuck todd. Lets go to the smart political guys first and start with you, chuck todd. Talk about the debate last night. What was your big take away . Im still sort of shellshocked from the beginning of it where, i guess, donald trump decided not to be so president ial there in the first part of it. Look, it was a i think it was a tough debate for donald trump that probably has no impact on h him. I thought tommy krizanoved cruz. I thought most of it was trump debating the moderators. It was different. It wasnt i didnt feel like the engagement between the four was as interesting as the engagement between trump and the moderators. So what changes the dynamics of the race . Well, i think john kasich had a good enough debate that i feel like i see a path for him to win ohio. And, look, this is what this campaign is about now, right . Its about for the next 12 days its about florida and
ohio. Can rubio win florida and kasich win ohio . If they both do it, trump cant get to the has to con go to the convention in order to win this thing. If he wins one of those two states he can win this thing without a convention. So if you look at it in what changed the dynamics, john kasich showed life. Thats good for john kasichs chances in ohio. So were talking an awful lot Mark Halperin about florida and ohio. Ohio is a bit closer. Florida, though, still a very heavy lift for marco rubio, isnt it . Very heavy, but a lot of resources are going to go in. There will be pressure on the Rubio Campaign to follow the romney plan and scale back their efforts in other states voting between now and on the 15th. Youve got primaries and caucuses on saturday, tomorrow, that i think could set up very well for trump not to do well or as well as hes been doing. Theyre closed, theyre caucuses. Those have been events he hasnt done as well in. Youve got cpac, youve got michigan. All that is setting up before a week from tuesday when, again, as chuck said, florida and ohio
are so key but if rubio focuses on florida and if kasich focuses on ohio, lets see what happens. The math duds not set up great. As well as donald trump is doing, as overwhelming a favorite as he is the math does not look great for him if other people can make progress between now and the end of the nominating season. Mary, we were talking in the the break. You see it as perfectly in plausible that donald trump does not get the majority of the delegates. The whole brokered convention thing used to be a fantasy in years past but you see it as plausible and maybe ted cruz or marco rubio is drafted and wins. The field has not been winnowed as it has in previous years. I think trump underperformed on super tuesday. I think rubio made great gains in virginia that wasnt really expected. That was a surprise, cruz did well in the closed primaries. As mark said, trump doesnt do well when just republicans start to vote and i think what we saw last night were Clear Divisions between the candidates and its now abundantly clear, as i said
before we went to break, that trump makes policies up as he goes along. And i think as you see these ads, for example, the club for growth ads which are great start to educate voters in these states and as these voters in florida and ohio start to Pay Attention, there is there seems to be at least so far, we dont know if it will continue a ceiling on trumps support. Its around 30 to 35 . So well see if this debate had an affect. You just said donald trump underperformed super tuesday. He did. Do you write marco rubios concession speech which is sound like churchillian victory speeches . I dont know, you said you read our editorials. We had an editorial on this on wednesday talking about how trump as he continues towards the nomination gets less popular and you see more votes going to cruz and to marco rubio. Now, kasich may prove a spoiler. I think its very difficult for him to make a case that he can win. Yes, he has to win ohio, but he
played the spoiler really for marco rubio in virginia and in massachusetts. So whos going to defeat donald trump . Well, we dont know that. Do you know that . Yes, i do. Hillary clinton . Nobody. Because i this i if donald trump is nobody on the republican side. We dont know that yet. We kind of do. No, we dont. Yeah, we do. There are just as many delegates awarded the fifth, sixth and eighth as they did on super tuesday. But the thing is this thing is so frontloaded and there is such a sense of momentum that gets behind the candidate a that if they were going to stop donald trump and i said this of john mccain in 2008 if youre going to stop him, you have to stop him in South Carolina because once a frontrunner escapes South Carolina, chuck todd, the pace picks up, youre flying from one airport hangar to another. Nobody can raise enough money to hit the 50 or 60 media markets youre going to have to hit instead of just hitting the greenville, columbia, and charleston market. And suddenly it gets wild and out of control. Maybe trump can be stopped. But i just dont know how. Well, look, theres theres 11 days. I mean, there are ways. Ted cruz is going to have a good weekend of delegates. Its very possible. But the problem is on tuesday donald trump is likely to win mississippi and michigan. Now, michigan can i ask you, chuck michigan is going to be split hold on a second. It doesnt seem fair to ted cruz that if marco rubio had won the states that ted cruz won they would be throwing the media collectively throwing rose petals at his feet and washing his feet in, like, oil and lifting him high above their heads and cheering the boy king who would be president. Well ted cruz wins three states, marco rubio wins a caucus in the middle of the night in minnesota that nobody knows the rules to. If cruz wins another weekend, nobody will say he can win like they would say of the boy king. It just doesnt seem fair to cruz. Well, cruz is look, i think cruz has proven to be very resilient here and very strong and, youre right. Look at super tuesday, the week before it. It was all about rubio versus trump and quietly cruz put a solid plan in texas and boy did he clean up delegates in texas in a way that was very impressive. Skunked marco rubio who didnt get a delegate. I dont believe he got a single delegate out of the state of texas. Obviously he was very smart in his targeting. Look, this is a very wellrun campaign. The Ted Cruz Campaign is arguably the bestrun campaign tactically. They know how to get delegates. They are more prepared for a convention fight than any of the other campaigns because of the way they know how to pick off delegates and its almost inevitable they end up second in delegates no matter what happens which will make cruz a crucial player in some form or another. Look, i dont i think its more likely that trump is short of the delegates than not. You start looking at everything hes got to do and i think it will be tougher for them to sweep both ohio and florida. The amount of money that will go into florida and florida is a closed primary and i think some of the polling doesnt fully account for the fact that this is a that they need to be tighter screens on your polling in florida. Chuck, weve been doing this all along. Im going to hold up a paper and mark this. You said something significant. So youre saying on friday, march 4, 2016, were going to have a brokered convention . I think its more likely than not now. Wow. You start looking at these numbers, its such a precarious look, there is a good path for trump if he wins both florida and ohio. But i dont see how he wins both. Why not . Look, i think he can win i dont see how he loses florida, chuck. Do you . Well, i agree. I think hes a favorite in
florida but i dont think you understand how much money is about to go down there. I understand, theyre running ads every ten seconds attacking donald trump. This is going to be the last i mean, this is sort of whatever you want to call florida but this is the line in the sand. Its the establishments last stand. This is it. Mark halperin, yesterday, toward the end of up with of the more bizarre days in american political history that ive witnessed i talked to a couple of democrats and a couple of republicans and i was struck by a theme that all four indicated that they that they clung to. And it was that mitt romneys performance yesterday in a sense diminished rubio and cruz as candidates and would propel this thing forward to a brokered convention what are your thoughts on that . That it was diminishing for the two republican candidates rubio and cruz. Not john kasich. Rubio and cruz. Theres no doubt that romneys performance yesterday was very polished, very well organized, very articulate and in the heat of the campaign and in their fatigue cruz and rubio arent always able to reach that level. I agree with chuck that its more likely than not that trump wont get a majority unless he ups his game. If he stays on the current trajectory, look how he did in virginia and other super tuesday states and correlate them based on the demography and rules to upcoming states on this trajectory, i dont think hell get a majority. I think he can win florida and ohio, though. Whats accomplished to upping his game . Specificity . He could start advertising more. He could be a more consistent performer in terms of keeping his coalition together. Im not sure. Mary main be right. There may be a high ceiling given the delegate rules if he can be stopped in florida or
ohio. He can get it. Winning in florida is important not just for symbolism but the here is number of delegates at stake because they are winner take all. Mark halperin, do you think trump can be stopped in florida. I think its possible but difficult. I think it would require a paradigm shift of marco rubio abandoning largely efforts in other states. Making a stand there as the romney plan calls for and these advertising to have a real effect. I wouldnt bet on it. I would bet on him winning florida maybe by a lot. What about ohio . I agree with almost everything chuck said except that i think at this point if i were betting i bet he wins them both. Does anyone believe that theres anything that can be in these ads that can move enough donald trump voters off of him him for him to lose 20 points . It has to be more than ads. I can tell you i have that relatives and friends who support donald trump who do not care what they hear. Its note persuasion, joe. I dont think its persuasion. I agree with you. I dont think the ad campaign has to be about convincing other republicans you vote against trump to continue the race, that he needs more time. I think the most effective way is i think we know nothing moves a trump voters. Most trump voters know the trump baggage. 20 points. This is about slowing down the process. Giving more time. R you ready to hand this nomination to donald trump . How do you con sal date . Im not saying its easy. People dont vote that way. Ted cruz doesnt go into a voting booth and go im going to stop donald trump by voting for this other guy i dont like. This is becoming a politically well educated electorate. I wouldnt rule that out. Its a hard thing to sell. But i think rubio has a better shot i think its very telling rick scott wont endorse. And the thing is steve rattn rattner, hes a United States senator, just not working, not voting, telling people you dont like being a senator, that its
a waste of time, that does not endear you i dont know what marco rubios Approval Ratings are in florida. I guess theyre probably not very good. If rubio wins florida it wont be because floridians love him and hes a favorite son and they want to send him to the presidency the way kasich seems able to motivate people in ohio behind him. But you will this barrage of ads which i dont think will be as much lets have more time or let the process play out, will it be hitting trump right between the eyes on Trump University and the stuff being talked about in these debates and we havent seen that yet. The second thing remember is trump doesnt have any money to answer that. He hasnt spent money on advertising, hasnt raised money, i dont think youll see him spend money and well find out whether advertising matters or not. Between now and florida trump is going to look very strong. Cruz will probably win kansas, rubio will win puerto rico but its otherwise going to be trump, trump, trump and i think what happens on the 15th is going to be very dispositive as to whether we have 1237 delegate
candidate or we dont. Mark halperin . Watch to see if jeb bush helps marco rubio win florida. If its all in, if everybody goes in to say were going to prop him up, i agree its not as good as kasichs in ohio but between the advertising, lets see what jeb bush does, lets see how hard rubio works the stage. Do you know what marco rubios Approval Rating is in the state of florida right now . I just checked this up from new York Magazine, the latest survey. Rubios Approval Rating in florida, 31 . Rubios disApproval Rating in florida, 55 . Let me say that again. His Approval Rating in his own state where hes a sitting United States senator is 31 . His disApproval Rating in that same state is 55 . But if lots of luck, fella. But if on the 15th rubio loses his state. Theres no if. The guy is 24 points you guys
are in fantasy land. Donald trump is ahead by 20 points in florida. If on the 15th i can tell you in north florida they aint moving. Look how people voted in southern alabama southern florida from jacksonville to pensacola, trump is up by 30, 35 points in those media markets. Joe, if on the 15th rubio loses his state and kasich wins his and cruz has been picking up delegates, in the threeway, if its trump, a strong kasich, stronger kasich, and cruz, its still possible to deny trump a majority of the delegates. But much harder. Much harder. I dont know that its much harder. If kasich is Strong Enough to compete with trump in states like illinois, new jersey, california, new york, in a threeway, which he might be, its possible if trump wins florida, he gets those delegates in the winner take all. Its harder but its
mathematically the most possible way im sorry, i dont see kasich coming in like that. Please. If we go into a convention where trump has 1200 delegates and cruz has 700 delegates and kasich has 500, the idea theyll reach down and nominate kasich look, we and mary, in the latest this latest florida ppp poll, rubio versus trump, trump 52 . They narrowed it down one on one because thats the dream to stop donald trump, if we can only get a one on one. So lets get a one on one in marcos home state. This has to look good. Well no, hold on. Trump 52 the . Floridas favorite son and the future of the Republican Party, 38 . Im not being a smart ass. Im so sick and tired of people trying to spin yarn into gold. Thats all thats been happening. Youll have to find another vessel other than marco rubio. Ive been saying it and halperins been saying it for nine months you know what . People dont want to buy that
dog food as brit hume would say. But go ahead, why is marco rubio going to win a state like florida. Anybody . I didnt say that. No. Political ads work. Club for growth advertised heavily in iowa and we think that probably contributed to cruzs victory in iowa. They put a lot of money into oklahoma, cruz won there. Trumps numbers as i said the longer hes in the race the less popular he becomes. Cruzs problem is that you keep saying mary, i dont mean to be short let me finish the argument. 49 let me finish the argue. If you Say Something factually inaccurate youre building an argument on false data. No. Cruzs appeal is a factional appeal. He has run as a factional candidate. His biggest problem is expanding the base. Thats always been marco rubios ticket, right . Im a unifier, im going to expand the praeb barepublican b. But he hasnt won states. So it may be these
backwardslooking polls in florida reflect voters who say, well, rubio has no momentum, is that a wasted vote . My point is about cruz is that hes demonstrating that hes winning states, hes drawing clear lines policy wise between himself and trump. And i will be very curious to see what these polls look like after these after this last debate. So, wil rksso, willie geist, clear. Im not a donald trump guy, i wanted to vote for jeb. Hes not around. The guy i would vote for in the connecticut primary probably wont be around when the connecticut primary comes around. I worked with john kasich, i love the guy. But in this case if you want to talk about the person that has expanded the electorate, thats donald trump. You look at the fact that over three million more people voted . Flipped from 2008. Republicans went out, donald trump is expanding dramatically in record numbers the Republican People in are going out to vote
republican primaries. Again, yet another thing weve heard marco rubio is going to do. He hasnt done it. Both for and against trump, though. You see, when you make that statement it sounds like all these people are coming out because they love donald trump and the numbers dont bear that out. If that were true, then he would have been gaining all the momentum you would usually gain through South Carolina. I also think barack obama has a lot to do with the record turnout on the right. Even i, even i who is like the least par tomorrow trump have to concede that the guy has mounted a formidable effort. He has won state after state. Yes, he does has not crossed 50 in anyones state but its a multicandidate race. Hes in a commanding position. Hes the next two weeks wont be good for the opposition to trump in all likelihood. It will come down to ohio and florida. The only reason why rubio might win, zbloerjoe, in my opinion,
because floridians love rubio. You have established that. Minus 24 in the latest poll. The only way he can win is that if the antitrump people convince floridians that in order to deny trump you have to vote for rubio. But you dont make the strategic voting argument. Thats a losing argument. You make the argument based on ideas. Trump isnt going to fix entitlements for floridas seniors and those programs are going bankrupt. I think that you have backwards on florida. That you have backwards. Whats different now between blowout wins in New Hampshire for trump almost 20 points, nevada, double digits in South Carolina, why is that going to change now . Because the candidates have started to educate the American Voter about what trumps policies mean for growth here and the global disorder. Trumps entitlements policy is hugely popular will be hugely popular in florida because he doesnt want to touch benefits. I entirely disagree. Mary, quickly
go ahead. Do you remember the Establishment Republicans that cedric scott couldnt win . Yes. Isnt rick scott the canary in the coal mine on trump in florida . As much as i think theres a way to beat trump and i think its possible then i remember rick scott and Bill Mccollum and i remember the establishment saying scott couldnt win, scott wouldnt win. Weve seen donald trump run in florida already twice. Hes a twoterm governor. Up next, Ari Fleischer joins the conversation. Also, mississippis republican chairman joins us live abig hea a big election there. Youre watching morning joe. Well be right back. It really tied the room together. So this was valued . What tied the room together . My rug. Were you listening to the dudes story, donnie . I was bowling. That rug tied the room together, did it not . Ight. Know you have insights ight. From professional investment strategists to help set your mind at ease. Know that planning for retirement can be the least of your worries. With the guidance of a pnc investments financial advisor, know you can get help staying on track for the future youve always wanted. My m. About my toothpasteice. She eveand mouthwash. Ice. But shes a dentist so. I kind of have to listen. She said jen, go pro with crest prohealth advanced. Advance to healthier gums. And stronger teeth from day one. Using crest toothpaste and mouthwash makes my. Whole mouth feel awesome. And my teeth are stronger too. Crestpro health advanced. Is superior to colgate total. In these 5 areas dentists check. This check up . So good. Go pro with crest prohealth advanced. Moms right. Again with extraordinary offersmance on the exhilarating is. The thrilling gs. And the powerful rc coupe. This is the pursuit of perfection. Its realizing beauty, doesnt stop at my chin. Rocs formula adapts to delicate skin areas. My fine lines here, visibly reduced in 4 weeks. Chest, neck and face cream from roc. Methods, not miracles. When youre on hold, your business is on hold. Thats why comcast business doesnt leave you there. When you call, a Small Business expert will answer you in about 30 seconds. No annoying hold music. Just a real person, real fast. Whenever you need them. Great, thats what i said. So your business can get back to business. Sounds like my rides ready. Dont get stuck on hold. Reach an expert fast. Comcast business. Built for business. If we get to cleveland and a contested convention, how are these millions of voters, some of whom have come to the process
and the party for the first time because of donald trump, how are they going to feel to have put donald trump in the lead and watch the establishment wing of the party pull the rug out from under him . Well, first of all, there are a lot of people establishment or not who agree with me that donald trump should not be president of the United States and dont want to see him become the republican nominee. Right now its about 65 of republicans whod like someone else. So thats the way politics works. You get behind the people you support, you fight with for them and the person who wins through the process the one who becomes your nominee. Under any circumstances, would you be a part of this president ial race as a candidate . There are no circumstances i can foresee where that would possibly happen. But let me Say Something i can foresee. No reasonable scenario i can imagine. Just slam the door, close the door unambiguously you will not run for president. Im not running for president and i wont run for president. With us now, former White House Press secretary Ari Fleischer and in jackson,
mississippi, chairman of the mississippi Republican Party joe nosef whose state votes for donald trump. It is the deep south. I grant you. That weve been saying it for some time, trumps biggest strength, the deep south. His biggest strength is in many places. Look how well he did in New Hampshire and massachusetts. Can he push it toward 50 of the vote . If he starts pushing it toward the 50 , its inevitable, its over. Let me give a word of caution. For all the experts who said in june when he got in he has no chance and all after South Carolina who say its over, let the voters decide. Stop trying to predict the future. Let the states have their elections. Ari, let me ask you what you would do. We worked together on the hill, you worked in the white house, you now work helping people
round the rough edges off of their images. If donald trump called you up after he locked down the nomination and said, okay, i need you to tell me what i need to do to build a bridge to the republican establishment, what would be the first three pieces of advice youd give to trump . The first thing is hope my caller i. D. Was working so i would havent to take the call. Id be a terrible advisor to him. All my instincts and skills are in a very different direction from him and he should not bring on establishment type thinking like me. Hes taking washington by storm because hes different and he should not pull that back and temper it very much. He needs to down shift it enough so people think he can be president ial but whats working for him is that hes not listening to people like me and i have to say it that way. My advice to him would be very much more traditional inside washington. A country now, especial will i a party thats sick of that advice. Mika asked donald yesterday on this show who are your
Foreign Policy advisors . Who do you listen to . Doesnt there come a point where he says heres my Foreign Policy team so people know where his administration might lead . I think Foreign Policy is different from domestic advice and he has to have wise minds who know the world but thats a little different from saying who should he bring in for domestic or political advice. Military Foreign Policy is a specialized field. Joe nosef, joe said trump will win mississippi. Where do you think the race is right now in mississippi . First of all, let me just say, i hate to do this, i have to disagree with my friend Ari Fleischer. I think that if donald trump has intends on winning the general election, hes going to have to reach out to people like i hate these labels, but the establishment types as a practical matter whether its going to impact his campaign method or not. In our primary we had here a couple years ago, had the insurgent candidate won, thats what he would have done as well. As far as mississippi goes, we had a poll released yesterday that showed donald trump very strong here in mississippi as well. I think he was around 40 , maybe more. 41 , yeah. Hes coming here monday. Cruz is coming back monday. So theyre not taking mississippi for granted, which is nice. But he is strong here as well. For people driving in their car listening, donald trump is at 41 , ted cruz at 17 , rubio at 16 , john kasich 8 . Thats john kasich with the support of trent lott and the establishment figures not doing that great. Ari, you said hes going to have to dial it down a bit to appear more president ial and presume bpresumebly to win over the 8 of people in the middle of the countly who will decide this election. What do you mean . We saw him do it at that press
conference after tuesday. He didnt sustain it, though. It lasted, what, 25 hours . Not much more than that. At some point beyond having that temperamental thing, hes going to have to address policy questions. We were talking about this earlier and saw in the the debate last night. You push him on taxes and trade or Foreign Policy and theres no answers. Theres no platform, that has to happen, too, doesnt it . Or does that alienate thousands of people who love him because he doesnt have that. There are three phases of communications for future president s. The first phase is talk to your party. Second phase talk to the country. Thats called the general election. The third phase, talk to the world. Each of them require you to stay true to your core prince nepipl. But you have to set an example for the world that america will take the leadership role around the world and do the right thing for the right reasons and this requires a more sotto voce than
just to be the bull in the china shop. A bull in a china shop works in the primary when people want to break china. Not in every scenario. Has me been too much of the national id to being the person american wants to have in the white house . Thats fascinating. This was the merit of trumps News Conference the other night. He has an inward sense of he knows he has to make a shift and hes telling everybody im a chameleon, i can make that shift. And hes so overt about it, too. Joe, we put that poll number up, 41 for trump, ted cruz 17 . What are the people in mississippi that you talk to like about donald trump . What do the 41 see in him . Weve talked today, not a lot of policy specifics, you cant go deep on issues. What are people responding to when they see donald trump . I think supporters of donald trump and the people who are opposed to him are practical and not ideological. In other words supporters are for him because theyre tired of normal politicians. You said earlier in the the program, people that do things the way its been done. I think people that are for him are for him because of that reason. What thats why if something comes out thats negative or somebody hits him with something hes changed on they dont really move. The people that are against him i think are against him for a practical reason that theyre worried about losing the general election and war lead the the problems that caused mitt romney to lose, donald trump has those on steroids to some extent so i dont know if thats true or not but thats what i see in the supporters. They have a very practical draw to him and thats why its hard to move him one way or the other. Joe, thanks so much. Hes got a 24point lead in the state of mississippi, Haley Barbours home state, trent lotts home state who obviously has endorsed john kasich and it just reminds me of the southern governor i talked to last week. Very popular southern governor. Asked him how trump was going to do in his state and he said hes going to win by at least ten points. I dont know a Single Person who is voting for him. But it shows endorsements dont mean anything in modern day politics. Ari fleischer, thank you so much. Appreciate it. Joe nosef, appreciate you coming back. Up next, former president ial candidate jim webb is standing by. Well ask him what he makes of the fbi investigation into Hillary Clintons email servers and get them to weigh in on the crazy state of politics in 2016. Morning joe will be right back. Does the smell of a freshly bound presentation fill you with optimism . Do you love your wireless keyboard more than certain family members . Is your success due to a filing system only you understand . Does printing from your tablet to your wireless printer give you a jolt of confidence . If so, you may be gearcentric. Someone who knows that the right office gear helps you do great things. And theres one place that has it all. 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To make sure hes remembered by the next generation, we wrote a book to pay tribute to him. [ laughter and applause ] something for the kids. Its called good night, ben. Good night scalpel, good night brain, good night pyramids filled with grain. Good night lion, good night crab, good night friend he tried to stab. [ laughter ] good night guns, good night, sled. Good night crazy [ bleep ] he said. [ laughter and applause ] good night stars, good night sky, evolution is a lie. So say good night and go to bed, make room for marco, make room for ted. [ laughter ] good night tree and good night stump, good night, america, cause here comes trump. [ laughter and applause ] ben carson, by the way, still the conversation, set to speak at cpac a day after he skipped the republican debate. Jim webb said theres not a single contender who can build a national strategy. What does that mean . Thirdparty candidate, maybe . He joins us next on morning joe. Neutrogena® cosmetics. 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You look at the middle east, theyre chopping off the heads
of christians and anybody else that happens to be in their way. We should go for waterboarding and we should go tougher than waterboarding. [ cheers and applause ] but targeting terrorist families . Im a leader. Im a leader, ive always been a leader. Ive never had any problem leading people. If i say do it, theyre going to do it, thats what leadership is all about. Joining us now, former president ial candidate, former democratic senator from the great state of virginia, jim webb, also a United States combat veteran. Senator, good to see you. Good to see you. Lets start with the broad question. State of the race. Oh, la. [ laughter ] how are you feeling about the future of american politics right now, sir . I think im like an average american, very confused and hoping we can get through this with a president who can articulate the future of the country in a proper way. And if i might Say Something about what Ari Fleischer said. I dont know that donald i dont know donald trump, i dont know that donald trump would be asking him for advice but i would think there is a time in this campaign where he should stand up and make a major policy speech rather than simply participating in these debates. The situation with the kkk is a classic example. If you look at what barack obama went through the jeremiah wright, his minister going to that church for 20 years, he made some really inflammatory statements and obama chose that moment to make a policy speech about the importance of resolving race issues in america. If there were one piece of advice that i would give donald trump if i knew donald trump it would be, you know, instead of just doing these debates, find one of these issues and make a major policy speech so people can see how youre going to communicate if youre president. Senator, as a veteran yourself i want to ask you on one specific bit of the debate
where donald trump was asked what he would do if people in the military refused to target families, for example, of terrorists or go beyond waterboarding and he said they wouldnt. Theyll listen to me, i guarantee you, theyll do what i say. Will they . Theres a thing called the law and if you are receiving an illegal order you do not obey. Even from the commanderinchief. If that where the situation. The difficulty i have that when i look at all of the president ial candidates right now is that im not seeing the sort of articulation of a Foreign Policy concept that would communicate to the rest of the world how america will address its National Security interests. We have not had that clear policy since the end of the cold war. Thats how we have been incident by incident looking at what we do around the world ant its really affecting us not only in
the middle east but also in east asia with these issues with an expansionist china. But just to clarify. If youre a soldier on the field and you get an order that tells you to kill family members of an enemy combatant, you dont do it. You have a duty to disobey. I represented a socalled war criminal pro bono for six years, a young man named sam greens on this very issue of what do you do if you receive an order that is beyond the moral authority of the person to give it. My guy obeyed an order and was convicted of murder and three years into this incident when i was representing him, three years into it he killed himself, he took his own life. I cleared his name three years later. So presumbly for the putting aside the question of obeying orders, for donald trump to say we should go beyond waterboarding, that we should kill the families of these
terrorists, et cetera, et cetera, is kind of the height of irresponsibility . Well, the most important thing a president can do when it comes to military policy is to get its senior military leaders or her senior military at the ts these things and get their advice and then make a decision. Thats not just a donald trump issue. Thats all all these peoples issues. And if you dont have a clearly stated Foreign Policy and if you dont have broad experience in this area of Foreign Policy, we only have one candidate who has broad experience and shes been wrong on every issue since 9 11 then you sort of default into the air stock kraes, this incest use bureaucracy that controls how we go about our born policy. Senator, a lot of people have been saying on line and sending emails when they found out that you would be on that they wanted you to consider jumping in as an independent in this race and saving them from the horror that they see the general election
setting up to you. Would you consider under any circumstances running an independent bid. We looked at the very hard for three months when i withdrew from the democratic primary process and its a very costly process to get on the ballot in all of the different states, its very litigious. I think when ralph nader did this there were 29 lawsuits from the dnc alone came at him. If you had the money, if you were a Michael Bloomberg with the money it gets conceivable, but its a very difficult process to do. You just said a second ago, senator, that Hillary Clinton has been wrong on every Foreign Policy issue since 9 11, you were in the race against her, you expressed all those things. Would you have enough reservation about Hillary Clinton as a commander in chief that you would not support her for president . Im not supporting anybody right now. Would you vote for Hillary Clinton . No, i would not vote for Hillary Clinton. Would you vote for donald trump . Im not im not sure yet. I dont know who im going to
vote for. But not Hillary Clinton . No, look and this is nothing personal about Hillary Clinton, but i think the reason that donald trump is getting so much support right now is not because of the racist, you know, et cetera, et cetera, its because people are seeing him, a Certain Group of people are seeing him as the only one who has the courage to step forward and say weve got to clean out the stables of the american governmental system right now. Weve got to make it work. If youre voting for donald trump you may get something very good or very bad. If youre voting for Hillary Clinton youre going to be getting the same thing. Do you want the same thing . 6 of the people in the country maybe want the same thing. All right. Jim webb, thank you so much. Always great to have you here. Coming up, well be back with more morning joe. And can you explain why you recommend synthetic over cedar . Super food . Is that a real thing . Its a great school, but is it the right one for her . 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Do you know what i like him. Yeah. Thats good. I like that. Coming up next the low down dirty gate in detroit. If you went to bed early and are just waking up now, things got more awkward than that fist bump. He wont shake their hand. Maybe hes sick, joe. He was sick. Im not going to shake your hand. We have the highlights coming up for you. Hes not running, hes not endorsing, does mitt romney have anything in in the quest to take down donald trump. Wall street looks to be looking forward to the numbers this morning. We will go to the New York Stock Exchange in a moment. Morning joe is back in a moment. Oh, look. Another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works. In one week. With the. Fastest retinol formula. To visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. When you think what does it look like . Is it becoming a better professor by being a more adventurous student . Is it one day giving your daughter the opportunity she deserves . 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Ok, im telling my brain to tell the drone to get you a copy of my resume. Umm, maybe keep your hands on the controller. Look out ohhhhhhhhhh. You know what, im just gonna email it to you. Yeah thats probably safer. Ok, cool. Another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works. In one week. With the. Fastest retinol formula. To visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. I have to say this. He hit my hands. Nobody has ever hit my hands. Ive never heard of this. Look at those hands. Are they small hands . And he referred to my hands if theyre small Something Else must be small. I guarantee you theres no problem. I guarantee it. Let me see your hands. See. This is the problem with politicians, theyre all talk. They give you stuff and people i have good sized hands. What about the school yard taunts of the debate. I dont see school yard taunts. Reference to hands. See how beautiful my hands are. Look at those hands. Those are powerful hands, hit a golf ball 285 yards. I was very proud to hold my hands up because these are politicians, they say things and they make things up and, you know, you have to clear up the record. So, willie, its come to that. Got the measuring stick out. I said a minute ago weve
reached the portion of the campaign that is a lit wall blank measuring contest on the debate stage. Im amazed marco rubio didnt turn to him and and say prove it right there. Politico fact is working on it. The Washington Post a couple days ago came out with a scientific view. On the hands. I was thinking the other all the hands. Well start with the hands right there. Im sorry, i misunderstood. A little harder to do that. Look at him showing his hands. And they explained that, yes, his hands are normal for a guy who is 63. This is the election for the person thats going to run the biggest military and biggest economy in the world, right . It is. Okay. I didnt drift off somewhere. Election for the president of the fraternity. Whats remarkable is Graden Carter started all of this by just making up a line back 25, 35 years ago. Almost 30. One of the greatest magazines ever hilarious. The short finger vul gar yan. But obviously it stuck. I have to say, though, really quickly before we dive into everything and also that mitt romney press conference. Dude, if youre going to get in the pool, jump in. Okay . Youre standing at the side. Jump in or just go, put the towel on, go back in. But anyway it was just kind of depressing. And i know everybody is saying marco hit him, hit him, hit him. You know, ive always said marco is too young and inexperienced and was not ready to run for president , but thats the 2016. Ive always said stay in the senate, be governor, run in 2020 and you probably will be ready. I just i mean, i just am afraid for his sake and his supporters sake that you will of a these talking about trump wetting his pants, talking
about i mean, what happens if trump runs and trump loses to Hillary Clinton, there is marco who has really diminished himself. Do you know what im saying . It just doesnt seem worth it because hes totally going against his brand. Its like were chain saw repair, we are a chain saw repair shop. Oh, you need your nails filed . Come on in. Beautiful. Unless four years from now hes able to say lets say for argument sake Hillary Clinton is president , marco rubio runs again, he can say, listen, the donald trump thing was a unique phenomenon, it was a once in a lifetime, we had never seen it before, we will never see it again, i did what i had to do to fight this guy who was fighting op ground we have never fought before. Aside from john kasich it was kind of an embarrassing gs night for everybody. Just the whole tone, not just the clip of trump, but ted cruz kind of talking and coaching trump through yoga, breathe, breathe, you can do it, there was fox tried their level
best to get substance in and asked good questions but my gosh the debate was depressing. I was exhausted by the end of the day, kind of trained. Having watched romney and trumps reply to romney and the debate you felt like you wanted to come home and have a sauna or hot shower. Marco made the joke, the punch line saying hes flexible on the yoga front, everybody laughed and there were people tweeting that was the moment of the night. Im sitting there going thats the moment of the night . Again, its not funny anymore. All of them need to know its not funny anymore. Were electing a president , one of the most vital times for this one tree where our reputation across the globe is shattered, people dont think were stepping up and doing what we need to do, the u. S. Economy while it seems to be doing better if you look at unemployment numbers, stagnant wages, you still have billions and billions of dollars offshore, it just well, this may be a little its just not funny. You look at what the democrats have been doing, the democrats
have been talking substance. About issues and substance. I just say two things, one it may be a low bar, i thought it was slightly more civil than houston which was like a complete maybe because the first time we saw it in houston and i think weve gotten innocuous. I think the fox moderators did a good job. Excellent. When they brought up those charts to basically say, well, you say youre going to cut hundreds of billions of dollars on pharma but we only spend 80 billion of drugs a year i think they got trump to be a little more specific than he has been. Lets take a look at it. So the debate was in detroit last night, the remaining republican president ial candidates met for the 11th time and one of the first questions dealt with the recent attacks from marco rubio against the size of Donald Trumps hands. We just heard that. Can you believe that, though . Thats the first out of the box . Out of the box. Theyre talking about the size of Donald Trumps hands. Can i say
but thats not what they were exactly talking about. If they are fighting on the ground donald trump wins. I mean, all of that were talking about donald trump wins. Nothing changes. He is up 20 points in all of these polls. Im saying theyre playing right into his hand. As David Axelrod told me the other day, donald trump has somehow allowed the Football Team he is playing against to play on his side of the field the entire time. Yeah. Now, in fairness, trump sort of brought that up on some other topic he said, and by the way little marco, lying ted and little marco, he brought up my hands and he went into the hands and other thing. So after that insult more insults continued into the night. The candidates gated poll numbers, immigration, honesty, even height. He has spent a career convincing americans that hes something that hes not in exchange for their money now hes trying to do the same in exchange for their country. This little guy has lied so much about my record. You see what happens him on a policy issue, you asked him about the economy and the first thing he does is launch an attack about some little guy thing because he doesnt have answers. I have a policy question for you, sir. Lets see if he answers it. I will. Dont worry about t marco. Dont worry about it. Dont worry about t little marco, i will. Well, lets hear, big donald. Dont worry about it, little marco. Gentlemen. Gentlemen. You want to gentlemen, youve got to do better than this. I watched a cnn interview donald did where he explained, he said, well, the problem is you cant find americans who are qualified or who want to work as waiters and waitresses. Now, let me ask the people here, how many people here have worked as a waiter or waitress . [ applause ] how Many Americans wanted those jobs, roughly 300 applied, donald hired 17. Whats been reported is that donald told the Editorial Board
of the New York Times what im saying on immigration i dont believe, im not going to build a wall, im not going to deport people, this is all just rhetoric for the voter. If, in fact, you went to manhattan and said im lying to the American People then the voters have a right to know. Youre the lying. You are the lying guy up here. Youre the one. Youre the one. Let me just tell you excuse me. Ive given my answer, lying ted. Ive given my answer. He scammed the people of florida. He scammed he doesnt vote. He doesnt show up for the u. S. Senate. He doesnt vote. He scammed the people understood. He defrauded the people of florida. Youve made that point. Go ahead. As you can see in his answer its always the same thing. You defrauded the people of florida, little marco. Let me just ask the voters at home is this the debate you want playing out in the general election . I tell you what i dont want playing out and ive said it before, the crowds. Yeah. Like who is that good for . Just the cheering and the
booing . Mike, you said it sounded like a hockey game. At a baseball game people sitting behind home plate, what happened there . There were two things that stuck me, one was the crowd a couple of things. John kasichs temperament, the idea that he didnt say ive had it, im out of here, this is ridiculous, he proved he had the temperament to be president. And the third thing i was stunned that they didnt go after donald more on his lack of failure to give us his tax returns, which is a point of vulnerability that he clearly wants to avoid. Well, Mark Halperin, you were there and it looks like youve gotten the mud off of you, the back and forth there. Give us your report card, first of all, explain it and tell us what your take a ways were. As always my report card is based on partly on performance and partly on whether the candidate helped himself become
the most likely nominee. I think john kasich had his best debate, i gave him a b plus. I thought this is a state where he wanted to do better than he is going to do but he positioned himself i think to be part of the conversation which ive been surprised he has not been. Trump and cruz i gave bs to. I thought ted cruz did a better job of marco rubio at going after donald trump and connecting it to things voters might care about. Marco rubio a b minus, a little bit more scattered. He went for oneliners on trump and didnt do as good a job correcting things up to voters. Im surprised they didnt go more after the tax returns, im surprised the fox moderators didnt go more after that. Thats the thing mitt romney brought up yesterday, one of the pending issues with donald trump that is a legitimate issue and where he has not been forthcoming. When did wasnt it in the fall of the election when mitt romney released his tax returns . September. He put out some earlier and some later. Some later and then he put out all of them later in september . He put out a lot around the
South Carolina primary and then we had that years return was delayed. So donald trump is clerl brou t cleverly brought out this motion that romney put out his returns later. He put out some earlier and some later. Donald trump could release returns from years that arent currently under audit or tell us what his effective tax rate it, et cetera. Lets look at your report card one more time. Obviously you look at this report card and if this ends up being, in fact, how most people score the debate and you look at the polls where trump is as far ahead adds he is in the contests that are coming up, you probably agree with me that last night didnt change a thing. It didnt change much. Id say it only potentially changed two things in the margin. Doesnt change trumps commanding position, extreme likelihood that he will be the nominee. I think it gives john kasich another look, which he needs badly. He needs to win ohio and i think this will help him get another look nationally and in this part of the country where a lot of key primaries are coming up. I think in this battle between ted cruz and marco rubio to be the more relevant figure i think based on super tuesday and what happened last night ted cruz can argue right now at least that he is the more relevant figure in this battle. You think all of marcos one liners, all the talk about wetting pants, engaging in Donald Trumps the size of Donald Trumps extremities, all of these things you think that actually plays to cruz and makes marco less relevant . Well, like i said, i thought cruz when he went after trump did a better job of connecting it up to policy, connecting it up to say to voters this is what trump is like with my oneliner here is what im like. I thought marco rubio still trying to find his footing in this new mode he was in where there were more one liners as opposed to one liners that voters could look at and hear and say, okay, thats what rubio is more, i like rubio, hes hitting trump but also telling me what hes for. I thought cruz did a much better
job of that last night than rubio did. During the debate we had all these personal attacks, rubio and cruz attacking on donald trump on Foreign Policy, attacking that he was not a conservative and yet at the end of the debate the candidates vowed to come together and back whomever ends up with the republican nomination. That would seem to undercut marco rubio who has been using the nefvertrump. Can you definitively say you will support the republican nominee even if that nominee is donald j. Trump . Senator rubio, yes or no . I will support the republican nominee. Mr. Trump, yes or no. I will support donald if he is the republican nominee. Yes or no you will support donald trump if he is the nominee. Yes, because i gave my word that i would. Yes, but and i kind of think that before its all said and done i will be the nominee but let me also say can you definitively say tonight that you will definitely support the republican nominee for president even if its not
you . Even if its not me . Millions and millions of people have come to the Republican Party over the last little while. Its the biggest thing happening in politics and im very proud to be a part of it and im going to give them some credit, too, even though they dont deserve it, but the answer is, yes, i will. Okay. A lot of people have said that before, that theyre going to back donald trump, but given the attacks on him in the last couple weeks, all the con man and all the establishment attacks on donald trump, its kind of remarkable to watch people sit on the stage and tear the guy down and say we cannot have him president and then say, well, ill support him in the end. Also, again, marco rubio i think is hurt the most from all of those because he has been going around putting the hashtag up, katty, never trump and thats actually become a rallying cry. Rubio jumped on it last night he undercut himself which actually plays to type for conservatives
who are putting nevertrump. He moves around. We saw it in realtime, he went from being Chuck Schumers buddy on Immigration Reform to wanting to put tanks at the border practically. This is really interesting. Marco rubio moves around clearly and the never trump but yes i will support him is an example. But then we had during the course of the debate last night fox news put up a series of three different graphics a video on which trump has moved around and his answer was, yeah, i changed positions and somehow from donald trump. It worked. Its fine and it works and his supporters will like him for it. Marco rubio doesnt seem to manage to get away with it the same way. Because trump says i changed positions or people hold trump to a much lower standard who they hold marco rubio who does look at times i said it for six months and people said you hate him for saying it he looks preprogrammed and he looks like a robot. When he does that he never gives an inch on anything. When he loses and is humiliated
he goes up and stands on stage and says, tonight is the night that they will remember, you know, we turned our campaign around. I mean, its and people are like, come on, just tell us the truth. And at least with trump, you know, hell say, yeah, ive changed my position and it just and also i think people hold him to a much lower standard. I dont know why. I dont know if its a lower marco is going nevertrump and then he goes, yeah, sure, ill i could see trump doing something similar and his supporters saying fine. He said neverrubio and now he will support him and its okay. People have a different standard. I think youre right they hold him to a different standard than traditional politicians. They have in nine months. His response about changing his mind he proves that unlike everybody else on that stage he has never run for Public Office before. He is not a politician. He gives the normal human response. Yeah, i changed my mind. But on the afghanistan question, im sorry, he also wiggles. He clearly heard that the question was about afghanistan he said, oh, no, i thought it was about iraq. That didnt ring true. He heard the word afghanistan repeatedly in that question and said i thought they were talk being iraq. The peculiarity about trumps personality is he will say youre wrong. Nor will he answer a question. Trump university. If he doesnt want to answer a question he will just go on into his standard programmed whatever it is on some other subject. Still ahead on morning joe mitt romney accuses donald trump of third grade theatrics as he tries to stop the front runner in his tracks. Plus the monthly jobs report is due out minutes from now. We will bring you the numbers as soon as they cross. Later, the new american majority, how a demographic revolution is changing the nation. First here is bill karins with a check on the forecast. We had the snow this morning. There is a little clipper coming down, minnesota, wisconsin will
get a little bit this weekend. This weekend still be cold great lakes and northeast. Still dealing with the snow coming down pretty hard in coastal jersey, delaware and maryland, upwards of 5 inches fell in a few spots of maryland. You will forget about it by the middle of in ex week it will feel like spring. The west is all our attention. We get a pattern flip across the country. Heavy rain is coming to california. As of now it looks like heavy rain but not damaging rain and thats good, we can fill up the reservoirs, get another 2 to 4 feet of snow in the higher elevations. Snow exits, beautiful weather, texas up through the midwest. Temperatures are going to soar. Were 64 montana on friday, saturday as far north as montana 70 degrees, nice warm up spreading to the east, chicago, minneapolis, you jump into the 50s by the time we get to sunday. D. C. Still struggling, the northeast still chilly, too. Tuesday and wednesday look to be 60s and 70s pretty much everywhere east of the mississippi while all the stormy
weather is going to remain in the west. And they need the rain still. We still havent filled up the reservoirs as much as we would like. Washington, d. C. Reports of up to 2 inches of snow around the city but the roads have been just fine this morning. Youre watching morning joe. We will be right back. Oh, look. Another antiwrinkle cream in no hurry to make anything happen. Neutrogena® rapid wrinkle repair works. In one week. With the. Fastest retinol formula. To visibly reduce wrinkles. Neutrogena®. We still havent filled up the know your Financial Plan wont keep you up at night. Know you have insights from professional investment strategists to help set your mind at ease. Know that planning for retirement can be the least of your worries. With the guidance of a pnc investments financial advisor, know you can get help staying on track for the future youve always wanted. Elections set for this weekend for republicans, more than 150 delegates at stake and yesterday mitt romney met donald trump head on as we mentioned trying to stop trumps move and saying that he would support ted cruz or marco rubio or john kasich instead. Point by point romney dressed trump down on everything from his Economic Policy to Foreign Policy to his intelligence and temperament saying theres, quote, plenty of evidence that trump is a con man and a fake and that his nomination would enable Hillary Clinton to march to the oval office. Let me put it very plainly. If we republicans choose donald trump as our nominee the prospects for a safe and prosperous future are greatly diminished. But you say. Wait. Wait. Wait. Isnt he a huge Business Success . Does he know what hes talk being . No, he isnt and no he doesnt. [ applause ] his bankruptcies have crushed Small Businesses and the men and women who work for them. He inherited his business he didnt create it. And whatever happened to Trump Airlines . How about Trump University . And then theres trump magazine . And trump vodka. And trump steaks. And trump mortgage. A business genius he is not. Here is what i know, donald trump is a phoney, a fraud. His promises are as worthless as a degree from Trump University. Now, Donald Trump Tells us that he is very, very smart. Im afraid that when it comes to Foreign Policy he is very, very not smart. This is an individual who mocked a disabled reporter, who attributed a reporters questions to her menstrual cycle, who mocked a brilliant rival who happened to be a woman due to her appearance, who bragged about his Marital Affairs and laces his public speeches with vulgarity. Donald trump says he add meyers vladimir putin, at the same time he has called george w. Bush a liar. That is a twisted example of evil trumping good. He is not of the temperament of the kind of stable, thoughtful person we need as leader. His imagination must not be married to real power. Look, mitt is a failed candidate. He failed. He failed horribly. I backed him. You can see how loyal he is. He was begging for my endorsement. I could have said, mitt, drop to
your knees, he would have dropped to his knees. He was begging. True. True. He was begging me. It was a campaign that should have never been lost. Youre running against a failed president. He came up with the 47 , he demeaned 47 of the people in our country, right, the famous 47 . Obama, say what you want, he was on jay leno, he was on David Letterman, he was all over the place the last three, four weeks. Mitt was looking for zoning for a ninecar garage or something in california, right . So, katty, do you want to tell us about the day yesterday . It was a very phallic day on the campaign trail. It was. It was that kind of day where you got to the end of the day and i felt like i wanted a shower because it was all so disgusting. I cant believe that there were not a lot of women watching that day like i was who thought, this is gross. This is what we have come to. I really do not want to hear
this stuff during the course of my day. Its actually kind of offensive that you have to sit and listen to this kind of language adds a woman, a man talking like that on television who is running for president. Donald trump says thats how i felt. He was referring to romney getting on his knees to beg but i have to say i dont shock easily, i think you know that. None of us do anymore. But that line from trump i went, whoa, and then the line at the debate where he was talk being his hands i went whoa. And that doesnt happen very often. Mark halperin, there has to be some scar tissue that is building up here that will impact the Republican Party in the fall election. What is the impact of all of this ugliness right now in this primary fight in march . Well, i think its going to depend on when and if donald trump secures the partys nomination. If he can secure it and advance the connection we all know he can be a very charming guy, there are some people in the party who will not vote for him
but i think the vast majority of the people in the party have already said they will be for whoever the nominee is drug donald trump. Can you talk along those lines can you talk about how significant it is for donald trump in a positive way and how negative it is for marco rubio that rup ert murdock who was hostile toward donald trump is now sending out Smoke Signals and tweets that the republicans need to just shut up and line up behind donald trump because hes going to be the nominee and youre seeing also new York Magazine writing stories about how fox news has abandoned marco rubio, which is shocking because, my god, i have never seen a candidate treated better by any network well, other than msnbc bowing and scraping to barack obama in 2008, but other than that do you remember that . Every night like Hillary Clinton would win kentucky and it would be like, tonight, racism rises over lexington. Every time hillary won it was like, the ghost of Jefferson Davis rises somewhere over a confederate cemetery in richmond, virginia, where barack obama was beaten. I mean, that was pretty bad, wasnt it . Who are you impersonating . That was a sort of slight sir, im not telling you who that was, but you called george w. Bush a nazi every day. So lets go back to but anyway, its pretty big news, is it not, Mark Halperin that fox news now has apparently dropped their endorsement of marco rubio and are now saying trump is inevitable, the guy theyve been fighting against all this time other than hannity and i think red has been pretty positive towards him it seems things have changed. I think youve identified one voice, rup ert murdock, you could look at what sean hannity and Rush Limbaugh said about
trump versus romney. It is remarkable in the wake of what happened on super tuesday, trump has gotten no major endorsements this week on the caliber of a Chris Christie, instead youve had romney, mccain and others coming out hard against him. In terms of unity, if he continues to win, if its not a convention fight, if he gets a majority before the convention, i think he will reach out to people and be very charming. He nose he needs to unite the party. We will bring you the brand new jobs report. Thats next on morning joe. I built my business with passion. But i keep it growing by making every dollar count. Thats why i have the spark cash card from capital one. I earn unlimited 2 cash back on everything i buy for my studio. Anthat unlimited 2 cash back from spark means thousands of dollars each year going back into my business. Thats huge for my bottom line. Whats in your wallet . One. Is all it takes. To turn the tables. Crest 3d white toothpaste. Removes 5 times more stains. Than the red box. For a smile like that, crest 3d white. Is the way to whiten. Im in charge of it all. Business expenses, so ive been snapping photos of my receipts and keeping track of them in quickbooks. Now im on top of my expenses, and my bees. Best 68,000 employees ever. Thats how we own it. So strap yourselves in for action flo Small Business edition. Oh, no im up to my neck in operating costs ill save the day for plumbers and bakers and scapers of lawn, shes got insurance savvy you can count on. You chipped my birdbath now youre gonna pay not so fast i cover more than just cars and trucks. Action flo did somebody say insurance . Children flo action flo
cut can i get a smoothie, please . Ooh they got smoothies . For me. Hey hows it going, hotcakes . Hotcakes. This place has hotcakes. So why arent they selling like hotcakes . With comcast Business Internet and wifi pro, they could be. Just add a customized message to your wifi pro splash page and youll reach your customers where their eyes are already on their devices. Order up. Its more than just wifi, it can help grow your business. You dont see that every day. Introducing wifi pro, wifi that helps grow your business. Comcast business. Built for business. Its time for business before the bell with cnbcs sara eisen. The news and finance anchor bianna golodryga. Sara, the jobs report was just released minutes ago. Give us a breaking news. Well, it looks like we continue to see healthy job growth in this country. In the month of february the u. S. Created 242,000 jobs. That was a lot more than economists were looking for, they were only expecting will 195,000 or so. The head line number, 242,000 jobs is a big beat and good to see. Also the Unemployment Rate in this country stayed stable at 4. 9 . That is also a good sign. Its the lowest number weve
seen since back in 2008. There is a sliver of bad news in here, guys, and i know you will talk about it and its going to make its way on to the campaign trail and that is wages actually fell during the month of february. Not expecting to see a negative number in front of that. Average Hourly Earnings fell 3 cents which is 0. 12 . Economists were looking for them to rise. Last month in january we saw a nice healthy rise, almost half a percent. That was a bit of a disappointment. So it looks like in the month of february if you go this past if he be from a year before, wages only rising 2. 2 . Not enough, but still worth particularly healthy science. The only other factor i would point out here is that Labor Participation rate that people looked at it ticked higher to 69. 2 . So 69. 2 of people in the labor force but those are historically low numbers. The markets are reacting favorably to this number but not
seeing enough wage growth here. Bianna, that is the sorry of the past several years, a recovery where wages remain flat, job participation has been lower but good news thats ticking up slightly there, but wage Growth Continues to be what continues to haunt this economy. You will see two narratives from this report today, you will see the democrats touting a positive jobs number, 4. 9 Unemployment Rate, we are expecting to be at full employment by this summer if we continue at this rate. Republicans will come back with that wage issue and thats something that really is hurting a lot millions of americans across the country. They dont feel it. Even if they have a job its not good enough and its not paying them what they feel they should be paid. Steve, this isnt a 4 or 8year problem this is a 40year problem. Jobs that we lost in the debate last night we were talking about there were 330,000 jobs in detro detroit, now there are 30 manufactures jobs in detroit. Jobs go overseas, but when they come back instead of getting
30, 35 an hour workers are getting 16 an hour. Thats the problem. We have had consistent downward pressure on wages, without wage growth you are not go to grow. There is one tidbit in this report which is that manufacturing jobs last month fell by 16,000. We are in kind of a manufacturing recession in this country and so why are we . We why we . Largely because of the strong dollar and competition from all the places donald trump likes to talk about, not because theyre devaluing their currency so youre saying you agree with donald trump. Im saying we agree with the headline of donald trump and then we go like that. I think both you and jim webb are going to vote for donald trump. Just joking. That he is breaking news. Listen, we will talk more right after the break about this and much more. Still ahead our next guests say if democrats dont turn out voters of color theyre going to lose elections. How does that bode for Bernie Sanders after a rough super tuesday . Youre an at t Small Business expert . Sure am. My staff could use your help staying in touch with customers. At t can help you stay connected. Am i seeing double . No maam. Our at t buy one get one free makes it easier for your staff to send appointment reminders to your customers. And share promotions on social media . You know it now im seeing dollar signs. You should probably get your eyes checked. Good one babe. Optometry humor. Right now get up to 650 in credits to help you switch to at t. At ally bank, no branches equals great rates. Its a fact. Kind of like bill splitting equals nitpicking. But i only had a salad. It was a buffalo chicken salad. Salad. Its my decision to make beauty last. Fix. Roc retinol started visibly reducing my fine lines and wrinkles in one week. And the longer i use it the better it works. Retinol correxion from roc. Methods, not miracles. Because you cant beat zero heartburn i take prilosec otc each morning for my frequent heartburn ahhh the sweet taste of victory prilosec otc. One pill each morning. 24 hours. Zero heartburn. Hi im kristie. And im jess. And we are the bug chicks. Were a nanobusiness. Windows 10 really helps us get the word out about how awesome bugs are. Kids learn to be brave and curious and all kids speak the language of bug. Hey cortana, find my katydid video. Oh this is so good. If youre trying to teach a kid about a proboscis. Just sketch it on the screen. I dont have a touch screen on my mac, im jealous of that. You put a big bug in a kids hands and change their world view. [ laugh ]
with us now civil rights lawyer and senior fellow at the center for American Progress steve phillips, he is author of brown is the new white how the demographic revolution has created a new american majority. Also with us the chair of africanamerican studies at princeton, he had joe glow jr. We love you. His new book, democracy in black, how race still en clafs the american soul. Steve, the democrats need to stop worrying about getting that crossover white voters and need to focus on voters of color. Right. So the demographic revolution over the past 50 years has transported the composition of the color. People of color have gone from 12 of the population to 38 of the population. What obamas election showed is that appealing to that population, bringing out, inspiring large numbers of people of color with partnership with the meaningful minority of progressive whites that comprises the majority of people and putting forward an aggressive full throated populous bold agenda can appeal to those voters, turn those voters out and thats the way to win rather than trying to appeal to the shrinking sector of the moderate white voters. Its about numbers. One of the most compelling things, eddie, that i heard in 2012 after the election is if Ronald Reagan had the same demographic breakdown in 2012 as 19el 0 Ronald Reagan would have lost. This is a country that is changing and will continue to change. And creating a lot of anxiety. The interesting thing about steves book is whether or not the democrats will commit itself to a Progressive Agenda that will turn out that demographic. So we know as we look at the democratic primary right now that a lot of voters of color arent showing up to the polls. I want to challenge both of you guys on something because both of you have attached progressive to black voters. Black voters and this is lost by the media a lot are some of the more conservative voters when you look at some social issues, when you look i remember what was the gay marriage proposition in california. Prop 8. Prop 8. A lot of people scratching their heads in 2008, barack obama wins, yay, and yet it was voters of color that helped vote down prop 8. So its not that black voters are predictably progressive. Its more complicated than that, right . Well, it is more complicated from an economic standpoint that you have a vast racial wealth gap in this country. For economic equality issues black voters will be support of that type of an agenda. Bernie sanders if you look at his economic agenda its far
more progressive than any major candidate that ive seen over the past 30 years. Why isnt he doing as well with plaque voters in particular . Well, fundamentally black folks are not familiar with Bernie Sanders. Its hard to show up and get to know somebody and then get enthusiastic whereas in the past the clintons have a long history, there is a familiarity, there is a Comfort Level that they are responding to in terms of they have been there over the past several years and so i think thats been a big part of the challenge is the newness of his. A few months ago i interviewed a black Community Leader and he forewarned that Hillary Clinton should not take the black vote for granted, this was back in september. Do you think Bernie Sanderss mediocre rise helped mitigate what she assumed was in the bag . Has she changed her narrative in attracting more black votes . She has been actually much more aggressive and much more populous and really talking about the sing later of race within our society and that you
have to focus on that in particular and not just focus in on economic issues, divorce from the realities of race. So her language has been much more explicit of race than anything i have heard in 30 years in politics. Eddie, the republicans obviously if you look at this primary season have not been inviting to any voters other than older White Conservative voters. Absolutely. So im just putting that out there. Lets move that the side side, that is a give in. Got it. Can i now ask the question do democrats sometimes take the loyalty of black voters for granted . Absolutely. One of the things about the discussion around senator clinton or secretary clinton is what will she do once we move out of the south . What will she do once we move out of the democratic primary and typically the strategy has been to bank right, to stop talking to the democratic base, to start moving more to the center right in order to attract the white swing voter. If that happens im going to be
very clear if that happens shes already running an excitement deficit among voters of color. If she banks right, if the Democratic Party banks right, i suspect that more and more africanamericans and more and more latinos might not show up to the polls and the numbers she needs in order to win. Steve, thank you for being here. Thanks for having me. Excited to have you, hope you will come back. Id love to. The book is brown is the new white. Steve fill flips, thanks for being with us. Coming up. Its the super bowl, mardi gras and talladega all together. Max is that lap joins us live from c pack. No brawls between antitrump and pro trump voters yet. Lgts i go with be can. A. Your campaign ran a video suggesting that trump might name the russian president as his manning mate. Here is a clip. I will have to see this. If elected trump promised that the duo would, quote, make tyranny great again. I think id get along very well with vladimir putin. I just think so. That was your campaign video, sir. That was a pretty good one. Well, okay. I think you were kidding. Yeah. But it was your video and the serious question is because the suggestion is do you think that donald trump is naive about the threat that vladimir
putin represents . Im not biting. Let me just take you around the world, okay . Let me im not biting. You know, you are allowed to say that. I thought that was a great response. Lets go right now to national harbor, maryland, and the site of cpac. We have the chairman of the American Conservative Union mat schlapp. Were looking behind you, i dont see any wars breaking out between the pro trump and antitrump voters. This is going to be one of the most remarkable cpacs in its very long history. How are things going so far . Things are going great. I think last night we had a Gate Watch Party and this hall was full and we got to hear people were cheering vigorously for the candidate of their choice and booing from time to time as well. My take on this, the people who have come from across the country, joe, is that they feel like this is a critical moment for the conservative movement, a critical moment for the nation and i think they are going to leave everything on the field. They are going after each other aggressively. Matt, its katty kay here. One of the kind of great mysteries of this campaign is why donald trump has done so well with conservatives and with evangelical christians who dont even particularly believe that he is very christian. How do you explain it . You know, i think what happened is that normally your Christian Conservative voter and i would consider myself one of them, would care about the right to life and traditional marriage and questions of public faith or private faith in the Public Sector in the public square. Instead whats happened is because on all those issues really progressives have won, now what a lot of Christian Conservatives are saying is could the government please just leave me alone and let me practice my faith and have my beliefs. Maybe i cant get the government to agree with those beliefs but i want the government to leave me alone and that type of setup someone like donald trump can come in and say i will be a strong force to make that happen. I think thats also true it with some of the other candidates as well who are running. Steve rattner. Matt, apart from the romney speech why he had there has been a pretty steady procession of senior elected republican congressmen, local officials, whatever, saying im not voting for donald trump under any circumstance. If mr. Trump gets past the 1237, gets the nomination, do you believe the party can be unified with that many people . I have never seen that in my lifetime, that many people saying they will not vote for him, period . Steve, look, im concerned about it. Im more concerned about that than ive ever been since ive been in politics. One of the things thats going to happen at cpac is we will air all these differences, we will have a straw poll. We had a debate yesterday about gay marriage and the future of religious freedom, we will have a debate today about immigration, should we do Something Big or should we go back to building a wall and enforcing our laws . Conservatives have a lot of disagreements, were going to air those disagreements. Here is one thing i heard last night, steve, that i was gives me hope. I heard every one of those
republicans on the stage say they would support the nominee. I think thats the critical step here for conservatives and for republicans. As painful as donald trump might be for some, as painful as ted cruz might be for others, whoever gets out of this nominating process if they can all pull together and support the winner and the people in this room can, too, i think we have a fighting shot against what looks to be Hillary Clinton. Bianna. Matt, weve heard the other nominees say if donald trump was the nominee they would, in fact, support him but juxtapose that to a few years earlier where you had party elders like mitt romney and john mccain speak so ill willed of donald trump. How do you square the two . How do you resolve the internal battle going on in your party right now . Well, first of all, we have to acknowledge that its happening. Im not trying to sugar coat this. This is absolutely happening. There are tons of fissures out there and we have to pull it together. We will be a whole different movement and we are not going to win elections. When you see these party elders coming out, i think its interesting a realignment on the right with the Republican Party. They dont want to listen to people like mitt romney. He is a good man, a respected figure, but they dont want to listen to him on who they should vote for. What mitt romney was doing yesterday, he was sending the message to all of his fellow billionaires, to all of those big financiers who supported his race write checks. Its time to get engaged, its time to stop donald trump. Thats what that call was. And thats why you see almost an increased kind of desperation in some of these voices that they feel like if they dont do it now actually donald trump could actually get the nomination and the weird thing is i actually think they helped push they pushed trumps inevitability if it is, even further when they do this. So its a crazy political plan that i just think is dumb. Matt, i couldnt agree with you any more. Endorsements make absolutely no difference this year and youre right, the more establishment figures attack donald trump, the more establishment figures help
donald trump. Well, look luck. Thats right. What time does trump speak there tomorrow . Hes going to be starting us off tomorrow morning. Okay. Who needs coffee . Cpac has donald trump. Tomorrow Morning Bright and early. Matt schlapp, thank you so much for being with us, wed love to talk to you again early next week to get a wrap on cpac. That does it for us this morning on morning joe. Thank you guys so much for being with us, we greatly appreciate it. Steve kornacki is going to pick up coverage next on msnbc live and i am going to turn off the ringer on my iphone. We got another one. I have an orcogram for an owen. Thats me. You should hire stacy drew. She wants to change the world with you. She can program jet engines to talk and such. Her biggest weakness is she cares too much. Thank you. My friend really wants a job at ge. Mine too. Im a wise elf from a far off shire. And sanjay patel is who you should hire. Thank you. Seriously though, stacy went to a great school and shes really loyal. You should give her a shot. Sanjays a team player and uh. Companies must adapt. Changing environment, but one thing should remain constant a financial relationship with someone that understands and cares about your business. Pnc corporate and Institutional Banking offers strategies tailored to your companys needs. Know that our dedicated teams of local experts offer insight to help you achieve your business objectives. See how working with pnc can help your company grow at pnc. Com ideas
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