no doubt this court ruling will put immigration on the forefront of the republican debate and that s not good news for a couple candidates accused of flip-flopping on the issue of immigration. the timing is interesting. rubio is sort of had an agreed upon debate and he was an architect who was pushing comprehensive immigration reform which most policy people believe is the way to deal with illegal immigration issue. but this is one of the pillars republicans went after obama over and the executive action and they ve been proven largely correct. it s an issue with a lot of public support and constituency
to just those two incidences and i agree with you. we re saying the same thing. what else is there? there has to be more here. i think that not lack of understanding but the lack of doing something more to signal to the students that i m talking about the president that he understood where they were coming from and that they needed to have answers. i m wondering what more is there? by the way, that s what we re all wondering, willie. that s what i ve been wondering for three days and the question i put out on the table. should a university president and chancellor of a university be run out before there is there are discussions. before there is debate. before it s taken up. before there s due process. do you just have a college football team i mean, if a math class decided to go out on strike, they would still be there. again, it seems to me academic
welcome back to morning joe. a lot to talk about at the top of the hour. a debate tonight. another republican debate. so much going on. a new round of polls that show very interesting race, of course. we also have donald trump breaking attendance records set by elton john out in illinois. we have bush going after rubio. and we, of course, have ben carson desperately trying to prove to america that he stabbed somebody and hit his mother over the head with a hammer. who do we have around the table to discuss these most important pressing points? i don t know if either of these gentleman attacked anyone with a hammer. mike barnicle, the star of the
new usa network comedy donny deutch. it s on usa tonight at 10:30. it s great. reviews have been pouring in. they re really good. also in washington, eugene robinson of the washington post and joining us from milwaukee, nbc news senior white house correspondent chris jansing. we ll get to chris in just a second. let s set the stage. landscape for tonight s fourth republican presidential debate will be unlike any other we ve seen in the race with chris christie and mike huckabee knocked off that main stage. we expect to hear more from the candidates with top billing. new national polling shows a close race. ben carson and donald trump running neck and neck. 24-23. tie there. marco rubio at 12% while ted cruz and jeb bush are tied for fourth at 8%. this while 58% of republican voters say the more they hear about bush, jeb bush that is, the less they like him. a category he s doing far worse in than the other top candidates. in the south carolina primary,
before and my gosh, i spent as you know very well eight years harshly criticizing george w. bush. i remember. i know you do. we had heated arguments about that. george w. bush had the ability to not only take al gore apart and cut him to shreds with a look but ann richards, one of the toughest debaters out there called him shrub. ann richards left that debate not knowing what had happened to her. we keep talking about the voters and we keep talking about trump and we keep talking about carson. we keep talking about the failures of american democracy. i think so much of it has to do with the failure of the republican establishment in not putting forward a strong enough candidate to step forward and make the clear argument they re entertainment. they re fun. i laugh at them when i listen to them.