get hear a full speech and a real chance to immense themselves in what the candidates are saying and they re tailoring remarks to issues that malter to this conservative group. so you do hear about traditional marriage, you do hear about being pro-life against abortion rights. you do hear about religious liberty. the kinds of themes that play extra large in a setting like this. so there is enthusiasm and this is from talking to people in the crowd ted cruz for example, plays very well among the about 800 attendees here. but they re giving a respectful listen to those coming who might not be as typically a part of this base. you mentioned jeb bush. we ll see how it goes. chris christie this morning. he was a guest here. well received. and he made his remarks be more focused to issues this audience wanted to talk about. a pro-life governor in a blue state and that s the atmosphere and exciting and electric today. luke? follow kelly s reports across the nbc platforms. thanks s
i don t think it s it s hard to hold an office with being popular. fast forward to next year how do her numbers compare? in the same range, she can be the president even if a lot of people don t like her that much. kerry, on the other kand a politician who people have a favorable view of is bernie sanders with the best ratings of any candidate, democrat or republican in iowa and new hampshire. what s it say to you? does bernie have room to grow in the states? we have seen a significant surge in the latest polls. last polled iowa and new hampshire back in february and since then bernie sanders had a 18-point boost in iowa and a 19-point boost in new hampshire. in iowa, that doesn t put him in striking range and 30 points behind hillary clinton but in new hampshire which is close to bernie sanders home state vermont he is at 13 points behind and hillary clinton is
we have a varsity squad out on field an i m excited about the fact a lot of candidates are already beating hillary clinton in the important states. meanwhile, president obama s in africa. more on that coming up but he took a moment today in ethiopia to strike both donald trump and governor huckabee. the president reacting to huckabee s comment with the iran deal, president obama is marching the people of israel, quote, to the door of the oven. a holocaust reference. particular comments of mr. huckabee are i think part of just a general pattern that we have seen that is would be considered ridiculous if it weren t so sad. maybe this is just an effort to push mr. trump out of the headlines. but it s not the kind of leadership that is needed for america right now. huckabee reacting telling msnbc, quote, when s ridiculous and sad is president obama doesn t take the iran threat seriously. never again will be the policy of my administration. jeb bush is also weighing in.
very tough comments he made on election eve and election day, which the state department at the white house were so critical of yesterday. i think he is trying to patch things up at least paper over the disagreements with the u.s. particularly because what we heard from the u.s. is that now they are willing to at least consider letting the u.n. go forward and vote palestinian statehood without the u.s. vetoing it which they have about. how did i respond to intentions of trying to back channel what s taking place between the negotiations between secretary of state kerry and iran about a potential nuclear deal? and netanyahu s access to republicans in congress? he said it s not a partisan issue that there are many people who object to a deal which he describes as a bad deal all though as you know secretary kerry has had netanyahu does not know what is in the deal. we ve heard about a draft proposal, the state department denies there s any specific draft. there were reports of a dra
congress to lobby against his negotiations with iran? i think there s an unbreakable bond between israel and the united states. the president said that. i ve said that. but what about between you and barack obama? well i think that s reflected in the relationship between the president of the united states and the prime minister of israel. we have we can have differences, but we have so many things that unite us. we have a situation in the middle east that s very dangerous and presents a common challenge. has he called you yet to dplat you? secretary kerry called me yesterday. i m sure i ll be speaking to president obama soon. joining me now from washington is john hudson from foreign policy magazine. in andrea s interview there, benjamin netanyahu, who also appeared to walk back his pre-election comments about a palestinian say the,tate, saying that it s not possible right, saying they would not be able to recognize that. how can he be so flexible at this point after se